The Wastrel and the Waiter
Early morning at Seongun Inn.
Jin Seongun let out a sigh as he faced the three martial artists who had arrived at his door at the crack of dawn.
"I understand that Young Master Seomun has been ordered by Elder Shin Mok to work as a waiter here for the time being. But what about the two of you?"
Shin Mok had put Seomun Ak to work at Seongun Inn. He wanted to see, with his own eyes, a bully who trampled on the weak laboring at the very bottom of the murim ladder.
Of course, he had respected Jin Seongun's wishes as well. As his condition for teaching Seomun Ak the waiter's trade, Shin Mok repaired the shop free of charge yet again. Jin Seongun, for his part, had gained a sturdy waiter while getting his inn restored, so he'd judged it a fair bargain and accepted.
But now the two finest disciples of the Wudang Sect had shown up on top of it all.
At Jin Seongun's question, Baek Sang and Baek Seol began to stammer. Unlike Seomun Ak, they at least had something resembling a conscience, and shame was only natural.
"We wish to help with the inn's work as a way of apologizing for yesterday's events."
So said Baek Sang, and Jin Seongun's sigh deepened further.
Seongun Inn was not that large. Four waiters, himself included, was more than the establishment could sustain. And more to the point, neither of them struck Jin Seongun as the sort of person who would owe an apology so profound it required volunteering at an inn.
"Did the Elder send you, by any chance? If so, please tell him I truly don't mind."
At his words, Baek Sang and Baek Seol hung their heads. The guess was half right.
If you truly wish to have the Taichi Sword returned, go and earn Jin Seongun's recognition.
Such was the command Hyeon Un had handed down to the siblings.
Baek Sang's head began to ache. What recognition was he supposed to win from a waiter who wasn't even a member of the murim? No — he couldn't even fathom why he needed this man's approval in the first place. But the order had come from none other than the Elder himself, so there was no room to argue.
After putting their heads together, the siblings had reached a single conclusion.
If we want the waiter's recognition, we have no choice but to learn the waiter's trade.
Born into wealth, raised as favored direct disciples of Wudang — working as mere waiters was mortifying and wounded their pride terribly. But the work itself, they assumed, couldn't be difficult. Wasn't a waiter's job just carrying wine and food, sweeping floors, and wiping tables? Do that diligently for a few days, and surely this Jin Seongun would come to acknowledge them.
Having settled on that plan, the siblings had marched straight to Seongun Inn — only to be met with the rejection.
"My inn has no need for that many waiters."
Sensing things going wrong from the very first step, Baek Sang and Baek Seol blurted out in desperation.
"W-we won't take any pay! This is purely to apologize. As Taoists of the White Path, please, grant us the chance to atone!"
"I can cook too! I don't have to be a waiter — I could help in the kitchen!"
At Baek Seol's words, Seo Yugyeom poked his head out from the kitchen. Secretly, he'd been envious that Jin Seongun had gained a subordinate(?) from the Seomun Clan.
"They're asking this earnestly. Give them a chance."
...
Jin Seongun looked at Seo Yugyeom's grinning face. As always, Cook Seo seemed to find this whole situation simply hilarious. With even Seo Yugyeom saying as much, Jin Seongun had no other recourse — and besides, they'd offered to work for free, so the burden would be minimal.
Jin Seongun gave a reluctant nod, and Baek Sang and Baek Seol exhaled in relief.
"Then, Baek—"
Jin Seongun looked at Baek Seol and let the end of his sentence trail off. Come to think of it, he'd never properly caught her name.
"It's Baek Seol."
"Ah, Miss Baek Seol. Then you go to the kitchen and learn from Cook Seo."
"Yes, sir."
Somehow, being called "Miss" made Baek Seol a little embarrassed. She'd certainly never heard it within the Wudang Sect, and ever since she'd entered the murim, people had addressed her not as a young lady but as Taoist Master — out of respect for her sect.
Jin Seongun, however, was no murim man. Whether the person before him was a Taoist or a monk, he didn't much care either way.
"What's with her?"
Seomun Ak gave Baek Seol's retreating figure an odd look, and Baek Sang coughed drily, embarrassed on her behalf.
Soon Jin Seongun had finished explaining the waiters' duties, and the day's business began.
Seongun Inn's busiest hours came at night.
In a world where people scrambled merely to survive, few could afford to come all the way to an inn for breakfast or lunch — and most of Seongun Inn's patrons were merchants of the Yichang trade district, which made it doubly true.
"The work treating you well?"
When Jin Seongun came over and asked, Baek Sang nodded. Seomun Ak, apparently still uncomfortable around Jin Seongun, didn't even bother to answer.
Baek Sang genuinely found the inn work easy. "A little tiring, but I can manage," he said, in what he took for respect toward another man's profession — though his actual thoughts ran rather differently.
Compared to training, this is nothing.
If this was all it took, he could perform the waiter's duties flawlessly and win over Jin Seongun's heart in no time.
For one thing, the customers were sparse. When one arrived, he took their order and brought out their food. With the thuggish-looking Seomun Ak around, Baek Sang mostly handled the ordering himself, and in the process he even felt a strange sense of superiority.
My face is certainly the friendlier one. With Seomun Ak here, things are flowing in my favor.
Jin Seongun would surely come to appreciate the man standing beside Seomun Ak, who was of little use to anyone. That was simply how human hearts worked — when one fellow was uniquely repulsive, the one next to him looked decent by comparison.
After a customer finished eating, the table got wiped down with a cloth and the surroundings swept clean. That part was left to Seomun Ak, whose pride still smarted too much to let the hands that gripped a sword grip a rag and mop instead. Baek Sang reasoned that Seomun Ak was a fist cultivator anyway, with naturally rough hands, so it suited him fine.
Apart from the occasional bellow of "Cook Seo!" ringing out from the kitchen, the hours passed in a fairly peaceful atmosphere.
Then evening arrived, and Baek Sang's assumptions were turned completely on their head.
As the sky darkened, customers began pouring in like a rising tide.
Baek Sang was somewhat flustered, but he greeted them with the stamina and composure unique to murim warriors.
"Welcome."
Thanks to Baek Sang's austere face and stiff manner of speech, the customers entering the inn flinched. He considered this a personal asset — unaware that the customers were simply used to a friendly waiter.
While Baek Sang busied himself greeting guests and taking orders, Seomun Ak suddenly began striding toward a particular table with big, deliberate steps.
"Young Master!"
Baek Sang called out frantically. It was obvious that a man that menacing in face and build bearing down on them would ruin the customers' meals.
Sure enough, as Seomun Ak approached, the diners tensed up visibly, faces going stiff mid-meal. Then, planting himself before the table without warning, Seomun Ak said in his brusque manner:
"Braised pork hock with yellow wine?"
So saying, he pulled out a jug of white liquor and set it on the table.
"Eat it with this."
...
The customers could only stare at Seomun Ak, wordless. Watching from a distance, Baek Sang squeezed his eyes shut. No matter how you looked at it, that tone and attitude toward a customer! He'd known Seomun Ak was a wastrel, but he hadn't imagined he'd carry on like this in someone else's establishment. At this rate, he'd be in for a terrible scolding from Elder Hyeon Un and Elder Shin Mok.
But while Baek Sang was busy worrying, the customers — unable to withstand Seomun Ak's pressure — reluctantly began drinking the yellow wine. And at that very moment, their eyes went round as saucers.
"Oh... you're right..."
What, then, is a wastrel?
First, a wastrel is a master of the human psyche — precisely because such men make a habit of choosing only the words and actions most calculated to infuriate.
Second, a wastrel is a master of the way of wine. Of the hundreds of martial artists in the Seomun Clan, not one could outdrink Seomun Ak.
"Much obliged. You're right — with the white liquor alongside, it cuts through the richness beautifully."
"The man who conquered Shanxi through wine is none other than me. Where liquor is concerned, trust my word."
Seomun Ak struck his cool-guy pose. Under normal circumstances, everyone would have eyed him with disdain — but this was the inn at late evening, and half the patrons were already tipsy. Sighs of "Oooh" and admiration burst out from every table.
From then on, the customers took Seomun Ak's recommendations for wine and food alike. And whenever they needed anything else, he'd already seen to it before the words left their mouths. His trademark insolent, arrogant tone was well on its way to being accepted as charming local color.
Baek Sang's expression turned bewildered. Something was going very, very wrong.
"Say there, young fellow, how about recommending me something too?"
Noh Sang-won, drinking his usual evening cup at Seongun Inn, took pity on the increasingly sidelined Baek Sang and tossed him a friendly word. But Baek Sang couldn't answer — Taoists kept their distance from alcohol.
"Ah, that is..."
Baek Sang faltered — whereupon Seomun Ak plunked a bottle of premium Zhuyeqing down on Noh Sang-won's table.
"Can't say whether it suits your food, but at the very least, the most expensive liquor in this inn suits a gentleman of your standing."
He had noticed Noh Sang-won's silk clothes and set about flattering the man's dignity in front of everyone. At Seomun Ak's silver tongue, Noh Sang-won's face split into a delighted grin.
"Haah! I say, Seongun! Wherever did you dig up such a remarkably gifted waiter!"
This, too, was the power of a wastrel. Wastrels, after all, were supremely gifted at reading whether a man stood above them or below.
Baek Sang felt a heavy wave of defeat. And above all, the moment he saw Jin Seongun nodding at Seomun Ak with a thoroughly satisfied face, it was as if the world were collapsing around him.
I-impossible...!
He had started this lightly. Truthfully, he hadn't even wanted the job. But with a rival named Seomun Ak in the picture, and a young warrior's competitive spirit piling on top, Baek Sang had somehow found himself wanting to become an excellent waiter.
In the depths of that bitter defeat, to make matters worse, his younger sister's voice rang out from the kitchen.
"Who taught you to cut like that?"
"Excuse me — are you critiquing my swordsmanship right now? The Wudang—"
"Hey, dummy. That's not swordsmanship, it's blade work. It's a kitchen knife. Does Wudang not even teach you how to chop the head off a fish?"
"W-why would they teach me that!"
Trouble seemed to be brewing in the kitchen as well. Fair enough — cooks and murim warriors both made their living by the blade, but their methods could hardly have been more different. To his sister, who had spent her whole life mastering the Wudang sword, a cook's knife work must have seemed unbearably crude and lowbrow.
So we both failed on day one, huh...
Baek Sang swallowed his bitterness. The siblings had grown up lacking nothing in a merchant's household, and within the Wudang Sect they'd been hailed as prodigies. Never had they imagined their first defeat in life would come like this.
But despair? There would be none of that. He was, after all, Baek Sang, grand disciple of the Wudang Sect.
Baek Sang's eyes glinted low. Tomorrow. Without fail.
Just then, Jin Seongun approached and silently handed him a cloth.
...
The sweeping and wiping duties had passed from Seomun Ak to Baek Sang. It was the complete victory of a wastrel who had leveraged a lifetime of low-living experience into becoming the inn's finest waiter.
After the evening's business had closed.
Seomun Ak worked at the inn through day and evening, and had agreed to help Shin Mok at night, so he took his leave. A man buried in debt had to shave sleep off his nights to keep working.
The four who remained to tidy up stood facing one another in the emptied inn. Somehow, the atmosphere was excruciatingly awkward.
"Mm. Good work, everyone."
When Jin Seongun said it with a less-than-convincing face, Baek Sang's heart grew only more anxious. He needed Jin Seongun's recognition to get the Taichi Sword back — and on the very first day, he had tasted a total defeat. Glancing aside, he found his sister and Cook Seo glaring at each other as if they'd become blood enemies over the course of a single day.
Sending Seol to the kitchen was a mistake.
Those who lived by the blade were a proud lot by nature. Even among murim folk, swordsmen and blade-masters were forever butting their pride against one another. Sending his pampered little sister into that kitchen had been his error, plain and simple.
"You'll... be coming tomorrow as well?"
Jin Seongun's question. Baek Sang and Baek Seol both looked glum. The awkwardness deepened.
And as always, it was Seo Yugyeom — constitutionally incapable of enduring an awkward silence — who stepped in.
"You're coming. Tomorrow I've got to properly teach that one how to hold a kitchen knife."
Baek Seol shot him a glare. The disagreement between them was simple and stark.
"Isn't it enough to just cut the ingredients?"
"You grip a knife like a sword, you'll wreck your wrist. Hold it like this — index finger braced! Back of the hand facing the ceiling!"
"I'm a murim warrior. A murim warrior's wrist is not that fragile."
Seo Yugyeom fought down the urge to smack Baek Seol across the forehead.
"There's such a thing as proper conduct in a kitchen. By your logic, why bother learning grip technique at all? Just hack away at people's limbs and call it a day."
...
Baek Seol shut her mouth. No counterargument came to mind. Watching her yield, Seo Yugyeom savored a quiet, glowing sense of victory.
"Anyway, head home for today. We've got our own training to do."
Every night after closing, Seo Yugyeom and Jin Seongun trained in martial arts together, apart from the others.
At the word training, the siblings' eyes lit up.
"By training, do you perhaps mean martial arts?"
"Well. Yeah."
At Seo Yugyeom's casual reply, Baek Sang's eyes gleamed brighter still. Come to think of it, there had been that moment when Seomun Ak threw his fists around and Cook Seo had blocked one. Apparently, in these dangerous times, a cook versed in the martial arts was teaching Jin Seongun bit by bit.
An opportunity.
Where Baek Sang saw a chance to score points with Jin Seongun, Baek Seol saw a chance to repay the whole day's browbeating from Seo Yugyeom in kind.
"Then would it be all right if we joined you?"
"It's not an opportunity that comes easy, you know."
The siblings brimmed with confidence — whereupon Seo Yugyeom answered with a broad, easy grin.
"Fine by me. It was getting to be too much on my own anyway."
Baek Sang tilted his head. The phrasing of too much on my own sounded strange somehow. Too much to teach, because the waiters lacked so much talent?
Well. No real problem there.
However poor the student's aptitude, everything changed when the teacher was a grand disciple of the Wudang Sect. Teaching a waiter even a few of the most basic sword forms would be an enormous boon to the man.
"These two can train with us too, right?"
At Seo Yugyeom's question, Jin Seongun considered for a moment, then nodded. Soon the two men stood facing each other — and Baek Seol stepped up beside Seo Yugyeom, while Baek Sang took his place beside Jin Seongun.
"What are you two doing?"
"...What?"
"Get over here, next to me."
Seo Yugyeom beckoned to Baek Sang. Puzzled, Baek Sang decided he should first observe whatever training method these people used, and moved to Seo Yugyeom's side — which left Jin Seongun standing alone, facing Seo Yugyeom, Baek Sang, and Baek Seol all at once.
Jin Seongun studied the three of them briefly, then asked Seo Yugyeom:
"How far today?"
"Well, we've got more waiters and cooks now. Shall we go all the way for the first time in a while?"
"Good."
Baek Seol and Baek Sang were still blinking in confusion when—
"Begin."
At Seo Yugyeom's word, Jin Seongun's figure sank into the ground and vanished.
Baek Sang and Baek Seol went wide-eyed, heads whipping left and right. But nowhere could any trace of Jin Seongun be seen.
Shadowless Steps.
There was no chance whatsoever that the eyes of Wudang's two finest disciples could catch the footwork of the Divine Thief. Then, without warning, Jin Seongun materialized right in front of Baek Sang's nose.