The Merchant of Death (5)
For a moment, I couldn't make sense of Cheong's words. But I soon grasped what she was really getting at, and a hearty laugh burst out of me.
"So what you're saying is, since you have nothing else with which to repay me, you'll offer yourself? To me?"
"Th-that's so, but..."
Ah. I understood now — why Cheong had asked me to take her along.
She's received so much and has nothing left to give, so she's playing her last card!
Good thing I was quick on the uptake. If I hadn't been, I might actually have thought she was saying it because she liked me.
Fortunately, I'd heard similar things from more than a few people I'd helped along the way, so I figured it out easily enough.
"Young master, we have nothing to give you, so please take the keepsake my father left behind...!"
"Until you reach Hanyang, please let my daughter attend to you!!"
Hear enough of these awkward offers and the proper response comes to you naturally. That was simply the way of things.
"I have already received ample compensation, and I expect I shall continue to. Were I to accept you as well, the value would swell so great I could not possibly take you along on a mere journey. I respect your feelings, and so I must decline."
"Huh?"
"What I mean to say is that knowing you feel grateful toward me is more than enough."
So saying, I arranged my features into what one might call a scholar's benevolent smile.
Now Cheong would be moved to tears, overflowing with gratitude, and then she would—
"...I'll be going ahead."
"Hm?"
"You, sir, should remain here a while. Chew over your thoughts and cool that head of yours before you come back. ...On just what it is you're missing."
Why was it, I wondered — Cheong's tone had gone ice-cold.
I stood there bewildered by the sudden shift. Only moments ago she had been so meek, and so boldly forward. But before I could so much as call out to stop her, she vanished with quick strides.
"...Just what am I supposed to be chewing over, honestly."
What had I missed? What was I missing?
I had chosen my words with every possible consideration for her feelings. So what had I left out?
I slowly replayed everything I had said and done. And as I did, the conversation I'd had with Master Nam earlier rose naturally to mind.
"...Come to think of it, this didn't seem to be Master Nam's first time."
I recalled the words I'd heard when I was pretending to be drunk, leading him along with my questions.
"The West Sea has grown far more dangerous these past fifteen years, so whenever we cross, I make a point of bringing whatever I can to ensure a safe passage."
"Meaning the herbs weren't something he prepared for the first time this year."
"I wasn't going to give the herbs directly. I meant to use them to save a person, then offer that person in a rite to the Dragon King."
"And if he wasn't giving the herbs directly, that meant he'd already made this kind of trade before."
"At other times I brought other goods. I traded them all."
"Just as Cheong had needed those herbs, in the past he had gathered 'suitable' goods and waited to exchange them — all so he could cross the sea."
And last of all.
"That was from a monk... wait, why do you want to know that?"
"A monk."
A monk appearing here as well. And by no coincidence, the person Shim Bong-sa had encountered had also been a monk.
Could this truly be mere coincidence?
I thought not.
"...The monk is certainly a person of interest, but something is still missing."
The sea wind swept in, and with it the long, hissing wash of the waves. I let the sound steady my tangled thoughts.
"The monk told Master Nam how to cross the sea... and told Shim Bong-sa how to restore his sight... But why?"
Simply to help others?
"No."
The price was far too cruel for that. If it were a method realistically impossible to achieve, one would typically hide it until the very end — or never reveal it at all. Giving someone a warped goal would lead them to the very things monks abhor: the corruption of the human spirit, despair.
But the monk Shim Bong-sa had met leapt right over that distant goal of three hundred sacks of rice. More than merely leaping over it — he had left behind words that amounted to a half-threat, using the Buddha as his pretext.
That made it a lie told in the name of Buddha, a divine being. To an ordinary commoner with no related knowledge, it would be a deeply frightening thing to hear. And indeed, Shim Bong-sa was still worried about it.
"Then is the goal to inspire fear?"
Thinking of Master Nam, that didn't fit either.
By my estimate, he had already offered a maiden to the sea as a sacrifice at least once. And he would not have actually met with any accident.
"Master Nam followed that monk's words, and because of it, he never met with disaster. ...If a man is spared from disaster, what does he think?"
It felt as though my eyes had snapped open.
If you listened to someone and were spared from disaster? People, as a rule, come to believe that person. They believe. Among humans, that emotion is effective merely in the realm of trust.
But if the one in question is not human?
"...If one were to worship a yokai as a god, and believe in it..."
My mind went cold.
I thought of what had happened with Kongji. The gold pig yokai that had beguiled the stepmother, Kongji, and the villagers, slipping in among them — it had been growing in power, feeding on the influence of humans. It had grown that strong merely by settling in among people under the name Patjwi. What if it received trust as well?
"Shim Bong-sa said that before he encountered the monk, he had staggered as if shoved by something, and nearly fallen from the bridge."
If someone saves your life, you feel gratitude, and you listen to what they say. And if you cannot see them with your eyes, but that presence had been a virtuous monk? ...In the Joseon era, it was not strange at all for an ordinary commoner to convert to Buddhism.
But if that gratitude and trust were intercepted? By a yokai, no less? The influence it would receive would be anything but trivial.
"In that case... that monk is a fiend that grows by exploiting human emotion."
Cunning. The gold pig yokai disguised as Patjwi had been cunning enough, but this one hiding as a monk was far more dangerous. If it had been doing this throughout the fifteen years Master Nam had spoken of... there was no telling how powerful it had become.
"...Two days from now, I need to get Master Nam to give up the monk's location, one way or another."
I rose slowly from where I sat and headed for Cheong's house.
Come to think of it, the fact that I'd been able to follow this line of thought at all was entirely thanks to Cheong.
"I ought to thank her! To think she'd already seen through this."
If not for her, I might well have missed this crucial point. Thanks to that, my steps toward home were lighter than they had ever been.
"You blockhead. You simpleton. You tactless sea cucumber of a man. Hmph."
Meanwhile, Cheong, who had gone home ahead of him, was in the middle of thoroughly cursing that scholar.
She couldn't help it. She had poured every ounce of gratitude into those words, and the sincere feelings of a woman along with them — and what she got back was the answer of a man with no sense whatsoever.
I mean to say that knowing you feel grateful toward me is more than enough.
"Enough? What's supposed to be enough about that?"
But it was only venting. She didn't truly want to curse him. Of course not. Who would curse someone trying to help her and her family? No one in their right mind would. And if that someone happened to be a wise scholar with looks that would draw women from all eight provinces... even less so.
"...Maybe there's a woman he hasn't mentioned."
He had said, quite clearly, that he had no fiancée or wife. That was partly why she had tried to confess her heart. But what if he simply hadn't noticed?
...The odds of that were rather high. It wouldn't be strange at all if there were other women, somewhere, who had been saved by him and were secretly carrying a torch — just like her.
She let out a long sigh.
Then she ought to be trying even harder right now, so as not to lose him. But she couldn't exactly throw herself at him, given the circumstances.
As Cheong paced the courtyard, lost in thoughts of one man, someone came outside and spoke.
"Why are you wandering about, sighing so heavily?"
"Ah... Lady Ahn..."
Lady Ahn, the woman from the house across the way. A blind woman who, owing to present circumstances, spent much of her time with Father — a blind person like him. And also a fortune-teller born with a mysterious gift, able to read the future.
"It's just..."
"Is it because of the scholar?"
"...!!"
Cheong hadn't wanted to reveal her heart to anyone else. But Lady Ahn seemed to see right through her.
"...Yes."
"If something troubles you, why not tell me? I may be able to help."
"It's just..."
After some hesitation, Cheong told her. That she had gathered her courage and confessed, only for him to take it as something other than sincere and brush it aside.
Then Lady Ahn spoke.
"...What?"
"The scholar who has been helping us is a hero who shall command Joseon and bring about an age of peace."
Wh-what was she talking about...? The words had come so suddenly that Cheong could not quite take them in.
"And from ages past, it has always been the way of things that countless beauties flock to a hero."
"Ah..."
"But Cheong, don't you worry — you will be one of those beauties. You must simply understand that having him all to yourself is impossible."
"I-I cannot quite... I cannot understand what you mean..."
"Cheong."
Cheong could not see Lady Ahn's eyes. They were closed, after all. And yet she felt a gaze upon her, one imbued with some mysterious, numinous power.
"Y-yes."
"...!!"
Lady Ahn left only those words and went back inside.
Though she had departed as suddenly as she had come, the single remark she left behind kindled a spark in Cheong's heart.
And soon that spark grew, until it forged in her a certain resolve.
A short while later, when Kim Shin-ryong returned with light steps, Cheong's expression was remarkably bright.
"Cheong! Thanks to you, I was able to figure it out! You have my thanks!"
Figured out what, exactly?
But Cheong didn't bother saying it.
"Oh my, is that so? I'm so glad!"
"...Hm? Did something happen? The mood feels different from before..."
"Me? It seems you had a bit too much to drink, sir, while you were deceiving that merchant. You should go and rest well."
"Did I, now...? Well, thank you all the same."
If the man who would be her future husband was that pleased... then as the one who would be his future wife, it was only proper that she rejoice along with him.
And if she truly couldn't bear it... she need only bind him to a promise before he left. So that he would be certain to return.
For that day, Cheong resolved to hide, for a little while longer, the heart that was racing wild in her chest.