And Then, Suddenly, the Communists Appeared
“He went pretty far.”
Gong Ryun checked the Safe Kids GPS Tracker on the personal device and headed in Sowol’s direction.
It wasn’t Gong Ryun’s own device. The boss had lent him hers. The app could only be installed by family members.
On the map, Sowol’s location showed as a red dot.
He’d covered a remarkable distance in so little time. Probably using qinggong.
In the galactic murim, even young children learned basic martial arts. Skills tied directly to survival and convenience—qinggong especially—were practically mandatory.
“Around here, then…”
Before long he reached the outer edge of the city, where Sowol’s signal had stopped.
It was a quiet stretch of land—scattered houses and rows of fruit trees. The outskirts were usually like this: sparse population, small orchards and little factory lots put to use.
But there was no Sowol. Only apple trees.
The signal was definitely catching somewhere around here.
He stood there peering left and right for a while, until someone tapped him on the shoulder.
It was an old man in farmer’s clothes, face a map of deep wrinkles.
The old man pointed with one finger.
Gong Ryun looked.
…Nothing. Just trees.
“…Uh… what about the trees?”
“Yer lookin’ for the kid, ain’tcha?”
“Oh! Yes.”
“So he’s right over there.”
“Where…”
“Under the tree.”
“Under which tree…?”
“Second one from the left side of the road. Use yer inner sight. What’re ya waitin’ for?”
“…?”
Gong Ryun narrowed his eyes and stared.
Something hazy seemed to be there. Sort of.
If he could use inner sight it would probably show—but he couldn’t, so that was that.
In the end he still couldn’t see it, so he walked over.
The closer he got, the less blurry the shape became, its outline slowly emerging.
The moment his focus slipped even a little, it felt like it would slip out of his vision again. Gong Ryun forced power into his eyes.
Only when he was right in front of it did the truth reveal itself. It was Sowol.
He was using a concealment technique to hide his body, sitting under the tree, sniffling as he peeled and ate an apple.
A child slammed by reality often lashes out with crooked little rebellions. And so he had committed the heinous crime of fruit theft. Ah. Too wicked. What would become of him if he went to hell later?
At his feet, the remains of several thoroughly eaten apples already lay scattered.
“Huuuuiiiing… snff… snff… crunch… huuuuh…”
He sniffled, gripping the apple in both hands and taking crisp bites.
It was hard to tell whether he was eating his nose or the apple.
Gong Ryun stayed quiet behind him for a moment and let him cry it out.
Had the kid been that upset? He’d been listless for days now. Something might have happened at school. And on top of that he’d gotten thoroughly scolded—no wonder he felt wronged.
Just stay still until he calms down.
“Snff… crunch… crunch… snff… gulp… crunch-crunch…”
After a little while he seemed to settle; he stopped crying and focused only on eating the apple with great dedication.
Then Sowol gazed off at the distant sky, as if he had finally tasted the bitterness of life.
At last Gong Ryun spoke.
“Hey. Apple thief.”
“Hngh-et!”
“Done crying?”
“H-how long have you—?!”
Gong Ryun dropped down to sit beside him.
Then he bit into an apple of his own.
And gently patted Sowol’s head.
He didn’t say much else.
Sowol, equally quiet, finished his apple.
The sun was setting.
Child and adult under a tree. A breeze. The warm colors of the evening light.
They each ate one more apple, then brushed themselves off and stood.
“Feeling a little better now?”
“Mm… thanks for waiting.”
“Mom’s waiting, so shall we head back?”
“Mm… and I’m sorry I shot the gun… I didn’t know it’d make you feel bad.”
“You know now, so it’s fine. I’ll buy you a new one for the gun that broke.”
And so the two of them walked toward home.
Sowol was still using his concealment technique. Probably embarrassed about having cried.
Even so, they kept talking as they walked, so Gong Ryun could tell he was still beside him.
“Hyung, why do you hate guns so much? How’d you end up getting shot?”
“My hometown was so rural people weren’t good with martial arts. So if you got shot, you could die.”
“Whoa. How rural are we talking?”
“So the local thugs walked around with guns, picking fights everywhere. And at some point they started eyeing my mom. She was a beauty.”
“Huk!”
“So they started picking on me even harder. Shot me, too. But I was pretty tough, so even with bullets in me I didn’t die. Healed fast, too.”
“So what happened?”
“The second I got a little better, I snuck over to their place in the middle of the night and beat them within an inch of their lives.”
“Wow…!”
“After that they stayed quiet for a while. Embarrassed, I guess. Things were fine for a few years—then they slowly started trying to start something again.”
“What’d you do?”
“By then I’d grown. Stronger, tougher—bullets stopped embedding in me. So I grabbed those punks by the hair in the middle of town, dragged them out, and turned them into bloody messes where everyone could see.”
“Whoa… that’s so cool, hyung.”
“After that they were too scared to touch us again. I mean—what are you gonna do against someone who doesn’t die when you shoot him?”
“Heeeeh.”
“So you have to protect the people you love, too. Even if it means getting revenge when someone messes with them. Family is precious. You understand?”
“…Hyung, will you always protect your family?”
“Of course.”
Sowol’s eyes sparkled, as if he’d been deeply moved.
He’d been about to ask whether hyung was a gold digger…
But was hyung really a gold digger? Thinking it over again… no, hyung didn’t seem like one at all.
Gold diggers were bad people, and hyung was always kind. He treasured family. Someone like that couldn’t be a gold digger.
Then if hyung remarried Mom… would he protect Mom?
“If family is precious… then people who become new family are precious too?”
“That’s right. Listen carefully, Sowol. The person you marry is someone you absolutely have to protect and cherish. Got it?”
“Whoa…”
Sowol was genuinely a little moved.
Hyung was more earnest than he’d expected. He could feel his affection gauge for hyung climbing inside his chest.
Well, remarrying Mom still needed more thought!
With that deeper sense of closeness formed, Sowol started tagging along right behind Gong Ryun, clutching the hem of his clothes.
Gong Ryun smirked at how cute it was. Even if the concealment technique made him hard to see, with that little grip on his clothes there was no way he’d lose him.
And so they headed home.
And then.
Still not free of the city outskirts, on a lonely stretch of road far ahead—
a suspicious, muscle-bound man in a robe.
Gong Ryun felt déjà vu.
Something like this had happened before.
Walking home with a young companion, meeting a suspicious bulky figure in a robe on a deserted road.
That time it had been with Loro.
And after that, they’d been held up by highway robbers and fought a whole round.
Gong Ryun whispered to Sowol.
“Sowol. Keep your concealment on and stay right behind me.”
“Huh? Is something wrong?”
Sowol was puzzled, but soon caught the mood.
Of course he did—the robed man was coming this way.
And unlike last time, when there had been one, this time there were five.
Five robed men formed a line across the road as if drawing up a formation and strode forward with long steps.
Once they were close enough, the one in the center spoke.
“San-gong-dok Goe-in. That you?”
“No. Looks like you’ve got the wrong person.”
“We know it’s you. We’ve already matched your face from photos.”
“Then why the hell did you ask?”
Gong Ryun was baffled.
“Haomen’s information network really is something. They neatly laid out your activity radius and movement patterns.”
“Ah, them again? Did I do something to Haomen? Right. So that amazing intel is how you found me?”
“Calling it amazing was sarcasm. They charged a fortune and the info was still wrong. Thanks to that we burned several more days before we could meet you.”
In truth, it wasn’t Haomen’s fault.
The routes Haomen had mapped for Gong Ryun had originally been correct.
But these past few days Gong Ryun had been networking more than working, spending most of his time at the restaurant. The only times he went out were to buy groceries or to work in Medilla’s underground sewers.
And all of those places either lay along school commuting routes or right next to them, so the men couldn’t risk making a move.
No matter how recklessly a person lived, you still didn’t start something on a school route.
In the end they had wasted several more days waiting until Gong Ryun was completely clear of the commuting paths.
So Haomen might have had a right to feel a little wronged.
But that was none of the robed men’s concern; they simply vented their grievances.
“As expected, capitalism is cold. Those corrupted by capital practice deception and exploitation as naturally as breathing. Ahh. The suffering of the proletariat.”
“Ah. That way of talking. These bastards—don’t tell me.”
“Keh keh. Yes. What you’re thinking is correct.”
They were communists.
Long ago, a power called the Holy Zhonghua Empire had broken away from the galactic core.
An empire racing toward the extremes of tyranny and incompetence had failed to endure the AI uprisings and fallen into decline, and the people’s furious wave of revolution had swallowed the empire and proclaimed a new age.
A paradise for communists. An empire without an emperor. The birth of the Holy People’s Republic of Zhonghua.
"Workers of the galaxy, unite."
"No longer shall you groan beneath the feet of oppressors."
"Capital is evil. Destroy every bourgeois who monopolizes it."
"That which is not human is evil. Kill all AIs and aliens."
"We alone in the galaxy truly uphold the will of the Martial God; all who are not of the people are heretics."
"We shall make the entire galaxy a Taiping Heaven for the people. Then the Martial God who departed shall return to this galaxy and lead us once more."
People who followed a contradictory, unrealistic, incomprehensible faith.
They raised flags red as blood and left slaughter in their wake wherever they went, dyeing the ground crimson.
By another name, they were called the Blood Cult.
The lead robed man declared with grand gusto.