Is This Really Okay? (5)
“Is it ready?”
“Yes. It just needs to simmer a little longer.”
“Hmm.”
Dang Soso smiled faintly and turned to look at Yu I-seol. Yu I-seol was the sort of person who almost never hurried others along. For someone like her to keep hovering in the back and asking the same question over and over again was a truly unusual sight.
She must be anxious.
Dang Soso didn’t miss the way Yu I-seol was subtly glancing toward the village children. The kids had hidden behind their mothers’ skirts with terrified faces, but they kept staring this way all the same.
“Are you worried the children are hungry?”
When Dang Soso asked, Yu I-seol answered in a slightly blunt voice.
“...Hunger is hard.”
“Pardon?”
“Being hungry.”
“...”
“Especially when you’re little.”
Dang Soso was momentarily at a loss for words. Now that she thought about it, Yu I-seol had probably spent her own childhood clutching her empty stomach and getting through each day however she could. Dang Soso could never truly understand a memory like that.
“It’s ready. I’ll start handing it out now.”
“Mm.”
“So don’t just stand there watching—go fetch some bowls.”
“Right.”
Dang Soso let out a small laugh as she watched Yu I-seol trot off to get the dishes.
Strictly speaking, they didn’t even have to go this far. They had already saved the villagers’ lives; they could have simply moved on.
The problem was what to do with the grain loaded on the cart. If they wanted to make it look as though the Sapa bastards had stolen the grain and fled, then this food had to disappear. But even when told to just eat it and clear it out, none of the villagers could bring themselves to touch it.
In their heads, they knew the Four Hegemons Alliance wasn’t so free and easy that it would investigate every little thing like this. But instinctive fear kept their hands away.
So Dang Soso rolled up her sleeves and stepped forward. Normally, someone as precious as Dang Soso would never be the one cooking—Jo Gul would have been the one making the meal—but right now even Jo Gul was busy doing something else.
Dang Soso glanced at the sun, then checked the pot from the corner of her eye. It was work that had to be done, but they couldn’t let the hours drag on. If they weren’t finished before the others came back after erasing the cart’s tracks, then it would all be for nothing.
“It’s done! Everyone come eat!”
“...”
“Hurry up!”
Even then, the villagers still couldn’t quite bring themselves to approach, so Dang Soso opened the pot and scooped up a huge ladleful of rice. Then she piled it generously into the bowl Yu I-seol had brought.
“Here you go! Come on, quickly!”
“...”
When the people still hesitated, staring uncertainly, Yu I-seol reached out and grabbed a handful of rice from the bowl Dang Soso had filled. Then she shoved it into her own mouth.
“S-Sago.”
Yu I-seol stuffed her cheeks full and chewed until they bulged. After swallowing, she glanced at the villagers and scooped up another large handful of rice.
“W-we...”
Only then did the villagers, finally flustered, begin to approach cautiously. Dang Soso greeted the ones who had been a little frightened by Yu I-seol’s expressionless face with a bright smile.
“Come on, come on! Hurry and eat. Our Sago eats a lot more than you’d think. If you don’t take it soon, she’ll eat it all.”
“Th-thank... you.”
As always, the hardest thing was the first step. The villagers rushed over and began taking the rice Dang Soso handed out. It was nothing but plain rice, with no proper side dishes to speak of, but they must have been starving terribly, because the way they ate was urgent.
Bare ribs showed through the ragged hems of their clothes. Seeing that, Dang Soso’s face tightened for a moment before she forced another bright smile.
“There’s plenty, so eat more! Not that this is the grain I brought, of course.”
“Th-thank you very much!”
With a lively expression, Dang Soso quickly resumed scooping out rice.
Back at the village chief’s house, Baek Cheon watched the scene outside and spoke at last.
“...The situation looks much worse than I expected.”
The middle-aged man who had introduced himself as Hyeong-uk let out a long sigh.
“It may sound a little absurd for me to say this myself, but at this point I’m almost relieved just to be able to receive grain like this.”
“...”
Considering this was said by a man who had nearly lost his life to the Four Hegemons Alliance moments earlier, it was easy enough to imagine just how desperate things had become.
“If we’d gone another month... no, even just half a month more without food, we would have been on the verge of dying from hunger, not from a blade.”
“Did your slash-and-burn fields fail?”
Hyeong-uk shook his head.
“You may already know this, but surviving on slash-and-burn farming is never easy. Usually, we cultivate the fields and also gather herbs and mountain goods to sell down at the foothills, then use that money to buy grain.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“But... for the past few years, it’s become far too difficult to get grain. Naturally, the price shot up beyond all reason, and then... eventually, even that grain stopped appearing in the markets. No matter how many herbs we brought down, there was no one left to buy them. And even when there was, the money we got wasn’t enough to buy grain.”
“Ah...”
If he was talking about a few years ago, the reason was obvious.
The Gangnam Bulchim Treaty. Ever since Sapa had begun ruling Jiangnan.
“We somehow managed to hold on until now... but just as I was beginning to think there truly was no way left...”
Baek Cheon’s expression hardened as he asked again.
“Is it worse because this is in the mountains?”
At that, Hyeong-uk shook his head.
“No, martial artist. We’re actually better off.”
“...Pardon?”
“We live in the mountains, after all. There aren’t many people who bother coming all the way up here just to cause trouble, are there? The people living in larger settlements are the ones truly surviving day by day, barely able to keep death at bay.”
Baek Cheon turned in stunned silence.
The villagers were devouring their meal like starving beasts. Seeing those gaunt bodies made him feel not only pity, but a kind of miserable helplessness as well. And yet this was the better situation?
Then what on earth was happening in the other places?
“That... trouble you mentioned... do you mean trouble from the Four Hegemons Alliance?”
The man couldn’t bring himself to answer. Even speaking the name seemed to frighten him.
“Once in a while...”
After hesitating for a long while, Hyeong-uk continued with visible effort.
“When we go down the mountain to the market... there are just corpses lying on the road. Half-rotted corpses.”
“...”
“People starve to death, and no one even has the strength to clear them away.”
“How could things become...”
“Because they don’t have the strength either. And besides... even if they did clear them away, someone else would just die soon enough.”
Baek Cheon turned a dazed face toward Im So-byeong. Im So-byeong merely shrugged.
“Why the surprise? Wasn’t this more or less what you expected?”
“Jang Il-so... Jang Il-so’s goal is to swallow up Jiangbuk, isn’t it? So why would he... this is... this sort of thing doesn’t help anyone...”
“Yes. That’s right. Jang Il-so is exactly that kind of person.”
Baek Cheon fell silent. He understood what Im So-byeong was implying.
“But the other vice-leaders of the Four Hegemons Alliance are not the same. They never cared much about Jiangbuk in the first place. For them, what matters far more is that the places they’ve been skimming and plundering all this time, while worrying about the righteous sects, have now fallen completely into their hands.”
“I... don’t understand.”
Baek Cheon bit down on his lip so hard that it drew blood.
“They’re Sapa, yes... maybe not the kind that knows any morality, or even what should be protected, but even so, once someone becomes the head of a faction, they can’t be that stupid. Don’t they understand what happens if they strip their own territory bare?”
In the end, martial artists were little more than parasites clinging to ordinary people. How were they supposed to make a living, swinging swords and learning martial arts all day?
The righteous sects relied on donations from the people in their territory and the profits made through shops those people frequented to support their headquarters. But if the people in that region were reduced to nothing, how were they supposed to keep the sect running?
“They aren’t stupid enough not to know that. The Green Forest is also Sapa, but even they don’t extort people like this.”
When fewer and fewer people traveled the mountains, the Green Forest would ultimately be the one to suffer. That was why Green Forest bandits generally didn’t go out of their way to harm travelers.
The ones who violated that code were not judged by the authorities, but by the Green Forest itself. If bandits went around killing people everywhere and looting enough wealth to flee to another mountain, then the Green Forest would not fall because of outside attack, but because of infighting among bandits fighting over the mountain for themselves.
“Under normal circumstances, they wouldn’t come this far. But... this time was different. Have you forgotten what happened inside the Four Hegemons Alliance?”
“...”
“It’s true that once your foundation is gone, neither Sapa nor the righteous sects can survive. But there was no room to think about that. Once you’re defeated and swallowed by the enemy, your foundation and everything else gets taken away anyway, doesn’t it?”
Only then did it make sense.
The Black Ghost Fort, Haoman, and even that Water Bandit Sect must all have known that one day they would have to settle things among themselves and decide who would sit at the top of the huge organization known as the Four Hegemons Alliance.
So they had no choice but to gather as much funding and stockpile as much grain as they could, without looking back.
“What about tormenting people and causing trouble? That shouldn’t matter, should it?”
“Dojo. You seem to be forgetting—Sapa has always been like this. Do you think people who live by holding fast to decency and responsibility would throw themselves into Sapa?”
“...”
“In peacetime, the higher-ups might have kept a lid on things to some extent. But with war about to break out, why would they bother suppressing the underlings and killing their morale? If some of them decide another faction looks better and defect, that’s nothing but a loss.”
“No...”
“The scale of Maninbang might allow for that kind of control, but the other Five Hegemons of the Jianghu can’t manage it.”
Baek Cheon wore a strange expression, as if he both understood and didn’t. Or perhaps he understood, but didn’t want to accept it.
Watching him, Im So-byeong gave a faint, crooked smile.
“You did know, didn’t you?”
“...”
“If Jiangbuk was in that much chaos, surely you could imagine what was happening in Jiangnan. Even those who were forced out of here and driven north turned people’s lives upside down—so what do you think it was like for the people who had to endure even harsher beasts here?”
The inside of his stomach felt as though he had swallowed ash.
They had simply failed to think about it. After the Gangnam Bulchim Treaty, they had seen how deeply public sentiment had soured because of those driven north—and that should have been enough to guess what was happening here...
Even as he headed south, the only thing on Baek Cheon’s mind had been Hainan. He had given no thought at all to the people living here. That realization made him feel utterly ashamed.
Im So-byeong shrugged and said,
“Well... there’s no need for that grim a face. Things will improve. As the dojo said, Jang Il-so isn’t a fool, and the factions inside the Four Hegemons Alliance have already been sorted out. They’ll probably start managing things properly now—like they did when they scattered grain this time.”
“...”
“But.”
Im So-byeong’s calm voice cut into Baek Cheon’s ears like a blade.
“The fear that your life could vanish over someone’s brief whim, the terror of having no strength and therefore having to bow your head meekly no matter what happens to you, the helplessness and despair that follow from it—none of that will ever disappear. Not as long as the Four Hegemons Alliance continues to rule.”