Haomun's Hundred-Year Plan
Chang'an Castle.
Outside Anhua Gate, in Jangga Village.
Early afternoon.
Two figures stepped into a faded, dilapidated old house.
They were Dan Bul-wi and a four-year-old child.
The boy clutched a piece of candy tightly in one small fist, eyes fixed on the ground as he walked.
In front of the locked warehouse, Dan Bul-wi glanced sideways.
By now the child should have been wailing for his parents, yet strangely he made not a single sound.
At that moment, a bearded man named Jang Yeok came running in a hurry.
“Aigoo! Munwi Dan! Forgive me for making you wait. I had to step away to the outhouse for a moment.”
“I just got here. Open the door.”
“Yes, yes.”
Jang Yeok unlocked the fist-sized padlock and cracked the warehouse door open.
A sour stench of sweat rolled out from the pitch-black interior.
Even the boy, who had been stoic as stone, flinched and grabbed the hem of Dan Bul-wi’s robe.
Dan Bul-wi pried the tiny hand away and spoke.
“Now, now! I’m not your father. Your friends are inside. Play nicely with them and soon you’ll be taken to a good home. Until then, behave yourself. If you make a racket, that uncle over there will punish you. Understand?”
Startled by Dan Bul-wi’s sudden change in tone, the boy answered with a frightened face.
“Yes……”
“Go in.”
With those words, Dan Bul-wi gave the four-year-old a gentle push in the back.
Once the child was inside, Jang Yeok locked the door again.
Five children stared at the newcomer.
Among them, a boy who looked six or seven asked,
“Were you sold too?”
“……I don’t know.”
“How can you not know? If your mom and dad took money, you were sold. If not, you were kidnapped. Did you see them get money?”
“No.”
“Then you were kidnapped. Your parents will come looking for you.”
The four-year-old gave no answer and simply crouched in the corner.
The thought of his parents searching for him filled him with sudden dread.
That can’t happen…
The next day.
Dan Bul-wi, determined to save every coin, headed back to the market.
Late in the afternoon he returned with another boy of five or six, also clutching candy.
Meeting Jang Yeok’s eyes in front of the warehouse, Dan Bul-wi joked,
“Aigo, kids these days love the Song family’s candy way too much. When you get married and have children of your own, teach them well. Even if someone offers to buy them candy, never follow them.”
“Of course. It’s because people can’t resist anything free. I’ll teach my own children that loving free things leads to ruin.”
“You rascal, you must have studied a little when you were young. The words flow out like poetry.”
Jang Yeok chuckled and pulled out the key.
A moment later the warehouse door opened, and Dan Bul-wi gave the new boy a light push.
But this time was different.
Unlike the four-year-old from yesterday, the boy braced both feet and refused to move.
“Mister! I was wrong! Please spare me!”
The child who had stayed quiet until now finally broke down in terror and wailed.
Yet Dan Bul-wi, whose profession was human trafficking, didn’t blink.
“Spare you? Who said they were going to kill you? I’m sending you to a better house. It’s not a lie. Ask the friends inside. No one’s going to eat you.”
When the hesitant boy faltered, Jang Yeok swiftly scooped him up and shoved him into the warehouse.
The startled child screamed in the stranger’s arms as though he couldn’t breathe.
“Waaaaah!”
Crying is contagious.
The children who had been quiet inside the warehouse began to sob along with him.
Suddenly irritated, Jang Yeok hurled the boy he was carrying onto the floor.
Thud!
The impact stunned the crying child into momentary silence.
The others who had been weeping along soon swallowed their tears with hiccupping gasps.
Jang Yeok glared at them with fierce eyes.
“Listen carefully, you brats! From now on, all of you have been sold. Understand? Your parents sold you to us. Do you think your family will welcome you back? No. They’ll have to repay several times the money we gave them. If you run home, they’ll call us to come take you away quickly. Why? Because otherwise they’ll owe several times the amount. Do you know what happens then? They go completely bankrupt. Because of you, your whole family will starve to death. Running away anywhere else will end the same way. We will get several times the money from your parents no matter what. So stop sniveling and listen to me. That is how you show filial piety. Got it?”
“Hic… yes……”
The children answered while choking back tears.
Some among them, like the four-year-old, had been kidnapped rather than sold, yet none dared contradict Jang Yeok.
Part of it was that they didn’t yet understand the difference, but mostly they were cowed by the merciless violence.
Soon Jang Yeok stepped outside and locked the warehouse door once more.
The atmosphere inside was steeped in despair.
The thrown child sat in a daze, while the frightened others barely dared to breathe loudly.
Yet the youngest of them—the four-year-old—was slightly different.
He still kept his head down, but his expression was surprisingly calm.
As though this level of commotion meant nothing to him.
—Mom.
—How dare you call me mom? You are a lewd and wicked seed! You’ll grow up to become like that evil bastard, won’t you? Someone like you should never have been born! If only you hadn’t been born, I! I—! Aaaagh! Die! Someone like you deserves to die!
The mother who strangled his neck several times a day would occasionally hold him and weep in sorrow.
—Ughhh… I’m sorry, baby… What fault do you have? I’m the crazy bitch. I should have died instead…
To the four-year-old who had lived alone with that mother in the annex, Jang Yeok’s threats were nothing.
Rather, the boy felt somewhat satisfied with warehouse life.
It was dark and stank, but at least there was no terrifying mother who cursed and beat him the moment their eyes met.
Here, he could rest with ease, without constantly watching his back.
Above all, he no longer woke to the pain of hands around his throat.
While dozing in the darkness, the four-year-old unconsciously called out “Mom” in his sleep, then jolted awake in terror.
Realizing belatedly that he was inside the warehouse, he let out a breath of relief and closed his eyes again.
To the young boy, his mother was someone he missed in fleeting moments, yet also a being so terrifying his legs would go weak at the mere thought of her.
***
The next day.
On a mountain path on the outskirts of Guannei Province (present-day Shanxi region).
Fanning his face with one hand beside the coachman, Dan Bul-wi suddenly grumbled.
“Ah, damn it! It’s hot. How much farther?”
“Another shichen (two hours) should do it.”
“Hurry it up. This heat is going to kill the brats. Each one cost two hundred mun to acquire.”
At the man’s boast, the coachman glanced back at the carriage.
Seven children meant roughly thirty mun per head.
As if they actually paid that much.
Everyone under heaven knew that the majority of children handled by Amun were kidnapped; who was he trying to fool?
Knowing it was nonsense, yet aware the other man was a Munwi, the coachman hid his thoughts and lightly cracked the whip.
“Giddyup! Giddyup!”
The horse picked up speed, making the carriage jolt. Groans rose from the back.
They were all young children of five or six; they had every right to whine, yet those groans were all they allowed themselves.
Even at such a tender age, they had already begun adapting to the cruel world.
However, Dan Bul-wi had no intention of tolerating even that small noise.
Because yielding once would loosen two restraints, then three.
“Shut your mouths! You brats!”
At his roar the carriage fell deathly silent.
Watching this, the coachman felt uneasy.
Unlike Amun, a criminal syndicate, Chamun had always conducted itself with dignity.
Had this not been a matter concerning all of Haomun, they would never have entangled themselves with Amun.
Dan Bul-wi gazed at the distant mountains with an indifferent face and muttered,
“Aigo! What kind of grand scheme requires gathering brats in this heat? The Munjus of our Guannei Province certainly have big dreams. But that won’t turn an earthworm into an imugi. Don’t you agree?”
Even as a Munwi, Dan Bul-wi did not speak down to the coachman.
The man belonged to Chamun.
He had asked for agreement with reasonable courtesy, yet the reply was not what he expected.
“Still, I believe it is worth attempting. If the Haomun of Guannei Province unifies the Haomun across the ten provinces, who knows? We might become like the Beggars’ Sect.”
Haomun was not a single sect.
It was merely a collective name for six occupational organizations: Chamun (coachmen), Seonmun (boatmen), Jeommun (shop assistants), Gakmun (porters), Gimun (courtesans), and Amun (human traffickers).
Because they sprang from different roots, there were six Munjus.
The world today was divided into ten provinces, and each province had its own six Haomun organizations.
That meant sixty Munjus across the ten provinces.
It was a force capable of overwhelming most ordinary factions.
Nevertheless, Haomun could not escape its lowly status in the martial world.
With so many heads and no central pillar, it was inevitable.
As the saying went, too many boatmen drive the ship up the mountain.
Tired of the constant disdain from the orthodox sects, Ha So-ran of Gimun had made a decisive move.
She had persuaded the five other Munjus of Guannei Province to launch the One Hundred Year Plan.
In summary, its content was this:
—Take the children of Guannei Province, raise them as the pillars of Haomun, and use them to unify the Haomun of all ten provinces.
At the coachman’s unexpected rebuttal, Dan Bul-wi snorted.
“Hmph! Who told you that unifying Haomun would make us like the Beggars’ Sect? Do you think drawing lines on a pumpkin turns it into a watermelon? The Beggars’ Sect possesses martial arts of an entirely different caliber. Even if we unify Haomun, do you think the Five Great Sword Sects or the Green Forest bandits will acknowledge us? They’ll simply be glad it’s easier to exploit us.”
“The six Munjus of Guannei Province have gathered various secret manuals in the mountains. Who knows? Perhaps one of those children will become a supreme expert who rules the world one day.”
“What a grand dream. Learning from the cheap manuals floating around the market will never produce more than third-rate warriors. Do you think burying a radish in the mountains turns it into ginseng? Absolutely not. I myself am living proof of that.”
“……”
The coachman could not refute the self-mocking words.
Honestly, the root reason Haomun was looked down upon lay in their pathetic martial arts.
It was enough to say that in broad daylight in the middle of Chang'an Castle, the Munju of Jeommun had been beaten by a disciple of the Beggars’ Sect.
With both Haomun men falling silent, only the loud rumble of the carriage wheels remained.