Stone Monkey, The Monkey That Loses Fights
As the road grew rougher, the carriage slowed to a crawl.
Yet it stubbornly pressed onward until it finally came to a complete stop at the foot of a towering mountain. The narrow path that had clung to the slope had now vanished entirely.
The coachman spoke up.
“Lord Dan Munwi, we’ve arrived.”
“I don’t see anything. Can’t we go farther?”
“Aigoo! We’ve already come fifty li since the main road ended. As you can see, there’s nowhere left to go.”
“Tsk…”
Dan Bul-wi decided further argument was pointless and leapt down from the driver’s seat. He strode to the carriage door, flung it open, and shouted.
“Everyone out!”
Only then did the children inside begin crawling out one by one. A small shackle was locked around each child’s ankle, all linked together by a single chain.
The moment the last child stepped down, the coachman turned the carriage and drove away without a backward glance.
Dan Bul-wi inspected the children’s condition with meticulous care. Success or failure of the One Hundred Year Plan aside, he had to fulfill the task assigned to him.
When he saw that none of them were groaning despite seven days inside a sweltering carriage, his expression brightened.
“We’re almost there. Just a little farther and you’ll reach the place where you’ll live. Once we arrive, I’ll remove those chains, so endure it until then. Understood?”
“Yes…”
A few of the older children answered in hoarse voices.
Dan Bul-wi, about to set off, glanced at the last child. Through the boy’s loosened collar, the scar on his neck stood out clearly.
I hope he can keep up on the mountain path…
Concerned, he approached the four-year-old and spoke in a threatening tone.
“Hey, kid. Stick close to the person in front of you. If you fall behind, you die. Got it?”
“Yes.”
“Tough little rascal.”
Dan Bul-wi gave the boy’s head a light pat and strode into the forest.
After pressing through the woods for half a shichen, a dry valley suddenly appeared. The ground was covered in loose gravel, and every large rock scattered across it was draped with snake skins.
Dan Bul-wi warned the children following him.
“Stay right behind me! If you dawdle and get bitten by a viper, you’re dead.”
The startled children hurried to close the gap between themselves and their guide.
Deeper in the valley, a gloomy cave mouth appeared. Dan Bul-wi fashioned a torch from oil-soaked cloth and branches, then stepped inside.
As the children filed in after him, the quiet cave filled with the metallic clank of dragging chains.
They descended the sloping passage for roughly one sikgyeong. The tunnel gradually narrowed until only one person could squeeze through at a time.
Even a brave man might have turned back, but Dan Bul-wi’s pace never faltered.
After another quarter-hour inside the cramped tunnel, the view suddenly opened wide.
The underground cavern stretched a hundred jang in both directions—an enormous space. At its center lay a sunken area about one jang deep, filled with hundreds of earthen soldiers and horses standing in perfect formation.
This was the Byeongmachong.
The armored soldiers and saddled mounts looked so lifelike they seemed ready to charge at any moment.
Dan Bul-wi led the children to an open area beside the terracotta army. Sixty children and forty adults were already gathered there.
Once Dan Bul-wi removed their ankle shackles, the children instinctively moved to stand among others their own age without being told.
Ha So-ran, leader of Gimun and a major power within Guannei Circuit’s Haomun, counted the new arrivals with her finger.
“Seventy-one, seventy-two. Is that everyone?”
Hong So-gwang, leader of Amun, answered with a sour expression.
“It is. As you know, this was a year of bountiful harvests. Children were hard to come by.”
“A pity, but you did your best. We had to move quickly and relied on Amun’s help this time. From now on, each of the six branches will select and send their own children.”
The Amun leader nodded. It was better than his branch shouldering the burden of kidnapping alone. Since the arrangement benefited every faction, none of the other leaders objected.
The seventy-two children brought by Amun would later be divided among the six branches.
Our Haomun has always suffered because we are weak and refuse to unite. Ten years from now, we shall unify every Haomun branch across the ten provinces of the world together with these children. When Haomun stands as one, we will stand shoulder to shoulder with the Beggars’ Sect. Until that day arrives, the secret of the One Hundred Year Plan must be guarded at all costs. Therefore, among those present, everyone except the branch leaders and vice-leaders—hall masters, village masters, munwi, and ordinary members—will remain here.
She then appointed Ma Tong, Amun’s hall master, as the overall supervisor of the Byeongmachong training grounds and ordered three other hall masters to assist him.
The hall masters and village masters already knew the plan and remained impassive, but the munwi and ordinary members who had been mobilized for the occasion looked stunned.
Yet not one of them voiced objection. In Haomun, which walked the line between righteous and demonic, the strong ruled by word alone. Defying a decision agreed upon by all six branch leaders was unthinkable.
Soon afterward the branch leaders and vice-leaders departed, leaving only the Byeongmachong supervisors behind.
Ma Tong, now in overall command, selected martial instructors, literacy teachers, and guards for the entrance. The literacy teachers were necessary because of the mountain of books—three full carriage loads of martial manuals, formation texts, military strategy books, the Five Classics, and various other volumes acquired from the market.
From that day forward, the children of Byeongmachong studied characters and martial arts on a fixed schedule.
Time flowed like water, and ten years passed in the blink of an eye.
With the arrival of June, the usually tranquil atmosphere of Byeongmachong subtly changed. Some boys and girls walked with renewed vigor, eyes sparkling with excitement.
But not everyone.
Only the first-generation disciples—the original seventy-two—were elated. The rest remained unchanged.
Around the hour of the horse, a rather handsome boy in his mid-teens trudged out of a stone chamber on the left side of the cavern. In his hand he carried a tattered copy of the Thousand Character Classic.
When he reached the central area, he looked left and right. The other children had already gone to martial training; the cavern was empty. They had long since mastered basic literacy and moved on to the secret arts of the six branches.
Each of Haomun’s six branches possessed its own unique martial arts.
Chamun, the coachmen, practiced the Ilwoltonap Secret, Mountain King Whip, and Heaven Collapse Fist.
Seonmun, the boatmen, cultivated the Flowing Water Heart Method, Hundred Stream Blade Technique, and Heaven-Flipping Hand.
Jeommun, the shop assistants, studied Heaven and Earth Steps and Twin Tiger Hands.
Gakmun, the porters, trained in Ox-Horse Strength, Lightning Flash Kick, and Thousand-Li Stride.
Gimun, the courtesans, cultivated Jade Phoenix Art, Falling Flower Fan Technique, and Wind-Flowing Steps.
Amun, the human traffickers, practiced Mind-Cleansing Pill Art, Seven Injury Blade Technique, Flying Current Steps, and Concealment Art.
Instructors from each branch resided in six separate stone chambers around Byeongmachong and taught their respective arts. Children usually mastered the Thousand Character Classic before age ten and then devoted themselves to branch-specific martial training.
Therefore, a boy in his mid-teens still carrying the Thousand Character Classic was an anomaly.
The boy looked around, then leapt lightly downward. He landed on a horse’s saddle and began jumping from mount to mount.
It did not last long.
One misstep sent him tumbling. He crashed to the stone floor with a heavy thud, a groan escaping his lips.
“Uuuugh…”
Lee Geum-ak, a first-generation disciple who had witnessed the scene with his friends, burst into laughter.
“Puhaha! The stone monkey fell off the horse again! Can’t even manage the Thousand-Li Stride but you’re greedy for Flying Current Steps? No wonder you look like that.”
Gwak No-sim, who always tagged along with him, added his own jab.
“Hey, stone monkey! Still haven’t finished the Thousand Character Classic? Think you’ll be able to leave with us?”
So Sang-won, the third member of their trio, refused to be left out.
“Kid! If you can’t exit the coffin this year, you’ll have to call us ‘senior’ instead of ‘brother.’ You know that much, right? If you try to act like we’re from the same generation later, you’ll get beaten.”
The three mocked the boy mercilessly, laughing so hard they clutched their stomachs.
Ha Yong-wol, a second-generation disciple watching from a distance, frowned.
Ma Eun-rok, oblivious to her reaction, carelessly tossed out another remark.
“The stone monkey will need another ten years before he can leave the coffin.”
Because Byeongmachong was an ancient royal tomb, the trainees called entry “entering the coffin” and exit “leaving the coffin.” The population had grown from the original seventy-two to one hundred and eighty over the years.
Although everyone knew one another from living together, strict generational hierarchy existed. Juniors feared their seniors like demons.
Thus Ma Eun-rok, a second-generation disciple, calling a first-generation senior “stone monkey” was quite audacious.
When Ha Yong-wol looked uncomfortable, Ryu Seol-ri quickly intervened.
“Still, calling Senior Dan Yeop ‘stone monkey’ seems wrong.”
Ryu Seol-ri, the youngest of the three, always spoke politely to Ma Eun-rok.
The boy who had fallen among the terracotta warriors was named Dan Yeop. When he first arrived, the Haomun members had called him “baby monkey” because of his small size. After he grew, “stone” replaced “baby.”
For ten years he had failed to master the Thousand Character Classic or properly execute even one technique from any of the six branches.
“Wrong? Did you not hear Senior So earlier? He said to call them ‘senior,’ not ‘brother.’ At this rate he might as well have been expelled from the first generation.”
“The first-generation seniors might just be joking. But if we juniors actually treat Senior Dan Yeop rudely, they may get angry despite what they said.”
Ma Eun-rok had no rebuttal. No matter how pathetic Dan Yeop seemed, if his own generation protected him, only Ma Eun-rok would suffer.
With a cold “Hmph!” he turned and left.
Once he was gone, Ryu Seol-ri pouted.
“Aigoo, that temper of his.”
“Thanks for stepping in.”
“No need to thank me. If you had spoken up, it would only have made things harder for Senior Dan Yeop. Brother Ma’s jealousy is terrifying.”
Ha Yong-wol was one of the Three Great Beauties of Byeongmachong, alongside first-generation Lee So-gun and third-generation Hong Cho-yeon. Ma Eun-rok had his eyes on both Ha Yong-wol and Hong Cho-yeon.
“What relationship do I have with Senior Dan Yeop that he would be jealous of?”
“Maybe not a relationship, but it’s true you treat Senior Dan Yeop differently from everyone else.”
“He’s a kind person. I’ve never seen him argue with anyone.”
“He’s not kind. He’s just slow.”
In Byeongmachong, where fights could erupt from a single glance, Dan Yeop received an unusual amount of bullying. Both peers and juniors ignored him and picked fights with him constantly.
That was why he had earned a second nickname: the Monkey That Loses Fights.
It was a mocking comparison to Sun Wukong, the Victorious Fighting Buddha—except this monkey always lost.
Whenever provoked, Dan Yeop simply lowered his head, which only made people treat him like more of a fool.
The stone monkey, the fighting defeat ape Dan Yeop, retrieved the Thousand Character Classic that had fallen among the terracotta soldiers and climbed back up.
He scratched his head awkwardly in front of the gathered boys and girls, then headed toward the training chamber.