My Comrade, My Benefactor, My Father
Of all those who helped Dancheon Myeong—a son cast off by his own clan—take root in the Beggars' Gang as Myeong-gae, the one who helped most was, without question, Chwipung-gae. He was a six-knot beggar who had long since graduated from his days as a three-knot Branch Master, yet he became my Branch Master all the same. Not that he stepped back down to three knots—it meant he watched over me and taught me a hundred things, the way a Branch Master would his own charge.
For Myeong-gae, a friendless orphan abandoned even by his own blood, he was a pillar to lean on. One might as well have called Chwipung-gae his mother and father. He was my benefactor—the first soul ever to take this frail creature called Dancheon Myeong, no, Myeong-gae, and hold him whole.
—Begging? You just do it, no?
I had turned my back on my clan, and I had entered the Beggars' Gang, resolved to live as a beggar. Having long since laid down every last shred of my pride, I had no reason to think begging would be hard—that is, not until I had pounded the streets from dawn to dusk and come trudging back to my hovel with a bowl still empty.
—Hmm…….
—Easy, was it?
—…….
Reality was not so forgiving; my begging bowl had failed to coax a shred of pity from the passersby of the jianghu.
—You rascal. Did you think begging was easy work? Begging, you see, is by its very nature…….
So saying, Chwipung-gae grabbed a bowl and slipped off to the marketplace. Half a day later, he returned.
—Well? Did you see?
—Ooh…….
Unlike me, who had struck out all day, he had filled his bowl to the brim in less than half a day—how could I not stand in awe of him? Honestly, in those days, Chwipung-gae's begging skills mystified me more than any dazzling martial art.
—Ahem. It is no difficult thing.
I remember with perfect clarity dropping to my knees before that grumbling old man. As I said, Myeong-gae had discarded luxuries like pride long before, so perhaps my knees came cheap.
Thump.
—I, too…….
—What was that? Speak up, I can't hear you.
—Teach me too. Begging.
—Then call me Master.
—Master.
—Ahem.
In any case…….
Thanks to the seasoned begging arts handed down by that six-knot old beggar, Myeong-gae in his white-robe days was spared many a fruitless day. Which is to say, I went hungry less often—and I also avoided the grim spectacle of senior beggars cracking their bowls over my head.
Not all of them, of course. If your begging never failed, it wouldn't be begging—it would be robbery, wouldn't it? Even if all his teaching did was send my success rate soaring, it deserves to be called a debt of grace.
It was also Chwipung-gae who taught me how to handle information—the very essence of the Beggars' Gang.
—Information, you see…….
It was an unexpected side of the old beggar—cranky, pigheaded, a man I'd assumed knew nothing but brute force.
—You rascal, how many times must I tell you? Information that loses its objectivity and coherence is nothing but idle gossip for idle gentry. Stop fetching street-corner rumors and bring me real intelligence.
In truth, every lens through which I viewed and handled information began with Chwipung-gae. I refused his martial arts to the very end, but Chwipung-gae was my teacher all the same. Since when were teaching and learning only about martial arts? It would be right to call him the teacher of my life.
—First, let's train that eye of yours.
It was Chwipung-gae who honed the objectivity of my eye as well.
—Appraise this. What's it worth?
—Upper-middle.
—And this?
—Top grade.
—This one?
—Hmm…… lower-middle?
—……Your eye is no better than a knothole in a plank.
—Was I wrong?
—Every single one.
—Khhem.
No one is good at everything from the start.
—The most important thing in a discerning eye is, in the end, reading people.
He also taught me to fathom what lay in another's heart through the gaze—that window of the soul. Chwipung-gae glared at me and asked:
—What emotion is this?
—Anger.
Then, cracking his eyes half open, he asked:
—And this?
—Suspicion.
—Bzzt.
—What's the matter?
—All wrong.
—Isn't it just that you can't act with your eyes, old man?
—Good grief.
—That look you just gave me? That was pity.
—Correct.
—Tch.
It was, all in all, a rather enjoyable time. Studying under the genuine article, a true-born beggar of six knots, surely played its part in how quickly I reached three knots. And I know full well that the grace he showed me did not stop at teaching.
—This is a manuscript copy of the Yakseon Heart Decision.
—Thank you.
—Ahem. Top-grade information, that.
It was Chwipung-gae who, upon rising to Seven-Knot Elder and throwing his newfound authority around, obtained the Yakseon Heart Decision for me.
—Learn my martial arts.
—I'm sorry, elder.
—……Hmph. Suit yourself, then.
It was Chwipung-gae who tried to pass down the martial arts that were his everything, and Chwipung-gae again who, despite my stubbornness for reasons I never gave, never once forced his will upon me…….
—I'm joining the Secret Pavilion. I'll break myself down to the bone and build myself anew, and be of use to the righteous murim.
—You rascal, that place is a death trap. Why hurl yourself into a fire pit when there's no need?
—I'm going.
—……Do as you will, then.
And it was Chwipung-gae who pulled strings so that I, a mere three-knot beggar, could become a member of the Secret Pavilion.
Looking back on my days as Myeong-gae, Chwipung-gae was everywhere in them. It was his goodwill and his grace that let Myeong-gae become a beggar of the Beggars' Gang in full standing.
Thanks to him, every arrangement of the life before my regression had been seen to properly—so it would be only right to say that half of what I have achieved now belongs to Chwipung-gae. Chwipung-gae was my comrade, my benefactor, and my father.
"Khhem."
The Seven-Knot Elder Chwipung-gae who had taken shape in my mind's eye faded away, and before me stood the six-knot old beggar himself, clearing his throat.
"So. What brings the direct blood of a great clan to my doorstep? The Dancheon Divine Dragon, whose stock has been soaring of late?"
Scratching at the back of his neck with all the bearing of a weathered old beggar, Chwipung-gae asked.
He was the very picture of the man I had longed to see. Only, it felt strange indeed to hear him call me "Dancheon Divine Dragon" instead of "you rascal."
I had not chosen the life of Myeong-gae this time around, so he and I could never be what we were in my past life. That was a bitter regret, but one I would have to accept. This was, after all, the path I had chosen for myself.
I knew Chwipung-gae well. He despised hollow formality. He liked people straight and true. To put it bluntly, he preferred the man who weighed right and wrong to his face over the one who wheedled and flattered. The beggars of the Beggars' Gang were, as a breed, men whose outsides matched their insides—and Chwipung-gae stood at the very peak of them. In truth, was it not thanks to those years with Chwipung-gae that I could face my father, Dancheon Gang, with any ease in the early days after my regression?
"I need your help."
Before Chwipung-gae, honesty was the best policy. It meant, too, that not a single flowery word was needed.
"Help?"
My bluntness piqued Chwipung-gae's interest.
"That's right. I need your help."
Much as it pained me to do it to him, I would have to receive his help in this life as well. For to draw near the Chwigu-hwan—the Intoxicated Dog Pill, the very marrow of the Beggars' Gang—the help of Chwipung-gae, soon to rise to Seven-Knot Elder, was indispensable.
"Ah, come now. What use could you possibly have for a withered, unsightly old beggar like me?"
My eyes met Chwipung-gae's as he said it.
If what he had taught me was right, then what was written on his heart at that moment was curiosity—and willingness.
"In return."
Here, of course, was where this life would differ from the last.
"I will grant you your heart's desire."
I would not merely take from Chwipung-gae, as I had in my past life. Unlike Myeong-gae, who had possessed nothing in this world, Dancheon Myeong, second son of the Dancheon Sword Clan, possessed a great deal. I now had the power to grant what he wished for. The Myeong-gae for whom even receiving had been a burden had returned to this place as Dancheon Myeong—a man who could give.
"And do you know what my heart's desire is?"
Uncharacteristically, Chwipung-gae was playing coy.
I understood it to mean he was wary of me. And small wonder—if he hadn't known my identity came already vouched for, I'd have been saying exactly the sort of thing that gets a man taken for a swindler.
But as I have said, I know how to deal with Chwipung-gae. There is only one way to win over a sharp-eyed information broker with a lifetime of hard-earned experience.
"I know what your heart's desire is."
Forget the timid probing—drive the point straight home.
"Ho."
Just as I'd expected.
Chwipung-gae wore precisely the gaze and expression I had predicted, down to the last crease.
Truth be told, viewed with a cool head, it was a strange thing.
When Myeong-gae first entered the Beggars' Gang, too new to have earned even a single knot, his rank was white-robe. In plain terms: the lowliest of branch beggars. Whatever life a man had led before, every beggar started over from the bottom. That was simply the way of it.
Chwipung-gae, by contrast, had long since tied the six knots at his waist: he was a Dharma Beggar. A six-knot beggar who stood above the three-knot Branch Masters, the four-knot Protectors, and the five-knot Hall Masters was called a Dharma Beggar. It was a station high enough that one might, as a rule, serve as the Beggars' Gang's administrator of an entire city. Even a company of nothing but beggars carries real weight once the number it commands passes ten thousand, so the rank of Dharma Beggar was more than worthy of the word "eminent."
In any case, for a man perched that high to meet with me day after day and look after me was, by any measure, strange.
In the Beggars' Gang of a hundred thousand branch beggars, the Nine-Knot was granted to one man alone: the Gang Chief. The Eight-Knot, likewise, went to one alone: the heir-apparent who would one day bear the Beggars' Gang's future. These two were exceptions so rare they were customarily left out of any discussion of standing within the gang.
And so most of the hundred thousand set their sights on the Seven-Knot. The Seven-Knot was, in other words, the summit a beggar could reach by his own strength alone. A beggar who climbed no further than five-knot Hall Master was already counted a success by beggar standards—so the Seven-Knot Elders, who numbered fewer than twenty among a hundred thousand, truly occupied a lofty height.
Nor was that an idle claim: to be an elder of the Beggars' Gang, one of the Nine Sects and One Gang, was to stand shoulder to shoulder with the elders of the famed orthodox sects who held sway over the jianghu. To begin as a beggar and ascend to a supreme height where one stood shoulder to shoulder with the elders of the great sects—how was that not success?
Around the time I—Myeong-gae—turned twenty-two, having only just tied my second knot, I learned a curious fact. That Chwipung-gae, the six-knot old beggar, could rise to Seven-Knot Elder whenever he pleased—and yet did not.
Curiosity about a man who refused the knot every beggar dreamed of was inevitable, so I asked him once, in passing.
—An elder isn't free, you know.
That was all the answer Chwipung-gae would give.
I could only wonder whether it had something to do with the way six-knot Chwipung-gae stood guard, day in and day out, at the entrance of the Beggars' Gang headquarters.
No one is born a beggar. And no one ought to be. For the beggars of the Beggars' Gang, the beggar's road had to be a road of choice, not a fate imposed.
—If a man's life as a beggar were settled from the moment of his birth, would that not be a sorrowful thing?
That, he said, was why the Beggars' Gang did not take women into its ranks. If the father was a beggar and the mother a beggar too, the child's life would be fixed as a beggar's from the cradle. Marriage was not forbidden to the gang's beggars, but so long as one did not leave the Beggars' Gang, the law of the mother governed—the child followed the mother's station.
Every beggar in the Beggars' Gang had chosen to become one. Viewed from a slightly different angle, it meant there was no beggar among them without a story. Take me: a beggar of many stories, sprung from a great clan.
The beauty of the Beggars' Gang was that no one ever asked about the past you'd left behind when you became a beggar. Chwipung-gae, who cared for me, never once asked why I had turned my back on the Dancheon Clan—so I, in turn, could not bring myself to press him on why he never rose to the Seven-Knot.
Because I was certain the reason he clung to his six knots was bound up with the life Chwipung-gae had lived before he was a beggar. I knew I must not dig into his past. And yet I ached to know it.
Whether that was fortune or misfortune, I couldn't say—but I came to know the secret Chwipung-gae carried. It was thanks to an incident that would unfold a little after those days.