Chapter 202
Chapter 202
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 202
Chapter Title: Repentance Cave
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If a monk locked away in Repentance Cave had even mastered martial arts, then by all accounts, the old man was undoubtedly a martial monk from Shaolin Temple.
Hong Geolgae felt relieved that the old man wasn't some demonic figure, only to realize this might actually be an even graver situation.
"Elder, didn't you say last time that you starved the monks to death?"
"That's right."
"Why on earth...?"
The old man fell silent, lost in thought.
It didn't seem like he couldn't remember the reason. He looked like he was pondering how to explain it.
Or perhaps debating how much to reveal.
In the end, the old man seemed to steel himself and began his tale.
"About thirty years ago, there was a year with terrible weather. Rain poured right up until early winter, and the winter itself was as warm as spring."
Hong Geolgae couldn't make sense of the story from the very first line. Beggars hated cold winters and loved warm ones.
In that sense, Hong Geolgae had found last winter immensely satisfying. It was the warmest winter of his entire life.
Hong Geolgae asked,
"Isn't a warm winter a good thing?"
The old man asked back in bewilderment.
"You've never farmed, have you?"
"No."
Hong Geolgae wasn't a farmer, and Zhuul Village, where he'd spent his childhood, was far removed from agriculture.
After leaving Zhuul Village with Dang Mujin, he'd grown even more distant from farming. Few people had less connection to it than he did.
The old man gazed at the barley growing in one corner of Repentance Cave as he spoke.
"If winter's too warm, the barley bolts. Bolted barley often freezes to death, and even if it doesn't, the ears don't ripen properly."
"I've heard that before."
"And if spring turns chilly or drought hits, the problems multiply. The barley ears yellow and die before they even form. Bad winter and spring weather hurts other crops too, but barley farming is completely ruined. That's exactly what happened thirty years ago."
People survived winter on rice harvested in autumn, and eked out summer and fall on barley reaped in late spring and early summer. That's why the hungriest, hardest time was spring, before the barley harvest.
But if the barley crop failed, there'd be no food from spring straight through summer and fall. They'd go hungry for more than half the year.
Suddenly, Hong Geolgae recalled how little rain there'd been this spring. And the weather was still unusually cool for the season.
Hong Geolgae followed the old man's gaze. Even now, in early summer, the small barley patch the old man tended was yellowing and withering away.
The old man continued.
"It was an unimaginably tough time. A true hell on earth. Every trip down to the villages, I'd see people on the brink of starvation, gasping their last. Folks would pity the dead from starvation, but as soon as night fell, they'd eye the corpses, thinking of dragging them home for food. It was the most hellish period of my life."
"The Shaolin monks must have gone hungry too."
The old man shook his head.
"Shaolin fared better than most. We don't farm much, but we stockpile old rice and barley generously. So I proposed opening the temple's granaries."
Hong Geolgae remembered another sin the old man had confessed: stealing from Shaolin.
Was that what he considered theft?
Hong Geolgae spoke in an indignant tone.
"They locked you away here for that? The Shaolin monks are selfish too..."
But the old man shook his head again.
"No. The Shaolin monks aren't that cold-hearted. Even a little hungry, they believe in sharing and giving as the Buddha taught. Gratefully, they all agreed with my proposal."
The old man paused to catch his breath, then fiddled with a yellowed barley ear using his wrinkled hands. It was full of nothing but chaff.
"We carried the grain down Song Mountain ourselves. The villagers were too starved and weak to climb up for it. But that's when the trouble started."
"Did the villagers attack the monks?"
"No. They welcomed us warmly. The problem was, the welcome was too much for me to handle."
Hong Geolgae couldn't grasp what the issue was, so he wore a puzzled expression.
The old man continued with a distant look in his eyes.
"I still remember it vividly. As soon as we reached the village, we hauled out the biggest pots and brewed porridge. Can you imagine how they looked at us?"
"They must have been overjoyed."
"Yes. Like they'd seen Maitreya Buddha himself. They wept with gratitude over a single bowl of thin gruel, showering us with blessings. I loved it. Not the sharing or giving, but the way they revered and praised me. I was drunk on it."
"Who doesn't like praise? That's not a problem."
"The problem came after."
The old man let out a deep sigh.
"Every time I lay down to sleep, their faces appeared vividly. Their praising voices echoed in my ears. So I suggested taking more food to the lower villages, but the storehouse steward said no. The monks' own food was running dangerously low. But I couldn't hold back."
"So that's when you stole it?"
"Yes. Night after night, I'd sneak one or two sacks of grain and carry them down the mountain. I'd cook rice and porridge to feed the people. It was theft. But even knowing that, they praised me even more fervently. Saying I'd boldly stepped up to save the suffering masses. I got addicted to that feeling and roamed from village to village. This one today, that one tomorrow."
Hong Geolgae narrowed his eyes.
Even with the excuse of aiding the people, it sure sounded like theft to him. And the old man didn't seem inclined to deny it.
It was a strange story.
A help desperately needed by all. Compassion that was utterly essential.
Yet at the same time, it was a petty, ignoble act of charity.
The old man began again.
"One night amid all that frenzy, a novice monk starved to death. That's when it hit me like lightning. I realized what I was doing. But it was too late. The rice, the barley—all of it had gone into villagers' bellies. I couldn't very well demand it back."
"So that's what you meant by starving people to death..."
"Yes. After that, over ten Shaolin monks starved to death. If I hadn't been blinded by my craving for acclaim, that many wouldn't have died."
"And that's why they locked you here?"
"No. Not at all."
The old man sighed once more.
"No one locked me up. No one knew why I'd brought food to the villages. They just thought a monk had acted out of Buddha's compassion. As a result, when the famine ended, people praised me even higher. Not just the villagers—the Shaolin monks too."
"Then why are you here?"
"I chose to come here myself. I cast everything aside and shut myself in Repentance Cave. Out of guilt for the dead, I planned to refuse all food and starve myself to death. But I couldn't even manage that. I'm no iron-willed high monk from the old days. But there's something even worse than that. Can you guess what?"
Hong Geolgae pondered deeply. What could be left? Tending crops alone? Surviving into old age? None of it felt like a sin.
"I have no idea."
"It's that I still can't forget the thrill of that day. I still crave people's reverence and praise. I want to go back to those times when they'd weep with emotion just hearing my dharma name. I still haven't shaken off my delusions..."
The old man fiddled with a well-dried barley pill.
"You said your name's Hong Geolgae?"
"Yes."
"Do you know why I eat only three barley pills a day?"
"Out of guilt for those who starved, as atonement."
Hong Geolgae gave the obvious answer, but somehow doubted it was right.
Great men from the tales might endure hunger for such noble reasons, but this old man's story was too raw and shabby to guess easily.
Sure enough, the old man shook his head.
"No. That's part of it, but there's a bigger reason."
"...What is it?"
"So that when I die, I'll be skin and bones."
Another baffling answer emerged. As Hong Geolgae looked utterly confused, the old man explained.
"If I die plump and well-fed, what will people think? But if I perish emaciated and pitiable, they'll remember me kindly. 'What a remarkable man. He let Shaolin monks starve, but saved far more lives—a living Buddha...' That's how I want to be remembered."
Yet another shocking revelation.
He'd been holed up in the cave for over thirty years, so he'd endured hunger that long? Could such asceticism stem from something so petty?
Hong Geolgae had a flood of questions.
Where did the rice and barley for his little farm come from?
What was the point of hoarding all those barley pills if they weren't even for eating?
What had his old position been?
But one question stood above the rest.
"Why tell all this to me?"
"You're the only one around me."
"If I were you, I'd have kept it buried forever."
The old man thought long and hard before replying.
"Because I'm a hypocrite."
Then he handed Hong Geolgae a barley pill and said,
"To be a hypocrite, someone has to know the truth."
Hong Geolgae took the pill and fiddled with the round barley lump, just as the old man had.
But he still couldn't comprehend the old man's final words.
*
After the day he brought rice balls and they talked, Hong Geolgae started visiting the old man every day.
Now that he knew the old man wasn't some demon, he no longer worried about getting caught and causing trouble.
After several trips back and forth to Repentance Cave, Hong Geolgae naturally got the chance to learn martial arts from the old man.
But recalling how Dang Mujin had nearly run into problems practicing Shadowless Thousand Palms and White Lotus Divine Fist, Hong Geolgae hesitated to dive in fully.
Not even a day passed before the old man noticed his unease.
"What's wrong?"
"My friend once said that if you secretly learn Shaolin martial arts without proper training and get caught, your meridians snap."
The old man chuckled as if it were a ridiculous worry.
"Am I not your master too?"
"If you pass away, who's left to vouch for me?"
"No need to worry. It's a technique no one knows, so no one will find out. Even the abbot wouldn't recognize it if you demonstrated it right in front of him."
"A technique no one knows?"
"Exactly. It's Shaolin martial arts laced with my own insights."
The old man spoke with such confidence that Hong Geolgae decided to learn it, figuring he had nothing to lose.
But the martial art the old man taught had two major flaws.
First, its difficulty was extraordinarily high. Second, despite that difficulty, its practicality was abysmal.
'Well, refining established martial arts isn't for just anyone.'
One person creates a martial art, but over generations, its forms evolve gradually.
No one sets out to overhaul it. Countless practitioners refine and polish it naturally through practice and transmission.
That's why sects with deep histories boast the most powerful techniques.
But if one or two overconfident souls try to "improve" it, disaster follows.
Nine times out of ten, the forms become unbalanced, and it's not improvement—it's regression.
The old man's art was precisely that.
It wasn't pure fist technique, nor leg work. Not body movement or lightness skill either. A muddled mishmash.
It was so devoid of merits that it was almost wondrous.
'Wondrous enough to be fun, at least.'
Hong Geolgae finished training, chatted at length with the old man, then returned to the guesthouse.
It was a time when it should have been empty, but for some reason, Namgung Myeong—and even Dang Mujin—were there.
Hong Geolgae asked Namgung Myeong,
"What's this? Why are you here?"
Dang Mujin answered for him.
"He caused trouble down in the village and got chased back to Shaolin!"
Hong Geolgae nodded knowingly, and Namgung Myeong looked exasperated.
"...Does that even make sense?"
Hong Geolgae grinned. *You? Totally.*
Namgung Myeong explained in an aggrieved tone.
"That's not it. The innkeeper said he's closing shop for a while. No one to impose on, and I can't sleep on the streets, so I had no choice but to come back."
"Why close?"
"Ingredient prices skyrocketed; he can't run the inn anymore. I told him not to worry about my bill and keep going, but he shut down today anyway."
Namgung Myeong grumbled on for quite a while after.
Hong Geolgae let it go in one ear and out the other, his thoughts drifting to the yellowed, dying barley in one corner of Repentance Cave.