WeTried Translations

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◈ Raised by a Ruthless Swordsman ◈

Chapter 27: Setting Sail

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Old, single-story houses lined the street, with tattered little flags advertising liquor or noodles hanging from them. In every doorway, people who might have been boatmen or porters sat with their shirts hanging open, cradling bowls of noodles.

Dirty water gleamed on the road. I picked my way around the splashes.

The street looked far worse than Geonnyeong's. Perhaps because it stood beside the river.

Beyond that, warehouses took over for some distance. Every door stood open, their interiors piled to the ceiling with sacks and crates. Porters carrying shoulder poles streamed in and out before them.

"One! Two!"

The calls counting cargo and the clatter of abacus beads filled the street in place of flags.

Now and then, among the warehouses, I saw houses with signs painted with pictures of ships beneath their eaves.

I wondered what they did until I saw a figure in a long robe arguing with someone dressed as a boatman over freight charges in front of one such house. They seemed to be brokers who matched cargo to ships and took a commission.

But as I went farther toward the city gate, the street gradually changed.

Tile-roofed houses with second floors began to appear, one after another. The signs were no longer tattered flags, but lacquered wooden plaques inlaid with gold lettering.

The passersby were dressed differently as well. Silk appeared here and there among the plain cotton clothes, and people holding teacups leaned against second-floor railings to look down at the street.

I ought to take back what I had thought about this place being worse than Geonnyeong.

Then again, it made sense once I thought about it. The city gate was a choke point that everyone entering or leaving the city had to pass through. Even a single room would cost differently depending on its location.

Fine houses stood in expensive places, and silk-clad customers entered fine houses.

Which meant our inn stood in the cheapest spot on this street. Thinking of how Du Gi had led the way there without a word of complaint, though he surely knew, made me snort.

Well, the more money we saved, the better.

Reaching Yeongpa would not be the end of it. I could not suddenly show up after ten years and add another mouth to feed. I intended to live off the money pouch until I found a way to support myself.

And there was Yeona, too.

She had been seven when I left, so she would be seventeen now. Old enough that she might have married long ago. If she had not, I could not send her off empty-handed.

I remembered an older girl who had married into the house next door when I was young. Her family had been poor, so she had arrived with nothing, and her mother-in-law berated her every day for it. Yet whenever she saw me by the well with her eyes swollen from crying, she always smiled.

How was she living now?

Whether it was clothes or bedding, I had to provide as much as other families did, so Yeona would not suffer the same fate. I did not know how much it would cost, but the silver ingots in my money pouch should be enough to put together something respectable.

I stopped there. It had been ten years since I had even seen my sister's face, and here I was worrying about the dowry of a sister who might not even recognize me.

I continued on.

The area before the city gate was the most crowded part of the street. Lines of people entering and leaving through the wide-open gate tangled together, while two soldiers at the entrance occasionally inspected luggage, just as they had in Geonnyeong.

Stalls selling ingredients and flatbread lined the roadside, and on one side, a medicine peddler had gathered people in a circle and was loudly hawking something.

I skirted that commotion and turned into an alley that branched off along the city wall.

The moment I entered, the street changed again.

There were no lacquered signs or silk hems. Beneath soot-stained awnings lay the smells of wood shavings and horse dung.

On both sides stood shops replacing cart wheels, stables where mules were tied, cooperages, and the like.

And just as the waiter had said, the sounds greeted me first. Puff, puff, went the bellows, as the pounding of iron kept time.

The deeper I went into the alley following those sounds, the sharper the smells of charcoal and iron became. Before long, only a few houses in from the alley entrance, I found a place with its doors thrown wide open.

Sickles, hoes, axes, and other tools hung in rows along the walls. In one corner, several spear shafts and bladed weapons hung separately.

This seemed to be the place the waiter had mentioned.

A red glow flickered from the forge at the back. A shaggy-haired figure beside it kept working the bellows, while a man wearing only a leather apron over his bare chest hammered a heated lump of iron before an anvil.

Sparks flew in every direction with every blow.

When I stepped inside, the man stopped hammering and looked my way. The bellows continued.

When I said I wanted to buy a sword, he pointed at the wall in the corner with his chin and picked up his hammer again.

"Those are all the swords I have for sale right now."

There were three swords hanging there. I took them down one by one and held them. All three were much the same. One was blade-heavy, another was weighted toward the hilt, and the last had its balance ever so slightly off.

Their lengths were all different too, too short or too long. None pleased me much.

There was nothing like Hyeonam's sword, whose weight had rested evenly in my palm. When I asked if he had anything else, the man answered without stopping his hammering.

"What do you expect from swords hanging on a wall for sale? For something like that, you pick the iron yourself and have one forged separately. If you order one, it'll take fifteen days."

Then he gestured at my waist with his chin.

"Besides, it looks like you're already wearing one."

He did not seem to expect an answer. He only shrugged once and raised his hammer again. Perhaps he meant that if I was going to find fault for no reason, I should not buy anything.

Fifteen days. That was too long when I did not know when I would board a ship.

With no other choice, I chose the hilt-heavy one, whose length felt closest to the sword I was used to. The sword cost two taels, and I added one hundred cash for a wooden scabbard wrapped in leather.

Still, knowing the fair price beforehand certainly put my mind at ease. Having a measure for whether the asking price was a rip-off made all the difference.

While I was traveling with Du Gi, I should ask about and remember as many things like this as I could.

With the new sword at my waist, I left the smithy.

After only a few steps, I realized how ridiculous I looked. One sword on one side of my waist, another on the other. I looked exactly like some drifter with two swords dangling from me.

I happened to be near the stalls before the city gate. At a fabric stall, I bought a length of coarse hemp cloth and some cord for twenty cash.

Squatting by the roadside, I unfastened Hyeonam's sword and wrapped it in the cloth. I wound it from hilt to scabbard tip, then tied it tightly with the cord. It became a long bundle that could have been a sword or a stick. I slung it diagonally across my back.

That looked much better. I was a traveler with a sword at my waist and a stick on my back instead of a bundle.

I was heading back toward the inn when I saw familiar indigo cotton clothes emerge from one of the respectable two-story inns before the city gate.

The man who had gone to ask about passage on a ship. What was he doing here? The dock should have been far down toward the river.

"Brother Du!"

Perhaps my voice reached him. Du Gi looked around, spotted me, and crossed through the crowd. He looked from what I carried on my back to the new sword at my waist, then nodded.

"Did you find a good sword?"

"I found one that will do. But why are you coming out of here? Weren't you going to ask about passage?"

"I did."

Du Gi answered as if it were nothing, then pointed his thumb at the inn he had just left.

"This is the Haomun branch in Guju."

Haomun. Another name I had never heard before. Perhaps he read it on my face, because Du Gi clicked his tongue.

"If you're going to wear a sword, it looks like you still have much to learn."

He started walking toward the dock and explained as we went.

Waiters, porters, boatmen, courtesans, beggars. Haomun was a network, not quite a martial sect, made up of those entangled together at the bottom of society.

It was not famous for martial arts, but there was nowhere its feet did not reach and nowhere its ears did not hear. For the right price, it could provide news, directions, or even people.

"You might learn about ships by wandering the docks for half a day, but here, it takes no more than the price of a cup of tea. Fortunately, a ship leaves for Hangzhou early tomorrow morning. I've already reserved us places."

It made sense once I heard it. If I had not, I might never have known for the rest of my life. It also meant that all those countless faces I had passed at inns and markets could be someone's ears.

The thought sent a quiet chill down the back of my neck. I fixed it firmly in my mind.

Had Abok belonged to Haomun as well? There was no way to know.

We returned to the inn together, agreed to meet downstairs that evening, and went our separate ways to our rooms.

The rooms were side by side at the end of the second-floor corridor. Inside, mine was much like the room at the inn in Geonnyeong. A narrow floor, one set of bedding, one lamp, and one small window. Inn rooms looked much the same wherever one went.

I firmly bolted the door, placed my two swords side by side near my head, and sat cross-legged on the bedding.

I steadied my breathing and sent my energy along the path I always used. From my dantian, up my spine to the crown of my head. Down past my face and chest, then back to my dantian.

Perhaps because the vessel had been empty to the bottom, I could feel it filling more clearly with each cycle than usual. Even so, it was still slow.

After circulating it for about four hours, I stopped my energy circulation at the sound of the downstairs growing noisy with evening customers. I went down, had a simple meal with Du Gi, who had arrived first, then returned to my room and sat cross-legged again.

A little over another four hours.

Before lying down, I quietly looked into my dantian. Even after spending half a day on it, it had filled only a little over twenty percent.

Still, having even a little was worlds apart from having none. Only the day before yesterday, that twenty percent had nearly been the difference between life and death.

I pulled both swords within reach and blew out the lamp.

We had to board the ship early the next morning. When I lay down on the bedding, simply feeling something other than frozen earth beneath my back made my body melt into rest. Before long, the noise downstairs faded far away.

* * *

I woke to murmuring voices.

It was still dim outside the window, but the street was already awake. The creak of shoulder poles, the sounds of cargo being unloaded, and shouted calls rose together through the dawn gloom.

Half asleep, I thought the sounds seemed strangely familiar.

When I considered why, they felt somewhat like the dawns of my hometown that I only faintly remembered.

I got up.

The ship was said to leave around sunrise, so if I went downstairs now, I should have time for a light meal.

Lamps were already lit downstairs. I found a seat among the few travelers waiting to take early ships and ordered two bowls of porridge.

Before the bowls even arrived, Du Gi came down the stairs. He appeared to have woken to the noise as well.

Millet porridge with a few strips of pickled greens. The two of us slurped through our bowls, paid, and stood.

As we were leaving, Du Gi stopped before the hearth by the door. He said we would have to take care of our own meals aboard the ship during the day. So we each had three flatbreads wrapped in cloth.

When we stepped outside, the same street sounds we had heard upstairs greeted us.

Scattered lamps beneath the eaves lit the still-dark road, while shadows carrying shoulder poles all flowed toward the river. White breath rose with every exhale.

We joined that flow and headed down toward the river.

The docks at dawn were remarkably busy. Torches flickered along every pier, and beneath their light, porters went up and down planks in lines.

As sacks and crates were stacked one after another into the hold, someone standing by the rail shouted instructions and pointed out where the cargo should go.

Du Gi narrowed his eyes and looked around, then led the way to one of the boats. It was a cargo vessel with one mast and a broad, flat bottom.

Du Gi exchanged a few words with the boatman and paid the fare. One hundred and fifty cash per person. About the price of one outfit to be carried all the way to Hangzhou.

Was that cheap, or expensive?

We waited until all the cargo had been loaded, then boarded last. There were no proper seats, so I sat with my back against the sacks near the stern.

While the boatmen gathered the anchor ropes, I idly gazed toward the streets beyond the docks.

In the dawn gloom, a covered cart entered the dockside street through the lines of people carrying shoulder poles. There were perhaps five or six people accompanying it. A figure in a long robe and a broad-brimmed hat stood at the front, while people dressed as laborers pulled and pushed the cart behind. It looked like an ordinary merchant's procession.

I was about to look away, but for some reason, I could not easily take my eyes from it.

What was it? What was different?

I narrowed my eyes and watched for a moment before realizing that it was their way of walking.

The strides of those dressed as laborers were all even, as if measured with a ruler. Their backs did not bend like those of porters carrying shoulder poles, but remained straight. Their clothes were those of porters without question, but their steps belonged to entirely different people.

And one broad-shouldered silhouette among them stood out in particular.

Before I knew it, my hand reached out and tapped Du Gi's sleeve. When he turned, I silently pointed toward them with my chin.

Du Gi watched that way for a long while.

"······What do you think?"

"I don't know. They do not seem to be an ordinary merchant's procession."

As we both watched them for some time, a boatman finally shouted something and began gathering the rope at the bow.

Creak, the boat scraped away from the pier. Then the deck beneath my feet lurched hard.

I nearly fell sideways from the sudden motion and quickly grabbed the sack beside me. Looking down, I saw one of the boatmen driving a pole deep into the riverbed to push us away.

The rise and fall as the water lifted and dropped the boat seemed to awaken memories I had forgotten.

I raised my head and looked toward the docks again.

As our boat turned toward the middle of the river, the procession had stopped before one of the piers. The figure in the long robe stood facing someone by the rail, and soon the cart led the people dressed as laborers one by one up the planks.

They were taking this waterway as well. Could that really be the protection convoy?

If it was them, where had all those people gone? Had those Mount Hua Sect bastards gotten every last one of them? Then again, they seemed entirely capable of it.

Gwak Seok and Jin Song's faces passed through my mind. All I could do was hope they were among those five or six beside the cart.

As that happened, the shore moved farther away, and the river mist spread across the water, gradually erasing the procession. The pier, the shadows climbing the planks, all soon vanished beyond a pale curtain.

Only then did I turn my eyes to the receding city.

Gray tile roofs floated like islands above the river mist, with the city wall stretched long behind them. Only the torches at the docks spread as scattered points of light through the fog, making the entire city look as though it were steaming.

As the current quickened, the sound of water striking the hull continued in rapid little bursts.

At last, when the river rounded a great bend, Guju, which had grown smaller and smaller, disappeared completely from sight.

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