WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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Chapter 160: In 1934, the Regressed Gangwon Hunter (1)
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Life was like a bubble that rose with a bloop from deep beneath the water.
The silence was as deep and long as the water itself. Life was merely a miracle that briefly rose between them.
Sleep was sinking shallowly into that water.
To sink completely was death.
Swept along by the current, Han San opened his eyes amid the raging torrent.
Toward the wildly rippling world outside, Splash! Han San reached out.
Cough.
The moment he opened his mouth, air rushed into his lungs, and he had to cough several more times.
That was when he heard a voice.
“San!”
It was his mother.
His mother threw her arms around him. The wet towel slipped off her son’s forehead.
“Mother.”
When he looked around, his father was there too. He sat right beside the bed, his bandaged arm resting on his knee. The moment their eyes met, he gave a small nod.
“Father.”
Only then did it feel real.
Middle Hamlet, Sebeom Valley. Late July, 1934. He was lying in the inner room of the Han estate.
Here and now, Han San broke into a broad smile.
“Good morning.”
The answer that came flying at him was a slap to the back.
“You little brat! What do you mean, good morning?!
It’s been three days, three days! Your fever was burning like a furnace! You scared your poor mother half to death!”
Smack! His mother struck him, hugged him, then struck him again. Her son took it all with a grin.
“That’s enough, that’s enough. I’m completely fine now.”
“Fine, my foot! You, you stay in bed! Until you’re fully recovered...”
“Ah, I told you, I’m better. Look!”
Han San sat up.
His knees made no sound. Neither did his back. His shoulder hurt a little, but it was not the joint pain that had plagued him for decades. A rock had struck him while he was hunting the Mountain Lord.
‘I’ve been shot before. A rock is nothing.’
He stretched.
“Let’s eat first!”
At the table, Han San heard about everything that had happened. Mostly from his mother.
“The rain’s stopped completely. The water’s all drained away too... Your mother went around and checked, and our village came through safely. A few parts of Lower Hamlet and Upper Hamlet collapsed, but...”
“And?”
“That tiger you caught is in front of the Seonangdang shrine tree. Elder Imok and your father’s friends brought it over... You can look at it later.”
“Huh? You didn’t take care of it first? With this weather and humidity, won’t it spoil...?”
“Do you think your mother didn’t say that? Your father said to wait until you woke up.”
Han San looked at his father, who nodded.
“Well, Father must have had a reason.”
“Oh, Mother, look at this brat. When his mother says something, he asks why on earth we did that! But now that his father did it, suddenly Father must have had a reason. How is your poor mother supposed to live without feeling wronged?”
“Come on, why would you say that? Your son was wrong, Mother. Here, here.”
Han San swiftly deployed his shoulder-massage breathing technique. After enjoying the massage for a while, Ham Ssang-sim continued.
“Elder Imok and your father’s friends are in the men’s quarters.”
“They are?”
“We don’t know what will happen to that Yun Cheom-ji fellow. Getting shot at his age... Baechil’s mother is watching over him and treating him, but he is old, after all.
Goodness, those awful bastards. Upper Hamlet is a complete mess.”
Han San paused.
“No one else was hurt?”
“That’s right. Thank goodness for that.”
“...I see. What else?”
“You know those awful bastards? Elder Imok and your father’s friends dealt with every last one of them in the end. Including the ones who ran away.”
Han San resumed massaging his mother’s shoulders.
“Yes.”
“They’ve all been put in the storehouse. Your father says he and Elder Imok will handle it, but...”
Han San did not ask what exactly had been put away.
“I’ll take a look. Things like this are men’s work, and I’m a man too. This is exactly what I ought to do.”
Han San puffed out his chest as he spoke, but while Ham Ssang-sim might have accepted handling the corpses herself or having her husband do it, she did not want her son touching human corpses. All she could do was sigh several times.
Han San put an arm around her shoulders.
“It’s all right, Mother. I’ll take care of everything. You trust your son, right?”
At his firm words, Ham Ssang-sim sighed but nodded.
“Goodness, yes. Big matters are yours to handle...”
“Of course. Is there anything else I should know?”
“In Inje, that airplane, the one that flies around. It took off, they say. Hong-cheol came ahead to tell us. They said that lady you brought here before, the one with the camera, was on it.”
“Miss Aya...”
A different kind of smile touched Han San’s lips. Just slightly.
“Also... Hong-cheol came ahead to tell us this too. Jaeseok will be coming this way soon.
They say someone who might be military police will come with him.”
“Military police, huh.”
Several reasons came to mind as to why they might be coming, but he would find out when they arrived.
After heartily eating the meal his mother had prepared, Han San rose.
“All right, then. Let’s deal with things one at a time!”
“Take it easy. You just woke up, you brat. There’s no medicine for indigestion.”
“I’m fine, I’m fine. I’ll be going now, Mother!”
Han San left the inner room.
The first place he visited was the storehouse.
Han San took Myo Gang there with him.
“Mr. Myo Gang. I heard what you did this time. You did well, didn’t you? Just as expected of our Business Development Outer Elder. I think we can call you our Business Development Inner Elder now. No, our Business Development Protector.”
Han’s Myriad Commerce followed its own management path, using various internal titles alongside ordinary positions such as assistant manager, manager, section chief, department head, and director.
In any case, an Inner Elder sounded higher than an Outer Elder, and Protector sounded cooler than Elder. So long as the chain of command was clear, the names did not really matter.
Myo Gang had come over from a place where titles such as do-yusa, Yeongchunsa, and Thunderbolt Master had been common. He felt exactly the same way. Vibes were what mattered when you worked.
“It was only my loyal devotion to the sect, President-Sect Leader, sir!”
“Right, right. Hmm. First, we need to sort them.”
Han Man-seok was a hunter, and the Inwang Gang was a band of robbers. Thanks to their exceptionally thorough preservation, the corpses had not spoiled too badly even in this season.
“Set aside the bodies of the men in white separately. Especially that one. Was he the head seat of the Thunderbolt Masters?”
Myo Gang, a former Yeongchunsa of Baekbaekgyo, nodded enthusiastically.
“Yes! That bastard was a real corpse-burying Taoist. Of course, before our lords of the Inwang Gang, he was no more than a doenjang-smeared Tosa dog!”
“Good. Take special care to set that one aside.”
Once the Baekbaekgyo men had been separated out, the Upper Hamlet palanquin bearers remained.
Han San looked down at them silently.
Palanquin bearer leader Park Il was the first one he saw.
Imok had captured Park Il alive for interrogation, and the Inwang Gang’s code was not generous enough to spare a prisoner once there was no more use for him.
Familiar faces lay in a row beside Park Il.
They were all from Sebeom Valley. Yet they had never truly been fellow villagers.
If anything, Han San completely agreed with Imok’s decision.
‘They dared break into our house.’
What would they have done without his uncles from the Inwang Gang?
‘One of Father or I would have stayed at home, I suppose... To prepare in case the tiger rushed into the village.’
In that case, they might somehow have protected the house, but they would not have been able to hunt the Mountain Lord.
Han San gave a firm order.
“Cover them with straw mats for now. Once we decide whether to bury or burn them, we can deal with them immediately.”
“Yes! Leave it to me!”
Han San patted the shoulder of the saluting Myo Gang and left the storehouse.
His next stops were Lower Hamlet and Upper Hamlet.
Han San gathered his mother’s relatives, including Ham Byeong-cheol.
“All right, nephews, follow Uncle Hong-cheol and work in Lower Hamlet.
Brother Byeong-cheol, take ten men to Upper Hamlet. Uncle Deok-tae will take point, and Baechil-hyung will be second. Brother Byeong-cheol, you’ll handle everyone under them.”
The Han family’s exclusive labor force, his mother’s relatives, was divided up like that.
Ham Byeong-cheol rubbed his hands together without the slightest complaint.
“Ah, little brother. What are you saying! Just leave it to me!”
Working at the forced-labor camp known as the dried-pollack racks had taught Ham Byeong-cheol that rest was more important than money. Watching the Baekbaekgyo remnants and the palanquin bearers get dealt with had taught him one more thing.
Life was more important than rest!
So Ham Byeong-cheol kept rubbing his hands together as he said,
“Still, little brother, we ought to check on the drying racks too...”
Han San grinned at his cousin, fully charged with the desire to work.
“Come on, the drying racks can wait. We won’t start them up again until after winter anyway, so it’s fine to put that off. Besides, where people live is more important.”
“That’s right, that’s right! My little brother sees straight through heavenly secrets!”
“What heavenly secrets? Here, this is a special bonus.”
Han San took out five won and handed it to Ham Byeong-cheol.
Even though he had reset his priorities to life > rest > money, money was still the third most important thing in Ham Byeong-cheol’s life. He beamed as he pocketed it.
Only then did a question occur to him.
“But little brother! Why do you keep giving me five won every time you see me?”
“Haha.”
Han San had no intention of ever explaining. He simply patted Mr. Five Won on the shoulder and left.
His next destination was Yun Cheom-ji’s house.
“Grandfather is still lying down.”
A sickroom had been set up in the men’s quarters. In the room where the old man had remained shut in for nearly a year, the woman he had all but driven out was now nursing him.
Sixteen-year-old Shin Cheol-min could not take his eyes off the men’s quarters.
“He woke up briefly yesterday, but... he lost consciousness again soon after. My mother and father are helping Baechil-hyung’s mother care for him too, but...”
“Cheol-min.”
Han San patted his shoulder. His gaze toward the men’s quarters was complicated as well.
‘So he managed to do something like this.’
In his previous life, Yun Cheom-ji had bragged about wild ginseng after even selling off his dead wife. He had sat inside his walls, looking down at the places that had been washed away by the flood, and twisted the knife.
A man like that had managed to do this.
He had been capable of it.
‘Did he change?’
Had there been some reason for him to change?
The only difference from Han San’s previous life was that Yun Cheom-ji had been driven from his position as an oligarch.
And by his grandson’s hand, no less.
‘Something he would likely see as humiliation rather than an opportunity for reflection...’
But what had truly happened that night was different.
Han San had lived a long time. Whenever his expectations clashed with reality, he was always ready to respect reality.
Therefore, the lord of Middle Hamlet bowed deeply toward the men’s quarters and said,
“Thanks to your grandfather, we avoided a disaster.”
If Upper Hamlet had quietly fallen to Baekbaekgyo and Old Woman Wangdae that night, how would things have unfolded?
The Inwang Gang was staying at the Han estate. Even if Kim Gun-ok’s group and the palanquin bearers had launched a surprise raid, his mother would have been safe.
But...
“Upper Hamlet would have been ruined. Middle Hamlet and Lower Hamlet too... All the able-bodied men are down in Inje and Hongcheon right now.”
“...”
“I can’t promise that I’ll save him. I can only promise that I’ll do my best.”
That was something Han San could promise.
And also,
“If you need anything, tell me. Never try to solve things alone or suffer in silence.
I think I said something similar before, but I really mean it this time. Your grandfather is a righteous man who saved Upper Hamlet.”
Han San meant it sincerely, and that sincerity clearly reached the heart of the sixteen-year-old oligarch.
Shin Cheol-min nodded.
“Yes, San-hyung. I will.”
Then he carefully asked Han San,
“San-hyung, would it be all right if I asked you for something right away?”
“Sure. Ask for anything.”
When Han San smiled, Cheol-min took a breath.
Then, instead of looking toward the men’s quarters where his grandfather lay, he turned toward the Seonangdang shrine tree below.
“That night... Those men in white. The men who shot Grandfather shouted as they ran away. They were shouting about Old Woman Wangdae, about the Great Magistrate.”
Cheol-min took another breath and lowered his head. His eyes were hidden in the shadow cast by his bangs.
“Everyone heard them.”
“...”
“Uncle Baek the blacksmith, Uncle Jin Ssi, Uncle Ju Ssi. All the people of Upper Hamlet were there...”
Han San felt as though he could see the scene before him.
And everything that must have happened afterward.
“Uncle Baek took down all the cloth from the Seonangdang shrine tree at dawn the next day. Without saying a word.
Uncle Jin Ssi cried by himself, saying Old Woman Wangdae had sold out the village. Everyone else too... They keep asking what they are supposed to do now...”
Old Woman Wangdae had tried to hand Upper Hamlet over to outsiders. Yun Cheom-ji had been shot while trying to stop it.
Under ordinary circumstances, they might have been able to dress it up and get past it somehow. That was the almost magical advantage of a theocratic system.
But these were not ordinary circumstances. Park Il, Old Woman Wangdae’s loyal servant and leader of the palanquin bearers, was dead. So were the palanquin bearers.
Old Woman Wangdae herself was dead as well.
As a result,
“Everyone spits on the Seonangdang shrine tree. At Old Woman Wangdae’s shrine too. That young shaman has shut themselves inside her shrine...”
Upper Hamlet’s theocratic system had collapsed completely.
As its natural consequence, Upper Hamlet had fallen into a complete political vacuum and chaos...
Han San sighed.
“I understand, Cheol-min.”
“Hyung...”
“Your hyung will take care of everything.”
He stroked Cheol-min’s hair, and the lord of Middle Hamlet rose to his feet.
[The way to draw people’s attention is simple. You only need to show them the next leader.]
The time had come to become the king of Sebeom Valley.
Footnotes:
Tosa dog: A Korean dog breed whose name puns with the Korean word for “Taoist.”
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