WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Chapter 95: Chuseok in Sebeomgol (4)

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Middle Hamlet.

Thanks to Cheol-min standing up to Yun Cheom-ji, the ancestral rite preparations proceeded smoothly without a single mishap.

The trouble came after they had finished building the altar.

"But Sajang, what are we supposed to put on the altar?"

Chuk Hong-cheol, head hired hand of the Han household and chief employee of Han's Myriad Commerce, asked the question. Ever since receiving Great Teacher Marx's opium treatment, he had become rather ignorant about necromancy and such matters.

Choi Seo-bang of Middle Hamlet scratched the back of his head.

"When we held it in Upper Hamlet, they had, well, a painting of a three-headed Mountain Lord, and some great mountain behind him, and some shiny thing glowing above that..."

"Really? Should we get one and put it up?"

"Why would we put some rubbish like that up?"

Han San frowned. Did he, who had to break some 【tribulation】 or other connected to the Great Flood of the Gap-sul Year, really need to bow to things like Tigerberuses?

"If there are people who want to enshrine it, then sure, we can put it up. But if we're only putting it up because it's always been there, let's put up something else instead."

The people of Middle Hamlet looked at one another.

"Come to think of it, does anyone here actually know what that painting means?"

"Well... at Old Woman Wangdae's exorcism rites, she did say something about how the King would reveal himself once the Three Great Lords fell."

"Isn't the King that three-headed tiger? What's supposed to fall, and what's supposed to reveal itself?"

"Who knows. We only cared about the ritual food whenever the holidays came around."

"Should we ask? There are a few Upper Hamlet people here right now."

As the discussion went in that direction, Deok-tae, who had come with his household's hired hands and was picking at the feast food, opened his mouth while seated cross-legged.

"Now then, you little friends of Middle Hamlet. If you are truly so curious, it would only be humane for me to tell you."

"We're not that curious... Ah, why do you look so gloomy? Fine, fine, ajae. Tell us."

"Ahem."

After drinking a cup of makgeolli Han San handed him, Deok-tae began to unfold his tale.

"First, the name of that scroll is the Mountain Lord and Star King Painting."

"The Mountain Lord and Star King Painting? A painting of the Mountain Lords and the Star King, is that it?"

"That's right. You know who the Three Mountain Lords are, don't you?

"The Water Tiger, the White Tiger, and the Fire Tiger. Those three Mountain Lords are not kings. They are the Great Lords who protect and guard the true King."

Han San's brow drew together.

"So they're just underlings, those tigers?"

"Ah, you little brat! That mouth of yours, honestly... Say they are three great and venerable shields and pillars who guard the little King."

The people of Middle Hamlet found the Upper Hamlet man's tale about the Mountain Lords fascinating.

"Huh! So that was it?"

"That's why they spoke of the tigers and the King separately."

"Wait a minute. Then is the mountain behind the three-headed tiger the King? Or is the shining thing above it the King?"

"If the mountain's the King, then I knew right away that our sajang and village head was a young wise king!"

"The Mountain King! Han San the King!"

The mood turned boisterous. Han San proudly grinned and waved to accept their cheers.

Deok-tae shook his head as if he had had enough.

"Good grief, you little fellows. The mountain is not the King. It is where the King resides.

"As little Choi Seo-bang said, the shining being above that mountain is the King protected by the Three Mountain Lords. Since the Three Great Lords guard him, no one can climb the mountain, and the King seated atop it can safely build his kingdom."

Hajama the Second looked amused after hearing Deok-tae's story.

"Interesting. While traveling for surveying, I have heard similar tales several times. This is no ordinary story. It is a folk myth handed down in each region."

Chuk Jae-seok adjusted his glasses as well.

"I don't know. To me, it feels rather refined, which makes me think it was created fairly recently.

"The part about three guardian deities may have been copied from the Bible. You know, the three wise men from the East who came to see the infant Jesus. Though I suppose the number three has held some kind of meaning everywhere, in both East and West, throughout all ages..."

One villager, who had been listening with great interest, asked a question.

"So what sort of person is that King? Why do the Mountain Lords guard him?"

"The King is an extraordinary being."

After taking a sip of makgeolli, Deok-tae became animated, gesturing with his hands and feet as though singing. No, it truly was a song.

"From this peak to that, he crosses in a single step.

"He plucks and shapes fruit, and it becomes a sword, an arrow, and armor.

"From starlings to squirrels, every beast in the mountain bows before him.

"Moon, set. Star, set. Set already.

"At last, the sun has risen..."

"Huh. Sounds just like those Christians talking about some savior or other."

Chuk Hong-cheol mocked it without thinking. Chuk Myeong-su, on the other hand, was interested in another part.

"So what sort of kingdom does this King with such great power build?"

At that question, Deok-tae hesitated. He scratched his bald head and rolled his tiny eyes.

"Who knows? Some immense paradise on earth, surely. Like you said, if he has powers that great, why would he build some little kingdom?"

"That is true..."

Some people nodded at Deok-tae's words, but Han San's brow remained furrowed.

'If he's such a great fellow, why is he being protected by a bunch of beasts? Like Jae-seok ajae said, it was wise men who protected baby Jesus.'

What was more, the Water Tiger, one of the Three Mountain Lords, was, according to Old Woman Wangdae, tied to the 【tribulation】 of the Great Flood of the Gapsul Year.

What connection could there possibly be between the Great Flood of the Gapsul Year and paradise on earth?

'Unless it's hell on earth.'

Even Old Woman Wangdae herself and Park Il, chief palanquin bearer, had not fully considered the guardian deity, the Mountain Lord, to be on their side.

The old hunter clearly remembered both of them wavering when he had cursed them, asking whether that Mountain Lord or whatever it was would really spare them.

A King protected by beings like that did not seem likely to be a wise ruler, as Deok-tae claimed...

'The Mountain Lords and the King.'

Then someone suddenly came to Han San's mind.

'Uncle Imok.'

His father's former superior. The man who said he had opened heaven at Baekdu and established a new court.

'The fan he carries has Clearing After Rain on Mount Inwang... Mount Inwang brings the tiger of Mount Inwang to mind. A King who carries around the home of the tiger of Mount Inwang, and a King atop a mountain guarded by the Three Mountain Lords... Could they be connected somehow?'

But there was a problem with that idea too.

'Still, the Inwang Gang gets wiped out...'

If Han San did nothing, was it not the fate of those old boys to have their base raided and vanish in a few years?

It was hard to imagine Father's friends possessing Tiger Shield +3...

As Han San pondered, the people of Middle Hamlet reached a conclusion about the Mountain Lord and Star King Painting.

"Deok-tae elder's story is interesting, but it still sounds rather far-fetched."

"Me too! That's what I thought!"

"The mysterious song that echoes around the Mountain Lord and Star King Painting...!"

They had all listened with interest, but that was all it was. No one suggested bringing over the Mountain Lord and Star King Painting to place on the altar anymore.

"Honestly, you little village people!"

Deok-tae only grumbled like that, though he seemed much more interested in the makgeolli and ritual food.

Chuk Hong-cheol vigorously scratched his head.

"But then what do we put up? Haven't we gone right back to where we started?"

After chatting about the Mountain Lord and Star King Painting, the sunset had already reached its final edge.

Han San decided to settle it simply.

"Well, why don't we all just put up whatever we each want to bow to?"

The simplest answer was sometimes the most effective.

"When I lived in Naju, whenever there was a village rite, we had Lord Guan Yu[1]!"

A thoroughly folded picture of Guan Yu, creased at least a hundred times over, was placed on the altar.

"My family was well regarded when we lived in Gyeongju generations ago. Those Upper Hamlet bastards wouldn't even have been able to look my great-great-grandfather in the eye back then."

A genealogy, impossible to tell whether genuine or fake, went up next.

"Can I put this up? It's a bowl passed down through the generations. I don't know what kind of bowl it is, but it's all I've got."

A ceramic bowl bearing the marks of time was placed there.

"I'm putting up a picture I drew!"

A family drawing by Jin-dong went up as well.

It showed Go Tae-chon, Go Jin-dong, and two women. One, with sleepy-looking eyes, seemed to be Mrs. Go. The other was a woman Han San had never seen before.

"Um, Sajang San... Would this be all right too?"

Even a cross was placed on the altar.

"Huh? Gomchi ajae, you believed in Jesus?"

"Ah, why say such hurtful things... I was even baptized at the Inje Methodist Church. There's Pastor Nam Cheon-u there, you see."

Pi Sun-dae also seemed dumbfounded to hear that one of their bruisers attended church.

"Look at you, putting on airs. Gomchi, do you even know what makes that Methodist church different from other churches?"

"Well, I don't know that far... It was nearby and the building looked nice, so I picked it. Doesn't every church lead to heaven, hyung? Or do I have to match odds and evens again to figure out which church goes to heaven?"

Once the cross was placed there, the Chuk Brothers set a picture of some bearded foreigner beside it.

"Head hired hand, who's this foreigner?"

"Hm... He's someone, all right. Have you ever heard someone say that a specter is haunting Europe?"

"Ah! He must be a man who catches ghosts!"

More precisely, he was the man who had created that specter, but Chuk Hong-cheol, catching Han San's eye, vaguely brushed it aside. Instead, he discreetly placed a hammer and a butcher's knife behind the foreigner's picture.

"Now it's complete."

While the Chuk Brothers snickered beside them, Choi Seo-bang and Park Seo-bang quietly placed something on the altar.

"Why are you putting that photograph up!?"

What horrified Han San was a photograph taken with Sawada.

"No. Since our village's young wise king is holding this rite, I knew right away we should bow to the young wise king."

"Me too! I knew it right away."

The two answered shamelessly, and Han San was dumbfounded.

"Isn't an ancestral rite for bowing to dead people? Can you put a photograph of living people on the altar?"

The two hesitated for an instant at those words, then continued shamelessly.

"Then let's say we're bowing to the Japanese officer in the picture with you. So he'll hurry up and go to the next world. Sajang can receive all the blessings he ought to have enjoyed in this life, including that fellow's share."

"Whatever blessings that man has probably amount to nothing... Mine might get sucked away instead..."

Han San only sighed and said no more.

Of course, he knew. The villagers simply wanted an excuse to place him somewhere high.

What could he do? As their lord, he had no choice but to accept it.

At last, Han San brought something and placed it atop the chaotic ancestral altar, which had gone beyond a mixed stew and become a terrible hodgepodge.

Han Bada's eyes widened.

"Hyung, that's..."

"Yeah."

It was a family photograph of the Han household.

When Tsuchikaku had come and gone several times, Han San had personally asked him to take a photograph of just the four of them, Han San, Han Bada, their father, and their mother.

'Because in my past life, we did not have even one.'

He had paid generously and taken several photographs, then had the best one developed. He had brought the photograph, carefully displayed in a frame, to place here.

'I had not planned to put it up...'

Again, was it not ominous to put a photograph of living people on the ancestral table?

But after seeing the villagers put up a photograph of himself with Sawada, he had thought, ah, hell, and decided to put it up.

'Come to think of it, we are not Yun Cheom-ji's household. What use are all the old procedures? Whether it is a feast or an ancestral rite, it is only for the sake of living people anyway...

'Ah, living people... and mountain people. San saram and sansaram.[3] What a funny joke. I must immediately share this Hangawi special with everyone in the village...'

"Son..."

At his mother's voice, Han San put off his joke plan.

He smiled and looked back at his mother, father, and younger brother.

Then he bowed.

"Please be happy from now on too."

"Ah, no! Y-you brat, saying something so embarrassing in front of everyone..."

His mother waved her hands in flustered protest, but his father nodded once.

Then he said.

"You must be happy."

Han San grinned.

"I will."

He absolutely would.

After rising with his resolve strengthened, Han San finally turned to the villagers and Hajama Tsuchikaku, who stood there with a camera.

'Maybe I should have invited that young lady Ayame too.'

The thought briefly crossed his mind, but he shook his head. There was no business to discuss, and it would not do to make a young lady travel all the way to a mountain village like this.

Han San, sajang of Han's Myriad Commerce, lord of Middle Hamlet, and eldest son of the Han household, opened his mouth.

"All right, then!

"Everyone, you all worked hard!

"Keep your spirits up from here on out too!"

Then Han San and the others shouted together.

"No more, no less!"

"May every day be like Hangawi!"

At that moment, Hajama Tsuchikaku pressed the shutter.

Click, flash!

On October 4, 1933, the Han household's ancestral table and Hangawi celebration were preserved in a photograph.

The day after Chuseok had passed.

Upper Hamlet's great hall.

"Did you see those lowborn bastards holding their rite? It was awfully grand."

"The laughing, shouting, drinking, and singing, how many times did it interrupt our Mountain Lord and Star King Festival?"

The Upper Hamlet oligarchs had gathered in the great hall and grumbled among themselves.

"What in the world is Yun Cheom-ji doing? He said he would devise a plan to make them fight and tear at each other, but the only thing that ended up like dried bar snacks after being chewed apart was our reputation."

"That's what I mean. Why is he so late?"

"Looks like he knows enough to be ashamed. He has been nowhere in sight since last evening, and that young Cheol-min took charge of preparing the rite in his place. Now this too..."

That was when they heard footsteps.

"Yun Cheom-ji? You're only arriving now..."

But the Upper Hamlet oligarchs fell silent when they saw who had appeared.

It was not Yun Cheom-ji, but Cheol-min.

"My grandfather is getting on in years now."

Fifteen-year-old Cheol-min entered with the hired hands Yun Cheom-ji had commanded in tow, then sat in Yun Cheom-ji's place.

"He has decided to rest for a while."

Blank expressions passed over the Upper Hamlet oligarchs' faces.

Their households had enough means that they had studied history, and they understood what this situation meant.

Yi Seong-gye and Yi Bang-won!

Yun Cheom-ji had been Taejoed[2], abruptly reduced to an old man in the back room, while Cheol-min had Taejonged, taken over his power, and come here!

"Do not worry. I will take Grandfather's place."

And here, the inherent limit of an oligarchy revealed itself.

An oligarchy was, in the end, an association of independent powers.

If the people who had followed Yun Cheom-ji, even his direct hired hands, stepped forward to serve young master Cheol-min, then from that moment Cheol-min became the oligarch of that power.

And the new oligarch opened his first meeting with these words.

"I do not see a reason to keep competing with Middle Hamlet. What do you think?"

Mr. Baek the blacksmith clicked his tongue.

'This... is over.'

Upper Hamlet's oligarch council had already been divided between moderate and hard-line factions, unable to unite as one. Now, an additional young oligarch friendly to Han San had joined them.

It was no different from Upper Hamlet as a whole being one step away from being Taejoed[2], not just Yun Cheom-ji.

'Perhaps it has already happened...'

Regret filled Mr. Baek the blacksmith's chest.

'Should I try to reconnect with the Han household even now? Things grew strained over that joint-work job, but Park Il was the one who ordered it, and in the end it had only been an attempt. If I go and lower my head a little...'

And Mr. Baek was not the only one having such thoughts.

'Come to think of it, the Han household was not quite as lowborn as all that.'

'They even took a photograph with a military police officer. Their influence is tremendous...'

'Where have Old Woman Wangdae and Park Il gone? They have not been seen lately. Even this Mountain Lord and Star King Festival was held by that young shaman.'

Power, in every case, was simply power.

There was no good or evil. No loyalty or devotion.

Was a company's purpose to pursue profit? No. A company existed for what its sajang wanted to do.

Was a kingdom's purpose to pursue national peace and prosperity? No. A kingdom existed for what its king wanted to do.

If they could enjoy their present status, what did Upper Hamlet matter?

But by the same principle.

'Hmm. Yun Cheom-ji was not enough.'

If there was a person in power who wanted to sabotage another by any means, then power served that purpose as well.

'The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Matthew 9:37. I was planning to visit Mogok School soon anyway. I should meet that fellow Guhwan.'

Father Cho touched the cross at his chest and licked his lips.

'Let us go ask for workers.'

To Chuncheon.

At the same time, Han San, having finished Hangawi, stretched.

"Good! Everyone rested well, right?"

He grinned and shouted.

"Now let's move on to bigger waters!"

To Chuncheon!

Footnotes:

[1] Lord Guan Yu was a third-century Chinese general later venerated across East Asia as a deity of loyalty, martial valor, and commerce.

[2] “Taejoed” and “Taejonged” play on the succession from Yi Seong-gye, founder of Joseon, to his son Yi Bang-won, who seized control of the royal court. Here, being “Taejoed” means being sidelined like an aging founder, while being “Taejonged” means taking power from an elder ruler.

[3] In Korean, san saram means “a living person,” while the unspaced sansaram means “a mountain person.”

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