The Mountain Estate — In Search of a Hiding Place
"Scholar Yu! Scholar Yu!"
Startled by the call, he rose to his feet. Turning his head, he saw it was Gunmyeong. A short distance from the campsite, on a sun-warmed rock, So-un rubbed his face like a child just woken from sleep and turned his head. He truly was like a child roused from a nap.
"Yes, did you call me?"
As So-un stood, still looking half-asleep, Gunmyeong laughed lightly. The times when So-un sank into thought, staring blankly into space, had grown more frequent and longer. In those moments he always seemed a little lacking. Fresh green leaves trembled in a thin wind. It was partly because they had come south, but the season had already turned. One could stretch anywhere without strain. There was no need to hunch or stamp one's feet against the cold. It was weather fit simply for being alive in nature.
At times he looked as though some hidden worry weighed on his heart; at others he seemed vacant, as if he had cast everything aside. He was impossible to read. There had even been instructions to leave him alone when he grew like that. Yet when he looked too foolish, concern would win out, and someone would call him back.
"What are you doing? I didn't just call you—I shouted. I've been calling for a while and you didn't answer. What are you doing? Is something wrong? Are you tired? Troubled?"
Gunmyeong remembered So-un's past. Because he could not forget the misery the boy must have endured in a child's body, he could not help worrying whenever So-un's expression grew grave. So-un gave him a loose, boyish smile.
"What would I have to be tired about? It's just that lately things feel different… It's hard to explain clearly. I'm not suffering, nor is anything difficult. It's more like… something has changed. I don't know what, but it's different. Please don't worry without cause."
"How can I not worry? You have to grow up quickly, establish the Yu clan estate, defeat the barbarians, and even pass the metropolitan examination. Who can do all three? When I see you sitting there blankly, I wonder if you're thinking about that. I wish you could just be a child—like last night. Laughing and talking."
So-un's face grew serious. He leaned forward slightly, eyes widening, wondering if he had made some mistake. He recalled the previous night. As his studies deepened, what looked different to others appeared the same to him. Or rather, it looked flat. Distinctions faded, hierarchies dissolved, because the reasons that made things valuable grew thin. To look was ultimately a matter of value. The myriad phenomena before his eyes seemed futile. He was looking toward the Way and its ultimate end. To the hungry, things appear as food; to the freezing, as firewood.
Seeing that vacant gaze, Gunmyeong wondered what lay beyond it. He glanced behind the tree trunk at his back and then followed So-un's wandering eyes. There was nothing there. He was looking at nothing. It was a gaze that did not cling to the shapes caught on the retina. It went beyond them. Perhaps he was listening to the sighs within his own chest.
The hour when sunlight caresses the leaves is a peaceful one. It lasts only a short while in the morning. Soon the wind will rise and rain will sweep in. Such is human existence—we cannot remain in what is pleasant.
Words that rise from sincerity are often simple.
"Did something happen last night? Did I make a mistake?"
"Mistake? Heh. If you call that a mistake, then yes. You turned the whole mountain into scorched earth. If I were the mountain's owner, I wouldn't have stayed still."
Gunmyeong remembered the night before. Awakened by the sound of trees falling, he had run up the slope. There, amid the shattered trunks of towering trees, So-un stood alone.
Woodcutter Yu So-un.
For something done while refining a saber technique, it had gone too far. Great trees were cut clean at the base, flattening a deep forest into open ground. Branches had been chopped neatly into firewood. He had done it and did not even realize he had. The dense undergrowth stood in stark contrast to the long corridor of felled trees.
"Ah, the mountain's owner? Does a mountain have an owner?"
That was So-un's way. There were many common things he did not know. His youth explained some of it, but his tendency to see things only in their straightest form made him seem even more naive. So he asked. Perhaps he assumed there was no owner—but perhaps, in his innocence, he thought there might be.
He had always believed mountains had no master. They simply existed, belonging to no one. So the word "owner" struck him as strange.
"Of course it has an owner. You didn't know?"
"Who would that be? This mountain… I damaged it yesterday. That worries me."
"You don't know the owner? The tiger. King of the mountain—Sanjung Ji-wang (山中之王)."
"Ah, I thought you meant something serious. A tiger? Heh."
Even after confirming that nothing was wrong, Gunmyeong's heart did not ease. Seeing So-un sitting alone in the empty forest, blank and still, made him overlay the image with the boy's earlier misfortune. He feared that stillness might hide sorrow.
"It's nothing serious. When I look back at yesterday and the day before, everything feels new. Yet something seems almost within reach, almost understandable, and then it fades like mist. So I sit like this, lost in thought. I've been thinking more. Even the word 'thinking' draws me in, as if I'll be pulled under, and at the end of that thought…"
Gunmyeong had to watch as the young scholar began to sink again. He barked sharply, yanking So-un's mind back from slipping into that inward abyss.
"What are you talking about? If nothing's wrong, that's fine, but your words are hard to follow."
"I mean I don't quite know what is what."
"That's life. At times like this, you just live. What other sharp solution is there?"
They were still answering east when the other asked west. There is no need to correct every mistake in the world. It cannot be done, and pointing out another's flaws only harms the relationship. One simply lives. People speak and repeat the same words without realizing they are the same.
But So-un was still clumsy in that regard. He did not yet know how many things in life must be understood roughly and let pass.
"'Just live,' you say. I'm not talking about that—I mean martial arts. When I think about it, my mind goes blank. As I sink into it, techniques appear—how to move in this case, how to respond in that—and as my breathing shifts, things that seem almost graspable grow vague again. There's a boundary like that. Yesterday was strange. I was thinking about that. The misfortune that befell me wasn't easy. But I don't dwell on it every day. When I'm with you all, I'm happy. I'm not suffering. At first I struggled, but as I trained and learned, I changed. When I first practiced Hobo (Tiger Step), I thought I would die. I couldn't even lift my arms the next morning. But later, when I drew the bow, I felt the strength in my muscles. The bowstring pulled back, and I realized—there is a reason for everything. For what is ordered, for what is asked. And what I'm experiencing now must also have a reason. Perhaps I want to believe that. But if I think I'm just fleeing without knowing why, then being alive feels unbearably sorrowful."
Gunmyeong felt proud. It was rare for someone so young to think like that. It was almost astonishing how well a child properly raised could adapt to the world.
So-un's martial arts stood at a threshold. No one knew, not even So-un himself, but after fierce battles he would sink into thought; during marches he would sink into thought. The time he spent immersed inwardly grew longer.
"By the way—why did you call me?"
Gunmyeong jumped.
"Ah! I forgot. A summons. No—a reconnaissance mission."
"Now?"
"It's an order from Captain Ga."
So-un sprang from the warm rock. Small stones and grains of sand fell from his clothes as Gunmyeong brushed them off with a couple of pats. While they had been talking, much time had passed. So-un seized his sword and slung his bow and quiver over his shoulder.
"Run."
Gunmyeong shouted.
The two of them dashed off, so fast their feet were scarcely seen.