Chapter 9. Prison
When the treatment was over, Young-woo sat there with half his soul gone.
His eyes were half open and unfocused, and white spittle had run down from the corner of his mouth and dried there.
He thought he had heard words passing around him.
Something about a commander, something about a nangjang, someone saying this and that.
He remembered none of it.
The overwhelming pain had shoved its way to the very front of his existence, and he had lost consciousness.
There had been nothing else.
He had thought family and home were everything, yet before pain, even those things scattered.
Sweat broke from him, and his body felt as if it were slowly loosening.
Sounds reached him, but the pain had dulled into something fixed and distant, like an object set somewhere inside him.
The memory of agony flowed down as clear tears.
"Are you awake?"
Young-woo looked up.
Someone was standing there in the clothes of a physician.
"Who… who are you?"
"The physician who saved your life."
A physician in an ink-dark robe was looking in from outside the place where Young-woo had been confined.
A medicine pouch dangled at his waist.
Behind him stood an attendant holding a wooden medicine chest, looking down with even more arrogance than his master.
"Ah… thank you. Were the wounds bad?"
"They would have rotted if left alone. The arrowhead was blocking the wound, so we couldn't see it properly."
Only then did he remember.
Something had stuck into him.
It had stung.
It had bothered him, so he seemed to have pulled it out.
It must have hurt terribly, but he had no memory of the pain.
"Something stung me, but I don't remember it."
"The battle was too urgent. You saw nothing and felt nothing. Still hazy, are you?"
"It feels as though there is fog over my head."
"I used maechwi-san. It was buried too deep."
"That must be expensive."
Young-woo knew how precious that medicine was.
It was not the kind of thing used to treat men like them.
"Several people asked me to save you."
"Who?"
"Baek In-gyeom made a firm request, and Nangjang Park Geun-su pleaded more than once."
He did not know.
He knew only Park Geun-su.
The man commanded a unit one step over from his own, and at most their eyes had met now and then.
"Why would those gentlemen do that?"
"Because you did well."
"Hiyu, what did I do well? I nearly died."
"They say you charged at Park Cheol-gu."
"I protested."
"I understand. He kept the gate closed, did he?"
The same story kept circling back.
"How are my wounds?"
"It should take less than a month."
"That long?"
"You nearly died. In more ways than one."
Was he speaking of the injury?
Or of Young-woo's defiance and the disturbance it had caused?
It had to be the disturbance.
That threat remained.
"What will happen once the report goes up?"
"You thought that far?"
"Well, the report has to go up. The problem is that a bastard like that was put in charge of defending the south gate."
"You are full of venom."
"When I get the chance, I'll kill him quietly. He treats the lives of his own men as worth less than game pieces."
"Enough now. You may make things harder for yourself. You are still in prison, are you not?"
"I don't care what happens. After nearly dying, every hierarchy in this world looks empty to me."
"Yes. Even so, be careful. It seems Nangjang Park Cheol-gu has fallen into quite some trouble because of you."
"Better trouble than what nearly killed us."
---*
Park Geun-su sent word that the fortress commander had heard of the matter and rebuked Park Cheol-gu harshly, so Young-woo would likely be released before long.
Yet that night passed deep into darkness, and no word of release came.
Instead, from far away, the sound of arrow rain poured down, truly like rainwater falling from eaves during a sudden shower.
"A night attack?"
The maechwi-san still had his mind drifting in and out.
"That sounds like arrow rain to you?"
Young-woo turned.
It was So Cheol-ryong.
"No? Then what is it?"
"To me, it sounds like cool summer rain."
"Ayu, it is arrow rain."
"That's right. Those bastards must have taken a beating too. Their side would be no different."
"What about here?"
"Park Cheol-gu got chewed out so badly he can barely lift his head."
Young-woo let out a sigh.
That man could not forget even the smallest grudge.
Thinking of the trouble that would come later made his head hurt.
"When will they release us?"
"Would they? After you stirred everything up like that?"
"Hyuu. If I were the general, I would have cut off the head of the bastard making useless trouble."
So Cheol-ryong knew whose head Young-woo meant, but he pretended not to hear.
Cheol-un muttered.
"Anyway, we need to get out quickly. They barely feed us here."
"Food?"
Only then did Young-woo realize it.
He had not eaten a single meal that day.
He was hungry.
He swallowed hard, holding back another curse that wanted to come out.
Cheol-un muttered again.
"We came all the way out to this distant post, and it is not as if we have family here…"
Cheol-ryong muttered.
"They are telling us to die."
They had locked men in prison and given them no food.
Originally, prisoners were meant to be cared for by their families.
Then what was a soldier from another region, posted far from home, supposed to do?
While they were grumbling, the warm smell of cooked rice rose toward them.
Then a large bowl filled with rice and side dishes was brought in.
Cheol-un shouted.
"What is this?"
The soldier who had brought the food called out.
"Seo Ui-taek of the west gate sent it."
"Ohhh. Why? Why would he?"
"He said you probably had not eaten, and that no one would think to feed you, so we should at least look after you."
"Ohhh."
Something soft and heavy rose in Young-woo's chest.
In a world where no one looked after them, that small thoughtfulness carved itself into him.
Cheol-un asked without thinking.
"But why would he?"
"Ayu, Seo Ui-taek and Park Cheol-gu are on bad terms. That is why. Do you think he sent it because he cares for you lot?"
"What? What does that have to do with anything?"
Young-woo silently accepted the bowl with rice and side dishes piled on it.
Perhaps it was the aftereffect of the anesthetic, but the food would not go down properly.
Like a fool, he spilled almost half of it.
"Hiyu, even rice will not go down."
So Cheol-ryong scolded him.
"You have to eat to regain your strength. Only then can we smash Jeon-man."
Everything felt tiresome.
Now taking care of his own body seemed far more important.
"Hiyu, I said that earlier because I was angry. How could I actually do that?"
He had fought, argued, cursed, and nearly died.
Yet once he ate, sleep came over him.
At that moment, the physician quietly whispered.
"I prepared a false place over there and stuffed it with straw."
"Why?"
"Baek In-gyeom asked me to do it before going somewhere."
"Why would he?"
"Cheol-gu is Cheol-gu. You could search all Samhan and still find no man more jealous than that bastard, even compared to his own wife."