Chapter 343. Oyeon Jik and the Taepyeong Tavern
At Youngwoo's request, Deoki found Oyeon Jik.
He was lying among the wounded soldiers.
Bandages were wrapped around his shoulder, arm, and side, and wherever blood had seeped through, another layer of cloth had been bound over the first.
The moment Youngwoo heard that he had been found, he went straight to him.
Oyeon Jik tried to sit up, only to grimace in pain.
Youngwoo raised a hand before he could force himself any farther.
"Stay as you are. You did well."
Oyeon Jik's eyes reddened.
The man who had endured through the night, opened the hidden gate with death at his heels, and gritted his teeth before everyone else began to weep at those simple words.
You did well.
It was not money.
It was not honor.
Perhaps men wagered everything they had for nothing more than the chance to hear those words.
Oyeon Jik lowered his head and bit his lip.
Youngwoo quietly asked,
"I heard it back then. Am I Balhae too?"
Standing nearby, Deoki winced from his own pain, yet the corners of his mouth curled into a smile.
"There were few words I was happier to hear. You said, 'I am Balhae too,' Commander."
Youngwoo burst out laughing.
"Ahahaha! I could hear everything you were shouting from inside. But what about that woman? Who was she?"
Oyeon Jik steadied his breathing before answering.
"Normally no one guards that hidden gate, but there were soldiers posted there that night. I couldn't deal with that many by myself, so I asked some courtesans to get them drunk. Then I made my move, but I couldn't kill them all. I was pinned to the ground and about to die when that woman stabbed the last man in the back."
Youngwoo grinned.
"Ah. I thought she was your wife."
Oyeon Jik's eyes widened.
"If I had a wife that beautiful, I would have nothing left to wish for."
Youngwoo suddenly shouted,
"What? You still haven't married?"
Oyeon Jik lifted himself a little, looking deeply offended.
"What do you mean, still? What is wrong with me?"
Youngwoo looked him up and down.
"That is exactly what I'm wondering. You look well past thirty. Your face is nearly forty."
Oyeon Jik flared up.
"No! I am twenty-five. There is nothing shameful about being unmarried at my age."
The wounded soldiers beside Deoki snickered.
"Then what happened to your face? You look forty-five."
"Y-you—!"
The air was thick with the smells of blood and medicine, but for that brief moment, the tension eased.
Youngwoo looked at Oyeon Jik again.
The trace of laughter remained on his face, but his eyes had become serious.
"I'm staying at Lord Go Hoewon's estate for now. Come see me when you recover."
"Thank you. I never thought I would be so glad to hear that from the man who came through the gate I opened. Commander, you are Balhae too. I acknowledge it."
Youngwoo asked where the courtesan worked.
"If you go up the main road inside Yongwon Gate, pass the Southern Market, and continue toward the main avenue near the Regent's Office, there is a place called the Taepyeong Tavern. She works there. I don't think she owns the place... Anyway, when I went there and asked for help, she arranged everything. She brought five courtesans with her, fed the guards and gave them wine. Then we killed them once they were drunk."
"All right. I want to go and thank her."
"Do you personally go around looking for everyone who helped?"
"No. First, I'm no longer a commander, and second, I'm not going around thanking everyone... If it hadn't been for the two of you, many more people would have died taking the city. Thank you."
Unable to accept such courtesy while lying down, Oyeon Jik tried to rise.
His body would not let him.
Instead, he slowly bowed his head.
That bow also carried his respect for the man who had entered through the gate they had opened and helped lead the battle to victory.
The road to the Taepyeong Tavern had the strangely relaxed air of a place where battle had only just passed.
The street lay warm beneath the sunlight, almost as though it had stretched out and fallen asleep.
Youngwoo had little sense of direction, so he first turned his horse toward Yongwon Gate—the southern gate.
He did not know the way from where he was, so he decided to begin again from the south gate.
If he retraced the road by which he had entered the city, he reasoned, it should eventually lead him to the Southern Market.
He did not urge the horse forward.
Holding the reins loosely, he let it walk at an easy pace.
It was the same road where he had killed men and stepped through blood throughout the night, yet in broad daylight the city wore an entirely different face.
The Southern Market had not yet returned to normal.
An overturned cart lay crooked across the middle of the road, while broken baskets and scattered bundles of straw shifted slightly in the breeze.
The footprints of Liao soldiers who had fled during the night were stamped chaotically across patches of dried mud and blood.
Some prints sank deeply to one side.
Others stretched into long smears where someone had slipped while running.
To the west of the street, the roofs of large temples such as Jinde Temple and Dabei Temple crouched low against the skyline.
The night before, they had been nothing more than black masses in the darkness.
Now the lines of their eaves and the patterns of their roof tiles had emerged into view.
No bells rang, but beyond the temple walls, a faint thread of smoke rose like morning mist.
Somewhere farther west stood the Military Patrol Office, the Regent's Office, and the Revenue Office—the places they had stormed, broken into, and occupied in the chaos of the night.
At the time, there had been no leisure to ask which building housed which office.
If a door blocked the way, they broke it.
If men blocked the way, they drove them aside.
If they saw fire, they extinguished it first and kept moving.
Now, in the morning light, every building seemed to have recovered its proper name.
As Youngwoo rode slowly past, soldiers here and there recognized him.
A man guarding an intersection with a spear straightened and gave a military salute.
Another who was arranging prisoners in a courtyard turned and placed a hand against his chest.
Youngwoo returned each greeting with a slight nod from the saddle.
There was an easy looseness in his expression now that the battle was over.
The soldiers who knew who had opened the southern gate brightened at even that small acknowledgment.
Several exchanged glances.
A young soldier farther away noticed him late and hurriedly snapped himself upright.
People along the road also began turning to look.
An old woman cautiously leaned farther out through a half-open door.
A man setting up a wooden pole stopped what he was doing.
Someone quietly asked who the rider was.
The person beside him whispered that he was the Goryeo commander who had opened the southern gate.
Youngwoo rode on as though he had neither heard nor noticed.
There was only one problem.
Youngwoo's sense of direction was poor enough that he had no idea where the Taepyeong Tavern actually was.
He made an entire circuit through the Southern Market.
He entered an alley that smelled of wine, only to find nothing but an empty pile of firewood.
He stopped before a house with lanterns hanging outside, then turned his horse around again when someone told him it was a dye shop.
One child pointed out a direction with great confidence, but the road ended at a solid wall.
Still, Youngwoo was in no hurry.
There was something strangely peaceful about getting lost inside a city whose battle had just ended.
The horse's hooves tapped lightly against the stone road.
Morning sunlight slowly spread across tiled roofs and damp earth.
From time to time, Youngwoo stopped to look toward the White Pagoda, then peered down another alley.
At last, behind the market, he saw an old signboard.
Beneath smoke-darkened eaves hung the characters:
Taepyeong Tavern — 太平酒店.
One side of the sign had been knocked crooked in the previous night's turmoil, and broken pieces of a wine jar still lay before the entrance.
Even so, the faint smells of liquor and boiled meat drifted from somewhere inside.
Youngwoo drew back on the reins and slowly brought his horse to a halt.
After wandering around for so long, he had finally found it.
He looked up at the sign and gave a quiet chuckle.
Taepyeong.
Peace.
After a night of bloodshed in Liaoyang, the name seemed strangely out of place.
And yet, somehow, strangely fitting.