A New Member of the Inn

A cold, level voice rang through the inn.

"Beopgong will come for her soon and take her away."

Sowol replied flatly, but Sohye would not be swayed.

"And how do you know when that lazy monk will actually show up? I'll take her back myself. That's the better way."

"Calm down, you rascal. Picture it—the head of the Tang family pounding on Shaolin's gates with a newborn in his arms. What do you suppose people would say?"

"Who cares what they say?"

"You should, you rascal. If you carry her there, the Tang family gets tangled up in this too."

When Sowol clicked his tongue and shook his head, Sohye thumped his own chest in frustration.

"Sowol, is now really the time for you to worry about me?"

"……"

"You can't handle this child. You could work yourself to death, and even if she grows up safe and sound, the Jianghu won't leave her in peace."

"Don't worry. I'm told she'll be sent off soon."

"Either way, you're the one who suffers. You said you wanted to live quietly. Get tangled up with this child and you can be sure—"

"Yes, yes, I know. It's only for a little while."

Sowol waved him off.

Sohye opened his mouth to argue further, then closed it again. Instead, he spoke like an elder lecturing a wayward junior.

"Think it over carefully, Sowol. Do you know how dangerous affection is? Once you start giving it, you can never let go."

Sowol only smiled and said nothing, and Sohye pressed a hand to his forehead with a pained look.

"……I give up. How am I supposed to beat that stubbornness of yours?"

"Look who's talking."

"Fine. You won't listen to me anyway, will you?"

Sighing, Sohye laid his fingers on the baby's forehead.

"It's only a stopgap, but…… I'll seal her acupoints before I go."

"Is it safe to seal acupoints on a newborn?"

"Do it the way you would on an adult and you'd kill her. It works because it's me."

For some reason, that answer made Sowol uneasy, and he took a step back.

"Can I really trust you on this?"

"Sowol. Do you take me for a sixteen-year-old still?"

Sohye shot back with a pout.

He looked no different from the boy he'd been at sixteen, and Sowol swallowed a crooked laugh.

"I can't touch the Baihui Acupoint itself. Instead, I'll temporarily block the three meridians that lead into it."

"Blocked how? Will she lose her strength entirely?"

"She won't go indiscriminately pulling in Natural Qi like she does now. Even if her power manifests, the amount flowing in at once will be cut roughly in half."

"How long will it hold?"

"The seals will come undone on their own as her body grows. A few years at most."

"And after that?"

"After that, that's Monk Beopgong's problem. And Sowol—why do you keep inching away? Come here."

Cornered by Sohye's outstretched hands, Sowol reluctantly handed over the baby.

Sohye cradled the infant and pressed his fingertips, one after another, to the base of her small neck.

The baby scrunched up her face in discomfort, but she didn't cry. Her ragged breathing evened out into a slow, steady rhythm.

"There. She'll be fine for the time being."

The moment Sowol took her back, he hurriedly touched her forehead.

The fever had eased considerably. Relieved, he laid her down in the cradle.

"Thank you. You wanted wanton soup, didn't you? I'll go boil some right up."

"Put lots of dumplings in it."

By the time he returned with the steaming bowl, Sohye had slumped over the table, nodding off.

Sowol chuckled and draped a blanket over his shoulders. The man who nagged like a tyrannical family head slept exactly the way he had as a child.

"……Ah. Thank you, Sowol."

Blinking awake, Sohye pulled the blanket more snugly around himself.

Sowol set down the bowl and asked, "How are the children? Misbehaving, I expect."

"Don't get me started. These days they find trouble the moment I turn my back. Just yesterday, they were playing around and blew up a poison jar."

As Sohye grumbled and took his first mouthful of wanton soup, the crease between his brows melted away.

"Your wanton soup really is the best, Sowol."

And with that, he wore an expression of pure bliss as he scraped the bowl clean.

Setting down the empty dish, Sohye suddenly seemed to remember something.

"By the way—what's this rumor about a ghost haunting your inn? What did the baby do this time?"

"She sent chopsticks flying right in front of a guest. The whole village was in an uproar, but as it happened, Jinseong was passing through, and he took care of it."

"Taoist Jinseong? How?"

"I asked him to write a ghost-repelling talisman while he was here. It's up on the front gate now."

Sohye's eyes went round.

"Jinseong wrote you a talisman? Jinseong doesn't even know how to write those."

"Right, he doesn't. He said so himself. It's a fake—a counterfeit that only mimics the real thing."

"He wrote you a fake on top of everything else? Good heavens. That man wouldn't write a shoddy talisman even if ElderGeom ordered him to……"

"He's gotten rather slippery in his old age. These days he perches on my head and mocks me."

Sowol grumbled on, and Sohye watched his complaining face for a moment before breaking into a gentle smile.

"Haha. I'd say Taoist Jinseong has grown comfortable around you."

Their quiet conversation stretched on, and before either of them noticed, the sky beyond the window had begun to pale with the first light of dawn.

Sohye rose to his feet.

"Look at the time. I should be going."

"Bring the children next time. It's been too long since I've seen Ryeong and Jin."

"Mm. Next time I'll come in the daytime."

"Come at night if you like. Old age has stolen my sleep."

"Sowol. What kind of old man talk is that?"

Having delivered his scolding, Sohye strode over and pulled Sowol into a hug.

"I'm off, Sowol. If anything happens, send word at once. Don't try to handle everything alone."

"I know. Get home safe."

"I will."

Even after stepping out the front gate, Sohye kept turning back to look, again and again. When Sowol waved him off impatiently, he finally laughed and vanished into the pale morning mist.

Sowol stood at the gate until the last hem of the green robe disappeared from view. Only when he closed the door and turned back did a small babble drift out from inside the inn.

"Ah-oo."

The baby had woken and was flailing her tiny arms in the air.

"There, there. You're up, are you? Hungry? Time to eat, then."

Lifting her up as naturally as if he'd done it a thousand times, Sowol patted her back and headed for the kitchen. He poured goat's milk into a small pot and lit the fire, and the spreading warmth at once pushed back the chill of early morning.

While the milk warmed, Sowol looked down at the baby in his arms. She was fussing with the collar of his robe, as though she had never been sick at all.

Sowol swallowed a sigh.

Sohye was right. This was not a child Sowol could handle. If he truly wanted a quiet life, the right thing was to send her back to Beopgong as soon as possible.

And yet today was not that day.

"……Well. She still has to eat, doesn't she?"

Muttering to himself, Sowol dipped a clean cloth into the warmed milk and brought it to the baby's lips.

4. A New Member of the Inn

In the ten-odd years he had run the inn, Sowol had never once trolled for customers. There had never been any need. The villagers who stopped by now and then were enough to live on.

But circumstances had changed.

Five days without a single guest. The ghost rumors had died down, yet customers' footsteps refused to return. The rice jar at the back of the kitchen had grown so empty he could see straight through to the bottom.

"……"

Sowol stared down into the hollow jar and scratched his cheek. If he kept opening the doors only when he felt like it and shutting them for days on end when he didn't, starvation would be waiting for him sooner or later.

And so Sowol made a great resolution: he would try to actually take in some customers.

From the early morning, he polished the inn's signboard until it gleamed. He hung the red lantern high and swept the front yard spotless.

Before long, a man passed by the front of the inn. Sowol put on the friendliest smile he could muster and called out.

"Eaten yet? If not, why not have a bowl of somyeon before you go?"

The man did not answer.

"Hyiiik! It's the—the owner of the haunted inn!"

The moment their eyes met, the man bolted as if the hounds of hell were after him.

Apparently, slapping up a talisman had not solved everything after all.

"Unbelievable," Sowol muttered sheepishly. "Now even I've been promoted to ghost."

He tried soliciting a few more times after that, but the results never changed. People would not come within ten paces of the inn.

"……So this is how hard business really is."

After pacing in front of the gate all morning, Sowol propped his broom against the wall and went back inside. The baby, waking from her nap, was whimpering in her cradle.

"Hnng… hnnnaaah……!"

"All right, all right. Coming."

He scooped up the whimpering infant and let out a long sigh.

One month. That was all. In that single short span, he felt he had sweated more than in his previous fifty years combined.

The trouble was that the chief architect of this entire situation was nowhere to be seen.

"Beopgong, you bastard—just when exactly are you planning to show up……"

Sowol grumbled bitterly. Just then, a carrier pigeon fluttered in through the window.

It was the letter he had been waiting for all this time.

He tore it open at once, and a familiar hand came into view. As he read down the page, Sowol's face slowly twisted.

……That lunatic of a monk.

The crumpled letter trembled violently in Sowol's hand.