Longevity - Chapter 40

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 40: The Road West
On the first day descending from the mountain, Jang Saeng stopped before even an hour had passed.
Thorny brush and wild grass, fed by spring sunlight, had grown waist-high. Each time he crossed the slope, his sleeves and pant legs caught on branches, and the straps of his satchel were yanked backward again and again.
Had he possessed Han Wol, he could have cut his way through, but the blade lay hidden in a tree deep in the mountains. Working by hand alone, even after walking for an hour, he had scarcely covered a few li.
Jang Saeng gazed down at the wild rose branches blocking his path.

“At this rate, I won’t make it even by year’s end.”

To Gakjo Mountain would take three months at the fastest. If he stuck to the forest, it wouldn’t be three months but three years.
He emerged from between the trees and stepped onto the main road.
No one traveled the path, no carts passed. Still, Jang Saeng looked both ways several times before turning west. The empty road unnerved him more than crowds would have. If mounted men appeared in the distance, there was nowhere to hide.
The satchel on his back troubled him as well.
It held a spare set of clothes. He could have discarded it and looked like an ordinary vagrant, but he couldn’t wear the same garments for three months straight.
Jang Saeng untied the satchel, then tied it again.

“I need to keep the clothes.”

Then a figure appeared around the bend ahead.
It was a boy with a bundle of firewood on his back. He looked perhaps fourteen or fifteen—close to Jang Saeng’s own age—with thin, bare arms showing beneath a worn jacket. Straw sandals covered his feet, and an old wooden sword hung at his waist.
Jang Saeng fastened his satchel again.

“Wait a moment, please.”

The boy turned in surprise. Jang Saeng approached slowly, hands open and empty.

“Do you live in a nearby village?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Did you head out this morning to gather wood?”

The boy’s eyes shifted between the satchel and Jang Saeng’s clothes.

“Where did you come from?”
“From far away. I’ve taken a wrong turn.”

The boy wasn’t ready to believe him, but neither did he flee. After exchanging a few more words, he explained that there was a village down the mountainside, and that he himself had come up before dawn to gather wood.
Jang Saeng gestured to the bundle on the boy’s back.

“Would you sell me that wood and your sword?”
“This?”
“In exchange, I’ll give you these clothes.”

When Jang Saeng opened the satchel, a nearly new garment—perhaps seventy percent unworn—emerged. The boy’s eyes widened instantly.

“Really, all of it?”
“Yes. I’ll include the satchel as well.”

The boy looked down at his own worn clothes, then drew out the wooden sword to show it. The blade had been sharpened so many times its width had narrowed, and the handle was blackened with wear.

“This is old. The wood’s mixed with green branches too, so it’s heavy.”
“That’s fine.”

The boy wasn’t the sort to hide a bad bargain. Pleased by his honesty, Jang Saeng pulled two coins from his belt and offered them as well.

“Please take these too.”
“The clothes are enough, though?”
“It’s for the scabbard and cord.”

The boy hesitated for a moment before accepting the coins. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“Then I’ll carry this as far as the fork in the road. You’ve never carried something like this before, have you?”
“Do you recognize it at a glance?”
“Of course.”

The Boy smiled and hugged the satchel to his chest.
They walked side by side. Jang Saeng asked what month it was, and the Boy answered with a puzzled look that it was early Fifth Month.

“Fifth Month…”

Jang Saeng’s pace slowed without thinking.
He had entered the mountain in early spring. That meant he had spent more than three months in the Stone Chamber, not merely three or four days.
The Boy asked from beside him.

“You really didn’t know the date?”
“I was living in the mountains.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”

The Boy asked nothing further. Instead, when they reached a fork in the road leading down to a village a few miles ahead, he set down the bundle of firewood and hoisted it onto Jang Saeng’s back.
The weight pressed down on his shoulders. Jang Saeng straightened his waist to keep his body from lurching forward.
The Boy adjusted the cord as he spoke.

“If it’s too heavy, throw out a few pieces. This won’t fetch much anyway.”

He turned to leave, then pulled a half-eaten Mixed Grain Cake from his satchel.

“You don’t have anything to eat, do you?”
“If I take this too, it would mean I’ve put you at a loss.”
“I’ll eat when I get home. You’ve still got a ways to go.”

The Boy pressed the cake into Jang Saeng’s hand and smiled.

“Thanks for the clothes.”

Jang Saeng stood watching as the Boy’s figure disappeared down the fork in the path.
The cake in his hand was hard and stale on one side. Still, he didn’t eat it right away—he tucked it into his satchel. The Boy had already vanished below the fork.

“And I’m grateful to you.”
* * *
After shouldering the bundle of firewood, Jang Saeng walked down the middle of the road.
Tattered clothes, straw sandals, a worn Wooden Sword, kindling on his back—from a distance, he looked no different from a farm child coming down from the mountains.
But the bundle was far heavier than he’d expected. After walking some fifteen miles, the cord dug into his flesh and his knees trembled.
Jang Saeng finally set the load down by the roadside.

“Carrying a heavy load and actually looking like a woodcutter are two different things.”

When he loosened the binding, he found that nearly half was fresh wood. He went to the forest edge and found dry branches and fallen wood to swap in their place.
The bundle grew larger, but its weight halved. When he hoisted it back onto his shoulders, they felt considerably lighter.
A mile or two further on, a Parasol Tree laden with pink blossoms came into view.
Jang Saeng picked a few flowers and chewed the nectar-filled base of each. The taste was sweet, but he stopped after two. The flowers had properties that loosened moisture and loosened the bowels—eating too many would cause difficulties on the road.
What he was really looking for was a branch with a hollow interior.
The first branch he tried, he cut at both ends, then threw away at once. The knife marks at each end were far too obvious.
This time Jang Saeng chose a longer branch, cutting only the bottom end while leaving the small branches at the top intact. When he used it as a walking stick, having only one end cut looked natural.
Once he hollowed out the soft pith inside, a flat, elongated cavity remained.
Jang Saeng slipped the Detoxification Pill, Healing Pill, Return Heaven Pill, and Return Heaven Gold Pill into it in order. He placed a small nugget of gold at the back, then sealed the opening firmly with dry wood scraps.
The problem was the beeswax coating on the pills.
The round pills had compressed slightly as they passed through the narrow cavity. Jang Saeng held the branch to his ear and shook it. He heard no sound of the pills striking each other inside, but if more of the beeswax came away, it might no longer protect against moisture.

“I can’t let it get wet.”

He wedged the Parasol Tree Walking Stick among the firewood. Now all that remained on his person was about sixty Coins.
Walking was incomparably slower than riding a horse, yet Jang Saeng found himself untroubled by the pace.
He would recall the ailments from the upper volume of the Tianjin Yifang one by one, tracing through treatments and prescriptions until several li had passed without notice. When a single medicinal ingredient eluded him, he would slow his steps; the moment the proportions aligned perfectly, he would tap his walking stick once against the ground.
Scattered villages began to appear along the roadside.
Yet few houses remained with roofs intact. Walls had crumbled, doors torn from their frames, and in some villages only blackened pillars stood where buildings had burned.
Famine alone could not reduce houses to such ruin. Even when people fled in search of food, they did not burn the pillars themselves. These were the scars of war passing through again and again.
Throughout the day he encountered neither merchants nor carts. A handful of mounted soldiers galloped past in clouds of dust, and only scattered groups of refugees appeared at intervals.
As the sun began to dip low, four figures were walking the road ahead.
An elderly-looking man and woman, bent with age, a boy of perhaps sixteen summers, and a small child of no more than seven. Upon drawing near, even the weathered couple appeared to be well short of forty.
All four bore the sallow pallor of hunger, their cheeks hollowed inward. The younger child stumbled with every few steps, and the boy ahead gripped his arm to steady him.
Jang Saeng slowed his pace to match their own.
For months he had walked alone, and now the desire to speak with other travelers stirred in him. Night would soon fall.

“How far are you headed?”

The man turned, his expression guarded. Only after examining Jang Saeng’s bundle of firewood and threadbare clothes did the tension in his face ease slightly.

“We have no fixed destination. We mean to travel until we find a place without a government office.”
“Did you leave your village because of the famine?”

The man’s smile was bitter.

“Famine alone would not make us abandon our land. Even without grain, we would have endured by digging roots.”

The woman beside him, carrying the small child, continued in his stead.

“It was the taxation that destroyed us. If there was no grain, they took the cauldrons. If there were no cauldrons left, they took people.”
“What happens to those they take?”
“They’re thrown into prison until the debt is paid. If there’s no one to pay it, they die there.”

The man gazed at the collapsed houses along the road.

“Flight itself is a death sentence. But staying means certain death. So we fled.”

Jang Saeng fell silent for a moment.

“Have you considered going into the mountains? There are roots and plants there that can be eaten.”

The man exhaled deeply.

“The mountains hold snakes and beasts alike. We know only a handful of plants. Eating those alone would leave our bellies swollen and our legs weak.”

Jang Saeng did not press the matter further.
He had read the Tianjin Yifang and learned how to find food in mountain villages, but to those ignorant of such knowledge, the mountains were not a granary but another place to die.
Ahead, a collapsed fence appeared along the roadside.
Jang Saeng stopped, observing the gaps in the wall and the charred remains of what had been a stable. It was a structure he had seen many times when he and Batu’ru’s group had ransacked the Relay Stations.

“That looks as though it was once a Relay Station.”

Upon approaching, most buildings had indeed collapsed, with only two long buildings on the east and west sides retaining their roofs. Refugees who had arrived earlier had already settled on the eastern side.
Jang Saeng entered the western building and set down his bundle of firewood. The four figures hesitated at the threshold, but when the smallest child began to cough, they followed him inside.

“Rest here.”

Jang Saeng picked up his wooden sword.

“I’ll go find something for us to eat.”

The man quickly raised his hand in protest.

“I didn’t mean to ask you to feed us as well.”
“I need to eat as well. I just need to find enough for five of us.”
“It will grow dark in the mountains soon.”
“I’ll be back before the sun sets completely.”

Jang Saeng didn’t wait for a reply. He climbed the slope behind the relay station.
He passed through the dense shade of large trees. Edible roots were more common where sunlight reached, rocks lay scattered, and short grass grew.
Before darkness fell, Jang Saeng had dug up a bundle of Potentilla roots and a handful of Bellflower Root. He found a Kudzu Root as thick as a forearm, shouldered it, and returned.

A small fire burned inside the servants’ quarters.
Four pairs of eyes fixed on what Jang Saeng held. They recognized the Bellflower Root, but not the Potentilla or the Kudzu Root with its dark skin.
The older woman asked,

“That root is edible too?”
“Yes. This one you boil, and this one you bury under coals to roast.”

They had a small earthenware pot. Jang Saeng washed the Potentilla and Bellflower Root and placed them inside, then cut a section of the Kudzu Root, wrapped it in damp soil, and buried it under the fire.
While the water boiled, the younger child crept toward the pot. The mother pulled him back, but his eyes never left the roots.

“Just a little longer.”

At Jang Saeng’s words, the child licked his lips and nodded.
After half a time unit, Jang Saeng stirred the embers and withdrew the Kudzu Root. When he peeled away the charred black skin, white, steaming flesh appeared inside.
A sweet aroma filled the servants’ quarters.
He divided the Kudzu Root into five pieces. He kept one for himself and handed the rest to the four of them.
The man hesitated, only extending his hand.

“This much?”
“I can find more in the mountains.”

The younger child bit into his piece first. His eyes widened, and heedless of the heat, he chewed eagerly one bite after another.

“It’s sweet.”

At that single word, the other three carefully peeled their pieces. Soon, only the sound of eating filled the servants’ quarters.
The man looked at Jang Saeng only after he’d eaten halfway through.

“We live. Thank you, truly.”

The woman bowed her head several times over. The younger child clutched what remained to his chest as if guarding a treasure, grinning.
Jang Saeng gazed down at the Kudzu Root in his hand.
In the Mountain Village too, he had helped others many times. Even when he split firewood or drew water, all that returned was an empty bowl or suspicion. Only Soe-yi had ever offered him thanks.
Yet these strangers thanked him repeatedly for a single piece of Kudzu Root.
Jang Saeng felt awkward and busied himself poking the fire.

“It’s nothing. Eat slowly. Eating too quickly will give you indigestion.”

Then he noticed the Older Child across from him, holding the Kudzu Root, watching him intently.
Something had been off from the start.
For a boy, the voice was too high and thin. There was almost no hair on the back of the hands or the chin. The nape of the neck and the fingers visible in the firelight were different from a man’s.
A young woman in cross-dress.
Jang Saeng lowered his gaze, pretending not to notice.
But she didn’t look away. Rather, she stared directly at him, as if trying to determine how much he had seen.
Jang Saeng’s hand stilled over the tinder.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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