Sowol Inn - Chapter 12

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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 12
So Weol wanted to hurl curses at Sung San, but even that was beyond reach.
She couldn’t raise her voice while cradling the squirming scrap of life against her chest.
“Next summer? Fine. I’ll set your memorial rite for next summer too.”
So Weol ground her teeth, turning over ways to make Beop Gong pay.
Strip him bare and hang him from the waterfall?
Shaving his head completely might be more effective.
Shattering his Dantian would be the surest—
“Wah.”
The baby’s babble made So Weol pause, and she lowered her head.
Perhaps the infant had sensed her murderous mood.
Its dark eyes were trembling with unease.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be thinking such things in front of you.”
So Weol patted the baby’s back and fought to steady herself.
What mattered now wasn’t how to tear out Beop Gong’s hair, but how to feed this tiny life for the next six months.
Her mind running through the accounts like beads on a counting frame, So Weol bit her lip.
To feed this creature, she had to draw in customers somehow.
With customers came sales of So Myeon, and with So Myeon sales came something to put in the child’s small mouth.
So Weol’s gaze hardened with resolve.
* * *
The next day.
So Weol opened the Guest House door the moment dawn broke.
But as the sun climbed to its zenith, not a single soul crossed the threshold.
Sitting alone in the empty hall, breathing in the cooling broth, So Weol rose with a grunt.
She meant to position herself at the gate and try her luck.
“Perhaps I should set up a stall at the market instead.”
As she stood pondering, gazing down at the village, a small shadow fell across her.
It was Baek Ya.
He studied her face in silence, his eyes searching and deliberate.
“What’s the matter?”
Instead of answering, Baek Ya slipped inside the Guest House and returned carrying the baby, which he pressed into So Weol’s arms.
“Take him.”
“Why did you bring the child outside? It’s cold out there.”
So Weol’s reproach didn’t deter Baek Ya.
“Take him.”
Without understanding his intent, So Weol obediently took the infant and supported its neck and back.
One tiny hand emerged from the swaddling and gripped the collar of her robe firmly.
At that moment, a young couple came walking down from the village.
Baek Ya gave So Weol’s back a gentle push.
So Weol stepped forward naturally and called out to them.
“Have you eaten? Our So Myeon is quite good, actually.”
The wife started, clutching her husband’s sleeve.
It was following the same pattern as yesterday.
Now she’ll scream and run.
So Weol was about to resign herself when the wife’s gaze fell upon the baby in her arms.
“Oh my, you have a baby? Can’t be a hundred days old yet, can it?”
“Just turned two months.”
“What a beautiful age. Such a lovely child.”
The wife approached as if entranced, examining the infant closely.
Right then, the baby looked up at her and broke into a toothy smile.
“Oh goodness, it’s smiling! Honey, look—it’s smiling!”
At that smile, the wife’s wariness dissolved like snow. Her husband leaned in as well.
“Well, that little rascal.”
So Weol blinked, bewildered.
This was the first customer who hadn’t fled when she spoke to them.
The wife’s eyes finally seemed to register the Guest House, and she glanced back at So Weol.
“This is the… the Guest House they say is haunted, isn’t it?”
“Just rumors.”
“Really? It looks perfectly fine. Strange that such gossip got started.”
The husband beside her cleared his throat and spoke.
“Of course it’s just a rumor. If ghosts were real, I wouldn’t have abandoned a newborn. Ahem—two bowls of noodles, if you please?”
“Of course. Come in.”
So Weol nodded and promptly led the couple into the Guest House.
On any other day, she would have simply set out a cup of tea and called it done.
But now, every guest counted.
So Weol wiped down the table once more, brought tea, and even set out a plate of roasted watermelon seeds.
“The noodles will be ready shortly.”
“No rush. The baby is so well-behaved.”
“So I’ve heard. Do you have children?”
“One son, five years old. He’s at the schoolhouse now.”
Unlike the man who had fled yesterday, the couple spoke to So Weol with easy familiarity.
As So Weol exchanged words with them, her expression grew puzzled.
What’s different from yesterday?
Seeing her confusion, Baek Ya whispered.
“Big brother gets scared alone.”
“…….”
A tiny scrap of flesh, and suddenly a person looks different.
So Weol gazed down at the baby with a troubled face.
Just then the woman smiled and asked.
“By the way, what’s the baby’s name?”
Baek Ya answered instead.
“Baby.”
“……The baby’s name is Baby?”
“A baby is a baby.”
An awkward silence fell over the Guest House.
As the mood turned strange, So Weol offered an embarrassed explanation.
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“A name is important—that’s understandable. You must be giving it careful thought.”
So Weol dodged a direct answer.
He slipped quietly into the kitchen and pressed at the noodle dough without speaking.
Press.
More force than necessary went into it.
* * *
However it came about, So Weol’s—or rather, the baby’s—draw proved remarkably effective.
After the couple left, guests who had been lingering outside the gate began, one by one, to cross the threshold of the Guest House.
“Proprietor. Does that Talisman really work?”
“It does. A genuine Taoist wrote it.”
“Ah, well then, I can rest easy.”
Even as they said this, the guests’ eyes lingered longer on the cradle than on the Talisman.
“Say, would it be all right to look at the baby? It’s been so long since I’ve seen a newborn.”
It was a mountain village where young people had all left for town.
In a place where the cry of a baby had been silent for so long, a newborn was more powerful than any ghost story.
Some came for the noodles; others came to see the baby and ended up ordering noodles as well.
Either way, broth was simmering in the kitchen again, and the coin jar was filling bit by bit.
In that time, the snow piled in the courtyard melted.
The icicles hanging beneath the eaves grew shorter day by day, until one morning they vanished without a trace.
It was around then that a stranger came to the Guest House.
Clop. Clop.
The steady sound of hoofbeats grew steadily closer.
So Weol, who had been sweeping the courtyard, looked up.
A carriage drawn by two gleaming black horses was climbing the hillside.
It was a fine conveyance—the sort rarely seen in Go Am Chon.
“Wow, a carriage!”
Children playing by the road gathered one by one.
As the carriage came to a stop before the Guest House, an elderly man in a silk robe descended.
The old man, whose white-streaked beard was neatly combed, looked up at the weathered signboard of the Guest House, then made a deep formal bow toward So Weol.
“Are you the proprietor?”
“I am.”
“I am Seok Moon, Chief Administrator of the Mi Ga Jang in Jung Gyeong. I apologize for arriving so abruptly and imposing upon you.”
Mi Ga Jang.
So Weol had heard that name before, whispered among the merchants.
A rising family that had become wealthy in Jung Gyeong just a few years past.
So Weol narrowed her brow and asked.
“What business would the Mi Ga Jang have with a rustic Guest House?”
Seok Moon, the steward, gazed steadily into the depths of the Guest House before answering.
“I’ve come regarding the child.”
So Weol’s grip tightened on the broom in her hands.
“I don’t know what you mean, but this isn’t the sort of conversation to have outside. Come in.”
So Weol ushered the steward and his party into the main hall and signaled to Baek Ya with her eyes.
Baek Ya, wordless, took up the cradle and vanished upstairs.
Seok Moon’s gaze followed after him.
So Weol stepped into his line of sight and opened her mouth.
“Humble though it is, I shall serve you a bowl of So Myeon.”
“I shall gratefully accept your kindness without ceremony.”
Shortly after, a steaming bowl of So Myeon was placed upon the table.
Seok Moon did not demur; he took up his chopsticks without hesitation.
He emptied the bowl entirely, then began laying on the compliments.
“The broth is truly exquisite. Even in the celebrated Guest Houses of Jung Gyeong, such depth is rarely found.”
“Spare me the empty words.”
“They are not empty. The Mi Ga Jang is a house that measures the value of things and profits by that measure. We pay fairly for quality.”
Seok Moon, having spoken, withdrew a piece of Gold Currency from his sleeve and set it upon the table.
It was far too great a sum for a bowl of So Myeon.
So Weol did not even glance down at the Gold Currency.
“A bowl of So Myeon costs ten wen.”
“Let the remainder serve as an apology for this sudden and unannounced visit.”
“Apologies are given with words, not coin.”
When So Weol pushed the Gold Currency back across the table, Seok Moon retrieved it without any sign of offense.
“So the rumors are true—you are not easily swayed by money.”
“I doubt my name travels as far as Jung Gyeong. What is it you want to say?”
Seok Moon straightened in his seat as if he had been waiting for this moment.
“We of the Mi Ga Jang wish to take the child into our care.”

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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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