Ten Paths of the Master - Chapter 57

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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 57. Bones Cannot Forget
Dan Yeop read the Book of Poetry until the window grew bright with dawn.
When he heard movement in the courtyard, he stepped outside to wash.
Servants and laborers passed by, stealing glances at his face.
Shortly after he returned to his room, the gatekeeper from last night called to him from the courtyard.
“Young Master Dan.”
When Dan Yeop came out, the gatekeeper, meeting his eyes, spoke.
“The master requests that you join him for breakfast.”
“Ah, yes.”
Dan Yeop followed the gatekeeper toward the inner quarters.
Inner Hall.
In the inner hall sat Scholar Gwak and his wife, a middle-aged couple, and a boy barely into his teens.
As Dan Yeop entered, every eye turned toward him.
He quickly brought his hands together and bowed deeply to Scholar Gwak.
“Scholar Gwak, thank you for inviting me to breakfast.”
“Ha ha! Young Master Dan, come, come. Sit there in that empty seat.”
“Yes.”
Dan Yeop sat across from the boy.
Before the household members could ask, Scholar Gwak spoke first.
“I understand you requested lodging for a night on your way home after the Civil Service Examination. So you’d be Jeongan’s senior. Young Master Dan, if I may ask—how old are you?”
“Eighteen this year.”
“Just as I thought! Jeongan, you’re quite a bit younger then. Now, since this is your senior, if you ever get stuck on your studies, don’t hesitate to ask him questions.”
“Yes, Grandfather.”
Gwak Jeongan answered with perfect courtesy, and a pleased smile appeared on Scholar Gwak’s face.
Dan Yeop glanced at Gwak Jeongan.
His fair complexion and bright expression suggested he was deeply cherished at home.
Then Gwak Jeongan’s father, Gwak Ido, asked with curiosity written across his face.
“So, Young Master Dan—you’ve remained in Chang’an City all this time since the examination ended?”
“I became absorbed in poetry and lost track of things. As the saying goes, an immortal at play notices not the axe handle rotting away—I didn’t realize my money had run out until it was gone.”
It was something the young scholars in Chang’an said when they saw each other buried in composing poetry.
Just as expected!
Scholar Gwak’s household burst into laughter without the slightest suspicion.
They too knew how the young gentry of Chang’an lost themselves in poetry.
After laughing for some time, Jin Eunseol suddenly spoke.
“Young Master Dan, if you remember any poems that stand out, would you share one with us?”
She had originally possessed an exceptional gift for Poetry and Classics.
Even Scholar Gwak had once said that if she had been born a man, she would have passed the Civil Service Examination.
Now, at the mention of poetry, her interest kindled.
Dan Yeop’s gaze fixed on Jin Eunseol.
In that moment, his expression froze.
‘It’s her.’
This was what the woman who had strangled him would look like when she aged.
He now understood that the senile old woman’s words had been true.
There was no doubt: Jin Eunseol was the young lady she had tried to kill—and that young lady was him.
In a flash, the old woman’s words rushed through his mind.
—Oh, how it frightens me. Don’t speak such terrible things. It can’t be. Our young lady once tried to kill her own daughter. Do you know how I trembled, thinking she might succeed?
—She went to Gwangbul Temple and suffered something unspeakable there. Then she unexpectedly bore a child.
—How can they be the same? The marks on our young lady’s neck are identical.
—Yes, that’s right. The following year, she married into the Gwak house. That’s when I came with her as well.
As Dan Yeop sat stunned and rigid, Scholar Gwak spoke.
“Young Master Dan, what are you thinking so hard about? My daughter-in-law wishes to hear poetry, doesn’t she? Surely you haven’t run out of ideas?”
“Not at all. I’ve just recalled something. There’s a poem called Bones Cannot Forget that I might recite. Shall I?”
“Go ahead.”
Dan Yeop composed a poem on the spot.
“A parent’s grace weighs heavy as mountains, and tender hands move me to tears. The kindness is carved into my very bones, yet grievance leaves its mark upon my skin.”
“How exquisite, how exquisite. Is this the sensibility of young people these days? Eunseol, what do you think?”
At her father-in-law’s question, Jin Eunseol answered with a startled expression.
“It seems quite realistic—one expresses gratitude for parents’ grace while harboring a trace of resentment alongside it.”
“Indeed? They say young people these days are quite twisted. Still, to carve a parent’s grace into one’s bones—well, there’s nothing more to say. Jeongan.”
“Yes, Grandfather.”
“You don’t harbor any resentment toward your parents, do you?”
“Not at all. I’ve never felt a shred of bitterness. My parents raised me with such devotion—it would be wrong to feel otherwise.”
“Ha! Good. You’re not like those young people nowadays, grumbling about everything just because they’re young. Keep walking the righteous path as you do now.”
“Yes.”
Jin Eunseol ate mechanically, barely aware whether the food reached her mouth or her nose.
She’d just sworn she hadn’t forgotten her parents’ grace—yet the words felt hollow.
The phrases “tender hands that tighten the throat” and “resentment etched into flesh” pricked her mind like splinters driven deep.
Without thinking, she found herself studying Dan Yeop’s face.
It was a face she’d never seen before, and yet something about it stirred a faint recognition.
‘Have I seen him somewhere?’
Perhaps she’d glimpsed him in passing during those outings with her son when he was about four years old.
Gwak Ido, unimpressed with Dan Yeop’s poetry, let the subject drop.
After the meal, as Gwak Ido sipped his tea, he finally broke the silence with a question for Dan Yeop.
“Young Master Dan, that poem—Bones Cannot Forget—it seems to have made quite an impression on you.”
“I hadn’t made any effort to memorize it, so the fact that I retained it suggests it did move me somewhat.”
“I see. Tell me, what do your parents do in your home?”
“My mother is no longer living. My foster father teaches Martial Arts.”
“A foster father? Were you sent to him to carry on a family line?”
“No. I’m an Orphan of Heaven. When I was wandering through the marketplace, my foster father took me in.”
“Ah! So that’s how it was.”
Gwak Ido nodded slowly, his words trailing off.
An orphan would have had every reason to harbor both longing and resentment toward his birth parents.
Jin Eunseol, her face taut, turned to Dan Yeop with a careful question.
“Did your parents pass away from illness?”
“I was so young that I remember nothing of it. All I can recall is my foster father finding me and taking me in.”
“Then… do you know where your hometown is?”
“My foster father said he found me in Nakan County. So I’ve always vaguely assumed that’s where I’m from.”
“…….”
The color drained from Jin Eunseol’s face.
She stared at Dan Yeop with sudden intensity, then asked hesitantly.
“How old were you when you met your foster father?”
“Four years old.”
At that, Jin Eunseol let out a gasp and slumped backward in her chair.
“Mother!”
“Madam!”
Gwak Ido and Gwak Jeongan rushed to support her, helping her to the inner quarters.
Gwak Ido fixed Dan Yeop with a hard stare.
“It wasn’t by chance that you came to my house last night, was it?”
Dan Yeop sensed that Gwak Ido knew something of Jin Eunseol’s past.
“I came to confirm something. And it seems my suspicions were correct.”
“Confirm? What do you mean?”
“I met an addled old woman in front of the inn. She said she’d served Lady Jin since her time at the Jin Merchant House.”
“That’s enough.”
“You knew already?”
I studied under the same tutor as Jin Gahan, the head of the Jin Merchant House. His son insisted he couldn’t marry anyone but Eunseol, so I had no choice but to agree.”
“I understand.”
“What do you want? You must be after something, or you wouldn’t have crossed my threshold. Is it money?”
“If I wanted money, I’d manage as well as anyone else.”
“Then why come disturb the peace of someone living so well as Eunseol? Why stir up trouble where there was none?”
“Just as you said, Lady Jin seems to be living comfortably. But I am not living well.”
“Ha! So what? After denying you wanted anything, now you’re asking for compensation?”
“You seem eager to settle this with money.”
“Stop hedging. Say what you want plainly.”
“Nothing, really. I only wanted to know who my parents were and why they abandoned me.”
At Dan Yeop’s blunt words, Gwak Ido released a long, weary sigh.
“Sigh… Your situation is indeed painful, but there was no other choice at the time.”
Dan Yeop studied Gwak Ido carefully.
No other choice? What did that mean?
If Gwak Ido could see the scars on his neck, words like that would catch in his throat.
But Dan Yeop said nothing about how Jin Eunseol had tried to kill him.
To speak like that was to admit his own life had become pathetic.
“What happened at Gwangbul Temple?”
Gwak Ido, who had deliberated long over family honor, finally spoke.
“Gwangbul Temple was where Jin Gahan would visit with his family to make offerings. One day, when Jin Gahan’s conversation with the temple abbot grew lengthy, Eunseol was assaulted by a woodcutter who frequented the temple. The woodcutter vanished that very day.”
“What was the woodcutter’s name?”
“I heard he bore the surname Seok.”
“Seok….”
“But even that’s not certain. When the abbot investigated the nearby villages, it turned out he was just a drifter.”
……
Dan Yeop felt his breath catch.
He had never imagined such sordid secrets lay at the root of his own existence.
At that moment, Gwak Ido and Jin Eunseol emerged again from the inner hall.
Soon the two of them sat across from Dan Yeop.
After a long silence, Jin Eunseol opened her mouth.
“Master Dan, I make no excuses—not if I had ten mouths. What happened in the past was entirely my fault. I should never have done such things.”
At the end of her words, thick tears fell from Jin Eunseol’s eyes.
It was genuine.
She had lost her first child at the Jin Merchant House, then borne Gwak Jeongan at the Gwak Residence.
She had lavished endless love on Gwak Jeongan while guilt consumed her.
She was deeply ashamed of how savagely she had hated and abused her firstborn.
Yet time heals all, and she had only just managed to forget everything—when that first child, now grown, had appeared at her door.
Dan Yeop said nothing.
As his silence lengthened, Jin Eunseol spoke again.
“Master Dan, forgive me. I know it sounds like an excuse, but at that time I was not in my right mind. Uh—uh—uhhhh!”
Overcome by emotion, she wept openly.
Dan Yeop, who had been sitting in a daze, finally spoke.
“Madam Jin, I am grateful that you have said this much, even now. But that does not mean I forgive you.”
Truthfully, Dan Yeop held no memory of her at all.
That was a decision only the Dan Yeop who had endured it could make.
With nothing more to say, he rose slowly from his seat.
When Jin Eunseol began to sob silently, Gwak Ido stepped forward.
“You say you’re grateful she apologized, then refuse to forgive her? What kind of heartless talk is that?”
“Do you understand what this woman did to me?”
“I don’t. But didn’t my wife just say she wasn’t in her right mind then? If everyone only insists on their own position, how can the world function? You must learn to see things from the other person’s perspective.”
“Are you really asking the victim to understand the perpetrator’s circumstances?”
“Before victim and perpetrator, aren’t you parent and child? Between family—not strangers—such things shouldn’t happen.”
At Gwak Ido’s reproachful words, Dan Yeop suddenly burst into laughter.
“Pfahahaha! You are truly worthy of being Madam Jin’s husband. Should we call this Birds of a Feather Flock Together? Or Husband Leads, Wife Follows? In any case, I have nothing more to say. Farewell.”
Having finished speaking, Dan Yeop turned and left without a backward glance.

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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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