Notes.

No notes.

Answer to Itsrainingtacos :

I'll probably never be able to thank you enough for you gentle words and for always taking the time to give me your feedback on this story, I'm always so happy when I get a notification, and they seriously brighten my days/night everytime. Yes, you're absolutely right, Seung-Min is going to play a bigger part in this arc, althought it won't be that big, but still ;). Haha, yes, Hui Seon and the others left the city indeed, but they're not that far, and there is definitely a good reason for why they're not answering the calls. And I'm so happy you like the idea of Dong Soo having something to do with Cho-Rip's fate :D ! And oh my, thank you, thank you so, so much for your reviews on "The Clouds Dynasty", I'm incredibly grateful that you read it all and wrote all these wonderful and amazing comments, I was giggling and smiling like an idiot when I read them ! I'm truly glad you liked this story as well, I know it was something unusual but since I had all the storyline planned since years, I decided it was time for me to wrote it, even if it was shorter that what I had thought in the first place :P. I hope this chapter will please you just as much, and thank you again, so much !

CHAPTER LVII

"Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore —
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, 'tapping at my chamber door —
Only this and nothing more.'"

(Edgar Allan Poe, american writer and poet, "The Raven")

a. Backward-looking

Woon and his student had originally planned to stay in Hanyang until Seollal's celebrations, and they both expressed their embarrassment and discomfort at the thought of inconveniencing their hosts for such an extended period of time. They were told that they were not intruding in any way, and that their stay could last as long as they wished without fear of imposing themselves on the Baek, as they emphasized the place they had in their new residence and the pleasure they took in receiving them.

However, during a walk in the neighborhood, suggested by Dong Soo on the third day of their cohabitation to enable them to stretch their legs and which entailed less risk than a trip to the more commercial and consequently more frequented arteries of the capital, Woon, who walked beside him, revealed to him that he had expected to be able to lodge again at the Spring House, where his presence as well as Mago's would have been smothered by that of other guests, and where the dimensions of the house would have made the feeling of inconvenience caused by his soliciting the hospitality of Dong Soo and his wife less significant.

In spite of the latter's reiteration of welcome, and the repeated assurance that his visit enchanted both of them without being a burden on the harmony of their household or their comfort more generally, Woon expressed concerns about the risk they were taking in hosting them with Mago, and which they had already briefly addressed during their reunion a few days before.

Coming behind them, his student narrated their explorations of the Qing to Yun-Seo and Yoo-Jin, enjoying describing the singular landscapes of some regions, the misty high mountains, the dizzying and totally untamed peaks, full of mystery and power, the wide rivers surrounded by wild greenery, the huge rice fields. Yun-Seo was asking her all kinds of questions, underlining her genuine interest in her stories, and Dong Soo saw that she was enjoying contrasting her own knowledge of the Manchu territory with the girl's descriptions. Yoo-Jin listened seemingly more distractedly, playing with a long stick and drawing lines on the ground.

Don't worry about us, he had assured Woon confidently, you're not putting us in danger. He would have wanted to be able to take his hand, feel his icy fingers slipping into the hollow of his elbow, or embrace his waist and feel its bones, while Woon would have looked up at him, and manipulated the fabric of his shirt, as he had done once before, long ago, when they were returning from an evening at an entertainment house with their comrades from the training camp.

Throughout the third week of November before the meeting of the Yeogogoedam members, he went to his small office at the palace, diligently processed his files with his assistant, then went to the barracks, conducted his patrols, led his men between the sprawling bare trees in search of Gwishins. They found almost none, except for a couple. The robustness of the man was such as to make him accepted into the ranks of the army of the dead and his execution could be avoided, but the woman, who had no special skill to play in her favor, was beheaded before the eyes of her companion.

I'm sorry, Dong Soo had said, as he always did, but the words were losing a little more of their meaning each time, and when he returned that evening, the woman's head had accompanied him, giving him an abominable look, full of accusations and incomprehension. He had finally strayed from his path, had gone to seek the consolation of the dragon as he usually did as soon as ghosts appeared around him, silent and accusing, and had only returned at breakfast time, where the sight of Woon sitting at his table had been so bitterly sweet that he had wished he could have knelt down before him, begged for his forgiveness, let him stroke his hair and hear him say, "I liked what you did" again.

I kill out of duty, not because I want to, but I kill anyway, he had thought while eating, without speaking, his reflections directed towards the fields and his impotence of that day, his horror at the realization of the lack of alternative which he had then had, or at least thought he had, and which he attributed, in the lowest, most unpleasant hours, to a lack of faith and imagination. Noticing his despondency, Woon had asked him if everything was all right, and everyone at the table had looked at him, intrigued. He had answered without venturing over his state of mind, but had guessed that Woon had detected it, and had most likely been able to associate the brevity of his reply with his nocturnal work.

As the full moon had passed, the nights were irremediably darker, while the cold grew in severity, bringing with it the traditional carriage of diseases to which the poorest inhabitants of the capital were the first to succumb, exhausted and weakened as they were already by a ruthless daily toil and by a life of widespread misery. He did not witness the torture of the captured gwishin, but he understood from a surreptitious conversation that he had been one of those who had not yielded to the royal command in spite of the suffering inflicted by the fire, and whose resurrection had resulted in such a swift return to the grave.

The day after returning from his patrol, he kept his word to Woon, and walked to the street near the west gate in search of the bookstore of the dead and Im Ji-Ho. He found its old and respectable frame in the expected location, but not the owner, who had been replaced in 1777. A very kind, very shy gentleman, the new owner told him, who left to be reunited with his gravely ill daughter, but I am sorry I cannot tell you exactly where he went, since he did not indicate it to me.

When he gave the news of his departure to Woon a little late in the day, after taking a rest from his patrol, he saw him frowning, and his expression darkening. He was then training his student, and was monitoring her progress in the shelter of the back garden, when Dong Soo had joined him.

The girl was applying herself, very concentrated, with a sword in her hand as she practiced her attacks and parries, and he could see, with a respectful pinch of fear, that her level was quite good, if not excellent in some ways, and higher in others than that of his brigade men, who had been well trained since they were very young.

"It doesn't make sense," Woon said, his arm folded in front of him, while observing his student attentively. "Even with all the torture and new measures, it's not like Hui Seon to be so quiet. She also told me that the bookseller himself was very active and frequently made contact with other Gwishins for his research. They master the mechanisms of consciousness much better than me or Mago. If they wanted to go unnoticed or prevent other Gwishins from locating them, I am almost certain that they would succeed without any particular difficulty."

A light, cold wind had risen and its breezes lifted Woon's hair and swelled the fabric of his clothes. With his fingertips, he was pulling on one side of his tunic, mechanically tugging at it. Woon's nervousness had always involved his fingers, especially the tips of his fingers. At the training camps, in addition to fiddling with the threads of his shirts, Dong Soo had sometimes seen him biting the skin around his nails, and tearing off tiny fragments, especially when he was very nervous (he could cause a scandal Dong Soo-yah).

The year they were seventeen, his fingers had been bleeding so often that even Sa-Mo had noticed it, and Dong Soo remembered taking one in his mouth one day, and licking it to clean it, tasting the rust on his tongue.

Seung-Min had confirmed to him that he wanted to take the Gwageo military examination, but the education he had received as part of his training as a future brigade soldier had been a little more restrictive regarding the knowledge required to obtain sufficient marks to validate the test, more specifically in terms of literary and philosophical elements.

Such an economy of teaching was intended by the government, which also sought to maintain the traditions of passing on positions of responsibility to the more wealthy families, whose finances supported access to more in-depth instruction and thus addressed the major theoretical questions raised in the test, while reducing the risks of irritating participants from more modest origins.

Candidates who had been trained as brigade soldiers were indeed able to register and attend the test, but their gaps in Confucian doctrine, deliberately left untouched, were a permanent obstacle to their elevation and confined them to secondary positions. Without explicitly disclosing the matter to his men, Dong Soo had, however, when they had broached the subject, suggested that the literary knowledge requirements for the military examination were high, and had suggested to the patrolmen under his command that they could seek his assistance if they wished to take it.

As a result, he had suggested to Seung-Min that he would provide him with the knowledge required to pass the exam, explaining it to him himself, based on the experience he had acquired during his own candidacy for gwageo, and with the help of Yun-Seo, whose more accentuated erudition on certain subjects was highly suitable for such a task. They had agreed to meet once a week at the Baek house to teach Seung-Min the fundamental bases for his success in the exam.

He had already come once between the time after his request and the Yeogogoedam meeting, and while he had not asked any further questions about Woon, Dong Soo had noted his eyes briefly focused on him every time he appeared in the large central room, which he attributed to a curiosity to learn more about the circumstances that had led him to live with his captain.

"Seung-Min told me he had seen you at the Spring House," he had mentioned to Woon the day after the discovery, while they were having tea for the first time alone, as Mago had retired to Dong Soo's room to read a book on martial techniques, that the latter had lent her after discussing it with his master ("She hasn't really had the opportunity to read in Qing, and I want her to at least see the great classics," he had told him).

"That's true. Only for a moment, while he was showing a defensive key to a gisaeng."

"You made a strong impression on him."

"Maybe because I said he hadn't been taught martial arts properly," Woon had noted, and his smile was gently mocking, barely offensive, and a little contrite.

"It's because he didn't have any alcohol on him," Dong Soo had objected, getting caught up in the game. "If he had used soju or magkeolli, I guarantee you he would have been able to honor my teaching."

They had smiled at each other, even though the joke was only just passable. At the Spring House, they had talked about the others, about Cho-Rip, Sa-Mo, Jin-Ju, Ji-Seon, about the life of the country during the ten years that Woon had been underground, about the gwishins, the repression, and everything that had not approached them directly, everything that had not been them, except for exceptional remarks which were almost immediately set aside.

Four years later, they were deploying the same strategy, and Dong Soo was on the lookout for openings, incentives, invitations from Woon, which could have reflected his desire for further discussion, for a centration in time and space, while daring not to, since his way of approaching this kind of thing had been shaped by restraint, silence, prudence (I know what you two are). He thought he had seen some, and deciphered similar expectations in Woon's conduct, but the question was always how, and especially who.

On November 30, after lunch, and leaving Yoo Jin in the care of his tutor, they took the road to the residence where the meeting was to take place together with Yun-Seo, Woon and his student, walking unhurriedly, with a relaxed manner so as not to arouse any suspicion. At one point, Yun-Seo had considered the idea of hiding their guests' faces under jangots, but then abandoned the proposal considering that they would perhaps be more easily spotted than if they went there with their faces uncovered, without showing any signs of worry or uneasiness.

The day before, Dong Soo had unintentionally entered the bathroom while Woon was washing. The room was steaming when he had pushed the door open, full of a heady odor, and he had stopped abruptly when he had seen Woon, immersed in what was most likely burning water, with his back to him, his hair soaked and with considerably more white locks visible than he remembered, as a result of the second Dead Winter.

"Sorry," he had apologized immediately, while Woon was turning to look at him, and Dong Soo had followed with his eyes, almost unintentionally, the delicate contraction of his shoulder blades under his livid skin, the drops of water dripping down his face, the drawing of the red-hot mark on his left shoulder, which had been Heuksa Chorong's, and which Dong Soo had glimpsed when they were younger, without having tried to find out more despite his interest, mainly because he had perceived that Woon did not want to talk about it.

"It's okay," Woon had said softly, without seeming to blame him. "I'm almost done. You can stay and wait, if you want. I don't mind."

They had bathed together at the training camp. Fourteen years later, Dong Soo had only been able to respond to his offer with a horribly shaky "no, no, don't worry, take your time," and close the door to escape to his study and wait without meeting anyone's gaze. When Woon had turned around, he had seen the scar. I'm too old for this, he had decided, realizing that his reaction had been too timid, too hasty, much too old.

The Yeogogoedam meeting was held in the home of a couple of Yangbans who were particularly devoted to the gwishins' cause, and who had been among the first members of the network at the time of its constitution. They had accommodated and helped more than one of them within the walls of their home, a house infinitely more beautiful and imposing than the Baek's, perfectly suited to these secret receptions and illicit assemblies, and expressed their delight in meeting Woon and Mago, whom they greeted with warmth and kindness, and invited to join their other guests without embarrassment.

There were ten other members of the network gathered for the meeting, and Lady Park, the mistress of the house, pointed out to them as soon as they arrived that they were receiving new members. Gwishins had also joined the committee, including a woman who accompanied a craftsman from the town center, and she was thin and pale, with a skinny figure and a more hollow face than Woon's, but she seemed happy to be there.

"Na-Young is my daughter," the craftsman said, visibly moved, as he introduced her to them. "She came back last summer."

Then he addressed Woon and Mago :

"If you have the time, why don't you come by the store one day? She's been drawing a lot since her resurrection, and I think her work might interest you and other Gwishins more widely."

Woon's student asked about the subject of her drawings.

"Maps," she informed them.

"Of Joseon?" Woon asked.

"No. Nor of any other known country nearby, for that matter."

Her equivocal statement, however, did not have time to be the subject of any further questioning. While the hosts were indeed ringing the beginning of the meeting and inviting their guests to gather, Dong Soo let his glance wander over them, and suddenly froze, dumbfounded, when he discovered his aunt Jang-mi among them, pale, looking anxious, her hands clasped together.

Her eyes, when she in turn became aware of his presence, shifted from an already marked anxiety to a real panic.

b. Extented family

On December 1, 1781, Huk Jang-Mi was at home, inside the reassuring walls of her lovely little house in the capital, and since she had woken up much earlier than usual after a restless night, she had checked her food supply four times, cleaned the whole interior from top to bottom twice, with such meticulousness that her shoulders, back and legs were now sore from bending over, unfolding and lifting up, and taken out and stowed away with a spasmodic frenzy all the objects she had been able to find in the boxes and cabinets, without changing their place, but simply because she had concluded that only the setting in motion of the ramifications of her body through the accomplishment of daily and pleasantly familiar tasks, in addition to vaguely insignificant ones, could possibly bring her a semblance of deliverance.

It had been years since she had experienced such feverishness. The last time had been the day before her marriage to Sa-Mo, but then it had been quickly softened by both the absence of fear and the overwhelming amplitude of her euphoria, and had not been the threat to her nerves it now represented, settling within her like an army on a battlefield, troop after troop, more and more plentiful, increasingly agonizing.

She felt like a river in full flood, a beach shoreline invaded by the tide. She entered and left all the rooms of the house, checking that everything was in place, even though nothing had changed since her previous visit, counting the furniture (one two three four), filling the silence with the sound of her rapid footsteps on the floor. Intermittently she drank a cup of dongdongju, and the taste of the liquor seemed more bitter than ever.

She had gone to the Yeogogoedam meeting for comfort and guidance. It was Sa-Mo who had advised her to go, after being informed about it himself. Without going so far as to say that he supported and participated in the movement, he had nonetheless established some cautious connections in two years, starting with a client of the butcher's shop whose discreet membership of the network Sa-Mo had managed to deduce by talking informally with him.

Her husband was naturally warm and talkative, and it was not uncommon for him to spend many hours chatting with visitors to the store, discussing major issues of a totally impersonal and social nature, or dealing with more intimate experiences, which people gladly confided in him, enjoying his friendly ear and good mood. It was through one of these veiled conversations, whispered in alcoves, or more commonly in hanok corners, that he had become more acquainted with the organization that had defended the Gwishins since their emergence, and while he had never really paid attention to them before, without denigrating them, the new parameters of his own situation had instilled in him more enthusiasm for the Yeogogoedam and their activities.

One thing leading to another, he had come to meet others through that first member, but had never attended the meetings they were orchestrating, as he felt that he did not need to personally. For Jang-mi, on the other hand, the tension caused by the concealment of her husband's friends and the possible perils affiliated with the latter, both for them and for those they were protecting, had made it more necessary for her to be able to open up to others freely, far from any judgment or criticism.

Sa-Mo, regularly warned of the schedule of the meetings, had given her the date of November 30, encouraging her to think about taking part in them for her peace of mind. His work at the store prevented him from attending.

"You will tell me what they said," he had asked her in the evening in their room, when Jang-mi had put her head on his shoulder and felt the warmth of his (living) skin against her cheek. "If it goes well, I'll do my best to accompany you to the next one."

She didn't know anyone when she arrived, but she had been remarkably well received, and people had taken an interest in her without being too indiscreet. The meeting was held in the house of a wealthy, noble couple, and Jang-mi certainly saw two or three of them wearing the long colored jacket and the black gat decorated with strands of pearls, symptomatic of an affiliation with the highest social classes, while noting nevertheless the presence of members whose birth was visibly much more sober, with less ostentatious clothing.

Food and drink had been brought in, and everyone was free to help themselves as they wished. The hosts, with whom she spoke briefly so as not to hold them back too much in their reception duties, were both charming and well-educated, and they expressed sympathy when she described her own situation to them.

"My husband's friends have all returned recently," she had explained shyly, both unsure about confessing such an enormity to complete strangers and perfectly happy to be able to do so after months of living in isolation in her secret. We hide them in our basement. "They woke up before the fifth wave, but they only found us recently because we moved since their death."

"How many are they?" the woman asked softly.

"Two men and a woman."

"And when did they find you?"

Dong Soo's father, Baek Sa Goeng, had shown up at their door just a few days after his son had visited them in 1777. Jang-mi had opened the door for him, because Sa-Mo was at work, and she had almost fainted when she had seen him, a smile on his lips, had wavered, and he had immediately grabbed her by the shoulders to prevent her from falling, forcing her to sit down, to come to her senses.

When she had felt able to speak again, she had asked him since when he had risen from the grave. Nearly three years, he had confided to her. He had wandered at first, moving all over the territory, lost and stunned, fleeing the patrols and the army as best he could. By the time the guards at the gates had not yet been deployed, he had been able to return to Hanyang, and had discovered that his house was occupied by others, that his wife and son had disappeared, and later that more than thirty years had passed since he had been decapitated by the executioner's blade.

He had been buried with his head. Jang-mi had not stopped looking at the long black veined scar around his neck. Sa-Mo, upon his return, while giving his former comrade a deeply emotional hug, had imitated his wife in observing the death-mark. A few months later, Yeo Woon's father had also appeared, and with him came Dong Soo's mother. Jang-mi had hoped for her brother, and continued to wait for him, wishing every day a little more that there would be more knocks at her door, and that the instigator would be her brother.

She certainly didn't think she would run into him at the meeting, hadn't even considered the possibility. He had told them that he had taken a position as chief of an anti-gwishin brigade, and while his behavior had been noticeably more responsible and reasonable for the past four years, she and her husband had attributed it primarily to a sincere desire to pull himself together, not motivated by anything other than a desire of his own making.

She had petrified when she had noticed him, staring at her with a total incomprehension, which might have been laughable if it hadn't been so dramatic and legitimate, and then she had seen the prodigiously vivid specter of Yeo Woon (oh) appear by his side, young, pallid and sinister, which had caused her even more fear and grief than Sa-Mo's companions had inspired in her.

Dong Soo's wife was there, too, and a fourth person, a young girl, accompanied them, and her complexion and eyes were enough for Jang-mi to understand the reasons for her presence. Elbowing his way through the guests, Dong Soo had walked towards her briskly, and she had wanted to duck away, to flee the confrontation, but had been paralyzed by the vision of Yeo Woon, who was following him closely, and by the realization that their two situations were not so different, as neither had expected to see the other, and both of them had not informed the other of the return of their deads.

"What are you doing here?" Dong Soo had asked once in front of her, with an almost crazy, worried look in his eyes.

Feeling that she had no other choice in anyway, she had told him everything, scrutinizing Yeo Woon sideways, rediscovering the emaciated and ravishing face of the kid she had known, the black eyes, the long hair, and the distant and a little curious expression he had always more or less displayed during his lifetime.

Each time she had opened the door on a dead, she had thought she had gone crazy for a split second, and the phenomenon had repeated itself in the same way with him, although it had been tinged with a singularity, for she had wondered under what circumstances Dong Soo had found him, and if the shock had been as strong as when she had seen Baek Sa Goeng on her doorstep. She did not doubt that it had been more significant, considering how Dong Soo had collapsed after his death, how he had refused to let go.

"My parents came back?" he had articulated, and his lips had formed a hesitant, shy smile.

"Yes. Woon's father too."

Woon showed less joy at the news, but Jang-mi attributed it to his usual reserve. Dong Soo's wife and daughter had joined them, and had listened to the conversation without interfering too much.

Dong Soo had expressed the wish, expected and understandable, to see his father and mother as soon as possible. Yeo Woon had given his agreement to accompany him the next day at the Huk home, but he had been far from showing the same amazement as Dong Soo at the idea of being reunited with his own father.

Jang-Mi, inwardly, had not found the fact to be so surprising : she had been living with Yeo Cho Sang for almost four years, and he was far from being the most cordial resident of the house. He drank non-stop, grumbled more than he spoke, criticized easily, was grumpy and difficult, and frequently exhausted the patience of both Sa-Mo and the Baek couple who occupied the basement with him.

As she was just beginning to think about how he had raised Woon, she heard Dong Soo's voice in the courtyard, and she went to open up to them, pushing her questions away, and containing her apprehension as much as she could. She had warned Sa-Mo, and the latter had promised to return from the butcher shop as soon as he could, bringing their daughter back with him.

She had asked the parents to wait in the main room of the house, and they all rose up quickly when they saw her coming back, together with their sons. She had spoken to them the day before, but the shock was nevertheless painted on their faces, along with joy and relief. Black tears appeared in the eyes of Dong Soo's mother. They were all stupefied, contemplating each other from afar, discovering each other in the case of Dong Soo and his parents, who had not lived long enough to see him grow up.

Jang-Mi, waiting for a first word, for a first sentence, noticed however that Yeo Cho-Sang and his son were looking at each other like two predators, with an open, declared hostility.