TSBIRBV Ch 103

Chapter 103 Heaven above, Suzhou–Hangzhou below (15)

“Goodness, goodness. Old Dog will die. Old Dog will die.”

An old beggar burst through the inn door and plopped himself down before Yegyeol.

Yegyeol was in the middle of breakfast.

The server had offered to bring the meal up to the room, but Yegyeol refused, aiming to return to handling everything alone.

With his responses to the world dulled to a bare flicker, Yegyeol didn’t even twitch a brow at the intruder’s arrival.

“Youngster, those eyes are as dried as a salted fish.”

The old beggar clicked his tongue.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Old Dog of the Beggar Sect’s Six‑Knot rank. No famous martial name—just an old man with broad experience.”

Yegyeol checked the corded knots at the man’s waist. There were six.

Six knots—he had heard that, if not quite a sub‑branch master, it was the tier just under; Yegyeol was taken aback.

“You’re here for me?”

“Of course. Ever seen a Beggar Sect elder find the wrong person?”

“I’ve no ties to the Beggar Sect…”

“A beggar’s a Beggar Sect man.”

When Yegyeol narrowed his eyes, Old Dog raised both hands.

“Kidding, kidding. Such temper in one so young—tch.”

Clicking his tongue, Old Dog began.

“This old one is on a commission placed with the Beggar Sect. The client left you here and requested you be taken to a place where you can be entrusted for life.”

“Did Haryang… did Young Master Haryang send you?”

Yegyeol sprang up so fast he banged his knee on the table. Tears sprang to his eyes, and he dropped back into his seat with a thump; the old man clicked his tongue.

“That, I can’t say. I didn’t receive the commission face‑to‑face.”

Shrugging, Old Dog tore off a leg from the roast duck before Yegyeol and bit in.

“This inn’s duck is not bad.”

“Do you perhaps know the young master’s surname?”

If nothing else, that would do—his gaze turned pleading, but Old Dog stayed bland.

“Told you, I don’t know. Never met him—how would I?”

A hollow weariness flowed through Yegyeol.

Whether he knew the boy’s turmoil or not, the old beggar chewed his duck and spoke again.

“At any rate, if you want to be adopted into a decent house, I’ll take you to a couple desperate for a child. If it isn’t a family you want, I can take you to a small sect that will raise you till you’re grown—the sect leader’s upright, the people under him kind. I’ll choose well.”

Old Dog’s wink—trusting the Beggar Sect’s intelligence—was impish. But Yegyeol knew what fortune had fallen into his lap.

If he followed this old beggar, he’d never return to Hangzhou’s back alleys. Six knots—third‑rate drifters like Crooked Ear or Pit Viper wouldn’t be able to touch him.

“If nowhere calls to your heart, you can even join the Beggar Sect. As it happens, it’s time I took a disciple.”

As the boy’s silence stretched, Old Dog added gently,

“Well—what will it be?”

Yegyeol stared at the duck‑fat‑slick beard.

“…Then, can we go here?”

He spilled tea on the table and traced the only characters he knew.

“崑崙”

He had stayed up nights to memorize it so he wouldn’t forget; the strokes were wobbly, but still legible.

“Oi, are you teasing me, thinking Old Dog can’t read?”

Seeing what Yegyeol wrote, Old Dog scowled and scolded.

“I can’t read.”

So blunt it verged on brazen; the old beggar paused.

“You saying you know where this is, yet still want to go?”

“Just.”

Lowering his eyes, Yegyeol said,

“There’s someone I’m looking for.”

The longer he lived alone, the more he devoted each day to recovery so he could return to ordinary life, the more he thought of Haryang.

Before he put down roots somewhere for life, he wanted to see that the young master was safe.

“Huh. Huh. My, my.”

Old Dog stroked his beard again and again.

“Where is this?”

“You really don’t know. Those characters read as Kunlun.”

“…Kunlun!”

“If Hangzhou is at the eastern edge of the Central Plains, then Kunlun is at the western edge.”

Grumbling that it would take more than three months just to get there, Old Dog asked,

“Now do you see how outrageous your talk is?”

Yegyeol tilted his head.

“Didn’t you say you’d take me wherever I wanted?”

“Sure. That’s the commission.”

Rubbing his palms—saying he’d received a pleasantly hefty anonymous voucher—Old Dog seemed to think the boy would give up at mention of the far west.

“Anywhere in the Central Plains?”

“Anywhere.”

At the repeated confirmation, the old beggar readily answered.

“Then I’ll go here.”

Yegyeol pointed at the tea‑written characters.

“No, come on. I know a fine sect in Wuhan—good waters, good folk. Not the world’s top art, but a mind method and sword art that ranked in the top hundred and change a century and a half ago.”

“Kunlun.”

“Or Luoyang! How about Luoyang? The Son of Heaven resides there. I know a truly harmonious couple—only thing missing is a child. Their wealth is the best quality—descended from the adopted son of a eunuch favored by the emperor about a hundred years back.”

“I like Kunlun better.”

“No—do you think Kunlun is next door? For a child to endure such a long road—do you know how rough the Central Plains are? You could meet forest bandits or beasts and die crossing a mountain.”

No matter how enticing the offer, no matter the threat of death en route, Yegyeol stubbornly repeated his demand.

“Kunlun.”

“You want this old beggar to cross the Central Plains white‑haired and tottering?”

Even appealing to pity, Old Dog found him a tough one.

“Isn’t a Six‑Knot of the Beggar Sect a martial man?”

If he said no here, the pride of a hundred thousand Beggar Sect members would crumble.

For the Beggar Sect, weaker in martial arts than other sects—this was something they could never admit.

Yegyeol repeated what he had said all along.

“I’m going to Kunlun.”

It was the clean‑eyed madness of the truly fixed. In the end, Old Dog raised the white flag.

“To bend a stubbornness even the sect head elder set aside—you’ll be a real specimen.”

Clicking his tongue, the beggar let out a long sigh and rose.

“Fine. Let’s go. Let’s see.”

Saying he’d thought this a profitable deal but now it looked like a total loss, Old Dog grumbled. Yet the whole way to Qinghai, he protected Yegyeol as best he could.

Half by luck, Yegyeol reached Mount Kunlun in Qinghai before winter that year. More nights he groaned with fever and muscle ache than slept easy; still, somehow, his chest felt light as flight.

Standing at the foot of the grand mountain softly capped in white snow, Yegyeol vowed,

“I’ll just see that the young master is well.”

Having climbed thus, the boy would not leave Kunlun until he breathed his last.

—

Relating the tale from their first meeting in Hangzhou to arrival at Kunlun with an even face, Yegyeol checked Haryang’s expression.

It was ambiguous, hard to read.

“But when we met again at Kunlun, senior brother seemed to have forgotten me entirely.”

Blithely, Old Dog inducted Yegyeol into the Beggar Sect, saying the contract had been to find him a place to live his life. Now he knew it was Old Dog’s kindness; at the time, it felt like being left alone with a young lord on a mountain with no one else.

Still, his heart beat fast.

After the entry trial, becoming Disciple of Master Baekyang Zhenren, he met the young lord again—now called Je Haryang.

The joy of learning his surname was Je faded quickly; Haryang passed him as if he did not know him.

“…I see. So that is why you came to Kunlun.”

Lowering his eyes, Haryang murmured,

“When we met again as fellow disciples, I thought it too much the prank of fate to call it fortune—and even so, until now, I did not know.”

There was a slackness to his tone.

“You wrote it, knowing I couldn’t read.”

With a not‑unkind sideways glance, Yegyeol let out the old grievance.

“…There were many ears listening—and I could not reveal where I was going.”

“Then why write it so?”

Even knowing he couldn’t read.

“I think… I hoped you would know, at least that much. Perhaps that was it. I was in no state to return home ever again, and I wanted someone—anyone—to remember me.”

His voice, retracing childhood clumsiness, sank low.

Never to return home again—he’d guessed it since the assassins, but truly a young lord with much behind him, thought Yegyeol, clicking his tongue inwardly.

Raising his head, Haryang looked at Yegyeol with a glint as if seeing something strange for the first time.

“Why did you never demand answers of me? Why… did you not resent me?”

Astonishment tinged his voice.

“Half out of stubbornness.”

Having suffered to reach Kunlun, surely there had been resentment and hurt that the young lord forgot him; but such things grew faint.

“The other half… I thought a person could forget someone like me. Even then, senior brother helped many.”

Yegyeol gave a bitter smile.

When the young lord did not recognize him, he had been a little down; but thinking on it, remembering a beggar boy he’d spent a fortnight with for half a year would be strange.

Besides, crossing half the Central Plains at a young age, he had grown taller, put on flesh, and darkened from the sun.

“May I ask one thing I wondered then?”

“What?”

Haryang readied himself to answer the disciple’s question. This time, he would answer frankly. The burdens that Je Haryang had carried as a child were long since shed.

“Your arm—did it heal?”

Footnotes

• Beggar Sect “Six‑Knot”: A rank marker often tied to cords/knots; indicates mid‑high seniority capable of undertaking protection/escort commissions.