The Eternal Flower Beggar King Chapter 69 – Regional Tour

The Eternal Flower Beggar King Chapter 69 – Regional Tour

A dry leaf drifted down and settled on Paeng Hoyeon's shoulder, crackling as it crumbled. He was carrying a heavy letter, and he came to Jinhwa's quarters.

"Gakju-nim."

"What is it?"

"An invitation from the northern murim. The Bukhae Geompa—the North Sea Sword Sect."

Jinhwa took the letter.

The paper was coarse and thick. The four characters "Bukhae Geompa" inked across its face seemed to give off the smell of iron before the smell of ink.

The sixtieth-birthday banquet of the jangmunin—the sect leader—of the sword school that stood foremost in the north.

The weight of the sender's name pressed harder than the figure of three hundred nyang.

Cheongpung-hyeong, peering over Jinhwa's shoulder at the letter, let his jaw fall open on its own.

"The Bukhae Geompa… isn't that one of the ten great sects of the murim?"

"It is."

Paeng Hoyeon cut in, his voice low.

"The most respected school in the north. Their swordsmanship is renowned across the world."

A deep crease formed between Cheolsan-hyeong's brows as well.

"A warriors' feast… the atmosphere won't be anything like what we've seen so far, will it?"

"It will not."

Paeng Hoyeon's voice was blunt.

"The wealthy and the nobles enjoy leisurely pungnyu, but warriors prize gi-se—force of presence. If their killing intent overwhelms you and the playing falters…"

His words trailed off. In the sliver of silence that followed, Jinhwa's eyes wavered for an instant.

He thought.

'Warriors… those razor-edged blades… but when I think of Mount Hua, wasn't that a place where people lived too?'

But Jinhwa gripped the letter tight and nodded.

"I will accept."

"Gakju?"

Cheongpung-hyeong's startled voice cut the air, but a faint smile was already spreading across Jinhwa's lips.

"Hyeong-nim, our sound doesn't only work on tycoons draped in silk, does it?"

"But—"

"If the murim wants us, we simply play the sound that fits them."

Jinhwa's voice was calm, yet confidence ran beneath it. Cheongpung-hyeong stared at him for a long moment, then finally broke into a grin and could only nod.

A fortnight later. A cold wind blowing halfway up the mountain.

Pungnyu-gak's carts passed through the massive sanmun—the mountain gate—of the Bukhae Geompa.

The moment Jinhwa stepped down from the cart, the texture of the air against his skin was different.

Grandeur. And a chill.

Sword-bearing warriors moved in every direction. Their eyes, every last one, were like honed blades—just meeting a gaze felt as though it could draw blood. Each time Jinhwa felt those stares, a coldness crept up his spine.

A sharpness that seemed to prick the skin.

Hyangnan hunched her shoulders without thinking. Yeona held her breath. Sobaek and Jangseok looked around with faces frozen stiff with tension.

A heavy pressure settled onto Jinhwa's chest as well.

He thought.

'This place… is different, all right.'

In place of the rich perfume and drowsy leisure of tycoons' estates, this place was filled with the smell of whetted steel and the taut tension of trained warriors. The gi-se was like ten thousand invisible needles stabbing into every inch of his body.

But Jinhwa steadied his breathing and calmly gathered the members.

"Everyone."

Every eye locked onto his.

"We are musicians. Not warriors."

A short silence.

"Warriors speak with the sword. We speak with sound. A sharp blade cannot cut sound. There is no need to be cowed by their gi-se."

Jinhwa looked deep into each person's eyes and asked.

"Do you believe our sound is weaker than their swords?"

No one answered, but he could see the fear lifting from their eyes and a stubborn resolve settling in.

"We are the greatest pungnyu troupe under heaven. Our sound reaches anyone, anywhere."

Cheongpung-hyeong nodded first. Cheolsan-hyeong drew his daegeum and gripped it in his hand. Hyangnan inhaled deeply and filled her lungs to the brim.

Jinhwa led the way.

"Let us go."

The performance hall was a vast martial-arts training ground.

Sword-bearing warriors sat packed on every side. At the head, the jangmunin of the Bukhae Geompa and other masters occupied their seats. Their eyes were cold and detached—as though they had come not to enjoy a performance but to judge a sparring match.

Jinhwa stood at the center of the stage.

He placed the geomungo before him and slowly closed his eyes.

He spoke to himself.

'It makes no difference that warriors sit before me.'

'We simply… drive our sound into their hearts.'

The jangmunin raised his hand to call for silence. In an instant, the training ground—hundreds strong—fell quiet as a lie.

A stillness in which not even a breath could be heard.

Jinhwa's fingers hung in the air, then struck the strings with conviction.

Dung—

The first note rang out. It tore through the cold air of the training ground and sent a ripple outward.

Jinhwa concentrated, eyes still closed.

'The form and sound of a sword moving with fluid grace…'

Cheolsan's daegeum sliced the air like the keen gust of a sword-wind, and through the gap Cheongpung's piri drove in like a sharp thrust. Then Hyangnan's voice rode over both and spilled like sword-energy.

The piece was called "Geommu"—Sword Dance.

It had been composed in haste, swaying in the cart on the road north. Yet within it lay a reverence for the blade and a deep understanding of those who wield it.

Jinhwa raked the surface of the strings and the geomungo gave the sound of a sword being drawn.

Shwik—!

A low, keen note scraped along the floor of the training ground and spread. In Jinhwa's mind, countless swords from his Mount Hua days flashed past.

His master's sword. His classmates' swords. The sword he had once held but was forced, in the end, to let go.

Cheolsan's daegeum gave the sound of wind being cleaved. The bipa struck out the cracking report of steel meeting steel. The drum pounded like the heavy footwork of a blade driving into the earth—kung, kung—rattling every heart.

The ten instruments did not play apart.

Like a well-drilled sword formation, they filled each other's gaps, amplified each other's force, and built one enormous sword dance.

Jinhwa shivered as he played.

'Fluid as Mount Hua's Plum Blossom Sword Formation, yet without a single opening.'

At the center, his fingers became not a conductor's baton but a sword, leading them all.

Hyangnan's song reached its peak.

She sang of the solitude of a warrior with a sword in hand, and the loneliness left behind his back.

"With one sword I wander the world…"

Her voice struck the high ceiling of the training ground, fell, and bored into the warriors' chests.

It was not simply a song. It was the crystallization of the loneliness and pride they had felt their entire lives.

Jinhwa opened his eyes and looked at the warriors.

Cracks were forming in faces that had been rigid as stone.

Cold gazes thawed. Those who had sat guarded with arms folded let their posture loosen. Someone closed his eyes and nodded, riding the rhythm.

Jinhwa felt it.

'It's reaching them.'

'Our sound… is piercing their gang-gi and touching their hearts.'

The piece reached its absolute peak.

The geomungo strings screamed under Jinhwa's fingertips as though blood might bead at any moment. Ten instruments fused into one and poured out their sound like a final, decisive strike. Hyangnan's last high note drew the air of the training ground taut—then, tuk, severed it.

The last note scattered into the air.

Perfect stillness.

The jangmunin shot to his feet.

He slammed his rough palms together and began to clap. It became a signal flare. The entire training ground rose as one, and the applause of hundreds of warriors shook the floor like thunder.

"Magnificent!"

The jangmunin laughed broadly and cried out.

"This old man has spent his life looking at nothing but swords, yet today—for the first time—I heard a sword in sound! This is… a simgeom—a heart-sword!"

The masters at the head nodded and exchanged glances. The younger warriors released the excitement they had been holding back and erupted in cheers.

"Thank you!"

Jinhwa bowed deeply, sweat streaking his face, and thought.

'Even in the murim… our sound reaches them.'

The banquet hall, after the performance.

The jangmunin came to Jinhwa with a wine cup in his own hand.

A rough, calloused hand—its hard skin like a badge of honor—gripped Jinhwa's slender one tightly.

"Gakju-nim."

"Yes, Jangmunin-nim."

"Our Bukhae Geompa is famed across the world for the sword. But tonight, we lost to sound."

Genuine respect filled the jangmunin's eyes.

"Come again. Next time I will pay double—no, triple the fee."

"You are too kind."

"No. It is only what is fitting."

That night, the Bukhae Geompa's banquet burned hot.

Pungnyu-gak's members mingled with the warriors and drank. Cheongpung-hyeong got thoroughly drunk and shouted, "The murim's nothing special! Before our sound, everyone's the same!" He was promptly muzzled and dragged out by Cheolsan-hyeong.

Jinhwa sat across from the jangmunin and drank tea.

The jangmunin's eyes narrowed over his cup.

"Gakju-nim, have you ever studied martial arts?"

Jinhwa set his cup down and answered, feigning embarrassment.

"…When I was young. Only a very little."

"I see. I sensed an extraordinary breathing in every movement of your hands."

The jangmunin was a man who understood courtesy.

He did not press deeper.

Relief and gratitude spread through Jinhwa's chest at the same time.

"I wish someone like you, Gakju-nim, would visit the murim more often. Warriors ought to know pungnyu, too. Spend every day swinging a sword and your heart hardens like iron."

"If the chance arises, I will come again without fail."

"That is a promise."

After passing through the Bukhae Geompa's mountain gate, Jinhwa gazed out the cart window and felt the turn of the season.

Only days ago the autumn colors had just begun to set. Now the entire mountain blazed in red and gold. Each time the wind sent leaves tumbling past the cart, a dry rustling reached his ears, and Jinhwa realized how deep into autumn they had come.

Every morning, when Jinhwa stepped out of the cart, his breath hung white. Watching his numb fingertips, he thought.

'Autumn is deepening.'

The cart wheels rolled on westward without pause, and on top of them Jinhwa prepared for the next performance.

The banquet of a western-region trading caravan.

Fee: four hundred nyang. The audience numbered one thousand.

Befitting a gathering of merchants who traveled the Silk Road, the banquet hall overflowed with vivid color, the scent of spices, and excess.

For this performance, Jinhwa laid the melodies of the western lands onto the geomungo strings.

'Their fragrance. Their dry wind.'

Jinhwa's geomungo scraped out the sand-laden wind of a barren desert. Cheolsan's daegeum traced the plodding footsteps of a camel train walking in silence under a blazing sun. The bipa struck out the clear ring of water at a desert spring—tong, tong.

Hyangnan's song held the deep sorrow of merchants crossing the desert. In her trembling voice, a thick longing for the homeland left far behind soaked through.

One thousand listeners held their breath. When the piece ended, the caravan master wiped his tears, overcome, and seized Jinhwa's hand.

"Wherever our caravan goes, come with us. With your music, even the desert would hold no fear."

But Jinhwa declined with courtesy.

"We do not tie ourselves to one place."

He thought.

'We must be free. The sound, and us.'

The caravan master looked regretful but added a hundred nyang to the fee and said.

"Come anytime. My tent is always open for you."

On the road south from the western region, Jinhwa gazed at the landscape unfolding beyond the cart window and marveled.

The autumn colors had reached their peak. The entire world was ablaze in red. Some mountains were solid crimson. Others mingled yellow and orange, like an immense painting. Jinhwa stared, lost in the beauty.

As Jinhwa sat tending his geomungo by the window, Hyangnan settled beside him and said.

"I never knew autumn could be this beautiful."

Jinhwa nodded.

'She's right. When was the last time I traveled slowly enough to feel the seasons like this…'

The cart continued south. Within that beautiful landscape, Jinhwa felt a strange peace.

The wedding of the son of Gangnam's greatest merchant.

Fee: five hundred nyang.

The ceremony ran for three days and three nights.

Jinhwa prepared this performance with special care.

A piece celebrating the wedding. The love between husband and wife. A prayer for a hundred years together.

In the final moments of the third consecutive piece, Jinhwa fell into thought as he played.

'What is… love?'

'What is the weight of spending a lifetime with someone?'

His fingers responded to the passing thought on their own.

The sound was warmer and softer than before, yet a faint, aching sadness bled through it. Among the audience, some wiped their eyes without knowing why.

The merchant cried out.

"Pungnyu-gak indeed! In all my life I've never received such a blessing!"

On the final day, he pressed ten bolts of the finest silk onto them, saying, "In honor of my son's wedding."

Cheongpung-hyeong took the silk and blinked back tears.

"Brothers, we have… truly become something. This isn't a dream, is it?"

"You go too far, Hyeong-nim."

"No. It really is incredible. That we should receive treatment like this…"

Cheongpung-hyeong's voice choked. Hyangnan came over and patted his shoulder without a word.

Jinhwa watched the warm scene and smiled quietly.

After the wedding, as they turned east, the season was changing once again.

When Jinhwa stepped out of the cart one morning, the trees stood with nothing but bare branches.

Only days before they had been thick with red and gold leaves. Now everything had fallen and lay heaped on the ground. Each time Jinhwa stepped on them, a dry rustle sounded, and that brittle noise told him autumn was ending.

Jinhwa looked up at the sky.

Clouds hung thick. The wind was cold. Winter was in the air.

He pulled his collar tight and thought.

'Snow will come soon.'

He blew on his hands and climbed back into the cart.

The promotion banquet of a provincial governor.

Fee: three hundred and fifty nyang.

The gathering of officials and their families was solemn and full of protocol.

Jinhwa matched the mood and played an elegant, dignified piece.

Not excessive. But deep.

Emotion restrained, form observed—Jinhwa's playing struck the officials' taste dead center.

The governor said in admiration.

"A performance fit to be reported to the Son of Heaven… if you went to the capital, you could play at court."

Jinhwa bowed his head politely, but inside, a bitter smile spread.

'The court… not yet.'

But the words themselves were proof of how far Pungnyu-gak's standing had reached. The members' shoulders rose high with pride.

A few days later, as the carts were passing through a large market town.

Jinhwa was looking idly out the window when someone in the crowd shouted.

"Look! That banner!"

"That's the Cheolgi Pyoguk banner! Those carts are—"

"Could it be Pungnyu-gak?"

In an instant, people began surging toward the carts.

Paeng Hoyeon rushed to order the escorts to hold the crowd back, but the excited voices punched through the cart walls and carried clearly inside.

"Is it really Pungnyu-gak?"

"Is Master Geumsoo Eulsaeng here?"

"When's the next performance?"

Jinhwa looked at Cheongpung-hyeong in shock.

Cheongpung-hyeong was staring out the window with a look of disbelief.

"Gakju… those people are…"

"It seems they know us."

Cheolsan-hyeong chuckled.

"They recognize us just passing on the road now. Traveling in secret won't be easy."

Hyangnan opened the window a crack and leaned out. A roar of cheering erupted loud enough to shake the street.

"It's Lady Hyangnan!"

"It really is Pungnyu-gak!"

"Wow!"

Hyangnan waved and smiled. The crowd went wilder still.

Even after the carts had slowly cleared the market, the cheering behind them did not stop for a long time.

Jinhwa sank deep into his seat and pressed a hand to his chest.

'I had no idea it had gone this far…'

Cheongpung-hyeong's excited voice rang through the narrow cart.

"Gakju! We've… really become famous!"

"So it seems."

"This is what success looks like! Don't you think? Earning money, people recognizing us!"

Jinhwa nodded slowly.

'Success.'

'Yes. This is success.'

Money. Fame. Everywhere they went, people recognized them and cheered.

If this is not success, what is?

The inn where they stayed that night was different from before.

The moment Jinhwa stepped out of the cart, the owner came running and asked, "Could you be the people of Pungnyu-gak?" When Jinhwa nodded, the owner's face lit up. He pressed his hands together and bowed, overcome.

"It is an honor to host those I have heard of only in rumor!"

The owner discounted the rooms. At dinner, other guests came without end to pay their respects. Jinhwa responded to each one with courtesy.

Late that night, inside the cart, Cheongpung-hyeong marveled once more.

"Gakju. We have… become the greatest under heaven, I think."

"We still have far to go."

"No."

Cheolsan-hyeong cut in.

"We're already there. Everyone knows us."

Jinhwa looked out the window of the inn room at the night sky and thought.

'So much… has changed.'

A mere half-year ago, treatment like this would have been beyond imagination.

The next morning, Jinhwa woke and opened the window. Cold air struck his face.

The temperature seemed to have dropped further in the night. He rubbed his hands, pulled his clothes tight, and walked toward the carts. With every step, he felt the ground frozen solid underfoot.

Then Paeng Hoyeon approached, carrying a heavy bundle.

"Invitations."

Jinhwa unwrapped the bundle. Dozens of letters spilled out.

Ten, twenty, thirty… more than forty invitations.

The wealthiest man in Unju. The northwest murim alliance branch. The southern caravan federation…

Everyone wanted Pungnyu-gak. Everyone wanted Geumsoo Eulsaeng.

Jinhwa stared down at the pile of invitations.

'Truly…'

'Everyone knows us.'

That evening, Jinhwa sat alone inside the cart, looking out the window.

Something white had begun to fall from the sky.

Jinhwa's eyes went wide.

Snow.

The first snow.

Fine, white flakes drifted through the darkness and descended slowly. Jinhwa reached out and opened the window.

Cold air struck his face. A single snowflake landed on his palm and melted away. He felt the cold touch and gazed quietly at his hand.

He thought.

'Winter is beginning.'

From the next cart came the sound of the members laughing and talking, drunk on success. The campfire the escorts had lit crackled—tadak, tadak—and its glow caught the falling snow and made it sparkle.

In Jinhwa's hand, a crumpled invitation.

'Everyone knows us.'

The words kept circling in his head.

When he washed out of Mount Hua, no one knew him.

When the clothing shop collapsed and he was thrown onto the streets, the world did not remember him.

When he lived as a wandering musician, he was merely one nameless player among countless others.

But now it was different.

Pungnyu-gak.

Geumsoo Eulsaeng.

The greatest pungnyu troupe under heaven.

The world now called that name, wanted that sound, and looked up to him.

Jinhwa folded the invitation slowly and moved his lips.

"Everyone… knows us."

The words held a tangle of feeling.

Pride. Accomplishment. Relief… and beneath it all, an inexplicable, faint hollowness.

Jinhwa raised his head and looked up at the night sky.

Snowflakes danced as they fell. A cold wind blew. The cart creaked.

'Now we have…'

'…become a pungnyu troupe known to the entire world.'

Everyone knew.

The world called their name.

But was success truly only this?

Outside the window the snow kept falling, and winter was beginning.

[End of Chapter 69]