The Eternal Flower Beggar King Chapter 90 – The Lesson

 The Eternal Flower Beggar King Chapter 90 – The Lesson

Several days had passed since the performance.

Jinhwa lay on his bed staring at the ceiling and thinking. He knew he had to stand. But his body would not move. He was exhausted and spent and everything felt hollow. Still, he had to rise, and so he slowly sat up and settled on the edge of the bed.

He saw Heungnoe leaning in the corner.

The geomungo was there. The strings gleamed cold. Jinhwa reached out and stroked the grain of the wood. The hard texture met his fingertips. Jinhwa murmured quietly.

"It's time… to put things in order."

He stood.

He went out to the corridor and opened a window. Cold air brushed his face. The sky was thick with cloud. Snow seemed likely. Jinhwa closed the window and headed for the kitchen. He picked up a broom and a rag from the corner.

It was time to start cleaning.

On the first day he swept the yard.

He cleared the piled leaves and dust, gathered them in a corner, and picked up scraps of paper scattered by the wind. He did not set the broom down until the sun tilted, and only by evening had the yard grown somewhat clean. Jinhwa straightened his back and looked up. Clouds hung thick. Darkness fell fast.

On the second day he turned to the great hall.

He wiped the table with a cloth, straightened the chairs, swept the floor, and swept again. Dust flew but he did not stop. He opened the windows to air the room. By sunset the great hall was clean.

On the third day he entered the practice room.

When he opened the door the smell of dust hit his nose. Instruments were scattered here and there. Jinhwa took a cloth and began wiping them one by one. The geomungo stand that Somyeong had used sat empty. Practice instruments the members had left behind were piled in a corner. Jinhwa arranged them one by one in their proper places.

"You're doing well."

Cheongpung's voice seemed to brush past his ear. But when he turned no one was there. Jinhwa shook his head and went on cleaning.

Four days. Five. Six.

Jinhwa cleaned on in silence. He moved through the corridor, room after room, opening windows to let the air through. He swept out the accumulated dust, cleared cobwebs, wiped floors. After a week the corridor was clean. After a fortnight most of the rooms were in order. Past twenty days the greater part of the estate was clean. As the estate grew cleaner, Jinhwa found his vitality returning.

In the meantime snow had fallen.

Fine at first, then heavier. It piled white in the yard. Every morning Jinhwa cleared it and went back to cleaning. Icicles formed along the eaves and grew longer. As the days grew colder, winter deepened.

It was nearing a month.

When the cleaning was done, a few belongings with no proper place had gathered in a corner of the yard. A strip of silk. A few dried stalks of herbs. Several sheets of ink-stained paper. An old scrap of cloth. Jinhwa did not look at them long.

He gathered dry branches and piled them in the center of the yard and struck a flint. A small flame rose and began to burn the wood.

He threw the belongings into the fire one by one.

The silk flared. The herbs smoked and vanished. The paper turned to ash and scattered in the wind. The scrap of cloth was the last to be swallowed by the flames, blackening, losing its shape, carried into the air.

"Time to let go."

Smoke rose into the sky. Ash scattered in the wind. The flames slowly died. Black ash drifted across the white snow in sharp contrast. Jinhwa did not look back. He turned and went inside.

The last place remaining was the study.

Jinhwa pushed open the heavy door and entered the study.

Bookshelves lined the walls, packed tight. All manner of volumes stood coated in dust. Jinhwa took a cloth and began wiping them one by one. Books on musical theory. Collections of poetry. Volumes of anecdotes about famous wandering musicians. They stood in rows. Jinhwa wiped them slowly, moving along the shelves.

He had been cleaning for some time when his hand stopped.

A worn spine caught his eye. Jinhwa drew the book out slowly and checked the cover. Faded characters were still visible.

"Yeonhae Japyeong"

Jinhwa's breath caught.

"This is… from the inn…"

It was the same book he had picked up beneath a corner table at Chwihyang-ru. The very one he had read night after night at twenty, while paying off his debts. Jinhwa held it in both hands and stood still for a long while.

Then a drawer at the bottom of the bookshelf caught his eye.

Jinhwa opened it slowly. He saw the two objects inside and his breath caught again.

A wooden plaque bearing the Hwasan Sect's crest, inscribed with the name "Cheongheo."

And the basic cultivation manual that Elder Cheongheo had pressed into his hands the day he left the mountain.

Jinhwa picked up the Hwasan plaque with trembling hands. Old and light, but the warm weight of the wood settled in his palm. The two characters — "Cheongheo" — carved on the back had faded considerably. Jinhwa took out the cultivation manual as well and brushed the dust from its worn cover. The pages had swollen, wrinkled from having been soaked and dried again and again.

Jinhwa walked to the desk in the center of the study.

He pulled up the chair and sat. He placed the Yeonhae Japyeong, the Hwasan plaque, and the cultivation manual side by side on the desk. He looked from one to the next for a long while without speaking.

Then he opened the Yeonhae Japyeong slowly.

It was the chapter on interpreting the Four Pillars.

Jinhwa recalled his own birth chart and began to interpret it according to the text.

Hwada-sumu — Fire in abundance, Water absent.

A chart heavy with fire and devoid of water.

The period of great fortune: age thirty-eight.

Pyeonjae-jimyeong — The fate of偏財.

Talent skewed to one side, unable to tend to the rest.

Pyeonjae.

A talent tilted to one extreme.

The years at the Hwasan Sect came back to him.

He had listened to the fortune-teller and enrolled. His fire-affinity aptitude was praised and he entered the gifted class. His fellow disciples placed expectations on him. But when he was diagnosed with a meridian deficiency, the senior masters and instructors said "find another path," and Elder Yakwang said "become a physician."

Jinhwa had followed their words.

But he had never once asked himself.

Do I truly want to practice martial arts? Do I want to become a physician? What do I actually want?

"I only ever… listened to others."

Jinhwa murmured.

He had taken everyone's advice. He had tried to meet everyone's expectations. But the voice inside his own heart — he had never once let it out. He had told no one. He had swallowed it alone, endured alone, and in the end achieved nothing and came down the mountain.

And then at the Murim Alliance Eastern Branch.

"The washout is back — as a musician?"

Jang Muhyeok's sneer echoed in his ears.

Those words had lodged in his chest. The desire to practice martial arts had burned fiercely, but he knew his missing meridians made it impossible, and so he buried the desire. He wanted to be recognized. He wanted to succeed. If martial arts were closed to him, he would prove himself some other way.

But he had never acknowledged that desire.

He had refused to admit his lingering attachment to martial arts, burying it instead. He had tried to succeed through commerce and music. And in the end the hidden desire festered and burst, and everything collapsed.

The clothing shop and Pungnyu-gak had been the same.

When he opened the shop at eighteen and earned a reputation for having a good eye, a large trading partner's proposal had stirred unease in a corner of his heart. "Isn't this too big a deal?" Jang Ikho had told him to go slowly. He himself had known he should be careful. But he had wanted to hear only the voice of success. He had not wanted to hear his own voice of doubt. In the end he invested everything he had. And went bankrupt.

Pungnyu-gak was no different. At twenty-four he had earned the reputation of leading the greatest troupe under heaven, yet he had never spoken aloud the desire to perform himself. He was lonely and anxious but said nothing to the members. He knew he could not handle it and still took up with four women. He knew he should guard against women and still could not stop. When everything collapsed he locked himself in his room and refused even to answer.

All three times had been the same.

He had listened to voices outside and turned away from the voice within. He had chased others' expectations and buried his own truth. He had looked at the surface and neglected what lay beneath.

"Pyeonjae…"

Jinhwa opened the Yeonhae Japyeong again and read that passage once more.

"The fate of Pyeonjae is one whose talent tilts to one side, unable to tend to the rest. Though wealth is gathered it cannot be kept. Though fame is won it cannot be sustained. Though love is received it cannot be held. When balance is lost, what was built crumbles, what was achieved scatters, and what was gained vanishes."

That was Pyeonjae.

But Jinhwa shook his head.

"It was not… fate."

He had already read this book at twenty. He had seen the passage on Pyeonjae. He had known he should wait until thirty-eight. He had learned to go slowly.

Master Jang's remark about missing the coin on the roadside because you only watch your feet — that had been about confidence, not about hurrying.

He had known.

But he had failed to follow it.

Why?

Jinhwa closed his eyes and asked himself.

The answer was simple.

When he was cast out of the Hwasan Sect, he wanted to prove himself. When the clothing shop went bankrupt, he wanted to be recognized. When Pungnyu-gak succeeded, he wanted to be loved. He had tried to console a petty heart. He had tried to make up for past failures. And in the process he had lost his balance.

"In the end… it was all my doing."

It was not fate. It was not the Four Pillars. He could have known. He could have been careful. He could have prevented it.

The curse of Pyeonjae lay not in his birth chart but in himself — in the man who had known and still failed to follow.

Jinhwa set the book down on the desk.

He stood. He picked up Heungnoe from the corner and brought it back to the desk. He took the Hwasan plaque and the cultivation manual from the drawer again and laid them alongside.

Four things sat on the desk.

Heungnoe. The Yeonhae Japyeong. The Hwasan plaque. The cultivation manual.

"These four… I will keep."

Heungnoe was his talent. The Yeonhae Japyeong was his caution. The Hwasan plaque was his roots — and the heart of someone who had worried for him. The cultivation manual was his possibility, the trace of his effort, and the trajectory of his life.

If he trusted talent alone and charged ahead, he would crumble. If he heeded only caution and stood still, he would achieve nothing. If he forgot his roots, he would lose his way. If he abandoned possibility, he would have no future.

He needed all four to find balance.

"This time… I will remember."

Jinhwa touched each of the four in turn.

And he would acknowledge the desire for martial arts. That he could not do it did not mean he did not want to. He had to recognize that feeling and accept it. The book said a flower would bloom at thirty-eight. He could wait until then and prepare.

Three times he had known and failed to follow.

This time had to be different.

Outside the window the sun was setting.

Jinhwa left the study, walked the corridor, passed the great hall, and stepped into the yard. He looked around the estate, cleaned over nearly a month. The dust was gone. The cobwebs were cleared. The windows were open and the air moved through.

But there were no people.

Only the empty practice room. The empty seats. The empty rooms. Jinhwa looked at all of it and slowly nodded.

"Everything here… was a lesson."

Success and failure. Love and parting. All of it had taught him.

Jinhwa stood in the center of the yard.

In a few days it would be the new year. Soon he would turn twenty-eight. This estate would have to be sold. A new beginning would have to be prepared.

This time, slowly.

This time, keeping balance.

Night came.

Jinhwa sat at the study desk and looked at the four things in turn. The book had awakened his caution. The geomungo had reminded him of his talent. The plaque had told him not to forget his roots. The cultivation manual had told him his future was still open.

Tomorrow he would begin to prepare.

He would sell the estate and raise a stake. He would find new work. This time he would build slowly.

Jinhwa blew out the candle and went to his bed.

He lay down and looked at the ceiling. In the darkness he murmured.

"This time will be different."

He closed his eyes.

"No — it must be different."

Dawn came.

Jinhwa rose. He washed his face. He went to the desk.

He sat and watched the sun rise through the window.

In the quiet estate, Jinhwa began to think about what he should do.

What he must do.

[End of Chapter 90]