I Became a Fallen Noble of Goguryeo

Chapter 7: The Monk

After I gave up climbing the mountain.

I began a not‑recluse life that was not quite idle, watching over ginseng seeds every day throughout the winter and defeating mice and sparrow chicks.

“My mother, today… yikes! A sparrow!”

Whenever I ate, if I saw a sparrow I’d run off.

“…If you pick up where we left off in the story, from now on… ugh! This time a mouse!”

My mother helping with chores sighed deeply when she saw me jump up at the sight of a mouse.

“Oh dear, what are you to do with that…”

At first mother really didn’t like it, but that was only in the early days.

These days she just sighs.

Because of my daily routine.

“Pappa pappa‑pappa!”

“Ginseng, what on earth is that weird noise?”

“That sound wakes me up well, mother!”

I woke up early in the morning, folded the bedding.

“The water is about enough, what side dishes are there? Huh, there’s some wild boar bones left from last time. If I add bones and boil a bland soup, add ice, raw buckwheat noodles, a little grated radish—that’s Goryeo‑style naengmyeon! Mother, please eat!”

I also cooked the rice.

Chop‑chop! Chop‑chop!

When I had extra time I even chopped firewood.

Seen one way or another, or upside down standing on my head, I was idle—but I didn’t live like a loafer.

“I’m going to take a bath!”

I even bathed twice a day.

Perhaps because of that, mother eventually paid little heed to me.

“All right, go and come back safely.”

I deliberately picked early morning, looked at the morning star, and headed to the stream.

‘I hope no one is here today….’

Do you know what bothered me most in Goryeo as a person from the 21st century?

Flush toilets?

Playing stone‑throwing battles instead of soccer?

No smartphones?

None of that.

What I found most awkward was bathing.

‘Mixed bathing….’

Goryeo people liked cleanliness.

Dirtiness was closer to crime than sin.

Maybe for that reason, in Goryeo people of all genders and ages gathered together and bathed naked.

And hardly anyone cared about that.

Even if teenage boys bathing caused their “Pisces Tower” to stand up suddenly, people would just shrug: “Boys will be boys,” and move on.

But for me, still carrying 21st century sensibilities, it was extremely difficult.

‘They’re even more open than 21st century Korea…?’

So usually I bathed very early in the morning, as quickly as possible when no one was around… but today I was a bit unlucky.

“It’s Ginseng! King of Seokjeon, Kim Ginseng!”

“Yikes, why at this hour…?”

“I was busy yesterday so I couldn’t wash up!”

Where I was first at the neighborhood public bath (a shallow inner stream), suddenly men and women clustered together and came.

Even though I was there, they shrugged off their clothes and jumped well into the stream.

“Ginseng, make some space for me.”

“Here, here….”

“All right. Coo, Ginseng, you’ve got a good body?”

“Hey, want a drink? Father brought it out yesterday.”

Alcohol was also one of the Goryeo customs.

You might wonder if any civilization went without alcohol, but in Goryeo it was extreme. Even the poorest village had at least one brewery.

They lacked grain for food, but they always kept some for making alcohol.

‘They even made kimchi with leftover alcohol or vinegar.’

Strictly speaking it was “ji,” the ancestor of kimchi: since there was no cabbage yet, they used radish, bok choy, or amaranth.

As 21st century Koreans do, once it’s a plant, you can assume they pickled it.

The method is fascinating. They salted it, like in the 21st century, but they used many other things.

Soybean paste, soy sauce, Goryeo‑style fermented sauce (Cheonggukjang) of course. As mentioned, they also used vinegar or alcohol residue. Surprisingly, they seldom used fermented fish sauce—I don’t know why.

Anyway… at least vinegar‑pickled ones you could treat as pickles, but the alcohol‑residue ones really tasted awful.

Alcohol lingered so children ate kimchi and walked around with red faces constantly.

Adults ate that kimchi with alcohol as a side for drinking and laughed watching it.

It was the same now too.

“Juta, juuah. A bath and a drink. That is life. Dear, tear off a bit of ji for me.”

“Oh dear. Don’t get too drunk. There isn’t much grain left for brewing!”

“If you don’t drink, grain piles up. But if that’s the case, what’s the point of working?”

Damn, now I understand why Chen Shou wrote in the Records of the Three Kingdoms that Goryeo customs were lewd.

In the Chinese record the Spring and Autumn Annals, it says a king once spied on another country's prince bathing (because he was curious about his ribs), and that ignited war.

It was a man spying on a man.

But in Goryeo, mixed bathing was just everyday life.

‘I feel like I’m losing my mind.’

Regardless of my thoughts, the kids clustered around me in groups of three or five and chatted away.

“About last Seokjeon…”

“I wish the monk had watched more. He stopped too soon. If he’d gone a little more, he might have smashed the heads of two guys from the neighboring village!”

This bath‑side talk was about the recent stone‑throwing battle.

“Still, Ginseng was awesome.”

“Right. He really threw well. Ha, I should have smashed the servant’s head myself—but you stole it from me. Since you took it, how about waiting five years and marrying me?”

What kind of miraculous illogical leap is that?

Fortunately I didn’t need to say anything.

The aunt next to me scrubbing scolded loudly.

“What is this girl saying? How old are you that you say you’ll wait five more years?”

“Yikes! Mom! What’s wrong with marrying later? It’s better to find a good match!”

“Do you want me to be so ashamed I can’t lift my head in the village? And what about your friend there? You were playing at the water mill with him, right?”

“Gasp! How could she know that?”

“Deceive the ghost, deceive the ghost! Ginseng, our daughter will marry one of the other older boys in town, so ignore her words. It’s not because you’re bad—it’s our daughter’s age. This girl is seventeen and already at this point….”

They live in a time where someone who smashed a person’s head with stone is considered cool and the number‑one marriage prospect.

‘Well… not so bad?’

Until now, as a fallen noble I hadn’t fit in well with the villagers, but after accomplishing a great deed in the stone‑throwing match, I became surprisingly close with the children.

“She’s noble but not arrogant. And poorer than our family, too.”

“Did you see how he wielded the club?”

“Do you think he could also swing other clubs well?”

“The odds are high. Look at his build. If he fathers a child, he could even hunt a tiger.”

…Setting aside the slight embarrassment, this was definitely a good thing.

This wasn’t just a coming‑of‑age story where “I made a friend.”

In this era, how others saw you mattered far more than in the 21st century.

It wasn’t a matter of friendship, but a matter of safety.

Was there a police force in this era? Or anything like it?

At least those living on noble‑owned land, tenant farmers or laborers in the capital had a duty of protection from the nobles or the king.

But for people like us, who lived deep in the mountains without a lord, if we didn’t watch out for each other, no one else would protect us.

“For the sake of my future, public goodwill in Gomchon is important.”

My immediate goal was to become wealthy.

More precisely, to become a herbal‑medicine tycoon.

But in this ancient society, someone without goodwill trying to make money was taking a serious risk.

For example, if someone in our village suddenly struck it rich…

If people said, “Well, he did earn a lot. He’s a good person, isn’t he?”

“If he even gives us a festival, that’d be good.”

That would be fortunate.

But what if they said…

“Huh? Isn’t that the guy who banged my daughter earlier?”

“Yeah, that scoundrel!”

That kind of reaction?

Such a response acted as a trigger, awakening the hidden gene for violence in Goguryeo people.

Then what happens?

“Right? And my son said that his expression looked arrogant.”

“Should we kill him and take it all?”

“Wow, that’s a really good idea.”

“Anyway, he’s gone to ruin, let’s just eliminate him as soon as we find him!”

…That’s the outcome.

Even if you survive as a greedy goblin, once you become the golden goblin, you’re dead.

No need to deem it immoral.

Isn’t morality bound by its era?

By the moral logic of this time, someone who’s never been seen behaving well by neighbors is deemed immoral, but beating up a cocky person and taking their goods isn’t considered immoral.

And even if a treasure‑goblin is killed and looted, it’s not likely to cause trouble.

How would outsiders even know what’s happening in a closed society?

Even if someone publicizes it, the Korean peninsula always has a robust “black knight” ready to be blamed for all disappearances.

“The tiger, you know.”

If someone disappears, you just say “like the tiger carried them off?” and that’s that.

I’d bet that from this era through Joseon, at least half of the supposed tiger‑attacks weren’t actually by tigers.

And likely, that tiger in people’s imagination might soon take away the one who reported it.

“There’s a reason why rural gentry in Joseon held festivals regularly even if they had to borrow money…”

In the 21st century, you might not even know who lives next door, but in this era you had to know the exact number of spoons your neighbor had just to guarantee your safety and survive.

In that sense, making friends by a single wrestling match and gaining goodwill from the young women nearby, their mothers, their grandmothers—wasn’t a bad thing…

“Everyone’s washed up!”

“Ugh, already?”

“Kiddo, you shouldn’t. When you wash, it should be squeaky clean…”

“Oh no, it’s fine! Auntie. I’ve washed everything!”

Still, listening to that while surrounded by naked people in a bathhouse wasn’t good for my mental health.

I came home panting, and there was an unexpected guest.

“Wha– Seokjeon‑sĭmun?” (“Stone‑battle monk”?)

“My Dharma name is not Seokjeon….”

Calling this monk “Seokjeon‑sĭmun” was obviously because of the wrestling match the other day.

When we were preparing to fight the men from Beomchon with wrestling, that monk came.

The villagers hoped he’d act as a fair judge for the match, and he agreed with a cheerful, “I’ll see a wrestling match after a long time.”

That’s why the villagers revered him as “Seokjeon‑sĭmun,” as the monk who judged the wrestling match and proclaimed our village’s victory.

But it seemed the monk didn’t like that nickname.

“My Dharma name is Eui‑yeon (義淵). I’m pleased with the nickname you gave me—Seokjeon—but my Dharma name is equally precious.”

Eui‑yeon?

I knew that name too.

He was a Goguryeo monk dispatched to Northern Wei under orders from Supreme Chancellor Wang Godeok to learn advanced Buddhism.

And right now, in Goguryeo, the Supreme Chancellor was Wang Godeok.

“That would have been around the year 570, so maybe in about five years he’ll go to China.”

Master Wonhyo the Skull‑taker and Master Uisang would be born more than fifty years later, so Eui‑yeon was their senior master in that lineage.

“…But why did you come to my humble home, Master Eui‑yeon?”

“I came for alms. Might I receive some leftover food?”

“We have millet rice and thin porridge… is meat okay? If not, I can leave it out…”

“Ha ha, meat is fine too.”

Eui‑yeon replied.

“If it’s not meat I killed myself, and it’s already dead meat, what problem is there? Buddha taught us not to turn down food given to us.”

In this period, monks eating meat didn’t seem to be much of an issue.

‘True, the prohibition on meat and alcohol in writing emerged not long ago.’

If Christianity had the Council of Nicaea to debate “Is Jesus Trinity?”, in Buddhist history there was the Southern Liang’s Danju Yukmun (断酒肉文) debating “Is eating meat an act of killing?”

Emperor Wu of Liang crafted a perfect logic: “Buying meat from slaughterers is also using wealth to kill animals.”

The perfection lay in the fact that the emperor himself personally addressed monks.

In some 21st‑century American schools, powerful figures even enforced vegetarian diets.

So imagine the emperor in this era?

Monks had cut their hair, but they weren’t people who wanted their heads cut.

Ultimately, Emperor Wu’s invincible logic banned monks from eating meat, a rule that persisted into the 21st century… or so I heard at a Buddhist ceremony in my military days.

And in our current time, it seemed this event had happened only decades ago in distant Chinese lands.

On Goguryeo soil, vegetarianism among monks didn’t yet seem universal.

“This meat porridge in this house really is delicious.”

…Perhaps the first person to bring the prohibition of alcohol and meat to Goguryeo might be Master Eui‑yeon himself, who is now drinking the meat broth in one go right before my eyes.

“Goodness, it is enigmatic indeed. It swirls and roars like a whirlwind…”

Eui‑yeon said, smiling as he waved his hand.

“Are you speaking of the taste of the food?”

“No. It feels odd for a monk to critique the flavor of alms food… what I mean is fate.”

“Fate?”

“Yes. The place I originally grew up is Salsu. It is not a very famous river, so you probably aren’t familiar with it. In the past, King Sosurim built a temple near that river, calling it ‘The Bodhisattva’s River,’ Salsu 薩水.”

Why would I not know Salsu? Isn’t that the Cheongcheon River?

In roughly forty years, it will be East Asia’s hottest spot, where if 300,000 play and only 2,700 survive, no one would even know it happened.

Then Eui‑yeon continued.

“I studied at Ibulransa 伊佛蘭寺, the first temple King Sosurim established when he embraced Buddhism. There I learned not only the Buddha’s teachings but also the I Ching, destiny‑divination, physiognomy, and geography‑divination.”

I Ching and destiny‑divination belong more to Confucianism, and geography‑divination is almost shamanism or sorcery.

Monks of this era are closer to scholars than religious figures, and they learn a bit of everything, like universal genius polymaths.

“So, to tell you… inside your head lives a fox‑spirit. It consumes difficult words and thoughts, then expels something else.”

“Huh? A fox‑spirit?”

At that statement, my mother was even more surprised than I was.

Eui‑yeon shook his hand as if to reassure.

“It’s only a metaphor. It is neither fox nor spirit. Rather, it is something protecting you. If I had to compare, it’s like the fierce tiger inside a child’s heart.”

Explaining a metaphor with another metaphor is excessively scholastic.

I continued listening.

“The tiger in a child’s heart transforms rustling leaves into tiger footsteps, wind into a tiger’s roar. They prevent children from wandering into mountains freely, thereby protecting them from real tigers. But someday children drive out that inner tiger and climb the mountain where real tigers live.

Likewise… one day you too will drive away the fox‑spirit within and ascend the mountain you must truly climb.”

What on earth does this mean?

Seeing my expression, Master Eui‑yeon offered a gentle smile.

“It is not good to reveal fate too openly. Finally, I will say that the person fated to chase away your fox‑spirit seems to have already been met by you.”

Cheonggukjang is said to derive from Qing Dynasty’s ‘Qing guo jiang,’ but that is a popular folk etymology. In Goguryeo it was already called Goryeo‑jang.

The name Cheonggukjang likely evolved from the term Jeon-guk-jang 戰國醬, meaning ‘wartime simple paste.’ Of course, the Qing also made extensive use of Cheonggukjang during war since Manchuria, the bean’s origin, was their power base.

In Buddhism there was a doctrine called “Three Rules on Eating Meat,” allowing eating meat that was not slaughtered for one personally. So monks at the time often purchased meat. Game meat was for the masses, not specifically for monks.

Seeing this, Emperor Wu of Liang cited the example of the butcher shops in front of temples and said, if monks were not around, would those butchers exist? This meant monks were effectively killing animals with their money—so he prohibited monks from eating meat.