Entomologist in Sichuan Tang Clan Chapter 344

344
I couldn’t ask Elder Punggae anything more.

Because he seemed very busy giving instructions to the beggars who were flocking in one after another.

“Is there still no communication in the west of the island?”

“Yes. It doesn’t seem to have arrived yet.”

“We should have arrived already, why are we so late? You guys said it was urgent, but where are you going to sleep!? Check to see when you passed Hamgok Pass!”

“Yes, Buntaju!”

“Buntaju! A scorpion has arrived from Shandong Bunta.”

“Oh. Give it to me.”

I feel like I’m probably too busy to open my eyes because of the work I’ve been given.

As Hwa-eun and I looked at each other with curiosity, the beggar who had disappeared into the shack a moment ago arrived in front of us with something in his hand.

“Here it is. So So Hyup.”

“Oh, thank you.”

What the beggar of openness held out was a bunch of papers roughly tied with string. It was a tattered bundle of papers, as if the wrinkled papers had been unfolded and tied together with string.

An open beggar who speaks of caution as soon as he receives the bundle offered.

“You can just look at it and burn it. Please don’t let it flow anywhere else.”

“Oh, thank you. Yes, of course.”

I nodded at his solemn expression and immediately opened the first page of the stack of papers.

As soon as I received the paper, I was curious about what kind of song it was related to, and it seems I wasn’t the only one who was curious.

Hwa-eun’s head rested on my shoulder even though I didn’t ask her to come with me.

When Hwa-eun put her head on my shoulder, I could smell her fragrant body scent.

‘Hmm. Smells good.’

It was when I turned my head to make eye contact with Hwa-eun and then returned my gaze to the paper.

A bewildered voice was heard from the side.

“Ugh. You two need to look into it in a secret place.”

‘Oh my. I was so curious.’

It was only natural for him to be shocked, as he had asked them to be careful not to leak it and opened it right there.

Hwa-eun and I looked at each other and smiled awkwardly before quickly apologizing.

“Oh, sorry about that. This is my first time receiving something like this in an open house and I’m really curious. Then I’ll go back and take a look.”

“I would appreciate it if you could do that.”

As soon as I apologized, I decided to go back quickly.

Because I was so curious about the content.

“Hwa-eun, then we should go back. Pung-gae, we should go back.”

“Yes, Little Dragon.”

When I greeted the old man, he whispered something into another beggar’s ear and then just waved his hand in my direction.

I had no choice but to go home, not knowing whether I would see it or not, with a lottery ticket on the back of my head and a bundle of papers containing the information I had been given to me tucked into my bosom.

The way back to the port, after getting out from under the bridge and walking along the riverside where the sunset is setting.

As the bridge went farther away, Hwa-eun looked back and tilted her head curiously as she asked.

“So-ryong, what on earth is going on with Ma-lu?”

It seemed like he couldn’t wait to get back to the ship.

One thought occurred to me as I held my chin and thought for a moment in response to Hwa-eun’s question.

Something I had forgotten came to mind.

“Well, Taoist priest and Maruk? Oh! I can think of one, but is it that?”

“What is it?”

“That’s what I mean······.”

I felt like I should tell Hwa-eun a story about the past, or rather, a story about the future.

***

At the western end of the Sung Shan Shaolin Temple, there was a small village, which people called Xiaoxiang Village.

Although it was a small village with only about 100 households, the people of Sosangchon had pride in the village they lived in.

Sosang is a Buddhist word meaning birth, and it was a name given to him by a great monk of Shaolin a hundred years ago, as he was born under the Shaolin Temple.

“What will you do, village chief?”

Gugil, the village chief of that small village, held his chin with a serious expression in response to the question from Joga, the herbalist.

He had some spare time since the fall harvest was over, but it seemed like it would cost more than he had thought.

“Ugh… There are three hermits?”

“Yes, village chief.”

“That’s not a small amount of money.”

“I guess so. But the town is like this···.”

“Is it effective?”

“Yes, it is said that the village of Goae on the riverside had a great effect. He came out and caught everything, right? If the fisherman Soga saw it himself, it must be certain.”

Sosanchon is currently a small village with about 100 households, but it was not originally this small.

This was the largest village in the vicinity when the Iha River, which flowed nearby, passed directly through it.

Below, there was a village with a considerable number of fishermen who made a living by catching fish.

However, thirty years ago, when a great flood changed the course of the water below, most people flocked to Goae Village, which had developed next to the new water course, and now most of the people in Sosang Village are herbalists who barely make a living by digging for medicinal herbs.

So, I couldn’t help but hesitate when it came to things that cost a lot of money.

This was because picking herbs was a job that could only be done with heaven’s permission to make money.

If heaven does not permit, there are many days when good herbs do not come into sight and you end up wasting your time searching for them.

“If we wait a bit, winter will come, but it will be too much until then, right?”

Although he knew it was absurd, Jo Ga shook his head at the question he asked out of curiosity.

“It’s hard for people to live right now, so why wait until winter?”

“I see, isn’t that so?”

“Yes, it costs a lot of money, but don’t people have to live? There might be people who leave for Goae Village.

Didn’t Guo Jia, who married off his daughter to Goaechon, say that he wouldn’t return until this matter was over?”

Village chief Gugil decided that he would have to tighten his belt a bit more this winter.

It is true that people must live as Jo Ga said, because they cannot live like this.

Even when the water changed course, I never left my beloved village, so I couldn’t abandon it for something like this.

“Then there’s nothing we can do. Just like you said, I’ll sell the twenty-year-old Ha Su O (何首烏) that I was planning to sell in the winter.”

“Okay. Then let’s go to Goae Village, sell it, and bring him back from there.”

“Okay. I’ll go to my storage and get it out.”

“Understood, village chief.”

Gugil sighed and headed towards the village warehouse.

A medicinal herb storage facility dug into a cave on a small hill.

I had spent a lot of money on a padlock a few years ago, but it was rusty and hard to open. As I opened it and went inside, a long weak spot in the deepest part of the warehouse caught my eye.

-Click.

When you open the pot, you can see a large, thick sweet potato-like fruit inside.

It was something I discovered a few months ago when I went to dig for herbs with the villagers. We had planned to wait until winter and then sell them when the price of herbs went up so that we could split it fairly.

It wasn’t the kind of elixir that the martial artists were looking for, but it was close to the thickness of a sweet potato, and a long, thin radish would certainly be worth five silver coins.

“Okay, let’s go.”

“Yes, village chief.”

Gugil pressed the moss tightly again to secure Hasuo, wrapped the weakness in a cloth, and carried it on his back.

And then I left the village, which was as quiet as a mouse, and headed straight to Joga and Goaechon.

Because the Taoist priest said he was there.

***

In Goae Village, which we arrived at after a couple of hours, the smell of fish drying was wafting from everywhere.

It was a smell that could be smelled often even in Sosang Village when Gugil, the village chief, was young.

At that time, this place was just a field of grass.

There is absolutely no mistake in the saying, “Sangjeonbyeokhae” (桑田碧海), which means the mulberry fields become a blue sea.

As the smell of blood wafted in, Gu-gil was lost in his old thoughts when he heard Jo-ga’s voice in his ear.

“Village chief, shouldn’t you go to the herbal medicine shop first?”

“I guess that’s how it’ll be.”

“Then, let’s go to Hwang Daein’s herbal medicine shop.”

“Okay.”

Mr. Hwang Dae-in’s herbal medicine shop was a place where people from Sosang Village always did business, and of course he gave good prices.

It was a place where, when the grain ran out at the end of winter, they would lend money in exchange for receiving medicinal herbs to be used in the spring.

So, the herbalists of Sosangchon always used Hwang Daein’s herbal medicine shop when they wanted to make any kind of transaction.

“Are you there?”

Upon arriving at the herbal medicine shop and entering, the workers are working in the backyard, and all you can see is Hwang Dae-in dozing off.

Hwang Dae-in, who was dozing off inside the herbal medicine shop, was delighted and happy when he saw Gu-gil.

“Churup… Who is this? Why did the old village chief come here in person?”

When the village chief, Gugil, appeared, it was clear that he was delighted, as it meant a big deal.

Because whenever there was a big transaction, Gugil would visit here in person.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve found a good herb···.”

“Really? Don’t do this. Go over there. I’ll bring my car over.”

“Understood, Mr. Hwang.”

After we sat down at the table and drank some tea, Hwang Dae-in rubbed his hands and asked.

“Yeah, what did you bring?”

Asking when Joga’s teacup is not even empty means that he wants to see what he brought quickly.

The village chief, Gugil, carried the medicine on his back and placed it on the table next to him.

And then he pushed it straight in front of Hwang Dae-in.

“Take a look. It’s a sewer, but it looks like it’s been there for over twenty years.”

“Hasuo? Twenty years old!? Where.”

-Rust. Rustle.

As we carefully removed the covering of the sewage slug, a thick sewage slug that looked to be over twenty years old was revealed.

Then, Hwang Dae-in looks at Hasuo with a delighted expression.

Hwang Dae-in, who had been observing Ha Su-o for a while, asked with a smiling face.

“Oh. This is very high quality. How about seven silver coins for this?”

Google and Jo Ga’s eyes widened at Hwang Dae-in’s question.

I thought I would be lucky if I only received five, but if I were given seven, I would still have four left even if I gave three to the Taoist.

There was no need to think about this.

Hwang Dae-in was not a person who would commit fraud, so Gu-gil nodded.

“Okay, Mr. Hwang. Please do so.”

“Okay, then I’ll just bring the money.”

Gu-gil and Jo-ga, who felt good about receiving more money than they expected, immediately left Hwang Dae-in’s herbal medicine shop and went to Gi-ru in Go-ae Village.

Although it was called a giraffe, it was not a tall building with several stories, but rather a building slightly larger than an inn.

Because Goae Village was not a large place where a multi-story pavilion could be built.

In front of the kiln with the nameplate of Goaeru, not daring to go inside, Joga grabbed one of the kiln’s servants and asked him instead.

“Hey, is there a Taoist priest named Taeheo here?”

The servant of Giru, who had been looking up and down at Joga’s question, held out his palm toward Joga instead of answering.

The story goes that if you want to hear a story, you have to pay.

Jo Ga tried to correct his frowning expression and took out an iron coin from a hidden pouch near his groin and put it in the servant’s hand.

Then the servant, with a frown on his face, put the money in his bosom and answered.

“What’s going on inside?”

“I came to ask him for a favor.”

“Ahem. Follow me.”

As the two followed the servant into the back door of Giru and passed the backyard to reach what appeared to be Giru’s annex, they heard the laughter of women coming from inside.

“Gyarrrrr. Master. That’s not possible.”

“Oh no! This won’t work. I have to use my talisman. Take off your clothes as quickly as possible!” “Gyarrr. Oh my, my clothes are falling off without me knowing.”

As Jo Ga and Gu Gil looked at each other in confusion, a servant put a message inside.

“Master, I brought you here because I heard there was someone I needed to ask you to do something for me.”

“What!? Customer?”

At the servant’s message, the laughter stopped and rustling sounds continued inside. After a while, a Taoist priest wearing a shabby robe hurriedly opened the door and appeared inside.

“Oh my. Another guest has arrived. I don’t know which village they came from, but I wonder if the smell is so bad that horses and land are flocking there too.”

Amulets stuck here and there on the bodies of the gisaengs standing behind him.

Gu-gil, who was startled by the sound coming from inside and the sight of the gisaengs, quickly came to his senses and nodded his head to answer.

“Yes, that’s right, Taoist priest. May I ask for your help?”

Then the Taoist priest smiled faintly.

The Taoist answered with great confidence.

“Is this what you mean? Let’s go. If you use my talisman, those damn demons will retreat right away.”

He took off the talismans stuck all over the gisaengs’ bodies and put them in his bosom.