Chapter 111: The Impostor

The bandits lost their will to fight in an instant.

From the moment the young man approached with a sword at his waist, they had a bad feeling. His movements were something they couldn’t hope to imitate.

His calm demeanor was unnerving. It was as if he was certain that no matter how many times they swung their swords, they wouldn’t touch him. In such a situation, only a fool would continue to attack, and fools don’t live long.

The bandits had been confident until now because of the reputation of their leader, a notorious master. But the master they relied on was now face down on the ground, unable to rise, with the young man standing over him.

Surely, a young man couldn’t have taken down a master in one blow. The master must be a fake.

One of the bandits spoke up.

“See? I told you something was off about that guy. He seemed too easy to be true…”

Lacking any sense of loyalty, the bandits began to back away, and Tang Mujin didn’t stop them. Once they had put some distance between themselves and him, they turned and fled.

Tang Mujin crouched beside the fake master, whose face was pressed into the dirt, blood trickling from his broken nose.

“Why do you think I’m doing this?” Tang Mujin asked.

“Heh, I can guess. Who are you?” the man replied.

“I’m a disciple of the person you impersonated.”

“A disciple? I didn’t know the master had a disciple…”

Disgusted by the man’s shamelessness, Tang Mujin stomped on his left hand. He felt the bones crack under his heel.

Despite the pain, the fake master only gritted his teeth, refusing to scream. Whether it was due to endurance or familiarity with pain, Tang Mujin didn’t care. The man should have been screaming and repenting for his misdeeds.

“Let’s see how long you can hold out.”

Tang Mujin was about to stomp on the man’s hand again when he remembered Dan Seol-young watching from behind.

Dan Seol-young knew Tang Mujin wasn’t always gentle, but he didn’t want to show a side of himself driven by anger in front of her.

With a sigh, Tang Mujin stood up and called out to Namgung Myung and Dan Seol-young.

“I’m going to take care of something. You two rest up!”

Namgung Myung waved dismissively without getting up, and Dan Seol-young, understanding Tang Mujin’s intentions, didn’t follow.

Tang Mujin dragged the fake master into the nearby village.

He planned to lock him up and poison him, just as he had done with others like Baek Chuseo and Ban Yonggweol. Eventually, even the most stoic would cry out.

As he dragged the man through the village, Tang Mujin felt the eyes of the villagers on him.

Despite the plague, not everyone had left. Each had their reasons.

Some stayed because of the officials’ orders, others feared leaving their homes. Some couldn’t abandon sick family members, and others were too ill to move.

In the end, it was the same. They would all fall ill, and only the very lucky would survive.

None of the people Tang Mujin saw looked healthy. They had missed the chance for treatment and were slowly dying.

Tang Mujin knew he couldn’t save many, so he didn’t approach the patients.

As he searched for a well-sealed house to contain the poison, more eyes followed him and the fake master. A few even hesitantly trailed after them.

Among them were two children, a brother and sister, barely reaching Tang Mujin’s waist. Together, they couldn’t have been more than ten years old.

Tang Mujin rummaged through his pockets and tossed them two pieces of jerky.

Even after receiving the jerky, the children continued to follow.

He didn’t want to harm the fake master in front of them, so he spoke to the children.

“I gave you food. Go back now.”

“But it’s our turn…” the boy mumbled.

“What do you mean, your turn?”

When the children hesitated, the fake master spoke up.

“I know I’m in no position to ask, but could you give me a moment? I promised the kids something. It won’t take long.”

“Trying to escape? Don’t even think about it.”

“How far could a cripple run? Even if I were healthy, I couldn’t outrun someone like you.”

Tang Mujin hesitated, then sighed.

It wasn’t the fake master he was concerned about, but the two children.

He glared at the fake master, then turned slightly. The children’s faces brightened a little.

Tang Mujin and the fake master followed the children to a small house. The stench was overwhelming.

When the children opened the door, the smell intensified.

Inside was a corpse, an adult who had been dead for days.

The fake master retrieved a mat and a sack from a small shed attached to the house.

He wrapped the body in the mat and slid it into the sack. Despite his broken hand, he was adept at the task, as if he’d done it many times before.

With the sack on his back, the fake master headed outside, muttering under his breath.

“Great light transforms into a canopy, illuminating countless worlds, revealing the deeds of all Buddhas…”

It was some kind of scripture, likely Buddhist given the mention of Buddhas. Tang Mujin listened with one ear and let it out the other.

The fake master’s actions were bizarre and almost comical, contrasting with the solemnity of the scripture.

The sack wasn’t long enough to fully contain the body, so the legs stuck out, tapping the fake master’s head with each step, as if keeping time with the chant.

”…The light shines brilliantly, incomparable to any gold, as five hundred incarnations of Buddha extend their hands in praise…”

They arrived at a small clearing behind the village.

There were dozens of mounds, with a sturdy shovel resting among them.

The soil, once used for simple farming, was soft and pliable.

Despite his limp and injured hand, the fake master dug quickly, never pausing his chant.

”…The light was so dazzling it couldn’t be fully seen, incomparable to any gold, as five hundred incarnations of Buddha extended their hands in praise…”

He buried the sack, forming a mound and patting it down with the shovel. As the mound was completed, the chant ceased, and the fake master straightened up.

He resembled a wandering monk, a “maegolseung,” who performed funerals for the dead.

The two children clasped their small hands in imitation of the adults, offering the jerky Tang Mujin had given them to the fake master. It was the greatest gratitude they could show.

The fake master accepted the jerky and handed it back to Tang Mujin.

“This is my way of saying thank you.”

Tang Mujin found himself accepting the jerky again.

As the children scampered off, a few sickly villagers approached, eyeing Tang Mujin and the fake master.

The fake master avoided their gaze and urged Tang Mujin.

“Let’s go.”

Tang Mujin stared at the jerky that had returned to him, feeling a complex mix of emotions.

He led the fake master away, but paused when he met the eyes of an old woman, her face marked by illness and death.

Tang Mujin stopped without realizing it. The woman’s faint smile seemed to push back the shadow of death.

He felt a sudden dizziness.

The fake master watched Tang Mujin, then seemed to understand something and followed the slow-moving old woman. Tang Mujin followed them.

They arrived at a place where an old man’s body lay. It was clear without asking what the relationship was between the old woman and the deceased.

Fortunately, the body was less decomposed than the children’s parents and lay atop a straw mat.

The impostor monk wrapped the old man’s body in the mat, chanting sutras once more.

“By contemplating this, you will abandon your body and, when reborn in the next life, attain the seal of the unborn before all Buddhas. Therefore, the wise should bind their hearts to one place…”

As he had done before, the impostor monk hoisted the body onto his back and headed to the village outskirts, shovel in hand.

Tang Mujin stood a little distance away, watching as the impostor dug into the earth and buried the body, forming a small mound over the grave.

The impostor monk seemed to struggle, his pace slower than before as he built the grave.

Even as the second grave was completed, a few villagers watched Tang Mujin and the impostor monk. Tang Mujin pointed to a woman standing nearby.

The impostor nodded and moved toward her, limping slightly. After a few steps, he realized Tang Mujin wasn’t following and turned back.

Tang Mujin stood holding the shovel the impostor had set down.

“What are you waiting for? Go on,” Tang Mujin said gruffly.

The impostor nodded and followed the woman.

Tang Mujin began digging the grave himself. With his martial arts training, he worked quickly, the task not requiring a particularly deep hole.

Soon, the sound of low chanting and the presence of two figures returned. The impostor monk naturally took the shovel from Tang Mujin and continued the burial. With Tang Mujin’s help, the work went much faster.

After several repetitions, the villagers who had been watching them were gone. It seemed they were the only living souls left in the village.

“Feels like a weight’s been lifted,” the impostor monk said, his scarred and weathered face twisting into a smile.

Tang Mujin, being a physician, recognized the scars and marks on the impostor’s face and skin. They were the signs of someone who had survived countless illnesses.

The impostor monk stood up and spoke.

“Just waiting for me was a great kindness, but helping with the work too? Thank you. Now, let’s finish up.”

Though the impostor limped as he walked, Tang Mujin didn’t rise to follow. Instead, he called out from behind.

“Who are you, really?”

“Who else? Just a fake trying to steal the identity of someone I once met.”

“Why would a fake play the roles of a physician, a herbalist, and a burial monk? If that’s your aim, why steal a name at all?”

When Tang Mujin first heard of someone impersonating the monk, he imagined a fraud exploiting the name for personal gain. But the impostor’s actions were far from that.

“Why? Because that’s the only way people will believe me.”

The impostor habitually raised his left hand to scratch his chin, only to wince and lower it quickly.

“I’m third-rate in martial arts and medicine. No, not even third-rate. Half of what I know about medicine is a mishmash learned from herbalists. If I claimed to be a physician under my own name, no one would come. People would rather suffer than show their ailments to a quack.”

“So you stole the monk’s name?”

“Yes. Does diagnosing an illness with a single pulse check make one a physician? Does curing a disease overnight? People may scoff, but even a third-rate quack has their uses.”

The impostor muttered.

“When you’re bedridden and starving for days, you might need someone to make you porridge. When you’re drenched in sweat, you might need someone to wipe you down. When a family member dies, you might need someone to mimic the burial rites learned by watching others. Is it too much to want to be of that kind of use?”

Tang Mujin almost said it was too much, but he held his tongue.

The villagers clearly needed this man’s help.

And those he met in Cheongwon, while they might not have praised the impostor’s treatments, never claimed their conditions worsened.

Yet, it was undeniable that this man had sullied the monk’s name.

As a martial artist, Tang Mujin felt he should strike down the impostor. But as a physician, he couldn’t bring himself to draw his sword.