~CHAPTER 14~
The Well.
Moyong-heun cautiously began chewing the meat in his mouth. He had no idea how many days it had been since he last ate.
Tears streamed down his face as he chewed diligently, finally swallowing the fragments that filled his mouth. Slowly, warmth spread through his stomach. He wasn’t completely satisfied yet, but the mental relief was enormous.
He picked apart the next chunk of meat, leaving only the bones, and as if on cue, another piece was offered.
Moyong-heun, embarrassed by his own shamelessness, flushed red, yet he didn’t make the mistake of refusing her kindness and quickly reached out.
In silence, the quiet meal continued for a while.
As his hunger was satiated and he regained a little composure, his attention returned to his surroundings.
Moyong-heun took a large bite of the fresh meat. At first, there was no taste, but gradually everything became vivid. Lost senses were returning.
Suddenly, reality hit him hard.
He was still in the heart of that dreadful forest. But now, he could eat with all his limbs intact, and there were no assassins lurking to take his life.
He had survived.
In the midst of that chaos, he had endured and survived.
His father, his mother, countless siblings, relatives, Moyong-cheong, and Moyong-jeok—they were all gone. Only he had lived.
Thud.
The meat slipped from his grasp to the ground.
His face had turned pale, as if he had seen a ghost in broad daylight.
“What’s wrong? If it doesn’t taste good, you can just stop eating. Why throw perfectly good food on the ground?”
“N-No! This… this isn’t me throwing it away…!”
“Isn’t it?”
Moyong-heun hastily picked up the meat he had dropped, brushing off the small amount of dirt and leaves clinging to it with a helpless expression.
He hadn’t thrown it away.
He had simply realized his situation all at once and gone limp with shock.
But even attempting that feeble excuse felt shameful. It was inappropriate, and he couldn’t bring himself to speak it aloud.
In the end, unable to even voice a proper excuse, Moyong-heun stuffed the meat into his mouth to prove his point, but tears welled in his eyes, filling them completely.
Watching him, Woo-hee muttered in an exasperated tone:
“…You haven’t even been properly troubled yet, and you’re already like this? That makes things difficult even for me.”
She had seen every possible reaction from newcomers at the Binggung. Those thrown into misery, then met with unconditional kindness, nearly always cried. The emotions varied in order, but the reason for their tears was always similar:
Because someone reached out to them, showed kindness, didn’t turn away, and welcomed them warmly.
It was gratitude and sorrow spilling over at once.
Of course, she assumed this was what he was experiencing, but the intensity of his crying was unusual.
How could she describe it?
He seemed on the verge of collapse, utterly desperate, as if his very breath could stop at any moment.
Sure, it made sense to be grateful for being saved from death, but why act as if he were dying again?
“Maybe people from the Central Plains are generally weaker?”
Even the famed Moyong clan, a martial arts powerhouse, were weak and wobbly like withered weeds, and even their adversaries were sniffly and tearful—it seemed unfair.
Hearing this, Woo-hee began to feel disappointed, but Young-ho spoke calmly:
“You seem to keep forgetting. In situations like this, it’s usually you who’s strange, and the other person is normal. Don’t keep looking for the cause outside yourself.”
“Me? What now?”
“What did you expect? Feeding someone who’s barely survived death, right off the bat? It’s not that people from the Central Plains are weak; it’s that anyone returning from the brink of death is naturally weakened. Their mind can also be unsettled.”
“…”
Woo-hee frowned, dissatisfied. She had survived countless brushes with death herself, always thinking that luck had allowed her return, ending the matter there. She had never cried uncontrollably, sniffling and bawling as he did. Maybe as a very small child, but not in any memory she could recall.
If becoming weak after nearly dying were natural, she would have been the weakest wisp of a martial artist by now.
Yet this was unusual? She couldn’t explain why, all of a sudden, today, it happened.
Frustrated and irritable, she asked bluntly:
“Hey, did it just make you tear up because surviving doesn’t feel all that great?”
She had cried before. When her veins tore and her insides melted in unbearable pain, tears came freely. But for lesser pains, there was no reason to cry, and crying only wasted energy.
She couldn’t understand why someone she had used summoning pills to save and even fed would suddenly bawl uncontrollably. It made no sense according to her experience.
“Or… are you crying because you were angry that I arbitrarily saved you even though you didn’t really want to live?”
She decided to ask directly.
Facing this incomprehensible behaviour, Woo-hee frowned deeply. Moyong-heun, pale as a sheet, swallowed his sobs, shaking his head furiously before finally opening his mouth to speak.
“N-No! That’s not it! It’s not like that…!”
How could he even think such shameless thoughts? His mind went blank.
“Then what is it? What’s the problem?”
“I… I am not worthy of receiving such kindness from my benefactor…”
“……?”
Woo-hee’s frown deepened.
“So, you were crying because you felt unworthy of eating this meat?”
She repeated his words aloud, trying to verify that she understood correctly.
“And who decides whether someone is worthy of eating meat?”
Her frustration and irritation hadn’t eased. She simply wanted to understand what the strange boy was saying.
Moyong-heun, confused and fumbling through his thoughts, finally forced his emotions into words.
“I… I—my worthless life was saved at the cost of the lives of precious people. My survival alone is built upon their sacrifices.”
Thoughts and feelings became words, taking shape.
“I should have died instead, so they could live…”
His words, sharp as a blade, pierced his own heart.
Even knowing the sacrifices upon which he stood, he felt shame and self-disgust speaking them aloud.
“I am cowardly, lacking, and weak. I could never bring myself to say that they should abandon me.”
Without condemning himself, he could not bear to live alone as the selfish survivor.
“The shameful behaviour toward my benefactor was only because I could not find a place for my gratitude. I… am nothing but a worthless wretch, unworthy of anyone’s grace…”
Though life cannot be measured by quantity or weight, moments like this make the imbalance painfully clear.
Among the Moyong clan, the most worthless of the family’s direct line had survived, ignorant of shame.
For that reason, he felt he had no right.
That was the meaning.
