Jueul Village
The next morning, the strange physician and Tang Mujin began their day tending to the sick.
As expected, the patients' conditions had worsened slightly since the previous night.
Tang Mujin thought to himself as he inserted needles,
Acupuncture works quickly, but only for a short while. In the end, to defeat this illness, we must remove its root and suppress it with medicine.
The local physician of Jueul seemed to know some remedies, yet the fact that none of his patients were recovering meant he, too, did not understand the true source of the plague.
And not knowing the source of a plague was far different from failing to identify the root of an ordinary illness.
With ordinary sickness, luck sometimes suffices — once a patient recovers, the matter ends.
But a plague, unless its root is destroyed, will only spread again through those nearby.
Like washing your face in a mud pit: no matter how carefully you clean it, before long it will be filthy again.
By midday, Tang Mujin and the strange man had re-examined more than four-fifths of the villagers. The remaining few didn't require both of them, so Tang Mujin approached the elder.
"Elder."
"What is it?"
"I want to look around the outskirts of the village."
The strange man raised his brows and slapped his knee.
"Not even a day after giving your first acupuncture, you're already tired of playing physician?"
"Don't be absurd… We need to find the root of this sickness."
"I know, brat. Just teasing you. I'll handle the rest of the patients. Take the Beggar Sect fellows with you."
With a wave of his hand, Hong Geolgae and Hong Gyeon fell in at Tang Mujin's side.
Though they lacked gleaming swords and fine garments, they were martial men nonetheless.
Tang Mujin felt oddly elevated, as though he had suddenly become a man of rank.
"Where shall we guide you?"
"Let's start with the pigsties. Is there a household that raised many pigs?"
"The largest was over that way," said Hong Geolgae, pointing south.
Unlike cold plague (han-yeok), which chills the body, warm plague (on-yeok) scorches it with fever. One might assume the evil qi that breeds warm plague would arise in hot, dry places.
In truth, however, most such malignant qi festered in cool, dark, foul-smelling places.
And in any ordinary village, the dampest and foulest place was the pigsty — a perfect breeding ground for miasma.
Yet after inspecting several pens, they found nothing unusual. Compared with other villages, Jueul's pigsties were remarkably well kept. The waste was cleared regularly, the stench was mild, and some pens even stood in well-sunned spots.
After searching them all, Tang Mujin slumped beneath a shady tree. The two beggars sat beside him.
He thought deeply, then spoke.
"We need to find somewhere dark and damp. Anywhere else come to mind?"
"In this village, only the wells and pigsties.…"
"But neither showed anything strange. The wells are even dried up — not damp at all. Nowhere else?"
Both men shook their heads.
For a moment, silence hung between them, until Hong Gyeon ventured,
"Physician Tang. What about Master Jong's house?"
"Master Jong?"
"The first man to fall ill. He's dead now."
Tang Mujin realized he had overlooked something vital.
Every epidemic begins somewhere. If he could trace back to the very first victim, perhaps he could discover why the plague had started here.
Perhaps this was the truer path to its source.
"Where is Master Jong's house?"
"On the west side of the village. Not far."
"What was his trade?"
"He farmed a small plot and kept a few chickens."
Nothing that marked him as especially vulnerable. Tang Mujin asked again,
"And from him, the sickness spread house by house to his neighbors, yes?"
Hong Gyeon thought hard, then shook his head.
"House by house…? No, not exactly. Jusán, come here."
"Yes!"
Hong Gyeon and Hong Jusán knelt, scratching marks into the dirt with sticks as they discussed.
"First it was Master Jong, old Bok, and Elder Yu, right?"
"Sounds about right. Then not long after, Mr. Jeung collapsed too."
Tang Mujin didn't know these names, but the names themselves didn't matter. The beggars weren't about to explain every villager to him.
At last, they pieced their memories together and returned.
"It wasn't strictly one after another. Half true, half not."
A strange answer. Tang Mujin's eyes narrowed.
"What do you mean?"
"The western villagers did fall ill first. But it wasn't simply the next-door neighbors who collapsed in turn. That never happened."
"Explain in detail."
The two beggars drew a large circle on the ground.
"Think of this as Jueul Village. We'll write the names and houses of the victims in order they fell ill. It won't be exact, but close."
They traced names onto the dirt from memory, checking one another when uncertain.
The first, Master Jong, had lived at the far western edge. The next two, old Bok and Elder Yu, lived nearer the center of the west side.
Curious.
Tang Mujin asked carefully about each victim.
Two patterns emerged:
Those living on the west side of the village were stricken before those in the east.
Among them, children fell ill before adults.
Something's stirring… as though I've caught hold of a clue.
Tang Mujin asked Hong Gyeon,
"What difference is there between the west and east of the village? There must be a reason why those living in the west fell ill first."
"Well… hmm."
Hong Gyeon pondered deeply, but no good answer came. Hong Jusán spoke up instead, his voice uncertain.
"I once heard that the rising sun in the east brings yang energy, while the setting sun in the west holds yin energy. Maybe the yin caused them to fall sick?"
Tang Mujin shook his head.
"If that were true, there would be plagues in every western village. But when the Elder and I came from the west to Jueul, we saw no signs of plague."
"Is that so…"
"Besides, Jueul Village isn't large. From west end to east end is barely an il dagyeong's walk. Even if there were some imbalance of yin and yang, it wouldn't be enough to matter."
So the yin-yang theory was discarded. No other explanation came to mind.
Tang Mujin turned instead to the second clue.
"Why did children fall sick first?"
That was an even harder question.
If it were adults, one could suspect the nature of their labor. But children? Their "work" was little more than small errands their parents asked of them.
They ate the same food, slept in the same house. There was no reason for them to fall ill sooner than their parents.
"I don't know. All children do is wander around all day, playing together."
It felt as though something was being overlooked.
The west. The children. Tang Mujin tied the two clues together.
"Is there a place in the west where children often gather?"
"Yes. There's a stream there. With nothing else to do, they play in the water."
Water? Could it be the water? Did the plague spread through it?
But something seemed off. Wouldn't the eastern villagers also drink from that same stream?
Then it struck him — the dried-up well in the east.
"Elder Hong Gyeon. That well we saw earlier."
"Yes."
"Is it always dry like that?"
"No. It's only dry now because of the spring drought. Usually, it holds water. In summer, it's especially full and cool."
"…Did the well dry up around the time the plague began?"
"Yes. Around then."
The pieces clicked neatly into place.
The stream in the west had become tainted, and those in the west — who used it more — were struck down first.
Then, when the eastern well dried up, the eastern villagers began drawing from the stream too, and they fell ill.
All that remained was to confirm it.
"Let's go to the stream."
"You've found something?"
"Not certain yet."
The three hurried westward.
Of course, even if the stream was the source, solving the problem was another matter. In a remote mountain village, clean water sources were few.
The only "solution" would be to fetch water from far away — but given the villagers' condition, that seemed impossible.
Still, the cause must be found.
At the stream's edge, nothing seemed amiss at first glance. Had anything been obvious, he would have noticed it when entering the village with Hong Jusán.
Tang Mujin examined the water closely. It wasn't muddy, nor foul-smelling. No thin worms wriggled within.
Yet all evidence pointed to this stream.
Is there a way to know for sure?
Suddenly, a method came to him. Risky, but this was no time to weigh danger — too many lives were at stake.
He scooped up the stream water, drank deeply, then sat cross-legged and closed his eyes.
Deep inhalations, short exhalations. He steadied his breath, circulated his inner strength slowly.
Heightening his sensitivity, he turned inward, focusing on the flows within his body.
While his energy coursed through every channel, his awareness fixed upon the acupoint beside his stomach.
Time passed. Then he felt it — faint traces of malignant qi seeping from his stomach, at the Zhangmen (長門, LR13) point on the flank.
It was like a murky, sluggish mist — the same sensation he had felt in the villagers' heads while needling them.
Ending his breathing cycle, Tang Mujin opened his eyes.
Hong Gyeon stared as though he'd just witnessed sorcery.
"Did you not say you were a physician?"
"I did."
"Then how is it you circulate inner strength?"
"This elder taught me. He said it would aid my practice of medicine."
"…Ho."
Tang Mujin unfolded his legs and stood.
"I've found the source of the sickness."
"Eh?"
"There is foul qi in this stream. It must flow down from upstream. We should follow it."
Tang Mujin set off toward the headwaters, with Hong Gyeon and Hong Jusán close behind.