Shaolin
Dan Seol-yeong looked Mu-jin Tang up and down with a doubtful gaze. Of course, Mu-jin also found it difficult to trust her.
"The Head of Chubo Hall said, if I wanted help repairing the Wooden Puppet Hangar, I should come find Miss Dan…"
"Then you came to the right place."
"The right place?"
"There's no one who knows more about the Wooden Puppet Hangar than I do."
Mu-jin's brow twitched. No matter how he thought about it, the claim sounded strange.
"I heard women are never allowed inside Shaolin."
"That's true."
"Then how did you, Miss Dan Seol-yeong, ever see the Wooden Puppet Hangar?"
"Of course, I've never seen it."
Mu-jin's eyes narrowed. Was he talking to someone who wasn't in their right mind?
"You've never seen it, but you know it well?"
"That can happen… But wait, who are you to barge in and interrogate me? Honestly, this is the first time anyone has ever come to me with Chubo Hall's introduction. For all I know, you could be some swindler."
Dan Seol-yeong's briefly softened attitude hardened again. Mu-jin hastily waved his hands.
"It's not like that. The Head of Chubo Hall allowed me to examine the inside of the Wooden Puppet Hangar. But once inside, I couldn't make heads or tails of its structure. So I asked if there were any records or materials, and I was told to come here."
Seol-yeong leaned on one hip, looking him over skeptically.
"That sounds reasonable enough. But I also heard the Head of Chubo Hall never allows outsiders into the Hangar. How did you get in?"
"It's a little embarrassing to say myself, but… I happen to be rather handy."
"And that alone got you in?"
In times like this, showing was better than speaking a hundred words. Mu-jin approached the slowly turning waterwheel.
The wheel was made of many parts, some of which were clearly worn and in poor condition. His eyes caught on a thick wooden cogwheel, about the size of half a palm.
It wasn't one of the pieces bearing the direct weight of the wheel, but after long years of strain, a deep crack had formed.
"This piece looks ready to fail."
"Right. I figured it would break soon, so I was making a replacement part."
Indeed, around the wheel were discarded blocks of wood. Some had knots that left hollow dents, others had split uselessly along the grain under misapplied force.
"Could I borrow a small knife and a block of wood?"
Curious to see his skill, Seol-yeong readily handed him a half-handspan knife and a block.
The touch of the dried wood was firm—good quality. If one carved unseasoned wood, the part would warp as it dried and become useless.
Mu-jin measured the cracked part with the block, then immediately began carving.
His hands moved at a speed beyond imagination.
Back when he forged swords in Junggyeong, many smiths had been more astonished at his speed than at the refinement of his work.
If that was so with steel, how much faster would he be with wood? In the blink of an eye, he produced a new cogwheel and held it out to Seol-yeong. She could only click her tongue in amazement.
"It's like you didn't carve it, but peeled away the shell to reveal the core inside."
"I hear that sometimes. Try fitting it in."
"Hold on."
When Seol-yeong tugged at the failing cog, it didn't come out cleanly but crumbled apart.
Clicking her tongue, she tossed the broken piece aside and slid Mu-jin's replacement into place. It fit with uncanny precision.
"Now do you believe me?"
"Impressive. You're qualified to take a look inside the Hangar. Ah, and drop the formal speech—you don't seem much older or younger than me."
"Alright… Got it."
"So, you mean to repair the Wooden Puppet Hangar?"
"That's right."
"Great!"
Seol-yeong broke into a bright, childlike smile. Simple, genuine, unadorned.
The closeness made Mu-jin notice the faint smell of sweat from her, but it wasn't unpleasant—if anything, it suited her.
"Sorry for being prickly. Up to now, everyone who came to see me or my father either poked around breaking things out of curiosity, or were con artists claiming they could fix the Hangar."
Her apology was swift and straightforward. Mu-jin nodded.
Now it was his turn to ask.
"Then what did you mean earlier, that you 'know it well' despite never seeing it? Why did the Head of Chubo Hall send me to you?"
"It's easier to show you than explain. Come inside!"
Seol-yeong led him into her home.
From outside, it looked like a shabby hut, but once inside, it was surprisingly spacious. And unlike the crude exterior, the interior was sturdy and carefully made.
The most unusual part was the inner wall.
The walls were meticulously paneled with thin mulberry and oak planks—on which were written dense, tiny letters covering every inch.
"What's all this?"
"My father wrote down everything he knew about the Wooden Puppet Hangar. I added some myself. Our family's always lived near Shaolin, helping with Chubo Hall's affairs. In a way, we're half a Shaolin household. I heard one of our ancestors even built the Hangar."
That made Mu-jin think it would be better to speak directly with her father. He asked:
"And where is your father now?"
"Over there."
She pointed outside, toward a small rise on the mountainside. Beyond it, by a brook, was a little thicket.
"The thicket?"
"That's right. Beyond it is my father's grave."
"Ah…"
"No need for such a sorry look. It was long ago, and I don't even tend the grave."
"…Why not?"
"Because it's annoying. He couldn't even fix the Hangar, and all he left me was a pile of work. A few years back, while pulling weeds near his grave, I told him straight: since he dumped all this work on me before leaving, he shouldn't mind if I neglect his grave. Instead, I promised to let him know once I finish the job. That's good enough."
Though the words were heavy, her voice was cheerful—too used to her father's absence.
Seol-yeong brushed her fingers across the letters on the wall.
"Anyway, our ancestors couldn't repair the Hangar. My father spent years on it too, but his skill wasn't enough. Thinking back, I don't think he ever truly understood how the Hangar moved."
Mu-jin nodded, sympathizing. He too hadn't been able to grasp the structure.
To repair the Wooden Puppet Hangar, perhaps they'd need to gather every master of mechanisms in the Central Plains.
Seol-yeong went on:
"But at least my father organized all the knowledge he had, and mapped out the interior and underground structure. This is essentially everything that can be known about it."
She rapped the wall with her knuckles.
So these writings described the Hangar's structure? Mu-jin read a portion.
[…Seven and a half feet east from there lies a cogwheel. Its radius is two and five-tenths inches. The cogwheel faces south-southeast, and the pillar connected to it is scarcely thicker than a little finger. That pillar extends seven inches before turning toward the heavenly axis…]
Just reading it made his head spin.
Naturally, describing something as intricate as the Wooden Puppet Hangar with text alone was madness.
And even if one used brush and ink, could drawings truly capture its complexity? That too seemed nearly impossible.
"You can actually understand this?"
"At first I was lost too. But after staring at it day and night since I was little, I came to understand."
Mu-jin looked at her with skepticism. Could that really be true?
"It's true. Look."
Seol-yeong stepped outside, then returned with a scroll and a small model.
When Tang Mujin unrolled the scroll, he saw a crudely drawn diagram. It looked complicated, but its meaning was hard to grasp.
By comparison, the model Dan Seol-yeong had brought was far more intuitive. It was a makeshift contraption of clumsy cogs and columns jumbled together, yet when she turned the rod at one end, the other parts moved in organic harmony—just like the wooden men once had.
"What's this?"
"Whenever my father's notes were vague or unclear, I tried to build them out like this. Most things can be understood once drawn, but some parts you only truly understand by making them. My father's notes weren't always accurate."
Tang reread the writing on the wall. No matter how he looked, it was a cipher.
How much effort must it have taken to not only decipher such poor explanations but also reconstruct the missing pieces and even produce working prototypes?
No, this went beyond effort—it was talent. If Tang Mujin had a craftsman's gift as a blacksmith, then Dan Seol-yeong surely possessed a talent that transcended common measure in another field entirely.
Yet there was one thing he could not understand. Not the mechanics of the wooden men, but something more fundamental.
"What does all this mean to you? You can't even enter Shaolin."
"You're right. My father never intended to teach me either. Just as my grandfather had passed it to him, he meant to pass it on to my younger brother."
"Where is your brother now?"
"By my father's side."
Tang was left speechless again. He shook his head before pressing on.
"Then why did you整理 your father's records?"
"I can't enter Shaolin. But if I give birth to a son, he'll be able to. Then he will repair the Wooden Men Alley in my stead. I'm just doing what I can now, outside the temple, until that day comes."
She pointed to the pickaxe leaning against the wall outside.
At last, Tang understood why she had been digging at the earth with it.
The force that turned the pillars connecting the wooden men to the ground didn't come from people—it came from the waterwheel beside her hut. Dan Seol-yeong was digging trenches, repairing the wheel, burying beams, and charting out the structure of the mechanism, all to channel the wheel's power beneath the Shaolin wall and into the Wooden Men Alley.
A weight pressed on Tang Mujin's chest. What is this mad girl doing with her life?
While other girls wore fine dresses and painted their faces, she wore loose work clothes, dripping sweat as she swung a pickaxe.
While others toyed with trinkets, she shut herself in a dark room, wrestling with endless diagrams.
And even if her plan succeeded, the credit would never be hers. No one would know of her devotion or acknowledge it. The one who would be remembered as the repairer of the Wooden Men Alley would be her son, not her.
Dan Seol-yeong was throwing her entire life into a dream whose fruit she could neither taste nor even witness. She had chosen to be nothing more than a bridge—burning her life away so knowledge could pass across her.
Tang asked quietly:
"Why?"
He had not lived such a life himself, only heard of it secondhand. Yet the thought of it suffocated him. How could anyone accept such a fate?
"You won't even see it with your own eyes. Why fight to restore the Wooden Men Alley? Can you really say you won't regret it when you're a gray-haired old woman?"
"Why shouldn't I?"
She asked back simply, locking eyes with him.
Her gaze was straight and unbending, like a pine tree that had grown tall through storms and hardship. Something about it made Tang's breath catch.
"Why shouldn't you? Of course—"
"Of course? No. Nothing is 'of course.' You wouldn't understand. My father wasn't a bad man, just not very skilled. But because he couldn't fix some wooden dolls, he lived his whole life hunched like a sinner. Even the Shaolin monks never condemned him, yet he condemned himself."
She gave a bitter little laugh.
"As a child, I thought he was pathetic. But in the end, I'm no different. Whatever I do, the thought of the Wooden Men Alley being broken never leaves me. My child, my descendants—they'll feel the same. So I decided: I must hear it. I must hear that those wooden dolls moved again. I must hear that the Dan family finally did it. Is that so strange?"
Of course it was strange.
The Wooden Men Alley was a strange device. The Dan family had been given a strange role. And Dan Seol-yeong had chosen an even stranger life for herself.
And yet, Tang Mujin found himself beginning to understand her words—not with his head, but with his heart.
Most people would have told her story with tears, claiming misfortune.
But her voice brimmed with excitement.
She went outside, fetched a knee-high clay jar, and dragged it back in. Inside sloshed a cloudy, yellowish liquid.
"What's that?"
"Wine!"
Tang sniffed it. A pungent whiff of cheap huangjiu hit his nose. Seol-yeong grinned and sang her words:
"I used to sip it when I felt down, but tonight I'll drink it all. After today, I won't have any reason to be down again."
She handed him a rough wooden cup. Tang looked from the cup to her. She held another cup herself.
"Why give one to me?"
"Because you're going to help me fix the Wooden Men Alley. Of course we should drink together."
Her reasoning wasn't logical—but it was understandable.
She even produced a few dried fruits. For her meager household, it was a surprisingly rich snack.
"Come on, bottoms up!"
The two drank. The liquor was sharp and sour.
Seol-yeong looked at him and flashed a wide, silly grin. It suited her. Tang found himself smiling back without realizing it.
She refilled their cups, unrolled the scroll again, and began explaining, her excitement bubbling over.
"Look here. This part connects to inside the Shaolin wall. I haven't seen it myself, but I know the structure well enough…"
Tang listened, nodding from time to time, asking questions here and there. The more he responded, the more animated she became. And as their conversation stretched on, the wine jar slowly emptied.
At some point, Tang dozed off, drunk.
***
When he awoke, it was dark, the smell of wine still on his lips and breath.
He remembered drinking with Dan Seol-yeong, and his heart skipped a beat.
I didn't… do anything foolish, did I?
He checked himself hastily. His clothes were intact. Seol-yeong wasn't in the room.
Relieved, he slipped outside.
The night was bright with moonlight. Wisps of ashen cloud drifted lazily across the sky.
Judging by the stars, dawn was still far off.
Looking around, he soon spotted her.
Seol-yeong sat by the waterwheel, knees drawn up, chin resting on her hand, singing softly to herself.
Her gaze was fixed on the brushwood beyond a small ridge.
Tang stood for a long while, silently watching her profile. Then, without disturbing her, he returned inside and went back to sleep.