Chapter 21: So You Can Write Poetry Too?
"You walk well."
Kanghyeok let out a labored breath.
His mistake had been thinking of Paldalsan as just the hill behind the neighborhood.
If he had known it would be like this, he would have stopped by home first.
I should have gone and brought a horse.
When had he ever walked this much in his life?
He could say with certainty that, aside from marching during boot camp, this was the first time.
Meanwhile, Yeoni kept climbing without any trouble.
She had gone ahead first, then turned back to look at him.
"Me? Ah, well."
The way she was lightly damp with sweat looked oddly sexy.
Am I out of my mind?
Kanghyeok shook his head hard and quickened his pace.
"I need to start running around the neighborhood or something. My stamina's so bad this won't do."
"How can a yangban run around and about with his dignity at stake?"
"But I can't be panting like this either."
"Makbong is probably sitting over there by now. And you're carrying that bag, Young Master."
Yeoni grinned and pointed at a tree stump they had passed quite a while ago.
Then again, thinking of Makbong's short, stocky build, he really did not seem like someone who would be good at walking.
"Right, I'm probably better than him at least. Whew, that must be it over there."
Yeoni was farther ahead, but Kanghyeok was much taller.
Thanks to that, Kanghyeok spotted the Busa's party gathered in the small pavilion first.
Red flowers were blooming in profusion all around it, making the scenery exceptionally beautiful.
They were already sitting with gisaeng beside them, so it was indeed Busa Kim Yungil's gathering.
"You're late. Come on."
"Yes, Young Master."
Only after panting for quite a while longer did Kanghyeok and Yeoni finally reach the front of the pavilion.
Several horses were tied up in a row there.
It seemed every invited guest except Kanghyeok had come on horseback after all.
The Busa, who had been fondling a gisaeng's breasts just moments earlier, called out with delight.
"Ah, has Kanghyeok arrived? Come, come, take a seat quickly."
"Yes, Busa Sir."
"As you all surely know already, this young man is Baek Kanghyeok, the one who has been the talk of the town lately."
True to his nature as a Busa who took good care of his own people, he did not rebuke him in the slightest for arriving late.
Instead, he was focused entirely on introducing him to the others.
"Oh, of course I know him! The son of Lord Baek Seungmun! I've even been treated by him myself!"
The first to jump up and make a fuss was Yi Jeongbok, a Pangwan attached to Suwon.
When Kanghyeok had heard the title alone, he had thought it meant something like a judge.
In truth, it was an official post of Junior Fifth Rank, one that assisted Suwon Dohobu Busa Kim Yungil with practical administrative affairs.
"Ah, yes."
The one who answered stiffly was Jeong Changgwon, a Gyosu of the Suwon Dohobu.
As the title implied, it was an official post of Junior Sixth Rank in charge of Confucian education.
His face looked as though it had I am a Confucian scholar written all over it.
As one of Seungmun's disciples, he had seen him several times at home.
Each time, he had proven himself exceptionally talented at making other people uncomfortable.
The rest were merely Confucian scholars around Kanghyeok's age or younger.
From Kanghyeok's point of view, they were not particularly interesting, so he exchanged greetings with them only half-heartedly.
"Now then, it seems everyone is here. Let's begin in earnest."
The Busa took his hands completely off the gisaeng and turned serious.
At the same time, the faces of the younger Confucian scholars turned deathly pale.
A few of them swallowed dryly, seemingly tense.
Mm... I've got a bad feeling about this.
Kanghyeok had gone through being a freshman too, had he not? He had also passed through internship and residency.
His mind might have forgotten, but his body had not.
The "intuition" of the powerless.
He's definitely going to make us do something.
Sure enough, the servants who had come with the Busa began passing things around.
Hanji, brush, inkstick, inkstone...
He had said they might discuss poetry.
It seemed he was planning to make them write it outright.
Those who already held office, such as the Busa, the Pangwan, and the Gyosu, were exempt.
Perhaps that was why their faces looked so relaxed.
"What do you all think of the quality of the paper?"
At the Busa's words, the Pangwan, who had not even received the hanji yet, answered at once.
"It is excellent."
"Indeed. I personally procured it from the Jojiseo."
Even Kanghyeok, who knew nothing about such things, could tell the hanji was high quality.
Though he had no idea what kind of place the Jojiseo was.
Still, had he not once belonged to the calligraphy club?
Back in his preparatory-course days, he had wasted hundreds of sheets of hanji.
"Mm... what should the theme be?"
"Busa Sir, the flowers are especially lovely today."
"Oh, yes. Their redness pleases me. Let that be the theme of your poem."
The Busa gave his order.
The Confucian scholars were busy gazing at the flowers and trying to draw poetic inspiration from them.
Kanghyeok, on the other hand, looked as though he had bitten into filth.
Damn it.
He did not know many poems to begin with, and poems related to flowers were even fewer.
If they had simply told him to write anything regardless of topic, he could have scribbled down just any poem and handed it in.
When he turned his head slightly, he saw Gyosu Jeong Changgwon glaring at him with his eyes wide open.
So this is where Father's constant talk about how I never study comes back to bite me.
It seemed he was fully intent on giving him a hard lesson.
That would be a problem.
In his long experience, were not the students who studied well the ones granted more freedom?
If he messed this up here, Seungmun's nagging would only intensify by the day.
He was already under increasing pressure to quit doing the useless work of a physician.
Brain, full speed ahead!
Kanghyeok bit into one of the hangwa set before him and began turning his mind furiously.
Perhaps because it was a sweet drenched halfway in honey, sugar seemed to flood through him.
That's it, now my brain's working.
Kanghyeok had always been confident in one thing since long ago: making his mind work.
He began gathering the scattered fragments of knowledge in his head into one whole.
First, the current king is King Seonjo. So that would be around the late sixteenth century, right?
If so, the poem he produced would have to be from somewhat later than that.
Plagiarism was a grave offense, then as now.
Who were the poets from the middle to late Joseon period?
The only one who came to mind right away was Kim Satgat.
And the only poem of his that Kanghyeok could recite was the outrageous "Cursing the Village School."
Inside the village school there's paper on the floor, in the room there's a statue... the teacher's balls... no, no. Not this.
That was practically just abuse.
The meaning was not actually profanity, but still.
There was no way he could show a poem like that in front of the Busa.
Even if the Busa let it pass, that Gyosu would go absolutely berserk.
And that was not even a poem about flowers.
Kanghyeok desperately racked his brain again.
Ah, there's Park Jega.
He was an eighteenth-century figure, so the period did not match.
Still, at the very least, no one could accuse him of plagiarism.
As luck would have it, there was even one poem related to "red flowers" that he knew by heart.
Good. Let's go with this.
When he opened his eyes, some of the Confucian scholars were already writing away enthusiastically.
He looked over to see what sort of poems they were writing, but more than half the characters were impossible for him to read.
Whatever.
He had never dreamed of taking first place anyway.
He only needed to get through this situation somehow.
At least his handwriting itself was not bad.
Though rather than writing, it might have been more accurate to say he drew the characters.
In any case, one poem was completed.
"Mm. It seems you've all more or less finished by now. Well then..."
The Busa, apparently tired of waiting, began urging them along.
The scholars who had not finished yet hurriedly scribbled down the rest of their poems.
"Good. Recite them one by one."
At the Busa's call, one of the Confucian scholars stood up hesitantly.
With one hand, he unfolded the paper he had written on so that the Busa and the others could read it.
Mm. So that's the proper etiquette.
Grateful that he was not first, Kanghyeok watched the scholar closely.
"My heart, surrounded by red flowers. Drunk on fragrance, I move the brush. I long for the rosy face that was as red as the blossoms."
To Kanghyeok's ears, it did not sound like a bad poem.
The Busa seemed to feel much the same and nodded.
"Mm."
But to the ears of Changgwon, a Confucian scholar to the marrow of his bones, it did not sound that way at all.
"For a Confucian scholar who should be devoting himself to study, this is far too disorderly a poem."
"I apologize."
Changgwon's rebukes and criticisms continued after that as well.
The scholars who were scolded returned to their seats wearing faces like they had bitten into filth.
By now, it was hard to tell whether this was a feast or a punishment.
Perhaps the Busa found this quite an amusing spectacle, or perhaps for some other reason, but he simply kept watching.
Wow, these Joseon old-school hardliners are no joke.
Kanghyeok looked at Changgwon, who sat there with an upright, rigid expression.
In a way, it was better this way.
If everyone got scolded, Kanghyeok would not stand out in any special way.
"Today's crop of poems is poor indeed. Well then, lastly... Kanghyeok, you try."
At the Busa's call, Kanghyeok sprang to his feet at once.
He was such a tall man that the atmosphere he gave off was unusual just from standing there.
"Ahem."
After clearing his throat, Kanghyeok unfolded his paper and held it up.
It was hard to call it exceptionally fine handwriting, but it was not a mess either.
At the very least, it was better than the rumors circulating about him.
The Busa looked at him with a noticeably more relaxed expression.
"Your handwriting is neat. Good, then what of the content?"
"It is lacking, but I will recite it."
"Yes, yes."
Kanghyeok carefully began to recite the poem.
The venomous look on Changgwon's face only made him more tense.
"Do not summon every kind of flower with a single word, red. Their stamens differ, so one must look carefully."
A poem by Park Jega, said to be one of the finest poets of the mid-Joseon period.
Its somewhat crooked perspective was instead what made it witty, and appealing.
That was how Kanghyeok had felt when he first memorized this poem.
What is this, why's it so quiet? Was it too early for this era?
When he looked around, the Busa was staring at him in silence.
After keeping his mouth shut for quite some time, he finally spoke.
"It is good. Good indeed. While everyone else merely lined up red flowers, you chose instead to satirize them."
The Pangwan immediately chimed in.
"Of all the poems we heard today, it is the best."
"No, no. Not just today's. It is the best I've heard all year. Changgwon, what do you think?"
The Busa asked, subtly watching his reaction.
In terms of official rank, Changgwon was the lowest present, but the depth of his scholarship was something even they had no choice but to acknowledge.
"It is not bad. I feel there is an elegant crookedness dwelling within it."
"Then today's top place goes to Kanghyeok. Come here and receive a cup."
Did they not say that true art transcended time?
Thank you, Elder Park Jega.
Kanghyeok rushed over in one stride to receive the drink.
The Busa poured the liquor generously, laughing heartily.
"A talent has emerged in the Baek clan. His medical skill is the best under heaven, and he can even compose poetry this well."
"You flatter me."
Had he not become thoroughly adept at pretending to be humble?
Kanghyeok drained the liquor in one gulp with a face that said he was truly nothing at all.
That look of his also seemed bold and open-hearted, and the Busa liked Kanghyeok even more for it.
"No, no. Ah, right. Changgwon, stop being so stubborn now and grant me this one request."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean your daughter. Have you not said that she has been burning with fever these past few days? If Kanghyeok takes a look at her, she will recover completely."
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