Pathway to Japanese Literature

I After crossing the bustling railroad crossing at the outskirts where oxcarts, horse-drawn carts, and cargo trucks jostled chaotically, a small farm path branched off to the left. From that point onward, the road turned muddy, and rain frogs noisily clamored in the puddles on either side. The light rain soundlessly dampened the dusky marshland with a gentle touch.

As the two walked on in silence, the surroundings had already grown dark. The area around the slaughterhouse was the only place still hazily aglow with faint light. The pale glow of electric lights cast a whitish hue over the tips of rice stalks in the paddies, and rain frogs, startled by the sound of footsteps, leapt into the fields with a splash. From the livestock pens, pigs occasionally let out piercing shrieks. As the two were passing in front of the slaughterhouse, they encountered several men.

“We headin’ back now, huh?” Someone mumbled incoherently.

Genzanshi started to pause as if wanting to say something, but intimidated by the white-eyed glare of the man accompanying him, he let out a hollow laugh and followed along. “Sendatsu, they’re beggars.”

The man did not answer. The earthen castle corridor of the ancient battlefield meandered not far away. On the slope, earth-and-straw huts covered with sticks and straw scraps were crammed like creeping things. By the time the two reached it, every earth-and-straw hut had already sunk deeply into the rain. Smoke was drifting here and there. The two carefully threaded their way between the earth-and-straw huts and climbed up to the earthen castle. The towering poplar trees swayed restlessly, churning the sky’s watermelon hues. The evening wind that had swept across the western plains now flapped at their soaked clothes. The two slowly removed the carrying poles from their shoulders, then cradled them in both hands and quietly vanished like shadows toward the western slope.

The old man approached his earth-and-straw hut, pushed aside the straw covering, and crawled his large frame inside. A lukewarm stench stifled his breath, and with each movement, straw rustled around his knees. The straw bedding was soaked too. The old man groped around, finally found a match, and lit the fire pit. The inside of the hut suddenly brightened, and the flame began to flicker in the draft. The way he hulked down into the small earth-and-straw hut resembled nothing so much as a massive stone statue. His neck was unusually thick, his long mouth hung slackly open, and his vacant eyes were unnervingly wide. The firelight flickered across his entire body, casting shadows while illuminating him. The old man quietly removed his soaked upper garment and hunched his back, straining with effort to take off his mud-caked tabi socks. Loose coins came clattering down onto the straw from within. The old man chuckled quietly, picked them up, and examined them one by one on his palm. And then, opening his mouth wide in a thoroughly satisfied manner, he let out a prolonged yawn before giving an exaggerated full-body shudder.

Suddenly, an oddly high-pitched voice seemed to have come from Sendatsu’s hut right next door. Genzanshi, who had been dozing momentarily, startled and crawled toward the entrance, pricking up his ears. Due to being slightly hard of hearing, he couldn’t make out the words clearly— When Sendatsu parted from Genzanshi and entered his own earth-and-straw hut, he found his five-year-old son crying violently. The wife’s eyes narrowed sharply, blazing with cold blue fire. Setting down his carrying pole, Sendatsu let out a feeble, pleading cry.

"Why you making him cry?" "Hmph, what's this 'why' business?" the wife instantly snapped back. "Why don't ya ask the brat yourself? Blockhead! How dare you ask that so shamelessly!" she spat out, then in a sudden fit grabbed the child's leg, hoisted him up, and mercilessly struck his back. Sendatsu flared up in rage. The wife's doing such things was, in the end, undoubtedly harassment aimed at him—his earnings being so meager.

“Cut it out! Just stop already!” he barked, raising his arm. Even still, as she refused to release her grip, he lunged at her pale-faced and wrestled the wife to the ground. The wife screamed, the child was flung away, and the hut erupted into a chaotic uproar as if turned upside down.

“Ugh… Unbelievable…” Genzanshi, who had been fretting, let out a groan-like mutter. Finally, the wife scrambled out as if fleeing. But even then, she refused to back down, stoking Sendatsu’s fury with fresh provocations. “If you wanna play lord of the manor, why don’t you go earn some damn money instead of mooching off others’ rice every day?!” ……” Involuntarily, the old man felt something thud in his chest and pulled his head back. In truth, even the rice Sendatsu had brought home today was from his own earnings—as usual, he had been made by Sendatsu to buy it. But Genzanshi held his breath, stuck his neck out again, and timidly peeked outside through a gap in the entrance. Even though it was raining, the wife wasn’t wearing anything on her upper body. When he saw that quivering flesh moving, the old man gulped down a thick glob of saliva. The wife came carrying an earthen pot while muttering something under her breath. So the old man began to lift his hips slightly, but as if reconsidering, he rubbed his hands together and settled back into his seated position. Carrying the earthen pot down to the river at the foot of the slope to rinse millet and fetch water had always been his usual role, but he’d suddenly felt it would displease Sendatsu.

“Old man, go fetch water!” The wife shouted brusquely in a voice loud enough to reach Sendatsu. Sendatsu intensely disliked Genzanshi doing such things for his wife. Reflexively, Genzanshi crawled out of the earth-and-straw hut like a bear. Because the rain poured onto his bare upper body, he let out a strange huhuhu, huhuhu-like scream. The rain grew even heavier until he could no longer see what lay ahead. The old man hugged the earthen pot to his chest and emitted increasingly loud huhuhu, huhuhu-like comical shrieks as he trudged through the mud down toward the foot of the slope. The river churned violently under the pounding rain. He tested the water by dipping one foot in. It was cold. Nearly slipping on slimy algae, he thrust his other foot forward and gradually waded deeper. Since it was a filthy drainage ditch, he had to submerge himself considerably. When waist-deep in the murky water, he rinsed the millet several times, filled the pot with gurgling liquid, then scrambled out while unleashing more huhuhu, huhuhu-like strange cries. At that instant, the rain intensified into a torrential downpour as a savage gust of wind roared in. The old man recoiled and staggered but suddenly thought he heard the woman scream from above. He concluded Sendatsu must have dragged her inside and was roughing her up. In frantic panic, he clawed through the mud back up to the hut. Yet the howling storm only grew louder, leaving Sendatsu’s dwelling deathly silent. An abrupt emptiness hollowed him out—all tension gone.

The old man stood rooted in place and muttered in a suppressed, sullen voice. “Sister, I brought it.”

There was no answer from within. “Ah—right. I’ll bring it over here.” “I’ll bring it over here.”

When he turned toward the source of the voice, a black shadow was crouching under the shelter from the rain.

“Oh, you were there.”

The old man relaxed his expression and began approaching the woman. Lately, Sendatsu's vitality had been waning particularly severely; even when he shouldered his carrying poles and went into town, he increasingly spent time lying down beside warehouses or inside the wrecked boats along the gently flowing Taedong River banks. He couldn't even properly earn their daily rice money. His eyes were deeply sunken, his neck noticeably thinner. As days passed, the wife grew increasingly harsh toward him. She always screamed as though ready to devour him whole.

“Whose fault is all this?! What’ll you do with this wife of yours?!” Through it all, Genzanshi had truly become—in both name and deed—the life-giving parent of Sendatsu’s household. Yet for Sendatsu, this reality gnawed at his heart. He typically sat silent but for blinking eyes, yet crimson flames eternally smoldered in his chest. That day too he’d walked home beside Genzanshi, his mind churning all along the path. The image of himself halting before the rice shop—forcing the old man to buy millet. How utterly wretched that sight must have been. And hadn’t the wife kept screaming at every turn—“You leech off another’s rice daily!”?

Indeed, tracing back to its origin, Genzanshi had been helped by Sendatsu. This was because Genzanshi had built his earth-and-straw hut in the Earthen Castle Corridor with Sendatsu’s assistance. Until then, Genzanshi had been a serf of a local tyrant in a remote mountain valley. Since both his father and mother were serfs, from the moment he was born, not a single thing from the hair on his head to the tips of his toenails had been his own. Of course, there was no wife either. But after truly over fifty years had passed, his master’s household declined, and he became a free man for the first time.

The world now opened up before him. The loyal old servant knelt and wailed beneath his ill-fated master’s estate, bowed deeply to each villager in farewell, then set off airily into the world. Snow still lay pure white on the mountain passes. Buffeted by the cold wind as he stood rigid atop the mountain pass gazing down with boundless emotion at the beloved mountain village—this remained something Genzanshi could not forget. But Pyongyang of his dreams lay twenty ri away. After walking three days and arriving at duskfall, everything he saw and heard left him utterly bewildered. Moreover, the bitter north wind of late second month—still whetted by snow and frost—lacerated his body. The old man wandered about the outskirts’ market while his teeth chattered violently. Yet due to his half-witted bearing and bizarre appearance, he found himself surrounded and tormented by carrying-pole laborers. For them—lounging about with no cargo loads—this became their perfect diversion.

He was like a bear that had come down from the mountains.

One of them shouted. They all began to snicker. “No—a tiger!” “I-I’m…” The simple old man panicked and bowed frantically in every direction. “Ding Yuansan is my name. I-I’m from the mountains,” he said, this time circling around to bow before each and every one of them. “He’s exactly like a miller’s ox!”

The forest of carrying poles erupted in a raucous uproar. Genzanshi grew increasingly flustered, rolling his large eyes wildly as he floundered helplessly over what to do with himself. The carrying-pole laborers found this increasingly amusing—they snickered, took turns threatening him, and jabbed at him with their poles.

Unable to bear watching this, a middle-aged carrying-pole man led the old man to a quiet corner. The man asked the old man in a thin voice where he had come from. He was a man with sharp eyes and a pale complexion. To his dangerously spindly legs clung tattered trousers. Genzanshi trembled violently as he bowed deeply multiple times.

“I’m from Mengshan.” “Ding Yuansan’s the name…” “You’d best not stay here—go to the flophouse instead.”

“I-I... uh... ain’t got no money.” “What’d you come here for?” “I-I’m, uh… fixin’ to start workin’, sir.” The man squinted his small eyes for a while, deep in thought, but finally ended up taking Genzanshi to the Earthen Castle Corridor and arranging for him to set up an earth-and-straw hut. Thus began the relationship between Genzanshi and Sendatsu’s family.

The nightmare-like past was buried, and Genzanshi began to start his own life anew. The old man was elated. Like the other earth-and-straw hut dwellers, he had acquired a hut of his own. He had spent all his savings to thatch the roof with straw, so it certainly looked more presentable than the other huts made of rush mats, wood scraps, and sheet metal pieces. This too was a secret pride to him. But that wasn’t all. In contrast to most people in Earthen Castle Corridor being beggars, his own figure—setting out each morning with a carrying pole on his shoulder and a buoyant heart—seemed radiantly blessed as if haloed in divine light. Whenever he walked through town he could hardly contain his restlessness. There were times when he would hoist a hundred-pound load with ease and dash off chuckling as if racing a streetcar. The conductor slammed on brakes and bellowed “You idiot!” But still chuckling away he kept running off waving one hand. The old woman client squawked like a duck screaming “Thief! Thief!” People on the road smirked as they cast their eyes upon this bizarre spectacle.

Genzanshi also took secret delight in helping Sendatsu’s family. As for his nature, this business of repaying favors was what he excelled at most. That’s why he always bought rice when coming home. It thrilled him beyond words to see how moved Sendatsu and his wife became. Every time the woman showered him with effusive thanks, the old man would wave both hands as if dismissing something unthinkable. “Heh heh, what’re you goin’ on like that for, ma’am...” Then he’d fix his gaze and stare vacantly into space. “Ain’t like we’re doin’ each other no favors or nothin’. If only I still had them acres of fields like back in the day...” He’d lick his lips with a wet smack. “Never figured things’d end up like this, I tell ya...”

And then he let out a breathy laugh.

Yet even as this went on, quarrels arose ceaselessly between Sendatsu and his wife. Sendatsu began to hate Genzanshi for no reason. Sendatsu’s wife would then hold up the hardworking old man as an example, further provoking her husband whose vitality was waning. Sendatsu grew increasingly enraged, venting his spite at his wife until he even came to resent the loyal Genzanshi. But strange to say, it was around that very time that the old man began to dimly realize his heart was tilting toward Sendatsu’s wife. Before he knew it, the initial excitement had subsided—perhaps because he had begun to grow weary of their hand-to-mouth existence. Not only that—the old man even began to feel a husband’s pride in the realization that he was actually the one supporting the wife.

When the old man recalled Sendatsu’s wife, he would hunch his back and gaze vacantly at the pale sky,

"I oughta go find myself a wife too," he would always mutter. "Uh... I’m... well... fifty-seven already, after all." "And ain’t got no heir neither…" The carrying-pole colleagues often teased the old man, saying they’d get him a wife. Genzanshi’s jaw went slack at the mere mention of the word ‘wife.’ “What kinda wife should we get for you, old man?”

“Heh heh heh.” “How about the sake woman from Sachonkol?”

“Heh heh heh, I ain’t young no more, but that’s just fine.” “Back then, I had a young one too—even had two brats—but uh, they all got taken by the plague.” “True, true I tell you!”

At some point—the exact time didn’t matter—the old man had been taken by his colleagues to visit the sake woman from Sachonkol. The small-eyed, large-toothed sake woman, amidst rowdy jeers, embraced Genzanshi’s back and pressed sake upon him. In that instant, the old man’s body seemed to melt away and his mind grew distant. It was truly the first time in his life. But suddenly, the old man thudded to his knees right there and pressed his forehead to the heated floor,

“Uh, I-I’m Chō Gensan, ma’am.” “Uh... First time meetin’ ya, it is...”

And so, having delivered his usual routine, they all roared with laughter, clutching their bellies as if turned upside down. That day, Genzanshi returned home in somewhat ill humor, muttering to himself that after all, there was no one like Sendatsu’s wife.

II

For a rainy season that had been raining daily, it was a night of startling starlight. Here and there atop the earthen castle, earth-and-straw hut dwellers formed circles to enjoy the evening cool. The moon, like a fresh cut, cast its faint light upon an old man’s neck bent like a rusted nail, the Stuttering Man’s back hunched like a silkworm, a dozing woman’s exposed chest, and Sendatsu’s pallid, hunched shoulders. When someone lifted their eyelids, gray eyes burning with anguished heat flashed sharply. Genzanshi dragged his feet heavily as he climbed up toward Sendatsu’s group,

“What’re you all talkin’ about?” he asked. “Today I went ridin’ on somethin’ grand.” “In that big store in town—if you ride on the first floor, heh heh, wouldn’t it just go zooming right up…?”

But sensing a certain harshness permeating the air between them, the old man suddenly clamped his mouth shut and quietly sat down beside the woman.

The gathering fell into an awkward silence for a while. Tokuichi, who had been holed away in his earth-and-straw hut like a cave spider, had crawled out tonight and spent the whole time ranting and raving. Around this time last year, the old man’s only son had been taken away on robbery charges, driving his wife to madness. The mere sight of Western-clad men would send her into fits—"Kidnappers! Kidnappers!" she’d scream as she rampaged about. He clung stubbornly to the belief that his son had been falsely accused, and whenever he remembered this, he could not contain his seething fury and despair.

“The boy got hauled off to prison… then along comes the old woman and loses her mind.”

The old man heaved a deep sigh. “What grand creatures we humans are.” “I don’t even know myself what I’m living for… but here I am living so grandly, ain’t I?” “Calm your heart now, then your mind’ll ease up some.” Sendatsu’s wife glanced at the old man’s face as if to comfort him. His face, distorted with missing teeth bared like a skull, made the wife shudder. “You don’t have to get so angry…” The old man shivered as he gnawed on his words, still seething with anger.

Genzanshi suddenly thrust his head toward the woman and pretended to playfully scare the child she was holding with a “Boo!” Because the child was startled and began to cry, the old man—looking embarrassed with a stifled laugh—ran his hand through his unkempt hair. “Ain’t you makin’ the brat cry?” Sendatsu’s wife snapped harshly at the old man. Sendatsu honked into his hand to clear his nose, then fussed over the old man as if to smooth things over.

"He'll be back any day now. An innocent man ain't kept long." But for some reason, the Stuttering Man who'd been crouching next to Genzanshi suddenly straightened up. He must've taken fierce offense at Sendatsu's words. Tokuichi began trembling violently. Sunken eyes glowed crimson like a soot-blackened lamp's flame. "The hell you say?" wheezed the old man. "How dare you!" "What crime's my son done then?" "You don't know a damn thing, do ya? Huh?" "Why ain't he come out yet?"

“Huh? He’ll come out?” The Stuttering Man barked at Sendatsu in a thoroughly mocking tone, as if snapping at him.

“Wouldn’t an innocent person be kept long—real long?” The Stuttering Man had left the village three years prior. His illicit liquor operation had been discovered—resulting in prolonged detention—and he’d been forced to sell off his cattle and household goods to pay a fifty-yen fine. He must have thought back to that time again, as he always did. “I-I made liquor from my own rice. I-I’m an innocent man through ’n’ through… worked my fingers to the bone since I was a brat… I-I’m… th-this here’s a proper farmer…”

“What’re you sayin’?” Sendatsu’s wife shouted. “Y’all’ve truly gone mad lately.”

“D-don’t say we’re mad—course we’re mad! Y-you think we c-can just sit here not goin’ mad?”

The surroundings fell deathly silent.

At that moment. Cutting through the eerie silence, from several huts northward came an incomprehensible "kek-kek"—a shrill laugh rising like distant thunder. It was wholly unexpected. The dim surroundings had concealed any sign of nearby people until now. All eyes snapped toward the sound. The man who had been lying prone hauled himself up mockingly on unsteady legs. Through the darkness, they recognized the neighborhood's lame beggar.

“Heh heh, what fine folks you are! Worked yourselves to the bone, didn’t ya? Go on then—put on a proper show! Heh heh...” Immediately after, he let out a liver-chilling guffaw. Then he flopped back onto his stomach and went quiet. The group exchanged helpless looks with one another and sank into silence.

From the southern part of the earthen castle came the sound of Tokuichi’s madwife frantically shouting something. She was conversing with the water spirit of Im Saeng-won’s young daughter who had been swept away by the current. She had been a pretty, lively girl, so one could only imagine how deeply the people of Earthen Castle Corridor had grieved over her death. The taciturn Im Saeng-won would go down to the river that had taken his daughter and always stir the water with a stick, swaying unsteadily.

At that very moment, the eviction issue concerning the earth-and-straw hut dwellers of Earthen Castle Corridor flared up again. Because the Korean Peninsula Trunk Line ran in front of Earthen Castle Corridor, it was a matter that simply could not be overlooked for reasons of international prestige and urban aesthetics. The earth-and-straw hut dwellers gathered in one area of the earthen castle and stirred up a commotion.

It was that night. When the Fengtian-bound express train approached the front of Earthen Castle Corridor, it came to a sudden, hurried stop with a sharp whistle. It came within a hair’s breadth of capsizing. Stones were piled mountain-high on the railway tracks, and when lantern light fell upon them, they were dyed crimson with fresh blood. From then on, Im Saeng-won was gone. But in this way, his father and daughter were regarded as guardians of Earthen Castle Corridor. The madwoman’s screams gradually faded into the distance. The old woman would make her daily circuit of the earthen castle without fail, shouting as she went north and south.

An ice-cold silence hung over the group. The bellowing of livestock from the slaughterhouse was torn by the wind, endlessly echoing with melancholy. The faint sound of airplanes circling could also be heard. In the direction of the city where distant lights formed a sea, searchlights emitted blue beams as several of them darted through the air. When the airplanes became ensnared within those overlapping beams, the engine roar grew even more ferocious, and they flickered like a swarm of mosquitoes. The group lifted their faces and gazed blankly at them.

“War drills.” “War drills,” Sendatsu muttered helplessly. Old Man Tokuichi struck his long bamboo pipe against the pebbles on the ground two or three times. Red sparks scattered.

“Long ago, this was a battlefield too.” “The whole earthen castle was crawling with soldiers’ corpses.” “Ain’t that a frightful thing? That First Sino-Japanese War business—nearly fifty years gone now...”

Suddenly, Sendatsu’s wife sneezed—“Ah-choo!” The Stuttering Man paid it no mind and suddenly sprang up as if ignited by fire. “A-At that time… th-the Qing soldiers… they burned my house down.” “My brothers got killed too! My Ma too!” “…Cursed bastards.” “W-What sin’ve I even committed?” “I-I barely survived… B-but I-I can’t go on livin’ no more… Everything’s a graveyard—a graveyard!”

“What’re you makin’ such a racket for?” Sendatsu finally lost patience and screeched. “N-no—I-I’m makin’ noise!” “If I ain’t makin’ noise—what’m I s’posed to do?!” The Stuttering Man shook his head violently, foam spilling from his mouth. “Gone clean mad…”

When Sendatsu muttered resentfully like that, the group laughed with an air of helplessness. But the Stuttering Man, contrary as ever, was gripped by a solemn fervor—as if driven by some unseen, terrifying force. When he realized the others were laughing at him, he grew even more irritable and violently kicked away his seat to stand up. Muttering something under his breath, he turned around and started to walk away, but suddenly stopped, wheeled back around, and glared with furious eyes,

“Damn bastards!” he shouted. “Y-you’re makin’ a fool o’ me!”

The woman was dozing off with a crow’s nest-like head nodding as she held the child. She took two or three deep, gulping breaths. Breasts like cow dung sagged down, both legs thrown out limply from the grimy hem of the skirt, her shoulders forming a smooth arc. Occasionally the child would whimper, so the woman scowled with a horse-like long face and shook her head.

“Tch, what a hopeless brat.”

Genzanshi stared intently at her dozing figure with fiery eyes, as though possessed. He licked his lips repeatedly, but they were terribly dry.

The moon had already sunk low in the sky. The poplar leaves fluttered golden, rustling softly.

“When the crescent moon’s red like that, there’s sure to be a terrible downpour, I tell ya…”

Old Man Tokuichi muttered. The group gazed at the moon as if noticing it for the first time, but not a single person broke the silence.

III

The Earthen Castle Corridor was assailed by a violent storm.

From Genzanshi’s hut came a shouting-like singing voice that echoed in broken bursts. The old man threw back his head and bellowed. Then from behind erupted the laughter of women and men in great trembling waves.

Because it was called Chūbuku Festival, the old man had gathered three or four people and was treating them to celebratory drinks. At long last, his constant efforts to display generosity toward the neighbors had finally come to fruition today. The old man went out in the rain to invite the neighboring earth-and-straw hut owners.

“Heh heh... Won’tcha come over to my place, eh? Got some sake too. What kinda cursed rain is this anyway?” The Stuttering Man remained squatting, muttering some strange incantation over and over, and gave no reply. It was the first time the old man peered into the Stuttering Man’s earth-and-straw hut. In the dim space, an altar made from an oil drum was set up, upon which rested a vessel of clear water. He was still a believer in God’s Church. By thus touching God’s Spirit, he believed that when the earthly paradise was at last established, then indeed would divine reward be bestowed upon him.

“What’re you doin’ there?”

“Jiao duo jiao duo Taiyi Tianshang Yuanjun…” The Stuttering Man still did not cease his strange incantations. Genzanshi reluctantly went to invite Sendatsu and his wife this time. Sendatsu abruptly turned pale. He had gone so far as to buy alcohol for this Chūbuku Festival nonsense, and even that was just to please his wife… The moment this thought struck him, a crimson tide began burning from his ears. And it danced across his cheeks and forehead before finally leaping to his eyes.

“You think this is the time to be guzzling alcohol?!” Sendatsu shrieked in a shrill voice. “You’re the one swillin’ booze like a bloated bullfrog—just drop dead already!”

And suddenly, he tried to hurl something. So Genzanshi scrambled away in panic. But the woman crawled after him and followed him out. Sendatsu’s hands shook violently as he glared at their retreating backs. Ox Lord!

Mama— Kuriyo Īīitsu, KURIYŌ

As soon as he finished singing, Genzanshi wiped his sweat-drenched neck with his hand and grinned. “Wasn’t that somethin’ grand? My wife was one helluva singer!” “That wife o’ mine was one helluva singer, I tell ya!” Just by uttering the word “wife,” the old man felt happy. “When I think ’bout her not bein’ here... I just can’t bear the sadness...” “Where’s your wife now, I wonder?” With hands trembling from palsy, Old Man Tokuichi took up his sake cup and added in a measured tone.

“She’s been sold off for sure.”

The Lame Man interjected spitefully. The woman burst out laughing. “That’s not true!” Genzanshi glared. “I’ve told you lot a hundred times she died of the plague!” “Oh?” “That’s right, uh—all three kids together they were. Cute little things—my rightful heirs.” “Everyone dyin’ like that—what a godawful twist o’ fate!” “Ugh, what’s the use o’ sayin’ any of it—” The old man looked on the verge of tears. “Enough already, I say. Enough.” “Ain’t no lie,” the woman replied dismissively, her words slurred with drink.

“What do you mean?” The old man threw down his smoking pipe. “Why’re you lyin’? “Well—Sister, you don’t even know…” “It ain’t a lie—ain’t a lie at all!” “Oh my,” the woman burst out laughing in exasperation. “Old man—when was it again? Weren’t there just two brats?” Genzanshi let out a “Ugh!” of a scream and turned around, then erupted into a large, awkward laugh that reeked of embarrassment. Somewhere, lightning flashed blue and thunder rumbled, pressing down on the earth. At that moment, he tried to turn his head again to glance at the woman’s face, but when their eyes met, they exchanged an awkward grin. Perhaps because the alcohol had coursed through his body, he felt restless and his heart raced—and she too looked especially beautiful today.

Outside, the storm churned with increasing fury. A violent wind sweeping across the fields roared through the Earthen Castle Corridor. Countless earth-and-straw huts were swallowed deep in the watery mist. The poplar grove swayed heavily, as if about to snap. Water cascaded relentlessly like a waterfall from atop the Earthen Castle. Suddenly, with a skittering sound, the rat darted into the box in the back, so Genzanshi—thinking it an emergency—flipped over and lunged at the box. The rat panicked, clattering around inside before bursting out abruptly. Filled with terror, it froze momentarily before wriggling through the straw bedding and trying to slip between Sendatsu’s wife’s knees. The woman let out a startled scream. Genzanshi chuckled breathily and lunged toward her this time. The rat had somehow slipped through and fled straight ahead, wriggling its back—but at that very moment, something utterly astonishing happened to Genzanshi. It was because the old man had embraced the woman. Genzanshi had somehow ended up clutching her hips. At the same moment, he seemed to stop breathing, his entire body convulsing. With a stifled groan, he collapsed in a heap, pressing his face against her hips before going completely limp. The woman flailed her hands in panic. But Genzanshi, in a faint voice—

“Rat—it’s a rat!” he gasped.

Tokuichi and The Lame Man doubled over laughing. The old man, finally seeming to regain his senses, released the woman’s thigh and stood up, awkwardly brushing his hands together. The woman too clapped her hands and collapsed into laughter. “Rats are downright clever, ain’t they?” Genzanshi let out a hollow laugh. “If I went and bought celebration rice, uh—how’d they sniff it out so quick? They’d come stealing for sure.”

“(They’ve sniffed it out—might not just be rats, y’know),” thought The Lame Man and Tokuichi as they gulped down saliva. After a while, they once again began clamoring boisterously as they passed around cups, just as before. The old man soon slipped back into his usual manner, rattling on in quick succession about boasting of his carrying pole earnings and his plans to search for a four- or five-yen rental room within the city walls in the near future. “What’re you gonna do with a rental room once you find one?” Sendatsu’s wife asked, half-amused. “He’s gonna call you over, see?” Tokuichi teased the woman with a foolish grin. Genzanshi frantically waved his hands. “What’s that? That ain’t how it is, is it?” the woman said, shaking her liquor-limp body with deliberate provocation.

Genzanshi thought, Damn it, and tried again and again to reconsider what the woman had said afterward. To the old man, it simply couldn’t sound like an ordinary joke. The old man felt his chest gradually growing hot.

“Heh heh heh—spoutin’ lies again, are ya?” The Lame Man suddenly snorted, flipping up his nose as he burst into laughter. “You lot really think you can crawl outta here with that? Take one step out—hell’s waiting right there! Fiends are squirming ’n’ lying in wait!”

But The Lame Man suddenly lowered his laughter, widened his eyes, and strained his ears. For an eerie thud-thudding sound had begun to reach them. Somehow, it seemed to be coming from nearby. Everyone involuntarily gasped and exchanged uneasy glances with one another. Then, this time, a heavy "thud"—as if something had shattered—resounded.

“Yeah, someone’s gone and smashed up another earth-and-straw hut.”

Tokuichi muttered resentfully.

“Who’s there…?” Genzanshi sidled toward the entrance and peered out into the storm. Rain lashed his face, blurring his vision at first. But suddenly—four or five ken ahead—something flickered like shadow puppetry. It jerked in violent spasms. The old man started and lunged forward. Sliding in mud, he pitched face-first before scrambling upward. The rain hammered without mercy. Wind howled against his body. The old man grabbed him from behind as if collapsing inward, but the man—in terrifying frenzy—brandished a hut stake, teeth grinding as he screamed, “Let go! Let go!”

It was the Stuttering Man. “What’s happening?!” Genzanshi clamped on like a lion’s bite and wailed. “Ugh—what’s happening?!” The man plunged deeper into madness, springing up with both feet leaving the ground. With that momentum, their two bodies flipped over together and went down in a muddy thud.

“Endure it! You’ve got to endure!” Genzanshi shouted like a madman. The torrential rain, lashed ever more fiercely by the gales, swirled violently above the two men. As dusk approached, the rain stopped and the wind calmed. Parting the rain mist, the poplar grove slowly emerged. On the earthen castle corridor baring its red flesh, the skeletal remains of earth-and-straw huts torn apart by the lashing rain could be seen here and there. Beside them, people who had become soaked rats crouched in a daze. The Stuttering Man's earth-and-straw hut had been smashed to splinters. When the crimson torrent broke through the waterproof wall from above and cascaded down like a waterfall, this God’s Church believer flew into a maddened frenzy—he rushed out, yanked out the hut stake, and smashed the hut to pieces. But the Stuttering Man was nowhere to be seen.

Gradually, the earth-and-straw hut residents crawled out from their huts, laboriously. Exactly as chickens caught in the heavy rain had come out shaking their wet feathers from under their respective shelters. The sky turned dusky black. The plain was shrouded in rain mist, and the river flowed with fierce force.

Before anyone knew it, Sendatsu and his wife began a fierce grappling in that corner. Just as Sendatsu dragged up his ailing body and came out to go earn money in town, there arrived his wife—face flushed—swinging the rice bag she’d received from Genzanshi. In a fit of red-faced rage, he suddenly swung his carrying pole down toward her shoulder without allowing any protest.

The woman fell onto the mud on her backside, hit her head hard, and let out a low cry. The bag was flung away, gaped open on the mud, and spilled out white rice. The child let out a frightened cry from the earth-and-straw hut. The woman bolted upright and lunged at him like a leopard.

“You beast!” “Kill me!” “Kill me!”

Sendatsu staggered momentarily. The woman’s hair was tangled, her shoulders heaving violently. “Kill me! Agh! Ouch! Agh! Kill me!” Sendatsu kicked, struck, grabbed her hair, and dragged the woman across the ground. Mud splattered in all directions. In the blink of an eye, she must have been thrown out—staggering wildly with legs flailing in the air before collapsing heavily.

“Sendatsu, what in the world happened?” Utterly taken aback, Genzanshi timidly approached, his words trembling. But it came out brokenly, barely more than a whispered mutter. The foolishly honest old man remained utterly unaware that he himself was the one who had reduced Sendatsu to a captive of that terrible rage. The man blazed up like sparks and grabbed Genzanshi by the collar, yanking him close with a fierce grip. “Sendatsu, what’d I do?”

The old man gasped. But suddenly he saw Sendatsu's head thrust upward toward his face. In that instant, sparks flew before his eyes and his head began to reel. The old man thrashed and went down like a black bear speared through the chest.

The woman, still fallen, pounded the ground and wailed.

“Aigo! What’s with all this bitterness? What in hell did I do wrong?” “Who in this world is making me live like some beggar... Aigoooo!”

The lame beggar muttered as he picked up grains of white rice that had spilled into the mud, putting them back into his bag.

“Right.” “If you’re gonna live, best fight like hell.”

On the dusk-filled Earthen Castle Corridor stretched a long black procession of earth-and-straw hut residents. The relentless rain had transformed the eastern marshlands into a great river, driving them to scramble together in search of any path leading to the railway tracks. They trudged toward the castle town to beg for their evening meal, hollow bellies leading the way. The elderly stood hunched over canes, children whined without pause, women pressed close together exchanging anxious whispers.

Gray hunting caps. An old fedora pulled down deeply over the nose. A straw hat with a hole in the crown. Wet, disheveled hair. Women’s headscarves… and all were barefoot.

In the far north, freight trucks were crossing the stone bridge, their horns blaring boldly.

Four

All through that night, Sendatsu did not sleep a wink. The moment he lay down, a fit of coughing seized him and he sat up again. He stared down at the bloody phlegm spat onto his hand, his face deathly pale. In the darkness, it glimmered faintly.

When the first rooster crowed dawn’s arrival, he listlessly slung his carrying pole over his shoulder and went out. The woman blankly watched her husband’s figure disappear into the distance. Though the rain had ceased completely by midnight, menacing clouds still drifted across the dim morning sky. The upstream regions must have suffered even fiercer downpours—cold mist now hung thick over the river’s swollen surface. The woman stretched her neck in an interminable yawn before turning hollow eyes toward the haze-shrouded torrent. Then with an irritated spit—thwack—she collapsed back onto the straw bedding once more.

Before they knew it, night had passed, and when the murky morning sun began glaring off the river’s surface, two men in Western suits appeared in the Earthen Castle Corridor. They walked through the earth-and-straw huts carrying a large ledger and a black leather bag. The visibly swelling red current grew in volume by the moment, violently gnawing at the base of the earthen castle. Twelve or thirteen shaku below the huts already swirled with turbulent water. Most dwellings now stood perilously close to being swept away by the current. Across the bank, heaps of filth had become scattered black islands while from lower areas, the muddy torrent licked across fields as it gnawed into them. Midstream teemed with white foam and straw debris chased by five or six swallows whose glinting wings created a sight both eerily beautiful and unsettling.

Genzanshi vacantly gazed at such a scene while thinking sadly that life in the Earthen Castle Corridor might finally be coming to an end. A sense of loneliness and despair tightened around his chest. But he could not forget. He couldn’t stop thinking about the mysterious words the woman had said yesterday—what could they possibly mean? If he could find a rental room in the castle town, would the woman really come? The old man finally regained a sense of happiness, his chest quivering with excitement.

So when the two rent collectors appeared at his hut, Genzanshi finally greeted them with a beaming smile. “Well, since I’m payin’, I’d like to ask ya to find me a room in the inner castle town soon, I tell ya.” The rent collectors were too stunned to respond. The old man hunched his back and, groaning, took off his old tabi socks. About three white copper coins clattered out from within them. After hurriedly picking them up one by one,

“Uh, ten sen, five sen, ten sen…” he insisted as he handed them over.

“Uh, twenty-five sen it is, ain’t no mistake… ’Cause I’m Tei Genzanshi, see? Paid proper-like, I did.” He thrust his unkempt head reeking of foul odor over the rent collectors’ ledger, waving his thumb as if trying to locate his own name. The rent collectors straightened up as if recoiling from a hot stove and fixed the old man with a glare. Finally, Genzanshi bared his miso-stained teeth in an awkward grin and let out a low chuckle. “Ain’t found one yet?”

The rent collectors laughed. Then suddenly stiffened their faces and pursed their mouths tightly before leaving without a word. "Right, I'll go ask Sister now," the old man thought. But when he shouldered his carrying pole, trudged through the mud, and reached the woman's hut, the old man suddenly remembered Sendatsu, grew frightened, and lost his courage.

“I’m headin’ out, Sendatsu.”

The old man said. “...” “It’s really the flood, I tell ya.”

“...”

Receiving no reply and thinking it strange, the old man peered suspiciously into the entrance—then found himself pressed flat against the hut wall without realizing it. The woman lay on her side half-naked, letting her child suckle at her breast. Sendatsu had already left. His heart pounded violently. As if ambushed, suppressed splashes of emotion came lapping up. His throat was parched, and his voice wouldn’t come out properly.

“Sister.”

The woman seemed to have fallen into a deep sleep.

“Sister.” The old man tried to shout again with a choked voice.

Startled, the woman jolted upright.

“Who’s there?”

The old man froze. It was over. “Uh... it’s me... uh... Genzanshi.” “What’s wrong with you?” “Uh... I...” The old man, at a loss for what to say, stammered incoherently—but then he recalled that he was supposed to ask something now, and smiled faintly to himself. “Uh… well… how do I put this… uh… I mean… I got somethin’ I wanna ask ya, see.”

“What is it?” “Uh… well… how do I… this might be rude to ask, but… uh… Sister, are you really… uh… going to the castle town?” “Old man, what the hell are you talking about?” The woman asked suspiciously. “Well… uh… Sister, didn’t ya say last night… uh… that if I found a room in the castle town… uh… you’d come with me? I… I’m gonna go look for one now.” “Oh, you old man.” The woman formed a faint smile and sighed. “If we had the proper station to make that happen, there’d be no need to fret…”

“Hmph, just you wait!” The old man’s eyes flew open as he shouted. “Well, uh… I’m gonna go now, see…” The baseless rumor that Genzanshi and Sendatsu’s wife were involved began spreading through the Earthen Castle Corridor after Tokuichi’s old woman witnessed this scene. The madwoman’s filthy, wrinkled face lit up with eyes like glinting black beans as she let out a lewd, shrill laugh. Startled, Genzanshi turned to look and saw the old woman fleeing upward along the earthen castle as if she’d grown wings.

The madwoman, thereafter, every time she encountered someone,

“Hey, you,” she whispered, waving her brown hand. “You know about it?” “What’s that?”

“What? You still don’t know?” the old woman said, widening her eyes as she drew near and whispered into the listener’s ear with both hands cupped around it.

“Genzanshi and Sendatsu’s wife have hooked up.” Since hearing that rumor, Sendatsu’s illness had grown visibly worse. His eyes turned increasingly suspicious with an inner glint, while his lips stayed chalky and parched.

He had completely changed from before; these past two or three days, he had even been going out early at dawn, braving the rain. And he trudged through the dawn streets where deep rain-fog drew pale yellow circles around streetlamps, through markets jostling with carts selling vegetables and musk melons, through the Taedong River wharf quietly soaked by drizzle. He would sometimes stop abruptly, as if startled. He would mutter to himself again. Lately, for some reason, memories of his hometown kept surfacing with particular intensity. Even as he shook his head quietly to escape the loathsome memories, before he knew it, the vast fields of his hometown would flicker before his eyes. At the foot of the hill was a village where acacia trees stood. That ridge path where, as a child returning from cutting grass, he would often ride a calf and sing in a clear voice.

In spring came rice seedling beds. In summer came weeding. In autumn came harvesting. The farmers in the rice paddies—several of them bent at the waist forming lines—advanced while engrossed in call-and-response songs. The girls with large baskets on their heads came toward the rice field ridges and called out in lively voices waving their hands. “Where you all at—it’s lunchtime!” When winter came the men would head to the city to sell rice husks—the great king bells on their oxcarts clanging merrily. But this quiet pleasant life did not continue for long. Some unseen colossal force gradually eroded the foundation of their livelihood and their lives grew only more destitute. Even the few fields he owned passed into others’ hands and he became a mere destitute tenant farmer. Eventually the notice of tenant rights transfer arrived at his doorstep as well. That must have been near summer’s end. The rice plants stood tall their ears hanging heavy.

Sendatsu ground teeth in extreme despair and fury, eyes lit with crimson glare. The wife went out to plead at Shaon (the farm overseer)’s place. But the figure of the wife who timidly returned late at night—hair disheveled as she collapsed in tears—jacket crumpled—pale skin visible through its gaps…….

He suddenly snapped back from his memories. He shook his head. As if trying to shake off a nightmare. And then he slowly took out a small pipe from his pocket. That’s right—when that unfaithful wife sold herself to get the tenant rights back—I should have killed her and died together with her then and there. But wasn’t it I who dragged myself away from the village with her after all?

At that moment, startled when something suddenly caught at his feet, Sendatsu jumped back. There, under the eaves of a riverside warehouse, someone lay sleeping covered with a straw mat. It seemed to twitch slightly. When the man who had been stepped on let out a groan and thrust his head out from under the straw mat, he was so shocked that he fled as if tumbling away. It was the Stuttering Man. As if he’d been shown a vision of his own demise, he ran off at full speed. And as if trying to escape those terrifying delusions, he threw himself into work with reckless abandon, tackling every task he could find in a single-minded frenzy. And so, these past few days, even without Genzanshi’s help, he managed to earn rice on his own.

One evening, in an unusually good mood, he whispered to the wife. “I’ve got warehouse work two days from now.”

The wife widened her eyes in surprise. The warehouse work was something done only by union members, and the wife knew that vagrant laborers like the carrying pole gang weren’t permitted to do it. “Can you even manage something like that?” “There’s a man looking out for me.”

In reality, Sendatsu had merely happened to meet Byeong-gil from the same village on his way home. He was a man of sturdy character who had once been a servant at a neighboring house but now worked as a union member. Perhaps moved by Sendatsu’s wretched state, Byeong-gil had promised to get him into the warehouse work crew even if it meant forcing matters. At that moment, Sendatsu could not say anything. When he thought that now he had to rely on help from even a former servant, his own situation felt unbearably pitiful.

“Come at four in the morning the day after tomorrow.” Byeong-gil tapped his frail shoulder two or three times with his large hand to comfort him, then walked off somewhere, laughing dryly.

“They’re giving three yen for it—Byeong-gil said so.” His face glowing, he whispered to his wife. The wife let out a faint cry. “Nah, you actually met that Byeong-gil?” Sendatsu peered through the darkness and stared fixedly at the wife. And he quietly nodded his head in agreement.

V

Then it rained for two more days.

The Earthen Castle Corridor swam through the flood like a whale that had surfaced in the open sea. Poplar trees stood quietly towering along its spine. A cold, damp wind occasionally set them dancing. Mist flowed all around, and above the pale white drift sat the midday sun. The opposite shore sank like a sea, and the vigorous muddy torrent quietly submerged vegetable fields, rice paddies, millet fields, and more far and wide. Telegraph poles and old trees alone stood lined up here and there atop the flow. The avenue of acacia trees stretching northward was also engulfed by the flood, leaving only the stone-built long bridge floating stark white.

The crimson-stagnant muddy torrent assaulted the Earthen Castle with terrifying force, foaming white and swirling into eddies. The flood-submerged earth-and-straw hut, its foundation soil crunched away with a crack, teetered visibly for an instant before crumbling with a grinding noise and collapsing into the torrent. The straw-bundle roof upended into the muddy torrent. Rats, released into the cold water, flailed in panic toward the shore. From nearby huts, the black necks of people startled by events appeared, then vanished……. The midstream still swelled ominously. It was undoubtedly a sign that the water level would continue to rise even more. Pillars, furniture pieces, livestock, even farmhouse roofs floated up and sank down as they streamed away like arrows. And even in the distant south where those things were heading, a vast vista lay spread out, glittering like the open sea.

The marshland on the eastern side of the Earthen Castle became like a lake from rainwater with no outlet, and the Slaughterhouse stood flooded, seeming to float on the water. Dozens of men tried to drive pigs out from within wooden fences they had erected. As they ran through the mud shouting hoarsely, the herd of black pigs surged toward the elevated railway embankment across the way, raising an uproar with their shrill cries. The black train that had just passed by blew its whistle sharply at floodwaters lapping against the tracks while slowly rounding a curve. Beyond it all, the crimson bulk of a towering prison and an ash-gray city skyline bristling with chimneys stood silently watching over this scene.

A hawk descended from the vast sky, wings spread wide as it approached the Slaughterhouse. Thrusting its greedy beak, it circled all around in a sweeping dance before suddenly tucking its neck, sharpening its beak with its claws, closing its fan-like spread wings, and diving straight down. Arrow-swift. But just as it seemed to descend near the group of piglets, it thrust its body upward and flew back high into the distant sky.

The sky held no more dense clouds; only a damp, wet wind drifted over the water fields. Tens of thousands of dragonflies swarmed over the Earthen Castle as though trying to weave a net, swooping and darting through the air.

Genzanshi couldn't focus on anything. The old man occasionally sighed as he prepared to evacuate, placing items like a wooden pillow, torn rubber boots, and tabi socks that looked pickled in soy sauce into a kerosene box. Yet he simply couldn't bring himself to fold up the straw mat and leave everything behind neatly like the others had. It wasn't as if he had secured a rental room in the city. But these past two or three days - how Genzanshi had wandered the streets, going from house to house making inquiries!

“Please rent me a room.” The old man bent his waist, rubbed his hands, and pleaded over and over. He believed he could easily afford a room costing four or five yen a month. But not a single person paid him any attention. Once, an old woman from a ruined household eyed him suspiciously, “How many are in your party?” she asked.

“Uh,” the old man said eagerly, foam gathering at his mouth, “we’re a family of four—kids and all—yes, our house got swept off in the flood.” He’d carelessly blurted out being a family of four. The old man had been flatly refused, but when he wondered why he hadn’t said it was just him and the wife alone, he burned with fury.

“What a disaster,” the old woman muttered, shaking her hips as she went back inside.

The old man passed through the gate of another house once more. He told himself he’d definitely say it was just the two of them this time, but afterward, they ignored him and drove him out without another word. The old man had no choice but to trudge through the streets once more. Beside government offices, next to banks, around towers—everywhere you looked, people from the countryside who had lost homes and crops to the flood huddled like clusters of potatoes. To the old man, that didn't seem like someone else's affair. And so even as he clung to the last clod of earth, he grew increasingly stubborn in his refusal to leave the Earthen Castle Corridor.

The Earthen Castle had always been struck by a great flood once every year. Each time, the earth-and-straw hut residents would scatter into the city in all directions, becoming utterly homeless. And when the floodwaters receded, newly displaced people would troop into this Earthen Castle Corridor once again. Thus would a new endeavor begin—even Genzanshi now clearly understood that his earth-and-straw hut would soon be swept away. Beneath Genzanshi and Sendatsu’s earth-and-straw hut—already five or six shaku below—the muddy torrent churned. A goosebump-inducing chill drifted upward, sending shudders through his body.

The old man crawled out sullenly and stared vacantly at the sky, but when his gaze fell upon the collapsed wall, he was overcome by an inexpressibly bleak mood. Because the wall was thoroughly soaked by rain, even when he tried kneading mud and patching new earthen clumps, they crumbled away dryly. He even tried building up the area around the lower wall to prevent collapse from runoff above. But try as he might, he couldn’t focus on the work.

At times, Genzanshi would gaze at Sendatsu’s leaning hut and sigh. He would fret that immediate repairs were necessary but would soon find himself wavering again. Just what did Sendatsu intend to do? Even now, with the earth-and-straw hut on the verge of collapse, he had gone out to work at the warehouse since three in the morning. Sendatsu’s wife remained lying face down in the hut, not even showing her face—what was wrong with her now? Since that rumor had started, Genzanshi never once opened up to Sendatsu and his wife to discuss their future plans. Whenever the old man approached, the wife would always fling her hands forward in panic, making her voice tremble.

“Don’t come near.” “Can’t you see people are watchin’?”

The old man tightly crossed his arms. And then, baring his large chest, he shook his unshaven chin up and down.

Five or six earth-and-straw hut residents shouldered their belongings and evacuated toward the Stone Bridge in the north.

A single small-statured old man with a sun-blackened face bent at the waist and poked around inside the collapsed hut with a stick fragment, searching for anything salvageable. When he saw this, Genzanshi was overwhelmed by a dizzying despair that darkened his vision.

Suddenly at that moment, Genzanshi became aware of an unusual commotion behind him. The instant he turned and looked up at the Earthen Castle, he froze in place. Amid the grim-faced earth-and-straw hut residents trudging in a line, a laborer-like man carried a bloodied man on his back. An ominous premonition flashed through his mind, and the old man reflexively dashed toward them. Indeed, the one being carried was Sendatsu. The head, tightly wrapped in bandages, swayed over the shoulders like a tadpole.

“Move aside, move aside!” Someone barked.

They descended toward Sendatsu’s earth-and-straw hut like a cloud. Several of them blocked the entrance, jostling each other while clamoring noisily. Assailed by terrible anxiety, Genzanshi remained frozen in place for some time. His breath wheezed agonizingly, and the old man seemed about to thud down right there. But he lumbered closer as if having resolved himself. And blocking the way before Sendatsu’s earth-and-straw hut, he muttered in a quiet, oppressive voice.

“Move aside.” The root of their misfortune lay in other laborers discovering the warehouse work. The job had begun around four o’clock with over thirty men breathing shallowly to avoid detection, and by the time morning sunlight began filtering through, they’d already made significant progress. If they demolished more than a third of the stored grain stores, no one else could be permitted entry afterward. But around seven in the morning—belatedly—some union members had found them. The warehouse work was originally an exceptionally rare moneymaking opportunity; being excluded and left unemployed naturally drove them to murderous rage fueled by hatred and jealousy. Thus the thirty-odd men could only keep their heads bowed, shrinking under everyone’s glares and curses as they moved about. Without any work chants, two men made another shoulder a straw rice sack. Then that man descended along the long plank walkway, his path illuminated by whoever held the electric light. Needless to say, Sendatsu grew increasingly restless. He’d never been qualified for this work from the start. Being relegated to electric light duty due to his frail health alone weighed doubly—triply—on him, and now union members had appeared shouting up a storm. Sendatsu suffered torment from both fear of exposure and intense self-loathing—he wished he could crawl into a hole. But when detected and grabbed by a red-faced man’s arm, he reflexively shoved him away with a fist. At that instant both men grappled and fell while others rushed in screaming curses and raising a clamor.

Even so, Byeong-gil arrived swiftly and intervened, so the scuffle was easily quelled, and hot-tempered Sendatsu had sustained no actual injuries of note. But when supported by Byeong-gil and standing up, Sendatsu suddenly could not contain the surging grief. He contorted his face fiercely and clenched his teeth, but hot tears streamed down to his mouth. Sendatsu staggered unsteadily up the plank. No matter what, he had to earn money today.

“Let me carry it!” he said. The men were startled but, intimidated by Sendatsu’s alarming demeanor, silently let him shoulder the load. He staggered. It was indeed a display of strength astonishing to behold. With large beads of sweat forming on his forehead, he descended the plank step by step, his face contorted in agony as if his breath might stop at any moment. Had he wanted them all to believe he was doing proper work like this? A shiver ran through his spine as though it were cracking, and his footing began to falter. For him, the burden was far too heavy. It lasted but an instant. He felt dizzy, as though standing atop a sheer cliff. Suddenly, everything went dark. And that marked Sendatsu’s end.

A swarm of large black flies clustered and dispersed over Sendatsu’s corpse. The encircling crowd made no move to brush them away, as lifeless as the dead themselves. Blood-drenched jacket and hakama. A gaunt torso swathed in bandages. Legs blackened like charred sticks. Beneath the wrappings, half-shut eyes gleamed crimson; cotton stuffed the nasal cavity. Before this brutal spectacle of Sendatsu’s remains, Genzanshi sank into fathomless sorrow—rooted in place, his fearful gaze locked unblinkingly ahead.

Byeong-gil, who had carried Sendatsu there, sat cross-legged with his hands planted on his thighs, vacantly watching Sendatsu’s wife’s grieving form. His face, marked by a pockmark near the bridge of his nose, twitched intermittently. The sunken skin of his cheeks twitched spasmodically.

Sendatsu’s wife wept with red-rimmed eyes that kept fluttering shut. Slumped over her husband’s corpse, she felt compelled to apologize and pray for everything. The child lay exhausted from crying. Tears traced paths down grimy cheeks, flowed over rib-protruding chests, and crawled toward swollen bellies. “Why’d you go and die on me?” “What’m I s’posed to do now?” Her shoulders heaved violently as she choked back sobs. “Gotta tough it out,” Byeong-gil blurted out like the words scalded his tongue. “Ain’t no use bawlin’ now it’s done.” “Not like I’ll let you starve neither.”

Finally, she let out a loud wail and cried. Genzanshi, his hand trembling slightly and his complexion altered, stared fixedly at Byeong-gil. What sort of man was this? The old man wanted to know that. Byeong-gil wore an inscrutable faint smile at the corners of his mouth. Genzanshi sidled toward the woman and, panting heavily with frantic breathing, half-panicked yet intending to console her, began rattling off. “I don’t rightly know how sad this all is.” “But I’ll make sure to get Sendatsu proper buried by tomorrow.” “I’ll go with you.” “I’ve been to Bemi Mountain plenty times for folks’ funerals, I tell you.”

The woman had seemingly stopped crying, if only a little. The old man continued with some measure of pride. For even though she had wept all the more at the stranger’s words of comfort, he thought she had quickly stopped crying at his own consolation. “And since it’s already dangerous here, best we move into the city proper later on.” “I’ve been searchin’ real hard these days too, but ain’t found nothin’ proper yet, well... but I swear I’ll find somethin’ for sure.” There, convinced that what he had said was indeed three times longer than Byeong-gil’s words, the old man grew increasingly resolute.

Tokuichi老人, who had been hunched over mourning Sendatsu’s gruesome death like a mute, suddenly grimaced as if something had begun throbbing painfully somewhere. And clenching his teeth, he shifted his paralyzed legs, then fidgeted restlessly like a broken old clock that no longer chimes before speaking. “What kinda fate has everyone brought upon themselves?” Sendatsu’s wife tried desperately to hold back, letting out a long, heavy breath. But after that, convulsive wailing continued once more.

On the earthen castle, rescue teams appeared and were waving red flags.

“Head toward the bridge!” “The Earthen Castle is going to collapse!” “Get out of here!”

The people from earth-and-straw huts climbed up to the top of the Earthen Castle one after another from various directions. Though they thought a water burial would have been preferable, they still formed a line and walked toward the stone bridge. Life dragged them like iron chains. As they passed by Sendatsu’s hut, the earth-and-straw hut residents heard the woman wailing fervently. The lame beggar dragged one leg heavily while muttering to himself as though cursing. “It’s over… It’s over… It’s over.”

On the far side of the Earthen Castle, a madwoman’s hoarse voice like a copper gong raced through the air.

“Kidnapper scum, get lost! Get lost!”

It—likely pursuing the Western-clad men into the distance—grew gradually fainter.

Six

Hearing the rescue team’s shouts, Genzanshi emerged with a fidget. There was no one left in the Earthen Castle. Feeling somehow frightened, the old man began crawling hesitantly upward. And in that corner he stood abruptly, his lips pressed tightly together. Upon the vast drifting muddy torrent, the sunset’s reflection blazed crimson. Slicing vertically through the current, a vivid spectrum advanced upon the Earthen Castle. Far to the west, rain clouds loomed over Ryugakusan Mountain’s jagged peaks while above them, the sun floated like a helmet gently tossed by some magician.

Genzanshi screwed up his cheeks as if dazzled, his face contorted in a severe grimace. His thick, heavy lips were tightly twisted. Around the edges of his large eyes, something white glistened. A flock of swallows darted about over the mid-current. Countless swallows would suddenly soar up, their wings pierced through by golden backlighting as they fluttered—then this time fluttered down like leaves tossed by a storm. Straw-thatched roofs came flowing into the churning whirlpool, rolling sideways and lengthwise like hippopotamuses stirring up the turbulent waters. Seeing this, the entire flock of swallows swiftly descended upon them.

Along with that, for some reason, the setting sun’s glow abruptly faded as well. The Earthen Castle Corridor lay as silent as death. Not a single human shadow remained visible; the madwoman’s screams had vanished without a trace, and from the slaughterhouse came not even the bellowing of livestock. The poplar trees swayed silently without a rustle of leaves. Only the muddy torrent raged on, roaring as it jostled against itself and formed tumbling whirlpools. It was a moment of stillness. But perhaps it was his imagination—after a while, an eerie susurration seemed to begin emanating from somewhere. And it appeared to grow gradually stronger. Had the southern end of the Earthen Castle also begun to collapse? Could it be the sound of the torrent rushing into the eastern marshland? While staring blankly at the current, he suddenly felt dizzy—as though he too might be swept away. He steadied his unsteady legs, but his chest throbbed violently like something bound by a tourniquet.

“Sendatsu is dead.” “What’ll become of Sister and that brat?” Genzanshi stiffened with a fierce expression and muttered to himself. “I really gotta repay Sendatsu’s kindness and save ’em.”

The old man wanted so desperately to believe this. By doing so, I could still repay Sendatsu. And I couldn’t help but think there was no way except for me to save these two survivors after all. Woman… Woman… Then the old man inadvertently felt a new joy and let a faint smile bloom at the corners of his mouth. Before he knew it，warm feelings toward the woman had stealthily seeped into his chest. But immediately，his fantasy began tearing apart mercilessly. The old man startled. As if parting a thin veil，Sendatsu’s blood-smeared swollen lips began twitching—then an illusion of Sendatsu appeared，trying to bellow something as though forcing it out from between red-stained teeth.

The old man staggered back three or four steps and held his breath. And finally calming his mind, he looked around anxiously. From the distance, though unclear who, two figures seemed to be approaching. The area had grown quite dim. One appeared to be an old man with unsteady footing, supporting his bent body with a cane as he toddled forward. The companion appeared to be an old woman. Carrying a large bundle, she muttered something from behind. The hanging Ajinomoto tin can glistened red once. It was old man Tokuichi and his wife. After all, they too were evacuating toward the Stone Bridge, pleading for their lives.

Genzanshi stood rigidly in place, as though stabbed by something. When the old man realized it was Genzanshi of the carrying pole corps, he drew close enough for their noses to almost touch, waving his charcoal-like hands before the man’s face while panting with rasping breaths.

“Y-you tryin’ to pull some stupid stunt?” “We’re going.” “C’mon, we’re goin’.” The madwoman suddenly bared her teeth in a broad grin, “Lecher—” she giggled grotesquely “—doesn’t that make you just a little sad?” With that, she let out a shrill, piercing laugh and ran off.

The two figures disappeared northward through the dimness. Perhaps their dragging feet stumbled—the occasional clatter of tin cans echoed eerily. Beyond them near the Stone Bridge, dim bridge lamps formed a line spanning the floodwaters. The castle town abruptly became a sea of lights as if startled. Genzanshi stayed motionless for a long while like one who had fainted, forgetting even to twitch. Only the sound of muddy torrents devouring the Earthen Castle grew ever more clamorous. At times came faint rustlings from poplar branches where nameless birds settled into nests. But then—by some trigger—the old man reflexively flattened himself against the earth. Pierced through by terror, he pressed his face to the ground and stifled his breath.

With a thunderous roar, the ground rumbled. At that moment――.

The section of the Earthen Castle thirty to forty *ken* to the south finally could no longer hold, crumbling before their eyes as it began toppling into the raging current. Water spray splashed over a dozen feet high. It flashed silver repeatedly in the darkness. This time, the nearby soil seemed to give way with a light splashing sound, and once more a tremendous roar shattered the silence. The Earthen Castle had already begun collapsing. The onrushing muddy torrent found an outlet there and surged forth with a roar, then thundered toward the eastern lowlands while raising a clamorous din. The earth rumbled, thunder boomed, the waterfall roared.

A shudder ran through him as icy chaos raced down his spine. Genzanshi found himself crouched limply on his stomach, mouth heaving labored breaths while his hands groped through the mud on the ground. He struggled to rise. He had to get to the woman’s place quickly and bring her out—the thought seized him. But no matter how he tried, he couldn’t lift himself up. He raised his hips and thrust his feet forward, leaning toward the lower slope. His hand slid across the mud—before he knew it, he was slipping helplessly down two or three feet. The slope was steep and slick with muddy water. Below churned a terrifying torrent. The old man frantically tried to rise again by planting his knees, but they slipped with a jolt, sending him tumbling downward.

“Sister!” Genzanshi let out a scream.

Startled by the unusual noise, the woman thrust her head out. But by then—before she could even scream “Ah—!”—something black came tumbling down with heavy thuds. The woman and Byeong-gil sprang out as if tumbling headlong. They didn’t make it in time. All that remained was a plopping sound of water.

“Genzanshi! Genzanshi!”

Something resembling him was already being swept several yards downstream. The woman ran shouting along the bank. Byeong-gil splashed into the current in pursuit. The old man was a mountain dweller unacquainted with water. Not yet far from shore, he occasionally thrust his feet against the riverbed trying to right himself—floundering all the while. He seemed to be attempting some cry. Ugh... ugh... ugh—a scream burst forth. The motion surely forced him to gulp mouthfuls of water. Yet they distinctly caught fragments of his voice.

“Sis...ter... Ru—run... Gh—gh—” “Genzanshi! Genzanshi!” The woman races along, shouting at the top of her voice. Sometimes slipping, tripping, staggering; collapsing with a thud only to scramble back up again.

“Ugh... ugh...”

“Genzanshi, hold on! Genzanshi!” “Ugh... Run... Run...” The choked voice was heard no more. The water was red; the river was black. Several times white forms surfaced and vanished while being swept along, drawn ever deeper into the current. The swirling muddy torrent lashed out its tongue. Even so, the woman staggered onward, running after him with frantic desperation.

“Ah! Look out!” “It’s dangerous there!”

Byeong-gil, who had been running ahead, stopped the woman and held her tightly. The woman struggled, trying to shake him off. But a few feet ahead lay the cave of someone’s collapsed earth-and-straw hut. And it was already too late. Genzanshi had already been swept dozens of yards downstream. But perhaps he had suddenly been caught in a fierce whirlpool—he flashed two or three times like a flicker of light, then vanished from sight entirely.

The woman leaned against Byeong-gil and covered her face. The man blankly gazed and gazed at the distant point where Genzanshi had vanished. The roaring muddy torrent surged powerfully onward, still retaining its vast formless flow. At times, from somewhere distant, only the thunderous crash of another section of the Earthen Castle collapsing could be heard growing ever more ominous.

Before long, the sixteen-night moon emerged, and the torrent, bathed in golden moonlight, began its devilish dance.