Chapter 373. Communal Labor 1
"Seriously, communal labor in weather like this?"
A young novice monk grumbled as he rubbed his hands together.
His fingertips were already red from the cold.
"Exactly what I was thinking."
The monk beside him pulled his collar all the way up to his neck.
His breath came out white, then vanished almost at once.
"It is hard enough just standing still, and now they want us to go into the mountains and cut wood."
"What good is having a huge temple if there is no firewood? All you get is a freezing floor."
"I heard a silver ingot came in a few days ago."
"Silver is silver and firewood is firewood. Are you planning to split the ingot and burn it?"
"Didn't all this get bigger because of that warrior benefactor?"
"If it weren't for him, we might not even have food to eat right now."
The grumbling never stopped.
Their feet kept moving anyway.
The monks wore old outer coats over thick robes and wrapped cloth around their heads.
Some carried saws.
Others had axes.
Others brought ropes and rakes.
Several carts drawn by packhorses had been prepared as well.
The wheels creaked over the frozen ground, and the hands gripping the reins looked ready to freeze solid.
Youngwoo mixed in among them.
He pulled his broad hat low and fastened his cloak tightly.
His sword was hidden from view, and he kept his head lowered.
At a glance, it was difficult to tell whether he was simply a layman dragged into the temple's communal labor or a warrior staying in the guest quarters.
More than twenty monks headed toward Liaoyang's southern gate with the carts.
The sight of them filing along the snow-covered road on such a bitterly cold day was almost pitiful.
The guest-receiving monk in charge walked at the front, while the younger novices pushed the carts from behind.
Some stamped their feet constantly.
Others shoved their hands beneath their armpits.
When they reached the south gate, a guard stopped them.
"Monks, where are you going?"
The guest-receiving monk, who had apparently been waiting for someone to ask, immediately began complaining.
"It is freezing, so we are going to gather firewood."
His tone suggested that he would almost prefer the guards to forbid them from leaving.
The soldier laughed.
"It certainly is cold. You should have prepared your firewood earlier."
The monk glared at him.
"Did we know there was going to be a war?"
The soldiers chuckled.
There was no arguing with that.
Only a few days earlier, none of them had known battle would suddenly sweep into the city.
Then the gate commander looked over the group and stopped when his eyes reached Youngwoo.
That face was familiar.
Youngwoo, sitting quietly at the end of one of the carts, deliberately looked away.
He hoped the man would simply let him pass as an anonymous stranger.
The commander narrowed his eyes, trying to see beneath the brim of the hat.
"Hey. You there. Lift your head."
Youngwoo made only the smallest show of doing so.
The commander's voice sharpened slightly.
"Take off the hat. Yes, you!"
Every monk turned to look at Youngwoo.
A few seemed to realize only then that he had been trying to slip out unnoticed, and the corners of their mouths twitched.
Youngwoo clicked his tongue and removed the hat.
The gate commander's expression changed instantly.
The examining look vanished.
His body straightened on its own.
He snapped his heels together and stood rigidly at attention.
"Loyalty!"
The soldiers at the south gate immediately straightened as well.
A man who had been leaning against the gate hurriedly raised his spear.
Even the clerk looking through a register startled and bowed his head.
Youngwoo held the hat with an awkward expression.
"Ah, well... the temple has no firewood. The floors are freezing, so we are going out to cut some."
The gate commander bowed at once.
"You should have said something."
"I am saying something now, as I leave."
"No, I mean, if you had asked the soldiers to help—"
"I am a civilian now. How could I shamelessly ask the troops for that?"
Several monks behind him struggled not to laugh.
The same miserable group that had been complaining moments earlier about freezing to death now looked almost like a procession receiving a formal military send-off.
The gate commander asked cautiously,
"You are not going far, are you? I mean... you are not leaving for good?"
Youngwoo pulled the hat back down.
"I told you. We have no firewood, so we are going to cut wood."
The commander hurriedly smiled.
"Ahaha. The mountain over that way is good. The road is decent and there is plenty of timber. With this much snow, though, it would be better for the carts to take the left-hand road."
"Thank you."
Youngwoo bowed his head.
The gate commander saluted respectfully once more.
"Return safely."
The guest-receiving monk clicked his tongue as he watched.
Since taking charge of temple affairs, he had never once received such a courteous send-off while heading out to gather firewood.
The young novices exchanged glances, apparently forgetting the cold for a moment.
The gate opened.
Cold wind poured through.
The monks pushed the carts outside once again.
Only moments before, they had looked like men being dragged away against their will.
Now, oddly enough, their shoulders had risen a little.
Youngwoo alone pulled his hat low again and walked with the reins in hand as though nothing had happened.
They had gone perhaps two hundred jang when a group of cavalry caught up from behind.
Hoofbeats rolled dully over the snowy road.
Youngwoo looked back and shouted,
"What is it?"
The soldier in front hurriedly answered from the saddle.
"Nothing at all."
The cavalrymen began dismounting one by one.
One loosened the straps on his saddle and pulled out a long rope.
Another tied a line to the crossbar at the front of a cart.
When two horses were placed side by side and made to pull, the frozen wheels began to move with a long creak.
Two soldiers pushed from behind with their shoulders, while the monks used shovels to clear the snow so the wheels would not sink into deep drifts.
They had come to help.
The men sent out under orders from the commander of the south gate were Chonggi and his group.
That gave rise to two questions.
First, why did Youngwoo practice alone in the Mahavira Hall?
Second, if he had truly reached the state where neither heat nor cold could invade, why was he asking for a fire?
As though defending Youngwoo, Chonggi spoke quietly to the guest-receiving monk.
"Perhaps he needs a wide space. His cultivation must be on a grand scale."
The monk muttered,
"He may simply find it troublesome to mix with the monks in the living quarters. It is usually better to keep laymen and monks separate."
"You think so? It takes an enormous amount of wood to heat that great Mahavira Hall in winter. That was why we never heated it. But now he says it is cold..."
Birds of a feather sided with one another, and Chonggi immediately came to Youngwoo's defense.
"The Buddha must be fairly cold too, then. Wouldn't you say?"
"Huh."
Chonggi kept his second question from the monk and went over to Youngwoo.
Youngwoo was sitting at the end of a cart, gently rocking with its movement.
"Commander Yi, haven't you reached the state where neither heat nor cold can invade?"
Youngwoo muttered,
"I have... well, yes, I suppose I have. But my heart has not reached that state yet. Sitting alone in that huge, cold hall gets terribly lonely."
So it was his heart.
"Of course. Hm. I understand."
Youngwoo asked,
"By the way, is it all right for you to leave your duties and come help like this?"
"This concerns you, Commander Yi. How could we stand by while you personally go to the trouble of gathering firewood?"
"Ah, you really did not have to."
"Are you going to keep staying at Guangyou Temple?"
How could anyone know the future?
Youngwoo did not know either.
Now that he had left his post, he wanted to devote himself to cultivation.
"For a while, at least..."
Chonggi grinned.
"By tomorrow, there may be a mountain of firewood piled up at the temple."