Chapter 384. The Novice Monk's Death
But the next morning, the boy did not come.
No—the novice monk did not come.
He did not appear at his usual time to check the furnace.
He did not come to announce the meal.
At dawn, another monk came by and tended the fire instead.
Youngwoo thought it strange, but he did not move.
Temple work probably did not run on exactly the same schedule every day.
He tried to leave it at that.
Yet his sense of qi kept leaning in one direction.
It felt as though one small current had been cut off.
The familiar footsteps.
The careful breathing.
The hesitation outside the door.
None of it was there today.
The absence felt strangely large.
His thoughts would not stop.
He could not cultivate like this.
There was no point in continuing a practice that would not settle.
At last, Youngwoo stood.
When he stepped outside, the atmosphere in the temple felt different.
The monks spoke to one another in low voices.
Those crossing the courtyard walked with heavy steps.
No one was openly weeping, yet the temple's silence seemed to have sunk lower than usual.
Soon he heard that the boy was dead.
Youngwoo could not speak for a long time.
Only yesterday, the child had stared with round eyes, clenched his fists, and declared, "I will take care of it."
He had fetched the Jeongsu Mulyo sign and hung it up.
He had marched off confidently, saying he would carry the Immortal's wishes to the others.
And now they said he was dead.
Youngwoo went to find the wonju.
His steps were neither fast nor slow.
Snow compressed beneath each footfall, and the ice under it cracked softly.
Every sound seemed unnaturally clear.
"How did he die?"
The wonju shook his head.
"How would I know? He was a boy who often ran errands for us…"
Youngwoo's eyes narrowed.
"What errand did he have yesterday?"
"I told him to go buy rice balls."
At the words rice balls, Youngwoo leaned forward slightly.
There must not have been any ready to bring him, so they had sent the boy out to buy them.
"Did he buy them?"
"Yes. He was on his way back when he collapsed in that alley."
The wonju frowned as though only now realizing something strange himself.
"I do not know why he went all the way toward the watchtower. There are places much closer to the temple."
Youngwoo immediately asked,
"The watchtower?"
"Yes. The alley near the watchtower between the Southern Market and Northern Market."
Youngwoo's face hardened.
"Cause of death?"
The wonju lowered his voice.
"They say it was a head injury. He fell backward and split the back of his skull."
"Damn."
Youngwoo drew in a short breath.
The explanation sounded plausible.
Too plausible.
A young novice had been returning with rice balls, slipped backward, and died from striking his head.
Yet the route did not quite match the path one would normally take to buy food.
Of all places, he had gone near the watchtower.
Of all days, the day after he had stood in Go Youngchang's way.
And now, of all times, he was dead.
A thin line connected inside Youngwoo's mind.
He could not name it yet.
But this was not something to dismiss as a simple fall.
"May I see the body?"
The wonju hesitated, then led him away.
Youngwoo quickened his pace and asked,
"Where is he?"
"We prepared a mourning room in one of the quarters. He has not yet been cremated, so the monks are taking turns chanting prayers beside him."
When they entered, a young monk was reciting the Thousand Hands Sutra.
The scent of incense lay low in the room.
A small lamp flickered over white cloth.
The novice's body lay neatly arranged on a wooden platform.
Youngwoo stepped closer.
The back of the skull had been broken.
He had seen countless corpses on battlefields.
Wounds from swords.
Wounds from spears.
Bodies trampled by horses.
Blunt-force injuries.
This was not the wound of someone who had merely fallen.
Someone had struck him.
Youngwoo examined the swelling and the split flesh.
A club.
Something hard and rounded had hit the back of the boy's head.
There were no major wounds elsewhere on the body.
The injury ran at an oblique angle.
It looked less like someone falling backward and splitting his skull than someone being struck from behind and collapsing after losing strength.
Youngwoo shut his eyes tightly.
Then he carefully took the boy's hand, already stiff with rigor mortis.
It was small.
Rigid.
The same hand that had clenched into a fist only yesterday while saying,
"I will take care of it."
This was what his strange sense of unease had been pointing toward.
Only now did he understand.
He had never experienced anything like it before, so he had only thought something felt wrong.
There had even been a moment when he had thought it convenient that the boy was no longer coming to bother him.
The memory of that thought pressed heavily against his chest.
Youngwoo turned toward the wonju.
"This was murder."
The monk shook his head in alarm.
"No. He slipped on the snow and struck the back of his head."
Youngwoo carefully lifted the small body.
The stiffness of it hurt to feel.
It was a body that should still have had years of growing ahead of it.
Light.
Thin arms and legs.
"He was hit with a club."
The wonju's face went white.
"Why would anyone do such a thing?"
"Who found him?"
"An officer from the Regent's Office. He reported it and sent word to us as well."
"The Regent's Office."
Youngwoo's eyes grew still.
"Do you know his name?"
The wonju searched his memory.
"I believe he said his name was Gi Mincheol."
Youngwoo slowly lowered the boy's hand.
Then he carefully pulled the white cloth back over him.
"I understand."
The words were quiet.
Almost a growl.
Yet inside that low voice, the wonju felt a chill run down his spine.
Between the scent of incense and the sound of chanting, the killing intent of the outside world had crossed the temple threshold once again.