Fabre in Sacheon’s Tang Novel - Chapter 154

Chapter 154
Upon hearing my words, the bandit leader appeared as if he had just taken a direct blow to the head.
His followers stared back at me in complete shock, their expressions a muddle of bewilderment and utter disbelief.
They were being charged with offenses they hadn’t committed—it was no surprise they seemed so thoroughly stunned.
‘What? Is there an issue? What exactly do you plan to do?’
In situations like this, the only effective tactic was pure, unadulterated boldness.
I returned their gazes with an air of complete indifference.
Flustered and panicked, the bandit leader began waving his hands wildly.
“W-we… That’s ridiculous! We were merely verifying the identity of a vessel sailing through the Three Gorges without a clan banner! We didn’t even step aboard! We merely requested a modest—well, perhaps a slightly excessive—”
I truly despised interacting with people who had no grasp of context.
Not merely impolite people. Or even those without shame.
But the utterly clueless.
Why?
Because they made me expend unnecessary energy.
Even in my previous life as a streamer, I could overlook foolish jokes or off-color humor from the audience, but those who were completely incapable of reading the room? They were removed without a second thought.
I shot a look at the bandit leader and then gave Cho a soft pat on the head.
Since his memory was failing him, I would assist in jogging it.
A severe case of forgetfulness, was it?
Well, the most effective remedy for amnesia was a strong dose of shock treatment.
“Oh my. The little ones seem peckish. Cho, are you hungry? Would you like a snack? There’s something fresh from the river, quite meaty…”
– Tssssr? 『Food? What?』
‘No, darling, Father is only teasing.’
– Tss? 『Why?』
‘Well… Because… I wish to frighten that man?’
– Tss? 『Why frighten him?』
‘…’
For pity’s sake.
If the bandit leader had simply been more perceptive earlier, I wouldn’t be enduring Cho’s relentless chain of questions.
While I was internally wrestling with Cho’s boundless inquisitiveness, the bandit leader finally understood.
He abruptly scrambled forward on his knees like a man possessed, clutching desperately at my feet.
**“N-now that you mention it! W-we did do that! Y-yes, it’s all coming back to me! The vision of such a magnificent beast must have briefly stolen my wits!**
**Yes! Blinded by avarice, we attempted to loot the Tang Clan ship! Yes, yes! That is precisely what occurred!”**
See?
A small nudge worked miracles for the memory.
Naturally, these were entirely invented recollections, but a person facing their own mortality would admit to anything.
However, he had still omitted a few details.
I decided to assist in completing the picture.
“Oh? And what of the disrespect shown to the lady of the Tang Clan? Have you forgotten that portion?”
“W-we insulted her as well! We are despicable villains!”
“And snapping the Tang Clan’s banner to circumvent the unwritten law?”
“Y-yes, we shattered the clan flag! Without a doubt!”
At his declaration, the other bandits began nodding their heads with frantic vigor.
I then turned to address the whole group.
“Very well. Which one of you was responsible for breaking the Tang Clan’s flag?”
“H-him! It was him! I witnessed it!”
“Y-yes! It was I, Young Master! I was the one!”
“And the current whereabouts of this flag?”
“Uh… O-oh! Correct! It went down! It sank into the water!”
“Since when do flags attached to wooden poles sink?”
“Guh—! R-right! We, ah, fastened it to a stone before discarding it! Yes! A stone!”
By now, they were essentially performing the parts of the accused, the testifier, and the proof simultaneously.
Folding my arms, I spoke in a low, serious voice.
“Hmmm… The greater my contemplation, the more this appears to be a capital offense.”
“Absolutely,” Seol added, clearly pleased. “So-ryong, I believe these men have earned a place in the bellies of the beasts.”
With me leading the charges and Seol providing the accompaniment, our coordination was flawless.
The bandits howled, their voices breaking with pure terror.
“P-please, show us compassion!”
“Young Master, we implore your clemency!”
Their drenched faces were a pitiful sight—whether from tears or river water was impossible to discern.
Then Cho released a playful snarl.
– Tssssr!
Several bandits shrieked, foamed at the mouth, and collapsed unconscious on the deck.
‘Good, that should suffice.’
Their memory was now corrected, and their crimes were fully admitted to; they were prepared for terms.
I leaned forward slightly.
“So… chieftain of these bandits. What is your name?”
“I-I am the Blood-Wind Boatman Lee Tae, from the Three Gorges!”
A self-styled martial world hero, was he?
In the martial arts community, honorific titles are typically bestowed by others in recognition of one’s prowess or integrity.
For instance, Hwa-eun’s moniker, Poisonous Moon Rose, reflected both her lethal ability and her elegance.
But no one would trouble themselves to grant a bandit an honorary epithet.
Which meant he had undoubtedly christened himself.
I gave a slight smirk.
“Ah, understood. So, I have been addressing the renowned ‘Blood-Wind Boatman’ all this time.”
“N-not at all, Young Master! You are too kind!”
“Well, regardless. Blood-Wind Boatman, your transgressions are significant, but I have no taste for needless slaughter. Therefore, I suggest we come to an arrangement. How does that sound?”
A spark of hope ignited in their previously despairing eyes.
Moments ago, they believed they were destined to be digested within a giant centipede, but now? A potential escape route had materialized.
The bandit leader nodded with frantic energy.
“T-thank you, Young Master! Thank you! W-what is everyone waiting for?! Apologize at once!”
His subordinates hurried to kowtow and beg for mercy.
“W-we offer our deepest apologies, Young Master!”
“Pardon us!”
“We were mistaken!”
Oh?
Did they believe a simple verbal apology would be sufficient?
That would not be acceptable.
You see, my origins lie in a capitalist society.
And in capitalism, an apology holds no value unless it is substantiated.
It is often said that a true apology comes from the heart, but the heart is not a visible entity.
If an apology is rooted in emotion, there exists no metric to gauge its genuineness.
But in capitalism?
Sincerity is quantified by currency.
An apology worth one hundred taels has precisely that value.
An apology worth a thousand taels is valued higher.

‘I don’t actually require the money. But nevertheless, principles are principles.’
I allowed their desperate appeals to continue for a short while before making my next play.
“Ah, incidentally. As per Hwa-eun, the unwritten rule dictates that the offending party must present a compensatory gift…”
Lee Tae visibly recoiled.
His eyes shifted nervously as he spluttered,
**“Y-young Master, w-we are simple people of the river! Many assume bandits are wealthy, but that is a grave misconception!**
**Evading patrol vessels means we can only operate on foggy nights or when watchmen are elsewhere! And when the monsoon rains come, we cannot launch our boats at all!**
**And there is more—!”**
Oh?
“The quantity of ships safeguarded by the Nine Great Sects and the Five Great Clans grows ever larger, making a bandit’s existence on the river increasingly difficult,” Lee Tae continued, his voice laden with despair.
“Lately, the river rose without warning, keeping us ashore for more than ten days.
Just today… after a decade of consuming nothing but uncooked fish, we spotted a ship without a clan flag and charged toward it, hoping for something better…”
Behind him, the other bandits nodded with grave faces, their eyes shimmering with unshed tears.
“We… we merely desired to taste some rice…”
“Sniff… We aren’t truly wicked men…”
‘Oh, these rascals are truly attempting the sympathy plea now, are they?’
Just as they were on the verge of escaping with a mere spoken apology, an urgent voice cried out.
“S-So-ryong!”
“Captain (Dosa-gong)?”
A crewman, accompanied by the ship’s captain, came hurrying from the cabin, breathing heavily.
“M-my Lord! The young girl caused chaos! She hurled people against the hull, and now there’s a new leak!”
‘Oh, wonderful.’
We had been painstakingly piloting through the rough currents of the Three Gorges, anxious that our temporary patches might fail.
And then Cho, in her exhilaration, had managed to exacerbate the damage.
“What is the severity?”
“We must dock somewhere for immediate repairs!”
The Captain’s expression was stern as he stressed the desperation.
I scowled at the predicament, but before I could answer, Lee Tae, the bandit leader, suddenly spoke up from his kneeling position.
“M-my Lord! W-we can mend the ship!”
I turned a skeptical eye toward him.
“You? Repair a ship?”
Seeing my disbelief, Lee Tae rushed to explain,
“We… we have a superb shipwright at our hideout!”
“Shipwright?”
I frowned at the unfamiliar word, but the Captain was quick to elucidate.
“A master artisan who constructs vessels.”
Lee Tae nodded eagerly.
**“Yes! Precisely! A master of shipbuilding!**
**How do you suppose we’ve successfully sent so many ships to the bottom over the years? We are experts on their construction!”**
He sounded far too pleased with that fact.
But then he added,
“He originates from Fujian Province!”
At this, the Captain’s eyes opened wide.
“Fujian!?”
“O-obviously! Why would I deceive you about such a thing?”
The Captain turned to me, his face filled with optimism.
**“My Lord, if this individual is indeed from Fujian, then he is among the finest shipbuilders in existence.**
**Our own vessel was constructed in Fujian. Should his claim hold true, he can restore it to a state superior to any other.”**
I raised an eyebrow.
“Is that so?”
Sensing my budding interest, Lee Tae grinned anxiously.
“Y-yes! If we repair your ship, might that serve as our compensatory offering…?”
He wished to substitute the tribute with the service of ship repair.
I answered before he could complete his thought.
“Agreed. I will accept your shipwright as your gift of apology.”
An incident deserving a ten-to-zero consequence warranted a ten-to-zero resolution.
***
As we traveled toward the bandit encampment, a separate matter emerged: the naming of the creatures.
Specifically, the infant creature that was between Seol and Bini.
“It saved So-ryong’s life. It is outrageous that it still lacks a name. We must choose one now.”
“Indeed. We cannot continue to refer to it merely as ‘baby’ indefinitely.”
Both women were resolved to conclude the issue.
“So, should it be ‘Dong’?”
“No, ‘Naeng’ is more fitting.”
They were deadlocked in their choice.
Weary of the argument, I proposed a resolution.
“Why not allow the baby to choose?”
Both Seol and Hwa-eun looked surprised.
“The baby?”
“Yes. Rather than selecting a name we favor, let us choose the one it seems to prefer.”
Naturally, as its master, I could simply decide, but doing so would incur the lasting displeasure of both Seol and Hwa-eun.
After the recent events involving Wolyeong’s venom, making another solitary decision would only add to my list of faults.
Therefore, by letting the baby choose, neither could voice a complaint.
I softly set the baby on a table and inquired,
“Do you favor ‘Naeng’? Or do you like ‘Dong’ more?”
The small being cocked its head, emitted a few cheerful chirps, and scrambled up onto Hwa-eun’s shoulder.
Then, it chirped happily once more.
“‘Dong’?”
– 『Kyu~!』
The matter was settled.
“Ugh! ‘Naeng’ is a perfectly good name too!”
Seol sulked in frustration, but there was no recourse.
The baby had made its selection.
And thus, it was formally given the name Dong.

Renaming Wolyeong
The next subject for deliberation soon followed.
The problem with Wolyeong’s name.
A creature brimming with the intense yang energy of its poison… was named using characters for the moon and shadows, elements symbolic of yin.
Hwa-eun was the first to note the discrepancy.
“Wolyeong requires a new name. The characters ‘Wol’ (moon) and ‘Yeong’ (shadow) both embody yin energy. It is unsuitable for a being so saturated with yang.”
“Correct. So-ryong, to the creature, the name Wolyeong is effectively an insult.”
They had a point.
I had always named my companions based on their attributes, and bestowing a name associated with darkness and cold upon a fiery, venomous creature was entirely inappropriate.
‘Cho, can you inquire if Wolyeong would approve of a name change?’
– 『Tssssr!』
The reply was immediate and emphatic.
An undeniable yes.
It turned out Wolyeong had been named by a group of ascetic monks who subjected it to a decade of starvation.
No surprise it held a dislike for the name.
Wishing to compensate Seol for not allowing her to name the baby, I addressed her.
“Seol, you should be the one to name it.”
Her eyes widened in astonishment.
“Truly!?”
She had been brooding over Naeng’s defeat, but now her face lit up with excitement.
After a moment of reflection, she proposed,
“What about ‘Hwayang’?”
“Hwayang?”
**“Yes. ‘Wolyeong’ signified ‘moon shadow,’ correct? So inverting the concept would mean ‘sunlight.’**
**However, ‘Il-yang’ sounds excessively masculine.**
**‘Hwayang’ would be more suitable, as ‘Hwa’ means flame.”**
“Hwayang…”
A name that translated to ‘blazing sun.’
An ideal match for a fiery little beast that exhaled flames.
“What is your opinion of your new name, Hwayang?”
The creature wriggled its back legs in a clear gesture of assent.
And so, Wolyeong was officially renamed Hwayang.
“It seems content with it. Seol, I believe you chose an excellent name.”
“Fantastic!”
Seol radiated pride.
Just as I began to unwind, however, a peculiar sensation nagged at me.
I frowned, attempting to identify the source of my unease.
And then, I realized.
‘Wait… Just a moment… Its legs!’
I rubbed my eyes and looked more closely.
During the two days I had been afflicted by Hwayang’s poison…
Its hind legs had developed.
The little creature had undergone a change.