Mercenary Black Mamba

Eungsim-je was shaken. From Mu Ssang's body, luminance resembling the legendary auspicious red cloud, or a simple cloudy fog, rose. The living room was soaked in sunset-like light. A fragrant scent filled the space.

"The light of enlightenment! Namu Amita Buddha!"

Mrs. Yang collapsed to the floor. For a Buddhist like her, to witness a moment of enlightenment was a great honor. All the agony and anguish in her heart vanished at once and were replaced by infinite bliss. It is said that when one is exposed to the light of enlightenment, their soul is fortified and becomes impervious to the sinister forces. Even one's physical illnesses were said to disappear.

The light of sunset intensified. The main house of Eungsim-je was surrounded by reddish energy. A song of enlightenment was sung.

"If your heart is reluctant, it becomes karma. If it isn't, it is perfect grace. To follow your heart is shedding attachments. To stay where your heart is shedding obsessions. Someone goes and someone else comes. If one is considered the Buddha, one is. If one is considered a cockroach, one is. The universe is still vast and the river continues to run. Do not exchange a momentary pleasure with a hundred days of anguish. Good connections..."

Mu Ssang's chest vibrated. It was an emergency pouch that he didn't take off even in bed. It vibrated at Mu Ssang's chest but no one in the mesmerized audience noticed. Mu Ssang's pleasant, baritone voice was cut off. He still had more to preach but his connection to the mystery of the universe was interrupted and was closed. Mu Ssang, longing for the lost connection, muttered.

"You shall not revisit good connections. They are better left alone as good memories. When you are wronged, avenge yourself. When you are graced, pay back the favor. Avenge yourself one hundredfold. Pay back the grace tenfold."

The song of enlightenment, which began majestically, devolved into a re-confirmation of the record of favors and grudges. If it were soccer, it was as if the player pushed through the opponents' defense and kicked the ball in a direction that was completely amiss. It was quite a shame.

The sanctum of the temple in the middle of the mountain. Venus twinkled in the eastern sky at dawn. The sound of a woodblock and a voice reciting mantras were heard. The short-stature old monk sitting in a lotus position on a mat was, of course, Monk Dae Woo.

"I'm feeling quite great! Namo radana darayaya. Namak aryak. Barogije saebaraya. Mojisadabaya. Maha sadabaya."

Tap. Tap. Tap.

"This is great! Mahagaronigaya. Om. Salba bayesu. Yeah!"

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Monk Dae Woo was having a great time. He recited the Great Compassion Mantra to the beat of his woodblock and his own exclamations inserted here and there. Monk Dae Woo wasn't messing around. He was guiding his student who just entered the moment of enlightenment.

Thanks to the Buddha's grace, the student he gave up on was able to get it. Monk Dae Woo was most ecstatic. He was detached from most worldly things but he still had one attachment: to raise a good student. His face, resembling a 500-year-old oak bark, shone brightly. His hand beating the woodblock didn't idle either. They only had one verse left. After that, Mu Ssang could finally hatch. The sound of his woodblock echoed throughout the mountain.

"Om. Danyata. Om arogye aroga majiroga. No!"

Monk Dae Woo screamed. They were reaching the end and Mu Ssang made a mistake. Due to an unknown reason, his focus was disturbed. Their endeavor could be in vain at any moment. Monk Dae Woo was in a hurry. If it were golf, they were on a par streak then ended up with triple bogey in the end.

'Focus, Mu Ssang!'

The woodblock beating quickened and Monk Dae Woo's voice was amplified.

"Darana garaya dasamyeong. Namak kkaridaba imam arya. Barogije... No! F*ck!"

His student grabbed a handful of enlightenment's hem and made him so happy. Then, at the last moment, Mu Ssang failed and returned to the way of an asura.

The woodblock shot through the glass door of the sanctum and hit the middle of a spirit boulder. The boulder, absorbing the anger, trembled by proxy.

'The Buddha's grace, my ass!'

Monk Dae Woo looked up at the statue of Buddha. He was still smiling mercifully. Yet Monk Dae Woo's inner space was filled with hot rage. The Buddha's eyes, which seemed to be filled with joy and passion moments ago, seemed to be filled with longing and regret now.

"Will you just smile and be done with it? I just lost the opportunity to get someone to inherit my temple!"

Monk Dae Woo stood abruptly and pointed at the Buddha in the middle of the sanctum. The Buddha continued to smile. It exacerbated Monk Dae Woo's anger. His lovely student could have shed his immeasurable karma. He could have been reborn as a bodhisattva. He reverted to an asura at the crucial moment.

"What good is my enlightenment? If I cannot teach one student properly... I am a failed monk! Mu Ssang! Are you that fond of the harsh existence in the world and kissing women? I don't care anymore!"

Monk Dae Woo, resentful, kept sighing as he exited the sanctum. A moment later, he emerged from his living quarters, rotating a keychain around his finger.

A glossy leather jacket. A pair of leather pants with a fancy fringe. A bandana around his head. A metal chain slung over his shoulder. He was dressed to the nines. His bald head and short stature didn't help him establish a dominating presence, but he didn't care. The old monk was drunk in his confidence.

Monk Dae Woo put on a full-face helmet and got on his chrome-plated Harley. It was not a cheap model like Sportster but the original CVO 1,820-cc model sent by Bellmen through the French embassy. Monk Dae Woo put the key in the keyhole angrily and turned it. The Harley, awoken from its slumber, vibrated. The horseshoe-like sound erupting from the V-shaped twin engines comforted his empty heart.

"Hahaha! The mundane world is good! Being an asura is good! I don't care if I don't have an heir! Buddhist lyrics don't turn heavy metal into a Buddhist hymn. Let's go, Harley! Let's befriend the moonlight and go for a wild ride."

The powerful twin engines, with a short rider on top of them, shot forward explosively.

"I see but don't see. I meet but don't meet. I have simply been longing, am longing, and will be longing."

Monk Dae Woo's lament echoed in the temple's front yard. He was regretful but he understood why it came to be so. He was an enlightened being, after all. The workings of the heavens and earth always had their reasons. If Mu Ssang became enlightened and left the mundane world, who will tend to the newborn country, Novatopia? Who will protect the countless African refugees? Who will keep Area 51 and the Illuminati voodoo in check? Who will keep Jin Soon and Edel's company? What will the woman of sad fate, Kim Mal Soon do?

Mu Ssang abruptly opened his eyes after some time in which tea could be aptly served. His head and body felt as light as feather. His ear was itchy. Mu Ssang was confused. Mrs. Yang and Jin Soon joined their hands together and bowed. Others were mesmerized.

"Is there something on my face? What are you doing, Jin Soon? Are you imitating a fly?"

He didn't remember that he had entered the moment of enlightenment and failed to step over the threshold of awakening. He wasn't aware that his emergency pouch was vibrating wildly. He only felt that some presence in his head, that drained his energy, some kind of condensed energy, vanished without a trace. It was the core of the possession cursed cast on him by Choi Do Shik.

"Are you a monk?"

Yeong-hee, still awestruck, asked a silly question.

"I can't be a monk. I can't even control my own mind and am still looking for the single rubber shoe that I lost in the dark."

"What a relief!"

Yeong-hee's face brightened up. She did not really understand a word Mu Ssang said. At her age, she was bound to a materialistic worldview and with her disturbed psychological state, that was a matter of course.

"Are you eyeing me for a husband candidate?"

Mu Ssang grinned.

"How beautiful!"

Yeong-hee felt dizzy. She could never expect a man's smile to be as mesmerizing. She felt her whole being drawn into that smile. The fading cross-shaped scar on his left cheek was as cute as a dimple. His statuesque body, accompanied with a slender face without the slightest blemish and a smile full of mysterious charm, made the finest of the finest bachelors.

Yeong-hee kept glancing at Mina. The girl was 16 years her junior. Could she really be his daughter? Can a boy in middle school produce sperm? Yeong-hee kept wondering.

"Please behave! You are free to take a fancy to him but if you ever bother him, I will kick you out!"

Yeon Soon shattered Yeong-hee's rosy daydream. She tried to be polite but the girl who just moved in was not behaving correctly. Yeong-hee withdrew. Mu Ssang kept grinning. If Monk Dae Woo had seen that grin, he would have had another outburst of anger.

"Mrs. Yang. I never expected to meet the elder sister of Mi-sook like this. I will treat you as my own sister, honoring the solemn beginnings and endings of connections."

Mu Ssang bowed.

"You shall not. What does age matter to an enlightened being like you? This is the greatest honor throughout my past, present, and future lives. This is a great honor for my family. I will follow you, not the other way around. Namu Amita Buddha!"

Mrs. Yang opposed the idea.

"An enlightened being? Don't flatter me! If my teacher heard that, he would beat me up for boasting. If that measly drop of understanding could be referred to as enlightenment, the whole world would already be paradise."

"No. You saved us and graced us with your light. What more do we have to ask for?"

'Grace with light? What happened?'

Mu Ssang wondered. Light, enlightenment, etc. The topics were a bit astray. Enlightenment has a fleeting nature. If one doesn't get to the end, the experience is soon submerged in the unconscious. The unconscious, literally, was unconscious. There was no guarantee the experience would ever surface to the conscious mind.

Enlightenment was often referred to as a great silver wall as tall as a mountain. Attaining enlightenment was that difficult. That's why Monk Dae Woo regretted it so much. Mu Ssang didn't get hung up on vanished memories. Mu Ssang, with a grin, looked around at the people gathered around the table.

"Look. Now you know me, I am just an ordinary person. Family."

"You, you are."

Kim Gi-taek and Mrs. Yang answered in the confusion of the moment.

"Mr. Kim, your family had a horrible nightmare. Plants gather energy in their roots in difficult times to thrive when the spring comes. The suffering you were subject to may have seemed to go on forever, but that will also be a foundation for the new leaves like the fallen leaves dancing in the autumn wind."

Mrs. Yang shed tears and Kim Gi-taek adjusted his posture. He seemed like a different person. Kim Gi-taek couldn't believe he is the same man who tortured Lee Su-bok. His aura became more tender and kinder but each of his words had a certain charisma that could never be violated.

"We became connected and now you live in my house. You are now my family. Life is bittersweet because it is a fabric in which good connections and bad connections are interwoven. Accept this new connection without reluctance and please be at ease."

Mrs. Yang stood and adjusted her hems. She bowed three times and joined her hands together. Mu Ssang didn't stop her and just kept on grinning. He was not to be attached to stopping her.

"I am grateful for your great grace. I have been a Buddhist for 30 years and I have never heard words that resonated with me as yours did today. You have cleansed my inner space which was as dark as ink. I shall never be able to pay back this favor. I will always serve you."

"You are flattering me too much. I am not even a proper monk. I attempted to preach and now reaping the consequences. Haha!"

Mu Ssang smiled awkwardly. At this rate, he might end up as Dubaiburupa in Korea too.

"Mu Ssang, it's getting late."

Jin Soon interrupted at the right moment.

"It is so! Yeong-ji, have you eaten plentifully?"

"I did. Everything was so delicious."

Yeong-ji tapped her filled stomach.

"Hmm. You will be tasked with cleaning the outhouses. You did well to fill yourself up," Gye Soon said.

"Cleaning?"

"Uh-huh. Mu Ssang is quite stingy. He doesn't give anything for free. You two will be tasked with cleaning the outhouses. If there is the slightest smudge of dirt, I will tell you off!"

Gye Soon took on a disciplinary tone. She was two months older than Yeong-hee. Two months equaled 180 bowls of rice.

"We get it. We will do our best."

Yeong-hee and Yeong-ji answered in unison. They were taken out of the wretched inn and saved from the abuse at the hands of the thugs. They could even clean the filthiest of the toilets. They didn't know that there were 51 rooms in the outhouses yet.

"Mr. Kim and Mrs. Yang, let's go to the study."

Mu Ssang stood.

"Let me do the dishes!"

Mrs. Yang rolled up her sleeves. Jin Soon waved her away.

"I will consider you my elder sister as well. You shall go to the study with Mu Ssang. The outhouses need some dusting. They have been empty for quite a while. You will use an outhouse starting tomorrow and sleep here in the main house tonight. Mrs. Yang, Yeong-hee, and Yeong-ji should use Ou Soon's room, which is still unoccupied. I shall prepare Mina's room for Mr. Kim."

"I get to sleep with papa!" Mina screamed.

"Look at that girl. She is so happy."

Mal Soon gave Mina a mock-disapproving look.

"Wakil, who really are you? Are you a rejuvenated master? Are you an enlightened old monk? Are you a hidden heir to some billionaire? Are you an alien fallen from the sky?"

"Why are you addressing me formally?"

"Wakil is not an ordinary human. Even if I am older than you, I cannot address you informally. I cannot familiarize myself with Wakil, it is such a bizarre form of address. I would like to call you Mr. Park and continue to address you formally."