- Beneath the Stone Bridge — The Study of Action (行)
Seongjin stepped out of the merchant guild.
Rain struck the roofs in heavy beats.
Under that dense sound, his mind slowly settled.
He turned his steps toward the place where Song Isul and the volunteer workers labored.
Somehow, it felt like the better choice.
At the southern edge of the Gaegyeong fields, the riverbank stretched beneath a stone bridge.
The sounds of shovels, shouted commands, laughter, and breathing blended together.
Dust rose on one side, while below, workers stood ankle-deep in mud.
From a distance, Song Isul was loosening the sash around his waist.
As always, he wore plain clothes.
Yet beneath the fabric, a curiously even current of energy flowed.
It came from restraint—
movements so measured they seemed to slow time itself.
Beside him worked people who had descended from the mountains, others returned from the battlefield—
each carrying their own story, all gripping shovels.
When Seongjin approached, Song Isul looked up.
“You’re back.”
“Yes.”
“What did you see there?”
“That the world has many places where cleverness runs ahead of the Way.”
“Then that’s enough. That’s your first lesson.”
Song Isul nodded lightly.
“There’s nothing to curse. They live that way because they must.
Don’t press the ruler of justice too hard against people’s reasons for living.
They do wrong even knowing it’s wrong.
Merchants most of all.”
It felt as though he were seeing straight through Seongjin’s disappointment.
Perhaps he had known this would happen the moment Seongjin said he would go to the guild.
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Song Isul jerked his chin toward the bridge foundation.
“This place is hard. You’ll have to use your body.”
“What should I do?”
“The road. We build the road.”
With his fingertip, Song Isul traced a long line—
from the road he had been clearing from afar to the spot beneath the bridge.
Seongjin asked nothing more.
He picked up a shovel from the pile.
That day’s work was to pack the bridge’s foundation.
The shovel bit into earth, sorted stone from soil.
The more sweat fell, the firmer the ground became.
No complaints were heard.
The digging was rough, but faces remained calm.
During a short break, Song Isul asked,
“What was the guild like?”
“If I speak, my judgment may become harsh.”
“No need to judge.”
Song Isul’s voice was short and clear.
“Merchants walk the merchant’s road.
Your mistake was trying to find the Way inside the flow of money.”
Seongjin bowed his head in silence.
Leaning against his shovel, Song Isul continued.
“Officials and merchants are always entangled.
Where corruption seeps in, trade clings to it.
Where trade gathers, corruption casts a longer shadow.
Knowing it’s corrupt, they still cling to it like beggars because it profits them.
That’s politics.
Give work to a powerful official’s guild, and money flows.
Why go elsewhere for the same job?
And the bribe? It’s folded into the state’s expenses.
They take what they have no right to take.
Thieves, the lot of them.”
Seongjin let out a slow breath.
“He was especially kind to me.”
“That’s why it’s more dangerous.”
Song Isul’s gaze sank.
“Kindness and connections are the quickest chains to bind a person.
They make you close your eyes even to wrongdoing.
Stand beside them in silence, and you share the weight.
It means you become the same kind of bastard.”
Seongjin’s grip tightened.
“There was much to learn from his manner.”
“Of course there was. He’s capable, and he’s been good to you.”
Song Isul didn’t deny it.
“But you must separate a man’s character from the nature of his actions.”
“Your words sound severe.”
“They profit through cycles of bribery, stockpiling monopolies,
through distorting weight and distance.
They earn more than they ever should.”
“He was always generous to me.”
“Even if someone is kind to their neighbors,
if they build structural evil, you must keep your distance.
That’s why we say: he is only a merchant.
No matter how good he seems.”
The words struck like bone.
Seongjin had not expected such bluntness.
“Then what should I do?”
“Words won’t change it.”
Song Isul answered decisively.
“As Laozi said, fortune and calamity lean against each other.
Clinging only to fortune while rejecting calamity makes you lose the flow.”
He paused, then added,
“Keep your distance.
That’s the clearest path you have.”
Seongjin slowly straightened and clasped his fists in salute.
“Now my direction is clear.”
Song Isul grinned.
“Then that’s enough. Let’s work.”
He picked up his shovel again.
“Now, study with sweat instead of sitting and listening.
When the body is fierce, the mind becomes clear.”
The wind blew.
The smell of river earth rose.
It was neither the scent of war nor of trade—
but the breath of people working.
Seongjin lifted his shovel once more.
His hands hurt, but his mind was calm.
There were senses unreachable by sitting,
and landscapes revealed only through action.
“But if we work like this for free,” Seongjin asked,
“how do we eat? What about our families?”
“Hm. If you work here, you get fed.”
“By whom?”
“By those who needed this work done but lacked time and budget.
They provide the meals.”
“Government offices, then.”
“They’re over there laughing after taking bribes,
while here, work goes undone because there’s no money.
That’s the world.”
“You’re always sharp-tongued.”
Song Isul snorted.
“My words don’t come out gentle.”
And in that moment, Seongjin quietly accepted
that this place was the first step of the Manhaeng (萬行) his teacher had spoken of.