161
A Different Problem
There was another problem.
By now, Park Seong-jin understood—almost instinctively—how the world was moving.
Yet a deeper question pressed into his chest: how, within such a world, should a human being live?
He could not explain it.
His thoughts were not yet refined into language.
He bit his lip briefly, then finally spoke.
"Elder."
"Yes."
"What can someone like me do?"
Wang Pilsun did not answer at once.
Outside the window, fog drifted slowly across the Yangtze.
He watched that flow for a long while before speaking, his voice low and firm.
"There are few ways to explain the view from a summit to someone who has never climbed a mountain."
Park Seong-jin did not immediately grasp the meaning.
Wang Pilsun paused and looked at him.
In his eyes lay compassion, fatigue, and a resignation layered over many years.
"That is why," he said, "this is not a message for you. It is something you must deliver to your senior."
Park Seong-jin's eyes widened.
"To the general?"
"Yes."
"General Lee In-jung knows the battlefield. He knows people, and he understands responsibility. And precisely because of that, he is the one for whom this will be hardest to hear."
Wang Pilsun took a breath and continued.
"Asking him to think about Goryeo ten or twenty years from now is an unreasonable request. When soldiers, walls, and front lines stand right before him, who could look that far ahead?"
Park Seong-jin spoke urgently.
"Then if you were to tell him yourself—"
Wang Pilsun slowly shook his head.
"No. That would be overstepping. It would be improper."
His words were short and decisive.
"The only reason I can say this at all is because your senior sent you."
"Because of that, I've gained exactly one chance to speak—indirectly, through you."
He looked straight at Park Seong-jin.
"If I went myself, he would not listen. He would think it a merchant's calculation. And that judgment would not be wrong."
Park Seong-jin lowered his head.
"The general is not that kind of man."
Wang Pilsun's gaze softened briefly.
"I know."
But it soon grew heavy again.
"Still, the world does not move by good and evil, or by right and wrong alone. People usually divide things more simply: what benefits me, and what does not. By that standard, most lives are lived. How stifling that is."
He paused.
"But this matter cannot be judged by that measure."
His voice dropped even lower.
"No matter how admirable he is, the role he must bear in history is already set. That role does not change with character or will."
Park Seong-jin felt his impatience rise.
"I don't know if I can even convey what you've said. I don't fully understand it myself. So perhaps you should—"
Wang Pilsun raised a hand to stop him.
"No."
It was a brief, final refusal.
"This is your burden."
Park Seong-jin swallowed.
"The world is a chain of transmission," Wang Pilsun continued.
"Depending on who conveys a message, and with what heart, history shifts—if only slightly."
He looked at Park Seong-jin as he spoke.
"You are no longer someone who only wields a sword on the battlefield. From now on, you will also carry words that matter. Most people refuse such a role. But through moments like this, by conveying meaning, weighing outcomes, and sensing what lies ahead, one begins to see the future."
His words were neither an order nor a request.
They were closer to an announcement of a place already assigned.
"History always needs such people. Not those who fight, nor those who rule—but those who connect, so that the next choice remains possible."
Wang Pilsun's gaze deepened.
"You must tell your senior. If I speak, it will be pointless. He has known me too long. Whatever I say will sound like a merchant's reckoning. That is why it must be you. Convey the essence of what we discussed today."
Silence followed.
The fog still drifted across the river.
Only then did Park Seong-jin realize: this question had no answer.
Someone simply had to carry it.
He bowed his head slowly.
"I will convey it."
Wang Pilsun said nothing.
He merely looked out the window.
In that moment, Park Seong-jin understood.
He had already stepped into the center of a different kind of struggle.