"Pretty much what they are doing in Ethiopia without the intensity. You can starve."
"How about a white country?"
"East Germany. You can watch people being shot trying to climb over the wall they have used to seal everyone in."
"No."
"Poland. Maybe they will murder another priest for you."
"Is there any place with some fun in it?"
"Not if you want to go to a country that has freed itself from the shackles of imperialist domination."
"Do what you must do as quickly as possible then, Sayak Cang," said the Premier.
Sayak Cang had no intention of hurrying. While the others feared Sinanju, or had talked about the humiliation by a single archaic pack of murderers who served reactionary monarchies throughout history, Sayak Cang had told them all that the House of Sinanju was the one glory in the history of a nation shamed among nations.
"We have been the footstools of the Chinese, the Russians, the Japanese, the Mongols. There is no one who has not put his heel on the Korean neck. But in all that time, there has been only one note of glory: the House of Sinanju. Only the Masters of Sinanju have earned this nation any respect during those shameful times. Glory to the House of Sinanju, to the Masters of Sinanju who refused to be whore worms to those who sat on foreign thrones."
Thus spoke Sayak Cang at a most important meeting of the generals and labor directors of North Korea. He spoke to silence and to many who thought that he would soon be executed for such insolence.
But in that silence at that most important meeting many years before, Sayak Cang had won respect, for into that silence came the sound of soft palms touching each other. It was a clap from Himself, Kim Il Sung.
And now Sayak Cang himself was prepared to tell a Master of Sinanju what he thought of him to his face. "If he is still in the village, beg that he come here. If he does not wish to leave the village, ask that I be permitted to enter."
This was sent by radiophone to the officer who was waiting outside the village. He asked a child to go to the house to which the Master of Sinanju had returned and tell Chiun himself that there was a message waiting for him. The officer promised a coin if the child would do this.
He was quite careful, of course, not to enter himself. The child returned, saying the Master of Sinanju did not wish to speak to any Pyongyanger, and it was as though the officer had heard his own death sentence.
With trembling hands, he picked up the radiophone made in Russia, as was all North Korean equipment, and phoned the number of Sayak Cang. He had seen men who had displeased Cang. He had seen one tied to posts begging to die while Sayak Cang exhorted the rest of the man's company to laugh at his pitiful cries.
"The Master of Sinanju does not wish to come to Pyongyang although he was begged by myself to do so. Begged."
"Exactly what did he say?" asked Sayak Cang.
The officer felt the cold sea winds from the West Korea Bay blow through his thin uniform, but he did not mind the cold. He saw his own breath make puff clouds before him, and he wondered how long his own body would be warm.
"He said, comrade sir, that he did not wish to speak to a Pyongyanger."
It must have been the faulty Russian equipment because the officer could have sworn that he heard laughter from Sayak Cang himself at the other end of the phone.
"Tell a child, any child from the village, to show the Glorious Master a history book. Any history book. Then beg the Master to go to a neighboring village and see any history book that the children read."
"And then what, comrade sir?"
"Then tell him that Sayak Cang ordered these histories written. Tell him where I am, and that I would gladly come to him."
The officer sent the child back with a coin for himself and the message for the Master of Sinanju. The child disappeared into the mud and filth of the fishing village. Within moments Chiun's flowing gold kimono could be seen coming up from the village, the winds blowing the wisps of hair, the gold like a flag of conquest whipping in triumph.
The Master of Sinanju held a schoolbook.
"Take me to another village," said Chiun.
Hurriedly, the officer made way in his car for the Master of Sinanju and drove five miles to a farming town. Unlike Sinanju, there were red flags everywhere and in every building was a picture of Kim Il Sung.
Here people came to attention and hurried at the officer's command. Here he did not need a coin for people to do his bidding.
The Master of Sinanju was brought one history book and then another. He wanted to see every grade's text. Finally he said:
"Almost correct."
"The man who insisted they be written like that is in Pyongyang," said officer. "He will come to you, or if you wish, you may come to him."
"Pyongyang is an evil city of much corruption. But I will go because in all the darkness of this day, one light shines from Pyongyang," said Chiun. "Would that my own pupil had shown such understanding."
The officer bowed profusely. Chiun kept the books. The building that covered the eight-story excavation into bedrock was a simple one-story government office. But the elevators were lavish by comparison, with full use, of aluminum and chrome and the most expensive metals. The elevator descended to the lowest level and there, with his face oddly changed, was Sayak Cang.
The change was noticed by those who worked on this lowest level, those who knew him. Sayak Cang, with great pain to his facial muscles, was smiling.
"You caused this to be written?"
"I did, Glorious Master of Sinanju."
"It is almost correct," said Chiun. "I interrupted a grave situation to tell you that."
"A thousand thank-yous. A million blessings," said Sayak Cang.
Chiun opened the books he had with him. They told of the misery of Korea. They told of filthy foreigners with their hands at the pure maiden's throat. They told of strangulation and humiliation. And then there was a chapter called "Light."
It read:
"Amid the darkness shone pure and glorious the light of the Masters of Sinanju. They alone paid no homage to foreign lands, but received it. They alone like the sunlight shone eternal, invincible, magnificently glorious, keeping alive the true superiority of Koreans while the rest of their nation waited, humiliated in darkness, with only Sinanju to foretell the coming of the true destiny of the Korean people."
Sayak Cang nodded at every sentence.
"Basically you have got this right," said Chiun. "But instead of 'light,' wouldn't 'awesome light' be more correct? A light could be a little match."
"But in darkness a match is glorious."
"Are you talking about the glory of Sinanju or the darkness of the rest of you?"
"Most correct. Every book will be changed."
"Usually, young man, historians lie and shade the truth for their own convenience. But here in Korea we have a passage that can be called absolute truth."
Sayak Cang bowed. One of the secretaries on the floor almost gasped. No one even knew that his vertebrae moved, much less bowed.