구운몽: 인간 세상으로

The next morning, Master Yukgwan called Seongjin to him and spoke in a stern voice. "Seongjin, you drank wine in the Dragon Palace, and on the stone bridge you laughed and talked with fairies." "And now you think of nothing but the wealth and glory of the world, so you can no longer stay here."

Seongjin fell to his knees in tears and begged to be forgiven, just this once. But the master only said quietly, "I am sending you where you wished to go, so do not blame me." At the master's call, a guardian in a yellow turban appeared and led Seongjin away to King Yama of the underworld.

When he came before King Yama, he found that the eight fairies from the stone bridge had been brought there too. For the crime of talking with Seongjin, the fairies too were to be born into the human world. King Yama sent the nine of them off to nine different places, and Seongjin was swept away by a fierce wind and lost consciousness.

When he came to, Seongjin was a newborn baby, crying in a stranger's house. It was the house of Yang, a hermit scholar in Shouzhou in Huainan, and he and his wife were overjoyed at the son who had come to them so late in life. The couple named the baby Soyu, and Seongjin forgot everything of his former life.

Yang Soyu's face shone like jade and his gifts were remarkable, so everyone in the village called him a child prodigy. When Soyu was about ten, his father revealed that he had been an immortal all along, and bid his family farewell. Yang left with the immortals for Mount Penglai, and Soyu was left alone with his mother, Lady Yu.

Soyu looked after his mother devotedly, reading and writing poetry day and night. In the year he turned fourteen, Soyu told his mother that he would go to the capital to sit the state examination. His mother was worried, but she gave her blessing for the sake of his future, and Soyu set off with a donkey and a young servant.