The Rebel: Thief Who Stole the People Chapter 19

Gil-hyun matches up the locations of the family disappearances and the Hong Hero appearances while Scholar Song angrily scolds Choongwongoon for losing the Hengrok ("heng" meaning "actions" + "rok" meaning "record" = "Record of Actions").

Gil-hyun reveals his findings to an elder minister and reports that the common thread among the disappeared families is that they were accused of defying social order. He requests to investigate this further outside the palace and catch the Hong Hero based on his projections from the map. The minister finds this coincidence strange and agrees to help Gil-hyun with this request.

Gil-dong happily reunites with his band of Hong Heroes after embarking on their own investigations of the Sugwidan (the elite group vowing to protect values). At their rendezvous, they pile up the copies of the Hengrok from all the Sugwidan households. All Sugwidan elites seemed to fear the "Geoin," but didn't know anything about them. Ilchung wonders what about the name coded in each of the books, and the rest of the gang is even more clueless. To answer Ilchung's question, we're shown Scholar Song's full name in hanja, which is then coded into the Hengrok.

Yeonsangun paints a picture of himself, and Nok-soo admires his work. He tells her that this is how he views himself, and he wonders how others view him. Eunuch Kim enters the room, and Yeonsangun asks to bestow on Nok-soo the title of royal concubine. Eunuch Kim begins to explain the ranking of the royal concubines, but Nok-soo pays no attention to this and simply asks for a taste of the watermelons from Ming.

When Nok-soo leaves the king's quarters, she's met with Eunuch Kim and asks him why he didn't reveal her identity to the king. He responds to her with gratitude for comforting the king from his deep longing for his late mother, calling her by the title of a royal concubine. She praises him for being a loyal servant and looks pleased by his acquiescence.

The king asks his court to import Chinese watermelons for the royal banquet, but he's met with tense silence. A brave minister speaks up that the watermelons from Joseon taste similar, and that such imports are unnecessary in this time of severe drought and famine. The people are begging for food on the streets, and villages are overrun with thieves. The king seems tired of the talk of thieves and the Hong Hero and abandons his excessive order in such dire circumstances.

After the meeting, Eunuch Kim urges the king not to be mad at the ministers. But the king says that he's not mad; he's perplexed. He's always wondered how the ministers viewed him, and after experiencing their nagging, he can finally understand how they view him. Hmm, curious.

Scholar Song hands Jeong-hak a list of people that Gil-dong is bound to visit. When Jeong-hak asks more about the list, Scholar Song dismisses his question and orders him to solely focus on catching Gil-dong, who is now a mortal enemy.

Deputy Governor Eom scolds Jeong-hak for assembling troops to catch the thieves without his permission, but Jeong-hak has leverage, knowing that he has some connection with Gil-dong. He warns Deputy Governor Eom that any attempt to stop him will serve as evidence of the deputy governor's connection with Gil-dong.

Of the three leftover locations, Jeong-hak deploys his troops to Sookang while Gil-hyun wonders where to go first. Gil-dong and his bandits choose Goodam first, and they seem optimistic that they will find something there.

But when they arrive, Keutsae reports that the Sugwidan member passed away. They turn to leave, but they notice a crowd forcibly led by soldiers. Gil-dong pulls a man aside to ask what's going on, and the man explains that they're delivering the jade to Hanyang from their local jade mine. But their travels interrupt their farming, and they may not be able to sow their season's crops.

The man continues on with the crowd, and Gil-dong seethes at the annoying whines and whimpers of injustice. Gil-dong goes rogue again and surveys an emotional scene in the village. A mother cries that the elite had requested delivery of ripe fruit as tribute, but it had rotted en route, and the punishment landed on her son. The soldiers come out to forcibly quiet her cries of injustice, but Gil-dong stops one from beating the mother and throws him away with a little too much strength. The bandits are surrounded and end up tied up in a jail cell.

As the bandits complain and giggle (and fart) in their close proximity, Gil-dong wonders about the nature of social hierarchy and order. He's always been told that masters should act like masters and slaves should act like slaves, but is that the absolute truth?

At the palace, Nok-soo apologizes to the king about her watermelon request causing trouble in the court. But Yeonsangun is more grateful for the clarity he gained from the request. He's always been told to act like an heir to the throne, a prince, or a king, and the ministers preached that ministers should act like ministers — men like men, and women like women. But he questions whether such roles are a given fact.

Gil-dong says that they all eat, sleep, and poop, so what's the real difference? King or servant, master or slave, man or woman, aren't they all human? He asks his hyungnims about his thought, and they laugh at his nonsense. They can't even fathom being considered the same as the king.

Yeonsangun accuses the nobles for enforcing the social hierarchy and order for the sake of their convenience and makes the same claim as Gil-dong: master or slave, man or woman, they're all the same. But he deviates from Gil-dong's epiphany by concluding that all these people can be grouped into one: the king's slaves. Upon this conclusion, Yeonsangun seems amused that these slaves dared to criticize the king about his request for watermelon. He seems ready to shed some blood.

Gil-dong shakes the complicated thoughts out of his head and gets to business. With his mighty strength, he easily breaks the handcuffs and kicks open the jail cell. He casually looks back to ask whether the rest of the bandits are coming along, but they're obviously still tied together and remind him that he needs to untie them too. Ha.

The bandits want to flee the site without getting wrapped up with the government there, but Gil-dong has other plans. They dress up as royal inspectors and interrupt the magistrate's punishment of the villagers. Yonggae plays the role of the royal inspector and is hilariously bad at it, but the gullible magistrate follows along. Yonggae scolds the magistrate for enforcing such excessive tribute taxes on the villagers, and the magistrate acknowledges the excessive dues. But he claims to be following orders from the king, who's preparing a banquet with the finest goods.

After hearing of this banquet, Gil-dong tells the magistrate that they will be taking the stored goods and adds that he should blame the Hong Hero for the lost goods. That way, the magistrate and the villagers will both survive. So the magistrate and the soldiers get tied up with the classic "Hong" mark on a hat, and the goods are then distributed to the villagers. They tell them to blame the Hong Hero, and they agree to do so with gratitude.

Jeong-hak and his investigation team arrive at the Goodam village, and they find the storage rooms empty. When they ask the magistrate, he blames the Hong Hero, and the villagers follow suit and mislead the group in a random direction. They don't find any tracks of the Hong Hero, and Mori realizes with a smirk that they've been fooled by the lying villagers.

Gil-hyun arrives at the village and asks a villager if the Hong Hero raided the government goods and hurt the people. The villager stoically claims that the Hong Hero is not that type of thief, adding that Gil-hyun wouldn't understand. Gil-hyun looks confused.

The villager meets with his friends at a village eatery, and they rejoice in their encounter with the Hong Hero. The older brother scholar (Gil-dong had avenged his younger brother's injuries) overhears the joyful conversation as the villager describes his encounter. He had asked Gil-dong why he helped them, and Gil-dong stopped himself before slyly giving the villager a thumbs up and saying, "It's my choice." Ah, the classic Amogae line.

Rumors about the Hong Hero are abuzz in the villages, and we see Madam Jo overhearing conversations curiously, the father Kim Deok-hyung passing by with a knowing smile, Wolhamae voicing her wishes to meet this handsome hero, and Ga-ryung proudly smiling at the news of her husband. She returns home and writes about the tale of the Hong Hero, starting with the story of Amogae.

Gil-hyun returns to the palace and tells the elder minister that his presumptions were correct — the Hong Hero is visiting the locations of the disappearances. He asks to report these findings to the king, but the elder minister says that the king has no interest in such matters. He's only interested in entertainment right now.

Nok-soo enters the musicians' quarters, and the ladies now bow to her, since she's been named a royal concubine. She tells the ladies that if they can make the king happy, they too can be promoted like her. She says this while smiling directly at the jealous musician who had once confronted her.

Nok-soo then turns to the palace maids and asks our two Eorini candidates about their interest in becoming palace musicians. Before our doe-eyed Eorini can object, her friend speaks for both of them and says that they are interested. The ambitious Eorini starts out with her dance, and Wolhamae praises her for her improvement. Next, doe-eyed Eorini steps up and says that she will sing. She sings the joyful song of her village in Ikhwari but with such a sorrowful tone that she begins to cry. Nok-soo asks why she's crying, but she doesn't know.

Afterward, the palace maid friend asks her why she was crying. Doe-eyed Eorini doesn't know why, and her friend finds that strange. The friend expresses her hopes to become a musician and earn great trinkets for her mother. Doe-eyed Eorini says that her mother must be happy to have a daughter like her, and the friend admits that her mother isn't her birth mother, which only deepens our Eorini identity mystery.

At the palace banquet, the king toasts to the ministers while Gil-hyun watches the king reveling in his extravagance. After the toast, the king tells Nok-soo to observe the ministers and asks her what she sees. She sycophantically responds that all she sees are the king's slaves, and the king approves of her response.

The king watches one minister in particular by the name of Lee Se-jwa, who was rumored to have watched and confirmed his mother's death. He tells Nok-soo that these ministers still smile so brightly in front of him after killing his mother. He summons Lee Se-jwa up to receive a glass of alcohol from him, and the minister is honored by this gesture. The king's smile quickly turns sinister, and we see fear light in Nok-soo's eyes.

Gil-hyun reports to Scholar Song about the Hong Hero who's praised by the commoners and the king who lives without criticism. He says the the king is also human, but Scholar Song projects his perspective that they are not people. Scholar Song clarifies that they are simply players trying to earn the king's power through commodities, so Gil-hyun should not think with such a sentimental lens.

Madam Jo helps Choongwongoon get up from his bed, and she looks determined to capture Gil-dong. She says she has one card up her sleeve that she hasn't used yet. She doesn't own the physical object, but she remembers exactly what it was. If the king refuses to order Gil-dong's capture, she intends to play her card to ensure that Gil-dong is caught.

Gil-dong and the bandits roam around villages bringing justice to mistreated commoners under the guise of the royal inspectors, and Jeong-hak always arrives after the fact, even with more troops deployed with Minister Lee's permission. Mori watches the villagers give conflicting directions to where the Hong Hero went, and he does not look amused by the confusing leads. The troops guard village entrances and try to catch the Hong Hero's tail, but to no avail.

Jeong-hak receives a report of the misleading villagers and orders their capture for lying to the royal troops. Mori laughs at Jeong-hak's flailing attempts to capture the thief and decides that he'll move on his own from now on. Since all the villagers are on the Hong Hero's side, there's no way for them to capture the Hong Hero in this chase.

In the village, Eop-san's father walks out with his cane and takes a stroll. From afar, Mori watches with a new plan in mind.

Our bandits attempt to pass through the inspection gates by cross-dressing as women, and it's quite hilarious. The inspectors look at Gil-dong's height with amazement and are shocked by Keutsae's appearance, but they all somehow make it past inspection with little trouble. They laugh at their appearances, and Gil-dong vows that he won't embark on such missions again. He promises Soboori, but we'll see how long he goes without breaking that promise.

Minister Lee and Deputy Governor Eom report the situation on the Hong Hero to the king. Deputy Governor Eom expresses his concerns about the Hanyang office being empty due to Jeong-hak's use of all their troops. The king acknowledges this worry and summons Gil-hyun to explain his findings.

On his way out, Deputy Governor Eom meets eyes with Gil-hyun, and they both look at each other in shock. Ah, finally. After a moment frozen in surprise, Deputy Governor Eom retreats, and Gil-hyun reports to the king, who gives him a special title to continue investigations into the Hong Hero.

Deputy Governor Eom grabs Gil-hyun on his way out and recognizes him, but Gil-hyun insists that he's got the wrong person. As Gil-hyun scurries away from the palace, he's trailed by the deputy governor.

A village child collects wood from the forest and spots the Manchurian barbarians headed to their village. He runs back to his village to report this to the magistrate, who orders that they report this situation immediately. But the problem is, they've delivered all of their horses to the palace as tribute, and they have no way to relay their need for help. At the palace, we see that the king has indeed requested all of the horses for his upcoming hunting trip, and he shows them off to Nok-soo and the other palace ladies.

The village boy offers to relay this cry for help on foot, and he runs through the hills looking for help. He rolls down the hill, right in front of the bandits' path, and he's nearly out of breath. He tells them about the barbarians and desperately asks for help, because without it, his whole village will die. He passes out, and Keutsae carries the child as they respond to this plea.

The bandits arrive at the scene of the barbarian pillage, and Gil-dong's face becomes full of indignation. Without questioning their actions, the bandits enter the fight full on, saving women and children from the wrath of the pillagers. Gil-dong knocks the head pillager off of his horse, and the bandits swiftly defeat their enemy. The villagers cry out in relief and gratitude, and Gil-dong looks around at the praising villagers with confusion.

Scholar Song meets with the king to discuss the issue of the thief, but the king isn't too worried or interested, since he's doubtful of the rumors about the thief defeating the barbarians. Scholar Song says that the truth doesn't matter, since the people believe that the Hong Hero saved them. The people admire the Hong Hero instead of the king. Scholar Song asserts that the Hong Hero is not stealing goods; rather, he's stealing the heart of the people.

Looking around at the villagers, Soboori regrets that they came back, since everyone will know the Hong Hero now. Gil-dong agrees with a smile, and all the bandits look resolute. A small baby wanders through the crowd, and Gil-dong picks up the child with a smile. Meanwhile, the king seethes in his realization of the Hong Hero's theft, juxtaposing the power of our two pillars.