First Mission (1)
The night had fallen over the Seungjeongwon, thick with the heavy scent of ink and the musty odor of yellowed paper. The senior scribes, having finished their duties, had already headed home. As they passed through the door, they glanced back at Yi Si-woo's silhouette through the crack and snickered.
"They say he's the top graduate, but look at that fool. Even pulling an all-nighter won't make those ledger numbers add up."
"Lord Kim gave him a real nasty toy to play with. He'll probably be stuck in that corner for a fortnight."
Their mocking footsteps faded away. Yi Si-woo set down his brush and stretched his stiff neck backward. In the room lit by a single flickering candle, his eyes gleamed sharper than ever.
What Scribe Park had dumped on him wasn't proper accounting ledgers at all, but a pile of drafts and copies of miscellaneous reports from Hamgyong Province. To others, it was just a worthless stack of faded, unsorted papers. But to Si-woo, versed in 21st-century accounting techniques, these were perfect evidence proving discrepancies between reports from different departments.
Si-woo had already diagrammed the perfect correlation between Hanyang's logistics system and the missing military grain from Hamgyong. The seniors thought he was struggling to catch typos, but he was piecing together the grand puzzle of corruption by cross-referencing these fragmented records.
Kim Gwi-ju, you've been too arrogant. You tossed aside these moldy ledgers like trash, never dreaming they'd become the exquisite frame to destroy your clan.
Si-woo was reviewing the organized ledgers once more when low but steady footsteps echoed from the corridor outside the Seungjeongwon. He instinctively straightened his back. Who would visit the office in the dead of night? An on-duty eunuch, or perhaps...
The door slid open with a rattle. A eunuch in deep blue official robes entered first, scanning the room. Behind him emerged a man lightly draped in a jade-green dopot instead of his usual informal heukseon cap, revealing himself slowly.
King Jeongjo was out on a nocturnal stroll, accompanied only by a small retinue as if on a secret inspection.
Jeongjo's gaze lingered on the lit corner room and the young scribe sitting alone inside: Yi Si-woo.
Without a hint of panic, Si-woo rose from his seat, prostrated himself on the floor, and paid his respects.
"Scribe of the Seungjeongwon, Yi Si-woo, greets Your Highness."
Instead of replying, Jeongjo slowly surveyed the room. Dozens of ledgers lay spread across the floor, and the walls were plastered with torn-out records arranged in a strange, patterned regularity. A spark of curiosity flickered in Jeongjo's eyes.
"What keeps a mere scribe so engrossed at this deep hour? Your seniors seem to have gone off to raise their cups, yet here you are, using moonlight as your guide to write."
To Jeongjo's question, Si-woo replied calmly, head bowed.
"The task given by my seniors is so profound that I lost track of time, Your Highness."
"Profound? How can three years' worth of Hamgyong reports merit such words from a scholar? Seeing you speak of drudgery others shun with such purpose— are you truly so poised, or merely deceiving Us?"
Jeongjo's voice was low, yet it filled the room with commanding dignity. He stepped inside and stood before Si-woo's desk.
Si-woo carefully offered Jeongjo one page from his organized ledger.
"Finding typos is a scholar's duty, but reading the lies in numbers is a minister's obligation, as I was taught, Your Highness. Behold these records. How is it that ten thousand seok of grain reported lost in Hamgyong leaves its trace intact not in official ledgers, but in the passage permits of a certain merchant guild's stables?"
Jeongjo's eyebrow twitched faintly. He took the ledger and held it close to the candlelight. The faded paper was covered in Si-woo's neat handwriting from the day's work. But what caught Jeongjo's eye wasn't the text.
It was the fine dots connecting the characters, forming an uncanny flow.
As Jeongjo's gaze swept from the first page to the last, the only sound breaking the silence was the candle's crackle. His breathing grew slightly ragged.
Even from his days as crown prince assisting his grandfather, he had reviewed tens of thousands of reports, but never had records so clearly pointed to corruption.
Behind those dry numbers that deceived even Us during the regency, a massive viper had been nesting all this time.
"This is... no mere embezzlement."
"Indeed, Your Highness. The grain hasn't vanished—it's been cleverly concealed. Ten thousand seok plundered from each county is secretly amassing in some deep mountain valley of Hamgyong, evading the court's eyes. Would Your Highness believe that someone has built a massive base there, beyond governmental control, in a ravine not even marked on maps?"
The air in the room froze solid. Jeongjo's gaze shifted from the ledger to Si-woo's eyes.
Before his grandfather Yeongjo passed, he had gripped Jeongjo's hand and whispered that name urgently... The three characters Yi Si-woo flashed intensely through Jeongjo's mind.
"There's a young dragon in Uiju. Before fifteen, he mastered the Four Books and Three Classics, piercing the world's truths. Keep him by your side as the nation's eyes and ears. Untainted by factional strife, he'll root out the corrupt parasites devouring the realm with unerring truth."
That prodigy from the wilds, treasured like a jewel, has finally entered the palace of his own accord and stands before Us.
Jeongjo had thought him merely a bookish scholar, but behold this spirit: unearthing hidden numbers to strike at the hearts of those sucking the nation's lifeblood. At fifteen, he slew a tiger, his courage resounding across the eight provinces; now, his brush hunts even the court's black desires.
Jeongjo now felt viscerally why his grandfather had trusted and waited for this boy.
"Yi Si-woo. From your scribe's seat, what do you see? The ink-stained characters? Or intangible power?"
"This subject sees not the words on paper, Your Highness. I see the ugly human desires they conceal, and the new order that will rectify them to bring peace to the people."
Jeongjo let out a short, dry laugh. The bold yet uncanny answer resonated instinctively.
"Very well. We shall take this ledger Ourself. Bear the Seungjeongwon's grueling tasks steadfastly henceforth. The more they dismiss you as a mere scribbler and lower their guard, the more you shall become Our sharpest blade from an unforeseen angle."
Jeongjo drew a small jade plaque from his bosom and handed it to Si-woo. Carved with the king's secret seal, it granted clandestine audience anytime.
"Leave no record of Our visit tonight. You were merely a scribe who dozed off exhausted after matching numbers all night. Investigate that mountain in Hamgyong further. When it crumbles, We shall clear your path personally."
Jeongjo departed like the wind. Si-woo kept his head to the floor until the steady footsteps fully vanished from the corridor.
He clenched the jade plaque in his palm. The once-cold jade warmed gradually to his body heat.
My first secret mission. That mountain in Hamgyong...
Si-woo lifted his head and stared at a corner of the map pinned to the wall.
Gathering over ten thousand seok of military grain means a massive army exists to consume it.
Kim Gwi-ju's hidden base was a dagger threatening the royal house, a supply depot for a future rebellion to drench the court in blood.
That night, Si-woo didn't sleep a wink. No, he couldn't. To fill the gap left by Jeongjo's taken ledger, he recreated copies from memory of every figure.
Si-woo delved deeper into Kim Gwi-ju's logistics network. By dawn, when chilly air seeped through the Seungjeongwon's window frames, his desk bore an even more intricate power genealogy that even Jeongjo hadn't seen.
The next morning, as the sun peeked over the horizon, the Seungjeongwon buzzed with activity again. The senior scribes, hungover from last night's drinks, trickled in one by one, peeking into the corner room. Their faces mixed fatigue with smirking anticipation of Si-woo wailing amid the ledger pile.
"Hey, rookie scribe. Get any sleep last night? Wonder if you've read all three years of Hamgyong reports."
Scribe Park, arriving first, chuckled and slapped Si-woo's shoulder.
Si-woo deliberately showed his tousled hair and ink-stained hands, pretending to jolt awake from dozing on the desk.
"Ah... Seniors, you're here? My apologies, I just nodded off for a moment..."
Park's eyes scanned the desk. Instead of the real ledgers Jeongjo took, practice sheets with botched calculations and faded documents thickly marked only for typos lay scattered.
"What's this? All night and you only caught typos? The numbers? Did you even check the Hamgyong grain figures?"
Si-woo scratched his head with a hapless expression, mumbling awkwardly.
"Well... the numbers just wouldn't add up, so I gave up. Guess I'm no good at math. I just pulled an all-nighter picking out typos as you seniors instructed. The task was too much for me."
Park's eyes flashed relief at Si-woo's flat, self-deprecating reply.
Of course, what does a greenhorn know?
Park snickered and slapped his shoulder again.
"Hah, even top graduates are helpless before numbers! Better that way. Don't lose hair chasing mismatches—stick to polishing text from now on. Wasn't that what Lord Kim assigned you, typo correction?"
As the seniors filed out laughing, Si-woo slowly raised his bowed head. The dumb rookie facade vanished instantly, his eyes cooling to a chill.
He touched the jade plaque Jeongjo had given him, hidden deep in his bosom. The cold jade warmed to his body heat.
Perfectly fooled.
Park had retreated assured these were manipulated trash heaps. But Si-woo had already delivered to Jeongjo the money trails Kim Gwi-ju failed to hide within that trash.
While playacting incompetence to buy time, Jeongjo's blade was already swinging toward Kim Gwi-ju's neck.
Si-woo picked up his brush again. This time, it was the Pyongan Province weapons registry.
If grain amassed in Hamgyong, records of mouths to feed it and blades to arm them must exist somewhere.
Now the real hunt begins.