The Gatekeeper
“So you mean this is four ggeut for Bang-hyung? And Bang-hyung had six ggeut?”
“I’m telling you it is. Flip it over and see.”
Under Bang Jo-in’s boastful stare, I turned over the tile in my right hand.
“Nine ggeut, huh?”
Bang Jo-in’s eyes went wide.
“Huh? How’d you get nine ggeut out of that? You got something in your hand?”
He grabbed my wrist at once. When I showed him my empty palm, he scratched his head in confusion.
“That shouldn’t be possible...”
I snorted, brushed off my hand, and stretched.
The technique Bang Jo-in had just shown off with such confidence was called hwanpae. It was the basic trick you learned first when studying tile-cheating, the sort of sleight of hand that let you hide one tile in your palm and swap it at the right moment.
The key was to keep your hand as natural as possible, only curling your fingers just enough to trap the hidden tile without giving it away.
If your hand looked even a little unnatural, like you were gripping something, your wrist got snapped right off.
Bang Jo-in’s version wouldn’t have fooled even a drunken gambler with one foot in the grave.
Even if Seochon’s gambling world was a paradise for gullible marks, where every sucker in creation seemed to have gathered, there was no way that kind of sloppy trick would work there.
The fact that he still had both hands meant he’d probably only practiced the move and never actually used it in a gambling den.
Talkative gamblers were usually timid too.
Watching such a half-baked trick only made me feel contemptuous. So when I held out my pocket and told him to pick a tile, I quietly palmed a high one and used the trick on him.
It had been years since I’d handled the tiles, but I could still fool a second-rate gambler like that with my eyes closed.
He’d barely realized how lacking his own skill was, and instead of going off to shut himself away and train properly, Bang Jo-in took it for granted that I was helping him stretch his already thin life a little longer as he shuffled the tiles again.
“One more time. Earlier I was nervous, so I must have slipped up. This time I’m certain.”
I folded my arms and glanced casually inside and out.
However much this was being forced on him by a senior, it still wasn’t good to look lazy on the very first day of duty.
And here we were standing not in the lodging quarters, but right out in front of the plainly exposed main gate.
I was weighing whether to make an excuse about going to the latrine and slip away when I caught sight of two horses coming into the alley in the distance.
“Bang-hyung. There’s a carriage coming.”
“What?”
Bang Jo-in hurriedly stuffed the tiles into his pocket and returned to his post.
“A guest is coming!”
As soon as Bang Jo-in shouted into the building, a servant dashed out.
The horse-drawn carriage moved slowly, almost like it was marching through the middle of the wide alley.
“Make way!”
As the driver raised his voice, the pedestrians enjoying the night street hastily stepped aside.
Because it was moving so slowly, no one got trampled.
The driver stopped the carriage at the main gate and called out while tugging the reins.
“An honored guest from Jeong Family Manor!”
“Go straight to the main building.”
Guided by the servant, the carriage passed through the gate and stopped before the eight-story pavilion.
Someone got down from the far side of the carriage. The manager bowed deeply to greet the guest.
When the carriage disappeared toward the stables, the man’s back came into view.
He was a well-built, middle-aged man dressed in silk robes.
A young martial artist who looked like his bodyguard walked beside him, a sword hanging at his waist. His stride was even, and the qi he gave off was sharp enough to cut.
“That’s the lord of Jeong Family Manor. He runs a big trading house in Hubei. He comes about twice a month to have some fun and then leaves.”
“Hubei’s at least two days away even if you ride hard in a carriage. He comes that often? There must be plenty of famous pleasure houses in Hubei too.”
“How should I know? How could we guess the tastes of rich men?”
“I heard Ye-hyang’s pipa playing is famous. Seems the rumors weren’t empty.”
“Well... it’s not that amazing.”
Bang Jo-in fidgeted with the tiles, looking unimpressed.
“You’ve heard it?”
“You can’t help hearing things if you’re here. Nothing special, really. Maybe it’s different when you hear it right in front of Ye-hyang. This is a pleasure house, so there’s no service like in a brothel, but what they do inside is...”
He was about to go on when he suddenly raised his voice. “Another guest is coming!”
This time it was a small carriage drawn by a single horse.
It had no decorations at all, just a cargo carriage with a rough roof thrown over it to keep off the rain.
“It’s the party of Hoyeongeom the Great Hero.”
When the driver quietly announced the guest’s identity, a servant apparently expecting them led them inside.
Three martial artists with swords on their backs got down from the carriage.
The black-clad man who looked to be around thirty and had a stern face was probably Hoyeongeom. The other two were young ladies in blue travel clothes, around my age.
They, too, disappeared into the eight-story pavilion behind the manager.
“Who’s Hoyeongeom?”
Bang Jo-in narrowed his eyes and studied the group before tilting his head.
“No idea. First time I’ve heard that alias. Must be the son of some martial family somewhere. Must be nice, coming to a pleasure house at that age. I don’t know what kind of hobby it is, bringing women to a place like this.”
After that, things quieted down.
It was only early evening, not long after sunset, so there weren’t many people coming to the pleasure house.
The long, boring watch resumed.
Bang Jo-in yawned on the other side of the open gate, absently fingering the tiles with one hand.
Then something occurred to him and he spoke up.
“How long have you been with Yongcheon Escort Agency, Bang-hyung?”
“Me? Let’s see... about three years.”
“You’re headed to the Sichuan escort run next month, then?”
“Me? I’m not going.”
“You’re a formal escort, aren’t you?”
Bang Jo-in snorted and grinned.
“Hah. Just because you’re an escort doesn’t mean everyone goes on escort runs. Who’s going to guard Simhyangru then? Only three or four of the guards here are being sent.”
“So if you’ve been here three years, you were with them even before Yongcheon Escort Agency came to Seochon?”
“I came in after they settled here. Thanks to an older brother I knew. I ran myself ragged for a while, then got moved to security and gave up escort runs right away. I didn’t do it for long, but escort work just wasn’t for me. We all do it to make a living, but what kind of human being is meant to wander around until their feet are blistered, like some lonely ghost roaming the underworld? It’s no way to live.”
Bang Jo-in shuddered as if the thought alone disgusted him.
“The chief escort or the escort leaders ride horses, but escorts have to walk on foot just like the porters. This Sichuan run is going to be rough too. Do you know how rugged the mountains are there? There are plenty of bandits, and the water’s unfamiliar, so it’s easy to get sick to your stomach. However you look at it, there’s no place like home. Drift around outside and you’ll end up dead in some inn, that’s all...”
As I half-listened and occasionally nodded along, there wasn’t a single wrong word in what he said.
I’d once worked briefly as a hired escort at a small agency myself, so I knew exactly how miserable escort work could be.
Walking all day and sleeping rough in dangerous mountain country was only a minor inconvenience.
What was truly troublesome were the bandits waiting to ambush the cargo, never knowing when or where they would strike.
Back when I accompanied a convoy from Jiangxi to Hunan as a hired escort, I was paid three taels of silver, and we were ambushed seven times along the way.
One escort died and two were wounded. In the fighting, I killed three bandits and highwaymen myself.
No matter how much Jiangxi and Hunan might have belonged to the evil paths, that was going too far.
We weren’t even transporting some tempting load that would drive people mad with greed. It was just that the agency was small and easy to bully, so everyone and his brother took a swipe at it.
Three taels of silver didn’t even come close to being worth it.
If you were going to make money by spilling blood anyway, it was far better to work as a wandering swordsman for hire.
Yongcheon Escort Agency probably wasn’t much different.
Large escort runs drew plenty of predators too. Even the bandits in mountain strongholds that usually accepted tolls and let them pass safely might decide to get ideas of their own.
In Seochon, the agency had enough authority that no one could easily touch it, but once it left town, the story changed.
At times like that, the only thing you could trust was a team whose hands and feet worked well together.
That was probably why they were gathering every proven escort they could get their hands on.
What Bang Jo-in had said about me never having to run into guests while guarding Simhyangru was true.
As the night deepened, more carriages arrived at Simhyangru, but I never got a proper look at who was inside. Everyone passed through the main gate and went straight to the main building.
The night streets of Seochon outside the alley were also crowded with people out drinking.
Even though Seochon was outside the city walls and had no curfew, patrol officers came out on rounds.
They only made one pass around Simhyangru before disappearing, which made it seem like the government really was paying attention.
“Hear that?”
Bang Jo-in called to me in a hushed voice and gestured toward the pavilion.
From the main building, lit up from the first floor all the way to the eighth, cheerful laughter never seemed to stop.
Whenever the laughter and conversation faded for a moment, the soft strains of the pipa filled the silence without making the lull feel awkward.
I listened closely and then asked Bang Jo-in, “Is that Ye-hyang playing?”
“Obviously. Simhyangru has plenty of courtesans, but when the honored guests want to hear pipa music, Ye-hyang is the one they ask for.”
Maybe my expectations had been too high. I felt a little disappointed.
The main gate of Simhyangru wasn’t the kind of place where you could properly appreciate Ye-hyang’s skill.
It was more than ten yards from the main building, blocked by walls and windows, and buried under all that laughter so the sound didn’t carry well at all.
A master pipa player would be able to make even that kind of bad setting ring like a needle punching through a purse, but Ye-hyang didn’t seem to be on that level.
Still, the melody had a certain charm.
It was ornate, plain, and strangely lonely all at once.
*
As the night grew deeper, the noise of music and laughter gradually died down, until by dawn everything had fallen silent.
The guests who had come by carriage also left by carriage.
As the lazy quiet grew thicker inside and outside the walls, the pale light of day began to spread.
The first night shift was finally nearing its end.
I handed off to the day crew, who had arrived on time, and changed clothes in the dormitory.
Jo Gyeong-jik wasn’t there. Since there was nothing to report, I left Simhyangru as it was.
Shops and taverns along the alley had started opening one by one, but there weren’t many people about.
Bathed in the fairly sharp morning sun, I made my way out of the city.
I’d stayed up all night for the first time in a while, but I wasn’t that tired. It had been boringly peaceful, and I’d eaten a solid late-night meal in the middle.
The pay was a little stingy, but it was easier on the body and easier on the mind than living by the sword.
Still, just as I’d told the chief escort, I’d work here only until the end of the year and then quit.
Living with day and night flipped around wasn’t something a person could do for long. Nor was acting like a house dog keeping watch over the gate.
As soon as I got home, I covered the window with a blanket to block the sunlight and lay down.
After noon I got up, stretched lazily, and gulped down cold water.
Chewing on tough dried meat, I went out into the yard and spun the staff around and around to loosen my body until I was fully awake.
After lying on the veranda to cool off the sweat and filling the emptiness in my stomach with dry rations, I went back to practicing the Nameless Saber Technique.
Late in the afternoon, I hung my willow-leaf saber at my back. The sun was still strong, so I put on a bamboo hat and left the house.
When I stopped by Poongcheon Inn, Gu-sam brought out my food and asked, “Great Hero, did you see Ye-hyang?”
“No.”
Just as I was lifting my chopsticks, several meat buns I hadn’t ordered were quietly set down on the plate.
I stared at them, and Gu-sam lowered his voice while glancing toward the kitchen.
“Don’t forget me.”
Looking back and forth between Gu-sam’s burning eyes and the buns, I gave a short laugh and picked one up.
Guarding the entrance of Simhyangru was boring, but it wasn’t dangerous.
Since all the guests came by carriage, there was no need to suffer drunkards.
The underlings of the Black Night Gang and the local thugs didn’t even dare come near, apparently afraid of Yongcheon Escort Agency and the government officials.
After several days of trouble-free duty, on the fifth day Jo Gyeong-jik, the man in charge of all security, came looking for me.
“Can you handle it?”
“I can.”
“You’re on duty with Bang Jo-in, right?”
“Yes.”
Jo Gyeong-jik fell silent for a moment, then asked in a low voice, “Is that bastard still messing with tile sets during working hours?”
I said nothing.
It didn’t sound like this was the first time, and he didn’t seem to be asking because he didn’t already know. If he knew everything without my telling him, better to keep my mouth shut.
“Don’t get any foolish ideas just because you’re tempted. One out of every three men who die in Seochon’s back alleys is a gambler. That bastard will die before his time too...”
With a heavy sigh, Jo Gyeong-jik let the end of the sentence trail off and shook his head. After collecting himself, he spoke again.
“Today, some very honored guests have rented out Simhyangru. The magistrate will be coming too. Not one inch of carelessness is allowed in guarding the gate. If Bang Jo-in still doesn’t know better and pulls out his tiles, tell him I ordered you to kick him in the ass. Understood? And report to me immediately.”
I wondered why he didn’t just say that to the man himself, but by the look of things he’d already called Bang Jo-in in and given him a thorough chewing-out.
Even then, he still didn’t seem to feel at ease.
“Very well.”
I stepped outside, passed the servants bustling around and sweeping more earnestly than usual, and headed for the gate.
Bang Jo-in really must have gotten an earful, because he had nothing in his hands.
Looking depressed, he absently fiddled with empty fingers that missed the tiles, then saw me and came over quickly.
“Heard Simhyangru’s been rented out today?”
“Did the magistrate have a late baby or something?”
“Huh? Ha ha, if that were the case, why would he rent a pleasure house? He’d throw the feast at his own home. Tonight’s main character at Simhyangru isn’t the magistrate. It’s a young scholar from Hubei.”
“A scholar?”
Bang Jo-in knew even the name, apparently from some rumor he’d heard somewhere.
“Yi Yun-jae, they say. Most scholars are just pale-faced men with too much in their heads, but this fellow’s an exception.”
As though he were a relative of the scholar himself, Bang Jo-in puffed himself up and rattled on.
“You know what the state exam is, right? The exam the country gives to appoint officials. There isn’t just one, either. There are three stages...”
The provincial exam in each province.
The metropolitan exam, where the Ministry of Rites gathered all those who had passed the provincial level and examined them together.
And the palace exam, held before the Son of Heaven in the capital by those who passed the metropolitan exam.
Passing only the provincial exam already made you a juren, which was almost as good as having a county magistrate’s post guaranteed.
Tonight’s banquet at Simhyangru was being held to celebrate Yi Yun-jae’s success in the provincial exam.
The magistrate probably arranged it with the intention of making a promising new official one of his own people.
The other guests invited to the feast likely had similar motives.
Widening your connections meant getting solid support for the road ahead, so it wasn’t a bad thing for a scholar like Yi Yun-jae either.
It was the sort of event where everyone profited, so the atmosphere would likely be warm and friendly, but Bang Jo-in still looked uneasy.
“The agency lord might come too.”
High-ranking officials were holding a celebration at a pleasure house run by Yongcheon Escort Agency. From the agency lord’s point of view, it would make sense to show his face, even if he had to put aside everything else.
It wasn’t strange, yet Bang Jo-in’s expression darkened. He fidgeted like a pup that needed to shit.
Having the master of the organization he served appear at his post wasn’t exactly welcome, but this was beyond ordinary nerves.
Seeing my confusion, Bang Jo-in forced a smile, looking embarrassed.
“You haven’t seen the agency lord before, have you?”
“No. I heard he used to be a secular disciple of Qingcheng Sect?”
“That’s right. He was pretty famous in Sichuan. When they say Flying Qi Sword Gam Hu-jeong, even the members of the black path reportedly jump in their sleep. Age hasn’t dulled that presence at all, and the escorts still sometimes get the shakes when they meet him.”
Bang Jo-in seemed to be one of those escorts. He was openly afraid of the agency lord.
Maybe he’d once been summoned by the agency lord after making a mess of something at the gambling tiles.
Just as I was about to ask casually, Bang Jo-in stared fixedly down the alley.
Following his gaze, I turned and saw a carriage coming in.