A Ship to Pierce the Storm
Back at the trading company, Ja Gangcheon informed Merchant Chief Jo Pilsung that the Uirimdang problem had been resolved.
"Uirimdang is gone."
"What? What on earth do you mean by that all of a sudden?"
Jo Pilsung had spent the day meeting with people connected to the authorities, all in an effort to protect the brewery. Whatever strings had been pulled against him, every single person he approached had waved him off without mercy. The one official with whom he still shared a genuine bond had at least offered a regretful explanation.
It will not be easy to wriggle free of this, no matter what you try. You might as well hand over the brewery and see if you can salvage something in return.
It was a proposal Jo Pilsung could never accept. The Donghae liquor produced at that brewery was not merely a piece of the company's history—it was also their best-selling product.
I will protect it even if it costs me my life.
He had just steeled himself with that vow when the benefactor who had already saved his life rescued him once again. The way Gangcheon said it, it might as well have been, I just went out to the market and had a bowl of dumplings.
"Merchant Chief. Allow me to explain."
Cheongu took over the account. When the whole story was finished, Jo Pilsung could only sit with his mouth hanging open in astonishment.
"So you mean to say you faced the Ghost-Faced Twin Killers themselves…"
"Those two will not be troubling anyone anymore, so set your mind at ease."
"How am I ever to repay this kindness…"
As Jo Pilsung's thanks piled up without end, Ja Gangcheon spoke.
"I have a request of my own."
"Anything. Name it."
"I need a ship."
"I am holding the vessel you seized from the pirates. If you need it, I will have it ready to sail at any time."
"That will not be enough."
For the first time since facing the Ghost-Faced Twin Killers, Ja Gangcheon's expression turned truly grave.
"I need a ship sturdy enough to drive straight through a storm. Find me someone who can build one."
That was the reason Ja Gangcheon had returned to Gyounam.
It was the day after a hard rain had swept through.
"Hoo."
Seated cross-legged on his bed, Ja Gangcheon let out a long breath and opened his eyes.
"Mm. Peaceful."
Today marked two weeks since he had come to Gyounam—the first time he had stayed in one place for so long on the mainland. It felt nothing like the deserted island.
"So this is what people mean by cozy."
His heart was at ease, settled and steady. That was not a feeling you could earn simply by remaining in the same place.
"You are awake, young master!"
As soon as Ja Gangcheon stepped out of his room, the people of the Donghae Trading Company greeted him with lively cheer.
"Yes. Good morning."
They exchanged warm greetings and smiled at one another.
"Oh my. You are already up? Let me bring you some tea."
"Thank you, noona."
They saw one another every day, and yet the welcome felt just as fresh each time. A quiet, peaceful, vigorous morning—and good people to share it with. That was why Ja Gangcheon started every day with genuine pleasure. Today, though, something extra had been added to the ordinary routine.
"Panseok is waiting out front. He asked us to be sure to tell you the moment you woke."
After they had dealt with Uirimdang, Panseok had returned to the Haeryong Sect as well.
"What is this about?"
Slightly puzzled, Gangcheon stepped out of the trading company—and there was the familiar six-foot bulk. But the man's jutting lower lip was trembling, and he looked ready to burst into tears at any second.
"Hyung Panseok. What are you doing here?"
"I have been thrown out of the Haeryong Sect."
"What are you talking about?"
While they spoke, Cheongu arrived, having already heard the news.
"Cheongu hyung-nim. I have been thrown out."
Unlike Ja Gangcheon, Cheongu thought for a moment—then his face settled into understanding.
"The Haeryong Sect Leader must care for you a great deal, hyung."
"What? If he cares for me, why throw me out?"
Panseok's expression was genuinely wounded. When tears welled in the eyes of that enormous frame, it somehow looked even sadder.
"When the Sect Leader drove you out, he told you to go to Gangcheon, did he not?"
"Yes."
"He is trying to protect even you. At Gangcheon's side, you will be safe."
Ja Gangcheon was no less confused.
"Come inside first. I will explain."
At Cheongu's words, Panseok scrubbed at his tears with a thick forearm and stepped through the trading company's gate. Ja Gangcheon was just as lost, so he stuck close behind Cheongu and followed.
"I will go speak with the Merchant Chief. Wait in the room."
Ever since he had begun traveling with Ja Gangcheon, Cheongu's standing within the company had changed. With Gangcheon's complete trust behind him, he had naturally risen to a position that outstripped his formal title. Even so, Cheongu never crossed the lines he was meant to keep. Reporting the admission of an outsider to the Merchant Chief was one of them.
"Come with me."
Left alone with him, Ja Gangcheon naturally led Panseok toward the room.
"Whoa there!"
Then Panseok spotted a middle-aged man loading a cart and immediately dashed over.
"Heave!"
Two middle-aged workers had been struggling to stack grain sacks. Panseok lifted them as if they weighed nothing.
"Oh? Panseok. What brings you here?"
"I came to see Gangcheon hyung-nim."
Even while talking, Panseok kept transferring the sacks at a rapid pace. Intrigued by the sight, Ja Gangcheon came closer and asked,
"You already know each other?"
"Everyone at the market knows him."
"He is really with the Black Society? Why is he so decent?"
It was the two middle-aged men who answered that. They were the longest-serving laborers at the trading company, and they too called Ja Gangcheon their benefactor.
"This fellow was famous long before he ever joined the Black Society. All bulk and nothing but kindness—his nickname was the Bear Next Door. Even after he joined, not much changed. The Haeryong Sect itself never laid a hand on the market, either."
"Hyung-nim. Wait just a moment. Uncle Jeongjun's back is bad—I have to help him."
"What? Who said my back is bad?"
"Your wife."
"My wife?"
"Yes. She was lamenting that every night your back is so bad all you do is sleep."
At that, the middle-aged man let out a long sigh, and his coworker patted him on the back. Only after the loading was finished could Ja Gangcheon finally take Panseok to the room.
"Hyung, why did you join the Black Society in the first place?"
Cheongu had not yet arrived, so Ja Gangcheon asked the question that had been nagging at him. From the beginning, aside from his size, Panseok had looked nothing like a man of the underworld.
"When I was young, I had a friend. After his parents died, he was raising his little sister alone—then he went out on a ship and never came back. I looked after the girl who was left behind as often as I could. One day I saw a foreign sailor trying to force himself on her."
"So that is the man you said you killed."
"Yes. I never meant to kill him. I just yanked his head back hard to pull him off—and his neck snapped."
To break a man's neck at fourteen by pure strength alone meant he had been born with monstrous power.
"What happened after that?"
"I was taken to the yamen, and the girl went to distant relatives. The one who got me out of prison and sent her to those relatives was Yeondok hyung-nim. He proved that the foreign sailor had tried to assault her, and I was released at once."
In truth, a few details had been left out of that story. It was still a murder case; even with just cause, some punishment should have followed. So Yeondok had erased even that. He had pinned responsibility on the shipowner who had failed to control his foreign sailors, extracted a considerable sum of money under that pretense, and delivered every last coin to the yamen as a bribe.
"He is a man I am grateful to."
"Is that not the problem, though—that he is only a good man to you? He is still the Black Society."
"That is true."
Panseok lowered his voice and hung his head.
"What are you looking so down about now?"
Knock. Knock.
Fortunately, Cheongu opened the door and walked in, shifting the mood.
"Hyung Panseok. What is wrong?"
"It is nothing."
"The Merchant Chief said you may stay as long as Gangcheon wants you here."
Panseok looked at Ja Gangcheon with a pitiful expression.
"Fine. I will not throw you out for now."
"Thank you, hyung-nim."
Watching Panseok's face brighten in an instant, Ja Gangcheon shook his head.
He is harder to deal with than the Ghost-Faced Twin Killers.
While he was thinking that, Cheongu asked Panseok,
"Other Black Society groups are eyeing Gyounam, are they not?"
"Yes. That is right. I wanted to fight too, but I was driven out. They said they did not need me."
"They are trying to protect you, hyung. It seems they are not confident they can hold the Gyounam markets."
Cheongu explained so that Ja Gangcheon could follow as well.
"Uirimdang is gone, and both the central market and the black market have no master. Ordinarily the Haeryong Sect, as the winners of the fight, should take them over—but they lack the strength to manage it. Outside groups that know that are after Gyounam, so the Haeryong Sect has a great deal to worry about."
The goose that laid golden eggs had lost its owner, and the one set to inherit it was not strong enough. The struggle to claim that goose had already begun.
"For now they will be watching your reaction, Gangcheon. Once it becomes clear you have no real ties to the Haeryong Sect, they will push in hard."
The only reason things had stayed quiet this long was the martial master who had killed the Ghost-Faced Twin Killers and dismantled Uirimdang.
"Is the Gyounam market really worth that much?"
Panseok answered in Cheongu's place.
"Even the trade market alone is no small operation, but I have heard the real prize is the black market. They said seven-tenths of Uirimdang's profits came from there."
A black market at a harbor where ships came and went. Its scale was beyond imagination.
"Then why not just give it up? If they only ran the labor office like before, no one would touch them."
"I said the same thing, but they claim there is something they must do."
"What is it?"
"They said three things have to be eliminated. The gambling dens, the brothels, and the black pharmacies. They will hand the Gyounam market over only to someone who accepts those conditions."
Ja Gangcheon did not know what those were, so he looked at Cheongu.
"A gambling den is exactly what it sounds like—a place to gamble. A brothel is a house of courtesans who sell their bodies. A black pharmacy deals in illicit medicines, including aphrodisiacs and poisons."
"Places like that exist?"
"They are quite well known in Gyounam's black market."
Even Cheongu's expression was dark as he answered.
"Then why does the Sect Leader want them gone?"
"A great many of the sailors under our care have been swallowed by the black market."
"Swallowed how?"
"They lose everything at the gambling dens, and in the end they sell even their own bodies. Once they go down that road, the black market seizes them—and not just them. Their families are dragged in as well."
People who lived day to day on what they earned were being dragged into hell.
"I only thought the village was pretty. Inside, it is completely rotten."
Ja Gangcheon's face twisted with distaste as he sank into thought. After a long while, he spoke to Panseok.
"Hyung. I need to meet with the Sect Leader."
Ja Gangcheon went himself to the labor office at the harbor.
When word reached him, So Yeondok tried to send all his subordinates out. But the men who had been locked in heated argument until moments before could not simply set their feelings aside.
"Hyung-nim. How long will you keep deliberating? At this rate we will lose everything. The black market and the trade market—if we give up one, we can still take the other."
"Forget that. Why not take the gambling dens for ourselves? That alone would outstrip most ordinary businesses."
"Hyung-nim! What are you saying? How can we run gambling dens? Helping sailors is the entire purpose of our Haeryong Sect!"
The fight had been going on for days already.
They say seeing breeds desire.
So Yeondok was learning that truth in his bones.
When they had been pressed by Uirimdang and run only the labor office, no one had dreamed of luxury. But the moment they found themselves in a position to own a vast market, they were ready to seize it even at the cost of danger.
"Enough."
"Hyung-nim!"
At last the patience So Yeondok had been holding snapped, and his voice rose.
"You bastards! Do those businesses look like ripe fruit to you? They are poison. Poison! Even Uirimdang, with the Ghost-Faced Twin Killers at its back, was wiped out completely. What do you think will happen if we swallow that market?"
"Then we bring that man onto our side…"
"You bastards! We of the Haeryong Sect have endured poverty on nothing but our pride! Have you gone so blind with greed that you have thrown away even your shame?"
When So Yeondok exploded, his subordinates finally shut their mouths.
"All of you, get out! If you say things like that in front of him, we will end up thrown into the sea as fish bait ourselves."
They were the ones who had personally hurled Uirimdang into the sea. The thought of becoming that same target sent a chill down their spines. In the end, the subordinates shuffled out of the labor office with awkward steps.
Perhaps a quarter of an hour passed.
Knock. Knock.
"Hyung-nim. It is Panseok."
Guided by Panseok, Ja Gangcheon stepped into the office.