What of the Fist King Clan?
Donghae Merchant Guild headquarters.
Jo Pilsung steeped the tea himself and filled the cup across from him.
"You've accomplished something remarkable, Chief Manager."
"Guild Master, please don't call me that. It makes me uncomfortable."
"Deungmyeong Manor's reputation is rising. I can't keep addressing you by name forever."
The man being so carefully received was Cheongu.
He had come to deliver the results of the negotiations with the Hao Clan, and Jo Pilsung—who had once taken Cheongu in—now called him Chief Manager and treated him with full courtesy.
Treating a former subordinate with that kind of respect was never easy, yet Jo Pilsung showed not a flicker of hesitation.
"Deungmyeong Manor is the patron of our Donghae Merchant Guild. If its chief manager is slighted, both the manor and the guild become a joke. I hope you won't take that lightly either, Chief Manager."
"I'll keep it in mind."
Cheongu understood the duty that came with the title.
"Still, I'm surprised the Hao Clan accepted all of it."
"It wasn't an easy negotiation. They weren't people to be taken lightly."
"We're talking about the lord of the Hao Clan. I've heard he's unmatched at the bargaining table."
"Fortunately, he still couldn't beat our lord."
Thanks to Ja Gangcheon having already won the fight for them, they had been able to force through the most important terms.
Deungmyeong Manor's demands had been three.
First: within Gyounam, the Hao Clan could not start any new ventures beyond their existing businesses and the black market.
Second: human trafficking, underage prostitution, usury, and the manufacture or sale of narcotics were forbidden. Anyone or any group found engaging in such practices was to be reported to Deungmyeong Manor at once.
Third: once every three months, five thousand nyang of silver would be paid as the price of the ice taken from the manor.
They had deliberately left the quantity of ice unspecified. Calling it "payment for ice" rather than a donation was only a way to avoid the appearance of tribute. In theory, they could hand over a single block and still collect the five thousand nyang.
Even looking at it again, Jo Pilsung found the result astonishing.
"But didn't the Hao Clan offer thirty percent of their profits? That would have been far more money."
Five thousand nyang every three months came to twenty thousand a year—a vast sum. Measured against the black market's real earnings, however, it was hardly enormous.
"We can't examine their ledgers. I figured every settlement would just become another fight over the books."
Goods that entered the black market had no fixed purchase or sale prices. The structure made manipulation effortless for anyone who wanted it.
"True enough. Once you factor in bribes, management fees, and entertainment expenses, there would be no end to what they could cook."
Having thought that far, Jo Pilsung could only concede Cheongu's judgment.
"My thinking was short. A guild master this shortsighted only makes his people suffer."
"That's excessive humility. The best part of joining the Donghae Merchant Guild was that the man I served was you, Guild Master."
The words genuinely moved Jo Pilsung.
"That gives me strength."
Knowing someone saw his effort and sincerity was a deeply welcome thing.
"Honestly, I feel the same. I'm truly glad the one who saved me was our lord."
A shared understanding settled between them.
First the man had saved their lives, then he had saved the Donghae Merchant Guild itself. As if that were not enough, he had now given them wings through the ice trade.
In truth, hauling ice produced at the manor to the nearest villages and taking seventy percent of the profit was barely different from giving it away.
"Though he can be terrifying, given how absolute he is about debts of gratitude and grudges."
Faced with a hostile opponent, Ja Gangcheon turned cruel enough to make age irrelevant.
"An innocent face, and yet the extremes of good and evil live side by side in him."
"Without that, he never would have come this far. I think that's part of his strength as well."
Having received so much help, their judgment of him was bound to be generous.
"Since he dealt with the Five Evils of Shandong, Lord Ja's name is heard everywhere. There can't be anyone left in Gyounam who doesn't know him."
"Gangcheon will be disappointed. He used to love walking through the market."
"We'll make sure to warn people not to bother him."
Cheongu smoothed the mood with a smile, then brought up the last request Ja Gangcheon had entrusted to him.
"Is there anyone reliable among those who manufacture medicine?"
"Do you mean a physician or an apothecary?"
"Current profession doesn't matter—ability does. Of course, trustworthiness comes first."
"Someone does come to mind. Not a connection of mine, but of the employment office director. I heard he used to make the narcotics the black market supplied to the pleasure houses."
As stipulated in the second clause of the Hao Clan treaty, such goods had vanished from the black market. Naturally, the people who had handled that work had either left or gone home.
"If the manor needs the manpower, I'll verify him once more myself."
"Yes. If there's no problem, send him to the manor."
"Understood, Chief Manager."
Business finished, Cheongu rose from his seat.
"I left without a proper farewell when I quit the guild. Let me say it now. It was an honor to serve you, Guild Master."
Jo Pilsung answered with a warm smile.
"Someday I'll count this farewell as my own honor."
Through Ja Gangcheon as their center, they set the past behind them and stepped into a new relationship.
Leaving the guild with a light heart, Cheongu headed out of the village to return to the manor.
Just beyond the market, he had to stop.
"Please, spare a coin! Please!"
A boy was begging, half in tears, voice thick with desperation.
He looked about Cheongu's age. Through his torn clothes, welts from a beating showed clearly.
"Daesik."
At the sound of his name, the beggar lifted his head.
He must have recognized Cheongu—Daesik's eyes shook hard. Tears welled at once. He snatched up the few coins he had gathered, averted his gaze, and fled.
"Why?"
Why run at the sight of him?
Should he give chase?
Thoughts crowded in. Then he shook his head.
"It's not my place to step in. Forget it."
"Forget what?"
At the familiar voice, Cheongu spun around and nearly threw a punch. He stopped just in time—the face half-hidden under the raised mask was one he knew.
"You scared me."
"Too slow. You should've thrown it right away."
"And if I had? Were you going to take it?"
"No. Why would I?"
"You want me to hit my benefactor, my friend, and my superior?"
"Can't we just be friends?"
"We have to care about outside eyes now. That's all part of the manor's dignity."
When Ja Gangcheon looked disappointed, Cheongu changed the subject.
"What's with the mask?"
He was wearing a red goblin mask—no wonder Cheongu had been startled.
"People keep greeting me, so—"
"My lord! Good day to you!"
A cloth-shop hand passing by called out a greeting to Ja Gangcheon. They had exchanged a few words while browsing once, nothing more than that.
"Yes! Good day!"
Even so, Ja Gangcheon returned the greeting. The moment the man was gone, he yanked the mask back on.
"Why is everyone suddenly saying hello?"
"They saw you with their own eyes when you dealt with the Five Evils of Shandong."
"So they're afraid of me?"
"Not fear. You've earned a reputation. Their faces light up when they greet you, so it isn't notoriety."
"This is complicated."
"Just think of it as the process of becoming famous. It's the reward for everything you've done."
"I didn't exactly do any of it for other people."
"You wiped out the black societies in Gyounam and abolished protection money. You cleaned up the dirty businesses in the back alleys. And there's something even more important."
"What?"
"The Donghae Merchant Guild competed fairly, without special favors. You had the power and you chose not to use it. Integrity. That was you."
Seeing that Ja Gangcheon seemed to grasp a little of it, Cheongu pointed to the most direct example.
"Remember how you felt the first time you met Daoist Jinmyeong of the Wudang Sect. That's how other people see you now."
Jinmyeong, the White Clothes Sword of Wudang.
The chivalry he had shown had filled Ja Gangcheon's chest to overflowing.
"Tch. I don't want to be compared to Wudang."
"Either way, your sense of justice is changing Gyounam."
"So I have to wear a mask forever?"
The immediate inconvenience of walking around masked weighed on him more heavily than any of that.
"My lord! Hello!"
They recognized him even with the mask on.
"I think I got spotted because of you."
"Wearing a mask in the first place looks weird."
"Is that it?"
"Luckily you won't have to wear one forever. It doesn't do any good."
In the end Ja Gangcheon took the mask off and walked through the market with Cheongu.
"So who was that friend just now? And what was that about forgetting something?"
Cheongu didn't hide it.
"A kid from Haejeonggol. Just old memories."
"Haejeonggol? What's that?"
"South of Gyounam there's a place that takes in abandoned children. I'm from there. The vice-master of the Donghae Merchant Guild paid to take me out."
When they had dealt with the pirate captain, Cheongu had taken revenge for that vice-master with his own hands.
"So Haejeonggol is a good place?"
"No. The vice-master paid a steep price to bring me out. They work the children there, and on days they can't find jobs, they send them out to beg like that boy today."
"Sounds like a bastard. Do you want to save those kids?"
Cheongu thought for a moment before answering.
"No. I'm not sure whether making Haejeonggol disappear would even be right. The children there weren't kidnapped—they went of their own free will."
"They go there on purpose? Why?"
"It's a place kids with nowhere else to go head for so they can stay alive. Food and a place to sleep are taken care of. And when they turn twenty, they're released clean and even given help finding work. If a place like that vanished, plenty of children would die on the streets or fall into something worse."
Ja Gangcheon hated hearing it.
"It feels like justifying something rotten. I don't like it."
"I don't like it either. I just can't think of anything better. Most of the kids who never went to Haejeonggol ended up in the black market. We don't even know what became of them."
Ja Gangcheon had already seen those outcomes in the back alleys. At least in Haejeonggol they were spared that fate—so they endured until twenty.
"They exploit them by holding out hope as collateral. As long as that hope stays intact, the children come on their own. Some merchants even call the man shrewd for it."
"A clever bastard. That makes it even worse."
"Just forget it. I will too."
"Hmm."
Even after hearing Cheongu claim he had no lingering attachment, Ja Gangcheon walked in silence, lost in thought. After a long stretch without a word, he spoke as if tossing the idea away.
"We need people too, don't we? What if we took them in ourselves?"
Both the guild and the manor needed more hands. Panseok couldn't keep handling every odd job forever.
"It isn't that simple. Even if we could step in and solve a lot of the problems, I would still be against it."
"Why?"
"The boss of Haejeonggol has ties to the Hwangbo Clan."
Who was the strongest power in Shandong Province?
Ask a hundred people and every last one would answer without hesitation.
The Fist King Clan, said to encompass the whole of martial boxing—the Hwangbo Clan, counted among the Five Great Clans of the murim.
In Shandong they said a connection to the Hwangbo Clan was worth more than money.
Hearing that absolute name, Ja Gangcheon said,
"What of it?"
It was not the reaction Cheongu had expected.
"My father is of Wudang and my mother is of the Northern Heavenly Castle."
To Ja Gangcheon, background was not a consideration at all.