The Poisonous Loving Mother
Gu Donggu was shown into the reception hall.
With friends he would have spoken in the pavilion of the rear garden, but there was no reason to afford Gu Donggu that courtesy.
"What brings you here?"
Around a round table Ja Gangcheon, Cheongu, and Gu Donggu took their seats at measured intervals.
"I've come to take Yeonok Inn off your hands."
Gu Donggu spoke as though bestowing a favor.
"I looked into it at the yamen. Yeonok Inn has been missing quite a few ledgers for some time. The guest registers and tax books are sloppy, and they've been stabling carriages without a stable permit."
An inn required permits to operate lawfully—six of them in all. The stable permit was among them, though temporary stabling of a guest's horse did not strictly need one.
Ja Gangcheon had known none of this, yet he showed no alarm.
"And?"
"If I take it over, I'll shoulder every bit of that responsibility."
"How?"
"By using my connections, of course. It's a good thing I was here. Otherwise the people working at the inn would have been in for a hard time."
When Ja Gangcheon's expression turned grave, Gu Donggu preened.
Just a kid after all. I deliberately waited for those bastards to come to the manor.
Ja Gangcheon let out a long breath. Taking it as proof the threat had landed, Gu Donggu pressed on.
"The magistrate of Gyounam is a rigid stickler for the rules and famous for harsh punishments. You could easily find yourselves in serious trouble. Buildings have a way of drawing bad luck. An experienced man like me will take it all on—set your mind at ease."
At last Ja Gangcheon nodded.
"I was rather fond of that inn. I suppose I have no choice but to sell."
"A wise decision."
"Just give me two thousand taels of silver."
Gu Donggu blinked.
"How much did you say?"
"Two thousand taels."
"Did you not hear what I just told you?"
"I heard. That's why it's two thousand. This is the first time in my life I've ever sold anything at cost without a markup."
He had never sold anything at all, but he saw no need to mention that.
"You're asking me to take a loss?"
"The price never made sense to begin with. An inn that could be had for eight hundred taels—"
"What I choose to pay is my business, isn't it?"
"Well… yes."
Ja Gangcheon spoke as if the whole matter bored him.
"Fine! I'll take a generous loss of five hundred taels! Fifteen hundred taels of silver!"
Five hundred taels was more than ten years' wages for a dock laborer, so the concession truly was large.
The base price was nonsense from the start. Even two thousand is unbelievable.
Ignorant of those thoughts, Ja Gangcheon wore a look of genuine regret.
What grated far worse was Cheongu's reaction. He sat the entire time drinking tea with unhurried poise, a faint smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
Is he laughing at me?
He was clearly enjoying himself, which only soured Gu Donggu's temper further.
Oblivious—or pretending to be—Ja Gangcheon spoke as though the conversation were already finished.
"I'll bring the bill of sale."
"Please wait a moment."
"Why?"
"Fifteen hundred taels is unreasonable."
"You want me to take an even bigger loss?"
"I'll buy it for eight hundred."
He had originally planned on seven hundred. Start at five hundred, then reluctantly settle at seven—that had been the scheme. Since the true target had been five hundred all along, eight hundred already felt like a generous climb-down.
Yet caught up in Ja Gangcheon's momentum, he had blurted the highest figure he could possibly afford.
"You want me to sell a two-thousand-tael property for eight hundred?"
Ja Gangcheon kept invoking that two-thousand figure Gu Donggu did not believe for a second.
"That is the proper market price."
"I'm not selling."
"Then the yamen—"
"Tell them to come. I'll go straight to the Hwangbo Clan afterward."
"What did you just—"
Ja Gangcheon gave a short, dry laugh.
"Do you know something?"
The exaggerated manner vanished. A cold expression settled over his face. The malice that had lain hidden behind that innocent look came fully into the open.
He had dropped the honorifics, yet the overwhelming pressure of his presence made the shift sound completely natural.
"You wouldn't dare set foot in the Hwangbo Clan. But what about me?"
Gu Donggu flinched.
This is the one who dealt with the Ghost-Faced Twin Killers and the Five Evils of Shandong.
If a man like that paid a visit, the clan would at least hear him out.
He's a martial artist.
Worse, an emerging powerhouse interesting enough to command attention.
Officials and the murim do not interfere.
The situation was murky, but using the county magistrate to pressure Deungmyeong Manor could brush against one of the martial world's taboos.
The Hwangbo Clan will not cover for this.
In a flash Gu Donggu saw the path ahead and realized he had to change tactics.
Ja Gangcheon, however, had no intention of stopping.
"When is the magistrate coming?"
"What?"
"You didn't lie, did you?"
Ja Gangcheon fixed him with an indifferent gaze. Those eyes, emptied of emotion, sent a chill down Gu Donggu's spine.
What kind of eyes does a brat like this have…
The person across from him was no longer a young, worldly-naive manor lord. He was a martial artist who could kill Gu Donggu whenever he chose—and Gu Donggu felt that truth in his bones.
"Answer me. When is the magistrate coming."
"I-I'll smooth everything over—"
"Don't smooth it over."
"What?"
"Let them come. I'm a man who always repays both kindness and grudges. I don't want your help."
Ja Gangcheon drew a clear line and drained the rest of his tea in one swallow.
"If you're finished talking, leave."
Now Gu Donggu was the one in a bind.
If no investigation comes from the yamen, I was lying. If an investigation does begin, he might actually go to the Hwangbo Clan.
He understood at last.
Checkmate.
And time was short.
"I'll buy it at a high price!"
"Will you?"
Ja Gangcheon grinned.
A quarter of an hour later.
"Safe travels. Next time we meet, I'll buy you a meal."
Ja Gangcheon even waved him off, now speaking casually as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
What stung worse than the words was what rested in Ja Gangcheon's hand.
Thirteen hundred taels…
From fifteen hundred he had begged the price down by a mere two hundred.
He had paid dearly and still had to fawn and flatter the entire time.
The deeper humiliation came from Cheongu.
That bastard…
Cheongu had watched him with a smile on his lips from beginning to end.
I'll pay this back! I never forget a grudge!
As he turned away, his face was twisted like a demon's.
After he was gone.
"Heh. I made money."
In barely three days Ja Gangcheon had netted five hundred taels of silver. He handed the bill of sale to Cheongu.
"Well done. If you're going to fall into corruption, that's exactly how you should do it."
"If he'd just bought it for eight hundred from the start. He got greedy and ended up paying five hundred more."
Gu Donggu would be losing sleep for a long time.
"But does he have some scheme? Why say he'll deliver the rest in two days?"
The papers they held recorded only eight hundred taels as a down payment, and they had received a corresponding note of credit.
"He needed time to borrow the money."
"Huh?"
"Eight hundred is all he has."
The image of Gu Donggu scurrying around, bowing and scraping for funds, drew another laugh from them both.
After the Spring Festival had passed and autumn was drawing toward its end, Ja Gangcheon and Cheongu walked down to the harbor where a cool wind was blowing.
Yet an untimely uproar had broken out at the Donghae Trading Company's labor office by the docks.
"You have free allotments to hand out but nothing for sale? That doesn't make any sense!"
"Come on—we'll even promote them for you. Just sell us some!"
"I know plenty of Western Region merchants! Trust me with them!"
When Cheongu approached, their faces grew even more urgent.
"Chief Manager! Please release some of the Deungmyeong Medicines!"
"People are asking for them all over the southern ports!"
They were sailors who, a month earlier, had received three free pills from the Donghae Trading Company.
Ship work left men injured in all sorts of places, and of the three medicines the wound salve Geumchanggo had proven especially useful. Hard times meant they could not use medicine often, yet when a wound was serious they had no choice but to seek a physician. Long-voyage ships, moreover, always carried a sailor or two skilled in the healing arts.
Before long the pills' effects began to spread by word of mouth.
Western merchants, already keenly interested in Central Plains medicine, were eager to verify the results for themselves.
The sailors who had felt the medicine work in their own bodies instinctively recognized the profit in it and had flocked to the trading company.
"Don't push like that—speak with the company lord. Something has been prepared with all of you in mind."
The Donghae Trading Company had made extensive preparations for promoting the medicines, and using the sailors was one of those methods.
It served two purposes.
First, create a situation in which people outside the company would voluntarily spread word of the pills.
Second, lay a foundation for making the company's name known in the southern trade ports where it still had no foothold.
Sailors traveled not only throughout the Central Plains but across the seas to distant lands; properly employed, there was no better means of promotion. And the place they gathered in greatest numbers was precisely the southern trade ports.
—Sailors registered at the labor office would be sold the medicines at a price slightly lower than market.
That was the conclusion reached by Cheongu and the trading company's other strategists.
Each man could purchase only a small amount, yet the side income would be worthwhile, so more sailors would register with the office.
It was a strategy that not only amplified the promotional effect but also deepened the company's ties with the sailors themselves.
"From this day forward, Deungmyeong Manor and the Donghae Trading Company intend to walk the same road as you sailors. The roots of Gyounam are all of you."
Many already regarded Deungmyeong Manor and the Donghae Trading Company as one and the same. Since that was not far from the truth, Cheongu no longer hesitated to treat the two as identical.
While Cheongu was telling the sailors exactly what they wanted to hear—
"Hmm."
Ja Gangcheon's attention was fixed elsewhere.
A woman in her fifties had just stepped off a ship. She was plump of build with gentle eyes, dressed in luxurious black silk embroidered with fully opened camellias.
What made her warm presence stand out still more was the wheeled chair she was pushing. A haggard young man sat in it.
The woman who had come ashore tended the man with the crippled legs in the gentlest manner. She slipped a pill into his mouth, gave him water, leisurely massaged his legs, and only then resumed pushing the chair.
After asking a few passersby for directions she changed course and came straight toward the labor office.
Watching her, Ja Gangcheon also walked over.
A master.
The harbor floor was littered with ropes and countless other obstacles, yet the wheeled chair never once jolted.
She was lifting and shifting it with nothing more than the strength of her wrists. The motion was so smooth that the ground itself seemed perfectly level.
"Excuse me."
Arriving before the warehouse, she spoke kindly, but her words were drowned by the rough voices of the men.
She spoke again.
"Excuse me."
That single phrase drew every eye.
Her soft voice had resonated in the listeners' ears with startling force.
Internal energy!
The woman passed between the dazed sailors and came to a stop in front of Cheongu.
"I have come looking for the person who made this medicine. May I meet them?"
In her hand she held the same Deungmyeong Medicine the sailors carried. Yet every gaze locked onto her palm.
A palm dyed purple.
Black silk embroidered with camellias.
And, most decisive of all, the wheeled chair in which she pushed her son.
Only then did the people recall a most dangerous epithet.
Poisonous Loving Mother Song Jain.
The loving mother steeped in poison.
One of the most dangerous figures in the entire murim was seeking out Deungmyeong Manor.