Employee Benefits Are at It Again, Shin Won-tae (1)
Clack, clatter!
Heokryeonhyang Escort Agency.
The moment the carriage came to a halt, the coachman shouted, “We’ve arrived!”
The long-awaited stop.
Creak!
As soon as the door opened, two people tumbled out.
The one who was at least still upright was Ihyeon.
Baek Wontae barely got his feet under him, his legs trembling so badly it was a miracle he didn’t fold in half on the spot.
They’d chosen the cheapest carriage they could find because they didn’t want to draw attention, and now every bone in his body throbbed from the wooden floorboards and the ruts in the road.
I am absolutely going to develop suspension and patent it someday...
Grrrrk—
The moment he twisted his back, a sound he had never heard before came out of his spine.
“Ack!”
Baek Wontae seized Ihyeon by the shoulder.
“Lend me a hand.”
With the air of someone who couldn’t be bothered arguing, Ihyeon slung one arm under his shoulder and supported him.
“You’re not even an old man.”
“Shut up. An intellectual’s body is fragile.”
They trudged along the forest path, both of them half-dead from exhaustion.
They’d passed this way so often now that even the traps no longer sprang at them.
Soon, the Dang Clan’s front gate came into view.
“You’re back...”
Just then, Ihwa came out of the kitchen.
The sharpness of her eyes widened for a heartbeat.
Then she ran toward them, light on her feet.
Her one and only brother, who had been away working and hadn’t returned for ages, didn’t even register in her mind.
Her gaze was fixed on Baek Wontae alone.
“Are you okay?”
Just that one line.
Inside it were relief, worry, and something else that couldn’t quite be named.
Ihwa had grown up without a single friend.
She wasn’t the type to make herself easy company, either, so unlike Ihyeon, she never mixed with other people.
For her, that one question was the warmest thing she knew how to offer.
Baek Wontae had no idea, but Ihyeon did.
The expression on his younger sister’s face, one he had never seen before.
The tremor in her voice.
The air around her.
Ihyeon’s brows knit together.
Awkwardness, discomfort, and a faint, inexplicable revulsion.
The reason was simple.
Sibling instinct. Pure, visceral disgust.
It was creepy as hell seeing his little sister act like that.
Baek Wontae straightened his back and smiled.
“I’m fine. Nothing happened, right?”
“Father was worried, but nothing serious happened.”
The clan head had been worried?
So his son hadn’t come home, and naturally that made him anxious.
Lucky bastard. Must be nice.
Baek Wontae looked around.
The clan head wasn’t in sight.
Still, there was no harm in being careful.
He gestured to Ihwa.
“Come with me for a second.”
Ihwa trotted after him like a little puppy.
The Dang Clan’s flower garden.
Calling it a flower garden was generous; it was rather modest.
Still, with the weather turning warm, flowers of every color had begun to lift their heads.
The two of them stood facing each other.
Baek Wontae fished around in his robe.
“I’ve got something for you.”
Ihwa’s cheeks flushed red.
She didn’t even know what excitement was, but her heart was pounding anyway.
She steadied her breathing and closed her eyes halfway.
“Take it.”
What appeared before her slowly opening eyes was a Sinpae.
He said it as casually as if it were nothing.
“A forged Sinpae. Weren’t we going to make these? ...I didn’t tell you that? My bad.”
As always, his tone was calm and indifferent.
“...”
Still the same man.
She wasn’t disappointed.
If anything, this was exactly like him.
This was a decision made to protect the Dang Clan from the Dang Clan itself, a family under threat from the Dang Clan.
She wondered how hard he had worked to make this Sinpae.
Her older brother had probably suffered too, but he still wasn’t the one she cared about.
She took the Sinpae with both hands.
“You worked hard.”
Baek Wontae nodded.
“Read the contents once. You’ll need to memorize them and tell the others too.”
Ihwa read the Sinpae.
“If people ask later, answer according to what’s written there. Family relations and place of residence can change, so it’ll be easy to fool them. As for the name... we only need to fool the authorities and the Dang Clan anyway. Act your part well.”
Baek Wontae watched her for a moment, then said, “It might feel a little weird. I mean, we’re forging a perfectly legitimate clan head’s—”
“It’s fine.”
“Huh?”
“It’s fine.”
There wasn’t the slightest sign of disgust.
Surprised, Baek Wontae tilted his head.
“Well... if you’re okay with it, then whatever. Just don’t tell the clan head. He’ll definitely hate it.”
“Okay, I won’t.”
* * *
By nightfall, they were in the pill-refining room.
Baek Wontae and Ihyeon sat side by side, making Baekhyang.
When they’d piled up about two hundred pills, Baek Wontae said, “About the Sinpae. I gave one to Ihwa too.”
“She wasn’t offended?”
“Not at all. She seemed completely fine with it.”
Completely fine.
Ihyeon’s eyes wavered.
Ihwa respected and loved their father just as much as he did.
That was why she had stayed with the Dang Clan, why she had chosen brutal training and backbreaking labor.
There had been other paths.
She could have abandoned the Dang surname, left Sichuan, and lived freely. Or married someone and disappeared into another family.
He’d suggested those options before.
They hadn’t even made a dent.
He had tried to break her stubbornness.
No one wanted their sibling to die, after all.
He’d mocked her skill and pressed down on her until she could barely breathe under the weight of it all.
They called it a lifelong grudge, but at this rate even if she worked until she was old and gray, she still might not be able to save the twenty nyang of gold it would take.
And even if she did, the two of them would still have to take on all those Dang Clan members.
He believed in their father’s strength and in his own efforts, but his heart had always leaned toward the conclusion that they might die anyway.
And yet she had chosen this path.
For their father. For their mother.
Ihwa must have felt the same.
But even if the hatred was bone-deep, shouldn’t the people who could survive be the ones to keep living?
It was enough for him to stand beside their father alone.
That was why he had pushed her so hard.
It had been the barest shred of affection from an older brother.
They’d only ended up wrestling, though.
So the fact that Ihwa had accepted that Sinpae without the slightest resistance gnawed at him.
Because it was, in every sense, an act of filial impiety.
A forgery that turned their father into a dead man and even altered their mother’s surname, spitting in the face of the law itself.
Ihyeon had been sickened by it, even if only for a moment at first.
But then he had accepted the Sinpae.
That made it impossible to deny the man who had made it.
If he’d been his old self, he never would have tolerated it.
Ihwa would have been no different.
And yet now...
It was already too late.
Both Ihyeon and Ihwa had already sunk into that man’s orbit.
His crimes, his coldness, even that refreshingly decisive way he acted—everything made sense now.
There was no choice but to acknowledge it.
The past few months with him had been fun.
An exhilaration he had never once felt in twenty-one years of living.
That was what he had given them.
With a faint sigh, Ihyeon answered, “Yeah...”
* * *
Baekhyang sold like wildfire.
People of every sort fought over who would buy it first.
Baek Wontae had left one warning for the Manri Merchant Group Leader.
“Make sure every shop is told that large-scale release is strictly forbidden.”
He hadn’t expected the man to obey.
And yet, strangely enough, every shop followed the rule.
They kept the product scarce so they could drive the price higher.
Thanks to that, Haomun still hadn’t worked up the nerve to start moving Baekhyang in bulk.
On top of that, the sellers colluded and raised the price by more than fivefold.
And yet.
“I’ll take three Baekhyang.”
“I’ll rent a room. Bring me five Baekhyang first.”
It was still a bestseller.
Rising prices.
Intense effects.
Those two things only fed greed all the more.
Before long, a secret little community had formed among the wealthy who came and went through the Hamwon area.
They kept all information about Baekhyang under wraps.
They made it a rare treasure known only to themselves, heightening its scarcity.
They wanted to feel special for owning and enjoying it.
What had once been a simple luxury item had, before anyone noticed, become the greatest indulgence in the world.
At the center of it all were Baek Wontae and the Dang Clan.
And ten nyang of gold had landed in their hands.
* * *
Baek Wontae called Ihyeon and Ihwa over.
Ihyeon asked, “Do we have something we need to do?”
“Nope, not work.”
“If it’s not work, then what?”
Ihwa tilted her head.
“For the past few months, we’ve made half our target amount. Winter’s still a long way off... I figure we can afford to relax a little, don’t you?”
Ihyeon and Ihwa exchanged side glances.
“Well... maybe.”
Baek Wontae smiled.
“You two have worked hard this whole time, and as the head of the business, I can’t exactly ignore my employees’ effort, can I? So...”
He lifted a finger and pointed toward the Dang Clan gate.
“We’re going out to have fun!”
* * *
A massive wooden building.
It was so grand that Ihyeon and Ihwa had to tilt their heads back just to take it in.
“This is...”
Baek Wontae grinned.
“Ihyeon, you know where this is, right?”
Ihyeon nodded.
“The place you used when you lured the Manri Merchant Group Leader in.”
Myeongwolgwan.
One of the most luxurious inns in all of Hamwon.
The first stop was here, naturally.
“You’ve got to fill your stomach before you can play hard, right?”
Then, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, he started walking again.
“Come on, let’s go in.”
The moment they stepped inside, the brilliant interior swept over their vision.
Curtains of scarlet silk embroidered with golden thread.
Lights plated in gold gleamed above, and silver cups and rows of porcelain vessels on the tables flashed dazzlingly in the glow.
At the sight, Ihwa held her breath.
“Wow...”
Even Ihyeon, who had been here once before, found himself momentarily speechless.
Baek Wontae looked around and called out, “Waiter!”
The waiter hurried over.
“Yes, sir! How may I help you?”
Baek Wontae pulled a reservation token from his robes and handed it over.
The waiter’s eyes lit up the moment he saw it.
In an instant, his back bent into a perfect ninety-degree bow.
“I’ll escort you to the VIP room!”
At that, Ihyeon and Ihwa’s eyes went round.
VIP?
A word they had never heard in their lives.
A word that had nothing to do with people like them.
And yet, almost spellbound, the two of them followed behind Baek Wontae.
As they walked down the corridor, the finely patterned carpet and the light from the silver lamps dazzled their eyes.
Then the door opened.
“This is your room, sir.”
The moment they stepped inside—
the siblings’ mouths fell open on their own.