No Stock Left (2)
Of course, Baek Wontae had always been a fairly conservative man when it came to business.
There were ways to get around the problem, naturally. He could have ordered Manri Merchant Group Leader to fetch some Hyeonrihwa, for instance, or hired a few ordinary people to run purchases for him.
But he didn’t.
If he wanted to build a perfect empire, the moment he started dragging in random nobodies, everything would become dangerous.
Something he could manage perfectly well on his own would explode into a mess of variables the instant a third party got involved.
And more than that—
He didn’t want to leave behind even a single clue linking Baekhyang to Hyeonrihwa.
Anything he couldn’t control had to be excluded.
That was Baek Wontae’s rule.
So until now, he had run the whole operation with just Ihyeon, Ihwa, and himself.
Still—
Dang Hogyeom’s caution was enough to make even Baek Wontae click his tongue.
Isn’t this a little obsessive-compulsive?
It sounded like the kind of thing you’d say about someone else’s family, but that was honestly how he looked to Baek Wontae.
There were no CCTV cameras here. No phones, either.
Information moved slowly, was easily twisted, and was even harder to trace.
How far could an analog information network even really go?
And yet he couldn’t think of any way to persuade that iron-walled bastard.
It wasn’t that there was no method.
There just wasn’t any overlap—no intersection where both he and the clan head could be satisfied.
In the end, Baek Wontae asked the fundamental question.
“Then how are we supposed to make money?”
He looked Dang Hogyeom straight in the eye.
“It’s summer now. We’ve got, at most, five or six months left until the end of December. If we want to make up the remaining amount by then, we need to solve this as fast as possible.”
“Wait.”
Baek Wontae’s eyebrow twitched.
“…What?”
“The shops on the list all need Hyeonrihwa as well, in any case. They’ll bring in stock through other channels. All we must do is wait until then.”
Wait until more stock came in?
He hadn’t considered that.
But—
Until when?
The only reason they’d been able to rake in this much money in such a short time was simple.
They’d been sweeping up existing stock that had already piled up.
It wasn’t like they had rocket delivery service, and Hyeonrihwa wasn’t some crop that grew in bulk by the acre.
Even if the neighborhood shops brought in fresh supply, it would only be a trickle at best.
It would chew up time and produce nothing but a mouse’s worth of goods.
In the end, it was a loss.
“If you want to make real money, you have to accept some risk.”
Dang Hogyeom’s eyes sank coldly.
“A man like you, an outsider, would never understand how great that risk is. Nor do you need to. Just refrain from doing anything unnecessary.”
Baek Wontae’s brow crumpled.
“Hey. This isn’t me fattening my own wallet, you know? I’m making money that the Dang Clan needs. Then isn’t it only normal to cooperate with the person bringing it in?”
Dang Hogyeom’s gaze pierced him like a blade.
“Have you forgotten that you trespassed into the Dang Clan’s territory without permission?”
“…What?”
Trespassed?
He’d been forcibly transmigrated here, for God’s sake.
The injustice rose in his throat, but he swallowed it back down.
“Then do you at least have a plan?”
Dang Hogyeom answered without the slightest hesitation.
“That is for you to think on.”
“…What did you say?”
Hah—
Before he could stop himself, a sigh burst out.
He tried a somewhat dangerous, last-ditch approach.
“This is money for revenge, though.”
At that, the clan head’s eyes narrowed.
He looked downright murderous.
But Baek Wontae didn’t back down.
“My revenge? No. The Dang Clan’s revenge. You’re the one who should be struggling to squeeze out every last coin, so why are you dumping the burden on me?”
Then he stood and headed for the library.
A moment later, he returned with a sheet of paper.
It was the contract they’d written on the first day.
He spread it out and vented his frustration.
“We signed a contract, didn’t we? Said you’d cooperate with my work in exchange for me raising funds for revenge. Is this cooperation? Or sabotage?”
But the clan head met him with cool indifference.
“The essence of the contract is to preserve your life. Money is merely the means. Therefore, devising a way to earn money is entirely your responsibility.”
The final line came down like a blade.
“And if you value your life, do not casually bring up the Dang Clan’s revenge.”
Cold words, neatly severed.
“The meeting is over.”
With that, the clan head stood and went into his room.
Creaaak— thud.
Baek Wontae could only stare helplessly at the closed inner chamber door.
He said nothing.
Only muttered inwardly, as if chewing on the words.
God, I want to say some truly terrible things right now.
He turned his head toward the kids.
They hadn’t said a single word the whole time.
Caught between the two adults, they’d only watched the mood and kept quiet.
Baek Wontae let out a short breath.
“Sigh…”
What could the kids even do?
Without saying anything else, he left the main hall.
He went into the library.
At some point, a small bed had been placed in one corner of the room.
The exhaustion built up from the fruitless argument washed over him all at once.
His body simply gave out.
Flop—
“Hmph…”
The ash-gray ceiling filled his vision.
Baek Wontae rested an arm under his head and sank into thought.
No matter how he looked at it, something was strange.
By common sense, no matter how well the Dang Clan was doing in Sichuan—
from a modern person’s perspective, it was still nothing more than a primitive organization.
Information was carried by mouths and feet.
Records were paper and memory.
As for tracking, all they had was manpower.
Even taking the absurd existence of martial arts into account, their systematic tracking ability was basically nonexistent.
Even in modern society, with all its advanced communication technology, unsolved cases still existed. So what was there to fear?
Of course, he had once been followed by the Haomun, but...
That was an exception.
They had already decided to tail him from the start.
Planned surveillance didn’t count.
But this was different.
The places he’d be visiting were only shops or pharmacies.
Would a shop owner really spend money to hire spies to tail customers?
“Heh.”
Baek Wontae let out a snort.
If they did, then they deserved to get played.
To be honest—
He was confident he could even walk right into Seongdo, the Dang Clan’s base, without being caught.
If he went in briefly, made a move, and vanished while using guerrilla-style tactics, the chance of being spotted or traced would drop drastically.
And yet the clan head was paranoid to an excessive degree.
...But no matter how much he worried it over, nothing would change.
Whatever he said, the clan head would just end it with a flat “No.”
Baek Wontae closed his eyes.
Sleep first.
Tomorrow was the day of his meeting with the Manri Merchant Group Leader.
What kind of face would that drug addict make when he saw the supply had been cut?
* * *
The forest near Hamwon.
Baek Wontae sat on an old wooden platform with his legs crossed.
Only a single lantern lit the darkness.
Scuff... scuff...
The sound of footsteps through grass drifted from a distance.
“You came.”
A man appeared.
It was the Manri Merchant Group Leader.
But—
He was not the same man as before.
The face that had once been so bloated with fat it seemed to glisten with oil was now so gaunt that his cheekbones and jaw stood out sharply.
His eyes were sunken, and his gaze kept wobbling without ever settling.
His breathing was rough, and his steps were unsteady.
It was almost a miracle he’d made it this far.
No—
It was obsession.
Obsession with the drug.
Watching him, Baek Wontae smiled faintly to himself.
Yeah. Perfect.
Everything was moving exactly as planned.
The group leader stopped in front of the platform and bent over, panting for breath before speaking.
“Wh-where’s the... the goods?”
His voice was dry as dust.
Desperation clung to every syllable.
“No need to rush. I’ll give them to you.”
Baek Wontae rummaged through the bundle beside him.
He lifted the cloth and pulled out a wrapped packet of medicine from inside.
The familiar wrapping.
The Manri Merchant Group Leader snatched it up as if ripping prey from a trap and stared at it for a long moment without blinking.
His fingertips trembled.
Then, in a voice full of disbelief, he asked, “…What is this?”
“It’s Baekhyang.”
His eyes slowly rose and bored into Baek Wontae’s.
“No, the amount! The amount’s too little!”
The shout echoed through the forest.
Ow, my ears.
For no reason at all, the man had an excellent set of lungs.
But it wasn’t exactly an incomprehensible reaction.
It was barely half the quantity he normally brought.
Baek Wontae shook his head.
“It’s no use yelling at me. What am I supposed to do if there isn’t any supply on your end?”
“I don’t care about that!”
The group leader’s face twisted.
“Do you know how many people want this? You expect me to sell only this much? This won’t make anything but pocket change! Give me more, more!”
“Please keep your voice down.”
Baek Wontae lifted a finger to his lips.
“Do you want to spread the news all over the place?”
Silence.
Only then did the forest’s echo die away.
He let out a breath and went on.
“This isn’t something I can do anything about. If you think it’s pocket change, then raise the price. You’re a merchant, so use scarcity to your advantage. No matter how high you set it, there will always be buyers.”
“Grrk...”
The Manri Merchant Group Leader ground his teeth.
Baek Wontae knew.
What the man wanted wasn’t money.
Money had already slipped from his concern entirely.
What he craved was—
The white grains in that packet.
The abyss of pleasure that dragged body and mind along with it.
It was the fact that there would be less of it.
That was what drove this man insane.
The group leader clutched the packet of medicine tightly and glared at Baek Wontae.
He barked in a boiling voice, “Next time you come, you’d better bring more than this.”
Whoosh—
He turned on his heel the moment he finished speaking.
His back disappeared into the darkness of the forest.
Baek Wontae stood there for a while.
He said nothing, simply watching the darkness where the man had vanished.
“…Ha.”
A small laugh slipped out.
He really had picked the right man after all.
The skill for building a market across Hamwon.
And he still kept the secret.
At the same time—
He had no self-control whatsoever.
He was falling into the drug, and even his judgment was going with it.
If only the supply problem gets solved...
He’d become the perfect gear in the machine of the plan.
The corner of Baek Wontae’s mouth lifted slightly.
Click.
He picked up the lantern.
The flame swayed, pushing back the dark.
He turned and walked deeper into the forest.