Let’s Go Sell Drugs (2)
They walked along the forest path for a long while.
Every time something crunched beneath their feet, the siblings calmly seized their daggers and snapped the arrows away.
Rather than disarming the traps, they simply forced their way through them with brute strength.
Before long, the land leveled out.
Baek Wontae looked around.
It was clearly flat ground, yet the vegetation still grew thick and wild, with no sign that anyone lived here.
“So this is Heokryeonhyang?”
“Yeah. But it’s the outskirts, so we’re not really at the village proper yet. We still have to go a bit farther.”
“You want me to keep walking again…?”
Without bothering to answer, Ihyeon walked on ahead.
Baek Wontae ground his teeth.
From behind him, Ihwa said quietly, “At least there aren’t any traps now.”
“Haah—”
He trudged after Ihyeon’s back once more.
How long had they been walking?
At last, houses came into view.
The village was small and quiet.
In the early morning, the busy murmur of people preparing for the day drifted from one place to another.
Smoke curled up from chimneys.
A man stepped out through a gate, an axe in one hand and a carrying frame slung over his back.
Children came running out after him from the yard.
“Have a good day, Father!”
“Bring us lots of tasty things!”
The man laughed and waved.
“You little brats, if you listen to your mother, I’ll bring back sweets.”
“Yay!”
The children’s cheers filled the alley.
A happy scene.
A daily life that seemed only natural to anyone who saw it.
Baek Wontae’s expression, however, was far from good.
Something in his chest twisted and churned.
Like the moment the clan head had praised the children, that same uneasy sensation wrung his stomach.
In a place where the dawn air should have been pure and clear, he felt as though he couldn’t breathe.
“Hah… hah….”
Memories spilled through his mind.
A scream that tore at his ears.
A glass cup shattered to pieces.
A front door pounding again and again.
The memories tangled together and bled into one another like paint dumped onto a palette, each one invading the next.
Colors spread and blurred, until everything was stained black.
His vision was about to go dark—
“Hey.”
He jolted awake.
“Huh?”
“Aren’t you coming? Your face looks bad again.”
Her eyes were full of confusion.
Farther ahead, Ihyeon was waiting.
Baek Wontae shook his head.
“It’s nothing. Let’s go.”
“Okay.”
They started walking again.
The happy laughter faded behind them, and the dirt road stretched on.
Then a clear, bright voice rang out from the mouth of the alley.
“Ihyeon! Ahhwa!”
They turned, and a woman stood there waving with a radiant smile.
“Miss Im.”
“Sister Im.”
The siblings approached with obvious delight, but the woman’s expression quickly turned sullen.
“You’re really going to keep calling me that?”
“Uh….”
The siblings hurriedly corrected themselves.
“Hee, Heeseon.”
“Sister Heeseon….”
Heeseon folded her arms and sighed.
“Honestly. Ihyeon! We’ve known each other for years, and we’re the same age. How much longer are you going to act so stiff? I told you to speak casually, didn’t I?”
Ihyeon scratched his head, visibly flustered.
“Uh… yeah….”
Baek Wontae’s eyes widened.
He could get that awkward too?
This is pretty entertaining.
If he’d had popcorn, he would’ve started eating.
Heeseon quickly brightened and smiled again.
“You’re up and busy from first thing in the morning, I see. On your way to work?”
“Something like that.”
Her gaze shifted past the siblings.
There had been a mysterious man following them since before.
It was a face she’d never seen before.
Heeseon tilted her head and asked, “And this gentleman is…?”
So it had come to this.
The siblings desperately tried to come up with an answer.
“Th-this person is….”
“So….”
Complete failure.
Their lips moved, but nothing even remotely convincing came out.
They tried to lie, but the sentence refused to form.
And they couldn’t tell the truth, either.
They couldn’t exactly say he had dropped out of another world and was now selling sinister drugs.
At best, that would make him look like a lunatic.
At worst, they’d treat him like a heretic and report him to the authorities.
In the end, they choked on their words.
Caught in a crossfire where they could neither speak nor hide.
“Ha—”
Baek Wontae let out a sigh.
I’m the idiot for expecting any sense from these people.
He had expected the fools’ foolishness to make the woman suspicious of him.
In that case, this was a job for an experienced handler.
He cleared his throat to draw attention.
“Ahem, ahem.”
Then he shot a look at Ihyeon and raised his voice.
“Hey, weren’t you supposed to be handling the southern route through Sichuan? How long until the escort bureau? We came all the way out to this backwater on purpose, so don’t you dare miss the carriage. If that hurts the business, the responsibility is all yours. Time is money.”
The tone was obnoxious and arrogant, exactly like some disposable extra who’d be beaten down and kicked offstage by the hero the moment he appeared.
…??
The southern route through Sichuan?
Business?
Ihwa had no idea what was going on and could only roll her eyes in confusion.
Then—
Ihyeon, quick on the uptake, understood.
His intention.
A fraud built on hidden identity.
He was pretending to be a businessman from far away, wiping away Heeseon’s suspicion with a performance.
“Ah, yes! I’ll take you to the escort bureau right away.”
Ihyeon hurried forward to stand before Heeseon.
“Heeseon, I’m sorry. I’ve been busy with a guest request from outside, so I’m a little tied up. Let’s talk later.”
With the distance suddenly closed, she stared at his face and blinked.
Then she nodded in an absent daze.
“Oh… okay.”
Just as they were about to pass her by—
“Excuse me, sir.”
His steps stopped.
When he turned around, Heeseon’s clear eyes met his.
She said firmly, “I don’t know where you’re from or who you are, but even if you’re a guest, you should show some respect to the people you hire. These two are not the sort to be spoken down to so casually.”
Then she lowered her head.
“My apologies.”
For a moment, he was at a loss for words.
She bowed with such composure, then awkwardly started walking away.
As they walked, Ihyeon glanced back over his shoulder.
Far away, Heeseon was quietly waving.
Ihyeon hesitated, then nodded in return.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The group arrived at the village escort bureau.
Ihyeon had arranged the carriage, and soon enough it was rattling away toward Hamwon.
Inside the cramped carriage, Baek Wontae and the siblings sat facing one another.
Baek Wontae was the first to speak.
“Im… Heeseon, was it? Who was that woman just now?”
“Why are you asking?”
“Just felt a little… weird, that’s all.”
Baek Wontae’s eyes glinted with mischief.
“Your girlfriend?”
Rattle—bang—!!!
Ihyeon lurched in denial, and the carriage swayed violently.
The driver startled and called out, “W-what happened?”
Baek Wontae answered quickly, “Haha, nothing at all!”
Ihyeon sat back down, his face blazing red.
Baek Wontae teased him. “If it’s not that, then it’s not that. So… a thing?”
“What?”
“A th—”
Ihwa tilted her head and repeated him.
Baek Wontae grinned shamelessly.
“You know, like when two people are interested in each other but aren’t officially dating? Closer than friends, farther than lovers… that sort of thing.”
Ihyeon clenched his teeth and shut his eyes tight.
“Miss Im and I aren’t like that. She once happened to be gathering medicinal herbs in the forest, and I saved her from a tiger. That is all. Besides… to an ordinary woman, I’m nothing but a dangerous presence.”
“Really? I thought she was pretty nice.”
At that, the siblings’ eyes turned on him at the same time.
A murderous intent flared up all at once.
Cold sweat trickled down his back.
In this situation, it already felt like the knight of pure romance was about to burst in.
“H-hey, I didn’t mean it like that!”
He cleared his throat and spoke more calmly.
“She’s upright. She’s got backbone, and she says what’s on her mind without wavering. It’s the complete opposite of my own values, but… on a human level, I guess you could say that kind of thing is attractive.”
Baek Wontae looked straight at Ihyeon.
“So I think you’d suit each other well. You’ve teamed up with me, but your nature isn’t something I can change just by hanging around you forever. Someday, when everything is settled and you get to live your own life….”
He gave a sly smile and added,
“Think about it then.”
Ihyeon’s earlobes turned bright red.
“…You really do spout shameless nonsense without a second thought. Honestly, you’re vulgar beyond belief.”
“Honestly, Heeseon’s the one who’s too good for you.”
Ihyeon glared at him, and Ihwa looked away.
Baek Wontae laughed and changed the subject.
“By the way, the thing I said before we went to the escort bureau. Did that make any sense?”
Ihyeon nodded.
“Yeah. You mean inventing a lie on the spot. It was surprising. To make up a sentence immediately and act it out so naturally….”
Baek Wontae waved a hand and cut him off.
“Wrong.”
“…Huh?”
“Who asked for your impressions? I told you to analyze it, analyze it! And everything you just said was off.”
He leaned forward and walked them through every word one by one.
“Listen carefully.”
He repeated the line again.
“Hey, weren’t you supposed to be handling the southern route through Sichuan? How long until the escort bureau? We came all the way out to this backwater on purpose, so don’t you dare miss the carriage. If that hurts the business, the responsibility is all yours. Time is money.”
The carriage fell silent.
Baek Wontae crossed his arms and said, “Now, analyze it. What information is contained in this sentence, and how are the true and false parts mixed together? Roughly what percentage is lies?”
The siblings sank into deep thought.
Ihyeon folded his arms and closed his eyes, while Ihwa held her head in her hands.
In the rocking carriage, silence stretched out.
After a long, hard struggle—
Ihwa spoke.
“…I think I get it.”
“Yes, Dang Ihwa. And the answer is?”
“This sentence… is all true. There isn’t a single lie in it.”
Slyly—
Baek Wontae’s mouth curved upward.
“Flexible thinking, huh? Correct.”
Ihyeon narrowed his eyes.
“What? What are you talking about? You were saying that White Night... to source materials and distribution channels in Hamwon for the circulation of goods—”
Then enlightenment struck him like a blow to the head.
Ah!
“This is Baek Wontae’s sample-analysis lecture time.”
He held up his fingers and began ticking them off one by one.
“‘Handling the southern route through Sichuan.’ Where is Hamwon? In southern Sichuan. So what you’re doing, broadly speaking, really is handling the southern route through Sichuan.”
“‘Escort bureau.’ That was the road we were already going to take. That’s completely true too.”
“‘We came all the way out to this backwater.’ You came from, what, five or six hundred years in the future? That means you really did come from far away.”
Ihyeon stiffened.
Baek Wontae continued as if nothing were wrong.
“‘Don’t you dare miss the carriage. If that hurts the business, the responsibility is all yours.’ That’s a clause that was even in the contract, right? If the Dang family’s mistake causes trouble for the business, the responsibility falls entirely on the Dang family. If you dragged out your conversation with Miss Im and the escort bureau happened to close because of it, or if you accidentally revealed my identity? It would activate immediately.”
He curled his lips.
“And finally, ‘time is money.’ Benjamin Franklin. A timeless quote. Well, that part doesn’t really matter.”
The carriage went quiet.
“Now do you understand?”
“You mean you guided the situation exactly how you wanted without actually lying… more precisely, you chose the facts.”
“Ding-ding-ding~ 100 points.”
He said it with utter composure.
“Sloppy lies that you can’t even handle yourself only end up strangling your own neck. If that’s the case, just slice off the useless parts and use the truth instead. Then at least you’ve got confidence in what you’re saying, and the other side can’t doubt you. Why? Because everything that came out of your mouth was true.”
Baek Wontae’s eyes gleamed.
“Of course, handling accusations and mixing lies into the truth is a matter of skill. But I just showed you the most basic level of eloquence and taught you how it works… so from here on out, it’s your turn.”
He folded his arms and leaned back.
“Honesty is enough when it’s just between us. In this world, survival depends on how well you can move your mouth. So practice a lot. You’ll be better off getting used to it quickly.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to be as shameless as you.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
When the lecture ended, silence settled over the carriage again.
The siblings’ thoughts only became more tangled.
Ihwa’s eyes trembled.
Cutting off the facts… that’s still deception. It might actually be even more evil than lying outright.
I was prepared for this, but… he’s leading us deeper into the abyss. If I have to throw away everything I’ve learned until now, just how far down the heretic path will I end up walking?
Ihyeon clenched his fists and shut his eyes.
Like a wave, Baek Wontae’s words crashed through his mind.
They were being swept away by that tide, drifting ever deeper into Baek Wontae’s world.
—