Don't Jump!! (3)
A merchant caravan…
At the unexpected appearance of such a group, I focused on the conversation around me.
"Looks like they ran into some serious trouble, doesn't it?"
"Had to be! They were hauling goods all the way to the Central Plains — of course they'd load up as much as they could in one trip!"
"True enough. Just moving that much costs a fortune. So, how long are they supposed to stay?"
"Until they find a new route, from the sound of it. Though… they'll probably leave within a fortnight, won't they?"
"Then we can't just sit around. We'd better get ready."
"Ready for what?"
"To squeeze every last coin we can out of those high-and-mighty merchants! Clean rooms, pick wild greens — whatever it takes to open up a way to make money!"
"H-hey! Wait for me!"
The Central Plains…
A merchant caravan bound for China was about to arrive in this village.
Was this truly pure coincidence?
…I didn't think so.
To be precise, I suspected these merchants were one of the parties from the tale of Sim Cheong.
Three hundred seok of rice isn't a quantity ordinary people ever lay eyes on.
Three hundred seok… that was a fortune large enough to buy five to ten tile-roofed houses like the one Kongji had lived in.
That was why, in the original story, Cheong had been unable to raise the money and sacrificed her life instead.
The only people who could produce that kind of massive capital and goods in a single stroke were merchants.
Landlords and yangban might be wealthy, but they couldn't liquidate money nearly as fast as those who dealt in commerce. That much seemed safe to assume.
Which means… the reason those merchants were willing to offer Cheong three hundred seok was… because the place where the accident happened was Indangsu!
The moment I thought it, the pieces in my head clicked into place.
Yes. That was exactly it.
An accident had already occurred at Indangsu, and the merchants — mistaking it for the Dragon King's wrath — had intended to offer Cheong as a sacrifice.
And Cheong, who needed the enormous sum of three hundred seok to restore her father Sim Bongsa's sight, had accepted their proposal.
At last, the scattered gaps in the information felt like they were filling in.
But one crucial piece still remained.
Who was it that offered to heal Sim Bongsa's eyes?
As things stood now, even if the merchants arrived, Cheong had no reason to accept their terms.
Because she had never received any offer to cure her father's blindness.
Of course, as poor as she was, a promise of a huge sum would give her pause… but she wasn't so desperate that she would throw away her own life for it.
Which left only one conclusion.
Before the merchants reach the village, that proposer is highly likely to appear.
The ones who would hand over three hundred seok and drive Cheong toward death were merely supporting players. The real key was the person who made the offer.
I still hadn't decided how I would intervene in this original story.
But I knew one thing.
No matter how events unfolded, Cheong would move to restore her father Sim Bongsa's sight.
In that case… shouldn't I act in a way that lightened the burden she would have to carry?
A short while later, before returning to Cheong's house, I stopped by the tavern and asked whether any peddler was heading toward Kongji's village.
"There is one, sir."
"I'd like an introduction."
I handed over a few coins as I spoke, and the tavern keeper smiled and led me to the peddler.
"You asked for me, sir?"
"I'd like to entrust a letter to you. I hear you'll be passing through that village?"
"That's right. For a while the place had a grim reputation among peddlers, so I stayed away — but word is it's settled down again recently. Happens to be a shortcut, so I figured I'd stop by."
Even outsiders seemed to have noticed the changes in Kongji's village.
I drew from my robes the letter I had been keeping for several days and held it out.
"Deliver this to a young woman named Choi Kongji in that village."
"Understood."
I wasn't worried about him vanishing with it.
Joseon had a kind of network linking taverns together.
I didn't know the trade inside and out, but there was even a promissory-note system roughly on the level of a modern debit card, and I had used it a few times myself.
Because of that, if a tavern hostess or keeper arranged a job and someone skipped out or pulled a scam, using other taverns afterward became extremely difficult.
Whether that's unique to this world's Joseon or how it actually worked, I have no way of knowing.
Either way, I had never taken a serious loss on tavern-related business so far.
More importantly — I'm finally sending a letter to Kongji.
I had promised to write as often as messengers were available, but Kongji's village was so remote and had such a bad reputation that even after stopping through several towns, finding anyone headed that way had been nearly impossible.
Being able to send one now was a relief, though counting the travel time, it would still arrive rather late.
…She won't be waiting on my letter, will she?
She was probably so busy with farming and household work that she barely had time to think about it.
"…Cheong should be finishing up her work around now."
Cheong went out to sea at dawn, and by afternoon she would take her catch to the market.
She spent the better part of the day selling what she had caught, then returned home around sunset.
So somewhere not far from the tavern, she would be sitting with a mat spread out, doing business…
"Sea bream for sale! Abalone too, and oysters!"
"Hmm. Quality looks decent enough… Think you could come down a little on the price?"
"Pardon? But if I go any lower…"
"Come now, isn't the sea wind cold today? You may not know this, but on days like this we take losses on our end as well. Do you have any idea how much salt it costs to haul fish inland without it spoiling?"
"Ah…"
"Tell you what — I'll take the whole lot for ten pun. How about it? That's me meeting you more than halfway."
"T-ten whole pun? That works for me…!"
"…What?"
Hearing Cheong's words, I could only doubt my own ears.
I may never have seen the ocean before, but I was not ignorant of seafood market prices.
Back when I was studying for the exams, I had worn out my shoes learning economics from merchants. I could claim a fair grasp of the subject.
And yet… the price range she was discussing with that merchant was clearly wrong.
Three large abalone, one plump sea bream, and a big sack of oysters and seaweed — for ten pun?
Was this man insane?
That price wasn't even close.
The three large abalone alone were easily worth ten pun in copper coins.
Add the sea bream, oysters, and seaweed on top of that?
All together, four to five jeon — forty to fifty pun — was a perfectly reasonable figure.
Which meant that merchant had lowballed her by a full factor of four.
But the bigger problem… was Cheong's sense of economics.
This wasn't a matter of lacking business acumen. She had none at all.
She doesn't even have the basics of trade down.
It was an unkind thought, but I suddenly understood why someone with such extraordinary swimming and diving skill was still dirt poor.
She knew how to catch fish. She had no idea how to sell them properly. Of course the money never accumulated.
"Here, then — count it carefully."
"One, two…"
"No need to count to three or four. Hand it back."
I snatched the coins from Cheong's hand and the sack from the merchant as I spoke.
"Wh-what? Sir?"
"W-who do you think you are, barging in like this?!"
"A passing scholar who couldn't stand watching injustice and came to pick a fight."
I said it with a sigh, looking at Cheong with undisguised exasperation.
She had enough pride to glare back at me with a faintly defiant look.
"What are you looking so pleased about? You don't even realize you're being fleeced by this merchant right now."
"…Excuse me?"
"What kind of outrageous accusation is that! Fleeced?! I offered a fair price—!"
"Listen here. Do you truly mean that? Then I'll go buy the same goods from someone else at that exact price right now. And if I can purchase the whole lot at that rate, I'll turn around and sell it all to you for half."
"Wh-what?"
"Do you really think I don't know what these are worth? Unlike this pure young woman who only knows how to catch fish."
"P-pure…?!"
Realizing she was being teased, Cheong's cheeks flushed bright red.
"So either put up the proper price, or get lost."
"And just who do you think you are to—!"
"I'm this woman's husband. Satisfied?"
"…Excuse me? S-sir…?!"
"H-husband?"
"A husband entrusts his wife with selling the fish, and she's been selling them at prices like this — no wonder she can't make money even when she brings in the plumpest catch! Listen carefully, wife. Are you paying attention?"
"Urgh…!"
Any further and her face looked ready to explode from sheer redness, so I stopped teasing her.
"What's it going to be? You're a merchant yourself — you can tell the quality is good. I trust you understand that a fair price still leaves you with a profit."
"…Fine! I was in the wrong! But next time, if you deal with me again—!"
Even then he tried to negotiate, so I took the money, ran him off, and handed the coin pouch to Cheong.
"You nearly sold a full day's hard work for pocket change. Be more careful."
"…I have a lot I'd like to say right now! But I should say this first. …Thank you for helping me."
"That thanks is more than enough. But you really didn't know the prices of the things you've been selling all this time?"
"…Father's eyes are so bad that I figured even if I took a bit of a loss, I should get home as quickly as possible. But I never imagined it would be that bad…"
What a touching display of filial devotion.
But she had thought about it so much that the thinking itself had become the problem.
If I didn't teach her properly, she would keep getting fleeced long after I was gone.
…Wait.
Then why not just give Cheong an economics education?
Right now, Cheong was extremely insensitive to pricing.
That meant later, when she was asked for three hundred seok as payment, she would only think of it as impossibly expensive — and never consider negotiating.
And her father Sim Bongsa was almost certainly the same.
If I taught the two of them this kind of knowledge… a great many things would improve, and money — one of the root problems — might be solved to some degree.
"Cheong. Would you be interested in studying under me?"
"Studying… you mean?"
"That's right. If you don't want a repeat of what just happened, learning is the best remedy. And I can teach you."
Cheong's eyes wavered slightly.
She seemed tempted.
"But I don't have any time…"
"After work, after looking after your father, a short lesson right before bed would be more than enough."
"In that case…"
Cheong lifted her head, lowered it again, fidgeted with her toes, and twirled a strand of hair around her finger before speaking.
"…Please take care of me."
And so, following in Kongji's footsteps, I took on my second disciple.