Journey to Yunnan with the Escort Agency - 2
Escort Agency!
Most people tend to think of an escort agency as nothing more than a delivery service that hauls cargo from one place to another. In truth, an escort agency is a business that combines transportation, insurance, and security into a single enterprise.
Why would anyone entrust their goods to an escort agency in the first place? Because the agency can take responsibility when something goes wrong—damage, theft, or any other mishap along the road. Some agencies go beyond simple compensation and even offer insurance benefits. Lose the cargo, fail the escort run, or miss the delivery deadline, and they will reimburse you for more than the original value of the goods.
For a merchant, simply recovering the cost of the merchandise is never enough if the shipment never arrives or never leaves. And, as in the case of the request I had filed, escort agencies also take payment to guarantee a traveler’s safe passage.
Running an escort agency, therefore, requires a level of strength that most mid-sized sects could never hope to match. To open one, you need at least a solid reputation, plus collateral sufficient to cover the value of the goods you accept. On top of that you need the manpower and equipment to actually move those goods. Even meeting the bare minimum to hang out a sign that reads “Escort Agency” is no small feat.
Which meant that being the son of the master of a thriving outfit like the Yunnan Escort Agency was the very definition of a golden spoon.
Ha Seon-su was dressed head to toe in silk that looked ruinously expensive. The outfit might have shone at a high-class pleasure house or a formal invitation, but for a man about to set out on an escort run all the way to Yunnan, the flashy getup screamed “spoiled young master” louder than any words.
Black Cat gave a silent, curt nod. The refusal was unmistakable, yet the man paid it no mind and kept talking.
“To think a delicate young lady such as yourself must ride in a rough cargo wagon… it pains this Ha’s heart. Why not transfer to the carriage I am riding?”
“Haha, my apologies, great hero, but my younger sister is rather shy around strangers. I’m afraid it would be difficult.”
Black Cat and I were traveling under false identities—just ordinary travelers. The safest cover we could invent was that of blood siblings. Calling ourselves mere companions felt too thin; calling ourselves lovers felt far too dangerous for me.
“Ah, I see… And what is your name, elder brother?”
“Forgive the late introduction. I am Geum Bu-san.”
Whenever I need an alias I simply borrow city names. Kim plus Busan becomes Geum Bu-san; Black Cat’s current alias is Geum Seoul. There is no deep reason for it—life just has a way of forcing you to hide your real name. If you have to invent one on the spot, the silence while you scramble for something sounds suspicious. Seoul, Daejeon, Daegu, Busan… a whole ready-made list of aliases rolls right off the tongue. How convenient is that?
“Hahaha. Is that so? Should either of you feel the slightest discomfort, simply say the word and I shall see to the young lady’s convenience at once.”
“Ah, yes. Thank you.”
Ha Seon-su kept glancing at Black Cat with almost obsessive intensity, clearly hoping to hear her voice, but she answered only with silence. His eyebrows twitched once—his mood had soured a little—yet he soon forced a smile and returned to his gaudy carriage.
“Hmm…”
The situation did not look promising. Travelers usually flock to an escort run, so I had expected a decent crowd. Instead it was just the two of us. A few extra pairs of eyes would have been useful whenever that Ha Seon-su started making unreasonable demands.
“This is going to be a nuisance,” Black Cat said evenly.
“Ha Seon-su of the Namhaeng Escort Agency is a notorious wastrel in Sichuan. I doubt he will give up easily.”
“Hmm. Should we just leave?”
“Let’s go as far as we can for now.”
Enduring the discomfort was Black Cat’s burden, so I decided to follow her lead.
“If it becomes unbearable, tell me right away.”
“I’m fine. Men like him attach themselves no matter where I go.”
“Mm.”
Apparently living as a beauty was more tiring than it looked.
Black Cat had swapped her usual black bamboo hat for one with a proper brim. The millennia-old weapon’s face veil she normally wore had been reshaped and now hung from the edge of the hat. It looked far more comfortable, so I asked why she never did it this way before. She said the view was too restricted. Since she could not openly circulate Shadow Image Qi Gong, this was her next-best option.
She gave my shoulder a light tap.
“Elder Brother Geum, why don’t you tell me a little about what happened at the Tang Clan?”
She giggled and spoke in a soft, coaxing tone, clearly trying to salvage the mood Ha Seon-su had ruined. I put on a solemn face and played along.
“Ahem. Did I not say it was confidential?”
“What secret could there possibly be that you cannot share with your own sister? Come now, tell me.”
I snorted. Her little-sister act was surprisingly good.
“Very well. Will you swear to keep it secret?”
“Would I go around gossiping about family business? Now stop stalling and open the story pouch~”
I could not talk about the Tang Clan head’s affairs, but stories about riding the Bicheon Carriage or about Tang Ryeo-ah would do no harm.
“Do you remember the carriage we rode when we parted ways last time?”
“Hoo…”
Yeo Il-ye exhaled and raced along the mountain path. After breaking through to the Super-Peak Realm, the vast internal energy she now possessed burned without restraint; every time her foot touched the ground her body shot forward in a long, fluid glide.
I never imagined it would drag on this long.
The journey to Yunnan was stretching far beyond her expectations. Paying her benefactor for the sword was secondary; she had been away from her sect so long that the Diancang Sect must already be growing worried.
To think the Poison Doctor would visit Hyeongwi Mountain…
Fate had a twisted sense of humor.
Upon reaching Hyeongwi Mountain, Yeo Il-ye had immediately climbed to inspect the bandit stronghold, only to find the gates sealed shut and the bandits standing an uncharacteristically airtight watch. After a full day of distant observation she confirmed there was no high-level expert inside. While combing the mountain for the reason, she ran straight into Poison Doctor Tang Cheo-in.
The moment she saw him she understood everything. The Poison Doctor had set up a temporary residence inside Gaewang Stronghold’s territory, and Mak Yeo-bu had fled in terror. Yeo Il-ye herself had no way of dealing with the Poison Doctor, so she could only withdraw and wait. After consulting with Jeon Hu-dam they divided the work: she would stay at the nearest inn and watch the stronghold’s movements, while he left to discover where Mak Yeo-bu had gone to ground.
Even the “nearest” inn was a full day’s walk for an ordinary person; for Yeo Il-ye, with her immense internal energy, it still required more than two hours of hard light-body technique and a good deal of sweat.
She reached her usual observation post overlooking Gaewang Stronghold and caught her breath.
Something has changed.
Having watched the place for so long, she immediately noticed the reduced numbers. The drop was too sharp to be a simple thinning of the watch.
For bandits, they held out quite a while.
She had been observing the stronghold for over a week. She had no idea when the Poison Doctor had first settled on Hyeongwi Mountain, so the bandits had been holding their breath for at least that long.
At last the change had come.
“Mak Yeo-bu.”
Once a stronghold resumed activity, its chief had to be present. Yeo Il-ye watched Gaewang Stronghold with the patient eyes of a fisherman waiting for the float to dip.
I had never heard the full story of why Black Cat wrapped her face so tightly. I did not need an explanation for the veil and the bangs, either. One look at her bearing and the thought arrived unbidden: With that kind of presence, the face underneath simply cannot be ordinary. From there it was only a short step to She must be beautiful enough that leaving her face uncovered would cause a riot.
As a modern man my resistance to that sort of expectation is extremely high. Streamers who look impossibly gorgeous turn out to be the product of absurd filters. Photos of “stunning beauties” without makeup circulate and shatter illusions. A lifetime of modern living is basically a continuous education in disappointment. After enough cycles of hope and letdown, expectation itself stops rising.
Of course those are merely the reasons I can stay calm while traveling with Black Cat. The fact that she covers her face is her private business. She does not want to show it, so I respect that and leave it alone.
Black Cat had said men like Ha Seon-su latched onto her no matter where she went. She meant it literally.
She was sweeping up every gaze in the inn. The escort agency’s warriors were stationed around us like bodyguards, so the attention stayed at the level of stares; if the two of us had walked in alone, several men would already have approached.
I was a little stunned. Even with the veil and ordinary clothes, this much notice… was that normal?
Across both my previous life and this one I had never spent time walking around with someone that beautiful, so I had no baseline for whether the current situation was ordinary or not.
When I looked awkward amid the surrounding atmosphere, Black Cat calmly picked up a dumpling and said,
“I told you. It’s the same everywhere. Look over there.”
I followed the tilt of her chin. A man who had been face-down on his table hurriedly sat up. Come to think of it, Jeong Sam and Yeo Jinsang had done the exact same thing the first time Black Cat appeared.
“Even if we left because Ha Seon-su was going to be a nuisance and came here instead, those people would still have approached and made themselves a nuisance.”
“Mm…”
Her nonchalance told me that this kind of attention was simply daily life for her. To me it felt absurd, but it was not incomprehensible. When I first started as a Sichuan vagabond the hostile stares had been a mental shock; now I found a strange comfort in them.
“Hahahaha! Are you both resting comfortably?”
Black Cat’s words were realistic, yet something about them stuck in my throat like a fishbone. I was still turning them over when the sucker appeared.
Without asking permission he plopped himself down at the table we had claimed. The thick perfume of someone who had just bathed in scented powder made my nose itch.
“Hahaha! On such a tiring journey, how can you eat so poorly? Waiter! Bring the five most expensive dishes the cook can make!”
“Yes, young master! Right away!”
The waiter scurried off to fulfill an order that made me doubt my own ears.
Not the five most delicious dishes—the five most expensive. In the eight years of Ho Cheon-an’s life I had never heard such a sucker’s food order.
After hearing that imperial-style demand with my own two ears, Ha Seon-su stopped looking like a sucker and started looking like a walking gold mine.
This…
Instead of despising the wastrel, maybe I should carefully fleece him. We might eat and drink like kings all the way to Yunnan.
No. No, no.
Black Cat might be suffering; what am I thinking? If this gold mine—no, this sucker—keeps leering beside her, how uncomfortable will she be?
“I once had the honor of meeting Young Master Tang Do-gyeong of the Tang Clan,” Black Cat said.
“Oh, ohhh. Is that so?”
Hearing her voice for the first time, Ha Seon-su brightened instantly.
“Young Master, you give off a similar feeling to Young Master Tang Do-gyeong. Don’t you think so, Elder Brother?”
“Heh, heh… Do you really think so?”
“Don’t you agree, Elder Brother?”
Was this what I thought it was? I opened my mouth to confirm her meaning.
“You mean the same feeling as the Tang Do-gyeong we saw that day in the marketplace—in ‘that’ condition?”
“Yes, Elder Brother. Exactly that day. That bold, spirited look.”
In front of the Golden Family estate, Black Cat had once called Tang Do-gyeong a sucker for staking blood-jade on the gambling table I had set up. I had insisted it was a perfectly legitimate wager, not a trap designed to catch suckers.
“Haha.”
Well now.
“To tell the truth, I felt the same way about Young Master Ha from the very first glance.”
The journey to Yunnan was going to be comfortable after all.
Because our sucker—no, the legitimate heir of the Great Namhaeng Escort Agency, the great hero Ha Seon-su—would be traveling with us, gold and all.
Let’s strip him down to his underclothes and feast like kings.
Black Cat quietly raised a thumb. I raised mine in return.
“Hahahaha! The two of you are painting my face with far too much gold!”
Completely unaware of our true thoughts, Ha Seon-su laughed with pure delight. I laughed just as heartily.
It was the beginning of a happy journey for all of us.
