Yunnan Journey with the Escort Agency - 5
What am I even doing...
Heukmyo had been moping alone at a distance when she saw the escorts and porters bustling about in preparation for departure, and so she started walking. She was still thoroughly confused about how she ought to treat Ho Cheon-an, and every returning step felt unbearably heavy.
“Seoul, you came back right on time. I was starting to worry you’d be late!”
Heukmyo gave a silent nod and climbed onto the luggage cart.
“All the passengers are here, so we’ll be off!”
Head Escort Ga Gil-yeom’s drained command rang out, and the escort journey resumed once more.
“Seoul.”
At Ho Cheon-an’s call, Heukmyo turned her head. The motion was so awkward it almost seemed to creak, and Ho Cheon-an clicked his tongue. He had no idea why she was in that state, but he still needed to fill her in on the conversation with Ga Gil-yeom.
“So earlier, what happened was...”
Heukmyo simply opened her ears and listened. As she heard about everything that had taken place with Ga Gil-yeom during the two hours she had been gone, she found herself unconsciously leaning closer toward Ho Cheon-an.
“So I said, ‘What direct descendant of an escort agency rides out on a journey in a fancy carriage wearing silk clothes? Hahahaha! If there were such a young master, he’d either be completely insane or an unimaginable wastrel!’ and Head Escort Ga Gil-yeom’s face... Ah, you really should have seen it.”
Heukmyo giggled. Ho Cheon-an pretended not to notice her reaction and continued laying out everything that had happened while she was away.
“So now, even if we stop at an inn and freeload a huge meal, Ga Gil-yeom is in no position to say a word about it.”
Heukmyo laughed and realized her worries had been completely useless. She still couldn’t quite get a handle on how to treat Ho Cheon-an, yet it was exactly as he had said the day before.
Talk things through, understand each other’s thoughts, and if something comes up, coordinate.
So that’s it... Yeah... I just needed to do that.
Listening to Ho Cheon-an’s story brought laughter and admiration at the same time. While Heukmyo had been completely preoccupied with the distance between them, Ho Cheon-an had been steadily laying the groundwork to freeload off Ha Seon-su.
“I’m sorry.”
“...Huh?”
“It was something I suggested, yet I did nothing and only Senior had to work hard.”
“Hmm... well, that’s true enough. Then from now on, shall we discuss and plan the operation together?”
Heukmyo chuckled and shifted her hips. The physical distance to Ho Cheon-an had grown closer. Somehow the distance in her heart seemed to have narrowed by just as much, and a smile rose on its own.
“Okay. For the next day or two we’ll probably be camping, so while we’re chewing on dry rations, shall we act a little dejected?”
“Oh... that’s not bad. Then...”
Talking with Ho Cheon-an, Heukmyo gradually learned how to be together with him.
Together with Heukmyo, we set about freeloading off Ha Seon-su.
That evening, when Ha Seon-su came around, we made sure he saw Heukmyo nibbling dry rations, and so at the next inn we stopped at we were treated to a truly abundant feast.
“Miss, eat plenty.”
Heukmyo literally inhaled the food. Ha Seon-su watched with a satisfied expression, then ordered alcohol.
“Waiter! What’s the good liquor here?”
“I’ll bring Shaoxing wine!”
“Ahem! Ahem!”
Ga Gil-yeom coughed loudly. I turned my head to an angle Ha Seon-su couldn’t see, then winked at Ga Gil-yeom and mouthed, Got it.
“Young Master Ha Seon-su. Wouldn’t it be better to abstain from alcohol today?”
“Come now, Busan. How can liquor be missing from such a fine occasion?”
“But even on today’s escort journey... Wouldn’t it be better simply to enjoy the food today?”
I trailed off ambiguously. A faintly uncomfortable look settled on Ha Seon-su’s face—exactly when Heukmyo cut in at the perfect moment.
“Seeing Young Master suffer from a hangover made me feel uneasy. Rather than forcing yourself when you’re weak to alcohol, how about abstaining?”
Ha Seon-su’s face lit up at the long-missed sound of Heukmyo’s voice, then flushed red.
Taken at face value, Heukmyo’s words were nothing more than concern for his condition. But how would Ha Seon-su—who fancied himself a free-spirited pleasure-seeker, a man who knew how to have fun—hear them? He had just been told, in front of a woman, that he was weak to alcohol.
His pride was bound to take a hard hit.
“Waiter! Ten bottles of Shaoxing wine!”
“Oh no, Young Master! Just enjoy the food today.”
“No! I was simply in poor condition yesterday! I am originally someone who drinks Shaoxing wine like water!”
In truth, the alcohol content of Shaoxing wine is a little higher than or roughly equal to soju. So right now Ha Seon-su was claiming he normally drank soju by the crate. Pure bravado. Even so, his current state wasn’t enough to knock him out cold with Shaoxing wine alone.
Judging by how he looked, he was probably only at medium intoxication.
I tapped the table to signal Heukmyo.
“Young Master, you really shouldn’t overdo it...”
In a situation like this, a woman’s dissuasion was practically fanning the flames of a burning house. If he hadn’t started showing off in the first place it might have been different, but once the bravado was out there, backing down now? Impossible.
Hearing Heukmyo’s words, Ha Seon-su thrashed about as if water had been poured into boiling oil.
“What are you doing not bringing the liquor already!”
“Oh my, Young Master, coming right up!”
Before the waiter could even set the bottles down, Ha Seon-su snatched them up and started chugging straight from the neck. Ga Gil-yeom had already sensed the future that was about to unfold and hung his head low.
And the single future Ga Gil-yeom foresaw continued without a single branching point. Ha Seon-su became a runaway train, chugging every bottle of Shaoxing wine the moment it appeared.
And the result?
“Guh!”
He collapsed leaving only a death cry, in a posture exactly like a loyal subject drinking poison.
“...Attend to the Young Master.”
By that point we had already chewed, torn, tasted, and thoroughly enjoyed the food laid out until the table legs nearly broke.
I opened my greasy mouth and offered Ga Gil-yeom an apologetic look.
“Oh my, Head Escort, I’m sorry. I did my absolute best, but...”
Heukmyo hung her head in a dejected act as well. Unable to scold her in front of Heukmyo, Ga Gil-yeom simply waved his hand.
His expression said he had a great deal he wanted to say, yet having watched the entire situation unfold right beside us, he couldn’t bring himself to blame the two of us. On the surface we had faithfully tried to stop Ha Seon-su; it was Ha Seon-su himself who had rejected our dissuasion and gone wild.
We pretended to be crestfallen, went into the room, then faced each other and laughed. Heukmyo raised a thumb, so I shook my head.
“At times like this, you do it like this.”
I held out my hand. Heukmyo held out hers as well. My palm smacked against hers with a sharp clap.
“Oh!”
Heukmyo seemed to like the high-five; she smacked hands a few more times before she was satisfied and went to bed.
Heukmyo’s strange behavior had vanished, our pockets were exactly as they had been before departure, and our bellies were full.
The Yunnan journey was smooth.
Hyeongwi Mountain was roughly two weeks away by escort journey.
The Hyeongwi Mountain we were aiming for was not the final destination of the Namhaeng Escort Agency. Journeys like this typically wound all through Yunnan delivering goods, linked up with other local escort agencies to take on new consignments, wandered various places, and only then finally returned home.
Ga Gil-yeom, who had resented us for making Ha Seon-su collapse, pushed me forward and arranged drinking sessions with the young master.
Inns could not appear every day or two, and once Ha Seon-su woke from the alcohol he would pick faults with the porters and escorts and yell at them in an effort to look cool in front of Heukmyo, driving the atmosphere of the journey to rock bottom.
“Kek!”
“Gack!”
And so Ha Seon-su ended up fainting with a death cry at every inn we stopped at, after which we leisurely enjoyed the food that had been laid out once he was carried off to his room.
By the time we parted ways we had become the sort who cleared Ha Seon-su out early, shared the food with the escorts, and traded simple magic performances back and forth.
The spreads were regularly more than ten servings; eating just the two of us felt awkward, so we ate with the escort agency people, and as a bit of consolation for the escorts and porters tormented by Ha Seon-su we showed one or two magic tricks each. Before we knew it, that was simply how things were.
“Hehe, thanks to Miss Geum and Brother Geum Busan, we came along quite comfortably.”
Ga Gil-yeom looked at me and Heukmyo with an expression dripping with lingering attachment, as if he truly regretted parting from us—the excellent freeloaders off Ha Seon-su, or rather, the excellent suppressors.
No, the way he focused on me suggested he particularly regretted no longer being able to watch the magic performances.
“Yes. Please give Young Master Ha my regards.”
Ha Seon-su, who just yesterday had left a honey-badger-like death cry before collapsing and being loaded onto the carriage. Ga Gil-yeom simply sighed.
After a round of farewells with the escorts and porters we had grown close to through days of magic performances and shared meals, we stayed behind at the inn while the Namhaeng Escort Agency resumed its journey.
“Senior, you’ve gained a lot of weight.”
“Wow. You’re right.”
Gaining weight during travel is truly not easy. On a luggage-cart journey like this there is little activity, yet the food tends to be poor. On long journeys you do not lose weight from exercise so much as from the body simply wearing down—yet we had eaten and played so well that we had fattened up completely like winter yellow croakers.
Heukmyo was a master and had only eaten food, but I had put away plenty of side dishes along with the alcohol needed to handle Ha Seon-su, so in a mere two weeks my belly fat was already plump.
“Then now we really have to go meet the Poison Doctor.”
Last night I had even circulated energy for the first time in a while and refined my condition to the best possible state. The weight had gone up, yet the body itself was optimal.
We set our steps toward Hyeongwi Mountain.