Monopolizing Fortunes (1)
Monopolizing Fortunes (1)
It was a night of thick, falling snow.
Clunk! Tap! Clunk! Tap!
Across the freshly settling snow, two tracks stretched long—one shaped like a shoe, the other dotted with round marks.
One man, yet leaving two different footprints. Do Tong-dal walked slowly through the darkened streets.
"Haaah—! Haaah—!"
White breath scattered like ice in the freezing night, but Do Tong-dal felt no cold.
It was the drink, and the thick coat of regret he had wrapped around himself. Today, especially so.
Sixty years of remorseful memories leaped out like frogs breaking through ice.
If he hadn't gone to the fixer office back then, if he hadn't gone to prison in Jo Pyeong-sang's place, if he hadn't been sentenced to penal military service—then below his knees would be his own legs, not wooden pegs.
Clunk! Tap! Clunk! Tap!
'I had a chance to save Wang Chil, too.'
The man who had survived forty years in the perilous underworld. The only person who had warmly embraced Do Tong-dal when he returned a cripple.
Wang Chil had died because of Do Tong-dal. He had recklessly shielded him, drawn resentment, and taken a blade for it.
Regret for the things he hadn't done, remorse for the things he had—they piled up in his chest like the falling snow, layer by layer.
He knew. He knew what the greatest regret of his life was.
'I should have gotten it back then. I should have gotten it—not that bastard Jang Jeong-baek.'
There had clearly been a chance to live like an emperor here in Hangzhou, the heaven on earth.
That day, that moment, that road—if only he had passed through it instead of Jang Jeong-baek, it would have been Do Tong-dal's.
Futile regret.
Shff, scrape. Shff, scrape.
His knees were half-bent and the wooden peg dragged along the ground. The road ahead was long, but his legs weren't strong enough to bear his growing weight.
If he had to go, he could go further. While serving his penal military sentence, he had once crawled ten li across a battlefield with his intestines dragging behind him.
Back then, he'd had a will to live hotter than the sweltering heat of the Southern Barbarians. Back then, he truly had.
The hope of escaping the worm-like existence at the bottom of the thug world and living splendidly like an emperor had kept him moving.
'I should have just died there. I should have left my life on that battlefield, not my legs.'
Do Tong-dal had never escaped that worm-like place in his entire life.
Clack!
The wooden peg slipped as he stepped, rolling across the ground. Do Tong-dal, instinctively trying to stand, stopped moving.
To survive here, he'd have to crawl like a worm again today. He wanted to end this worthless life now.
He lay down facing the sky, and it felt as though all the snow in the world was falling only on him.
"Good weather to die in."
* * *
He wasn't certain, but it felt like he'd been struck on the back of the head. Either way, thanks to that, Do Tong-dal jolted awake.
"You little shit, spacing out and napping in the office on your very first day!"
A grating, metallic voice made his head throb.
"You bastard! Snap out of it, now!"
Do Tong-dal turned his head. A broad face that four palms couldn't seem to cover, with a protruding belly—he felt like he'd seen it somewhere before.
'Where am I?'
He had been buried in snow, waiting for death, certain he would die. After a lifetime of suffering, he'd thought he was at least blessed with an easy death.
But he was alive. Not in the afterlife, not in a physician's care—he had awakened in a place he couldn't recognize at all.
"The boss will be here soon, so clean up fast!"
Do Tong-dal reflexively caught the broom the broad-faced man threw at him.
He'd been about to snap, 'You bastard! Were you raised by wolves?' If it hadn't been for his own right leg, which he saw when he missed the broom, he would have shouted exactly that.
"Huh?"
It wasn't a gaunt wooden peg. It was unmistakably a whole, sound leg. It looked that way, and when he lifted his foot and stomped the floor, it felt that way too.
The miracle wasn't just that his leg was whole. The hand he'd reached out to catch the broom was smooth and firm, without a single wrinkle—like a teenager's.
"Look at him standing there like an idiot! Want me to beat you until dust flies with that broom?"
The name of the broad-faced man suddenly came back to him.
'Jo Pyeong-do!'
It was ages ago, but the memory returned quickly because this was the bastard who had tormented him especially badly.
'But why does Jo Pyeong-do have that face? This is just like when we first met.......'
His thoughts reaching that point, Do Tong-dal dashed to the mirror hanging on the office wall.
The face reflected in the cheap mirror was young. Beyond young—it was boyish. Late teens at best?
Do Tong-dal pinched his cheek. It felt firm and springy under his fingers, and it hurt too.
'Is this real?'
Through the mirror, he could see Jo Pyeong-do glaring at him. Do Tong-dal turned his head and asked.
"Are you really that Gwang-bastard Jo Pyeong-do?"
It was Jo Pyeong-do's nickname, shortened from "Gwanghwa-ro bastard." Naturally, it wasn't a nickname Jo Pyeong-do could possibly like.
"Wh-what? You little shit, you've picked today to die!"
He wasn't beaten to death. But he was beaten thoroughly enough to hurt. His face swelled up and bruises bloomed all over his body, yet he didn't feel the slightest bit upset.
This vivid sensation—if he hadn't woken even after being beaten like this, then it was certain this wasn't a dream. Do Tong-dal had returned to being eighteen years old.
"Puhahaha—!"
Jo Pyeong-do, who had picked up the fallen broom to hand it to Do Tong-dal, flinched and stepped back.
"Th-this bastard's completely lost his mind, now that I look."
"Could I have that broom, please?"
Looking at Do Tong-dal grinning brightly with his swollen face, Jo Pyeong-do felt a creeping fear.
"H-here......."
Do Tong-dal took the broom and cleaned while even humming a tune. He cleaned diligently, as if cleaning were the most enjoyable thing in the world.
Do Tong-dal even went and wet a rag, then wiped every corner of the office spotless.
'This is a gift from the gods, given to me out of guilt!'
When Do Tong-dal finished cleaning, the door opened and a man walked in.
"Oh-ho! What's the occasion? The office is this clean?"
A man with large eyes, a bulbous nose, and a thick, unkempt beard. The man who had willingly played the role of both older brother and father to Do Tong-dal—and who had been stabbed to death because of it.
It was Wang Chil.
"Brother—!"
Do Tong-dal ran over and threw his arms around Wang Chil. Wang Chil reeked of his characteristic stale alcohol stench, but even that was welcome.
Wang Chil looked at Do Tong-dal, who was rubbing his face against his shoulder, with disbelief.
"Wh-what's wrong with you?"
"It's me, Tong-dal. Do Tong-dal!"
Since this was the day they first met, there was no way Wang Chil would recognize him, and he'd surely think he was crazy—but Do Tong-dal didn't want to let this joyous reunion pass without a word.
"Get off me right now unless you want to go to the asylum where they lock up all the lunatics."
"Yes, sir!"
Do Tong-dal backed off immediately, but he didn't wipe the grin off his face.
"What happened to your face?"
Jo Pyeong-do answered.
"As you can see, he seemed out of his mind, so I gave him a little education."
"Don't become an educator. His mind hasn't come back—it looks like it ran even further away from home."
"What about Wang-su and the other new recruit? You came alone, boss?"
"They'll be here soon."
Wang Chil, about to walk to his desk, waved his hand at Do Tong-dal.
"You stay at least five ja away from me."
"Couldn't one ja be enough?"
"Want me to break your legs?"
He didn't want to become a cripple because of Wang Chil. Only after Do Tong-dal pressed himself against the wall did Wang Chil cross the office and sit in his chair.
Wang Chil looked at the ledger on the desk and asked Jo Pyeong-do.
"Is the ledger work all done?"
Jo Pyeong-do grumbled.
"As if it's easy. I've still got two shichen of suffering ahead of me."
Just then, Seo Wang-su, the deputy chief of the Gwanghwa-ro Fixer Office, and Gang Bu-song, Do Tong-dal's fellow recruit, came in.
To Do Tong-dal, the twenty-five-year-old Seo Wang-su of that time was remembered as a good person, while Gang Bu-song, his eighteen-year-old peer, came to mind as a fool.
"It's getting hotter."
Seo Wang-su wiped the sweat from his forehead with a rag, and Wang Chil asked.
"What about the job you went on?"
"They're pushing to wrap it up quickly, but...... ugh—! Honestly, this is beyond my ability."
Seo Wang-su looked at Do Tong-dal and asked, 'What happened to your face?' and Jo Pyeong-do answered proudly, 'I gave him a little education.'
"You little shit, you've only been here two months longer than him."
"Do you know what a day under the scorching sun is like?"
"If we're counting like that, you should be crawling on the ground in front of me, you bastard."
Wang Chil asked, just in case.
"Hey, you two new recruits. Either of you know how to read?"
Among those trying to become gangsters, nine out of ten couldn't even read a hundred characters of the Thousand Character Classic. Even among the remaining one in ten, gangsters who had finished the Thousand Character Classic could be counted on one hand.
And gangsters who had learned that much rarely came to a fixer office—they went to the branch or the headquarters.
"I do."
The one who answered immediately was Do Tong-dal.
"How many characters do you know besides the three in your name?"
"I don't know."
Jo Pyeong-do misunderstood Do Tong-dal's "I don't know."
"You little shit, you said you know and now you say you don't? Brazenly telling a lie that'll get caught in no time. Are you a goldfish or something?"
"I meant I don't know how many because I know so many......."
"What? This little shit's running his mouth. How many characters from the Thousand Character Classic do you know? For reference, I know about a hundred."
Do Tong-dal knew very well that Jo Pyeong-do didn't even know fifty characters from the Thousand Character Classic.
"I finished the Thousand Character Classic long ago, and I've roughly covered the Four Books and Three Classics as well."
Wang Chil, about to light a hand-rolled cigarette, looked at Do Tong-dal with surprised eyes.
"You finished the Thousand Character Classic? And those Four something...... I feel like I've heard of them somewhere. Aren't those fucking hard books?"
They were hard. What Wang Chil had recommended to Do Tong-dal when he returned as a cripple was scribal work. Writing letters dictated by others, or keeping merchants' ledgers on their behalf.
Do Tong-dal, who hadn't even finished the Thousand Character Classic, had no choice but to start studying. To make a living, he had no other option.
He studied as if his life depended on it, and after more than ten years of scribal work, there were almost no characters Do Tong-dal didn't know.
Jo Pyeong-do raised his voice.
"This bastard's running his mouth! Do you even know what the Four Books and Three Classics are?"
"The Four Books are the basic scriptures of Confucianism—the Great Learning, the Doctrine of the Mean, the Analects, and the Mencius. The Three Classics are the Book of Odes, the Book of Documents, and the Book of Changes."
"Oh, so you've heard of them somewhere. And you're saying you can read them?"
"I can write them too."
"You bastard! Say something that makes sense! Why would someone like that come to a place like the Gwanghwa-ro Fixer Office!"
Seo Wang-su smacked Jo Pyeong-do on the back of the head.
"You little shit, what's wrong with the Gwanghwa-ro Fixer Office?"
"No...... that's not what I......."
"You don't badmouth the place that puts food in your bowl."
"Ah, I get it. It's just that this bastard's lies are so ridiculous......."
Wang Chil cut Jo Pyeong-do off.
"Youngest. What did you say your name was?"
"I told you earlier. Do Tong-dal."
"Right, Tong-dal. Do you know how to organize ledgers?"
"I've learned a bit."
"Where would you have learned something like that!"
Jo Pyeong-do butted in for no reason and got smacked on the back of the head by Seo Wang-su again.
"You little shit! Why are you acting up so much today?"
Jo Pyeong-do was getting anxious because his own rarity was about to disappear.
Wang Chil pointed at the ledger on the desk.
"Then give it a try. Pyeong-do, show him how it's done."
"It's fine. I can do it alone."
Ledger work was something he'd done until he was sick of it. Because Jo Pyeong-do always shoved all his work onto him, the smell of ink had never left him.
"You crippled bastard! Do you think our ledgers are as simple as running a market stall? Boss, are you really going to leave it to him? If he makes a mess of it, don't blame me. You know this ledger has to be sent to headquarters by today, right?"
The simplified ledger, organized every five days, was sent to the branch, while the monthly ledger, settled once a month, was sent directly to headquarters.
Since money was involved, if the ledger wasn't properly organized, severe punishment would follow.
Wang Chil hesitated, but Do Tong-dal spoke.
"If it goes wrong, I'll take responsibility."
* * *