Monopolizing Fortunes (45)
Monopolizing Fortunes (45)
"Welcome."
So Tae-sang rose to greet Yang Sang-jin. Having led the Haerang Society, one of Hangzhou's Three Great Underworld Societies, for twenty years, Yang Sang-jin carried his experience in even the smallest movements.
"I was startled that the Young Society Leader would invite me."
"Then let us meet more often, so you won't be startled."
He said that, but there was no realism in the leaders of two hostile underworld societies meeting frequently.
"You wouldn't have called me just to have tea......."
So Tae-sang dismissed all the women attending them. Only the two of them remained on the second floor of the spacious tea house.
"I asked to see you because I have something important to say."
"What is it?"
"What do you think of the Red Tiger Society?"
The lack of change in his expression meant Yang Sang-jin had already guessed why So Tae-sang wanted to meet.
"I've heard the rumors about the Red Tiger Society and the Black Dragon Society."
No matter how much one hushed things up, the Underworld was a place where secrets were hard to keep from leaking.
"This time the Red Tiger Society backed off after taking only money, but will that really happen next time? This isn't a problem limited to our Black Dragon Society."
Among the Three Great Underworld Societies, the Red Tiger Society had been the weakest, but after Do Tong-dal appeared, the balance of power had tilted sharply toward the Red Tiger Society.
"It seems the Young Society Leader has something in mind, since you called me here."
"If we just let time pass like this, the Red Tiger Society will bare its fangs before long."
"Bare its fangs?"
"They'll try to swallow Hangzhou alone. Can't you infer that intent well enough just from this incident?"
The Red Tiger Society had tried to start a war as if it had been waiting. If the Black Dragon Society had not backed down, that was certainly what would have happened.
"Do you have a plan?"
"First, how about our Black Dragon Society and your Haerang Society make a non-aggression pact?"
"You're proposing an alliance?"
"Wouldn't it be the best way to protect ourselves from the Red Tiger Society?"
Yang Sang-jin, too, was keenly aware that the Red Tiger Society was a far greater threat than the Black Dragon Society.
"That alone seems a little insufficient."
"Let's use this as a starting point and have a deeper discussion."
* * *
His eyes and forehead were covered with a warm towel, and his body was sunk deep in comfortably warm water. It was the time Do Tong-dal felt most at ease.
But then a sound broke that comfort.
Drrrk—!
The bathroom door opened. Namgung Seol-rin was guarding outside the bathroom, so she was the only person who could enter.
"What is it?"
The answer to that question came after a brief pause.
"I'm going to wash you."
"Huh? Huhh?"
Do Tong-dal moved his head to brush the towel off his face. Through the hazy steam, he saw Namgung Seol-rin wearing her mask.
"What are you talking about?"
"Your arm is inconvenient, so you can't bathe properly, can you?"
"It's not been a day or two, and you only thought of that now?"
"Anyway, I'll wash you."
"Forget it. What in the world are you thinking?"
"I said I'll wash you!"
Namgung Seol-rin, who had moved closer to the tub, hastily turned her head. The steam was thick, but the water in the tub was clear. Naturally, Do Tong-dal's submerged body was plainly visible.
Do Tong-dal let out a snicker and said.
"You can't even look properly, and you're going to give me a bath?"
"I...... I can do it without looking."
She sidled over and grabbed a towel hanging on the wall.
'She's really been strange lately.'
Do Tong-dal simply watched Namgung Seol-rin as she moved hesitantly. Namgung Seol-rin tried to position herself where Do Tong-dal's "that area(?)" would be out of sight.
But from any position where she could wash his body, it was all visible. There was not a single blind spot.
She turned her head away and fumblingly wet the towel. Then she began wiping Do Tong-dal's body.
"Pfft! Pfft! How long are you going to keep rubbing just my face?"
She moved lower. As she wiped his chest and her hand touched bare skin, she flinched in surprise and dropped the towel.
The waterlogged towel slowly sank beneath the water. With her head still turned, Namgung Seol-rin hastily thrust her hand into the tub to find the towel.
She grabbed something, but it wasn't the towel—it was something else.
'What is this?'
Do Tong-dal whispered.
"If you keep kneading that, it'll get bigger."
"Eeek—!"
Smack!
It had somehow come to that, but one person had slapped a cheek and the other had been slapped on the cheek.
"Why did you even come in here!"
"I don't know!"
Do Tong-dal watched Namgung Seol-rin's back as she wrenched open the bathroom door and stormed out, his expression one of disbelief.
* * *
That day came. It had come at last. For the sake of the perfect crime, Yang Su-pan had also come to Cheonsangru, but he had said, "I like skilled courtesans," and taken a different one away with him.
So Do Tong-dal and Ja Su-yeong were left alone in one room. The room was large and tidy, and the bed was laid with silk bedding. Whatever she was thinking, Yeon Ja-yeon had given them the best room in Cheonsangru.
Do Tong-dal sat on a chair placed to one side of the room and said.
"Spread another blanket on the floor. We only need to fool Sir Gong's eyes, so there's no need for you to share a bed with me."
"Do you dislike me that much?"
"It's not a matter of like or dislike. I'm saying that just because you're a courtesan, you don't have to sleep with a man you don't want."
"What if I do want to?"
"Huh?"
Ja Su-yeong, carrying a tray, sat down beside Do Tong-dal. She was close enough that their shoulders touched.
Ja Su-yeong tilted the bottle on the tray and poured wine into a cup.
"As a courtesan, I know many men. What would you do if, among all those men, the one I wanted to give my first night to was you, Coordinator Do?"
"I'd be honored."
"Then take that honor."
Ja Su-yeong tilted the wine cup toward Do Tong-dal's lips. Picking up a morsel of food with chopsticks, she continued.
"I won't cling to you. There's nothing uglier than a clinging courtesan."
"You'll become the greatest entertainer in the Central Plains."
Since Ja Su-yeong was clearly a genius, he could at least say that much.
"Thank you. I have no intention of becoming the greatest entertainer in the Central Plains. It's enough if I'm satisfied with my own playing."
For an entertainer, nothing was harder than that.
"You're a greedy one."
"If I weren't greedy, would I have claimed Coordinator Do tonight?"
"So I've been chosen?"
* * *
"Why don't you take off that mask?"
At Yeon Ja-yeon's words, Namgung Seol-rin removed her mask. Since she had stopped shaving her head at some point, it looked like that of a shaggy-haired young bachelor.
"You're pretty."
"Don't tease me."
Yeon Ja-yeon looked at the door. Beyond that door was a corridor, and beyond that corridor was the room of Do Tong-dal and Ja Su-yeong.
"What do you think the two of them are doing right now?"
She wondered whether Yeon Ja-yeon's composed face matched her true feelings.
"Are you really all right?"
At Namgung Seol-rin's question, Yeon Ja-yeon smiled.
"No matter how thick-skinned I am, I can't tell a lie like that."
"Then why did you entrust Ja Su-yeong's first night...... to him?"
Namgung Seol-rin deliberately avoided the title "Master."
"If someone had to do it, I thought Coordinator Do was the most suitable."
"He's your man, isn't he?"
Yeon Ja-yeon made a surprised expression.
"Did you really think Coordinator Do was my man?"
"Because the only woman he spent nights with was you."
"Only for now. In a long life, how could I be his only woman? I was prepared for it, so I have to accept it calmly."
"That can't be as easy as you make it sound......."
"If you let go of attachment, it's easier than you think. Coordinator Do isn't someone I should cling to, either. A woman twelve years older clinging to him would be ugly."
She didn't seem to be talking to Namgung Seol-rin so much as persuading herself.
"How did you come to meet him? Was he a customer?"
"It was when Coordinator Do had just become an underworld thug."
It had not even been a year, but it felt impossibly long ago. Yeon Ja-yeon told her about the time she first met Do Tong-dal.
"From the moment Coordinator Do protected me from that drunkard, I knew it would turn out like this."
"It sounds like fate."
"Fate is you, Namgung Seol-rin."
Namgung Seol-rin gave a bitter smile.
"It's not fate; it's an ill-fated bond. He's...... yes. Just an ill-fated bond."
Yeon Ja-yeon gazed at Namgung Seol-rin for a moment, then said.
"I fell for him at first sight. What about you, Namgung Seol-rin?"
"I......."
Namgung Seol-rin, about to answer, was startled.
"What about me?"
"You like him. Coordinator Do."
"No, I don't! It's the opposite! Why would I like someone like him! There's no reason to like him!"
Yeon Ja-yeon merely shrugged. When the conversation stopped, a long silence followed. Namgung Seol-rin had to remain in the closest place to Do Tong-dal, and Yeon Ja-yeon made no move to leave.
So the two women sank together into that sea of silence for a long while.
"Why do people like him so much? Jang Yu-seom tried to kill me with martial arts, and Mrs. Seon slapped me. You tried to poison me. And there's Society Leader Wang Chil. The magistrate would have thrown me in prison if he hadn't stopped him."
"He's just a thug, but it's strange, isn't it?"
"Right. Just a thug."
"It's the same with Su-yeong today."
"Pardon?"
"Coordinator Do grants people what they want when they're most desperate. He doesn't do it out of charity or pity. He listens to other people's desperation as if he were doing it for himself."
The person who had extended a hand when Namgung Cheol-hyeon was most desperate had also been Do Tong-dal.
"It may be Coordinator Do's special talent. And when you're around him, you just fall for him. It happens gradually, like getting soaked in the rain. I told you, didn't I? That you, Namgung Seol-rin, would eventually come to like him too."
Namgung Seol-rin no longer denied it. It was true that Do Tong-dal spending the night with another woman pained her.
Yeon Ja-yeon said.
"Anyway, among us, the person who suits Coordinator Do best is probably you, Namgung Seol-rin."
"Why?"
"Isn't it obvious that a daughter of the Namgung Clan suits him better than a courtesan?"
"I...... threw away that name."
Yeon Ja-yeon wore an expression whose meaning was hard to read and murmured, "I suppose I'll understand in time."
And so the night deepened for one man and three women.
* * *
"Have you heard of the Baekeum Assassin?"
At Yang Sang-jin's question, So Tae-sang flinched in surprise.
"Isn't he an assassin famous even in the martial world? Even first-rate martial masters tremble before him."
The Baekeum Assassin's reputation was so widespread that even Underworld thugs knew his name.
"I've found a way to commission the Baekeum Assassin."
"What? But I heard the Baekeum Assassin doesn't accept a commission unless the target is a first-rate master."
It was because of the Baekeum Assassin's pride, so unlike an assassin.
"There's an exception clause."
"What is it?"
"Three hundred nyang of silver. Above that, I hear he accepts without exception, unless the target is a personage like an elder of the Nine Great Sects or a government official."
In the end, it was about money rather than pride.
"That's no small sum."
"It's not expensive for dealing with Do Tong-dal."
If not for Do Tong-dal, the Red Tiger Society was literally a paper tiger.
"Let's proceed with it."
* * *
Namgung Seol-rin was feeding him soup with a spoon when broth ran down Do Tong-dal's chin.
"Swallow properly. You're so sloppy."
"Why are you nagging?"
"You can't even eat properly, so how could I not nag? Here, open your mouth wide."
Do Tong-dal stared at Namgung Seol-rin as she picked up some greens with chopsticks. Then he spoke as if spitting the words out.
"Stop being my arm."
"Pardon?"
"You're free from today."
"Wh...... what do you......."
Do Tong-dal sprang to his feet and raised his trembling arm to point outside.
"Go home. You don't need to act as my arm anymore."
"B...... but you...... no, Master, your arm still hasn't healed."
"The promise was never about the state of my arm. You were to leave when I wanted, and now is when I want."
"S...... so suddenly like this?"
"Why? Do you want to keep being my arm?"
"That's not it, but......."
"Then it's worked out well. Take whatever travel money you can and go."
Having said that, Do Tong-dal left the room. It was so sudden and firm that she even wondered if it might be a dream.
Do Tong-dal left the house that very moment, and Namgung Seol-rin remained. For the first time in nearly eight months, the two of them were more than ten jang apart.
* * *