Monopolizing Fortunes (5)
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Monopolizing Fortunes (5)
"Well now. Heh heh heh......."
"You little shit, you're giving me the creeps."
"Don't worry. Even if there is something like that, I would never do anything to harm you, boss."
Wang Chil, who had been about to say something, simply trudged along. The silence stretched on for quite a while, which was unlike Wang Chil.
Even when they arrived at the Fixer Office, Wang Chil did not stop walking.
"Aren't we going into the office?"
"Let's have a drink. I can't buy you anything expensive."
A rare, complicated expression appeared on the face of Wang Chil, who was practically the poster child for simple-mindedness.
Because it was still early, they were the only customers in the shabby tavern. The liquor was strong hwaju, and the only side dish was a few scraps of seasoned vegetables.
After downing three cups in a row, Wang Chil asked.
"Why are you so good to me?"
"What have I done that's so good?"
"You little shit, I've been rolling around in this business for years. You're being incredibly good to me right now. I can just feel it."
"Then why do you trust me so much, boss?"
"Who says I trust you?"
"You trusted my promise and put your wrist on the line."
"That just sort of happened...... I don't know. Somehow I just got the feeling you're a guy I can trust. Don't ask me to explain shit. It's just a gut feeling. Anyway, I like you a hell of a lot. So here's the thing—you should go to headquarters."
"What?"
"Earlier I got drunk on the mood and ran my mouth to Gwang Hae-bong, but I can't handle that bastard. I'm already a kite with a cut string. My heyday ended when the previous Society Leader passed away."
Wang Chil tilted his cup, muttering, "Not that I ever had a heyday."
"Do you really think that?"
"Yeah. The Gwanghwa-ro Fixer Office is the end of the line for me. I can't go any higher, and I don't want to. All that's left for me now is to live a long, quiet life. If you stick by a man with no power and end up on someone's bad side, you'll be the only one who gets hurt. You're already on his bad side, but you're smart and useful, so even that bastard Gwang Hae-bong will acknowledge you eventually."
Wang Chil took a sip of his drink and continued.
"Still, I've got twenty years of experience in the Red Tiger Society, so I can at least get someone like you into headquarters one way or another. If we hand Cheonsangru back over, that bastard Gwang Hae-bong won't particularly object either."
"Hand Cheonsangru back over?"
"That bastard Gwang Hae-bong is right. The trouble we'd face dealing with Cheonsangru is more than I can handle. How are the five of us at the Gwanghwa-ro Fixer Office supposed to take responsibility for a big pleasure house like that?"
"Boss, your liver's so small it wouldn't even work as a drinking snack."
"What did you say, you punk!"
"You just handle the small stuff, boss. I'll find someone to protect Cheonsangru somehow. We shouldn't just live quiet and long—we should live big and live long."
"Overeating gives you indigestion."
"I'm always hungry."
Wang Chil let out a long sigh.
"How did a guy like you end up coming to me? I thought I'd just laze around and retire."
"Even if you laze around, you should laze around from a high position."
"A high position?"
"How about Branch Chief?"
"Sit in Gwang Hae-bong's seat? Forget it. Connections outrank skill."
The current Chairman, Jo Chi-un, unlike the previous Chairman, favored only his relatives and underlings he personally liked.
Wang Chil, who was no good at greasing palms, had been gradually pushed out of the inner circle and had ended up here.
At first he had been furious, then resigned, and now he accepted it. The world always worked like shit.
"The string that pig bastard Gwang Hae-bong is holding onto is so thin and weak. To put it bluntly, if his wife leaves him, that string just snaps."
"That's true, but do you think it'll snap that easily?"
"It will."
"Do you also have the talent to make a perfectly fine couple divorce? Can you do that with your divine powers too?"
"Gwang Hae-bong's face is full of peach-blossom energy."
"Peach-blossom energy, that's the thing where...... a guy gets fucked because of a woman, right?"
"Gwang Hae-bong is a womanizer. If he gets caught cheating, do you think the Chairman's sister, with that nasty temper of hers, is going to sit still?"
"How do you know Gwang Hae-bong is a womanizer?"
"Is there a thug who isn't a womanizer? And if she's the Underworld Chairman's sister, it's only natural her temper is no joke."
Wang Chil thought for a moment, then asked.
"So you're saying Gwang Hae-bong will get caught cheating and be divorced?"
"If it's trouble below the belt, that's the only way. He probably won't come out of it unscathed."
"Even if Gwang Hae-bong gets kicked out, there's no guarantee that seat comes to me. There are more than enough candidates."
"That's why we need to start working on it little by little."
"Branch Chief, huh...... I don't know if I'm cut out for something like that. But why are you here?"
"What?"
"With a smart head like yours, you should study for the civil exams and go to the Forbidden City."
"The Forbidden City? What's so great about that? No matter how high you climb there, you're still just the emperor's errand boy. Why would I go there? Tell that gentleman in the Forbidden City to rule the day. I'll rule the night of this world from here. I'll become the emperor of the night. Heh heh heh......."
"Well, look at this kid with the big ambitions. Ha ha ha!"
* * *
"Pull all the girls out of Cheonsangru! Every last one, whether they're entertainers or courtesans! And cut off the liquor too!"
Jo Jin-ho expressed his reluctance at Gwang Hae-bong's order.
"If we withdraw the courtesans immediately, the penalty we'll have to pay Cheonsangru will be enormous."
"I'll take full responsibility! How much will it take?"
"It will be at least one hundred nyang of silver. It could be more than that."
"One...... one hundred nyang?"
It was too much money to take responsibility for.
"When can you start withdrawing them?"
"Each one has a separate contract, so it will be difficult to do it all at once."
"You little shit! Just tell me the date! Just the date!"
Every time he heard Gwang Hae-bong's cursing, Jo Jin-ho felt the veins bulging in his forehead. Originally, the position of Baekdong Branch Chief should have been Jo Jin-ho's.
He had joined the Red Tiger Society three years earlier than Gwang Hae-bong and had earned far more merit.
When Gwang Hae-bong first joined, he had followed Jo Jin-ho around calling him "boss, boss," but then he had snatched the Branch Chief position simply because he was the Chairman's brother-in-law.
Such a thing would have been unthinkable under the previous Chairman.
"You little shit! I asked when?"
"We can begin in ten days, and it will take twenty days to withdraw everyone. But do we really have to do this? The Gwanghwa-ro Fixer Office is part of the Red Tiger Society family too."
"Family? What are we, some ladies' social club? We're the Underworld! The Underworld, where you should be able to stab your own father in the back if necessary! The reason you're still in that sorry state is because you don't understand that. You crippled bastard."
Gwang Hae-bong casually called Jo Jin-ho, who was one-eyed, a crippled bastard.
So he imagined it again. He imagined smashing Gwang Hae-bong's face in and slicing open that pig-like belly of his.
But today, Jo Jin-ho once again kept his mouth shut and stared at the floor.
'Do I have to live like this?'
* * *
As for whether Gwang Hae-bong got divorced and fell from power in the previous life, that was not the case. That bastard ate well and lived well to the very end, driving plenty of people crazy.
So the peach-blossom energy Do Tong-dal had mentioned to Wang Chil had not occurred in the previous life. But in this life, it would.
Everyone who knew anything knew that Gwang Hae-bong was a womanizer among womanizers. He simply had never been caught by his wife.
One could call it a perfect crime—there was circumstantial suspicion but no physical evidence.
All he had to do was break that perfect crime. The proverb that a long tail gets caught was close to the truth, so it would not be difficult.
Gwang Hae-bong's peach-blossom energy was a problem to be solved gradually. For now, he had to put out the most urgent fire first.
"That bastard Gwang Hae-bong will definitely cut off the liquor and women to Cheonsangru."
In fact, there were not that many courtesans belonging to the pleasure house itself. The Underworld supplied them through contracts, and since the Underworld handled the most troublesome part for the pleasure house as well, it was a mutually beneficial arrangement.
Thirty percent of the courtesans belonged to the pleasure house and seventy percent to the Underworld, so if the Underworld set its mind to it, it could put the pleasure house out of business.
Cheonsangru was now facing that very crisis. Naturally, the Baekdong Branch would take a hit, but the pleasure house was bound to be the first to suffer damage.
In the end, Cheonsangru and the Baekdong Branch would compromise and conclude by pushing out the Gwanghwa-ro Fixer Office.
Even knowing the direction of the fist Gwang Hae-bong was swinging, it was not an easy situation to avoid.
"First, let's figure out which courtesans belong to the Baekdong Branch. And what do we do about the liquor?"
When he brought up the concern about liquor, Wang Chil readily stepped forward.
"I'll handle that. There's cheaper and better-tasting liquor all over the place compared to what that bastard Gwang Hae-bong supplies."
"The quantity will be quite large. And we'll have to endure that bastard Gwang Hae-bong's tricks......."
"I've been in this business for twenty years. If I can't handle something like that, I should just drown myself in a dish of water."
"Then we just need to solve the courtesan problem."
Do Tong-dal immediately contacted Jang Baek-dong. Even though meeting Do Tong-dal must have been awkward for him, Jang Baek-dong came out when called.
Since they were poor, they met not in a tea house but in an alleyway that was out of sight.
There was a reason Jang Baek-dong had come running.
"Tong-dal! You really do have divine powers!"
"Huh?"
"My sister came back yesterday! The sister who ran away from home two years ago came back, just like you said!"
"Did you think my divine powers were a lie?"
"I believe now! I totally believe! So why did you call me?"
"I have a favor to ask. Get me the list of courtesans working at Cheonsangru."
"What? How am I supposed to get that?"
"It's not a secret ledger, so it's probably stuck on some bookshelf. You just need to copy down the names."
"I can count the characters I know besides my own name on one hand. Even if there is something like that, I'm blind as a bat."
He hadn't thought of that.
"Then get me into your branch."
"You know the Branch Chief has it out for you because of the Old Man Geum incident, right? If I get caught helping you, my neck's on the line too."
"I can see a blade-death omen on you."
"A blade-death omen? What's that?"
"It means you could die by the sword."
He had made up a word that didn't exist, but since Jang Baek-dong had died in the previous life after being stabbed in the back during a gang fight, it wasn't a lie. And it was something that would happen within two months.
"Th...... that's really true?"
"Do you doubt my divine powers?"
Having correctly predicted the discovery of Old Man Geum's son and the return of his runaway sister, Jang Baek-dong had no choice but to believe in Do Tong-dal's divine powers.
Jang Baek-dong's face immediately fell.
"I'm going to die? Can't you save me?"
"I can only see the blade-death omen. I don't know when or how you'll be struck by a blade. Finding that out would come close to revealing heaven's secrets, and I'd have to pay a considerable price......."
"I'll give you the branch key! I'll even give you the key to the room with the ledgers! So please save me, Tong-dal!"
"Compared to your life, that price is awfully cheap......."
"If you just save me, I'll never forget the favor!"
Do Tong-dal let out a deliberately long sigh.
"Fine. To save a friend's life, I should make the sacrifice."
"Thank you! Thank you so much!"
Jang Baek-dong thanked him repeatedly with a deeply moved expression. After arranging to receive the keys two days later, Do Tong-dal parted ways with Jang Baek-dong and returned to the Fixer Office.
"Give me five nyang of silver and a decent house with three rooms."
Wang Chil glanced at Do Tong-dal after he spoke, then replied indifferently.
"I also need five nyang of silver and a decent house with three rooms. As if someone would just give it to me because I asked."
"Boss, I need to bring someone in, and those two things are absolutely necessary."
"You punk! Five nyang of silver is money I couldn't save in a whole year of scrimping! Where would I get that kind of money?"
"Dig for it if you have to."
Wang Chil was startled.
"How did you know I have land?"
"A man planning to live a long, quiet life would have bought some land."
"That land is my last bastion for my old age. I can never give it up!"
The next day, five nyang of silver landed in Do Tong-dal's hands.
"I had to sell in a hurry, so I didn't even get a fair price. Who are you bringing that requires this much money?"
"Someone who will be a sword and a shield."
"If you bring me a sword and shield shaped like a person, you'll die by my hand."
"He'll be worth the money."
Of course, if he could bring him, the man would more than do his part. If he could bring him, that is.
* * *