The Prodigal Son Returns
"Steward Jin, do we have any spare martial robes in the armory?"
Eun Hwaran looked over my rag-like clothes with pity and called for Steward Jin. Even if I was her only sworn younger brother, she couldn't very well let me walk around looking like this.
"I'll have him dressed in the crispest ones we have."
In this era, martial robes were best when they were tough and durable. Having a big sister who wanted to feed and clothe me with nothing but the best was such a reassuring feeling.
"But what's that chest?"
The moment I heard the question, I thumped the chest down onto the table with a heavy thunk. The impact was enough to make the furnishings rattle, and both of them looked slightly startled.
"It's heavy."
"Yeah, it's heavy."
What's inside is even more shocking. I clicked open the chest, and a dull yellow light filled the room. Eun Hwaran's and the steward's eyes, which had been half-lidded, now went as wide as lanterns.
"Oh my, oh my."
Eun Hwaran tapped her slender chin with her fan and kept murmuring "oh my" in amazement. Steward Jin, as if he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing, picked up a few gold coins and dropped them—plunk, plunk—to test them.
"This should be enough to clear the debt, right?"
Steward Jin nodded in her place and said it was more than sufficient.
"Haha, to think you'd collect all of this. Honestly, I'd half given up and was about to write it off as a loss on the books..."
He couldn't stop the merchant lord's whims, and he'd half considered it money they'd never get back. When I grinned and stared at him steadily, Steward Jin cleared his throat.
"Of course, it's not that I completely didn't trust you..."
"Yes, I know. The merchant group's finances aren't exactly flush, so handing over a sizable sum must've made you nervous."
"Ahem, something like that."
The person who handles a company's household affairs has to be that meticulous. I get an earful from Ilhong every time I make a big expenditure at the agency, too.
"But Mujin, where did you get this much money?"
"Thanks to the job you arranged for me at the gathering, Noona."
I shrugged as I said it. Her face colored with confusion.
"The pay for a job I brokered was this much? That can't be right..."
The job she'd asked about at the gathering had just been a simple request to find a missing corpse. But once I dug into it, a jiangshi showed up, followed by the Blood Cult's Left Blood Method. I explained to her that the whole thing had gotten considerably bigger.
"...Good heavens, it was that dangerous?"
Tell me about it. Not a single job comes easy. Feels like every step I take is a landmine. At this point I've half resigned myself that it's just my fate.
I nudged the chest a little toward her, as if to say take it already.
"Mujin, you don't have to pay it back this quickly."
A smile flickered across Eun Hwaran's face for a moment, then a look of hesitation—could she really accept this?—rose in its place. She tapped her cheek with her fan and gazed at me steadily. Her attitude said: running the agency must cost a fair bit of money, are you sure you're okay?
"It's like a matter of principle for me. Debt gets paid back as fast as possible."
The closer someone is—family or friend—the more important it is to be clear about money. She said I could pay it back slowly, but people are like that: the longer repayment takes, the more thoughts start creeping in, and eventually you can't escape that awkward creditor-debtor relationship. I've seen cases like that countless times working as a troubleshooter.
"Actions speak louder than a hundred words—paying it back by any means necessary. There's no greater sincerity than that."
Otherwise it's just empty talk over a hot grill. A lesson I picked up from some video content.
"Heh heh, looks like I really lucked out with this little brother of mine."
She slowly lowered the fan that had been covering her lips. Apparently it had been a perfect answer—a pleased smile spread across her face. Gone was the dignified merchant lord; only the face of an older sister genuinely delighted by her younger brother's growth remained.
"You did luck out. From now on, if anything comes up, I'll come running. You won't find a brother like me anywhere in Beijing."
"Heh heh heh."
Hadn't I felt it when I first came to Beijing? It was a cold, heartless place that wouldn't even give you a single job. And in a place like that, someone who would casually lend a huge sum interest-free, without even setting a repayment period. I didn't want to drift away from someone like that. So I was playing the long game. This was Dan Mujin's method of maintaining guanxi.
"Um, my lady. You should collect it soon..."
With the atmosphere getting so warm and fuzzy, Steward Jin was getting nervous that the merchant lord might do something impulsive again. Eun Hwaran snickered at the sight of him.
"Little brother, I'll put this money to good use."
"It was your money to begin with."
Anyway, with this the debt was paid in full. The debtor-creditor relationship was over. Just the fact that I'd kept my word made my chest feel tight and full, as if something had been filled in. With the sense of indebtedness gone, I could help with any request going forward with my head held high and keep stacking good deeds.
"Noona, if anything comes up for you too, call me. This little brother of yours wants to help."
Give and take—that's what family is, isn't it? If only those Moyong clan bastards I know would understand that.
"Mm."
But it seemed there was already some trouble at her place. When I asked if there was anything I could help with, Eun Hwaran's expression darkened slightly. It looked like she found it hard to say, so I opened the door first.
"Something going on? Tell this troubleshooter."
Rooting out internal discord in the merchant group, tracking down corrupt elements, high-intensity external audits, and so on. I'd solved countless jobs like that. Try trusting this troubleshooter for once. I flashed a confident grin with that meaning.
"Well, the thing is..."
But whether she still lacked enough trust in me or not, she couldn't easily open her mouth.
"What is it? Family doesn't keep secrets."
"You're right. Right now you're my only family..."
We weren't related by blood, of course. But in this ruthless Central Plains, wasn't this a relationship where we looked out for each other beyond mere profit and loss?
"Have you ever heard the name Eun Yang-gon?"
She asked carefully, fidgeting with the tip of her fan. Eun... I felt like I'd heard it in passing back in my days as a scrapper. From what I'd heard, he'd fallen into gambling and women, racked up massive debts, been disowned by the previous merchant lord Eun Jincheong, and kicked out. Which was how Eun Hwaran, the only remaining direct blood relative of the Eun family, had risen to the position of merchant lord.
"Apparently he's come back to Beijing."
"Aigoo."
One of her connections stretched across Beijing had informed her of Eun Yang-gon's return. Just as the merchant group had barely overcome its crisis, the prodigal son who'd left home was coming back.
"Well, that... must be a real headache."
"...Yeah. It is."
Of all the headaches in the world, is there anything harder to resolve than conflict between family? Even I, when I run into Moyong Cheonghye or Moyong Cheon, my heart pounds and my emotions and attitude go all over the place.
"And the part that makes it even worse is separate."
"There's more?"
There was something even more of a headache left? That shouldn't be common. I tilted my head and asked again.
"The first place that man visited after returning was..."
"Was?"
"...Mangeum Money House."
Eun Hwaran let out a short sigh and rubbed between her brows. Indeed—the situation could get twisted even further like this.
"Hmm."
Of all places, heading to the house that had tried to swallow the entire merchant group whole through a political marriage. Whether intentional or coincidence, either way it looked like things would get messy if not resolved quickly.
"Ugh, what should I do, Mujin?"
Even she, who handled problems within the merchant group so decisively, was at a complete loss in the face of a family matter. She'd set down the fan she never let leave her hand and covered her face with her slender hands.
"Leave this problem to me. I'll take a crack at solving it."
I couldn't stand looking at my big sister's distressed face any longer. I thumped my chest as if to say just leave it to me.
"...You can solve family problems like this too?"
Plenty of family-related requests come into detective agencies too. Family members gambling, missing persons, inheritance and forced heirship issues, and so on. There, legal issues put a lot of constraints on what you can do, but here there are no such constraints, so what I can do is endless. And for problems like this, it's more comfortable to leave them to a third party like me. Someone who can handle things coldly on your behalf without getting swept up in emotion.
"If I can do anything, then I'll deal with this Eun Yang-gon."
"Mujin, but you can't kill him..."
My tone must have come out a bit cold. She startled and said that was not allowed. Of course I won't kill him. Why would I do something like that to someone I don't even have a grudge against, just for someone else's benefit?
Just... for my benefit.
So for the sake of that damn Heavenly Killing Star, I intended to avoid meaningless murder as much as possible. Of course, in this sword-and-blade Murim, a situation where I had no choice would eventually come crashing down someday. But until then, I'd hold out as best I could.
"Trust me. I'm the kind of troubleshooter who just takes care of things properly on his own."
When a lot of clients request something, they always ramble on with complicated demands. But if you listen carefully, what they're really saying is: just handle everything so I don't have to be bothered. And I'm a veteran troubleshooter who knows how to read that context.
"Really? From what I've seen, you always seem to make things bigger."
"...At least it's never me who makes them bigger."
Weirdos barging in or unexpected things exploding—that's what does it. No matter how I think about it, it's never my fault. Anyway.
"Then I'll leave it to you, little brother. As long as you don't kill him... you can deal with him firmly."
Having somewhat settled her feelings toward her older brother, she finally asked me to resolve the Eun Yang-gon problem with a properly merchant-lord-like expression. Yes—this was my big sister Eun Hwaran.
"Yes. Just trust me and focus on the merchant group's business."
Like certain sworn brothers who'd sworn an oath under a peach tree. Sometimes there are bonds thicker than blood.
"I'll take care of the rest for you, big sister."
I'd shaken off every last bit of debt and sense of indebtedness. I returned to the agency in the lightest mood possible. Then Ilhong, who'd been absorbed in training with Jo Harang, looked over at me with a puzzled expression.
"Boss, didn't you leave carrying a money chest or something?"
"Yeah, I did."
"So why don't you have it now...?"
It had been a chest with a not-insignificant sum—her look said, where did you go and sell it off? Ah, I hadn't told her about that.
"Paid off the whole debt. We're free people now."
I shrugged as if to say, doesn't that feel great? Then Ilhong and Jo Harang both abandoned their training stances and shot to their feet.
"What? How could you just hand all of it over? Our operating costs for the agency are already tight!"
Maybe because she handled the financial work here. She reacted as sensitively as Steward Jin to this kind of thing.
"Mujin, I wanted to eat fish-fragrant pork and stir-fried shrimp..."
Jo Harang pouted her lips and complained too. Fish-fragrant pork—that dish of thinly sliced pork stir-fried with wood ear mushrooms, salt, rock sugar, and expensive spices and such? As expected of a B-rank wandering martial artist, her palate was pretty high-class.
"Let's eat dumplings, Harang. You like dumplings."
"Dumplings again? They're so bland. I'm sick of them."
She'd rather forage for mountain greens than eat that dry, crumbly stuff. In this bustling city paved with gray stone and walls, where exactly was she planning to forage mountain greens?
"So Boss, you just went and dumped it all on Merchant Lord Eun Hwaran?"
"Hey, it was her money to begin with."
It was just money borrowed to establish a foothold in Beijing, packed with high-roller clients. Of course the amount had been a bit excessively large. That just showed how high the capital region's walls were. These Central Plains people's love of real estate was something else. Even if you hit the lottery, one house... wait, what am I even talking about.
"Anyway, the debt that was weighing down the agency's shoulders is gone now."
"Yes, and instead we've become dirt poor."
Hey now—we've set up an office in Beijing and you're calling us dirt poor? Really, did we have to hand it all over? Ilhong, who didn't know about my good deeds system, grumbled.
"Instead I brought back a job right away. And the client is none other than Merchant Lord Eun Hwaran herself."
Did she think I'd come back empty-handed? I'd just accepted a request from my big sister, who'd promised to pad the sworn-younger-brother bonus generously.
"Oh, what kind of request?"
Only then did Ilhong and Jo Harang's faces brighten as they showed interest.