Collecting Outstanding Debts
It was a quiet afternoon.
Ilhong and I stopped in front of a shabby building nestled right in the middle of the commercial district.
The signboard for the Beijing Vagabond Association was scrawled across it in elegant calligraphy. Every stroke carried the unhesitating force of a true master calligrapher who had poured his heart into the work.
The door creaked open slowly.
Despite the worn exterior, the inside was packed with every sort of person imaginable—clients who’d come seeking help, and the vagabonds who’d flocked like crows to snatch up those jobs. The sharp tang of cheap liquor mixed with the metallic reek of dozens of swords, the stench vibrating all the way to the entrance.
“The Beijing branch has a lot of vagabonds carrying Eul-rank plaques,” Ilhong remarked as she surveyed the interior.
She’d disguised herself as a boy again with the skin-mask, just so she could walk the streets. The eyes and ears of the Haomu Gate were everywhere, or so she claimed.
“Eul-rank plaques?”
“Yes. Vagabonds are ranked by the Gap, Eul, Byeong, and Jeong plaques they carry. Gap and Eul are gold and silver, so they’re easy to tell apart. Byeong is iron, and Jeong is wood.”
A walking Murim encyclopedia, this one.
“Boss, I think that man’s the branch leader.”
Ilhong jabbed a finger into the air. I followed it and spotted a middle-aged man with streaks of gray in his hair and a long scar running down his face. A great saber hung at his waist, and he carried the weathered air of a veteran who’d seen every kind of hell. Probably a retired vagabond who’d once made a name for himself—and used the fortune he’d piled up to set up a building this size.
Wonder if I’ll ever get an office like this someday.
I wanted a massive signboard reading “Dan Mujin Detective Agency” hanging right in the heart of Beijing, with clients lining up out the door.
“Then you’ll need to build a reputation first, won’t you? Even if you open one, it’s useless if no one shows up.”
Ilhong dropped the cold dose of reality right beside me. She was right. I needed the skill and the name recognition of a troubleshooter before clients would come hunting me down on their own.
“Any quick way to make a name for myself…?”
“Catch a famous wanted criminal with a moniker, or take down a well-known demonic leader. The gossips go wild whenever a new expert appears.”
Yeah, that was the law of the Murim. The reputation of the fallen became the property of whoever knocked them down. Back in school, if someone took out the top dog, the news spread through every class before the day was over.
“Well now, what are these little blood-sacks?”
The scarred middle-aged man muttered as he trudged over after finishing his conversation, the scar twitching on his face. His single line drew the interest of the nearby vagabonds who’d been chatting among themselves; they turned curious eyes on the unfamiliar boys.
“What are a couple of brats doing here?”
“Damn, look at that pretty face. Makes me sick.”
“Here for a job? Our rates aren’t cheap, so stop wasting time and scram.”
Rough-looking middle-aged men flapping their mouths with lazy, mocking attitudes. Ilhong seemed a little intimidated and slipped half a step behind me.
Without a word, I held out the Eunseong plaque Eun Hwaran had given me.
“The hell is that?”
The rookies tilted their heads, but the higher-ranked ones who could actually read narrowed their eyes.
“That’s… an Eunseong plaque.”
“Looks like the Eunseong Merchant Group sent them.”
The Eunseong Merchant Group ran its own escort agency and hired packs of vagabonds for every convoy. In other words, they were a cash cow the vagabonds needed to stay on good terms with.
“Ahem.”
“My apologies.”
The crowd that had gathered shut their mouths and melted away on their own. Then the Beijing branch leader himself strolled over with an amused look and struck up a conversation.
“I heard from Merchant Leader Eun Hwaran. She said a skilled little brat was coming. You’re the one who took down the Beomcheon Eumjeok, right?”
At the mention of the Beomcheon Eumjeok—who’d gone down not long ago—a few vagabonds shot us looks of genuine surprise. Even if he’d only been Second-class Realm, the man had been the head of a black-path crew who handled a blade like a viper.
“Name’s Gam Un. Back in my younger days they called me the Defeat-Raising Blade. Since you seem close with the merchant leader, you can call me Elder Gam.”
He introduced himself and thrust out a calloused hand.
“Dan Mujin. Elder Gam.”
The moment I gripped it, a monstrous force clamped down on my hand. Veins bulged in the clasped fists; my wrist went stiff under the pressure of that handshake. When I didn’t so much as flinch, Gam Un pulled his hand back with a look that said I wasn’t half bad.
“I’m Ilhong.”
She poked her face out from behind my back and said it.
Gam Un dusted off his deeply lined hands and fixed his eyes on me.
“So. You want your name on the Vagabond Association roster?”
He pulled a Jeong-rank wooden plaque from his robes—as if he’d prepared it in advance—and gave it a little shake.
“Yes. It suits me, and I need the work.”
Hwang Geolgae had said the standard for good deeds was me. And I was the kind of biased bastard who usually figured the client paying the money was in the right. So I needed this three-birds-with-one-stone job—something that would make me cash, grow my internal energy, and weaken the baleful star all at once.
“I can put your name on the list since the merchant leader asked. But becoming a vagabond doesn’t mean everyone gets jobs brokered to them.”
There were too many vagabonds and not enough commissions, he explained. He jerked his chin toward the ones sitting around sucking on liquor with no work in sight. Eun Hwaran’s request only covered getting my name registered, he said; commissions were his domain, and he couldn’t hand them out carelessly.
“Because my credit is on the line. If a vagabond I brokered goes and screws up spectacularly, what client is ever going to trust me with another job?”
“Yeah… going somewhere else would be the normal move.”
I had a pretty clear idea what he was driving at. Credit was everything for a troubleshooter. People brought sensitive, high-stakes work; one bad rumor and the jobs dried up overnight.
“So I need to check whether you’ve got any talent for the vagabond life.”
With that, he tossed a rolled-up sheet of paper in front of me.
“What’s this?”
I unrolled it and a tangle of dense writing swam before my eyes—dates, amounts borrowed, interest rates, repayment deadlines, the whole mess.
“A promissory note. There’s a real piece of work out there who borrowed money and is now playing dumb. Go collect what’s owed.”
The borrowed sum was twenty gold coins. Not a small amount even for a merchant, let alone a beggar. The lender was a bookseller in Beijing; the borrower was another merchant nearby. He hadn’t paid back a single copper of interest, never mind the principal—even though his business was booming right now.
“Where do I go to collect it?”
“You know a merchant named Jang Geon who runs a fabric shop near the South Gate?”
“A fabric shop near the South Gate… Old Man Jang?”
The wrinkled, greed-bloated face rose first in my mind. The vicious old bastard who used to chase off any beggar who so much as drifted near his store, waving a club and yelling that we were killing his sales. He’d swing that club without mercy even at little kids.
“He’s got a relative who’s a constable, so waving the promissory note around does nothing. Collection’s been so hard the client is just stamping his feet in frustration.”
You ran into these disaster debts from time to time—the lender fretting himself sick while the debtor sat there with his belly out, daring anyone to do something. A man with even a shred of face or decency would at least show some willingness to repay, or chip in a speck of interest. But this guy was thriving and still refused to pay. Real scum.
“Oh, come on. Branch leader, you’re wasting your time.”
The surrounding vagabonds, who’d been listening in, started tossing in their two cents.
“The second the atmosphere turns ugly, the constables come running and you can’t even lift a hand.”
“Two vagabonds already tried and got nothing but grief for their trouble.”
“No way those brats are going to succeed at collection.”
Cold snorts poured in from every side—how could kids pull off what even hardened veterans had failed at? Gam Un raised a hand and shut every mouth at once.
“I’m not expecting much myself.”
He scratched at his scar as he spoke. Truth was, debt collection was ugly work; it wasn’t something you handed a kid.
“So I’m not telling you to get the full amount. Bluff, throw a fit, do whatever—just squeeze even one copper out of him. Do that and I’ll acknowledge you and hand over this plaque.”
He wanted to see my venom and my guts. That much, I was fairly confident about.
“Just take a nap, Elder. Won’t take long.”
I snatched up the promissory note as I said it. The thick confidence drew simultaneous gasps of admiration and mocking laughter from the room.
“That boy’s got some cheek.”
“He’ll come crawling back crying, mark my words.”
“Heh, let’s see how this plays out.”
Yeah. Just watch.
Debt collection had been daily bread back in my troubleshooter days. I pulled open the door with another creak and stepped both feet back out onto the street.
“Do you really think we can collect it? He looks like the type who’ll just claim he’s broke.”
On the road toward Beijing’s South Gate, Ilhong trailed after me with a worried face and tossed out the question.
“There’s a saying in the loan-shark business.”
“What is it?”
“Even a dried squid will give water if you squeeze hard enough.”
Of course, this particular debtor was less a dried squid and more a pufferfish with a belly full of water.
“Wow, that line just now sounded seriously villainous.”
“Hey, watch it. The bad guy is the one who acts different going into the toilet and coming out. What’s the bookseller uncle’s crime for trusting him and lending the money?”
The whole way of thinking was different. Most people put repayment first when they borrow. Scum like this just decide they’ve been robbed of free cash.
“Yeah… fair point.”
“And that old man is loaded. He runs a fabric shop that specializes in silk, remember?”
On top of that, he somehow sold silk far cheaper than any other fabric shop and still did roaring business.
“Wait, really?”
“Yeah. You don’t remember Old Man Jang swinging that club?”
“How would I? I was in the middle of running away from home back then.”
“Right, true.”
She’d been in full runaway-ninja mode. No wonder the conversation kept missing the mark.
“…Hold on a second. His name’s Jang Geon? And he runs a fabric shop selling cheap silk?”
“That’s right. Why?”
Ilhong suddenly stopped walking and stared into space, thinking hard. Then something clicked; her eyes flew wide and she started smacking my shoulder over and over.
“I! I! I remember!”
“So what is it, damn it.”
“The Haomu Gate deals in smuggled silk, right?”
“Yeah.”
They made a killing on tax-free silk that never passed through imperial hands. Lucky bastards.
“The Beijing branch has been supplying silk to sales outlets too… and I think I saw the name Jang Geon in the ledgers where they keep track of that.”
“…What? For real?”
“Yes, for real.”
She nodded with a face full of conviction. Come to think of it, she’d been taking Haomu Gate heir lessons to inherit the Beijing branch.
“If that’s true… this just got a whole lot easier.”
Handling silk that never went through the imperial court was a serious crime. No wonder that greed-stuffed old man had been willing to slash his margins and sell fabric dirt cheap. He’d been plugged into the Haomu Gate the whole time.
“We might even be able to collect the entire amount.”
“Nice work. That’s my subordinate.”
“Hehe.”
When I gave her shoulder a couple of approving pats, Ilhong grinned from ear to ear.
“All right. Time to gut ourselves a pufferfish.”
An old grudge from my beggar days, revisited now as the creditor’s proxy. My steps picked up speed.
A two-story building of wood and stone. Near the entrance, stalls displayed neatly arranged bolts of cotton and hemp cloth in every color. Business looked as good as the rumors said; a steady stream of customers flowed in and out of the front door.
“Should we show the promissory note and ask them to bring out someone named Jang Geon?”
Ilhong eyed the servant guarding the entrance and made the most innocent suggestion imaginable.
“You think he’ll come out if we just call him like that?”
A deadbeat debtor who answered a creditor’s summons promptly—any dog walking by would laugh itself sick.
“Then what do we do?”
“We make him come out on his own.”
With that, I drew in a massive breath, filling my lungs until they felt ready to burst like balloons.
“JANG GEEEEON! YOU FUCKING OLD GEEZER, PAY BACK THE MONEYYYYY—!”
A lion’s roar of a shout thundered across the entire block. Birds perched on nearby branches exploded into the air in a frantic flurry. The bellow was so loud and so powerful that customers bolted out of the fabric shop in pure shock.
“Which son of a bitch is that?!”
The front door slammed open and Old Man Jang appeared, snorting furious jets of air through his nose. His face had gone purple with rage.
“See?”
“Wow. That was incredible.”
Ilhong’s pure admiration floated in from the side.