Crisis at Noksan
“Is that true?”
The carriage station master fought to keep his composure while he tried to pin down the facts.
Emboldened, the coachman launched into his explanation.
“Years ago, when I was crossing Sogeumbong, the Green Forest bandits robbed me clean—left me with nothing but my underdrawers. Their chief was a bear of a man with a Zhang Fei–style iron-wire beard and a deep knife scar carved across his left eye. That face stuck with me. Not long ago I was escorting a young master from the Ha family toward Yunnan, and when we passed the Noksan checkpoint roadworks… there he was, strutting around as the station chief, giving orders.”
“….”
The station master folded his arms and thought it over.
Now that he considered it, several things had never quite added up. Out of nowhere a huge influx of outsiders had arrived, and the moment they appeared, the mountain bandits who once infested every ridge simply vanished. The Sichuan Dang Family had publicly claimed that while building the roads they had cut down every Green Forest dog they found and driven the rest out; afterward the bandits truly were gone, so everyone believed the story. The Dang Family’s reputation carried weight as well. One of the Nine Great Noble Families, a pillar of the orthodox path and the undisputed masters of Sichuan—surely they would never crawl into bed with mountain outlaws?
The grudges between the orthodox and unorthodox factions ran deeper than most people imagined; an alliance was not something formed lightly. Families like the Sichuan Dang, in particular, were bound together by a sense of privilege and chosen-people arrogance that made even local gentry look humble. In martial novels, bandits were little more than practice dummies for fledgling heroes—slaughtered for experience points and reputation. That was the common attitude of the jianghu toward the Green Forest. And the Sichuan Dang Family, before Hwiyeom’s rise, had been so closed-minded, so narrow, so ready to die for a grudge that some classified them as a gray-zone sect halfway between light and dark.
Because Noksan had been the company and the personnel the Dang Family itself had pushed forward, people had swallowed their doubts and looked the other way…
So the healthy, regionally symbiotic trading company known as Noksan had in truth been a den of bandits all along? And the Sichuan Dang Family had known, and had deceived the provincial authorities and the local people for years…?
This is no small matter. If I play it right…
A dangerous glitter flashed through the station master’s eyes.
“Keep this quiet for now. Understood?”
“Uh… yes, sir.”
Once the coachman had been dismissed, the station master brooded.
“How do I turn this to advantage…?”
He was not naïve enough to think he could simply blackmail the Dang Family head and walk away with a fortune. He was a Sichuan native of the generation that still remembered what the Dang Family had been before their fall—and before they became the saviors of the common folk: a blood-soaked martial house that reeked of murder.
I’d end up in an underground torture chamber. Maybe melted down to the marrow.
Direct blackmail was a losing move. Threats would not work, so extracting profit through threats was impossible.
In that case…
There was a eunuch who came down to watch the Sichuan Dang Family, wasn’t there? Name… Imperial Inspector Baek Beon, I think.
Baek Beon had been shuttling between Sichuan and Beijing for years. Even if he was a being who floated above the clouds, his official duties had forced him to use the carriage stations often enough that the master knew his face.
I report the Dang Family’s crimes to Baek Beon, then collect a sweet reward for the tip…
Every denunciation carried a bounty. Once the Eastern Depot began investigating and pressing the Dang Family, even the Sichuan Dang would be smashed to pieces, and Noksan together with every business linked to it would collapse overnight. Sichuan might revert to the isolated backwater rich-village it had once been—everyone raising mulberries and spinning silk again—but what did that matter to him?
“About time I scored something big…”
With a sinister expression the station master pulled out paper and began to write.
Meanwhile the coachman who had just left the interview clutched his trembling chest and exhaled a long sigh. His liver quivered as if he had done something unforgivable; he could barely stand it. With no work left for the day, the only sensible course was to stop by a tavern early, knock back a bowl of cloudy rice wine, and head home.
Thinking so, he trudged toward the tavern near his house. He ordered a bowl of rice wine and a block of tofu for side dishes and sat down—
And the proprietress set a whole jar of wine in front of him, plus tofu and boiled pork.
The coachman’s eyes went round.
“H-hey, proprietress, I didn’t order all this.”
“It’s on the house. Eat.”
“On the house? What are you talking about, woman?”
He laughed awkwardly.
“Business booming or something? Times that good?”
“All thanks to the Young Clan Head, isn’t it? These days folks even joke that Sichuan’s become the Four Heavens of the empire.”
“….”
The coachman’s face darkened. A wave of guilt rose in him—he was, after all, taking steps that might hurl the Young Clan Head, the savior of Sichuan, into an irreversible abyss.
B-but I’m in the right, aren’t I? You can’t just let bandit scum whitewash their past and live on like nothing happened…
He refused to consider that those same bandits had fought the Chagatai army to the death at the checkpoints so that people like him could enjoy peaceful days. He clung to the rationalization that he was justified.
Whether she sensed his turmoil or not, the proprietress beamed.
“I’m shutting this place down too. Starting next week I’m joining Baekga-jaengsik as a franchisee. Renovation begins tomorrow.”
“Huh? Really? Baekga-jaengsik? Doesn’t that cost a fortune in construction?”
“Nope—headquarters covers everything. So this tofu and wine are just me clearing stock. Dig in.”
“Well, thank you. Heh, another windfall.”
His mood lifted as he ate the wine, tofu, and boiled pork. Once the alcohol took hold he could no longer fight the drowsiness; he planted his face on the table and fell asleep. The jar was still half full.
A short while later a man entered the tavern. The proprietress pointed to the sleeping coachman; the man nodded.
“Well done.”
“Um… you’re not going to hurt him, are you? We’re neighbors, after all…”
She asked with a guilty look. The man answered,
“That fellow is under suspicion of slandering the Young Clan Head and spreading malicious rumors. We’ll investigate, of course… but if he has a clear conscience and no crime, nothing will happen. Don’t worry.”
The absolution—if he’s innocent, he’ll be fine—eased her expression and she nodded. She herself, by joining Baekga-jaengsik, had become a white agent of the Minjeongwon and now took its orders.
“Remember this: once you become part of Baekga-jaengsik, you come under the protection of the Sichuan Dang Family. The Dang will guard your shop no matter what… so you must also guard the Dang, yes?”
“That’s right. Exactly. Heh-heh.”
She brushed away the last of her guilt. The man—almost certainly a black agent of the Minjeongwon—opened his delivery box. The specially modified container could fold an adult man inside. He stuffed the coachman into a fetal position, closed the lid, and carried him off somewhere.
A few double-hours later the coachman woke to a burning thirst. His hands groped automatically—and instead of the rough wooden platform of the tavern, they found soft silk bedding. He stared blankly for a moment.
Blinking the sleep from his eyes he sat up, realized he was inside a small windowless room, and felt the alcohol vanish in an instant.
“W-where… where am I?”
“Are you awake?”
A gentle voice slid into his ear. He turned without thinking and found a handsome young man with a mild face sitting there, smiling at him.
The instant he recognized that face the coachman vaulted off the bed and dropped to his knees.
“Y-Young Clan Head! Young Clan Head!”
As a man of Sichuan he held Hwiyeom in genuine respect. Combined with the guilty secret he was carrying, he felt like a criminal caught red-handed.
What in the world happened? Why is the Young Clan Head sitting in front of me the moment I open my eyes? And why was I sleeping under silk covers?
“I happened to pass the tavern and saw you sleeping there. I had something I wished to discuss with you, and leaving you where you were seemed unwise, so I arranged for a change of venue. This is a small guest room inside the Sichuan Dang Family’s reception hall.”
“Ah… a-ah, I see.”
Even as he answered automatically he could not stop wondering, What business could the Young Clan Head of the Dang Family possibly have with me?
D-did he find out I snitched?
Sweat poured down his back; his mouth went bone-dry.
Hwiyeom regarded him with that trademark gentle smile, then spoke quietly.
“Sir… would you be willing to look the other way?”
The coachman’s heart felt ready to leap out of his throat. He tried desperately to act casual.
“Y-yes, yes, w-what… all of a sudden…”
Even he realized, Ah, I’m finished, and despair flickered across his face. Every rumor about the Sichuan Dang Family seizing enemies, pickling them in every poison imaginable, and slicing their fingers and toes into thin strips for torture began replaying in his skull.
Hwiyeom deliberately gave no answer; he simply continued to smile and watch him. Crushed by the weight of silence, the coachman felt his breath catch and began to tremble violently.
“S-s-s-spare me! Please… please…!”
“Sir. Do not be afraid. Why would I harm you? If I meant to, I would not have taken the time to meet you myself.”
Hwiyeom personally helped the man to his feet and soothed him.
“There were voices that said you should be eliminated… but I do not wish that. We have nothing to hide.”
“Nothing… to hide?”
“The truth you know… is almost certainly the truth.”
The coachman’s expression hardened. Yet the words that followed began to shake that hardness.
“But if a criminal never needed a second chance, why would we bother locking people in prison, convicting them, and then releasing them? Why not simply execute every offender?”
“That’s…”
Hwiyeom continued to persuade him.
“Anyone can make a mistake. What matters is whether they can repent and strive to become new people. Think of the Noksan family you have watched all this time. Did they ever seem to be acting a part?”
“…They only play along to keep their new identities. Those men are bandits by nature—vicious. How can you…”
“Do you know that those same vicious bandits risked their lives fighting for Sichuan?”
“….”
“While you ate and slept safely beside your family, they threw their lives away at Aba County, at Lijiang and Dali in Yunnan. Because of them Sichuan was spared invasion. Is that service still not enough?”
“…That’s…”
“Sir.”
Hwiyeom pressed something into his hand. When the man looked, it was an employee badge of the Sichuan Carriage Company—already engraved with his own name.
To the wide-eyed coachman Hwiyeom drove the final nail.
“Please… do not take away the second chance of the people who fought for Sichuan.”
Already wavering under Hwiyeom’s persuasion, the man found himself offered a new livelihood as well; he had no choice but to accept the offer. And if he refused? Could he continue living in Sichuan after defying the will of the Young Clan Head of the Sichuan Dang Family?
There was nothing left to ponder.
“…I understand.”
Unaware that the coachman had already been won over, the carriage station master finally made his move one day…
“Pardon? Me? No, I’ve never said anything of the sort…”
“You bastard! Speak properly! You told me that exact thing back then!”
“When did I ever?!”
Summoned as a witness, the coachman opened his eyes wide and turned the station master into a liar on the spot. For the crime of daring to deceive a high official—an Imperial Inspector of the Eastern Depot certainly counted as one—the station master was beaten with the heavy stick and driven out of the carriage trade.
Through this process, little by little, every private carriage station across Sichuan—save for a handful still run by the yamen—was absorbed into the Sichuan Carriage Company. The logistics and transport of Sichuan and Yunnan had been seized.
“Now the only thing left…”
Resolve hardened, Lee Jinmyeong went looking for Michelangelo.
“What now? Here to dump some other weird job on me?”
Michelangelo started with suspicion. Lee Jinmyeong dropped straight into a full formal bow and bellowed,
“I wish to commission the most special wedding ring in the entire world!!!!!”
“Get out, you crazy bastard!!!!!”
Lee Jinmyeong’s love was advancing, step by steady step, toward its goal.
…
Well.
Step by step… right?