Raising Hell
Dang Hui-yeom’s speech, which had so cleverly twisted the rhetoric of nationalism and patriotism, was nothing more than a borrowed oration that sounded vaguely familiar from somewhere.
Yet it proved more than enough to set a fire in the old elder’s breast, and so Elder Bak found himself taking Hui-yeom’s hand.
The moment the Ointment Directorate was completed, production of the goods began at once. Just as Hui-yeom had anticipated, however, petty interference started trickling in from the Elder Council.
Materials failed to arrive on schedule, and even the batches that did show up arrived in wretched condition.
“Wow. Whether it’s the future or the past, the garbage incompetent bastards pull is always the same, huh?”
Hui-yeom smirked when a flustered pharmacist reported that they could not make Manneunggo for lack of materials.
Back when he had first begun running a modest small-to-medium enterprise, a rival firm had once lobbied the raw-materials suppliers to choke off his supply chain and keep him in check.
“When they raise hell, you counter with an even bigger hell. That’s the real fun of it.”
Hui-yeom went straight to the Family Head’s residence.
After meeting Dang Un-sang and laying out the entire situation, he secured a search order from his father and headed directly for the Medicinal Materials Warehouse.
“I hear the honeycomb and oil for the Dang Family’s Manneunggo are short. Is that true?”
“Yes, it is. We’re having trouble ourselves because there’s nothing in stock.”
“Oh, really? Then bring me the ledgers.”
“Th-the ledgers?”
When Hui-yeom asked, the chief pharmacist who had been blocking his path spoke with a troubled look.
“The ledgers cannot be opened carelessly. Family law clearly states that only the Family Head, the Chief Steward, and the Warehouse Master may inspect them.”
“Here. I have the Family Head’s order.”
“…What?”
He had never imagined that Hui-yeom would show up with the Family Head’s personal order merely because they had delayed a bit of oil and honeycomb. The chief pharmacist began to stammer.
He simply had not gone so far as to prepare double books for something this trivial.
“I’ll fetch the ledgers. But I will need some time.”
“Time? Why?”
Hui-yeom gave a short laugh, and the chief pharmacist scrambled for an excuse.
“It is working hours; medicinal materials are constantly being checked in and out. If I remove the ledgers now, the records will be disrupted…”
“I’m not taking them away. I’ll examine them right here.”
“…As you wish.”
In the end, unable to overcome either the Young Master’s authority or the Family Head’s written order, the chief pharmacist led Hui-yeom to the ledgers.
After leafing through them, Hui-yeom spoke.
“The books are in perfect order. One hundred fifty geun of honeycomb, three hundred doe of camellia oil and three hundred fifty doe of safflower-seed oil respectively. And you claim there’s nothing to release to the Ointment Directorate?”
“Th-those already have designated uses…”
“Where?”
“W-well…”
Unable to produce a coherent excuse, the chief pharmacist squeezed his eyes shut and bowed his head.
“Please kill this lowly one!”
“Hah.”
Hui-yeom asked as though he could scarcely believe his ears.
“Do the orders of my father and myself not even sound like words to you?”
“No, sir!”
“Then why did you disobey and hide the medicinal materials?”
“….”
“If it is not that our father-and-son’s commands sound like empty noise… then there must be another reason. Whose orders were you following?”
Hui-yeom’s eyes flashed, yet the chief pharmacist kept his mouth clamped shut and merely lowered his head still further.
Hui-yeom continued.
“Well, if you open your mouth here and name names, you won’t walk away unharmed. You might figure it’s safer just to take a few insults from a young Young Master and be done with it. Right?”
“I received no orders! Everything was my own arbitrary decision!”
“What? You’re arbitrarily obstructing my work for no reason at all? Chief, as it turns out, are you some enemy of mine from a past life?
Just what possible reason do you have to stand in my way? Stop peddling lies that even a three-year-old wouldn’t swallow.
Ye-eun! Are you there!”
“Yes, Young Master.”
Ye-eun, who had been waiting a short distance away, hurried over and prostrated herself. Hui-yeom spoke.
“This man has hidden the great Dang Family’s property at his own whim and defied the orders of both the Family Head and the Young Master. According to family law I intend to subject him to interrogation by torture as an example to the rest, so inform the Poison Bee Unit to arrest him!”
“Yes, Young Master.”
“W-wait just a moment, Young Master! Torture? Even if I failed to supply the oil and honeycomb smoothly, I never embezzled family property! Torture violates family law!
At the very worst this is dereliction of duty, a matter for flogging—how can you utter something so dreadful?”
When the terrified chief pharmacist protested, Hui-yeom’s eyes blazed and he roared.
“You bastard! Have you forgotten that the orders I issued are the Family Head’s own orders! You tried to cover the Family Head’s eyes and privately conceal the family’s property—
this is defiance of orders and a false report meant to deceive your superiors!
Originally, deceiving the sovereign is punished by slow dismemberment, and defiance of orders may be dealt with by summary execution—do you not know that!”
It was a stretch, an overreach on Hui-yeom’s part.
Yet he was not simply throwing a tantrum in ignorance of the fact.
He had already observed the Warehouse Master’s attitude at the demonstration.
The man who could be called, charitably, neutral—or less charitably, thoroughly self-preserving—had shown no desire to side with either the Family Head’s residence or the Elder Council.
Sure enough, when Hui-yeom deliberately raised a thunderous ruckus, the Warehouse Master finally appeared, unable to ignore the uproar any longer.
“What is all this commotion! Young Master, what disturbance is this inside the Medicinal Materials Warehouse?”
“Warehouse Master! Perfect timing! Can you believe this insolent fellow is trying to deceive the Family Head? Let me tell you exactly what happened…”
Hui-yeom cheerfully recounted everything that had just taken place. After hearing the full story, the Warehouse Master sighed.
“This is because I failed to control my subordinates properly. I will deal with it strictly. So please let the matter rest this once, Young Master.”
“And if the same thing happens again, what then? Shouldn’t an incident like this be made an example of?”
“I stake my post that I will enforce strict control so that nothing of the sort ever recurs.”
Having extracted the very assurance he wanted, Hui-yeom smiled.
Because he himself had stepped forward and raised hell until the affair became too large to bury quietly, this was the only way left for the Warehouse Master to cover it up.
If the Warehouse Master continued to shield the chief pharmacist any further, he would hand the Family Head’s residence a perfect pretext to strike.
As someone with no intention of actively taking either side, the Warehouse Master now had no choice but to process the medicinal materials Hui-yeom requested strictly according to principle, lest the same mess erupt again.
From the Elder Council’s vantage as well, after watching Hui-yeom foam at the mouth and charge in over a mere probe, they would think twice before casually meddling with him in the future.
From time immemorial, if you just sit still you become a sucker. When you bark, you have to bark hard enough that they think “that bastard’s got a temper” and leave you alone.
For the Warehouse Master himself, Hui-yeom’s spectacular fit had conveniently supplied a ready-made justification for refusing active cooperation with the Elder Council side.
When Hui-yeom gave a light wink, the Warehouse Master sighed softly, turned on his heel, and left.
Hui-yeom leaned close to the ear of the chief pharmacist, who looked as though his soul had fled his body, and whispered.
“Hong Ilgon, right?”
“…!!”
“Tell him that while we’re trying to eat well and live well in our declining family, even if he can’t help, at least don’t go sprinkling ashes on the whole thing.”
The chief pharmacist turned into a stone statue and could say nothing more.
“All right, bring everything out! We’ve got work to do! Oil and honeycomb—move them, now!”
“Yes!”
And so the Ointment Directorate’s official business began in earnest.
“That young pup is insolent beyond all measure.”
Elder Gong Duchan clicked his tongue after hearing the report of the warehouse incident from the subordinates he had planted throughout the clan.
“What do you intend to do, Elder Hong? Sooner or later we must thoroughly correct that child’s manners, must we not?”
“….”
Hong Ilgon stroked his beard, lost in thought for a moment, then spoke.
“As a rule, when elders forbid a thing there is always a reason, yet our Young Master is still young and shallow in learning, so he appears not to know it.
If the ambitious enterprise he is so eagerly promoting collapses and he suffers heavy losses, will he not cling to his father then, weeping?”
“Make the business fail? Are you saying we should hire men to put pressure on the markets?”
“Why resort to such barbaric methods? Would it not be enough for Elder Gong to speak a single word?”
“My single word?”
“Are not the merchants of Sichuan Province—from the great houses down to the lowliest peddlers—all resting in Elder Gong’s palm?”
“Ahem.”
Elder Gong cleared his throat, not at all displeased by the flattery.
In truth the remark was not entirely empty. Though the Sichuan Dang Family no longer commanded the prestige of former days, it was still not a power ordinary merchants could afford to ignore.
In particular, the Chahwa Bank operated by Gong Duchan’s main house was a renowned financial house in Sichuan Province even before one considered the Dang Family’s name.
Since more than a few merchants had borrowed capital from it to launch their ventures, Gong Duchan’s influence inevitably carried weight.
“In short, if I simply tell them not to distribute any of our Dang Family’s products made by that brat, that will do it?”
“Precisely.”
“But even then, if they take the goods out themselves and sell them openly on the streets, it will be of no use, will it?”
“If there is any sign they are selling on the street, we simply hire a few people to agitate—‘I used the ointment sold at this stall and my skin broke out,’ that sort of thing.
The common people are like pigs and dogs by nature; they follow wherever they are led.”
“Yet those agitators might then be seized by the Family Head’s residence and the Poison Bee Unit under their command, and they might confess.”
“If we step forward first and hide them, how will anyone find them? As the saying goes, even a lion cannot deal with the worms inside its own belly, no?”
“Hahahaha! True enough!”
Elder Gong slapped his palm and declared,
“I’ll set it in motion soon. I’ll make that bastard’s tears dry up completely.”
“Not immediately. Leave him alone for a while. Once he has produced a decent volume of goods, observed the market’s response, and grown confident enough to expand production—that is when we strike.”
“Hehehe. A brilliant stroke that lets the family avoid serious losses while also shutting that arrogant little brat’s mouth.”
“Then this old man will place his trust solely in Elder Gong.”
“Just trust me!”
About a week later the Dang Family began selling Hogol-go, Micheopmuk, and Bulgeonyeon—products of the Ointment Directorate—throughout Seongdo city.
The response was rapturous.
After confirming that the three hundred units manufactured as an initial trial had vanished in less than half a day, Elder Bak Chang-eon ordered the production of an additional two thousand. Just as those goods were completed and ready to be released to the shops, trouble erupted.
Suddenly, as though by prior arrangement, every miscellaneous-goods shop in Seongdo city announced that it would refuse to sell the cosmetics made by the Dang Family.
Since the shops would not accept the merchandise, there was no way to force the goods upon them and extract payment. The Ointment Directorate’s salespeople had no choice but to withdraw empty-handed. Upon receiving their report, Elder Bak went straight to Hui-yeom.
“It seems the Elder Council has made a move.”
“Whose doing do you think it is?”
“Most likely Elder Gong Duchan. He wields considerable influence over small merchants.
His main house runs the Chahwa Bank; it has invested heavily even in our own main family and holds a great many bonds against merchants throughout the Seongdo region.
There are few merchants who can simply ignore his demands.”
“Hmm.”
“What shall we do? One option is to have the salespeople take the goods out into the markets and sell them directly, but…”
“That method won’t work. They’ll definitely spin public opinion there. If it were me, I’d do exactly that.”
“Spin public opinion?”
“Ah—opinion-mongering. Things like ‘I used their product and broke out in a rash,’ or ‘my skin flipped inside out’—smearing us with ugly rumors of that sort.”
“I see.”
“Ah… so what are we going to do about these cunning little bastards? Hmm…”
After tapping his cheek thoughtfully with one index finger, Hui-yeom soon broke into a sly smile.
“I’ll have to show them that there are many ways to mold public opinion.”