Geon Pyeong (4)
The moment I stepped outside, Geon Pyeong, drawing on his long pipe, called me to a halt through a drift of white smoke.
"Geon Hyu, you can go. I have something to discuss with A-seong."
"Hahaha. Brothers, isn't this a bit much — turning your backs and driving off the little brother who's only just come home after years of training? I'm hurt."
"The older brothers have things to discuss. Go."
When Geon Pyeong turned overbearing, Geon Hyu merely shrugged.
"Yes, as you wish. I'll be on my way. Though Second Brother is already heading off over there, isn't he?"
Geon Hyu vanished with a smirk, and Geon Pyeong called after me again. I was already well away, walking off in a different direction from him.
"Hey, where are you going! I told you to stay a moment!!"
Having rushed after me, Geon Pyeong planted himself in my path, huffing.
"Since when do you get to order me around?"
"You little— seriously..."
I grinned.
"Looks like you want to get dragged off and strung up naked again."
"......"
As if the memory had come flooding back, Geon Pyeong's body trembled in fine shivers. When I made to walk on, he spoke.
"Thanks. Thanks to you, I saved a bit of face."
"Oh? Then pay off some of that debt while you're at it."
"Debt?"
"You've got a spy planted in my Geumhwa Department, don't you?"
"......"
"I'm talking about the Head Merchant."
"What are you talking about..."
"Don't play dumb. I'm cutting off the rotten branch. Take him or leave him — your choice. After that, everyone in the Geumhwa Department who's been watching me, take them all under you with Mother's permission. Or cut them loose."
"......"
"Keep looking the other way, and they'll swing toward Geon Hyu. Don't say I didn't warn you."
Unable to get another word in, Geon Pyeong only stared blankly at my departing back.
"Just you wait until I rise to Manor Lord. Even without Mother's permission, I'll flay your hide and hang it from the eaves of the hall."
"I can hear every word. Mutter so I can't."
Honestly. Pointlessly frank, this one.
Seven days and nights later, Seol-ha returned, the task I had set her finished. Not long after, Ju Cho-saeng came to me hollow-eyed, ledgers in his arms.
"I heard that everything from abandoned fields to bad debts — the property ledgers — is being concentrated into the Geumhwa Department."
"Word's already out?"
"Yes, so everyone's working through the night. The fabric business is being pulled entirely out of the Geumhwa Department and transferred under the Eldest Young Master's Cheolgyeong Department. You weren't aware?"
"I only set the broad direction. The practical work is their affair. I don't know the petty details — I only hear the Head Merchant's summarized reports. Anyway."
I poured the tea into his cup myself. Ju Cho-saeng took a sip of the steaming tea, then spoke.
"Thank you."
"If I drank alone, you'd sulk again."
"I'm ashamed it's only a condiment dish."
"There's always a bone hidden in what you say. Anyway, you must have a reason for seeking me out at this hour."
"I've finished the task you entrusted to me."
"Already?"
"It seemed work I'd have to do regardless of my own intentions would come flooding in soon, so I thought I should clear what I could first."
"You must have resented me."
"May I speak honestly?"
"No, don't. I have a feeling I won't like it."
"Yes..."
I let out a short laugh at the look of regret on his face.
"What did you find?"
Ju Cho-saeng spread open the ledgers he had brought.
"I went through every ledger, and I found where the slush funds the Head Merchant has been siphoning off have gone."
"You found how he siphoned them, how large the sum is, and where it is?"
"Yes. But the scale seems larger than I thought."
"How large?"
"Both the Geumhwa Department and the Cheolgyeong Department are involved. It seems he's been in league with the Cheolgyeong Department's Head Merchant, cooking the books together."
"How did you figure that out?"
"Low-grade cloth bound for Cloudweave was sold through the Cheolgyeong Department, but the price swings are far too wild. So I dug into the Cheolgyeong Department's ledgers a little."
"And how did you dig into the Cheolgyeong Department's ledgers?"
"I snuck in."
"What were you going to do if you got caught?"
"You would have saved me."
"......"
A man with absolutely no plan.
"So. Once you'd checked — what did you find?"
"Whenever the prices spiked, the records showed the Cheolgyeong Department paying high prices for low-grade cloth, plain as day."
"Then they bought at market rate, didn't they? Cloth that goes into Cloudweave does jump in price when it's needed."
"The problem is the margin. It isn't the real market rate — the ledgers were fabricated. The Cheolgyeong Department bought the cloth at a far greater loss."
"They used the fact that the two departments don't deal with each other and never cross-check their books."
"Yes. And if what you said is true, Young Master, the Eldest Young Master trusts the Geumhwa Department's Head Merchant. Even if he came and went from the Cheolgyeong Department often, no one would have thought it strange."
"The ledgers covering that are probably in the Geumhwa Head Merchant's keeping. The question now is where they moved the remaining margin without raising a flag."
One thought chased the next, and the answer worth guessing was plain.
"They moved the money through the underground gambling dens."
"I thought the same, so for several days I watched the people and carriages coming and going through the five gambling dens under you, looking for anyone suspicious."
"A mere scribe does work like that?"
"You told me to."
"......"
Honestly, I had never ordered him to go that far. One slip, and Ju Cho-saeng — without so much as a shred of martial skill — could have died. I felt a fresh certainty. This was less loyalty toward me than...
"That orphanage truly is precious to you, Chief Ju, isn't it? Precious enough to make you ready to stake the only life you have."
Silent for a long while, Ju Cho-saeng nodded.
"Yes. It's the place that set me on my feet. And the place I have to protect from here on."
"Then protect it. I have something I want to protect too, so I understand. If you need help, say so anytime. That's why I pay you a monthly wage and keep you under me."
Ju Cho-saeng looked at me with a strange light in his eyes.
"I've kept wondering. Why do you value me so highly? For what..."
"From what your colleagues tell me, all-nighters are a given for you. Isn't that the guilt of skimming money? You work beyond what your wage is worth, so you can at least lighten the guilt of diverting funds for the orphanage."
"......"
"Well, you could call it self-justification, and it was something you didn't have to do. But you did it anyway, didn't you?"
"There was no particular meaning to it..."
"No. I saw it differently. You do as much as you've been given. I have another name for that."
I poured tea once more into Ju Cho-saeng's empty cup.
"......"
"If my eye was wrong, then that's as far as my measure goes. If not, then a rather faithful man has come under me."
A brief silence passed. I turned the subject.
"Anyway, so you found the suspicious ones?"
"Yes, I did. At set intervals, freight wagons made the rounds of the five gambling dens and loaded piles of silver. Their direction was the northern gate, heading outside. I've written the records here. You may refer to them."
"It is odd."
"I stopped tracking beyond the gate, thinking I'd be discovered. The crowds that had been hiding my presence were starting to thin."
"Well done. Better to know your limits and save your life than to trust too much in your own ability. Take this."
I held out a pouch of silver I had prepared in the room beforehand. It was thick and heavy.
"About five hundred taels of silver."
"What??"
However much he had been embezzling, he would never have held a sum this large. His astonishment was only natural.
"Use it on the orphanage. I ought to pay at least that much for a man who staked his life. Move the orphanage somewhere safer, or fund it for a few years — your choice. For a while, you won't have to worry about money."
Then Ju Cho-saeng looked at me with fear in his eyes.
"I wasn't expecting you to be moved, but what's with that look of terror?"
"Just... how much work... are you planning to give me..."
At those unexpected words, laughter burst out of me.
"I'll keep piling it on until you beg me to just kill you."
"......"
"I mean it."
Ju Cho-saeng's face darkened all at once.
"Go on. I'll track where that wagon is headed."
He nodded, and just before he rose, he called me with a serious look.
"Young Master."
"What?"
"I do as much as I have received."
"I know. And?"
"From now on, I mean to stake my life for you as well. I'm telling you now, so you'll know."
"I handle the dangerous work myself. What would Chief Ju have to stake his life on so often? Just do what you're told."
At my rebuke, Ju Cho-saeng let his shoulders slump and left the room. Not long after he was gone, Seol-ha came in.
"Clerk Ju left looking gray as ash. What happened?"
"He just doesn't like hearing there's more work."
Seol-ha smiled faintly, then tilted her head as she watched me rise.
"But where are you going? It's very late."
Just as she said, the sunset had passed, and outside it was already growing dark.
"I have somewhere to be. Get a carriage ready."
I moved to dress in a splendid robe that would catch the eye.
"I'm off to a gambling den. It's been a while since I rolled the dice."
At my meaningful smile, Seol-ha's eyes went round.
"The Eldest Young Master went to his usual pleasure house and started a drinking party, they say. There doesn't appear to be any major movement for now."
Seated in a high-class teahouse, Third Young Master Geon Hyu nodded, a peculiar smile on his lips.
"I see. You may withdraw."
"Yes."
The one who reported to Geon Hyu and withdrew was, astonishingly, Jo Wi, Head Merchant of the Cheolgyeong Department. The other man who remained was Jun-pyo, Head Merchant of the Geumhwa Department.
Geon Hyu waved a hand at Jun-pyo, who knelt with his eyes darting.
"Hahaha. Please, sit at ease. It's been so long, and you're far too stiff."
"How could I..."
"I hear Second Brother has been a little strange lately. What's he doing now?"
"I looked into it before I came. They say he headed to a gambling den, as usual. It seems his gambling habit has flared up again."
"Hmm, is that so? While I was away, was there anything unusual? I hear he even met the young lady of the Zhuge Family, and that he's grown strong enough to thrash Eldest Brother. And that trip to Lanzhou doesn't seem like it was nothing."
"The thing is, these days he tells me nothing at all..."
"Or were you simply never interested to begin with?"
"......"
"Your wage is ample, and you hold a key post within the main manor, so feeding your wife and children is no trouble. It seems you've been living rather too comfortably."
At the faint killing intent threaded through Geon Hyu's smiling eyes, Jun-pyo pressed himself even flatter against the floor.
"Th-that could never be. If you would only grant me a little time, I will report in full where the Second Young Master goes and what he plans."
"Your daughter is well, I trust? I heard her marriage is being prepared soon. Until then, you'll need to keep your post without mishap. It wouldn't do for you to drop dead all of a sudden, would it?"
"......"
"Eldest Brother is indifferent to his own people. He doesn't even know whether the child of a merchant he keeps beside him is a son or a daughter. But I'm not like that."
Geon Hyu's mouth opened as softly as a whisper. His tone and his gaze were gentle — and yet there was a bone buried in the words.
"I know where a Head Merchant's wife and children live. I know exactly what a Head Merchant is thinking."
Jun-pyo shook, trembling with fear.
"You mustn't think you're the only one bound up in this. You should be out there running yourself raw, as if your own family's lives hung in the balance. The spirit of a no-holds-barred scramble! Isn't that right? Unlike me, born to a noble station, that's what those who serve beneath me are meant to do."
"I-I will give my all, unto death."
"Good. From now on, you'd do better to watch Second Brother rather than Eldest Brother. A great deal about him has changed since I left the family."
"Yes..."
"You may go. You must be busy."
Jun-pyo forced strength into legs that had gone slack, rose, and fled the seat in a hurry. Geon Hyu quietly watched that retreating back, then muttered, contempt mingling in his eyes.
"Underlings. Honestly."
Crack—
Geon Hyu crushed the teacup in his grip and recalled the meal at which he had been so neatly humiliated.