The Bookstore
Sai Weng's horse.
I had brought this horse with my severance pay, and it was supposed to be a fine steed. But for misfortune to come crashing down right away, just like in the old parable—wasn't that taking things a little too far?
These debt collectors were pure lunatics. Compared to them, the Green Forest bandits who'd been moved by the spirit of the Hwalbindang looked like the gentlemen of the mortal world.
"You inherited the estate, so you damn well better pay up!"
"There's money on that horse! Hand it over—my share first!"
One of the frenzied creditors lunged for the travel funds tied to the horse's rump.
"What do you think you're doing!"
I snatched the man's wrist and glared him down.
"What's this barbarian bastard yapping about? You looking to die? Give me my money!"
As if this bastard had left any money with us. That was the revolution fund I'd carefully scraped together out of my own severance pay so I could actually use it.
"This barbarian thinks he can sit high on a horse? Hey! Drag this foreign dog and the leper bitch down right now!"
These people had lost their minds. The creditors surrounding us surged forward in rage, ready to haul us out of the saddle.
"What in the hell do you think you're doing!!!"
A furious roar snapped every one of those enraged debt collectors to a dead stop.
"Steward Uncle!"
Following Dang Hwarin's delighted voice, I looked toward the source of the shout. A man who looked closer to old age than middle age stood there with a face twisted in anger.
"The late master's own granddaughter has only just arrived, and this is how you treat her? At this rate, don't expect any cooperation on settling the debts!"
"Steward, why the sudden temper?"
"Back off! Keep this up and I'll report every last one of you to the authorities!"
The people who had been hemming us in faltered at the steward's words, then finally broke the circle and retreated into the manor.
"Young Miss Hwarin. It has been a long time."
The steward watched them go in silence, then smoothed the fury from his face and approached Dang Hwarin with a respectful greeting.
"What on earth is going on, Steward Uncle?"
Dang Hwarin dismounted, her face pale with confusion as she asked him.
"This is hardly the place to explain. I'll tell you everything on the way to the bookstore the master left you."
The steward gestured for the horse's reins, then led us toward the bookstore.
Following the steward's guidance, we made our way to the bookstore Dang Hwarin had inherited and began to hear the full truth of the matter.
Dang Hwarin's maternal grandfather had passed away about two months earlier.
He had long suffered from a chronic illness, and aside from his late-born only daughter, he had endured the pain of losing his wife and the rest of his children to disease or accidents.
For a man who had devoted his entire life to business, the combination of sickness and successive losses was more than enough to change a person.
"Once he married off that precious late daughter to the Seong Family Manor, he truly began living a life of giving rather than business."
The steward continued with a face full of pride and longing for the departed master.
He fed hungry beggars, donated to impoverished temples, sought out and sponsored the gifted but poor, and even founded an orphanage to raise children who had lost their parents to war or accident.
"Of course, with so much charity, the business did run into a few problems."
Originally the grandfather's enterprises had never been huge, but they had always turned a profit in Yichang. The trouble was that the scale of his good works kept growing.
"Even with the debts, the business itself was sound, so things were still manageable."
That much was true. Debt isn't inherently bad in business. You borrow tomorrow's money to make twice as much—that's how the game works.
The real problem was that Dang Hwarin's grandfather's chronic illness had suddenly worsened and he had died.
The death of the sole manager who had run every venture until the end. No heir. A mountain of debt. In a single stroke the entire enterprise had collapsed into ruin.
"I thought the young lady's mother had appeared to settle everything… I misjudged her completely."
At the most miraculous moment, Dang Hwarin's mother had shown up. Everyone handed her full authority, believing she would restore order—only for her to seize every piece of property that could help clear the debts and vanish into the night.
"That is the bookstore your maternal grandfather left you, young miss. Here is the key. Go inside and look around; I'll come fetch you tomorrow morning in front of the shop."
The steward handed us the key and left to deal with the creditors.
When we stepped into the closed bookstore, a musty yet warmly familiar scent of old paper rose to meet us.
It reminded me of wandering the antique bookshops and the used-book alleys of Cheonggyecheon back in the old days.
This place is actually really good.
A two-story building. Not enormous, but it sat right on a major thoroughfare—excellent location. In modern times a coffee franchise would have taken the ground floor and a clinic with a pharmacy the second.
"I thought it was only two stories, but there's a third-floor attic as well."
The ceiling was low, yet it was a proper loft where a person could sleep and live. It looked like it was being used for storage, but clear out a few books and it would serve fine as living quarters.
"…Yeah. It is."
Dang Hwarin answered in a flat, lifeless voice. Why had she been so unresponsive since earlier? The shock of everything that had happened, maybe.
I offered a few quiet words of comfort about her grandfather's death, but she remained silent. I decided to leave her reaction alone for the moment and began exploring every corner of the shop.
Plenty of books—that was good. But was the other thing here?
The true goal of this whole journey. Please be here. Why can't I find it?
Just as I was ready to give up after searching everywhere, I noticed a door hidden behind a sliding bookcase.
"An old printing press…"
Dang Hwarin murmured listlessly as she looked into the space beyond the door. Exactly as she said, right in the center of the room beyond stood the printing press I had been hunting for all this time.
It was worn and stained by the years, yet polished and well-maintained enough that it looked ready to use this very moment. My personal fame-copying machine.
I stepped into what appeared to be a space set aside specifically as a print shop and quietly ran my hands over the old press.
Look at the exquisite detail on this glowing beauty. With this alone I could write books, copy them, and skyrocket my renown in no time.
I can't let the creditors take this bookstore.
A shop with prime frontage and a working press.
The steward had said even this place would be lost to the debts, but this bookstore had to be protected at all costs.
I have to help Hwarin keep it.
If I helped Dang Hwarin defend the store, I wouldn't just be borrowing the press—I could treat it as my personal machine.
If I could freely recommend and sell the books I wrote from a bookstore on a busy street, raising my fame score wouldn't be a dream anymore.
No matter how hard it looks, find a way. Steel your resolve.
"Hwarin."
I called out to Dang Hwarin, who had suddenly become a property owner overnight and risen in status.
She had been staring blankly at the floor. At my voice her shoulders jerked and she looked up at me.
"Hwarin. You…"
Why is your face so dark? I continued carefully to the anxious girl watching me.
"Don't say it."
The moment I tried to speak further, Dang Hwarin cut me off with a face full of sudden resolve.
"Huh? Why?"
"…I already know. So just stop talking and leave."
She lowered her head again, her expression steeped in grief.
Hwarin, what the hell is suddenly wrong with you?
Misfortune after misfortune.
Why did it always have to be her? Dang Hwarin watched Kang Yunho moving about the shop with a heart full of bitter despair.
This wasn't what she had wanted. After so many hardships she had finally reached her maternal grandfather's house. He would be astonished, and she would awkwardly introduce this man.
It wasn't as if she wanted anything special, but the slightly bittersweet, slightly sweet atmosphere of introducing him wouldn't have been bad either.
She would bring the man into the manor, treat him to delicious food and a fine room. She would be able to straighten her heavy chest and say, See? My grandfather lives this well.
She would repay him two, three, many times over for everything he had done for her, and tell him, You still haven't atoned enough. So stay by my side a while longer.
Even if Yunho claimed his first kindness had been pure goodwill, she would have ignored it and tried to keep him here.
But her grandfather was dead.
That crazy woman had taken the money and run.
The news of her grandfather's death had shocked her and that madwoman's antics had enraged her, yet something even sadder outweighed both.
The man who had worked to earn the money she lacked, who had risked his life to rescue her from bandits, who had endured countless discriminations and humiliations in her place to bring her all the way here…
She could no longer give him any reward at all.
What am I supposed to do with a bookstore like this?
Dang Hwarin surveyed the shop with a heart full of desolation.
The musty smell of books. Cobwebs in the corners. To her eyes it was just a large, shabby, worthless bookstore.
Even if they sold it, the steward had already made clear it would never cover the debts.
He must know it too—that the situation was hopeless. The way Yunho silently searched for something looked exactly like he was hunting for anything that might be worth money.
In the end all he found was an old printing press.
That this was the only thing of any value in the entire store… Dang Hwarin despaired.
She watched the man who must be thinking the same thoughts silently enter the room and stroke the press, and she lowered her head.
Kang Yunho gazed at the machine for a long while, then turned to her with a face full of determination.
"Hwarin."
He's going to leave. Dang Hwarin read the intention clearly in his eyes.
Being rejected by others was familiar. But… if this man rejected her, she would never be able to stand up again.
In that case, better that…
"…I already know. So just stop talking and leave."
She would send him away herself.
"Leave? You're telling me to leave?"
The man asked, looking startled that she had stolen the first move.
"It isn't your debt. Just go already."
Why was he forcing her to say such cruel things a second time? Dang Hwarin resented him. You're going to leave anyway. You'll dress it up in soft words, but in the end you'll say you're walking away from my side.
I'm just bad with words, so I said it straight. You talked about atonement, but the one who needed atoning for was never me. You have no reason to repay any debt.
That's why you decided to leave, isn't it?
Better to become a lonely outcast myself than be rejected.
Behind her black veil Dang Hwarin bit her lip hard, fighting back the rising sorrow.
"What are you going to do if I leave?"
"That's none of your concern."
"This bookstore will be seized for the debts, and who knows what those creditors will do to you? Even if you somehow survive that, can you live on your own?"
The man's words were true. After leaving the Seong Family Manor she was capable of nothing. The long journey had taught her that far too well.
If this man disappeared and she was left with the debts on top of everything else, how was she supposed to live?
"Then what the hell do you want me to do?"
You're the one who's leaving, so why worry about the person you're abandoning? Dang Hwarin, full of resentment, flung the words at the man who had been about to announce his departure.
"You've got me, don't you?"
The man smiled and pointed at himself with his thumb.
"W-what? I told you to leave."
Dang Hwarin's eyes went wide at the unexpected declaration; her voice trembled.
"Do you remember what I said the first day we met? About how we'd settle things at the end of the journey?"
She remembered.
— Earn my trust. When we reach Yichang, if we're still just traveling companions, I'll take the money from your grandfather and we'll go our separate ways.
— And if I build that trust?
What would they become to each other if she earned his trust?
"Yeah."
"Did you really only think of me as a traveling companion?"
"Then… you're not leaving?"
No. Lips, don't you dare lift. Don't you dare hope. Don't you dare feel happy. As sunlight seemed to pierce the misery and misfortune packing her chest, Dang Hwarin struggled to keep her expression under control.
She lowered her head, then looked up at him. Her eyes were so full of expectation that even Kang Yunho could read it at a glance.
"You really disappoint me."
Kang Yunho avoided a direct answer, turning his head slightly as if mildly annoyed while he looked at her. Dang Hwarin felt her heart plummet even though the gaze wasn't particularly angry.
"Why…"
"In a moment like this you weren't supposed to tell me to leave. You were supposed to say something else, weren't you?"
"What else am I supposed to say in a situation like this?"
"The words we said while running away together from Heokho Fort. You don't remember those either?"
— As long as a person has someone who will take their hand, they can stand up again and be happy.
The words the man had spoken to her that day. The words that had lifted her to her feet twice already.
Only then did Dang Hwarin realize what she had been supposed to say.
"Hhkk…"
Tears welled and began to spill from her eyes.
He hadn't been trying to leave. He had only been waiting for her to speak. How foolish. She had told a man like that to go away. How pathetic.
"Help me."
Dang Hwarin wiped her tears with her forearm and once more held out her hand to him.
"Of course."
Kang Yunho took Dang Hwarin's hand without the slightest hesitation.
The hand that always raised her up. But right now it wasn't enough. She finally spoke the words she had always wanted yet never managed to say.
"Be my friend."
"Weren't we already friends?"
The man answered as if she had just stated the most obvious thing in the world. At the expression on Kang Yunho's face that said "why are you stating the obvious?", Dang Hwarin's chest swelled to overflowing.
"…Thank you."
"Between friends? Save the thanks until everything's finished."
"Really. You… you…"
The hand clasped in hers felt so warm and safe. With just this hand she felt she could do anything.
What exactly was this man who lifted her up every time she was about to fall? What was this man who strode into her heart with muddy feet and boldly knocked on the door? What was this emotion filling her chest to the brim?
Dang Hwarin looked at the man with tear-streaked eyes.
She still didn't know the name of that feeling. Yet one thing was certain: this man was the person she had desperately wanted to obtain.
That was a close one.
I almost got forcibly kicked out like a tenant under a tyrannical landlord.
If you want to ask for help, just ask for help—do I really have to spell every single thing out for you, young lady?
Since Dang Hwarin had asked me to help, all that remained was for us to protect this bookstore together.
If things unfolded the way I hoped, I could keep the shop and write my books.
Time to draw up a proper plan.
A golden opportunity had been handed to me. I had no intention of letting it slip away.