Open for Business - 6
Being a branch manager isn't just about putting a bell around a cat's neck.
"First-floor shelf staff, gather around. I told you to sort out any books running low on stock and file a report with the print room, didn't I?"
If you're going to enjoy the benefits, you have to take the criticism too. I went through yesterday's problems with the employees one by one.
"Sorry, Manager. It slipped my mind."
"The print room runs all day, so the small morning print runs have to be finished quickly. Don't let it happen again."
"Yes, sir. I'll keep that in mind!"
"I've put together a list of recommended titles, so read through it whenever you have a spare moment. And the print room supervisor—same goes for you. Why didn't you think to ask whether a report had come in from the first floor the day before? I told you to ask, didn't I?"
"My apologies. I assumed there were no books low on stock the previous day, so I simply followed the daily schedule you gave me."
"I understand you're busy. Let's just be a little more thorough. Some of you have printing experience, so I'm not too worried, but quality checks need to be rigorous as well. If materials run short, we have to request them from our suppliers in advance—so report it before we run out completely."
"Yes, sir!"
"And the cleanup crew—don't just stand around staring blankly like nothing's your problem. Pick up trash the moment you see it, and keep the books tidied constantly. Mistakes happen to everyone; that can't be helped. But let's set procedures in place and work on reducing them."
"Understood!"
Of course mistakes are allowed—it's work. But if pointing them out can reduce those mistakes, then however tedious it may be, someone has to be willing to say the unpleasant things.
"I'll be visiting our suppliers today, so everyone stay focused on your work."
Busy from the crack of dawn. After cautioning the staff, I headed straight out of Daseogak.
"The type you cast keeps breaking far too often. Isn't the alloy a bit too soft?"
This was the supplier who delivered the lead type used in our printing press. I had stopped by to raise an issue with this latest batch.
"What do you expect, running the press without a moment's rest! You think casting type is easy work?! If you're not satisfied, take your orders elsewhere!"
"Funny thing—I hear another shop will sell it to me cheaper than you."
"Why, you little—! Fine, fine, you win! I'll put extra care into making them for you!"
"Much appreciated."
Running a full type-casting operation at the print room attached to Daseogak was out of the question. A bookstore drowning in paper was no place to be handling open flames, and a café certainly couldn't smell of molten lead.
Once the money starts rolling in properly, I should set up a real print shop of my own.
I left the foundry and visited another bookstore.
"You take printing commissions? We can, sure. How does this price sound?"
The bookstore owner showed me his in-house print room and quoted me a price per volume.
"I know exactly what the going rate is. Do you really have to do this?"
"Come on, kid! That's the price everywhere these days! Besides, doesn't Daseogak have its own print room? Why are you outsourcing? Don't tell me volume three is coming out?"
"Business has just been rather good lately."
"If you're printing Wind and Cloud of the Tang Clan, let me sell it here. I'll give you a great rate per volume."
The price the owner proposed was tempting, no doubt—but compared to books churned out by free labor and our own printing press, the margin simply wasn't there.
"I'll come back another time."
Out of a sliver of hope, I asked around at other bookstores too, but it was the same story everywhere.
So I'll just have to print as many copies of volume three as possible before the release date.
By the time I finished my rounds of the suppliers, the morning sun was already high in the sky.
Hiring employees made things easier, but the burden on me as manager seemed to have grown all the heavier. It felt like my arms and legs had multiplied while my head stayed stubbornly single.
The physical labor had shrunk, but the things demanding my attention had doubled and doubled again.
'I need someone trustworthy—someone I can hand real responsibility to.'
I needed a manager.
Living in the Central Plains as a barbarian, this was the problem. Connections by blood, by hometown, by school—even a well-placed recommendation. I had none of them. There was no one I could trust.
And this involved money, so it had to be someone reliable. Someone I could lean on, competent at the work, quick on their feet—someone who could make the supplier rounds in my place.
There was one person already in the back of my mind, but I was still mulling over when to bring it up.
"Manager! Come to have lunch?"
I had come to the tavern where the employees ate to settle our tab, and Ha Soso waved me over.
"Miss Ha Soso. Is it lunchtime already?"
"Hehe. If you're here to eat, join us! Hayeon unnie is over there too."
Ha Soso didn't point her out directly, but finding Lim Hayeon was easy enough.
After all, spotting a striking beauty in a black qipao isn't exactly difficult.
Had Lim Hayeon known I was coming? The moment our eyes met across the corner of the tavern, she let out a little hmph and turned her gaze pointedly elsewhere.
If you weren't going to acknowledge me, why were you looking in the first place? So picky.
'It would be wonderful if Lim Hayeon took the manager position.'
What relationship made trust easier to build than being the daughter of my sworn brother? None came to mind.
Lately, the more kindly I treated her, the closer she seemed to get—yet at other times she seemed to keep her distance, and I honestly couldn't get a read on where we stood.
'If I keep treating her well and we grow closer, I should be able to entrust her with real responsibility.'
What she wanted was at Daseogak, and I needed her. Given time, I was confident I could place her in a management role.
That said, her excessive fangirling over Wind and Cloud of the Tang Clan delighted me as an author—but as a bookstore owner, she was a liability.
Lim Hayeon. Please, just don't cause an incident.
"Manager?"
"Ah! Sorry, work is piling up. I should get going. Enjoy your meal."
"But you could share the lunch set with us..."
It's fine. I'm used to eating alone. When hunger strikes later, I'll just film an episode of The Solitary Gourmet: Kang Yunho Edition.
Leaving Ha Soso's disappointed voice behind me, I stepped out of the tavern.
After avoiding Kang Yunho's gaze, Lim Hayeon sank into the worry that had been tormenting her all day.
'I want to read Wind and Cloud of the Tang Clan, volume three. So badly.'
She wanted to see it. She wanted to see it more than anything. She wanted to be the very first reader to lay eyes on volume three.
Why did that man have to tell her that volume three was being printed, and torment her like this? Lim Hayeon let out a small sigh of frustration.
If only there were the physical distance of Wushan and Yichang between them, she could have borne it.
But why did a single door to the print room have to stand in her way? And a locked one at that. Was it not, in effect, a door begging to be opened for her?
Dozens of times a day, Lim Hayeon found herself staring at the print room door, drowning in deliberation.
'I know every last detail of Daseogak's security.'
Daseogak was a bookstore built to the latest standards, and its security was excellent. Any ordinary thief or intruder would surely find the well-guarded premises difficult to breach.
Of course, she could manage it. Lim Hayeon traced Daseogak's defenses and their weak points in her mind.
She hadn't exactly tried to cultivate the skill, but there was no undoing the fact that what she'd been raised to learn was thievery.
After long deliberation, Lim Hayeon reached a quiet conclusion. Infiltration was possible. Even starting from outside, it wouldn't take her long to reach the print room.
So could she read Wind and Cloud of the Tang Clan?
'No. I have to hold back.'
Lim Hayeon squeezed her eyes shut against the thought.
If it came out that a thief had broken in, Author Hopil might be so shocked he'd retire from writing altogether. Retirement. An unspeakable, horrifying thought.
And then there was the other thing.
'...That man trusts me, too.'
Lim Hayeon pictured the face of the man who had entrusted her with a task.
He knew what she had been trained in. He knew what novel she loved. And yet, instead of suspecting her, he had turned around and asked her to alert him if any suspicious characters appeared.
— No one dreams of leaping over other people's fences.
— Because you know how to leap over other people's fences, yet you hold no dream of doing so.
'Kang Yunho. That man chose to trust me.'
She had told him herself that she had no wish to become a thief. Daughter of the Shadowless Divine Thief. Disciple of the Shadowless Divine Thief. And still, Kang Yunho had taken her wrist with a face full of trust.
Without warning, a strange, ticklish warmth blossomed in Lim Hayeon's chest.
'Still, if I just slipped in at night, read it, and slipped back out...'
Of course, that strange warmth was snuffed out at once in the face of the enormous dilemma.
Should she read it quickly and leave? No. How could anyone sneak into a place at night and skim Wind and Cloud of the Tang Clan? To savor every single line and carve it into memory, she'd have to read it properly, in her own room.
Lim Hayeon swayed back and forth between an anguish she could not suppress no matter how she tried.
"Unnie?"
"Ugh... I want to read it so badly."
Wind and Cloud of the Tang Clan, volume three. The temptation was overwhelming. It made Lim Hayeon want to tear apart the hair she had so carefully arranged that morning.
"Unnie?!"
"Hm?"
Only when Ha Soso called out in a loud voice did Lim Hayeon barely come back to her senses.
"Manager Kang isn't coming."
"I knew he wouldn't."
"If you knew, why did you spot him first and shove your food aside?"
Ha Soso remarked, eyeing Lim Hayeon's chopsticks, which had been pushed neatly to one side.
"Th-that was just common courtesy. It would have been mortifying to be caught mid-bite with food in my mouth when he walked in."
Lim Hayeon pouted slightly and feigned indifference, as if she hadn't been thinking anything at all.
"Unnie, do you have some kind of worry on your mind?"
I want to read Wind and Cloud of the Tang Clan, volume three. Lim Hayeon barely swallowed the words that leapt to her lips and spoke instead.
"I'd rather not say."
Is it a sin to have the ability to open a door and choose not to?
Reading a book isn't theft, is it?
No, still—there's no need to betray Author Hopil's trust. Or that man's. No, wait. That man doesn't matter. Author Hopil is what matters. What am I even thinking? Lim Hayeon's head was in complete disarray.
"I see it's something you can't tell even me. Could it be a worry related to Manager Kang?"
Ha Soso narrowed her eyes and asked with a beaming, know-it-all smile.
"Why would that man come up all of a sudden?"
It was a shot that missed the mark—and yet it struck a nerve. Lim Hayeon heard her own voice rise without her meaning it to.
"Ah! Nailed it, didn't I? Hehe."
"I did not."
Why was she smiling? Even as Lim Hayeon denied it, she somehow felt like she was confirming it, and a small sense of defeat crept over her.
"Then is it a worry Manager Kang could help with?"
If I told him, would he listen? Ridiculous. He said he didn't want me becoming a thief, and I'd tell him I want to sneak a peek at Wind and Cloud of the Tang Clan? How could she possibly say that?
"I told you, it's not."
"So it is something Manager Kang Yunho could help with! Then tell him! He'll definitely hear you out?"
Ha Soso's smile was growing wider by the second.
"Wh-why would I do that?"
"Hehe. You really don't know? Truly?"
"Know what?"
What on earth was she trying to say?
Unable to make heads or tails of it, Lim Hayeon leaned in to listen.
"Manager Kang Yunho. He's in love with you, Hayeon unnie."
"Wh-wh-wh-WHAT?!"