Volume 3 Release - 2
Night in Yichang. The second city of Hubei Province, wrapped around the Yangtze River, pulsed with vitality even after dark.
I wanted to appoint Lim Hayeon to a managerial post. Martial arts capable of rooting out troublemakers, a beauty that worked like a sales-boosting totem, security checks, thief-chasing, devotion to Dangga Pungun, even the education she'd received at the Gyobang.
With novel writing, staff management, venue management, and business expansion all looming on my plate going forward, she was quite simply the finest managerial hire I could hope for.
I ought to make the offer over a meal—but would she even come if I asked her to dine with me alone?
I kept my eyes ahead as I walked, and behind me Lim Hayeon trailed along the whole way, hands clasped behind her back, sneaking glance after glance at me.
Was something written on my face? Or did her conscience prick her over something?
That's right—something I'd momentarily forgotten flashed through my mind.
"Miss Hayeon. I believe there's something you owe me."
The book those thieves had made off with. Where was it?
"Oh. Um. Here you go."
Lim Hayeon produced the book from her sash in a flash, as though she'd been waiting for the question. So that was why her hands had stayed behind her back this whole time.
"And here I thought you'd kept it as spoils of war."
I said it lightly, as if joking.
"I haven't read a single syllable of it! Do you have any idea how I've held myself back... Here, take it!"
No need to bite my head off. Lim Hayeon thrust the book at me with both hands, as if begging me to take it off her quickly.
"Do you want to read this book?"
As she handed it over—perhaps to keep herself from lingering—Lim Hayeon squeezed her eyes shut, her fingertips trembling.
You really do want to read it.
"...It's not as if you'd show it to me just because I want to read it."
She knew it all too well, and she fixed me with a sulky glare that said: don't you dare tease me.
Oh? So that's what you think, is it?
"If Miss Hayeon wishes it, I could show it to you."
In exchange, you'll have to accept one simple proposal. I made the offer the way a serpent weaves its mesmerizing lure.
"Really? Why—why?"
Lim Hayeon eyed the Volume 3 I'd produced out of nowhere with open suspicion.
"What do you think?"
"Huh...?"
Why would he show something this precious to her? Lim Hayeon stared in astonishment at Kang Yunho's face, which regarded her with perfect seriousness.
No way. That sneaky bastard. Is this man really...?
"Dine with me tonight, and I shall show you."
Good heavens. Impossible.
She'd expected him to do as he always did—buy her dinner and send her on her way. Never had she imagined he would propose eating together, just like that.
Of course. No wonder he'd been so bold as to seize her wrist at the bookstore. Lim Hayeon's swelling heart began to soak through with conviction.
"But a man and a woman shouldn't be alone together..."
And yet Dangga Pungun was more special still. Lim Hayeon could not bring herself to refuse him outright.
It's a trap, Lim Hayeon. Eat this and you die. Refuse. You have to refuse. She flailed desperately against the temptation.
"Then hand it back, then."
"Let's eat together!"
In the end, Lim Hayeon could not betray the seductive whisper.
"You promised."
Right. It's only one dinner, that's all.
Lest Kang Yunho change his mind, Lim Hayeon swiftly spread open the first page of Volume 3.
"In days of old, the calamities children feared most were tiger attacks, smallpox, and war, but the children of today, with their reckless... Yeah! Sneak a peek, will you! So this is the fake novel you left out as bait?! What is this thing?!"
The contents were not the Dangga Pungun Lim Hayeon had been hoping for.
"Haha. Surely you didn't think I'd leave Volume 3 sitting in the print shop, just waiting to be stolen?"
Kang Yunho smirked and gave a shrug. Even with a bell hung on Lim Hayeon, he had never let his guard down.
Volume 3 was stored somewhere else entirely. What's more, the print shop had been given nothing but the repetitive task of printing the same pages over and over—a complete Volume 3, first page to last, did not even exist.
"Then all that trouble was for nothing?"
No wonder he'd been so composed about the break-in. For a moment, Lim Hayeon was struck too dumb by the futility of it all.
"Not at all. Thanks to you, Miss Hayeon, we caught the thieves and prevented something far worse from happening. Thank you, truly."
The amusement drained from Kang Yunho's face, and he bowed his head to her in earnest.
...
When a man goes and thanks you that courteously, you can't very well rage at him over the prank. Speechless, Lim Hayeon could only watch him bow.
"As a token of my gratitude, allow me to buy you a fine dinner."
"Hold on a moment!"
"You wouldn't dream of breaking a promise, I trust."
Kang Yunho flashed her a shameless grin and set off toward the night streets of Yichang.
"Aaargh! Honestly!"
With a small groan, Lim Hayeon scurried after him at a brisk half-jog.
I've been played!
She had let her guard down. Seated in the upscale restaurant Kang Yunho had ushered her into, Lim Hayeon could not hide her fluster as she warily scanned her surroundings.
Every last table is a man and a woman paired off!
Every couple there was gazing at their partner with affection pooling in their eyes, trading idle, happy chatter.
And what's with all that easy laughter?
He'd said he was buying her a nice dinner. This was no ordinary restaurant. Lim Hayeon shot him a glare that demanded an explanation, but he was simply idly perusing the menu, the very picture of leisure.
"The house specialty, please—the Western-style pork cutlet set."
Lim Hayeon watched Kang Yunho order with practiced ease, her expression souring.
She did not like this one bit. She felt like a mouse caught in a trap the man had laid on purpose.
My very first dinner alone with a man, and it had to be Kang Yunho!
She'd heard it all from the older courtesan sisters.
Never follow a man just because he offers to buy you dinner. Before you know it, wine will be sitting in your cup as well.
Sit talking across from one another long enough, and fingertips begin to brush; an electric thrill runs straight through you; and when his face keeps drifting closer and closer, there is no turning back.
—And the next morning, you'll wake up in the same bed.
Stay on your guard. This man could get the better of you. Lim Hayeon stared at Kang Yunho's untroubled face.
"Miss Hayeon?"
Why am I the only one who's nervous? No—why am I nervous at all?
He was the one with the feelings here. Why was she the one tied in knots? This defied all reason.
"Miss Hayeon!"
"Eep! ...Y-yes?!"
Lim Hayeon startled like a mouse in a trap, waiting only for the day it would be devoured.
"Tell them whether you'd like bread or rice."
"...Bread, please. And I won't be drinking."
So this was what they meant by a thief's own feet turning numb. Lim Hayeon had volunteered information nobody had asked for.
"Haha. I have work tomorrow, so drinking was never on my mind either."
That single remark left Lim Hayeon with a strange sense of defeat.
What on earth was Lim Hayeon so tense about while she ate?
She reminded me of an untamed cat served its first meal, eating with her whole body braced against the world around her.
The way she tried to keep me under wary watch, then flinched and hunched her shoulders the instant our eyes met, was precisely like a frightened cat.
The food must have been good, though; every few bites her eyes would go perfectly round for an instant, which was honestly rather amusing to watch.
I'm not going to steal your food. Eat in peace.
"How's the work suiting you?"
Partly to loosen her up, I raised a topic of mutual interest.
"Yes. It's a lot like courtesan work, only easier, so I settled into it quickly."
At my easy question, Lim Hayeon dabbed the sauce from her lips and answered.
"Glad to hear it. You've worked hard again today."
"It was nothing. It was work you assigned me, Manager Kang. Dangga Pungun must be protected, after all."
So she'd remembered my orders about turning away suspicious characters.
"I knew you had it in you. Keep performing like this, and I may have a post in mind for you."
With the compliment smoothing the mood, I moved straight to business.
"A post you have in mind, Manager Kang?"
"I intend to select someone for a position of real responsibility at Daseogak. A manager, to handle staff supervision, relaying instructions on my behalf, that sort of thing."
"And you want me to do it?"
There was a faint note of resistance in Lim Hayeon's voice as she asked.
Same pay, more work—of course she'd bristle. But for that, I had just the remedy.
"Naturally, since it would mean a heavier workload, I intend to award substantial bonus points in the Outstanding Work-Study Scholar selection."
I dangled the most tempting carrot I owned in front of Lim Hayeon.
"Outstanding Work-Study Scholar?!"
"And should you become the manager, you might even be permitted to read the next volume of Dangga Pungun before it goes to print."
"Dangga Pungun?!!"
As though she might swallow the offered carrot whole, Lim Hayeon leaned slightly forward.
Irresistible carrot, no?
"That's right. Though of course, you're not the only one I have in mind, Miss Hayeon. I mean to trial the duties on a few who've caught my eye first, then hand the post to whoever proves the best fit."
Now to pretend the carrot wasn't grown for her alone.
It would be just my luck if she took it as favoritism toward my sworn brother's daughter and balked. Selection by merit, then. Stress that the carrot could be snatched away by someone else—that would make her ache for it all the more.
"Manager... a manager..."
The offer had clearly hooked her; Lim Hayeon murmured the word over and over to herself.
"Once Volume 3 of Dangga Pungun is out, things will only grow busier. If Daseogak thrives, I can expand the business and aid even more impoverished men of letters—provided someone capable stands beside me to share the burden."
More fame meant more work. And more work meant I needed someone to handle the drudgery.
Wrapping myself in the mantle of a chivalrous hero with a grand cause, I let her know that I needed her help.
Lim Hayeon studied me for a long moment, as if probing for something, then spoke, her face full of curiosity.
"Why are you so good to people?"
An unexpected question. I wondered whom she meant. To her? To the work-study students? It made no difference which.
Her question itself was the opening I needed. Curiosity about another person is interest, plain and simple—handle the answer well, and this was the perfect chance to win her goodwill.
"Have you ever known hunger?"
I looked Lim Hayeon straight in the eye. Picture a painful past, and let a faint sorrow settle over my face. Open with a question, then—draw out her empathy through a past she might well have lived herself.
"Now and then—before my mother passed, and I entered the Gyobang as an apprentice."
"Mine was much the same. When I came to the Central Plains as a barbarian, there were far more days without food in my mouth than with."
...
Thrown by my confession of those lean years, Lim Hayeon's face stiffened.
"It would have been kindness itself to toss a single dumpling to a barbarian who hadn't eaten in days, but the world was a cold place. More often than not, I was chased off with kicks—'Where does that barbarian whelp get off staring like that?'"
"That happened to you..."
"That was when I made my resolve. To scrape together money with everything I had, and succeed. To succeed, and become someone altogether different from them."
If I meant to seat her in the manager's chair I intended to trust her with, I couldn't keep laboring under her suspicion forever.
Kang Yunho, the heartless merchant. Naturally, I couldn't remake her image of me overnight—but she had seen with her own eyes the way I gave to people. All that remained was to weave a story around it.
What if the man called a heartless merchant drove his bargains so ruthlessly for one reason alone—so that he would have more to give away? I was laundering the heartless merchant out of Lim Hayeon's heart and hanging a halo in his place.
...
Perhaps my brief tale of reversal had stunned her; Lim Hayeon could not close her parted lips.
"Of course, I'm no sovereign—I can't provide for everyone. I simply begin with the people I consider my own."
"Your own people..."
An utterly impossible man to read.
So thought Lim Hayeon, watching Kang Yunho smile as he spoke of his sorrowful past as though it were someone else's story.
He pranked people like a child, helped them like a wandering hero, schemed like a crooked merchant, and lavished his staff with unstinting kindness.
Lim Hayeon could not, for the life of her, find the rhythm to fit him to.
For me, becoming a courtesan was all my childhood ever held.
This man had come from a foreign land, begun as a beggar, and risen to own a great bookstore. Most who clawed that far would hunger for nothing but coin, yet he had not lost his heart for giving.
Somehow, Lim Hayeon felt herself shrinking.
Then am I given to because I'm one of his people? Or is it truly...
She could not bring herself to voice the conviction swelling in her chest. Somehow, set against the grand cause the man spoke of, such a question felt too small to ask.
"Give me that manager's work, starting tomorrow."
Kang Yunho, good-hearted man and heartless merchant both. But a heartless merchant with his reasons. That much, she decided, was worth helping.
"Understood."
A man who once couldn't beg a single dumpling now gives so freely he dresses his staff in silk.
Lim Hayeon stared blankly at the qipao she was wearing, then resumed her meal across from him.
Eating in silence, she found her eyes drifting, unbidden, to Kang Yunho's face again and again.
He had always looked like a scoundrel to her, but today, strangely, the man seemed suddenly to stand taller in her eyes.
"Here. Kimchi mandu."
Lim Hayeon held out a wrapped bundle of dumplings to Kang Yunho.
"We've just eaten—what's this about kimchi mandu?"
"...Just take them. They'll keep for breakfast tomorrow, won't they?"
The rims of Lim Hayeon's ears were curiously flushed as she offered them.
"Wait..."
"Thank you for the wonderful meal. See you tomorrow!"
Having at last unloaded the dumplings on him, Lim Hayeon vanished in the blink of an eye, gone on the Shadowless Divine Thief's lightfoot art.
Kang Yunho stared after her, dumbfounded, then quietly muttered to himself.
"But... I'm the one paying the bill."
The theft case settled, Lim Hayeon trialed on managerial duties, the print shop churning day and night—days busy inside and out.
And as the ranks of visitors asking when Dangga Pungun Volume 3 would arrive swelled day by day, at last a familiar notice was hung at Daseogak.
This is Hopil...
Thanks to all of your support, Dangga Pungun will, next week...
"Dangga Pungun Volume 3 is coming out soon!!!"
"DANGGA PUNGUN'S HEEEEERE!"