Guardians of the Storm
“So Wind and Cloud of the Tang Clan Volume 3 comes out in a week!”
News that everyone had been aching for was bound to pass quickly from mouth to mouth. Word that Volume 3 was slated for release began racing through the city in the blink of an eye.
“When I heard the Daseogak branch manager had been hauled off to the Sichuan Tang Clan, I figured Volume 3 was done for!”
“My friend, your news is late! Manager Kang of Daseogak went to the Tang Clan himself and came back with their blessing.”
“Impossible. After all that uproar when they dragged him away, the Sichuan Tang Clan actually gave its blessing?”
“Then why else would Volume 3 be coming out!”
“To think we'll get to read Volume 3 of Wind and Cloud of the Tang Clan!”
Whether I stepped into a tavern for a meal or simply walked down the street, chatter about Wind and Cloud of the Tang Clan reached my ears everywhere I went.
“Manager Kang! Is it true Volume 3 comes out next week?”
At the news, even the Tea Book Club members couldn't hide the excitement written across their faces.
“Yes. The printing of Volume 3 is nearly finished, and once the binding is complete, we intend to open sales next week.”
I delivered the facts to the Tea Book Club wearing the expression of a runner smiling at the finish line that had finally appeared at the end of a punishing marathon.
Only now was the third finish line in sight. Getting a single volume published had truly put me through every hardship there was.
“It opens with 'This is Hopil'... The moment I saw it, I thought Author Hopil was declaring his retirement—my heart nearly fell out of my chest!”
“Hahaha. It seemed only right that Author Hopil himself should break the news of Volume 3, so I requested an announcement from him—and that is how he wrote it.”
“This is Hopil.” Nothing snags the eye like an announcement. After all, stirring up a fuss has always been about the hook in the title, hasn't it?
“We truly get to see Volume 3!”
“Volume 3, sanctioned even by the Sichuan Tang Clan.”
“One week! We need only endure one more week!”
With the news the Tea Book Club had been longing for, Daseogak brimmed over with life.
“I'm stepping out for a moment.”
Daseogak was humming with the announcement of Volume 3. I spoke to Lim Hayeon, who was picking up the management work one task at a time.
“Lunch hour is almost here—where would you even be going? Hm? What's that in your hand?”
Lim Hayeon asked, eyeing the thick wad of paper in my grip.
“Notices. I'm on my way to ask the literati guild's Court Gazette to run the news of Volume 3's release, and I plan to post these along the way.”
There was no such thing as too much advertising. However fast the rumors of Volume 3 were spreading, there would always be someone who paid rumor no mind.
When I held the papers up for her to see, Lim Hayeon pressed her lips into a firm line and looked back and forth between the stack and me.
What? Something about them not to your liking?
“...I'll help you.”
Hand laid solemnly over her heart, Lim Hayeon announced it as though she had just reached some grave resolution she despised but could not escape.
“No need. If I'm away, someone has to mind the store. I'll simply make a few rounds on my way back from the business calls.”
You're the one in management. What kind of manager leaves the post with both of them gone?
“It's fine—lunchtime is nearly upon us anyway. Besides, if I don't help, you'll only go and skip lunch on me again.”
From a barbarian beggar who couldn't even beg a single dumpling off one Kang Yunho, all the way to a branch manager who now gives freely to others—so that rags-to-riches life story of mine really did land, huh. Her manner toward me did seem a touch softer ever since that day.
“In that case, would you post the notices in my stead? Light on your feet as you are, Lady Hayeon, you'd be done in no time.”
With the Shadowless Divine Thief's lightness of foot, it would certainly be swift work. And it wouldn't be just the notices—having Lim Hayeon herself out there would do wonders for Volume 3 publicity.
After all, that qipao clinging to her every curve as she slapped up notices would drag every passing gaze in like a black hole.
“...You're telling me to do it alone?”
Lim Hayeon asked, screwing one eye shut at me.
“There's no need for two people to post notices, is there?”
That's wasted manpower. Management is supposed to be efficient.
“...”
For an instant, Lim Hayeon's fine brow knitted. A look of sheer incredulity bored straight through me.
Because it feels like I'm dumping my work on you? You offered to help—that's exactly why I'm handing it over.
“Then I'll carry the notices, and you stick them up quickly. In exchange, lunch is on me.”
Well, no arguing with that.
“Fine. Let's go.”
“Sister Hayeon!”
Ha Soso caught Lim Hayeon just as she was heading out and brought her lips right up to her ear.
“Hm?”
“A tavern's too conspicuous. Tell him to treat you somewhere tastier.”
“It is not like that!”
Lim Hayeon cried out in flustered protest, then swung back around to look at me with trembling eyes.
Quite right. It's nothing of the sort. We'll polish off a quick, cost-effective meal and head straight back.
I gave a shrug and stepped out of Daseogak with Lim Hayeon, who for some reason seemed to be shrinking into herself.
“We're getting more and more customers we can't tell apart from bandits.”
The news of Volume 3 did not stir up wholesome excitement alone. At morning assembly, with word of the release spreading, a few of the staff raised the matter of our swelling ranks of problem customers.
“I'll pay well over the asking price—surely you could sell me one early?”
“Outrageous! If it goes on sale in a week, the finished books must already exist! What crime is there in asking you to sell one early!”
“You must not approach the printing room.”
“I only wished to watch the books being printed! Are you raising your voice at a customer this very moment!”
Hype before the sale mattered. Books, games—whatever the flavor of subculture, the first few weeks after a new release were when it moved the most copies.
Build anticipation to a fever pitch, run the promotion short and hard, then publish fast. The plan was sound—but with expectations running this hot, every species of customer was crawling out of the woodwork.
“We found traces of someone tampering with the printing room window from outside Daseogak.”
And with a thief having slipped in once already, the worry of burglars was not something we could afford to shrug off either.
Raising her hand, Lim Hayeon briefed the others on the signs of intrusion discovered the day before.
“Should we take turns standing guard through the nights?”
A fine suggestion, but the work-study students were literati, not fighters. In a world where even common thieves trained in the martial arts, a burglar who came with genuine intent could prove downright dangerous.
“What if we simply sold Volume 3 right away?”
“The first print run must be secured in full before a single copy goes on sale. Binding is in full swing, so we will sell on the scheduled date.”
The first printing had to be stocked deep enough to swallow every last shred of that anticipation.
Sell out too quickly, and we'd earn resentment, watch pirated editions circulate, or turn away paying customers and watch revenue shrink.
“Then what would be best? If a customer kicks up a fuss, should we report straight to Lady Hayeon?”
“That would serve, but I have another way.”
I told the staff gathered for assembly, wearing a triumphant grin.
“And what way would that be?”
Oh, I have a truly splendid way.
One that would ensure no two-bit thief—no one short of the Shadowless Divine Thief herself—would so much as dream of robbing us.
“Young Master Kang! We've come!”
“Is it true Volume 3 is really coming out at last?”
A band of sturdy warriors appeared at Daseogak's entrance. The finest guards in the world—guards no fortune in gold could buy.
“Purple hair... and green eyes?”
“The Sichuan Tang Clan!!!”
“Why are warriors of the Sichuan Tang Clan at Daseogak?”
“Allow me to introduce them: warriors of the Sichuan Tang Clan, who will be protecting Daseogak for the time being.”
And truly, who better to guard Wind and Cloud of the Tang Clan than the Sichuan Tang Clan itself?
“Young Master Kang. Turning away our help all this while—it saddens me.”
The Vice Head of the Medical Pavilion. My escort on the road back to Yichang. Tang Pae spoke with a wounded look on his face.
For a man claiming to be hurt, you look like you've been eating and sleeping so well the grease is practically running down your face. I know perfectly well you were ready to bury your bones in Yichang rather than be pushed around by the Medical Pavilion's head.
“I couldn't very well keep accepting your help forever. My staff needed to find their feet, too.”
I had to keep the Tang Clan folk at arm's length. For the sake of my own lifeline, and with clan politics in the mix, living off their goodwill indefinitely was simply not wise.
“We heard word of a thief's intrusion. For the time being we will take our meals and lodging here at Daseogak and keep an ironclad watch.”
Tang Pae and the Tang warriors fixed me with stony faces, as though they had been charged with guarding some secret manual of the clan.
“I do hope I'm not working you all too hard.”
I put on the expression of a man watching his lawyer, accountant, and big-corporation friends haul his moving boxes on their day off—suitably ashamed of himself.
Of course, the expression was one thing. I was going to make them do it anyway.
“How could you say such a thing? Is this not your Daseogak, Young Master? Why, we would be safeguarding Volume 3 of Wind and Cloud of the Tang Clan itself.”
“Hearing you say that does seem to lift a small weight from my heart.”
And with that, I promptly sent the featherweight burden in my chest into free fall.
“Haha. I dreaded having to report what I'd accomplished since reaching Yichang, but by a stroke of fortune I can now claim a hand in Volume 3's publication.”
“When you return to Sichuan, I'll send you off with a generous stack of Volume 3, so I'm counting on you.”
“Set your mind at ease!”
Voice ringing with vigor, Tang Pae began stationing the Tang warriors throughout Daseogak.
“Could you not sell me Volume 3 a little earl—”
“Is something the matter?”
“N-nothing... why is a warrior of the Tang Clan here?”
“Even the Sichuan Tang Clan itself awaits the release date, and you ask us to sell early?”
“My apologies!”
“And where does someone who isn't even staff think they're going?”
The Tang Clan guard effect was superb. Even customers who looked one outburst away from an anger-management diagnosis were being converted into paragons of restraint.
And the Tang warriors standing watch did more than simply make the problem customers and the burglary worries vanish.
“Purple hair and green eyes? Good heavens—why are Tang Clan warriors here of all places?”
“The warriors of the Sichuan Tang Clan are guarding Wind and Cloud of the Tang Clan?”
“The Tang Clan itself guards Wind and Cloud of the Tang Clan? Then does that not mean the novel is the official, clan-sanctioned story of the Sichuan Tang Clan!”
“Just how thrilling must this Volume 3 be, for the Tang Clan itself to mobilize!”
The Sichuan Tang Clan was guarding Wind and Cloud of the Tang Clan.
No event under heaven could have bought publicity like that.
And then something happened that made both Wind and Cloud of the Tang Clan and Daseogak busier still.
“Warriors of the Tang Clan! What business have you with the Tea Book Club?”
“Might we join the Tea Book Club as well?”