Midnight Visitor - 2
"Have you heard the strange tale coming out of the Jo Merchant Guild?"
Daseogak was not a haunt reserved for devoted readers of Dangga Pungun; plenty of customers also came to read and swap stories about the ways of the world.
Lend an ear to their chatter now and then, and you'd pick up interesting tidbits about how the world was turning.
"The Jo Merchant Guild? Isn't that the most powerful guild in Yichang? What happened there?"
"Word is a thief broke into the guild master's own house."
"A thief, in that rich man's house? What about all the guards?"
"That's just what makes it so strange. Not a single soul realized a thief had gotten in—all night long!"
It wasn't a case of an intruder being caught mid-heist; nobody even knew the place had been hit until morning. A household that rich would have hired guards from a sect or an escort agency, and heads were going to roll for this.
"Sounds like a nimble-fingered thief. So, how much did they make off with?"
"The break-in itself is nothing special, but what comes next is stranger still. The thief got in and stole nothing at all."
Stole nothing? Back in my day, even a burglar hitting the studio-apartment rows where penniless students lived would at least make off with a secondhand game console.
The strange news drew my ear in despite myself.
"Stole nothing? Now what kind of nonsense is that?"
"Jewelry boxes, promissory notes—the place was turned inside out, all right, but when all was said and done, not one thing was missing."
"Then wasn't it just the owner opening his own safe while drunk?"
"The guild master shared his bed with both his wives that night. You think he had the strength left to get up? And if he had, the wives would have noticed."
Say what?
"The Jo guild master's no black-hair, after all—no way he had it in him to get up again halfway through."
"And the key to the safe was still right where only the guild master knew to find it. Yet every last safe stood open."
"The world's in a sorry state, so no wonder every strange thing under the sun keeps happening."
Strange world or not, it was something else I was far more curious about.
I was dying to know exactly what went on in that bed with two wives, but the customers never went there, drifting off to other topics instead.
A thief, huh.
I ran into armed bandits far less often than back when I'd been wandering the Central Plains, but thieves and pickpockets were still worth worrying about. It hadn't been long, after all, since a thief broke into Daseogak itself.
I'd have to put some real thought into tightening security.
As it happened, Daseogak employed a rising star who, were she ever to undergo dark evolution, would be hailed as the greatest thief of them all.
"Miss Hayeon."
"......"
Did she not hear me? I looked over at Lim Hayeon, but she was sunk deep in thought, giving no sign she'd heard her name.
Wait—was she lost in thought, or staring at something? I followed her gaze, and it led straight to the very customers I'd just been listening to.
There was no way the steamy night had caught her interest the way it had mine, so I figured the exploits of a senior in her own line of work must be what drew her eye.
"Miss Hayeon!"
This time I called out loud enough to reach her for certain.
"Eep! Wh-what is it?!"
Lim Hayeon flinched back like a thief who'd turned around mid-heist and come face-to-face with the homeowner, staring at me.
"It's about the thief."
"A th-the thief? Wh-what about the thief?!"
I'm not talking about you. Why the panic?
Yes, I'd learned to steal, but I wasn't so senseless as to brand someone who lived an honest working life a thief with no reason to steal.
Granted, what she'd been doing just now came close to stealing wages, but since she drummed up sales merely by standing there, I was prepared to let it slide.
"Why are you so fidgety all of a sudden? Thieves seem to be out in force lately, so I was just about to ask you to tighten up the security checks here at Daseogak."
"That's it? Haah, and here I thought... If that's all, I'm always on top of it, so don't you worry."
Lim Hayeon let out a long breath of relief, apparently glad this wasn't a wage-thief arrest.
"Oh! Come to think of it, I have an errand at lunchtime. Why don't you come out with me?"
A manager needs managerial staff to share the workload. I'd gone easy on her long enough—today, she was coming with me.
"For that... you could just take Soso."
Why does Soso enter into this? Lim Hayeon turned her head away and said it flatly.
"Miss Ha Soso only came along last time because of the tea leaves. There's no call for the two of us to go out together anymore."
"No call to go out together anymore? Why not?"
Because Ha Soso isn't managerial staff, that's why. I almost fired back the obvious, but the look on Lim Hayeon's face as she turned around seemed a touch better than before, so I let it go.
"It's print shop business, so come along with me."
I'd taken over ownership of the print shop easily enough, but with the press to move, staff to assign, and a dozen other tasks, I'd been busy shuttling between the two places.
"Wouldn't it be better to bring one of the staff who manages the print room?"
A fair point—except every last print room employee was over at the print shop right now.
I pursed my lips slightly and studied Lim Hayeon, who had turned her shoulder to me, raising a subtle wall between us.
Was she sulking because I'd stopped providing dinner? Or had something been rubbing her the wrong way lately?
Keeping my distance from someone in a foul mood was one option, but I needed her today.
What to do?
"I want to go with you, Miss Hayeon."
I decided to take the honest approach.
"With me? Why?"
Because what I needed was talent who could shuttle between the print shop and Daseogak on swift legs.
"Because I need you, Miss Hayeon. I'll buy us lunch on the way back, too."
"......"
At my answer, Lim Hayeon's eyes went wide, and she looked up at me without a word.
"Miss Hayeon?"
"All right. Let's go together later."
Did that actually work?
Her expression looked no different from before, yet the footsteps with which she turned and walked off seemed strangely light.
"You dragged me out here to move THIS?!"
Our outing to the print shop. Lim Hayeon hollered at me as she pushed the cart I was pulling from behind.
"We're the only two people at Daseogak with any martial training, aren't we?"
I'd thought we'd moved all the paper for the press, but there was a whole pile more stashed in a corner of the third-floor attic. Two people hauling this much heavy paper beat one person doing it alone.
"Ugh! You are the absolute worst!"
The strange thief saga of Yichang didn't die down after a day or two.
"Word is the thief struck the Yunli Escort Agency too."
"A thief at the Yunli Escort Agency? Breaking into an agency whose whole trade is guarding escorted goods? Isn't that just a rival agency spreading rumors?"
"No, sir. Yesterday the head of the Yunli Agency raised such hell the whole place nearly came apart. And it seems to be the same thief as before—once again, not a single thing was taken."
"Breach a place guarded that heavily and steal nothing at all? What manner of thief is this?"
"That's why the rich households are in an uproar, doubling their night watches. Even the magistrate's office has constables patrolling till dawn now."
"So that's why the constables stopped me the other night when I tried to walk home drunk. Hope they catch the scoundrel soon. What punishment would he even get, though? He didn't steal anything, did he?"
"Well, at the very least they'll put him under the paddle and break both his legs so he can never steal again!"
Was this pervert of a thief grinding achievements or something? Lately all of Yichang was abuzz with talk of the thief who steals nothing.
"Nnngh."
I turned my head to find Lim Hayeon letting out tiny groans, like the scrape of nails on a chalkboard.
The dishwater must be absolutely freezing.
Lim Hayeon had been in a strange state lately. Her face looked haggard, worn down by exhaustion, and even without studying her looks I could see the dark circles under her eyes.
Sure, office life means clocking in like a zombie and only reviving—like some last-train miracle—the moment you clock out, but she looked seriously bad.
It was like watching a certain Mr. Kang I used to know, the poor soul who stayed up all night after work binging a drama that peaked early and wheezed to a whimper of an ending by season eight, then dragged himself into the office the next morning like a zombie.
She'd been going to bed late these days.
Don't tell me.
At the sudden flash of a thought, I carefully crept up behind Lim Hayeon as she washed the dishes.
"Could it be you're up late into the night doing something I don't know about?"
— Clang!
Lim Hayeon dropped the dish she'd been scrubbing.
"Hayeon, are you okay?"
"I'm fine! I'll clean it up!"
Lim Hayeon waved her hands hurriedly at Soso as she came near, swiftly gathering up the broken pieces.
"So I was right."
"R-right about wh-what?"
What's right is the way your eyes are darting. The mouth may deny it, but the body is honest.
"There's no need to hide it."
The evidence pointed to everything. I spoke to her with perfect calm, as though I already knew it all.
"Hide what? I-I have nothing to hide."
"I already caught on, the other evening."
"You already caught on?"
"Who do you take me for?"
"Ugh......"
"Miss Hayeon."
I stepped closer, letting the air between us turn heavy.
"Wh-what is it?"
"I'm disappointed."
I told her plainly, spitting the disappointment out without trying to hide it.
"What?"
"You couldn't tell anyone else, but couldn't you at least have told me?"
"How am I supposed to say that? No, how could I tell you... I mean, if I were to tell anyone, there'd only ever be one person, but......"
Lim Hayeon stammered on, unable to gather her words.
It really was a shame.
She didn't have anyone else to tell in the first place. If something like that was going on, shouldn't I have been the first to know?
I bought her plenty of meals, took her out with me—had the distance between us still not closed one bit?
If she couldn't bring herself to say it, then I would simply make her confess.
Like a master detective singling out the culprit who'd tormented the victim for an entire volume, I laid the truth before her.
"If you were going to write through the night, you should have at least told me."
"What? ...Oh! Yes! That's right. I have been writing at night."
So my hunch had been right after all. Lim Hayeon nodded furiously at my deduction.
Writing while holding down a job was exhausting, no question. Confessing you were a novelist at the office bought you nothing.
If an ordinary employee couldn't focus at work for lack of sleep the night before, that was one thing. But once people knew you wrote, you'd get chewed out for burning the midnight oil—accused of keeping a secret purse on the side and just waiting for the day you'd bolt from the company.
But Daseogak's staff were work-study scholars.
If she'd told them she wrote, not one of them would have batted an eye. It was a shame she hadn't shared even that much.
"Who can leash the urge to create? Still, there's no submission deadline like last time, so write only as much as won't interfere with your work."
Write on your days off. Your days off. She wasn't some web novel author grinding out daily updates, after all.
"I understand."
Lim Hayeon nodded, looking none too satisfied.
"And if any troubles come up, I'll hear you out."
"Why would you?"
"And who might Hopil's co-writer be?"
"Ah."
Lim Hayeon seemed to catch my meaning, her slightly parted mouth refusing to close.
"Come Volume 4, I'm happy to offer not just plot advice but counsel on all manner of troubles. So if you're going to lie awake groaning through the night, you'd do better to come asking for advice instead."
Writers were a lonely breed. They said writers with lovers suffered less anguish of the heart, but I'd never written while seeing someone, so I couldn't say.
Lim Hayeon, you may not be one of my star scholars, but as Kang Yunho's slave-employee number one, the benefits will flow. Count yourself lucky.
"Volume 4? Volume 4 is already coming out?"
That's what you're curious about?
"That's a secret. In any case, if trouble finds you, tell me. I'll listen anytime."
I said it to Lim Hayeon wearing the kindly face of a counselor ready to hear any woe.
She watched me in silence for a while, then lowered her head and spoke.
"......All right."
I'd told Lim Hayeon to take it easy, but that was advice for an aspiring writer, not for one actively serializing.
No matter how busy work got, no matter how badly the subordinates botched things, no matter how much the new venture needed steering onto course, a writer had to write the next volume.
If I hadn't mastered the Soyun Mind Image Art and kept this body in fighting trim, I'd have collapsed long ago.
The body might suffer, but I had to keep living hard.
I had to. I was going to save my women from their fates.
You were all striving, so I was striving just as hard. If I wanted to say so with my head held high, I had to keep moving forward.
Tomorrow, I'd write the letter with my head held high. With that small resolution made, I went to sleep.
"Who's there?"
My eyes snapped open at a presence I suddenly sensed in the dead of night.
A mysterious figure knelt at my bedside, watching me.
Who is it? A thief? A bandit? I shot upright.
No attack came. No flight either. What now? The mysterious figure simply went on watching me in silence.
An outfit of tights from who knows where, and a scrap of cloth—a mask over the eyes to hide the face.
"Miss Hayeon?"
A disguise no ordinary person could ever have seen through. Every inch of her was bundled up tight, but that generous bust and the color of her hair gave her away, plain as day.
"......"
It was her. She dodged my gaze at the sound of her name.
"What is the meaning of this, in the dead of night?"
You startled me. Why show up out of nowhere?
I didn't fix her dinner anymore, so she couldn't be here to demand supper.
What on earth could this be about?
When I calmly sat up and asked her, she went on watching me without a word—then finally opened her mouth.
The words Lim Hayeon spat out were more shocking than her midnight appearance itself.
"I've come to steal what's most precious to you."
I'm sorry. I don't think I'll be able to write that letter with my head held high after all.