From Bad to Worse - 5
"A debt default? Daseogak has faithfully repaid its debts every single month."
I could understand Mangeum Bank buying up the debts Daseogak had owed to all those different creditors. But nothing had changed from before. It wasn't as if the debt came with a duplication bug, and it certainly didn't lay eggs.
In all my time running Daseogak, I had never once missed a repayment date or paid a single coin less than owed. If anything, once the profits started flowing, I had been paying back more than required.
There was no reason in the world for anyone to be crying default.
"Please examine this document."
The man, who looked to be a clerk, handed me another set of papers.
Written across them was the sum Daseogak was to repay.
"There is something wrong with this document. This is not the amount of Daseogak's debt."
Did I look like some rich fool who never touched his own ledgers? Just where were they trying to run a scam?
"It is indeed Daseogak's debt. It merely includes the debts of Lady Baek Ok-bin as well."
Baek Ok-bin? Now that was a name I had heard somewhere before.
"Why would you invoke Hwa-rin's mother's name? Don't tell me this 'claim' of yours isn't Daseogak's debt at all, but the whole of what Baek Family Manor ever owed?"
The debt Daseogak had to repay had come from Baek Family Manor. I had said I would shoulder half of the manor's debts in exchange for taking Daseogak off their hands.
"That is correct."
The clerk nodded and affirmed it without a flicker.
"Don't talk nonsense! An agreement was already reached with the creditors last year. Daseogak has no obligation to repay more than half of Baek Family Manor's debts!"
So debt really could be duplicated after all.
"No. You do have that obligation—because the creditor is now Mangeum Bank. We of Mangeum Bank desire that Daseogak repay every last debt of Baek Family Manor."
"Where in the world is such absurd sophistry permitted!"
"It is Mangeum Bank that legitimately holds the claim. It is Daseogak that is being unreasonable now, refusing to pay what it owes."
The clerk held his blank expression, conceding nothing, and spoke in a tone of pure, detached business.
It was so outrageous I felt I might slip into qi deviation on the spot.
Appear out of nowhere, demand I repay all of Baek Family Manor's debts, and if I can't, hand over Daseogak. What kind of lunacy was this?
Stay calm.
Anger only clouds the mind. I set the Soyun Mind Image Art in motion. Perhaps thanks to my training in keeping the heart level—though I had yet to attain freedom before the weighing scale—the heat drained swiftly from my head.
Why was this happening?
Mangeum Bank. Daseogak. Problem. Extortion. I raced to find the connecting links.
"Jeon Gilsan. Is it that bastard?"
Astonishingly composed fury spilled out of me.
"......"
"Did that wretch Jeon Gilsan orchestrate this whole affair just because he took a few lumps in Yichang?"
Jeon Gilsan of Mangeum Bookstore. If that good-for-nothing had schemed it, everything made sense. Had he crawled back to Wuhan and, without an ounce of shame, started whining?
Jeon Gilsan. To think you would go this far out of sheer spite. Fine, then—I had methods of my own.
The Lord of Mangeum, Lord Jang, is a sworn friend of the Lord of Baek Family Manor. There are more ways than one to settle this.
All I had to do was let this reach my grandfather's ears. He would blow the whole place apart, demanding to know what they dared do to his grandson.
"This is a matter ordered personally by Lord Jang, the Lord of Mangeum."
But the words from the Mangeum Bank clerk's mouth were nothing like what I had expected.
"Did I hear that right? Weren't the Lord of Baek Family Manor and the Lord of Mangeum close friends?"
"The Lord of Mangeum? Why on earth?"
"Lord Jang? Against Daseogak?"
The customers of Daseogak, too, stirred at the shocking declaration.
"If you do not repay the debt this instant, we will place Daseogak under seizure."
Why on earth?
What business had driven the Lord of Mangeum to lay hands on Daseogak?
Before I could climb out of my shock, the Mangeum Bank warriors waiting outside began filing into Daseogak one after another.
The questions could wait. Getting these men to stand down came first.
"Move aside!"
"How am I supposed to—"
How was I to hold them back? While I hesitated, two elderly men shouldered through the warriors and appeared at Daseogak's door.
Who were they?
"What do you rabble think you are doing in the Yichang under my care! Cease this at once!"
"Association Head?"
The men who had pushed through the warriors were the Yichang Merchant Association Head and the Head Butler of Baek Family Manor.
The influence of the Yichang Merchant Association Head was formidable.
Even the men of Mangeum Bank, whose name rang across the realm, had been made to fall back for the moment.
I moved with the Association Head and the Head Butler of Baek Family Manor to the annex, where we might discuss the situation.
"The fault is mine. I never dreamed the creditors would stoop to such a stunt."
The Head Butler of Baek Family Manor spoke with his head bowed low, as if he could not bring himself to raise it.
"Do you know what on earth happened?"
"Do you remember the talk of the creditors when you last returned to Yichang? After Lady Baek Ok-bin passed away, her claims became money no one could ever collect. They say Mangeum Bank stepped in personally and bought up the whole lot for a pittance."
"So Mangeum Bank bought up the bad debts and came here to squeeze out their principal."
Debts that had become uncollectible after Tang Hwa-rin's mother passed. The creditors had said nothing since, so I had assumed they had simply given up. Never did I dream they had sold out to Mangeum Bank.
Ordinarily there would have been no way to collect. But Mangeum Bank, armed with power and authority, must have reasoned it could swallow Daseogak whole.
This had become a proper bind.
"And yet something does not add up. The Lord of Baek Family Manor was a sworn friend of the Lord of Mangeum. The Lord of Mangeum even journeyed to Yichang, belatedly, to pray for his departed friend's peace. And now he would seize that friend's one remaining shop—a shop run by his own granddaughter's betrothed, no less."
The Head Butler rubbed his forehead, wearing the expression of a man who could not make sense of it at all.
"So the grandson took his lumps, came home, and wailed to his mother about it."
It was the Association Head who answered the Head Butler's unspoken question.
"You mean Jeon Gilsan?"
"Like mother, like son. The Lord of Mangeum's daughter went straight to her father and wailed just the same. Sever our ties with the Baek Family, she said. After all the forbearance we have shown them all these years, how dare they repay kindness with enmity!"
"So that is why the Lord of Mangeum moved."
The attempt on my life, the rampage in Yichang—all of it cut out. She would have told only the part where her poor son was given grief by a black-haired barbarian who knew nothing of gratitude.
And just like that, the tale was complete: a sweet, blameless grandson swindled by a barbarian whose heart was as sinister as the color of his hair.
When in truth, it had been nothing more than the story of a very kind and honest young man going about his business in a perfectly upright fashion.
"No. The Lord of Mangeum is not the man to do such a thing."
The Association Head said it flatly, with conviction.
"You say he would not?"
"That man tore into his own flesh and blood for coming home swindled, bellowing that he had lost a contest between merchants. A man who deals that way even with his own son—would he personally step in because a mere grandson, neither his own son nor his heir, took the worst of a deal? Absurd."
The Lord of Mangeum had seemed quite the benevolent sort, but perhaps he was a tiger of a grandfather after all.
"Even so, blood will tell. His heart would lean toward his grandson before any black-haired outsider. If his grandson had been wronged, ill will toward the black-haired one is the only feeling that could follow."
"No. Impossible. Every time I went to Wuhan, I sang your praises to the heavens."
"You praised... me?"
"What else have a pair of old men to talk about when they meet? The currents of a new era, that is what. And are you not the very man who has stirred up more incidents and scandals in this Yichang than anyone alive?"
"Haha."
I was grateful for the praise, but it only sank me deeper into the fog. Why on earth was he targeting Daseogak?
"Then, could it possibly be—"
As if some thought had surfaced, the Head Butler stroked his beard and narrowed his eyes.
"Do you have some suspicion?"
"No. No, it could not be. I was indulging a pointless fancy."
"Even the smallest thread would help."
"It is truly too absurd to speak aloud. Merely an old man's idle musing—think nothing of it."
The Head Butler waved both hands, as though ashamed even to say it.
He wore the exact look of a man who had just thought up a department-head's dad joke and swallowed it, knowing the room would freeze solid if he told it. I nodded and pressed on.
"Whether the Lord of Mangeum bears me goodwill or malice, one fact does not change: he demands I repay everything, now."
I don't have that kind of money. Please lend me your strength, Association Head. Playing the weakling deliberately, I let my shoulders sag and fixed a despairing look upon my face.
"Then I shall mediate. As head of the Yichang Merchant Association, I have no intention of tolerating extortion this shameless."
"If you would do that much, I will never forget the debt of gratitude."
"But you must think past the mediation as well. A claim is a powerful justification. And in the collecting of debts, there is nowhere in Hubei Province more ruthless—or more thorough—than Mangeum Bank."
This was a world where a landlord would strip a farmer of his field for failing to repay the barley he had borrowed in spring.
Even armed with lunatic logic, my opponent possessed wealth, force, and authority besides. If mediation failed, I was in serious trouble.
Repaying the whole sum at once was impossible. But just as unbearable was admitting to a debt that had more than doubled and begging them to overlook it.
And I could hardly rally the Tea Book Club over a matter that had blown in from Wuhan.
Should I send word to Hwa-rin? No. Contacting the Tang Clan is the worst move I could make.
Strictly speaking, Daseogak belonged to Hwa-rin. But begging the Sichuan Tang Clan for help carried problems of its own.
Chengdu in Sichuan Province, Wuhan in Hubei Province. Merely waiting on a response would take the better part of several months, round trip. If it turned into a war of attrition, a year would slip by easily.
Worst case, they might simply order me to come home and live at the Tang estate.
What was the Tang Clan Head's son doing loitering about Hubei of all places? Come home, write your books, live in comfort. That was the outcome I wanted least of all.
"I will see to it that the seizure is blocked. But past that, you will need a plan of your own. What will you do?"
The Association Head studied me, steeped in gloom, as though testing my mettle.
Of course, I had no intention of giving up Daseogak.
This was the bookstore I had finally, painstakingly set on its proper orbit. All that remained was for it to take flight—and now they dared reach out to snap its wings.
I could not repay the debt in a single stroke.
Nor did I intend to take on double the debt.
The Tea Book Club was out. And if the Sichuan Tang Clan was out as well—
Only one path lay open to me here and now.
"I will go to Wuhan and meet Lord Jang face to face."
A frontal assault.