The Proposal — Part 3
Franchising.
Chain stores, franchise operations—call it whatever you like, but the principle is the same: a company recruits business owners by offering them exclusive technology, distribution networks, and the like.
Even in the modern world, where legal safeguards exist to protect small business owners, franchising's monopoly position means corporate tyranny making the nine o'clock news is hardly uncommon.
So what happens if you can wield that kind of exclusive authority however you please, in a world with absolutely no legal protections?
You'd rake in money by the cartload.
Of course, in a world without copyright or patent law, running a franchise business is no easy feat. That is, unless you have Im Hayeon's giosugu pigeons.
"So, in conclusion, you're telling me to become your underling?"
When I finished explaining what a franchise was, Jeon Gilsan replied with a sour expression.
"No."
I'm telling you to become my slave.
"But you just said—"
"You've misunderstood. Think of the Murim Alliance. Are the Nine Sects and Eighteen Clans subordinate groups of the Murim Alliance just because they belong to it?"
"Hmm..."
"The head office provides services and shows you how to run the business. The franchise owner simply pays for it. It's an equal transaction."
Equal, with just a slightly more equal side.
"So I'm not buying into the business—I'm receiving services and paying a fee..."
It was probably the first time he'd ever heard of such a business. Gilsan wore the expression of a rat staring at bait inside a trap, wondering whether to go in and get it.
"Listen, that amount written on your bank draft isn't enough to save your business on its own. But with that draft's money and my help, you could be running the same business I am."
So hand over the money.
Wuhan is the provincial capital of Hubei. Delivery orders keep pouring into my inn without pause, but far from covering all of Wuhan, we're barely managing to serve the bigger residential districts.
Even if Gilsan bought an inn in some suitable neighborhood, it would cost me nothing at all.
"If I pay you a franchise fee every month, doesn't that cut into my profits?"
Gilsan asked me with a reluctant look.
I know exactly what he's worrying about. Other people are making good money, so if he has to pay a franchise fee on top, his take will feel meager, right?
In moments like this, rather than haggling over profit and loss, it's better to dangle some irresistible bait.
"It's a business that leaves plenty of margin even after you account for that. And more importantly, this is the single best method with a chance of passing the test Lord Jang has set."
I know exactly what prize you're drooling over. So all I have to do is show it to you one more time with a single sentence.
"What do you mean by that?"
Gilsan reacted instantly.
"It seems the grandsons are in some kind of competition. Do you think you can take first place?"
First, make him assess whether he's even capable of getting his paws on the prize.
"I-if I work hard, I could manage—"
"When you make excuses, at least make them convincing enough to fool yourself."
Your bluster doesn't work on me. I deliberately spoke in a sneering, cutting tone.
"Then what am I supposed to do! You're saying if I become a franchise owner, I can take first place?!"
He blows up the moment you hit the nail on the head.
"Have you considered why Lord Jang set this test in the first place?"
I asked with the confident air of a star instructor who'd completely decoded the examiner's intent.
"His intent?"
"What does Mangeum Hall do?"
"It's a money exchange. It lends money."
"Precisely. Mangeum Hall isn't in the business of doing—it's in the business of making money move. And the most important thing in moving money is choosing where to lend it."
"What does that have to do with any of this?"
"Whatever businesses the other grandsons pick, they're all businesses that already exist. Do you really think the great Lord Jang would be pleased by someone scraping together a few coins from one of those? But what if a grandson appeared who discovered a business no one had ever tried before, and was leading it to success? How would he react?"
"So a unique business could catch my grandfather's eye?"
"Exactly that. I hear that in his younger days, Lord Jang himself invested in unusual ventures like franchising and pocketed a great deal of profit."
"That's right. My grandfather's eye is famous for being dead accurate."
Gilsan nodded, clearly proud of his grandfather.
Good. Time to put him on an airplane at exactly this moment and get his spirits soaring.
"In my opinion, Gilsan, you inherited that eye of your grandfather's."
"Me?"
"The author Hopil, and the giosugu delivery system. Haven't you dug up things none of the other grandsons even noticed?"
"W-well, certainly."
"My business will only grow from here. And when it does, how could Lord Jang possibly fail to fix his attention on Jeon. Gil. San—the grandson whose eye most closely resembles his own?"
I deliberately clipped his name apart syllable by syllable, sending him soaring into the sky.
Destination: Lord Jang. May it be a comfortable and pleasant journey. Whether you actually arrive is none of my concern, but the fare will be the entire balance of that draft you're holding.
"So the test could be read that way..."
Gilsan covered his mouth in surprise, eyes wide.
Now that he's on the plane, he'll convince himself he can reach Lord Jang. Once greed has clouded his judgment, it's time to burn the escape route.
"If you understand, then let's go have a drink. We can talk more about the business there."
I stood up and began getting ready to go out, leaving Gilsan looking bewildered.
"You want me to drink?"
"If we're going into business together, we ought to wash away personal feelings over drinks, no?"
Alcohol is the best way to blur what's left of his judgment.
"Dr-drinking, you say..."
"Young master! Your mother told you never to so much as touch alcohol during your trial—"
"Bah! What kind of business is done without wine! Excellent, let's go!"
Drinking rounds one, two, and three with Jeon Gilsan.
In the end, I got him to stamp his seal on the contract.
---
"Ugh... the smell of booze. Did you really get his seal on the contract yesterday?"
The next day, Im Hayeon strode into my office, wrinkled her nose, and immediately flung the window open.
"If you don't believe me, it's sitting on the desk. See for yourself."
"It's really here."
Im Hayeon stared at the document bearing Jeon Gilsan's seal as though it were some marvel.
"The moment the franchise fee comes in from Gilsan, please do the thing I mentioned before."
"You're really going through with that?"
"I don't say things idly. Do it."
One task going smoothly is no reason to rest on your laurels. Once you've set out, you have to keep running until you reach your destination.
"Fine. Though isn't franchising really just you helping Gilsan?"
"Haha. Hardly. Gilsan has, of his own free will, become my tenant farmer."
I smiled pleasantly, remembering the fool grinning drunkenly as he stamped his seal, quite unaware he might have been signing a slave contract.
"A tenant farmer?"
"He bears all the risk. He has to buy the inn with his own money and pay every last expense himself. And every one of those expenses flows straight into my pocket. If his venture collapses later on, I bear no responsibility whatsoever."
I have to run my business strictly within the amount on the draft. But most of that draft's money is already spent, so expanding into another venture on my own was out of the question.
Bring Gilsan into a franchise arrangement, though, and everything changes. On the books, I take on no additional debt—and yet a regular stream of enormous extra income begins flowing in.
"Still... letting that guy make money doesn't sit right with me."
Clearly Gilsan wasn't to her taste; Im Hayeon spoke with her lips jutting out in a pout.
"Haha! We'll squeeze him slowly, carefully, without him noticing—until not a single drop comes out of the dry rag. As long as Mangeum Hall is the prize on his line, he won't even realize he's being wrung dry."
Rental fees for the giosugu, franchise fees, material costs, training fees, beverage fees, advertising fees—there's no end to the ways to squeeze.
I laughed as I pictured the fool who'd stamped his seal so cheerfully, with no idea what state he'd be in down the road.
"Wow... you know you just had the face of the most predatory merchant imaginable?"
So my expression management failed for a second there. The last thing I need is Im Hayeon mistaking an honest merchant like me for a crook.
What to do. Time to brazen it out. I fixed my face and threw her a look of precious devotion.
"Think of me as a predatory merchant if you like. Even if the whole world curses me as one, I will pass this test—and save you."
And why exactly do I have to act like some villainous money-grubber? Because of you, that's why.
Granted, there were also the minor matters of saving Daseogak and erasing my debts. I shrugged my shoulders with an utterly composed expression and smiled at Im Hayeon.
"Hmph..."
She twisted her head away, apparently dumbfounded. How touchy.
Slipping the contract—my one step closer to passing the tests of both Lord Jang and the Simun Division—into a drawer, I got back to work.
---
"This is no different from slavery!"
Some time after the contract with Gilsan was settled, he was shouting at me from inside his freshly renovated inn.
"What is it now?"
"Why do I have to hire barbarians at my inn? You said hiring people was my choice!"
"The hiring clause states that personnel are to be selected from among those dispatched by the head office."
I'm the leader of the Joseon Hometown Association, so obviously you hire Joseon people.
"Why do they all have to be—to be Joseon? You could just hire Central Plains folk!"
There it is. If he hadn't reacted even to my scowl, I'd have had to escalate.
"You read the contract through before stamping it. Why the sudden change of tune?"
"I stamped it, sure! But I never agreed to actually honor it!"
This fellow truly needs a few joints bent into shape.
"Lady Hayeon. Go up and retrieve every last one of the giosugu pigeons."
Time for some education.
"Understood."
"Wha—? Wh-what is this?!"
Gilsan cried out, jolting in alarm.
"If the franchise breaches the contract, the head office has the right to expel it. If you won't honor the terms, go run an ordinary inn."
Confiscating your pigeons, my friend.
"Franchise fees! Referral fees! Material costs! Renovation costs! Training fees! Do you have any idea how much money I've given you already?"
What a dutiful little collector he is. I faced Gilsan's look of injured innocence with perfect cool.
"And that's exactly why I introduced you to Joseon workers. The Joseon people I recommend aren't ordinary Joseon folk—they're people who've worked my business alongside me. I brought them in to help your venture, and you call them barbarians to my face."
"Still, wouldn't Central Plains people be better than Joseon ones?"
"You want to be the successor of Mangeum Hall, and hair color matters to you? What matters to a man of business isn't the color of his workers' hair, but the color of the money they bring in. If you still hate it after all that, then quit!"
I shouted with a stern, unyielding face.
"I... I was wrong."
"Enough. I'm Joseon myself. If you insist on tacking 'Joseon' onto everything as an insult, better not to do business at all. I told you we'd wash away personal feelings and work together in good faith—and if this is how you behave, how are we supposed to go on?"
I flared up dramatically, then walked forward slowly.
You're already past the point of turning back, aren't you?
The draft's money is nearly spent, and if you let this chance slip, you lose your shot at succeeding Mangeum Hall too.
The moment he walks away from this table, the boy plunges straight into the pit of despair.
Which means there's only one thing he can say next.
"I'm sorry! I won't nitpick your way of doing things ever again, I swear."
Just as predicted. For the first time, Jeon Gilsan bowed at the waist to me, apologizing over and over.
"There won't be a next time."
The reins stay in my hands from here on.
So squeeze away, my friend. Squeeze away.
"Heheheh! Kang Yunho actually said that?"
At the Mangeum Lord's estate, Lord Jang, having listened to the Chief Steward's account of the conversation between Gilsan and Kang Yunho, could not contain his laughter.
"He has, my lord. A warrior posted beside Young Master Jeon as an observer relayed it to us."
"Hehehe. Just so. A man who moves money doesn't care what color a worker's hair is. What matters is the color of the money he brings in."
"Young Master Jeon seems remarkable in his own right as well—to set aside personal feelings and join hearts with Young Master Kang."
I knew the Lord's interest had already turned toward Kang Yunho. But no man ever dislikes hearing praise of his own bloodline, so the Chief Steward complimented Gilsan's part in it as well.
"Tch. Gilsan's prospects were always yellow-grass."
"Pardon?"
"A tenant farmer, and what does he expect to accomplish? Tch. To run a business, you must hold the reins yourself. The clever one is Kang Yunho. He swallowed Gilsan whole—the very man who lost Daseogak—without the boy ever realizing it."
Lord Jang had grasped in an instant that the franchise business, which he'd never once heard of, was in practice no different from tenant farming.
"He grows more impressive the more I observe him, my lord."
"Heh. Yes. And a man who does so well in the world's affairs needs a woman at his side to support him. Isn't that so, Chief Steward?"
The Chief Steward swiftly caught the meaning folded inside the Lord's words.
"The Zhuge Clan's granddaughter has secluded herself in her lodging for several days now."
"The time has come. Have the girl make herself presentable, and summon Kang Yunho."