The Contract - 4
"You want me to become the branch manager of the Wuhan Daseogak?"
"Heh heh. 'Branch manager,' you say. See this affair through successfully, and you'll already be a merchant running two establishments. Isn't it about time you prepared to ascend to a seat at the head of a proper dofang?"
A dofang—in modern terms, the boss of a mid-sized enterprise with several businesses under his wing.
So he meant for me to try my hand at running a branch and build up experience.
"Am I to consider managing the branch as part of the test?"
"Only the business is the test. The bookstore is your compensation for the trouble my grandson caused."
"Then..."
That's an awful lot of work for hardly any reason to take it on.
"That said, I'll permit you to channel whatever profits the branch generates into your own business."
Well, now the conversation was entirely different.
The delivery food business had firmly established itself in Wuhan. And Wuhan was a metropolis—there were still more places to expand than I could count.
Thin capital was what kept me from growing easily, and if I held the sure-thing card of a Daseogak branch, I could raise the cash I lacked.
Now that's what I call a guaranteed reward.
"And how much of the branch's profits am I permitted to put to use?"
"That's hardly mine to decide, now, is it? That's a matter between you and the bookstore's owner."
"The owner is... m-me?"
The Mangeum Lord nodded, gazing at his clever granddaughter with no small fondness.
He means for me to court her while I run the Daseogak branch.
The Wuhan branch belonged to Jegal Hyang. But I could pocket its profits while we courted, and were we to marry, the whole thing would become mine. In effect, he was previewing the bride's dowry.
The Mangeum Lord has been worried sick this matchmaking might fall through.
The old codger had affected an air of leisure, but he'd been quietly roasting inside. I allowed myself a small, private smile.
The matchmaking nearly collapsing, and then the Hopil impersonation affair on top of it. To bind the two of us together, even the Mangeum Lord must have concluded he needed to offer something truly generous.
Run the Daseogak, meet her often, let affection accumulate—and even if I loathed it, put up with it for the sake of minding the store. That seemed to be the shape of his thinking.
It was a temptation so transparent you could see straight through it.
He clearly believed he was dangling bait I had no choice but to swallow.
This time, I happened to be a move ahead of him.
Because I'd already agreed to a contract relationship.
Until the test was over, the sham courtship was already a done deal.
My condolences to him, but what of it? No matter how splendidly I ran that Daseogak branch, I had no intention of marrying.
With the branch in hand, I could divert capital wherever my business needed it. Better still, it wasn't my shop—even if it went under, I shouldered none of the risk.
"I will do my utmost to maintain good relations with Lady Jegal Hyang."
The test itself was simple: return the principal written on the promissory note, plus additional profit enough to satisfy.
Thanks to the contract relationship, crossing the finish line promised to be that much easier.
Matchmaking. Blind dates.
To me, they could only ever be foreign words. However far back I combed through my life, my memory of blind dates was a blank page.
I had asked to be set up once myself, back when I wanted a girlfriend like anyone else. But what matters most in the romance of a fresh-faced twenty-something?
I wouldn't know, never having tried—but a fellow like me, whose features could only be called distinctively individual, was fundamentally barred from setting foot on that battlefield of youth known as the blind date.
I know what a great guy you are. Leave it to me—I'll set you up personally.
Turned away at the door. Below every rating tier. Did that even make sense? I still remember that friend's sheepish laugh as he poured me a drink with a bitter face, not long after saying it.
And so this formal matchmaking seat I now occupied across from Lady Jegal Hyang was, in truth, the first blind date of my entire life.
"This pasta is quite good."
A matchmaking table with the food already served. How was one supposed to begin?
A little tense myself at the realization that this, too, was my first blind date, I tossed out one small conversational morsel.
"Ah—yes? Yes! It's delicious."
Unable to hold my gaze, Jegal Hyang nodded and went back to her food.
And that was it?
Smiling, I applied a silent pressure for her to say something—anything. Jegal Hyang, apparently with no intention of keeping her mouth shut forever, stole glance after glance at me before finally parting her lips.
"Um, well, that is, hmmm, our, that contrac—"
"I don't believe that's a topic for here."
There could be listening ears about. Far too dangerous a subject for this place.
"Ah. Yes. R-right, of course."
"Don't look so anxious. I keep my promises."
I was in it for the meal, after all—I had no intention of making offerings at anyone's altar.
"Of course. Of course you wiiiill."
Something displeasing her, perhaps. Jegal Hyang answered in a somewhat deflated voice and ducked her head again.
I felt like I was facing a conversational black hole. Nothing I threw in kept the dialogue alive.
"Is there anything you'd like to ask about me?"
"Ah! That is... hmmm..."
Is there, or isn't there?
Sustaining a contract relationship on pure awkwardness would never do. We needed to show the outside world that things were going pleasantly between us—at a level that cost neither of us anything.
I'll have to take the lead, then.
"You said you're fond of Dangga Pungun. Have you read all the way to the latest volume?"
"Ah, yes! I've read through volume threeee."
"The Jegal Clan estate sits in Longzhong, up in the north of Hubei—how remarkable, then. Is Dangga Pungun sold in Longzhong as well?"
"Ah, no. I love books so much that I made a special request to have copies of Dangga Pungun sent to me."
Hold the thread, agree, and keep steering toward what she loves.
"Volume three was so hard to come by that even the readers of Yichang queued for it. To hear you love Dangga Pungun that dearly—as manager of the Daseogak, I couldn't be happier."
"Heheh. On the day volume three released, people from the Jegal Clan lined up to buy copies, you know."
Proud of it, apparently, Jegal Hyang even smiled as she said so.
"You've even gone so far as to transcribe it by hand—you must know Dangga Pungun inside and out."
"Y-yes. If the test were on Dangga Pungun, I'm confident I'd get every answer right."
"Haha. Then you'd find excellent conversation partners at the Tea Book Club."
"...Sorry?"
As if she couldn't have heard me right, Jegal Hyang stared at me with wide blue eyes.
"A gathering of Dangga Pungun's devoted readers. In Yichang they meet nearly every day to chatter about it. I'm certain you'd find it to your taste."
"Th-that's... not so easy."
Furrowing her brow, Jegal Hyang forced the words out as though they pained her.
"Pardon?"
"People misunderstand—that even a truly timid person turns bold in front of the thing they love. If someone could pour out everything they love to a perfect stranger, they'd never have been timid to begin with. A genuinely timid person, however desperate to speak, speaks with their brush if they speak at all—how could they ever, with someone they don't know at aaall..."
"Haha..."
Had I tripped some trauma switch?
"Ah—th-that, I, I'm so sorryyyyy!"
Realizing she'd gone off at full gallop, Jegal Hyang bowed her head, face crimson.
In moments like this, it was best to let her know there was nothing to apologize for. I put on my warmest smile and spoke.
"Then from now on, simply do it with me."
"Uh—pardon?"
"There's no need for burdens between the two of us anymore, is there? Think of it as gaining an easy conversation partner. You love books, and I happen to run a bookstore—wouldn't I make a natural companion?"
It was a contract relationship, after all. Think of each other as friends rather than lovers, and that was that. To the outside world, we'd look like lovers regardless.
"Y-young Master Kang and I, as c-conversation partners?"
Unable to close her sauce-stained lips, Jegal Hyang's eyes went round and wide.
"That's right. Dang Jeong is my favorite in Dangga Pungun—do you have a character you're fond of?"
"M-me too! Dang Jeong!"
"For me, it was when Dang Jeong, back in volume one..."
"Yes! Me too!"
The tension drained from Jegal Hyang's face into pure delight—until she seemed almost sorry to rise from her seat.
Thanks to a single topic, the conversation carried itself.
"Sister-in-law, why have you barely touched your food?"
Lunchtime at the inn Kang Yunho ran.
As the Joseon employees gathered around their meal, one of them turned to Lim Hayeon, who hadn't so much as lifted her spoon.
"My appetite seems to have gone missing."
Among the Joseon of Wuhan, Lim Hayeon passed as the woman of the Hoeju—Kang Yunho's woman.
She denied it tooth and nail herself, but anyone who watched the two of them permanently attached at the hip could size up their relationship without the slightest effort.
— Reminds me of my wife, back when she raved about spring potatoes.
— And I keep thinking of an old flame who'd swear, "It's not like I bought these for you," then wilt if I didn't eat them. These days she's some ajumma at home with a belly going slo— Honey?! How did you get in here?!
The Joseon of Wuhan called Lim Hayeon "Sister-in-law," warm with affection. The Lim Hayeon of any ordinary day would have snapped, Who are you calling sister-in-law?—yet here she was, answering without a spark of energy.
"No wonder, honestly. Her man's off meeting another woman."
The former Hoeju, Chef An Tae-won, picked up a dish of meat and laid bare the very fact everyone had been tiptoeing around.
"Boss! You can't just say that!"
"...It's not like that."
There was no force behind Lim Hayeon's denial.
"Not like that, my foot. Could it be my cooking's gone bad?"
Chef An Tae-won swallowed his side dish with the confidence of a man who had never once doubted his own stove.
Expensive, but worth every coin—that was the delivery food. An Tae-won's skill at the stove had played no small part in the success of Kang Yunho's delivery business.
"Chef!"
"Enough. Don't fret over it so."
Chef An looked at the Hoeju's woman as though she were fretting over nothing at all.
"Boss, what kind of talk is that? You set the fire yourself, then tell us not to mind the smoke?"
"Once you've eaten richly seasoned food, anything plain tastes like nothing at all. And our Lady Lim is a beauty, isn't she? I've never once laid eyes on anyone in all of Wuhan prettier than Lady Lim."
Whoever the matchmaking partner was, with Lim Hayeon standing right there, no other woman could hope to catch his eye. It was An Tae-won's clumsy brand of comfort.
"Well said!"
"True enough."
"Our Hoeju would never let his eyes wander to some other woman!"
"Still, the match is with the Jegal Clan, no? Couldn't he marry her even with her face smashed to pieces?"
"......"
At that bucket of cold water, silence pooled over the table. Watching the tips of Lim Hayeon's chopsticks tremble, ever so slightly, a few employees swallowed dryly.
"You blockheaded bastard!"
"Drag that oblivious idiot out of here!"
"Sorry! No! I misspoke!"
"Assign that bastard the longest delivery route we've got today!"
In the end, the employee responsible for the remark was hauled off to one corner and sentenced to bare rice with not a single side dish in sight.
"Sister-in-law, don't worry. Every one of us knows how devotedly you support him—would a man of loyalty like our Hoeju really do such a thing?"
"......"
Worry etched plainly across her face, Lim Hayeon could not bring herself to speak.
"That's right. So don't go hurting the feelings of the man who cooked all this, and eat up. A woman eating with a hearty appetite is a far lovelier sight than one picking at her food."
"Boss, you only say that because you're the chef..."
"You oblivious punk! Quiet, you rascal!"
Good people, every last one of them.
Watching the Joseon folk bicker around the table, Lim Hayeon forgot her worries and let a small smile through.
Right. They're right. A black-haired bookstore owner and a lady of the Jegal Clan, to begin with—two people shoved into a matchmaking with no shared interests and no common ground whatsoever.
Their impressions of each other were bound to be the worst.
And this morning, she had sent him off only after firmly stamping her own image before his eyes.
Something born of a rich man's whim. Nothing more than a matter that would end the moment he returned.
"I'll eat well."
Lim Hayeon picked up her spoon once more.
"Sister-in-law, why have you been standing at the gate all this ti—"
"Shh. Do you want tomorrow's delivery to be the far route again? Keep that up and find out."
"Ah..."
Lim Hayeon's gaze snagged on a lone figure in the distance, the chatter behind her fading to nothing.
A man threading his way through the crowd, long black hair bound tight. Even on ordinary days there had never been a single thing about him out of place—yet today, for some reason, the sight of him all dressed up displeased her.
He was trudging toward the inn.
"You're back?"
Feigning that no worry had touched her at all, Lim Hayeon darted out to meet him.
"I'm back."
A hollow voice. He looked drained to the last drop, wearing the expression of a man whose something had fallen through.
Lim Hayeon knew that expression well.
The stricken look on the faces of sisters who had become courtesans, standing before their very first customer with hearts full of hope. She had watched them come home and weep until they couldn't stand—called lowborn trash, handled like toys, stared at with gazes dripping lust.
There are things one can never reach, no matter how honestly one labors a whole lifetime. Because from the very start, they belonged to another world.
From beggar to bookstore manager. Had he, who had clawed his way up all his life, just taken a blow like theirs?
"Come inside. I've finished the inventory. Let's stop by Jeon Gilsan's place on the way and get something delicious."
Lim Hayeon took hold of Kang Yunho's sleeve. They would eat something tasty together, and rally together—that would be enough.
Her steps, heavy all day long, suddenly turned light.
"Hm."
Kang Yunho, apparently with something left to say, did not budge an inch despite her tug.
"Did someone speak harshly to you? Are you disillusioned with the Jegal Clan?"
Should I be comforting him some other way? A small worry flitted through Lim Hayeon's mind.
"No."
"Then what?"
"Well... it actually went rather well."
"...Pardon?"
For an instant, Lim Hayeon doubted her own ears.
No way. She must have misheard. But Kang Yunho's next words shattered that hope without mercy.
"Lady Jegal Hyang and I will be continuing to meet for the time being."