The Gathering - 1
"The body of Heo Song was found in the pleasure quarter, the skin of his face half torn away."
Heo Song. The true mastermind of the Dang Family Storm impersonation affair. The Mangeum Lord's own grandson—found as a corpse.
"Who on earth could have committed such a horrific act?"
"..."
Me?
The constable stared holes through me.
"I sense there may be some misunderstanding here..."
"When did you last meet with Heo Song?"
"Not recently. I met him exactly once, some time ago, at Mangeum Seogo. That is the whole of it."
"I hear you were entangled with him in the affair of the impostor claiming to be an author called Hopil."
So they are investigating me as a suspect.
Fortunately, they weren't mindlessly hauling me off on the spot—so for now, it seemed my name had merely made it onto the roster of suspects.
"Yes. Heo Song propped up a fake author and published copies of the novel I myself publish."
He had clearly done his homework before coming, so there was no point beating around the bush. I would stick to the facts.
"An author-impersonation case, and a face flayed off. Doesn't that strike you as rather too convenient a coincidence?"
He stole the author's face—his pen name—so someone peeled off his actual face?
Even for me, a man weaned on detective stories where locked-room murders erupted every time the cast went traveling—stories starring bounders who peddled their grandfather's name and sleuths flinging hidden weapons that could drop an elephant dead on the spot—it did look suspicious.
"My dealings with Heo Song amounted to a small business dispute, nothing more. How could I possibly commit such an atrocity against another human being?"
I pressed a hand to my chest and put on the most wronged expression the world has ever seen.
"The way I hear it, you barbarians keep a custom of killing men and flaying the skin from their faces."
Good grief, why does the world carry so many rumors about barbarians? Why not just come out and call us a people who wear peeled faces over their own and go around swinging chainsaws?
"What?! Who are you calling horse-riding barbarian bastards?!"
"What do you take Joseon folk for?!"
"N-no, that's not what I—"
When the other Joseon lodgers quietly keeping to the inn overheard and roared in outrage, the constables faltered and gave ground.
Nice supporting fire. I stepped toward the constables and spoke, every inch the man furious at being falsely accused.
"Joseon is a nation that knows Confucius and Mencius. I may hail from a foreign land, but I studied the Four Books and Three Classics from childhood—how would I ever practice such savage customs?"
Even if this delinquent Kang Yunho once treated his teacher's voice as so much white noise, he had at least learned his lessons.
"Even among martial artists, there are those who do such things now and then, out of old grudges."
Then don't go around howling about barbarians—half of you commit horrors no barbarian ever dreamed of.
"The impersonation affair is a closed matter. If you still cannot bring yourself to trust me, then ask Jeon Gilsan of Mangeum Bookstore, or the Mangeum Lord himself. Either will vouch for me in more detail than I can."
I had received my compensation. His Dang Family Storm publication had been banned; even his subsidies for hats had been cut off. I had no grounds left to nurse a grudge.
"Hmm."
The constable combed his eyes over me again and again, as though my very bearing might yield some clue.
"Head Constable, sir—his account does not differ much from what we heard at Mangeum Bookstore."
"As expected. But who in the world could have done such a wretched thing..."
So they had already investigated elsewhere.
"May I return to my work now?"
"Very well. There is nothing pointing to your guilt at present. Forgive the intrusion upon a busy man. Off you go, then."
"Damn bureaucratic dogs. The moment they clap eyes on black hair, they're falling over themselves to find something—anything—to pin on you."
Chef An sat me down in the chair across from him the moment I returned to the inn, speaking through gritted teeth.
"All the more reason to run our affairs without a single flaw."
"You've no idea what I suffered with those officials just to get Wungi Inn its trading license."
"Because their first move is to see black hair and confiscate your identity on the spot."
A black-haired pauper could not lean on the authorities even when grossly wronged. That was a truth I had learned bone-deep from living in the Central Plains.
"Aye. ...Still, forgive me for asking—it truly wasn't you who peeled his face off, was it?"
Chef An asked it with a sidelong, half-probing glance.
"Haha. Surely you don't suspect me too, Chef An."
"Well, you cut such a blazing swath at your inauguration as Association Leader that a man can't help but wonder. And those Samgu brothers of late would lie down and play dead if you so much as told them to."
Perhaps because my inauguration had put plenty of Black Way thugs in the ground.
That was also why the Hometown Association members still went stiff as boards around me even when I greeted them smiling.
"Everything I did that day, I did as their Association Leader. If I handed the authorities an opening, every Joseon soul in Wuhan would pay for it. Would I ever do such a thing?"
At times like these, you return a man's own words to him in full.
"Hoo. Unlike a cur like me, you truly are leadership material, I'll grant you that."
"By the way, what have you been doing over there this whole time? Surely not squeezing money out of the Hometown Association members."
Chef An sat at his table, jotting down sums and names as a line of Joseon folk stepped up to hand over their money.
"Squeezing, my foot! All of you, quit standing there like fence posts and greet him."
"We met you at the inauguration—an honor to see you again!"
"A good day to you, Association Leader! Forgive us for greeting you so late!"
Having marched the Joseon folk in line through their greetings, Chef An began to explain what he was about.
"I've been looking after the members' savings for them."
"Their savings?"
"Think on it. Even a man who owns his own building can hardly get an inn license in the Central Plains with black hair, can he? So what's the next best thing but a money exchange?"
"Not easy at all. They're foreigners, the lot of them—no connections, no guaranteed standing."
Even in my old world, setting up a phone plan or opening a bank account as a foreigner was a hassle—and this was a wuxia world.
"Just so. A money exchange will only take you if you run some enterprise like you or I do. So, bothersome as it is, I collect the members' money in their stead and deposit it at the exchange."
"Then why not hand the whole business over to me?"
"That would be even more trouble. Some fellow you've never set eyes on could turn up demanding his money back, you'd never know when a depositor might come to draw out what he left with you, you'd have to notify every last one of them of the handover... Better to keep the work just as it has always been."
Like a shop-floor veteran of thirty years, Chef An waved off my proposal with the air of a man who would rather suffer a familiar toil than carry a new worry.
"Your labors are no small thing, I see."
"Now that you know, don't come peel my face off over it someday, you hear."
"Hahahaha."
"Those dogs put me in a filthy mood, coming round like that. Once we close up tonight, let's have a drink."
"Gladly."
That night we held a small feast at the inn to celebrate my passing the trial.
Word of Heo Song's death had reached the Joseon Hometown Association, and along with it a groundless rumor that displeasing the Association Leader could cost a man his life—but this was not a rumor that would stop spreading just because I denied it, so I let it run.
"Why weren't you at Heo Song's funeral?"
A week had passed since word of Heo Song's death broke.
I was busily running my businesses and racking my brains over how to expand them next when Jeon Gilsan dropped by my office.
"Why in the world would I attend Heo Song's funeral?"
It's not as if I'd be mooching a free bowl of funeral noodles.
"Fair enough. No sense scratching at it and raising a boil."
Jeon Gilsan clicked his tongue softly and put on a face of mourning. So even a shameless reprobate grieves a cousin's passing, it seems.
"How is the investigation turning, anyway? The constables came round a few more times, too—quite the nuisance."
They had stopped coming at some point, evidently unable to dredge up any further suspicion against me.
I turned the question on Jeon Gilsan, who by now had thawed into easy conversation.
"Here's the strange part. The body was found over by the red-light district—and that pleasure quarter is packed wall to wall with courtesan houses, wine halls, gambling dens, and brothels. It's the sort of place that clears away a few corpses on any given day."
"So he might have died in a quarrel, or at a robber's hands."
"But here's what puzzles me. He went missing on the very day you went into Heo Song's mansion, Kang Yunho, and the body only surfaced recently."
"So he could have been killed somewhere else and dumped there."
If he was missing that long, this may have been no crime of passion.
"Aye. Heo Song was a worse piece of work than even me—he sowed grudges all over. The flayed face could be some enemy's parting gift, or he died for reasons I'd rather not imagine."
As if the thought itself left a bad taste in his mouth, Jeon Gilsan clicked his tongue and let his eyes fall.
"You mean the succession trial?"
"Just so. That bastard Heo Song. If the two of us hadn't stood in his way, he'd have shot to the front off Dang Family Storm sales in a single stroke. And wouldn't you know it—he vanished just before you stormed his mansion."
Heo Song, murdered just as he stood poised to make his bid in the succession trial.
If it were true, it would be enough to make even the great Mangeum Lord clutch his head in both hands.
"Please, have some refreshments."
"Much obliged."
Lim Hayeon set tea and sweets before us, took her seat at her own desk, and settled in to drink in every word.
"So you're telling me you didn't peel his face off, then?"
Even this rascal asks. Did the impersonation case and the flayed face truly look so connected?
"You and I were the ones who settled the Hopil impostor business. If you suspect me, am I to suspect you right back?"
"Not me! A man has lines he must not cross! How could anyone visit such horror upon their own flesh and blood?"
Jeon Gilsan startled and flapped his hands in denial.
The least line-keeping man alive, insisting he holds the line in Wuhan. What a laughably poor fit.
"And if I were the type to keep lines, the two of us wouldn't even be sitting here talking."
The Yichang affair, his share in the Daseogak confiscation... Gilsan, with the lines you've crossed, I could skip rope.
"Ghk... I concede the point."
Jeon Gilsan, with nothing to counter, bobbed his head.
"Oh, that reminds me. I hear you've been courting my little cousin, Jegal Hyang?"
"And where did you pick up that piece of news?"
"Among all the cousins, I'm just about the only one on speaking terms with Jegal Hyang, you see."
"Ah."
Ah—because his family runs Mangeum Bookstore, perhaps.
"The girl who never once sets foot out of her room came to a funeral of all places, eyes roving like she was hunting for somebody. She kept peering this way and that, so I asked—and that's how I found out."
"...And the person she was searching for... was Manager Kang Yunho?"
The voice of Lim Hayeon, quietly listening until now, turned strangely pointed.
"In the end she only lasted a moment that first day. The crowd came swarming in, her face went corpse-pale, she dry-heaved, and she went home."
"Ha... haha."
However I turn it over in my mind, that young lady is a delight.
"Anyway, brother-in-law."
"Yes?"
"...What?"
What did this punk just call me?
"If you wed my cousin, that makes you my brother-in-law, does it not? Brother-in-law. Family is a precious thing."
Jeon Gilsan regarded me with infinite gravity.
"Who is whose brother-in-law here?!"
That's exactly what I was saying. Lim Hayeon shot up from her desk and rounded on Jeon Gilsan.
"Jeon Gilsan. Stop this unseemly performance."
Whatever either of us said, Jeon Gilsan did not so much as dent his solemn expression as he pressed on.
"True, we met on the worst of terms. But we have since come to each other's aid not once but twice—that fact cannot be denied—and we stand now as colleagues in business. Add to that the countless days we've drunk side by side, and so..."
"Cut the rubbish and get to your point."
And there he goes, slathering on flattery that couldn't fit him worse.
"Ugh... Come on, knock something off my franchise fee."
"What?"
"After the funeral, Grandfather gave each of us grandsons one more promissory note. I'd wager he fears the ones who botched their first ventures may resort to desperate measures—he looked to me like a man opening up one last road for us."
"So you mean to put up another franchised inn."
"Brother-in-law. When I become master of the next Mangeum, I will not forget today's kindness—I will show you precisely what it means for family to push and pull for one another. So if you would grant me but this small grace today..."
"Spare me. The contract terms do not change."
I shut him down, clean and final.
"You—! You'd not bleed a single drop if I stuck you with a knife!"
Odd. He bled plenty, the last time a blade did find him.
"If you don't like it, don't do it."
"Hnngh... I brought my seal regardless. Let's stamp the thing and be done."
The more I think on it, the better a call this franchise business was.
Jeon Gilsan heaved a long, long sigh and stamped the second slave contract.
"The franchise fee from Jeon Gilsan should cover our immediate needs... Miss Hayeon."
Clutching the contract bearing Jeon Gilsan's seal, I called out to Lim Hayeon, who was murmuring something over her ledger.
"...And to think he says we both came into this against our will..."
"Miss Hayeon?"
"What?!"
Why are you shrieking in surprise?
"Tally up our current budget and draw me a report. Once Jeon Gilsan pays his franchise fee, we must prepare to open a branch of our own."
"I'll have to run the numbers first, but I suspect we'll come up short. Even if it's feasible, we'd need to pour in every last coin we possess."
The delivery business had been enjoying boom days without end. But opening a new inn branch for delivery fare with the profits was another matter entirely.
Because the trade leaned on the pigeon-post delivery service, we had to buy a building with upper floors rather than a single-story storefront.
Add the renovations to convert the place into an inn, and the need to set up shop wherever crowds of hungry customers would order in, and the initial capital outlay swelled enormously.
"Why on earth are building prices in Wuhan so ruinous?"
Wuhan may be the proud capital of Hubei Province, but this was simply too much.
"...You passed the first trial. Couldn't you allow yourself a little room to breathe?"
"The Mangeum Lord and the Simun Branch Master alike want to see my business grow. I have to keep running."
The business had to expand, and I had to put many more Joseon folk of Haomen's Simun on the payroll.
"It's not as if money rains from the sky—we have to wring our profit out of nothing but promissory notes and trade. And right now there's no clever answer at hand."
"Exactly so. Money from the sky... no. Wait. Hold on."
Money from the sky?
Is there truly no way to cover what we lack? No. There is.
And it is a method that only I could ever use.
"Chef An!"
I hurried out of the office in search of him.
"What is it?"
"You said you take the Hometown Association members' money and deposit it for them at the money exchange, yes?"
"Hm? Why do you ask?"
"Show me that ledger, would you?"