The Gathering - 8

"How dare you spread vile rumors about my pharmacy!"

Morning at the inn. Before a single customer had set foot through the doors, an enraged thief came storming in.

The pharmacy owner's face was crimson with fury. One misstep, and the man was liable to drop from high blood pressure.

"Rumors? What rumors would those be?"

I took a leisurely sip of tea and asked, the very picture of artless innocence.

"I know everything! So don't you dare play innocent with me!"

"Everything I know about your pharmacy amounts to two things: that you pass off low-grade Central Plains ginseng as the Joseon variety, and that when you were entrusted with preparing an elixir, you pocketed the whole thing for yourself."

"Nonsense! That's—!"

Perhaps because every word of it happened to be true. The pharmacy owner could neither confirm nor deny.

"Both facts I know are true, so they can hardly be rumors. What exactly did you storm in here angry about?"

"Your black-hairs have been spreading filth about my pharmacy that I can't repeat in polite company! That we mix in counterfeit medicine! That we deliberately skimp on the costly ingredients! That we're mixing sh— sh— shit into the medicine!"

"There's a Joseon saying: smoke doesn't rise from a chimney nobody lit. Didn't the little games you played on the sly finally blow up in your face?"

Call it clever merchandising in generous terms. Call it swindling in honest ones.

It wasn't on the scale of the malicious rumors I'd been spreading, granted, but the pharmacy had most definitely been running quiet little tricks of its own.

"Nothing of the sort ever happened!"

"Just as surely as you never stole the acupuncture clinic's elixir, hm?"

I quirked one corner of my mouth and needled him.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"Grrrraaagh! Do you intend to do nothing about this mess?!"

"Just as you have no idea where the red ginseng candies went, I have no idea who set the rumors about your pharmacy loose."

Did he think intimidation would settle anything? When something is beyond your power to clean up, you negotiate. And to negotiate, you lay your most tempting card on the table. But no—this fool walks in trying threats.

Declaring that I wouldn't dignify him with another word, I turned my gaze out the window and took another slow sip of tea.

"You arrogant barbarian whelp, drunk on a seat that isn't even real!"

At my attitude, the pharmacy owner finally crossed the line.

"What?"

"What did that bastard just say to the Association Leader?"

"Does he have any idea where he is?!"

Every Joseon person in the inn shot to their feet at the word barbarian.

"H-has every black-hair in Wuhan gathered here? What is wrong with this place?"

That's right. This is the home fortress of Wuhan's Joseon community.

The pharmacy owner stumbled backward, visibly rattled.

"Close the door. It seems he still hasn't grasped his situation."

And where exactly did he think he was running off to?

"Yes, sir!"

"Is this a fight? Then count me in!"

"Gwahk!"

"S-sir, step back, please!"

His flustered bodyguards hurried to shield the pharmacy owner.

"Did you expect me to grovel in terror the moment you called me a barbarian?"

I asked, staring at the man without a flicker of expression.

The inn churned with fury. The owner's face, scarlet when he'd barged in, was slowly turning a sickly shade of green.

I could grind you into paste whenever I pleased. From this moment on, you had best mind every word out of your mouth.

Watching the man's throat bob as he swallowed hard, I smiled inwardly and gave a nod, granting him permission to speak.

"N-no, that is, I— Association Leader Kang, I only—"

"Still hunting for the barbarian Association Leader, are you?"

"I-I misspoke. A man gets addled now and then, and can't tell his front from his back—you know how it is."

"If you were half as good at telling front from back as all that, you wouldn't be standing in this sorry state."

"I don't know what nonsense you've heard, but it's all a misunderstanding! I've come to clear up that very misunderstanding!"

Still playing the wronged party, the pharmacy owner thumped his own chest.

I snorted at the pitiful display, set my teacup down, and spoke to him again with a face of perfect indifference.

"That day... there was no carriage bound for the acupuncture clinic."

"...!"

The pharmacy owner's eyes flew wide open.

"If a man is sorry, he brings a gift. Whether I forgive you or not, we'll resume this conversation once I see something sitting in front of me. Our guest is leaving! Show him out!"

"Association Leader Kang! No! Just hear me out! Leader Kang!"

And so the pharmacy owner was thrown out of the inn without managing another word.

"So it really does work."

In the inn's office, Lim Hayeon spoke to me in a tone of genuine admiration.

"A merchant who loses his credibility loses his worth in the marketplace. Simple as that."

"He's traded for decades—he can't have gone all those years without a single malicious rumor. I just never imagined he'd come charging over in a fit of rage."

"It's the first time the whole neighborhood has risen up against him, I'd wager. Until now, even when he worked his merchant's tricks, he did it carefully, watching his back. But when people set upon him deliberately, from every direction at once, that's an entirely different story."

"I never dreamed that with the Joseon community raising the alarm, word would spread like wildfire in an instant."

"People are at their most aggrieved when they're suffering. And these folk paid good money to suffer—imagine the resentment. Malicious rumors spread easily by nature, and when the target is a pharmacy, they can't help but catch."

When I was a boy, I once watched the neighborhood clinics go to war with one another. They papered the streets with enormous banners, each accusing the other of spreading malicious slander. It was there I first learned that in our endlessly competitive society, even hospitals were willing to run loss-leader services.

The funny part? The victor wasn't either of the two clinics, whose reputations ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had curdled about as thoroughly as reputations could curdle, but a third clinic that opened its doors and netted the fisherman's catch.

"Shall we have him hand over the elixir?"

"He's spent a lifetime in trade. He knows better than anyone how frightening a rumor can be."

It wasn't for nothing that neighborhood clinics were so twitchy about gossip. One whisper that they prescribed pricey medicine for profit, or over-treated patients to pad the bill, and their clientele could dry up overnight.

"Then it won't take long to get it back. I'll head off to train the Giosugu pigeons now."

"Hold on."

I stopped Lim Hayeon as she made for the office door.

"Yes?"

"I have no intention of ending things here."

I told her, an impish grin spreading ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠across my entire face.

"What scheme are you hatching this time?"

"Hahaha. Let's prepare one more little surprise, shall we?"

"Here are the red ginseng candies."

It was several days later that the pharmacy owner arrived, carrying a box that held the elixir.

"...Here they are, he says."

"...Here they are, sir."

"Ha. So red ginseng candies that never existed simply came falling from the sky, did they?"

Since when does a thief grovel?

"One of my employees made an error..."

The pharmacy owner mumbled, his face mottling red and blue with embarrassment.

"Still calling it an 'error.' Take it back, then."

So the man still hadn't come to his senses.

"I let an old man's appetites get the better of me! There was so much, I told myself one wouldn't be missed—and I ate a single one. And my whole body lit up with heat... That very night, my concubine and I shared a proper night of cloud and rain for the first time in an age. I felt decades younger, I swear it."

The pharmacy owner bowed his head to the floor in haste.

In actual history, Joseon ginseng had served as the virility tonic of emperors, after all. Its efficacy hardly needed a testimonial.

"Before you apologize to me, I believe there is someone else who deserves your apology first."

I said, tilting my head toward the acupuncturist standing beside me with a face of frost.

Evidently unaware the man had been there all along, the pharmacy owner sucked in a startled breath—then bowed his head a second time.

"Forgive me. I will compensate you separately. And for the elixir I ate, as a token of my remorse, I will pay twice its sale price."

"..."

The acupuncturist sat unmoved as a mountain.

"First, see for yourself how much of the medicine is missing."

"Yes, Association Leader."

"Honestly—coming all this way to apologize without even counting the medicine? Looks to me like a good five pun's worth is gone."

The pharmacy owner spoke to me as though I were being ridiculous. But when the acupuncturist opened the box, there it was, just as he'd said—a small stretch of empty space.

Right. He'd meant to return it, so naturally he'd counted every last piece with the utmost care.

But had he truly counted them accurately?

"...Hm? This one! There's counterfeit medicine mixed in here!"

The acupuncturist thrust the elixir toward me in alarm.

See? I knew it would come to this. Once a thief, always a thief, it seems.

The elixir's wrapper had been peeled back. And inside lay not the bright crimson candy that belonged there, but a dull, chestnut-brown pellet.

"No—th-that—that can't be!"

It certainly can be. Why ever not?

Smiling inwardly at the owner's stricken face, I let my memory drift back to my conversation with Lim Hayeon.

"So why is the medicine inside the red ginseng candy wrappers not the medicine it's supposed to be?"

"With three wives and a whole roster of concubines besides, I imagine you've been taking them daily."

"What do you have to say for yourself now?" I pressed the pharmacy owner in a voice heavy with disappointment.

"This wasn't my doing! Would a man come to apologize and pull a stunt like this?!"

He probably thought it preposterous. But we were the injured party, and he the offender—and negotiations stall the moment the offender starts pleading innocence. All we had to do was inflate our damages, and hang the offender's grievances on some nameless other. Done.

"It appears one of your employees decided to run a little game of his own."

"No—could it be? That fellow? Or perhaps that bitch...?"

"You seem to have rather more than one or two suspects."

The medicine would have passed through any number of hands before it was ever prepared. The pharmacy owner himself had breached trust and made off with the elixir. If someone else had laid hands on it after that, nothing about it would have sounded implausible.

Even if that someone had been standing right before his eyes. What man alive could imagine that a thief had slipped in and stolen what he had bound and hidden so tightly?

"Th-this can't be happening..."

"You did the thing that mustn't be done, so spare me the wounded innocence. Everyone—unwrap the lot and check them one by one."

"Yes, Association Leader!"

The other staff waiting in the office began carefully peeling back the wrappers, one by one.

"Roughly half of them are counterfeit."

We could have inspected them in advance, and I had told her to keep it tasteful—who knew she'd swap out half the box? I did tell her to do it, granted, but she'd swapped with a finesse the fish-market merchants themselves could stand ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to learn from.

As expected, the Shadowless Divine Thief truly lives up to her name.

"What do you intend to do?"

"No! This can't be! It can't be!"

"If you'd like this handled quietly, you will pay the acupuncture clinic not twice, but four times the elixir's sale price."

"Y-you want me to pay that much?"

This was an elixir crafted from the most precious Joseon red ginseng. Even the sugar used as its base had rare ingredients kneaded into it, so the production cost alone was no small sum.

Paying four times the sale price—not the cost price—was a burden even a pharmacy of this standing couldn't shrug off.

"...That is, if you'd rather not see this through to the bitter end with me."

I gazed idly at the box of elixir as I delivered the warning.

Having confessed to the theft, the man was now well and truly trapped. Word that he had embezzled red ginseng so rare even he could scarcely obtain it would spread to every corner of Wuhan.

A merchant who loses his credibility cannot stand in the marketplace. The pharmacy owner understood that perfectly.

"..."

"You said you were leaving. Open the door for our guest."

"I... I yield. I'll pay four times the medicine's price."

Shoulders sagging, the pharmacy owner conceded defeat.

"That will do nicely."

"And what about the rumors—? Gwah!"

The moment I tipped my teacup and poured its contents out before his eyes, the pharmacy owner lurched backward in fright.

His look demanded to know what in the world I thought I was doing. I turned the empty cup toward him, showing him its glistening inside, and spoke.

"The water you see spilled here is the credibility you threw away for the sake of your greed."

"..."

Did I spill this water? Or did someone pour away the credibility that had been sitting in the cup? Tell me—can you scoop spilled water back up off the floor?

The pharmacy owner could not summon a single word.

"I'll see to it that the mess gets tidied, but your credibility, you will rebuild honestly, brick by brick."

I had no intention—none at all—of burying the matter entirely. Merely thinning out the malicious rumors. Folding one rumor into another, that was all.

At that, the pharmacy owner began prostrating himself before me in a full kowtow, apologizing over and over.

"Forgive me. Truly, forgive me. My cherished concubine fell with child a while back. I resorted to improper methods, I know—but a man my age has only just gained a late-born child. I will strive to become a father my little one need never be ashamed of."

...Huh?

Oh.

That.

Hold on just a moment.

It appears someone other than him got to enjoy the red ginseng's effects.

I masked my startlement and let my gaze drift to one corner of the room. There sat a delivery worker whose eyeballs seemed to be weathering an earthquake, fidgeting and squirming, unable to keep still.

Surely not. It couldn't be.

Or was it simply that the staff here knew the whole story?

While the pharmacy owner handed the acupuncturist an invoice marked with four times the medicine's price, nothing settled over the office but a long, excruciating silence.