One Thing Done — On to the Next
The awkward silence had ended, and the pharmacy owner had left the office.
"I wanted to return everything, but I only managed to recover half."
The fact that Lim Hayeon had stolen them was something I couldn't mention even to the Mutual Aid Association members. Since we'd already agreed to take half the elixirs as compensation, all that remained was handing back the recovered elixirs as they were. I looked at the half-filled box of elixirs and spoke to the acupuncturist with just a hint of regret.
"Branch Master! How can you say such a thing? I know you're joking, but when you speak that way, I hardly dare lift my head."
"Haha! Still, with the medicine money recovered, my heart is much lighter. Take this, please."
I handed the promissory note I'd received from the pharmacy owner to the acupuncturist. He flinched in alarm and waved his hands in refusal.
"Branch Master, it wouldn't be proper for me to accept this money. The money from the medicine belongs to you by your own decision — do with it as you see fit."
Truly a man from the land of Eastern Etiquette, overflowing with manners and propriety.
For a moment he said he'd put it to good use, and I almost snatched the note back — but then I felt the eyes of the Joseon employees behind the acupuncturist drilling into me. I suppose keeping this money all to myself wouldn't be proper either, would it. Well, there's a way around that.
I quickly hid my greed and opened my mouth with the generous smile of a great leader.
"Don't make me out to be an ignorant man. I stepped in because our Joseon people suffered an injustice — not over a few paltry coins."
"Branch Master..."
The acupuncturist looked at me, too moved to close his mouth.
"Truly, he's our Branch Master."
"Can't even compare to those Zhongyuan bastards who'd snatch the bread right out of your hand."
"Wait, but just now, clearly—"
"You punk, are you doubting the Branch Master right now?"
Yes, yes. Your Branch Master has no intention of taking your money. So praise me all the more.
"Rather, use that money to renovate the acupuncture clinic. It never sat well with me that such a renowned acupuncturist works in a building that's falling apart."
Wearing an expression of heartfelt pity, as though grieving news of a relative living in poverty, I held out the promissory note. First, refuse the money. Play the magnanimous one.
"Oh... if that is your wish, Branch Master, then I shall use this money to renovate the clinic... Um, Branch Master?"
The acupuncturist stared at me in bewilderment. Understandable, really.
My hand gripping the promissory note hadn't loosened one bit.
"..."
This man is a tough customer. I refuse once and he immediately tries to shove it back at me?
"You'll need to let go of the note, Branch Master..."
"Ahem."
How can a businessman be so oblivious?
I gave the acupuncturist a mildly troubled smile, then turned to look at the Joseon people behind him. I may be generous, but did they look generous to him?
"Ah! How shortsighted of me. There were the hardworking Mutual Aid Association members to think of!"
"If you're renovating the clinic, throw a grand feast as well."
I released the promissory note as though I'd only just realized this.
"No, no. Where would a small acupuncture clinic find space for such a thing? Naturally, it's the Branch Master who directed all of this who must be honored! I shall give you half."
That much? I was just trying to pocket some compensation for the kids' hard work.
"I'll take only enough for the Association members who labored to eat and drink. That's plenty."
"Absolutely not! With all the troubled Joseon people you'll be helping in the future, Branch Master, how could I wash my hands of this for so little? Please use the remainder to aid Joseon people who fall into hardship like I did."
"Then I shall use this money for the Mutual Aid Association members."
I'm an Association member too, after all. Fair enough, right?
I tucked the promissory note away again, then handed him a separate one marked with half the amount.
"There's one more thing I'd like to say."
"Please, speak."
"Half of the promissory note, yes — but in truth, you've received in one lump sum what the elixirs would have fetched in full. Money you would normally have scraped together over a long stretch of time, all at once."
The acupuncturist gazed at the promissory note, his face wreathed in smiles.
He'd recovered his stolen elixirs and earned everything he'd originally set out to make. For him, it couldn't have been a better outcome.
"Haha. With such a windfall, you mustn't fall behind on your savings club again."
"Of course not! I'll make sure the dues cause no trouble. Even if my turn lands at the very end, I'll join without a word of complaint. But that isn't what I wanted to say."
"Then what is it?"
I looked at the acupuncturist with a puzzled expression. What could he want to say?
The acupuncturist stood before the box containing the elixirs that had been his great worry these past several days, spread his hands wide, and said to me:
"I've earned what I set out to earn. So all the elixirs here — I give them to you, Branch Master."
"I meant to take only half, and somehow ended up with all of it."
Lim Hayeon said to me, looking at the elixirs in the box.
Half the promissory note and the entire supply of elixirs. The acupuncturist had recovered everything he'd needed to earn from selling his medicine, and I'd received the elixirs on top of my compensation.
Everyone walked away smiling — everyone except the pharmacy owner, whose karma for stealing red ginseng candy would unknowingly subject him, a year from now, to a gacha draw with his very life on the line.
"No matter how many times I refused, he insisted, so I had no choice but to accept."
Having finished delivering the pre-education lecture to the other employees — and leaving the deliveryman currently locked in his own life-or-death gacha alongside the pharmacy owner — I came back and smiled.
"And what exactly will you use these for?"
Lim Hayeon asked, looking doubtful. My businesses were a bookstore and an inn — rather awkward fit for selling medicine.
"If I eat them all myself, wouldn't that boost my internal energy?"
They're candy, after all. Maybe if I popped one after every meal like a breath freshener, my inner power would improve.
"Your internal energy is already second-rate. And it's not as if you'd be brewing raw red ginseng and drinking the decoction — a candy with just a trace of extract mixed in won't do much for you."
Red ginseng candy did contain red ginseng, technically — but only a vanishingly small amount of extract, diluted to stretch the batch. It was the elixir equivalent of a snack labeled "Lobster Cracker" that's really just made with lobster-adjacent water, or a "shrimp burger" that's actually pollock.
An elixir manufactured for middle-aged men and third-rate martial artists, promising vigor, vitality, and the faintest whisper of improved internal energy.
For me, apparently terrible value for money.
"Then I'll simply have to find another use for them."
I murmured quietly, eyeing the elixirs.
As a martial artist my realm is still third-rate, but my internal energy is first-rate, oh yeah — I'd wanted to crack that joke. Awkward for me to use, awkward to sell.
Word had no doubt already spread among the employees that these were the ultimate one-strike-finish elixirs. Maybe I'd use them for the Employee of the Month award — and when handing them out specially, only to married men. They're said to restore one's vigor, after all.
"I'm sorry... what?"
What's wrong?
Lim Hayeon asked, her eyes going wide with a start.
"There's stolen goods mixed in, so selling them would be awkward. Better for me to keep them in my personal possession and use them as the need arises."
Why are you so startled?
"And just where do you intend to use them?"
"That's something I'll need to discuss with Lady Hayeon and decide."
Half of these were elixirs Lim Hayeon had worked hard to swap out in the dead of night. I had no intention of scarfing them all down by myself.
"D-discuss it with me?"
Why does your voice keep shaking?
"I can hardly use them all alone, can I? Naturally I'd need to discuss it with you first."
They're elixirs, after all — I'd need the help of a martial arts master to use them properly.
"Th-that's true, but. D-don't get any funny ideas!"
Lim Hayeon suddenly straightened into the demure posture of some proper young lady, and in an instant put a good distance between us.
Is it because I keep offloading every little chore onto her? Well, can't be helped then.
"If you're too busy, I'll talk it over with someone else."
"What?!"
"Lady Hayeon, why are you suddenly so far aw—"
Why did you back away just to come right up to my face?
"Who. Are. You. Going. To. Use. Them. With?"
Lim Hayeon pressed her face close, interrogating me.
"Lady Hayeon?"
"Who. Are. You. Going. To. Use. Them. With. Don't tell me—"
Why are you angry?
A sudden crushing pressure closed around me — so Lim Hayeon truly is a master of martial arts after all. The atmosphere said that one wrong word and I'd be in for a world of pain.
When you can't read the room, the answer is to sit still and raise your hand like a schoolboy.
"They're elixirs, so I'd have to consult another master, no? No one comes to mind at the moment, so I'll leave them be for now."
I won't use them.
"Elixirs? Oh..."
Only then did Lim Hayeon seem to realize we'd been talking past each other. She stepped back a pace, looking flustered.
"What exactly did you misunderstand?"
"Uuuugh. Seriously! It's nothing!"
Lim Hayeon turned her head away, her face a little flushed.
Ah. Don't tell me.
A disbelieving laugh almost escaped me on the spot — but if I let on that I'd noticed, she'd likely avoid my face for a solid week.
"And here I was hoping that if I ate all the elixirs, my realm might rise. What a shame."
It was my own slip of the tongue that caused the misunderstanding, after all. Like a sly old serpent, I smoothly changed the subject in a voice of disappointment.
"What you lack isn't internal energy. Just train harder at the Shadowless Divine Thief art I taught you. Then you could honestly call yourself second-rate anywhere you went."
Lim Hayeon answered quickly, as if desperate to clamber aboard my change of subject and shed her embarrassment.
"I could become second-rate?"
I stared at her, eyes going wide with surprise.
In a martial world where anyone who cobbled together any old technique was called a third-rate martial artist, second-rate meant you could legitimately call yourself a true martial artist of the Murim.
"Your hidden weapon techniques are already excellent. Master the Shadowless Divine Thief art as well, and any ordinary second-rate martial artist would be dead before he even laid eyes on you."
"Me, second-rate?"
The Soyun Mind Image Art. The Tang clan's hidden weapon techniques. The Shadowless Divine Thief art. Come to think of it, without my noticing, I'd now learned an internal cultivation method, combat techniques, and a movement art alike.
"Your attainment of the Shadowless Divine Thief art isn't deep enough yet, so not quite now. But if you train steadily, before long you'll be able to call yourself second-rate with confidence."
Lim Hayeon wore a proud, approving expression toward me, like a teacher taking satisfaction in her disciple's progress.
You all are third-rate. I am second-rate. Could the day be coming when we stand in a perfectly matched hierarchy of superiority?
I gazed down at my own hand with an expression of profound emotion.
Lim Hayeon watched me with a fond smile, then spoke up.
"Ah... and the red ginseng candy is confiscated. You'll use it after discussing it with me."
Why, though?
"One problem solved. Next up — the first branch of the savings club."
Another busy day was drawing to a close. I lay in bed and quietly recited tomorrow's tasks.
With the acupuncturist's dues, the first round of savings collections had been successfully completed.
While the Joseon people busily spread the word, I'd already scouted out the next inn, so the branch would proceed without a hitch as well.
"If only no incidents break out at the inn."
The main branch, and the Jeon Gilsan No. 1 and No. 2 locations — all operating without a single problem. But the more branches we opened, the more I found myself worrying about the accidents and brawls that inns inevitably attracted.
Because the Giosugu delivery service required buildings of three stories or more, the inns couldn't afford to give up the lodging trade or the customers who came just to eat.
An inn was, in the end, a place where people crossed paths — which meant fights between them were simply unavoidable.
Brawls catastrophic enough to make the innkeeper weep openly were genuinely rare, of course, but every time a fight did break out, the inn had no choice but to absorb the losses.
"Hiring separate security would be... wait a moment!"
As it happened, something very useful had just landed in my hands, hadn't it?
There was something I could try.