Rider - 4

"Busy?"

The day after my meeting with the young lady Jegal Hyang, I had been searching for Im Hayeon — from the moment I returned yesterday clear through this entire morning — and she was nowhere to be found.

"Busy every single day, as it happens. Why do you ask?"

"Grrrrrrr."

Im Hayeon answered without so much as a glance in my direction, her attention fixed on checking over the carrier pigeons.

Her voice sounded oddly sharp around the edges. Perhaps it had been no coincidence that our paths never crossed after I got back yesterday.

"You've been awfully hard to catch a glimpse of since yesterday, is all."

"......"

Only then did she seem willing to show her face; Im Hayeon turned her head and looked at me at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠last.

Why were her lips pouted out far enough to hang laundry on?

"I see you're busy, then. In that case, I suppose it can't be helped."

There was no sense fanning the flames of a house already burning. I took a step back and made to turn away.

"Why?"

Im Hayeon stopped me just as I was turning to go.

"I was thinking of stopping by the Seocheon Escort Agency together."

With the opening of the Daseogak branch not yet settled, a visit to the Seocheon Escort Agency was necessary for planning our next move.

"...Just the two of us?"

For some reason her voice wavered with hesitation, like a hand debating whether to sheathe a drawn blade.

"I could go alone, of course... but I'd rather have you with me."

This was my opening.

I needed Im Hayeon for what I had planned today — and I needed to mend her mood.

I scratched my head, feigning a sheepishness I didn't feel.

"Is this not something you could settle on your own?"

"We're to stop by the Seocheon Escort Agency, then go confirm the first slot of the mutual aid society. Your endorsement is needed there, and..."

"Needed, you say?"

Im Hayeon strode right up to me and tilted her face ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠up toward mine, a trace of displeasure in her eyes.

So 'I need you' isn't enough? Then what would do the trick? Think — and quickly.

"I thought we might have a meal together while we were at it."

We'd missed our meal together yesterday, after all. Dinner afterward, somewhere nice — my treat. Would that pass for acceptable negotiating terms?

"Hmph... wait here, then. I'll get ready and come out."

Had I found the right answer?

Im Hayeon gave a small snort — and then, at last, a smile surfaced, as though her mood had finally thawed.

Thankfully, her steps back toward her room looked a touch lighter than before.

"Here it is — the shipment sent from Yichang."

When we arrived at the Seocheon Escort Agency, an escort recognized me on sight and led us to the warehouse.

"What is all this?"

Im Hayeon eyed the boxes stuffed to the brim with paper, looking startled.

"Advertising flyers I ordered from the Yichang Printing Workshop."

If there was printing to be done, surely I ought to put that expensive workshop to good use? I drew out a single sheet and held it up for Im Hayeon to see.

"Flyers? Where exactly do you mean to advertise?"

"More branches will be opening in far-off places from now on, won't they? When they do, I plan to paste these up on walls or hand them out in the streets to drum up interest in each opening."

The more means of promotion, the better. Word of mouth only carried so far. For a grand opening campaign, nothing beat a stack of advertising flyers.

"Well, Wuhan is enormous, so for a branch far from the main office, word of mouth would have its limits, I suppose. But this paper must have cost you a pretty penny?"

"I used cheap, low-grade stock. And besides, the flyers don't come out of my purse in the first place."

Every coin pooled by the mutual aid society was destined to flow out as franchise fees.

Since I ran the main office, the more plausible expenses I could conjure, the better it suited me. Of course, it mattered that the spending be something the franchise owners could be brought to accept.

"Truly... I cannot compete with your merchant's cunning."

Im Hayeon breathed a small sigh of genuine admiration.

"Hahaha. I'll take that as a compliment."

"Please inspect the shipment and leave your signature."

Once the inspection was finished, the escort held out a document.

"Yes. Everything is in order."

"Young Master Kang! To come all this way without calling on me first — you wound me! Come inside at once!"

With the signature formalities complete, the Wuhan branch manager of the Seocheon Escort Agency ushered me into his office, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his face glowing with welcome.

"Thank you for sparing the time in your busy schedule."

"Not at all. For you, Young Master Kang, I would conjure hours where none exist."

"I'm grateful. It's been a while since my last visit, and the Wuhan branch seems positively alive with energy. Has something good happened?"

"Ahaha. The escort trade has never managed to hold its head high in Hubei Province the way it does in Sichuan, but headquarters has of late turned remarkably proactive with its support. We can finally breathe again."

The branch manager regarded me with a long, shrewd gaze, as though beholding a treasure trove.

If 'headquarters' meant the Sichuan Tang Clan... could their sudden support of the Wuhan branch be because of me?

"That is welcome news indeed."

Hubei Province was the domain of the Wudang Sect and the Zhuge Clan. Even the Mangeum Lord, the richest man in Wuhan, was bound to the Zhuge Clan as a maternal in-law — their influence was not easily fathomed.

Unlike in Sichuan, the Seocheon Escort Agency was merely one unremarkable agency among many here in Wuhan. But it was also one of the few pillars I could lean on in this city, so the reinforced support for the Wuhan branch was good news for me as well.

"It's about those Joseon dockworkers you introduced to us, Young Master Kang."

As the branch manager and I traded news of the intervening days, he brought up the Joseon laborers working the Yangtze docks.

"The dockworkers I introduced? Has something gone wrong?"

"Haha! Wrong? Quite the opposite! Those Joseon men working the docks are remarkably diligent. However heavy the cargo, they labor without a word of complaint, and even when a ship arrives behind schedule, they wait until the very end to see it unloaded. Remarkable, isn't it?"

The branch manager bustled to praise the Joseon dockworkers at every turn.

"They came all this way to a foreign land to build honest lives, after all."

"At first, a few of the porters muttered behind their hands — said that if folk grew friendly with the black-hairs, their wives would be stolen away in the night, or their daughters ruined past all mending — but these days they're all the happier for it, grumbling that their own share of the work has shrunk."

"Hahahaha. I'm glad the misunderstandings have been put to rest."

Black-hairs are perfectly safe people. It's all a misunderstanding. Just a misunderstanding.

An ordinary escort run consisted of guards watching over the cargo and porters shouldering the loads. But because logistics along the Yangtze moved by ship, a single voyage carried dozens of times more freight than any overland convoy.

That was why dockworkers were hired in place of porters.

"Every stroke of fortune that has visited the Wuhan branch of late seems to trace back to you, Young Master Kang."

At this rate, honey might as well come dripping from the branch manager's eyes.

"Hearing you say that, I'm glad I asked for this meeting today."

There was business I had been meaning to discuss anyway, so I gladly welcomed the amiable atmosphere.

"Was the shipment the reason you asked to see me? If it concerns the cargo, I won't accept payment for this escort run."

"It isn't that. There is a favor I would ask of you."

"A favor?"

I began laying out my plan for the branch manager.

Having called on the Seocheon Escort Agency, it was now time to settle the first slot of the mutual aid society.

"I-I am truly to be the first pick, you say?!"

The man I had come to see was the escort who had gone lame — Choi Deoksu.

Escort Choi received us at the door of his shabby home, his face full of astonishment.

"Yes. After long deliberation, we have chosen you, Escort Choi, as the very first proprietor of the mutual aid society."

"But — a lame man like me, chosen ahead of all the other members of the association — truly the first pick? H-how could it possibly be me...?"

Escort Choi asked us once more, his voice trembling as though he could not trust his own ears.

"I gave it a great deal of thought as well. Who among the members of the mutual aid society ought to become the first proprietor? When the deliberation was done, I concluded that it had to be you, Escort Choi."

It was important that I appear to be dispensing grace out of the Society Leader's boundless magnanimity.

I put on the benevolent smile of a man handing over lottery winnings and expecting nothing in return.

"Could it be... because I am lame?"

The first proprietor of a delivery restaurant.

Perhaps the fortune arriving so abruptly had frightened him, for Escort Choi studied us with an expression that refused to surrender its suspicion.

"Of course not."

"If it is because I'm lame, then pass me over — put me at the back of the line instead of the front."

"Why would you say such a thing?"

"It is true that I hauled cargo my whole life until my body gave out, and that the agency I served cast me aside. It is equally true that a lame black-hair can scarcely find work anywhere else. But in twenty-odd years as an escort, I did manage to save up coin by coin. Seek out someone who needs it more urgently than I."

"Husband! What on earth are you saying! The Society Leader has made his decision!"

"Quiet, woman! It isn't only the two of us who have to eat!"

Escort Choi's wife, who had been listening in silence, cried out as though she had been wronged, but her husband's iron resolve rang firm and unshaken.

So the rumors of his good character were true. But I had no intention of backing down.

I needed Escort Choi for what I had planned.

I spoke again, my expression turning grave.

"I chose you as my first pick not because you are lame, Escort Choi, but because you have trained in the martial arts."

"I beg your pardon? What do you mean?"

Escort Choi echoed the words in a voice of pure bewilderment.

The reason I had placed Escort Choi first in the mutual aid society was not his lame leg.

It was the next rung on the ladder by which my business would climb.

And I opened my mouth to step up onto it.

"I would have you serve as a martial arts instructor for the Joseon delivery workers."

Escort Choi had to become our instructor in the martial arts.

"I beg your pardon? Do you mean to make martial artists of the Joseon people?"

"Something like it, but not quite. What I need are not martial artists, but delivery workers who have learned martial arts."

"I'm afraid I don't quite follow."

I looked at Escort Choi — the man who, I had heard, often taught a move or two to Joseon folk who had picked up some martial arts.

I had no desire for delivery workers trained to swing a blade well.

What I wanted was fewer petty brawls breaking out in the taverns.

A way to make my business flourish all the more.

What I wanted was—