The Gift - 1
"We have a problem."
He held the first slot in the gye—our mutual savings circle—and Instructor Choi had come looking for me at the inn wearing a troubled expression.
"A problem? Trouble teaching the children? Or is it those red ginseng candies I sent along a while back?"
I'd handed over that elixir so the little ones could start on it early if any real talent showed. Surely nothing had gone wrong there?
Instructor Choi shook his head and spoke.
"Neither one is the trouble. It's the innkeeper—he says he won't sell the inn after all."
"The entire deal is finished except for one stamp of the seal, and now he changes his story?"
Step out into the real world, and even renting one tiny room becomes an epic saga of suffering.
You see a photo and think you've found a palace, only to arrive and discover it's a palace only if ants move in. Or a listing appears at terms too good to be true, you sprint over on the spot, and the agent starts spouting nonsense about how the last tenant moved out that very morning.
To spare myself all of that, I'd had people hunt down the optimal site for a food delivery business.
As an inn, the location was forgettable; as a delivery kitchen, it was flawless. We'd talked the innkeeper around and come within one signature of signing—and now he refused to sell.
Bewildered, I asked him what was going on.
"He's bellowing that he must meet the Association Master in person, and it's beyond anything I can settle on my own authority, so..."
Instructor Choi bowed his head, helpless.
"Understood. I'll go see him myself."
Time to go find out what on earth the man thought he was playing at.
"I'm not selling!"
The old innkeeper stood with his arms crossed, roaring, his face twisted into a scowl.
"We settled every last term, and now you fold your hand? What is the meaning of this?"
I demanded of the innkeeper, utterly incredulous. This was the man who'd sworn he'd sell the place in a heartbeat if anyone would just take his money-losing inn off his hands. And now, overnight, this?
What on earth had happened?
"You Joseon folk, with your grand new business venture, hm? Then we'd best be recalculating the price."
The innkeeper curled one corner of his mouth, smirking like a man who had unraveled my every scheme.
So that was it. Someone had whispered in his ear.
"And what exactly would you add to this inn? It's too far from the docks for travelers to bother coming, and stuck in a residential quarter, so the lodgers are few."
"There is a steady trickle of lodgers."
"With the taverns close by, I'm sure you count your drunkards. But those same taverns keep the proper drinking crowd away, too."
"Wh-where did you hear that?"
The Hometown Association's legwork had not been wasted, it seemed.
The inn sat on no thoroughfare convenient for travelers, tucked into a residential district where lodgers were scarce, and the nearby taverns scared off whatever drinking trade might have wandered close. That he'd kept the place alive this long was a small miracle in itself.
On the other hand, for a delivery kitchen, it was pure gold.
The sprawling residential quarter meant customers for delivered food, and the taverns meant heavy foot traffic deep into the night—and night crowds meant hungry customers ordering midnight snacks. Day and night alike, it was the perfect ground for a delivery business.
"Boss, why are you complicating something that ends with a single stamp of the seal?"
The black-haired broker, who had been listening nearby, addressed the innkeeper in a voice full of wounded feelings.
"Do you have any idea what I paid for this inn?! So that's how it is—the broker's black-haired! The buyer's black-haired! You're all one gang, plain as day!"
The innkeeper flared up, glaring at the pair of us with eyes brimming over with distrust.
"Boss, what kind of talk is that! You're the one who said you wanted to sell, so I went and found you a buyer!"
"Ahem. All I said was—"
The innkeeper coughed awkwardly, cheeks coloring.
He wanted to squeeze out a higher price, no doubt because the sight of his buyer prospering made his stomach churn.
Let me think this through. The man had already looked into our delivery food plans. Any more clinging to negotiation here would only buy us an endless, glacial one-step-forward, one-step-back.
Which meant, in moments like these—
"Very well. Forget it, then."
You flip the table.
"What?"
"I'm no longer buying."
I said it flat.
"Wh-what—what did you just say?"
"I came because a broker promised me a bargain, and instead I find an old coot stuffed to the gills with greed. Hold on—don't tell me the two of you are in this together. One gullible black-haired boy, ripe for the fleecing at some obscene markup, hm?"
Swindling bastards, the both of you. You planned this, didn't you? Playing the dupe who'd finally seen through the con, I jabbed a finger between them, features screwed up in outrage.
"What nonsense is that?!"
"Young master! Do I look the type?!"
The two of them jolted as if struck, hands flailing in denial.
"Forget it. In all the wide land of Wuhan, do you imagine you're the only man who'd sell me an inn? I'm done here. And broker—the next time you show your face before me, you had best be ready to answer for it in the deepest of hells."
Without a shred of lingering regret, I turned toward the entrance.
"Tsk. This young fellow must be new to trade. You can't go storming out like that."
"I beg your pardon?"
The moment I moved to leave, the startled innkeeper lunged and grabbed my sleeve.
"Ahem. We push a little, we pull a little, we find some middle ground—that's how it's done. A man who deals only in yes and no won't last long in this business."
The innkeeper flailed desperately.
"He's right. You're young, too hot-blooded. We agree on terms, stamp the seal, everyone goes home happy—why all the drama?"
"Stamp the seal so you can pocket your brokerage fee, you mean."
I scowled at the broker, who had chimed in right on cue.
They do say the one thing you must never trust in a foreign land is a fellow black-hair. How could you do this to me?
"Heh heh. You do have a gift for making a man feel like a fool."
The broker avoided my eyes as though they stung.
"Innkeeper. Do you truly want to redo the math?"
I shifted my gaze from the speechless broker to the floundering innkeeper.
"Word is you Joseon folk run some famous pigeon-delivery food service these days—Giosugu, was it? You need this inn for that, don't you?"
Still grasping for leverage. There it is.
"Correct. In that case, how does this price suit you?"
Then let me write down a number I actually like.
"Th-that's a full ten percent under what we'd already agreed to!"
"Don't like it? Then how about this price?"
I drew one clean ink stroke through the figure that had appalled the innkeeper and wrote a new one beneath it.
"Another ten percent off of that! Are—are you mocking me right now?!"
"I don't mock business."
"What?"
"The old saying goes: when you plan a great undertaking, don't fret over small change. That's why I never argued with the broker's asking price, complaints or no. But since you insisted we redo the math, I'll simply do the job properly."
"Is that... is that true?"
"D-didn't I tell you?"
"Deducted: the building has been neglected, so extensive repairs are needed. Deducted: the cooking is wretched enough to make a man spit it across the room, so I'd need to hire a whole new head cook. Deducted: even as we stand here talking, the place is so deserted the flies have it to themselves. Shall I keep listing deductions?"
"N-no."
"Boss, let's just shake him loose and be done with it."
"Enough. I'll buy it at half the original asking price."
"Whaaaaat? What manner of nonsense—"
"If you won't sell, tear up the contract. Otherwise, stamp it. And broker—if you can't bring me papers bearing his seal, don't ever show your face before me again. I trusted a fellow black-hair, and look at the circus I get."
"Ahaha..."
"Lady Hayeon, we're leaving."
"W-wait, just a moment!"
I shook off the innkeeper's grasping hand and walked out of the inn with Lim Hayeon.
"He's agreed to sell at seventy percent of the original price."
The black-haired broker came strolling into my office with a grin.
"Well done."
Wearing the most worldly-wise of smiles, I settled comfortably into a seat across from the Joseon broker.
"The instant suspicion reared its head, you had me and the innkeeper bound together in one nest of schemers. I was genuinely impressed."
"I merely asked you to find one good inn, and you came back having made such a habit of the place that you were calling the seller 'boss' like family, staging the whole act atop the bargaining board. Nothing I did could hold a candle to that."
The table, of course, had never actually broken.
Rather, we'd simply shaken down a greedy fool who was convinced I was the one passing up the deal of a lifetime.
I'd improvised the entire performance, yet he'd read it at a glance and played his part without missing a beat. They said this man had earned his bread as a broker back in Joseon—apparently no idle boast.
"Hahahaha! A lowly broker with nothing—not a whisker—to his name has to be good at this sort of trickery just to keep eating. Truth be told, it was your own performance, Master—slashing prices with such easy, practiced cruelty—that left my tongue lolling."
The broker shook his head as if conceding defeat.
"Haha. So—how much do I owe you for the brokerage?"
"Nothing of the sort! I'm a member of the gye myself. How could I possibly take a fee from you, Master?"
The broker waved the very idea away.
"Take it. With money, settling accounts cleanly is what keeps feelings clean."
"A man who used to broker single-room rentals, walking away with a sum like this? He'd bring a curse down on himself."
"Once you're an innkeeper, you'll be pulling in far bigger money than this. Think of it as practice—getting the stomach ready early."
"Truly, I couldn't! Though... if I might ask for something else instead..."
Head bowed, the broker kept stealing glances at me, some words caught in his throat.
Refusing the money but wanting something—usually that means the something outweighs the money.
"You want the next slot in the gye, don't you?"
The next turn in the rotation. He wanted to become an innkeeper himself.
"Hahahaha."
The broker laughed sheepishly and scratched at his head.
"Skipping one brokerage fee hardly entitles a man to that big an appetite. Reach too far, too fast, and that's when real trouble finds you."
He had worked hard, I'd grant him—but not that hard. Still smiling pleasantly, I let the warning sink in, nice and slow.
"My eye for land is absolutely sound. From now on, I will personally vet every site for the Hometown Association's inns, and I'll waive my fee besides."
The location the broker had found this time really was excellent. And brokerage fees were no small coin—if they could be saved, all the better.
A decent offer.
But it wasn't enough to satisfy me.
"Then let us do this. The second slot—no. But if every inn we open keeps thriving, word will spread that a broker's eye like yours never misses."
"And if that happens..."
"I'll hand you a slot myself."
"I'll scout every plot of land with everything I have!"
That's right. Keep finding good sites and proving yourself. Only a shining reputation earns the next promise.
Work hard.
"I worry people will start whispering that the Master plays games with the gye slots."
Lim Hayeon, who had been listening to our exchange from a corner of the office, spoke her worry aloud once the broker had gone.
"Frankly, I'd welcome the whispering."
It was precisely what I hoped for.
"What? Why?"
"Because I'm not shuffling slots to indulge myself. If the rumor spreads that those who step up for the Hometown Association are rewarded with earlier turns, people will be itching at the chance to serve."
"Now that you mention it, both Instructor Choi and the broker are exactly the sort who benefit the Association."
I nodded at her.
One a martial instructor, one a property broker—both were indispensable to the ventures unfolding in Wuhan.
"Everyone in the gye is, by Joseon Hometown Association standards, reasonably well-off. Toss them even one pretext for goodwill, and goodwill will come pouring out."
Let them labor for the Association of their own accord.
Well—labor for the Association noticeably enough to catch my eye, strictly speaking. If it happened to benefit me along the way, so much the better.
The trick was making them believe that every good deed built the reputation that won the next slot. That belief would do the rest of the work.
"Our Master certainly lives up to his name."
Lim Hayeon looked at me with undisguised admiration.
"All that's left now is getting Instructor Choi's seal on the contract. Oh—wait. Those red ginseng candies I sent over to him ahead of time."
"Wh-what about them?"
Why was her voice suddenly trembling?
"When I took a few out to pass along, the box looked rather... light."
The elixir I'd received had come as one full box. It should have been filled to the brim—yet when we'd gone to hand some out, it had been noticeably empty.
"M-maybe the pharmacy owner ate some."
Lim Hayeon answered, her eyes rounding into wide, innocent circles.
"Desperate times for the man, I suppose."
Was that so. Well, with three formal wives and concubines on top of them, the fellow must have leaned hard on his tonics.
Unlike a certain someone whose body, quite needlessly, whipped up its own towering waterspout every single morning, he was an ordinary man of the Central Plains, after all.
While I was lost in that thought, Lim Hayeon abruptly shot to her feet and cried out:
"W-we have to show Instructor Choi right away. Come with me!"
A dark night. A silhouette that even a master's eyes could not properly follow flitted across the rooftops and arrived at the window of an inn.
"You're still not asleep?"
Slipping through the office window, Lim Hayeon found Kang Yunho seated at his desk.
He'd said that once he collected Instructor Choi's seal they'd be drinking the night away, but he had left the party early for the Giosugu pigeon training. Never had she imagined he would come back and bury himself in work instead of sleeping.
"Mmgh... just drafting the paperwork we have to submit for official approval."
When an inn changed hands, the magistrate's office demanded fresh permits. Rubbing at an unsettled stomach, Kang Yunho worked through the forms with practiced ease.
"You drank that much with Instructor Choi, and... just sleep and finish it tomorrow."
Lim Hayeon approached him, worry written across her face.
"I didn't drink much. The clerks are glacial with paperwork—someone has to be fast, so it may as well be me."
"Then stop wearing yourself out and slip a little money to a few of them. I hear it works wonders."
Petty clerks are always hungry. A coin slipped by Kang Yunho would see his documents laid neatly on top of the pile, right where a superior's eye was bound to fall.
"Haha. Then I had best make certain they don't invent faults just to shake me down for more."
"Honestly, you... There's a feast tomorrow—the whole Association is celebrating the purchase of its first inn. Go to sleep. I'll help you sort the papers."
"Very well."
It wasn't urgent enough for Kang Yunho to dig in his heels over.
When Lim Hayeon began sorting the documents on the desk as though she'd done it a hundred times before, Kang Yunho rose from his seat to help her.
The trouble began when Lim Hayeon, out of habit, opened his drawer.
"Documents go in the drawer—why on earth is there a box in here? It's not a box papers go in..."
An elegant, expensive-looking box sat in the drawer. Lim Hayeon gave a small sigh and reached to lift it out.
"Ah, that's—"
To whom, I wonder, would fortune now turn unkind?
Because Kang Yunho had shoved it in carelessly, the strings binding the lid had come loose.
The moment she lifted the box, the lid slipped off without the slightest resistance—and she saw, plain as day, what lay inside.
"...A brush?"
The masterwork brush that Jegal Hyang had given him as a gift.