Head to Head - 4
"What kind of woman does that?!!"
She had taken a wholly unexpected blow. Back in her lodgings, Lim Hayeon shrieked as she hammered her fists into the pillow on her bed.
"I walked in there with my resolve made up!"
Hugging the pillow she had beaten into unconsciousness, Lim Hayeon muttered on, still seething. She hadn't set out to fight anyone, hair-pulling and all. The Daseogak branch was essential to his future and hers alike — he was working hard for her sake too, and she had no intention of sabotaging that.
Lim Hayeon had a different purpose in meeting Jegal Hyang. To make her see exactly how wide the gap between us was. What was the youngest daughter of the Jegal Clan, anyway? Who was prettier. Who was truly needed for his business, who truly belonged at his side — she would show her the gap, unmistakably.
That was why she made a point of standing at Kang Yunho's side, deliberately cutting off Jegal Hyang's every approach.
Her plan had worked, to a degree. The woman she had taken for a sly fox was in fact so timid she couldn't even manage a simple drink order. Privately, Lim Hayeon had even sensed a small victory coming her way.
Right up until that remark.
"It's just that you look so very grown-up, eee..."
"I look grown-up, you say?" Who could have guessed she'd pick a fight in exactly that way. You look old.
The careful grooming Lim Hayeon had risen at dawn to perfect, Jegal Hyang had flattened with a single sentence. A sure strike slipped through a moment's opening — a counterattack worthy of a descendant of Zhuge Liang, whose genius had once held up the kingdom of Shu Han.
"A-and you're a whole year older than me, too..."
The woman called Jegal Hyang had not stopped there. Ordinarily, being called "older sister" might not have stung. But they were both of marriageable age — and beside a man who mattered, it was another story entirely.
Under the one-two punch of looks old and older than me, even Lim Hayeon, who had come spoiling for the fight, wavered for an instant.
"Was that shy act of hers fake all along?" In her vexation, Lim Hayeon caught herself strangling the pillow's neck with both forearms. Just as Ha Soso said — could Jegal Hyang truly be a sly fox after all? I'm a year younger than you, and prettier — give me a year, and I'm confident I'd do better than you. Don't tell me she had meant it that way.
To Lim Hayeon, already reeling, Jegal Hyang's every word and gesture could only read as provocation. And the man's reaction only heaped fuel on the fire.
"Ugh. Why are you taking that woman's side right in front of me!"
She knew. Knew he was the sort of man who stepped forward for strangers in trouble. But she had been standing right there — how could he tuck another woman behind his back like that? For all she knew, the sly fox was playing helpless on purpose just to bait out his protective instincts!
"I mustn't let my guard down. Not ever!"
This was no woman to take lightly. Raking over the day's every exchange, Lim Hayeon stoked her fighting spirit once more.
A few days had passed since the Daseogak branch construction wrapped up and the managerial staff arrived from Yichang, and the branch opening was finally within sight.
"The rain just won't let up."
As I stood gazing silently out the office window, Lim Hayeon spoke up, worry threading her voice.
"It started coming down last night."
"The books from Yichang are due today or tomorrow. I'm worried."
"That's just what I was thinking. The managers are training the staff they selected — all that's left is the books."
Shelve the books, settle the staff into their routines, and the Daseogak branch could finally open its doors.
"When the weather turns foul, the Yangtze's current grows vicious. I'd rather they put in at another dock and came tomorrow."
"Even if they did arrive, it would be trouble. However many waterproof sheets they pile on, one stray drop of rain on those books and it's a disaster."
Damp and paper were natural-born enemies. The rain had to stop before the books arrived.
"They are the Seocheon Escort Agency — all we can do is pray they handle it as well as they should."
Then again, two amateurs chewing it over would never match an expert's judgment.
"Guild Leader. You have a visitor."
Lim Hayeon and I were deep in talk of our plans ahead when one of the waitresses knocked at the office door. A visitor? Who, I wondered. Could it be Mangeum Hall?
"Tell them to come in."
"Young Master Kang."
When the waitress opened the door, a sturdy middle-aged man stood behind her. Not from Mangeum Hall, after all. The visitor was, thankfully, no Mangeum man hauling fresh work for me, but a face I had known since my very first day in Wuhan.
"The branch chief of Seocheon Escort — what brings you here?"
It was the Wuhan branch chief of the Seocheon Escort Agency, an outfit that had helped me in more ways than one. His face looked terribly drawn — had he been trudging about in the rain? The chief's hair was drenched clean through. What on earth could drive a man of his standing to come all this way soaked to the bone?
"……"
The chief could not bring himself to answer at once. That look of a man picking his words — this was not good. Don't tell me.
"Branch Chief. Could it be……"
"Forgive me. The cargo has been stolen."
Why is it that bad premonitions are never wrong?
"The escort guards and boatmen aboard were found dead."
The situation was graver than I had imagined.
"Were they set upon by river pirates?"
Even a modest boat can carry tens of times what an ordinary man could haul. Had I just crossed paths with some devoted reader who ached to read Master Hopil's Dangga Pungun but, being short of coin, had turned to banditry instead?
"That's just it……. The boat was found this morning at a Yangtze dock."
My guess had missed by a mile.
"At the dock? Didn't you say they were found as corpses?"
If they had been ambushed, it should have happened out on the water — not with the boat turning up at the very dock where it moored.
"By every account, the boat moored normally last night. Come daybreak, a dockhand who found it strange that not a sound came from aboard discovered the bodies hidden away."
"There were no survivors?"
"The sailors' bodies were never found. But there were traces of the cargo being moved the moment the boat tied up."
Don't tell me — the sailors themselves? An escort party turning bandit en route is rare, but it happens. At my half-suspicious look, the chief confirmed it: neither the boat nor the sailors belonged to Seocheon Escort.
"I hardly know what words of comfort to offer. For such a wretched thing to happen in the very heart of Wuhan."
"I am ashamed beyond words. The Daseogak books due to arrive today have vanished without a trace."
I regarded the chief's bowed head for a moment. What about my books? Do you have any idea what the petty costs and the labor poured into them came to? The branch opening is right around the corner. But shaking him down over it would be the mark of an amateur. Nothing would change this instant through a wasteful war of tempers. What mattered was the plan going forward — and the question of compensation.
"You've suffered a heavy loss; there's no need to keep bowing your head. Are you searching for the culprits?"
Swallowing the urge to seize him by the collar and shake him, I asked with all the magnanimity of a broad-minded man. Startled by my composure, the chief lifted his head and looked at me.
"We are searching for the missing sailors, but if this was done deliberately, I fear the culprits will be a long shot to find."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because Seocheon Escort is an outsider in Wuhan."
The chief's face was pained as he answered.
"I'd heard your rivals here keep a tight check on you."
Hubei Province was not Sichuan Tang Clan territory. And this was Wuhan, the provincial capital of Hubei at that. Even as an escort house under the Tang Clan, in a Wuhan where the powers of countless sects crowded shoulder to shoulder, Seocheon had no choice but to concede a few moves to the other sects and agencies.
"This is no affair of the martial world — it is an escort house's affair. Every one of them will stand by with folded arms and watch."
Today's incident was no sect coming under attack. It was a delivery accident, wuxia-style. No sect had the slightest reason to lift a finger — if anything, they would likely relish it as a chance to drive Seocheon Escort out of Wuhan, and watch it happen from the sidelines.
"With the branch opening so near at hand, this is a real problem."
Situation assessed — on to compensation, then. Let me steer us there with a delicately awkward smile.
"I am truly sorry. You entrusted this to us in good faith, and I haven't the face to show you. The Wuhan branch will compensate you separately."
Coming from the Seocheon Escort Agency itself — no fly-by-night outfit — the promise was as good as gold. The trouble was that this meant the opening would slip past the date I'd counted on.
"It sounds as though your losses will be considerable."
Steadying myself for a breath, I asked the chief once more.
"Once this incident is settled, I intend to take responsibility and step down from my post."
"You weren't even the branch that shipped the cargo — why should the Wuhan branch chief be the one to answer for it?"
"This convoy was my plan, from first to last. The Wuhan branch chartered an entire ship for the first time — I meant to flaunt that reach to our clients."
The chief confessed that he had bundled the string of major contracts signed in recent months into a single convoy, hoping to trumpet its success far and wide. So the grand project he had ambitiously staged in Wuhan had met the worst possible ending — one enormous loss.
At this rate, this was the kind of disaster that gets the whole team disbanded.
"Your losses must be anything but trivial."
"We will make restitution to our clients, but I fear this will badly break the Wuhan branch's standing."
Money, once lost, can be earned back. Trust, once broken, never returns. Having fumbled a whole cluster of major deals at once, Seocheon Escort's footing in Wuhan would shrivel. As though the hard road ahead were already visible to him, the chief managed a sorrowful smile.
"I hope this can be resolved for the best."
"We have promised a generous reward to whoever finds the cargo, and we will make inquiries by every means. I must call on our other clients as well, so I will take my leave."
With yet another round of apologies, the chief vanished back into the rain.
No wonder I'd been thinking how smoothly everything had been going lately. Now the very books meant to fill the Daseogak branch had vanished in a heartbeat. An unforeseen blow — but an accident striking was no reason for me to collapse along with it. Think. What was the best move from here?
"What do we do? The opening is only days off."
Lim Hayeon let me sit buried in thought for a while before she spoke.
"There should be spare copies of Dangga Pungun in Yichang. Send a second letter, and we can open the branch a little behind schedule."
"And the other titles?"
"Buying them through the Mangeum Bookstore would be cleanest. One wheedling word to that rascal Jeon Gilsan and he'd cough them up on his own."
Follow the original plan laid out with Mangeum Hall, and the branch could still open — late, but open. Of the options I had just turned over, this was the safest.
"……You're not actually planning to do that, are you?"
Mind to mind, heart to heart. Lim Hayeon asked with a knowing smile, as though she could see every corner of my mind. From Yichang to Wuhan — with her at my side all this while, I suppose she had learned to predict where I'd dart before I did. I smirked at her expression and spoke.
"The fallback is something you reach for only after you've tried the best move."
There was still time before the opening date. Which meant I had room to play my best hand first.
"I had a feeling you'd say exactly that."
Lim Hayeon nodded at my words. Somehow, the two of us kept clicking better and better. I chuckled, then pushed myself up from my seat.
"Let's hunt down that stolen cargo. Find it, and the branch opens on the spot — and with Seocheon Escort promising a fat reward, it's well worth the attempt, no?"
Besides, if Seocheon's advance into Hubei stalled, my own plans to expand my business along the Yangtze would be in jeopardy too. Recovering the missing cargo was the best policy — and the only move on the board.
"You've already thought of how, haven't you?"
"About time I attempted what even the famed Seocheon Escort couldn't manage."
I looked at Lim Hayeon, one corner of my mouth curling upward. Because I was holding a card of my own.
"Using something you have that Seocheon Escort doesn't?"
Like a woman drawing with perfect confidence the very card she wanted from a fellow gambler's hand, Lim Hayeon favored me with a cool, elegant smile. Exactly. That was the way.
"First, bring me the Samgu brothers who oversee the dock crews."
After all, I had my own eyes and ears in Wuhan.