A Delivery Gone Wrong - 1
The earliest movers at the harbor, before anyone else, were the dockworkers.
Unloading jobs went to the first come, first served. With each day's quota of hands filling up fast, the laborers set their feet toward the wharf before the sun had even risen.
"Hoeju. We've found a dockworker who was at the port last night. Come in."
After the incident at the harbor, I'd contacted the Samgu brothers, who managed and oversaw the unloading crews, and they'd tracked down a man in record time.
"Wh-what business might you have with, w-with th-this humble servant...?"
At last. Joseon's time-honored cultural treasure—the Living CCTV—had shuffled up before me.
Hands crusted with calluses, a face rutted with wrinkles from taking the years head-on. Odd jobs and heavy labor were clearly his daily bread.
"I am Kang, the Hoeju of this association. Rest easy—I didn't call you here over anything bad. Miss Hayeon, some warm tea, if you would."
"Here, dry yourself off with this. I'll bring something hot to thaw you out."
Im Hayeon handed the visitor a towel for his rain-soaked hair.
"I-it is an honor to behold the distinguished Hoeju. Th-this humble servant is an, er, an ignorant wretch of the surname Heo, who lived in Sunchang County, b-beside Namwon..."
Old Man Heo bowed his head again and again, mouth and hands both trembling.
He was wound far too tight. Evidently he thought he'd been hauled in for interrogation.
And if I wanted everything he'd seen to come spilling out, loosening him up first was the way to go.
"A pleasure. Sunchang, is it? I used to go roaming along the Seomjin River now and then. Fond of gochujang, are you?"
Light talk first, business later. Build some common ground, put a smile on, let the air soften.
"You know it?! Sunchang is famous for its red pepper paste! This humble servant oft got a taste of it, whenever the mistress of the house would share!"
A runaway slave, then.
Whether he'd plotted treason back in Joseon or merely fled a master's chain, it mattered little here in the Central Plains—but it seemed the bearing a man carried didn't wash out of him so easily.
"In spring, you take all those fresh mountain greens, mix them through rice with gochujang, and you'd swear it was nothing but weeds—yet it beats the taste of meat. It never failed to astonish me."
"Add a few drops of sesame oil on top, and it's like owning the whole world."
Was it my talk of home, or the memory of a good bibimbap? Old Man Heo's face had loosened into open ease.
"Haha. That it does. Now—I hear you saw something strange at the port last night. Is it true?"
Time to hear him out. They'd said there were no witnesses, hadn't they?
"When it rains, m-my old joints ache so, that waking at my usual hour I can't reach the docks in time. So I sleep early and rise early, meaning to stay up through the night and start the dawn shift—and that's how I chanced upon it all!"
"Fortunate for you."
These were men who'd cut down the escort swordsmen and flag-bearers alike. One misstep, and the one sitting here wouldn't be Old Man Heo—it would've been what used to be Old Man Heo.
"With the rain coming down, and me tucked far off under a lonely eave of the dock, I don't believe they noticed me."
Perhaps Old Man Heo understood the danger he'd been in; his knees gave a faint tremble.
"Tell me what you saw. I'd be much obliged if you'd lay out everything you remember."
"Ordinarily no one unloads cargo at night without great need. It's dark, and it looks suspicious. But to be unloading on a night with rain on top of it! It was so strange that I watched the whole scene from a distance, under the eaves."
"Did you see anyone come off the ship? Anything out of the ordinary?"
"Hmmm... Ah! The men overseeing the work were dressed strangely—that much I remember! Not common raincoats, but pi-pung-ui—cloaked rain-garments! Drawn right down over their heads, too!"
A pi-pung-ui was a sort of wind-cloak. Worn in the rain, was it? Then it must be a finer article, proof against both wind and rain.
"Over their heads too? Then you couldn't see their hair."
"I saw it! It was green!"
Green? My hand flew to my mouth in spite of myself.
Hold on a moment.
There was one group that sprang to mind the instant you put green and thieving together.
"...The Green Forest?"
If so, this affair was getting stranger by the minute.
"N-n-no! The Green Forest bandits' hair is a green close to grass, but those devils' hair was a lighter green!"
So they weren't the mountain bandits gone river-raiding on the Yangtze, it seemed. Small mercies.
"Anyone else suspicious?"
"I saw men come down the gangplank gripping blades as well. Bamboo hats and rain-cloaks hid them, so I couldn't see their faces—but I heard what they said."
"What did they say?"
"'I can't find it! Move it and search!'—words to that effect."
"Go on. Keep talking."
I had to dredge up every last scrap.
With tea and refreshments set before Old Man Heo, I had him pour out the whole of what had happened the night before, down to the smallest detail.
"Take this and treat your little ones to a fine meal."
I'd wrung the well dry. A man deserved a fat purse for work this useful.
"Hoeju! Oh my, such money! Thank you, thank you!"
"Ilgu, good work to you as well. Find me anyone who knows so much as a whisper about green-haired men in rain cloaks, or about what happened last night. I could use the help."
"Hoeju, help? You need only give the order. We'll comb the city clean, put the lettered lads on it, and bring you back something neat and organized."
"Good. I'm counting on you."
Choi Ilgu, eldest of the Samgu brothers, bowed and filed out of the office with Old Man Heo in tow.
"We've landed an important clue."
I spoke, eyes on the information jotted across the paper.
"Do you think they were after the escorted cargo?"
Im Hayeon asked, her brow knitted in thought.
They couldn't see it. That 'move it and search' line meant, without question, that they were hunting for something.
"It's a common enough affair. The moment people learn a consignment carries elixirs, secret manuals, or a treasure map marking buried riches, even murim men who boast one foot planted in the orthodox sects turn into a pack of bandits."
Blood spilled over priceless treasure was everyday fare in the murim. Word of a consignment's contents was normally kept under strictest seal—so where had it leaked, and how had it come to blood?
"A master strong enough to butcher the escort swordsmen and flag-bearers on deck and steal the cargo outright... This hardly seems a case that will blow over easily."
"No—it may blow over all the more easily."
"Why so?"
"Because they didn't act alone. In the end they couldn't find what they wanted and had to haul the cargo away—which means they're bound to snag on our eyes and ears at least once."
If a lone master had simply killed some men, tracking him would be a forlorn hope. But when that much freight and that much manpower moved, traces were certain to remain.
"Then we wait for the rumor to spread through the Joseon Hometown Association."
"No need to sit and wait. I'll step out and return."
I'd taken all there was to take. I sprang from my seat at once.
"Where are you going?"
"We're hardly the only ones with eyes and ears in this city, are we?"
After all, we had one more handy instrument at our disposal.
"How's business faring?"
"I never dreamed you'd come out in person, Hyangju. Business flourishes, thanks to your care."
The man I'd come to see was the head of all the Hao Sect's servers in Hubei Province—the Simun Hyangju of Wuhan, master of the Attendant Division.
"The Simun's rising star calls on me in person—how could a Hyangju not receive him? All the more when it's plain as day you haven't come with a troublesome favor, but with some other purpose entirely."
The Simun Hyangju, wearing the face of a pleasant merchant, thumped my shoulder with a warm grin.
"Do you know why I've come?"
Had he already seen through the fact that I hadn't come because of Im Hayeon?
"Why do you fish? You're here because the Seocheon Escort Agency got hit."
"You already knew, then."
"If I couldn't catch a rumor that big, I'd have no business keeping the Simun seat."
"Something strange has happened."
"A ship docked at the port carrying nothing but corpses. Sounds like every table at breakfast was chattering about it."
Even hearing it as the victim, I found the case a marvel. They must all have been gossiping away like commuters glued to the news in a bus terminal.
"Do you happen to have a suspect in mind?"
If word had spread this fast, perhaps he knew something. I asked, unable to hide my hope.
"Heh. This one's grown rather big, and you'd like the information for free, would you?"
The Simun Hyangju eyed me with a grin that said, look at this rascal.
"Haha. How could I ever dream of taking the great Hyangju's information for free? This humble student of the Hao Sect merely wishes to hear your precious wisdom."
If he had it, I'd buy it.
I returned his tease with a respectful cupped-fist salute.
"You little rascal. A tongue that smooth—one or two wenches would find that mouth of yours plenty entertaining, I'd wager."
"Haha..."
Did he really have something good? The Hyangju snorted at my strained laughter, then opened his mouth at last.
"There are a few I have my eye on."
"There are?"
Well, this could wrap up quickly.
"Everyone in Wuhan."
"Everyone?"
"The ones with a leg in Wudang or the Zhuge Clan, the Mangeum Hall, right down to every petty gang in town. The whole city crawls with leeches looking to suck Wuhan's honey—and then the Tang Clan barged in out of nowhere. Whoever the culprit turned out to be, the Tang were a thorn in every eye there was."
So the Hyangju didn't know much beyond gossip after all.
"Could you at least find out where the missing cargo went?"
The culprits were beside the point; my purpose was the missing books. Perhaps he held some thread to pull.
"Don't tell me one of the vanished consignments is yours?"
"I'm in a rather deep hole, yes."
"Tsk. Rotten luck."
"Frankly, who the culprit may be is none of my affair. I came because I hoped you, Hyangju, might hold a clue."
A rainy night. A great weight of cargo on the move. Surely someone, somewhere, had seen it.
I pressed my plea upon the Hyangju with the most earnest face I owned.
"If you'll simply give me a lead, the fee is yours, of course."
The Simun Hyangju studied Kang Yunho's pleading face.
"With today's affair the talk of every table, the reports related to it have been coming in as well."
"Then—!"
The Simun Hyangju smiled inwardly, and bitterly, at the color flooding into Kang Yunho's face.
The young man was one the Hyangju himself had been watching with great interest.
Why, he'd even sent a letter of praise to his closest confidant, the branch chief of Yichang—commending him, for once in his life, on the accuracy of his eye.
The Simun Hyangju was willing enough to grant a favor—so long as it wasn't a request that would set him against the other Hyangju.
"And are you confident you can sort the true from the false in those reports?"
He had information, without a doubt. But this case was a delicate matter.
A fine opportunity, as it happened. The Hyangju resolved to use this moment to teach Kang Yunho one of the Hao Sect's home truths.
"I beg your pardon?"
"You let the servers smell money in a report, and they'll chatter out anything and everything. Among today's harvest there's even a tale that the Ghost of the Yangtze slew the men to settle a grudge and offered the cargo up as sacrifice."
The Hao Sect was an organization of information. Yet most of what poured in was shallow rumor.
Winnowing the jade from the stone among countless reports—that was the duty of those who occupied the Hao Sect's high seats.
"Isn't Hao Sect information still renowned the land over?"
Was sorting jade from stone not an easy task, then? Kang Yunho asked with a puzzled look.
"The ones under me are servers, boy, not trained informants. And this job was pulled off with cold deliberation—no botched affair—so witnesses will be scarcer still."
What the Hao Sect harvested was truth slipping from careless mouths.
Prizing hidden truth out of the flood of shallow rumor—which swelled and overflowed like the waterways of the Yangtze itself—was work with real difficulty to it.
"Hmm..."
"The reports run broad and wild, and the true ones among them are few. Given time enough, I could sift them for you. But for this job alone, you'd be spending good money and worse hours for nothing."
The cargo was already gone.
Before long it would become stolen goods, sold off to some buyer or other—and that wouldn't take long at all.
Meanwhile the reports kept streaming in even now—truth, useless noise, and outright lies, all churned together.
Take this chance, boy, and sharpen the judgment of a Hao Sect man—what information may be sold, and what may not.
It would be a bitter schooling, no doubt of it. But bitter schooling was how a Hao Sect man grew. So the Hyangju thought.
"Then if we pin the witness reports down to specific individuals, sifting them should be easy enough."
But Kang Yunho's answer was nothing of the kind.
He flashed a grin of pure confidence, as though everything had just gone precisely his way.
"Hm?"
"Two warriors, green-haired, in rain cloaks. One bears a blade scar on his cheek. There's a good chance a man in a yellow oil-cloth garment traveled with them. I've also brought information on the sailors. With this much, can you narrow the field?"
Kang Yunho drew the notes he'd compiled from inside his robe.
"How in the world did you come by information like this?"
As the Hyangju took the papers and read, his eyes could do nothing but widen.
The paper the young man handed over—information organized more definitively, at this very moment, than anything possessed by any Hyangju of the Wuhan Hao Sect.
For it was information that fixed, beyond all doubt, the direction this entire case would take.