The Delivery Incident - 2
I had already gotten a taste of Haomen's information network back when I was putting one over on Jeon Gilsan in Yichang. In short, it worked like a live bulletin board where posts came streaming in by the second. That didn't mean there was no way to sift the gems from the gravel, though.
The trick was to think of it as a search bar. Pile on as many filters as you could, then feed in hard, verifiable facts. Ask them to find "a suspicious fellow from last night" and the information you wanted would drown in noise—but add hair color, clothing, and circumstances to the query, and far more precise results came popping out.
"Well, well. You've certainly done your homework. I had no idea you black-hairs had this kind of knack."
The Simun Branch Master handed the files he'd prepared off to a subordinate and turned to me.
"I merely picked up a thing or two watching Chief Gwak at work."
Better to prop up a superior than to preen over my own talents. I answered the Branch Master in a suitably humble tone.
"You learned all this just by watching over someone's shoulder? The appearance and dress of the missing men, the hour they moved their cargo, every scrap of information the search would need—even a measure of deduction about the case itself. To hell with all that. Why not come work under me instead?"
"Haha. I'm afraid these shoulders already carry rather a heavy load..."
I declined as tactfully as I could.
"Fair enough, I suppose. Who'd want to serve a man who can't even protect one wife of his own?"
Apparently even a tactful refusal had stung. The Simun Branch Master probed at me with a testing tone.
"I'm well aware that you're biding your time, waiting for the right moment."
I bowed my head in answer.
Open rivalry between Haomen Branch Masters could escalate into outright civil war. Having proven my worth once more in this affair, I had surely taken another step closer to meeting his standards.
"Heh heh. Your words flow like a mountain stream."
"Branch Master, we have it."
Before long, a Haomen member returned with the compiled information. The Simun Branch Master set the papers down on his desk, smirked, and beckoned me over.
"Come here, Mr. Heavy Shoulders! Let's have a look together. ...Now then. Oho, this is good stuff."
Good stuff?
The information they'd brought back was nothing like what I'd expected.
"Fifteen suspicious locations? Isn't that far too many?"
Was the Haomen search engine's performance always this terrible? The pages were crammed with reports of every discovery imaginable.
When I stared at the Branch Master with a bewildered face, he stroked his beard and curled one corner of his mouth into a grin.
"A greenhorn is still a greenhorn, I see. What's so strange about what I said? Does fifteen seem hopeless to you?"
Had I missed something? What was it that set my view apart from the Simun Branch Master's?
"This humble member of Haomen would be honored to hear the Branch Master's esteemed insight."
When in doubt, ask politely.
"You set a fish trap."
The Branch Master wore the expression of a master imparting the ways of the world to a young disciple.
"A fish trap, you say?"
"The most important thing in setting a trap is knowing the paths the fish travel. Now, what do you suppose would happen if we concentrated our manpower and information on these fifteen places alone?"
"The information would be filtered out quickly."
"With what you brought me, the whole of Wuhan shrank to fifteen spots in an instant. What happens half a day from now? A day? Two?"
"The culprits will start showing their faces."
If fish were swimming where a trap had been set, they would be caught with ease.
"People must eat and drink, and stolen goods must be turned into coin. And as it happens, both are the kind of information that drops right into your lap if you simply keep your ears open."
Information born of human carelessness—that was Haomen's stock in trade. The flight itself may have been meticulous, but everything after it would not be.
"Thank you for the invaluable lesson."
"Run along back. If good news comes, I'll send word."
"How did it go with Haomen?"
When I returned to my office, Lim Hayeon was there—she had stayed behind to wait for word from the Hometown Association.
"Not a bad haul."
I gave her a brief account of how Haomen had winnowed the list of locations down for us.
"When the Hometown Association heard that Chairman Kang was in trouble, everyone threw themselves into helping you. If anything, there's so much information coming in that it's getting hard to sort through."
Lim Hayeon spoke with something like awe, glancing toward the corner of the office where boxes sat filled to bursting with paper.
"This is all of it? That's... certainly a lot."
If this was only what the Hometown Association had gathered, I dreaded to imagine what information covering all of Wuhan would look like. No wonder the Branch Master had looked troubled when I first made my request.
"You said fifteen places, right? Shall I go infiltrate them myself?"
"That would take far too much time—and these are places where a master who killed an escort guard and a palanquin bearer is hiding. Far too dangerous."
There was no reason to court such risk. What I sought was the best method, not the worst possible outcome.
"...Still."
"Better that we set a fish trap instead."
To the disappointed Lim Hayeon, I offered up a better way.
"A fish trap?"
"We use the information in hand to narrow the suspicious locations down further, then post people at each one. However meticulously they fled, someone careless is bound to let something slip sooner or later."
Filter further with the Hometown Association's intelligence, and fifteen would shrink again. We might even end up setting our traps more efficiently than Haomen could.
"Wow... How do you even come up with these things?"
"I've always been rather brilliant, you know."
Actually, I learned it from someone.
"...Haa."
Lim Hayeon pressed a hand to her forehead and shook her head, as if worn down by my shamelessness.
Aigoo, that one blew up in my face! Blew right up. At moments like this you're supposed to say, "That's our Chairman for you! Our Manager!" Simply brilliant. I thought I'd at least earn a round of applause.
"Then let's get to work, the two of us."
"To narrow down where to set the traps, we'll need to pull together everything from the Hometown Association and hunt for the decisive clue."
"No one but you and me, Lady Hayeon, is any good at this sort of thing—so let's give it everything we have."
It wasn't as though anyone else was going to help.
"I want to be of help to Young Master Kang, yoooou..."
The Mangeum Lord's estate. A silver-haired beauty with eyes of blue. Jegal Hyang thumped her forehead down onto the paper spread across her desk and murmured in despair.
"Sniff... Young Master Kang actually noticed how hard I tried, y'knooow..."
Through that stifled voice, Jegal Hyang replayed the events of a few days past.
She had failed, in the end, at taking an order—the most basic task in the world, something anyone could do. Anyone who witnessed it would have laughed at her, or thought her utterly absurd.
But Young Master Kang was different, yoooou.
He had acknowledged her effort, sympathized with her plight, and praised her for it. Not family—a stranger. And not merely a stranger, but the man she loved.
Something the woman named Jegal Hyang had never once experienced in her life.
Kang Yunho's praise had reached into some corner of her heart, deeper than anything ever had.
For days she had languished under this strange new feeling, until at last, her heart brimming over with nowhere to pour itself, she swept up her brush.
"That's why I painted the pictuuure... Aaah! My Young Master Kang!"
Lifting her head, Jegal Hyang startled at the ink blooming across the paper and scrambled to salvage it—but it was already far too late.
Anyone belonging to the Zhuge Clan who glimpsed that painting would have been struck dumb. What she usually painted were scenes from the world inside her novels—but the figure on her paper was unmistakably a black-haired man.
A young lady who shunned all human company had painted another person. It was the kind of incident that would set gossip loose through the entire Zhuge Clan.
Of course, the painting she had labored over so lovingly was ruined in a single instant.
"Am I really being any help at aaaall?"
Even the painting failed, yoooou. Jegal Hyang pulled a tearful face, paying no mind to the ink-blackened smudge on her forehead.
She wanted to be praised by Young Master Kang.
Having lived a life that kept others at arm's length, being acknowledged by anyone at all was foreign to her. And now she was being acknowledged by the man she loved.
To Jegal Hyang, Kang Yunho's praise had come as an overwhelmingly sweet experience.
She wanted more. More recognition, more praise. And so one woman began to weigh on her mind.
"There's an increeeedibly beautiful older sister right beside him, y'knooow."
Fidgeting at her ink-stained forehead, Jegal Hyang pictured Lim Hayeon standing at Kang Yunho's side.
She seemed to shiiine, that sister. So decisive in everything, so wonderfully grown-up, she waaas.
The ideal woman Jegal Hyang imagined—the woman she longed to become and never could—was standing right beside Kang Yunho.
"I'm soooo jealous of Lady Hayeon."
Wondering whether she too might be of some use, Jegal Hyang had tried drifting casually about near Kang Yunho, but there was nothing she could help with. If anything, all she earned for it was Lim Hayeon's frosty stare, as though she were nothing but a nuisance to a busy man.
"I want to help Young Master Kang the way Lady Hayeon does, yoooou."
I don't know the first thing about running a bookstore, y'knooow. Maybe Lady Hayeon is right, and it's better if I just stay quiet, yoooou.
The Jegal Hyang of ordinary days might have conceded defeat at once and shut herself up in her room.
If not for one person.
"But Young Master Kang and I are partneeeers at Da-Da-Daseogak, y'knooow."
Cheeks flushing crimson at the thought of being overheard, Jegal Hyang fidgeted with her hands as she murmured.
I won't be treated like a useless lump of baggage that can't even help, yoooou.
"Why is it that the days we meet keep growing, while our conversations keep shrinking awaaay?"
I see Young Master Kang's face more than ever these days, so why does it feel like drinking salt water—why does it only make me thirstier?I'm soooo jealous of Lady Hayeon. Overcome by a frustration she could not resolve, Jegal Hyang thumped her head back down onto the desk.
"Why not simply open your heart and tell him everything?"
At that, Sibi—who had been listening to her one-sided conversation—answered.
"Ehk?!"
Jegal Hyang jolted in surprise and lifted her head to find the source of the voice.
"Oh? Sorry for startling you. You kept murmuring even while I was cleaning, so I thought you were asking me something."
"Ah, u-um, th-that's..."
"Oh, just look at your face, my lady! One moment—"
Murmuring to myself is just a habit of mine, y'knooow. When Jegal Hyang went scarlet and her words failed her, Sibi came over and gently wiped her lady's forehead with a damp cloth.
Only then did Jegal Hyang place her. This was Sibi, the maid her own age who, from beyond her door, would now and then subject her to the most one-sided romance advice.
When Jegal Hyang looked at her as though begging for counsel, Sibi began offering it up as she wiped her lady's forehead.
"You don't want to disturb Young Master Kang while he works, but you'd love to talk with him far more. That's it, isn't it?"
"Yeeees, that's exactly iiiit."
"I know a method that's just perfect for shy girls like you."
"Wh-what is iiiit?"
She had received more quiet help from Sibi than she could count, and every last piece of advice had somehow been spot on. With eyes full of hope, Jegal Hyang waited for the answer.
"Do you know what an exchange diary is?"