Opening Preparations - 4
"You want us to find people who want to work as porters?"
Before the three of us could start living together, there were things that needed settling first.
I summoned the Choi brothers—Il-gu, I-gu, and Sam-gu, the men who oversaw the Joseon dockworkers—to my office.
"That's right. Find me strong ones—the kind who could save my neck in an emergency."
"Are you recruiting for dangerous work, by any chance?"
Porters were the pack mules of the delivery trade. If one of them happened to resign from the land of the living mid-shift, one did not mourn overmuch, nor cling to regrets.
Which was precisely why, unlike escorts, porters were now and then hired on as irregular contract labor. The pay was high, granted, but the work was mostly dangerous—a post everyone shunned.
I shook my head and waved off their suspicion.
"The Seocheon Escort Agency has porter positions open, so I agreed to send recommendations. It won't be anything like as dangerous as the small-time agencies."
Granted, it was a job that could mean facing bandits on the road, mysterious masters coveting the cargo, even tigers and wolves in the mountain passes—but with Seocheon's reputation, the danger would be considerably milder.
"The Seocheon Escort Agency? You mean the one where even a lowly porter has to sit an entrance examination to get in?"
The three brothers wore matching expressions of astonishment, as if they'd rehearsed them in advance.
"Examinations, my foot."
"I-isn't that the escort agency run by the Sichuan Tang Clan? They may not throw much weight around in this neck of the woods, but back in Sichuan they say even rank-and-file escorts dream of landing a porter's post at Seocheon."
"Is that so?"
I'd heard the pay was good, but apparently it went further than that.
"As expected of our Association Leader!"
"The famed Joseon bailiff!"
"Ever since you took the leader's seat, you've been bringing back jobs for Joseon folk every time we blink... Boss, just what manner of man are you...?"
Well. Someone was moved.
I chuckled at the three of them gazing up at me with misty-eyed solemnity.
This was a land where discrimination against black-haired barbarians ran rampant.
You could break your back at the meanest labor and barely keep rice in the bowl; anything resembling a proper position was nearly impossible to come by.
Yet in the mere months since I'd become Association Leader, I had secured dock work, delivery rounds, shop-boy posts, inn stewardships, porter positions—and eventually, even escort work.
No wonder the Joseon folk bowed low at the waist whenever I so much as walked past them in the streets of Wuhan these days.
"Now then. There's something else I need you to crack down on."
The irresistible bait having been cast, it was time for the main course.
"What kind of crackdown, sir?"
"It's about your sister-in-law."
I settled into my chair, propped my chin on one hand, and put on a grave expression.
"You mean the affair where you straddled two boats and split your britches?"
"Boss! You were far too greedy! Dreaming of sleeping with peerless beauties tucked under both arms! Women that gorgeous have egos to match, you know."
"He's right. And the Zhuge Clan, of all families. Have you taken complete leave of your senses, sir?"
No, not that.
Gossip certainly travels fast around here.
"Forget my gossip. Your sister-in-law is the one in trouble."
I very nearly added that the britches had since been mended, but swallowed it.
"Your sister-in-law? Where are the lowlife bastards who dared lay hands on her?!"
"What?! Hold on. I'll go gather the boys."
"Point them out, sir! Just say the word!"
The three brothers raged as though they'd just heard that the eldest sister who held their whole household together had been set upon by street thugs.
Come to think of it, the Hometown Association seemed to cherish Lady Hayeon even more than they did me.
"It's not that. Your sister-in-law is a remarkably capable woman, isn't she?"
"Yes, she certainly is. But what does that have to do with anything?"
I let my gaze travel slowly across the three worried faces fixed on me before I spoke.
"There are people trying to abduct your sister-in-law."
"Abduct her?!"
"You all know she's indispensable to the delivery business. Well, it seems the underworld is digging around, trying to find out who exactly handles the Giosugu pigeons."
There was no need to mention the fact that Lim Hayeon was a runaway courtesan.
Her personal crisis would become the Hometown Association's crisis.
And just like that, protecting Lim Hayeon would become a matter of protecting the association itself.
"Those dog-hearted Central Plains bastards! The moment a black-haired man licks a little honey, they try to swallow him whole!"
"I've told everyone before not to go running their mouths, but this time it looks like they're making an active push. If anyone asks about a pink-haired woman, or the woman who runs the pigeon deliveries—tell them you know nothing."
"Understood. I'll put the fear of heaven into every member."
"We never breathe a word of our own affairs to outsiders anyway. Nothing could have leaked."
"Look at everything Sister-in-law has done for us. Protecting her is our duty. We'll make it absolutely clear to everyone."
The three brothers pounded their chests and told me not to worry.
This was exactly why I'd never once stopped the association folk from calling Lim Hayeon "sister-in-law."
The strength—and the weakness—of any ethnic community is its closed nature. As long as Lim Hayeon had melted into the Hometown Association, they would defend her like one of their own.
Though I'll admit, the association throwing itself into this so eagerly owed something to Lim Hayeon's singular talent for winning people over.
"Right. This is a matter for the whole association now. Whether we protect your sister-in-law or not decides whether the Joseon people of Wuhan get to stretch out and sleep warm at night from here on. Make sure everyone understands."
"Yes, sir!"
One final order: if anyone came sniffing around after Lim Hayeon, they were to report it to me at once.
I'd already spun my web for the Domun bastards.
They would keep their eyes glued to my every move, certain all the while that they were tightening the noose around Lim Hayeon.
Which was exactly what I wanted.
Because the very net they closed around her would be dragging straight across the web I had laid.
If Domun hoped to learn her whereabouts, they could not slip past the thousand eyes of the Hometown Association. And every report from the association flowed straight up to me.
All I had to do was adjust my plans to the tremors running through my web.
Such was the immense advantage of being the leader of the Wuhan Joseon Hometown Association.
"Association Leader!"
"What is it?"
"I have one piece of secret counsel, sir. I offer it only because I believe that in your case, it is entirely achievable."
Choi I-gu regarded me, brow furrowed in thought, like a steadfast general braced to deliver his loyal advice.
Could he actually have some useful advice about Lim Hayeon?
"Let's hear it."
"If you ever wanted two women in your bed at once, sir, there happens to be a method. First, you wear each one out in her own bed until she's boneless—then, ever so casually, you shift the pair of them onto a single bed and satisfy them both all over ag—"
"Out."
The Mangeum Estate.
"Hnnngh... What am I going to dooooo?"
The silver-haired, blue-eyed beauty Jegal Hyang had returned to the estate barely half a day after being cast out, and now she clutched her head in both hands, rolling across the floor in an agony of indecision.
"Yesterday she arrived at the front gate on Young Master Kang's arm and broke into a fan dance right there on the doorstep—so why is she like this today?"
"Isn't that the truth. Today she's sunk in the depths of despair. Yesterday she was a block of ice until Young Master Kang saw her home, then the moment she stepped into her room, that grin went ear to ear."
Even with the maids chattering beyond her door, Jegal Hyang's worries refused to pause for even a moment.
When she'd been thrown out, she'd genuinely had no idea where to go; but when Young Master Kang asked her to live with him—shameful as it was to admit—she had been so, so happyyy.
Even being escorted home by Young Master Kang last night had been wonderfuuul.
Jegal Hyang replayed the day in her head, a goofy smile spreading across her face, before her chin dropped once more.
The problem had come at the very end, during Kang Yunho's farewell.
— An exchange diary. I'll be looking forward to it.
She had scraped together every last scrap of her courage to propose the exchange diary, and at the anticipation in Kang Yunho's voice she had nodded and thrown herself into writing it.
Right up until she realized the single most important fact.
"I'm stuck at home every single day, so I barely have anything to put in the exchange diiiiiiiiary!"
An exchange diary was a fine thing—even a wallflower like her could bare her heart in writing. And having Young Master Kang look forward to her entries was fine too...
Jegal Hyang glared at the blank page as though it bore a personal grudge against her, and wailed.
"Nobody could possibly enjoy reading 'read a book, drew a picture' day after daaay!"
Half a month ago — Read a book. Went to sleep.
Ten days ago — Drew a picture. Went to sleep.
One week ago — Read a book, enjoyed it so much I drew a picture too. Went to sleep.
A life spent entirely within four walls. If someone asked what she'd been up to last week, or last month, she wouldn't need a moment's thought.
Every day had been exactly the same.
"What am I going to dooooo?"
Jegal Hyang rolled across the floor in frustration, drumming her heels against the boards.
Perhaps she could write about her outing with Young Master Kang? Noooo. That would be laying her entire heart bare—far too embarrassing.
But that was all she had to write about. Then... perhaps her true feelings from her time with Young Master Kang after all?
Jegal Hyang pictured it—Kang Yunho, reading her diary.
— So that's what you were thinking back then. You really are even more pathetic than I imagined.
"Ahh! Ahh-ahh-ahh!"
She thumped her forehead against the floorboards, over and over. No! If she ever heard those words, she would simply die on the spot.
"I don't want him to think I'm a pathetic woooooman!"
Pathetic she may well be—but never from Young Master Kang! Not from him!
The ordinary Jegal Hyang might have braved the embarrassment and written it anyway.
It wasn't as if she had any other diary material. And if she framed her innermost feelings as part of getting to know one another, she might just have powered through.
If not for one particular woman.
"She is a gor-geouuusly pretty unnie, I'll grant, but..."
Jegal Hyang summoned the face of Lim Hayeon—the woman always at Kang Yunho's side. Such a sharp, capable woman, that unnie.
Even if no one could tell her why the woman disliked her so.
And Jegal Hyang could not forget Kang Yunho's face as he spoke of Lim Hayeon.
— Lady Hayeon is the one who helps me more than anyone.
His face had brimmed with a trust and certainty she had never once seen on it before.
"I want Young Master Kang to look at me like thaaat too."
Watching him speak of Hayeon Unnie, something in her chest had twinged, sharp and sudden.
What if every page she wrote only exposed more of her pathetic self—while that brilliant, capable woman stood right beside him?
Now that the moment came to actually put pen to paper, Jegal Hyang lost her nerve entirely.
"N-now that they'd be living together, maybe the exchange diary could simply be... abaaandoned?"
Under one roof, they could talk whenever they liked. Surely there was no need to write everything down.
That he was the first man she had ever really talked to. The first person who understood her and played along with her rambling. That with Young Master Kang at her side, the shop clerks hadn't dared sneer at her, and it had felt wonderful.
But if she committed things like that to paper, wouldn't he only look at her with pity? Jegal Hyang spiraled deeper into her quandary.
"Besides, she'd be seeing his face every single morning from now on anyway. Hehe."
She'd open her eyes each morning, rub the sleep away, and there Young Master Kang would be. Nothing to worry about, really. Jegal Hyang struck a bargain with herself and conjured the sight that would greet her at dawn.
— Up already, Lady Jegal? Shall we have breakfast together?
And when Young Master Kang was out splitting firewood bare-chested, she would sidle up close and ask, ever so sweetly, whether he had slept well.
"Hehe. L-look at me, being so bolllld."
Jegal Hyang murmured to no one, hands pressed over her eyes for absolutely no reason. She simply could not stop imagining the blissful days of cohabitation with Kang Yunho that lay ahead.
"Young Lady. Your grandfather requests your presence regarding the matter of your living arrangements."
"Ahh!"
That is—until the Mangeum Lord called.