Declaration - 9
“You! Just now! *Hahk!* I heard! Everything! *Hahk!*”
How fast had he run to get here?
Jeon Gilsan had apparently bolted the moment he heard I'd become a successor candidate, and he couldn't get his ragged breathing under control no matter how hard he tried.
“Catch your breath. I keep telling you to at least do some basic martial training. Keep drinking and gallivanting around like that, and you'll keel over the moment you get old.”
That's how it goes—live it up, get old, finally drag yourself in for a checkup, and the doctor looks at you with a face carved from stone.
— You have fatty liver. Your cholesterol is high as well. Your blood pressure is a touch elevated. You must exercise. Have there been any changes in your circumstances recently?
— I've been living the same as always.
— Eat less greasy food, cut back on salt, take a spoon or two less of rice at every meal. And quitting alcohol is non-negotiable.
Only then did it dawn on me: living lean and light was never going to happen. Exercise in your old age isn't about looking cool—it's about staying alive. Don't regret it too late, you fool.
“I look like that right now?! *Hahk!* Hooooooh.”
Gilsan was panting so hard he was about to keel over, so he finally dropped into a seat and started taking deep breaths.
“Let me pour you some tea, then.”
He'd come to pick a fight, but a guest was still a guest.
I carefully took the tea set out of the cabinet. Come to think of it, it had been a while since I brewed tea myself. Lady Hayeon always did it for me.
While I set the kettle on and drifted into a small reverie, Gilsan, having finally caught his breath, found his voice.
“Is it true?”
True about what? He hardly needed to ask.
“That's how it turned out.”
I nodded while handling the tea leaves.
“I see... No wonder something felt off.”
Gilsan spoke like a man who'd harbored suspicions for ages and had finally caught the smoking gun.
“Like what?”
“You sent away a woman who'd supposedly rather die than live without you, and you didn't react at all! If it were really that kind of event, you should've been drinking with this hyung until dawn, that's what's normal! No wonder you were so damn composed! You were planning to clear the women out of your succession path first, get them out of Grandfather's line of sight before starting!”
Gilsan pointed a finger at me like a master detective who'd just cracked how five corpses became six and finally cleared his alibi.
“Haah.”
You could never open a detective agency, you know that?
“Don't try to smooth it over with a sigh! You deceived me! You wretched bastard!”
“Deceived you? When did I ever lie to you?”
“Terrifying! I knew you were a scary bastard, but the more I learn, the scarier you get!!!”
Gilsan stared at me, his face a mixture of shock and disbelief.
Gilsan, what am I going to do with you.
If we'd been a meet-once-and-forget acquaintance, I'd have threatened him like the old days and told him never to show his face again. But right now, he's my reliable money line.
Same with the Hopil recruitment affair, same with trying to acquire the delivery inn business—all ended in failure, but the man has a good eye.
He's recently picked out only the choicest locations and is running two franchise shops. Thanks to him, cash and promissory notes land neatly in my hands every week.
If I end up marrying Lady Jegal, Jeon Gilsan becomes my brother-in-law.
Bleak thought. But if we're going to be bound by in-law ties anyway, there's no need to keep up the charade of enmity.
I need to win Gilsan over.
In a world where blood ties, regional ties, and school ties are the basics—blood may be out of reach, but in-law ties are something I can count on going forward.
Fortunately, I had a plan in mind.
“I heard a few days ago myself. The Mangeum Lord suddenly ordered me to take the succession trial.”
Start by appealing that this wasn't my own choice.
I deliberately clicked my tongue and spoke with a sour expression.
“And I'm supposed to believe that? Is the right to be a successor some kind of joke?”
“He's your grandfather, isn't he?”
“Ah...”
A flicker of oops crossed Gilsan's face. The old man is no pushover even with his own family, it seems.
“I'd gone to report on the business, and he looked so satisfied I figured the exhausting trials were finally over and I'd get Daseogak back. Who knew he'd suddenly order me to take a succession trial?”
“He looked satisfied? Grandfather... did?”
I subtly set a teacup down in front of the bewildered Gilsan.
Not because I wanted to. You know how he is too—he's your grandfather. That old man is impossible to read.
Appeal complete. Time to move on. I let out a small sigh and spoke.
“Who passes one gate and just moves to the next? It's absurd. I was debating whether to even tell you, and the moment I left the Mangeum Lord's estate, I went straight to your shop.”
You were trying to deceive me? Perish the thought. I actually think of you as close, so I wanted to come consult you first. Appeal firmly established.
The truth was I'd just stopped by on the way, but still.
“You? When have you ever done that?”
“What, a while ago you asked me why I looked like I was at a funeral.”
“A funeral? When was... Ah! You bastard, that was the day you said you'd come meet Maehyang with me and then suddenly changed your mind!”
“When did I ever say that?”
“Because of you, Maehyang reached out for a single touch, got rejected, and told me never to book her again! Do you know how aggrieved I was?!”
“...”
How was that my fault?
“It's a mercy I switched my favorite from Maehyang to a different gisaeng. Anyway. You heard it a few days ago, you say...”
Gilsan studied my face slowly and carefully, as if searching for any trace of a lie.
Search all you want. You won't find one.
If this guy suddenly ran off shouting From tomorrow you're my enemy!, there'd be nothing I could do—but parting on less bitter terms is just how life works, isn't it?
All he had to do was fold his franchise business and play the sworn mortal enemy. That's all.
“Kang Yunho.”
After scrutinizing me for a long while, Gilsan called my name in a grave voice that didn't suit him at all.
“What.”
“So. What are you going to do?”
Asking about my resolve, was he?
“See it through to the end.”
I answered with deliberate firmness.
I'd explained my circumstances: I had no desire to plunge into a succession war. I simply had no veto. I was being forced into it. I could have dressed it up in pretty words.
But some things you must not avoid, no matter what.
“...So we really do have to be enemies, huh?”
I nodded.
“You have a safety net. I don't.”
“No safety net?”
“If you fail the succession trial, you don't lose much, do you? You'll still be the Mangeum Lord's grandson either way. Nothing much changes for the life of a young master doing well in Wuhan.”
“And you?”
“If I fail this trial, it's over for me.”
I set down the teacup I was holding and deliberately met Gilsan's eyes.
“Over, you say?”
“For you it's an opportunity. For me, I'm clinging to the edge of a cliff, gripping a rope. And the knife is in your grandfather's hand.”
Yichang Daseogak is mortgaged to the Mangeum Lord, and my businesses were all built with his money. The one thing left, the Wuhan Daseogak, belongs to Lady Jegal.
If I fail to please the Mangeum Lord, everything I have vanishes.
Gilsan knew this too.
“Hmm...”
“All I can do is crawl up and land one blow on your grandfather before he cuts the rope.”
“Ha! Land one blow on our grandfather?”
“If I can manage it.”
I said it with a faint smile.
While subtly planting a not-quite-enemy between Gilsan and me, and quietly forging a small bond.
“Right. So that's how it is.”
I'd explained my unavoidable circumstances. If we must be enemies, so be it. If I have to compete against you, I will.
Did he understand where I stood?
Only then did Gilsan drink the tea I'd brewed.
“Tea you made tastes like garbage.”
He drained the cup without another word and left a brief review.
“Then brew it yourself.”
Same leaves—why does it taste worse than when Lady Hayeon makes it?
“Good tea all the same.”
Gilsan said it as he rose from his seat.
“You're leaving?”
“As long as you didn't deceive me again, we're fine.”
“...”
Don't tell me the thing he was angry about wasn't the succession at all—it was the lying. Well, our very first meeting was me conning my way past him, after all.
“Oh, right.”
Gilsan opened the door, then turned back as if he'd just remembered something.
“Yeah?”
“My mother knows exactly who you are, so she didn't curse you out. I'm off!”
I have too many aunts to even know who's who.
Gilsan waved at my nodding head and vanished as suddenly as he'd arrived.
“You've arrived! Everyone has been waiting for you.”
Two days later. The gathering of the Mangeum Lord's successor candidates was held not at his estate, but at a separate venue.
“Lady Jegal. Please come in with me.”
“Yeeees.”
Whether she was nervous, or still hadn't recovered from burning a full week's worth of energy, Lady Jegal clung weakly to my sleeve.
“Young Master Kang and Lady Jegal Hyang. Please enter!”
As the doors opened, the Mangeum Lord, his daughters, and the successor candidates came into view.
“Th-that man...!”
“He really does have black hair.”
“Why on earth would Grandfather bring a barba—”
“Didn't I tell you to watch your mouth?”
“But Mother. That black-haired man arrived late when we were all waiting, didn't he?”
What a crowd.
The Mangeum Lord originally had twelve children. His only son had died, and one of the successor candidates had suffered an untimely accident—so ten candidates were gathered here in total.
I'd heard plenty about the notorious reputation of the Mangeum Lord's grandsons until my ears ached. Honestly, they looked like men who had spent their whole lives manufacturing one incident after another.
“You've come.”
I arrived before the Mangeum Lord, bathed in the stares of men I couldn't tell were successors or street thugs.
“Thanks to your consideration, I came here in comfort.”
I should have realized it back when he offered to send a carriage. He'd deliberately made me arrive late so all the attention would land on me. I hardly know where to put myself.
The Mangeum Lord caught the thought in my eyes, and one corner of his mouth curled up.
“Everyone has eyes only for you.”
At his words, I turned to face the crowd, took a fist-in-palm salute, and met the pouring gazes head-on.
“A pleasure to meet you all. I am Kang Yunho. Together with Lady Jegal, I run a small business.”
Lady Jegal beside me bowed along with me.
“Ha. A neighborhood inn, and he calls it a business.”
A small snicker rippled through the room. Apparently the candidates had done a little background digging on me.
It didn't matter.
I was the successor candidate the Mangeum Lord had chosen himself.
“I arrived noticeably later than the others gathered here. But now that I stand at the starting line, I intend to run with everything I have.”
I couldn't radiate presence the way a murim man would with a burst of qi. But I could make myself look larger than life anytime I pleased.
So I spoke with full confidence.
Straight posture, clear projection. A bold expression, and even the eye discipline to absorb the gazes raining down on me. I announced my presence the way a great tree announces itself—standing tall, unshaken.
“Ugh.”
A groan of crushed spirit leaked out from somewhere.
“Tch. Shameless.”
“Haah...”
Gilsan, why are you sighing?
“Hehehe. Go on, take your seats.”
“Young Master Kang, Lady Jegal. This way, please.”
“All are gathered. Now, as I said before, we shall proceed.”
The moment the Mangeum Lord saw Lady Jegal and me seated, he moved straight to business.
“Grandfather. Don't tell me you mean... what you spoke of before?”
Don't tell me there was homework assigned while I was absent!
“Yes. I will now name those who passed the first trial. Chief Steward!”
What a relief. I got the transfer recommendation—this one's a pass.
“Yes, Mangeum Lord. You have all labored for half a year. The number who passed the first trial is six in total.”
“Six?!”
“Six, he says? Father! You're cutting us nearly in half in one stroke?”
“Are your ears failing before your father's own? Or are you raising a protest against your father?”
“...”
Under the Mangeum Lord's authority, no one could answer.
“Chief Steward. Make the announcement.”
“Yes! First—Young Master Kang Yunho! Passed on the strength of the delivery inn venture!”
“Thank you.”
I rose from my seat and offered a small bow to those around me.
“Next! Young Master Song Gyeom!”
“Gyeom! You passed!”
“Mother! Grandfather! Thank you!”
“Next!”
It felt like university acceptance day. With every name called, joy and despair crossed paths.
“And the last!”
Before I knew it, five had been called, and only one name remained.
“Please!”
“Pleeheeheease!”
“Father!”
The Chief Steward swept the gathering—nearly weeping by now—with a slow, unhurried gaze, then calmly announced the final name.
“Young Master Jeon Gilsan!”
“Hnnngh.”
Oh. So it was Gilsan. He hung his head and let out a long breath of relief.
“Aaaaah!”
“Nooooo!”
“Gilsan. Get up already!”
A woman who appeared to be Gilsan's mother smacked him on the back. So that's who she was—that aunt from before. They do look alike, now that I think of it.
“Young Master Jeon Gilsan?”
Why isn't he getting up?
“Grandfather.”
At the Chief Steward's call, Gilsan rose slowly and fixed the Mangeum Lord with a stiff expression.
“Hm? Have you something to say?”
“Yes. There is something I wish to say.”
Gilsan set his jaw firmly and nodded.
“Then speak.”
What could Gilsan possibly be about to say?
As he drew a great, shuddering breath, the murmuring eyes of the room all turned toward him.
What's going on? Gilsan licked his bone-dry lips, then opened his mouth with the eyes of a man who had finally made up his mind.
“I hereby renounce my claim to the succession trial.”
“You renounce the succession trial?”
What did he just say? Every eye in the room went wide.
“Yes. And in exchange—”
“In exchange?”
Gilsan's head turned.
As though he had committed to something absolute, his gaze locked onto a single point.
What lay at the end of that gaze was neither his grandfather nor his own mother.
“I pledge my support to Kang Yunho.”
It was me.