The Declaration - 10
"You mean to say you will relinquish your claim as successor candidate and throw your support behind Kang Yunho?"
"Yes, Grandfather. I stand with Kang Yunho."
Jeon Gilsan? Why on earth was that lunatic doing this? Apparently I wasn't the only one who thought so, because the whole room erupted at once.
"Hey! Jeon Gilsan! What nonsense are you spouting!"
"Gilsan! Did you get into the day drink?! Hurry, tell your father you didn't mean it—quickly!"
"Silence."
At the Mangeum Lord's one solemn word, everyone sank back into their seats.
Jang Noya let the room settle, then looked back and forth between me and Gilsan with unconcealed interest before he spoke.
"Did the two of you arrange this beforehand?"
Gilsan gave a short snort, shook his head, and jerked his chin toward me.
"Just look at Kang Yunho's face, all of you. In all my days, I have never once seen that man so rattled."
Oh, so I'm incapable of being flustered, am I?
Only then did I manage to force my jaw shut. How was anyone supposed to see that coming?
This was the man who'd sworn he'd become the heir of Mangeum Hall. Who'd stayed up all night working—of all things—to pass the succession trial.
He'd pulled the first overtime of his entire life, and then fussed—ahh, today I have drawn one step closer to the succession! That very guy.
So why the hell was he suddenly backing me?
"You, too, have the qualifications to inherit Mangeum Hall."
The Mangeum Lord spoke as though probing whether Gilsan's declaration truly welled up from the heart.
"And it is precisely because I have those qualifications that I support Kang Yunho."
"Qualified, and therefore you support him?"
"Grandfather, I've learned something running my own trade these past six months. If you lay your dab of honey on a thing quickly, before anyone else catches on to its worth, you will earn more than all the fools who wear themselves to the bone chasing profit after the fact."
As Gilsan held forth, full of himself, before his grandfather the great merchant, the Mangeum Lord's eyes narrowed with keen interest.
"So he seems worth giving up your claim for."
"Rather than run myself ragged for a hundred days, I figure it pays far better to play water-bearer at that man's side."
Gilsan's words were impossibly light. But precisely because they were so very him—so breezily thrown away—there was not a trace of lingering regret to be found in them.
"Heh heh heh. Is that so? I see, I see."
Unable to contain his laughter at his grandson's audacity, the Mangeum Lord nodded along with a smile.
Perhaps startled by the Lord's warm reception, the onlookers who had been holding their breath jolted upright and burst out.
"F-Father!"
"Grandfather! You cannot possibly mean to take Gilsan at his word!"
"Grandfather! We passed the trial as well!"
"Do I look like a man who settles these things with a few words?"
The Lord shook his head, his expression hardening anew—as though he had merely been enjoying his darling grandson's antics.
"Phew..."
Only then did the assembled relatives sag and exhale in relief.
"So what will you do?"
The Mangeum Lord asked Gilsan again, as if to confirm that he meant to back me all the same.
Gilsan. It's not as if your endorsement decides the succession. Just chalk it up as a little episode and take the trial.
"I will stand on Kang Yunho's side. It would please me if my word tipped the scales in your heart a little, Grandfather—but even if it does not, I intend to keep helping Kang Yunho from here on."
But once again, Gilsan's answer defied my expectations. Why was the man answering with a face full of conviction, without a flicker of hesitation?
"Kang Yunho. And what is your own thought?"
Me? I'm the one wrong-footed here. An instant answer was out of the question, so I rose with all due respect and resolved to mind my manners first.
"I can only be grateful for young master Jeon Gilsan's support. But surely one man's endorsement cannot hope to tip the scales within your heart, Elder."
Grateful I am, truly. But—
Gilsan, you need to read the room. Look around you. Your mother, for one, looks ready to kill you where you sit!
"I see. You are telling the man you back not to do anything foolish."
One corner of the Mangeum Lord's mouth curled upward as he addressed Gilsan.
At that, Gilsan's gaze slid over to me.
— You little punk. I know exactly what you're thinking.
— Know what, exactly? Can't you see your own cousin glaring at me like she wants to eat me alive, huh?! Just take your candidate slot like a sensible man!
— So moved you can't find your words, is it? Trust me, brother-in-law. I've got you.
So it was a one-way broadcast. Then again, this had never been a man one could actually hold a conversation with through eye contact.
Evidently satisfied that he had said his piece, Gilsan turned back to the Mangeum Lord, his face once more full of certainty.
"Grandfather. These past few days, I have stayed up nights agonizing over something."
"And what might that be?"
"I am no genius, mind you, but people do say I have a nose for these things. And no matter how I turned it over, I kept arriving at the same conclusion—anyone in this room who inherited Mangeum Hall would end up staining your good name."
The instant the words left Gilsan's mouth, the tip of the Mangeum Lord's eyebrow gave a curious twitch.
"What impertinence is this!"
"Hey! Jeon Gilsan!"
"But."
Careless of the uproar around him, Gilsan looked straight at me as he spoke.
There wasn't a speck of a lie on the face of the man passing judgment on me.
For a moment, the words simply would not come.
Gilsan.
Ours had never been a good beginning—we had met as adversaries, after all. A relationship of cons and counter-cons; there had even been a time when each of us held the other's lifeline in his sights.
But tangled up with him in business, and then bound to him as family through Lady Zhuge, somewhere along the way we had become the sort of friends who traded earnest advice and shameless jokes in equal measure.
Old grudges surely should have lingered between us. And yet—
—he was declaring his support for me at the cost of surrendering the very seat he had wanted most.
Gilsan's gaze, blending boundless estimation with plain trust, settled on me.
I could only bow my head and offer my thanks, simply and sincerely.
"Heh heh heh. Have it your way, then."
Watching me express my gratitude, the Mangeum Lord soon stroked his beard and acknowledged it with a rumble of laughter.
Thus it was declared: Jeon Gilsan, successor candidate of Mangeum Hall, would stand with Kang Yunho from this moment on.
"Elder."
The moment Gilsan settled back into his seat wearing a thoroughly satisfied grin, I rose and addressed the Mangeum Lord with full courtesy.
Gilsan was watching me with the absurdly glistening eyes of some loyal lapdog—a look that suited him not at all.
— Hey. I did great back there, didn't I? You'd better be grateful.
Hey. I truly am grateful, but you've gone and created a problem.
"What is it?"
"Now that young master Jeon Gilsan has declared his support for me, there is a matter I would like to settle before we proceed."
One declaration of support, and the rest of them were already burning with hostility toward me.
My original position had been little more than "the Zhuge Clan's representative who had yet to receive his shot at the succession." Even that would have drawn its share of scrutiny, but Gilsan's endorsement had made me Suspect Number One outright.
Having vowed to prove myself, I had always known I would face this eventually. Even so, there was no call to simply sit and swallow eyes full of malice.
Time to play a small card.
"And what matter is that?"
"The candidate seat left vacant by young master Jeon Gilsan's decision to back me."
"A candidate seat?"
"Huh?!"
Six candidates had passed the first trial. Which meant one seat had just opened up, hadn't it?
"That's right! Father! There were six! One seat! Give it to my boy!"
"Your boy?! All your son is fit for is hawking flour—failed is failed! The sheer nerve! Father! A seat has opened, so of course it must be filled!"
"What rubbish are you spouting! Failed means finished! Do you take this for some day-labor market?!"
"Father! Let us simply proceed with five seats and be done!"
"Enough noise."
When Jang Noya spoke with a furrowed brow, everyone froze, oh-no written across their faces as they looked to the Mangeum Lord.
Ladies, I understand your children's careers come first—but really. Must you keep up this racket? If the Mangeum Lord had been a sports referee, you would all have been thrown out on the spot.
"Ah... Father."
"You may be the mistresses of your married households, but in this house you are outsiders. Just how long do you expect me to tolerate this?"
A daughter married off was a daughter gone. These were the Mangeum Lord's own daughters, yes, but they had wed and raised households of their own—which meant they held no standing to meddle in the family's great affairs.
"Go on. Finish what you were saying."
The Mangeum Lord beckoned with his chin.
"I would ask that you grant me the choice—whether that vacant seat should be done away with, or filled."
A brazen proposal, but it was the move that had to be made now.
"You want the right to decide? Jeon Gilsan—what say you?"
At my audacious request, Jang Noya turned to Gilsan, still seated.
"Eh. From this point on, whatever Kang Yunho wills is my will."
Gilsan shrugged and nodded.
"Very well. What will you do?"
I let my gaze drift around the room for a moment.
Becoming Suspect Number One? No great concern—once I proved myself with results, wariness would find me regardless. No, the trouble lay elsewhere.
I was a competitor who had appeared out of nowhere.
And I had passed the very first trial—which meant passers and failures alike would chatter about me. Hadn't he received special treatment? Hadn't he pulled some trick?
Being watched was one thing. There was no need to become everyone's common enemy.
So what was the play?
"I would ask that you select one from among the failed candidates and grant that person the remaining seat."
At my words, the parents and heirs of the fallen all turned to stare at me in open astonishment.
"Not eliminate it, then?"
The Mangeum Lord asked, visibly intrigued.
"I entered this contest late, and still waltzed through the first trial. I suspect there are those among you who believe that had I never appeared, your own would have passed in my place."
If I abolished the seat with my own hands, I would look like a ruthless black-haired foreigner angling to swallow the succession by any means necessary. But the opposite play told a very different story.
Kang Yunho rescued one of the fallen.
He had shown up as a rival, yes, but what a solid, dependable young man. So upright, in fact, that even Gilsan had been reformed by his example.
I was about to turn the court of public opinion on its head.
"The evaluations were fair. Are there truly children here who entertain such idle suspicions?"
As the Mangeum Lord's gaze swept the room, shoulders flinched all around.
"How could anyone hope to deceive your fair scales, Lord of Mangeum? But—seeing as I will be walking beside Lady Zhuge for years to come, I would rather not have ugly rumors of me find their way to my ears. Family harmony above all, as they say. So I humbly ask that you grant the remaining seat to another."
I am, after all, a son-in-law prospect of the Zhuge Clan.
Insinuate it ever so delicately, and let a heartwarming tale take root.
Go spreading slander and have it circle back to my own ears—could any of you bear the consequences? A son-in-law of the Zhuge Clan, you understand. I shall be gracious this once. Read the room, and mind your tongues accordingly. Peace in the family suits me just fine.
Officially, granted, I was not yet a son-in-law of the Zhuge Clan. But that was precisely the point of a warning delivered between the lines.
Play it this way, and even a black-haired outsider was the Zhuge Clan's prospective son-in-law—hadn't he even surrendered a seat for the rest of them? The fellow seemed decent enough, come to think of it. I was manufacturing goodwill.
"Very well."
Had he caught my drift? The Mangeum Lord nodded as though satisfied.
"F-Father! Do you truly mean it?"
"Know that this is by that young man's grace. Whatever comes of it, you will all thank him."
"Th-thank you."
"Our thanks to you. Let us share a meal sometime."
The families of the failed candidates offered up their clumsy gratitude to me.
"Chief Steward. Who was the seventh, again?"
"W-well, you see... we had only settled who passed and who failed, so..."
The Chief Steward answered with the flustered look of a man caught utterly off guard.
"Then a sixth passer must be determined. Good. We shall take a short recess."
"Whewww..."
Those who had just been handed a sliver of hope at rescue sagged with relief.
"And one more thing."
But this was no time to loosen up. The Mangeum Lord was regarding us as if to say: don't get comfortable.
"Yes?"
"The moment the successor candidate is settled, the next trial begins. Immediately."