The Second Test - 3
Donghu Lake, Wuhan.
A man wearing a bamboo hat was walking along the shore.
Any martial artist would have taken one look at him—the sun-hardened, powerful build, the scar jutting up from his left jaw, the steady, weighty rhythm of his stride—and known at once that here was a warrior of no small skill.
Of course, to any ordinary passerby he was simply a man carrying a fishing rod, and not worth a second glance.
The fisherman's true identity was the Three-Eyed Sword, Jo Cheol.
A wanderer who had borrowed a fortune from the Mangeum Money Exchange and vanished without repaying a single coin.
Wuhan really is the best.
So thought Jo Cheol, smiling in relief. Countless Joseon folk came to Wuhan, the great hub of commerce, in search of work. The black hair he had inherited from his grandmother turned heads everywhere else he went—but in Wuhan, it barely merited a flicker of interest.
It was just as he had predicted. Mostly.
Why are there so many more Joseon folk in bamboo hats these days?
It stood to reason that plenty of others hadn't fled with a fortune the way he had. So why did men in conical hats keep crossing his path?
The Three-Eyed Sword was still chewing on this small question as he made for his fishing spot.
"Hey!"
"Hm?"
Jo Cheol glanced around at the voice behind him. There was no one else in sight.
"Is this bastard deaf?"
A man who looked every inch a street punk jabbed a finger at him.
"Are you talking to me?"
"You see another guy in a straw hat around here? You're damn late."
To think a two-bit punk would pick a quarrel with the Three-Eyed Sword himself. For a heartbeat Jo Cheol wondered how he ought to respond—then let out a wry chuckle.
"What can I do for you?"
In his younger days he'd been dragged into scraps for no reason but his black hair. Was this punk planning to shake him down for coin, of all things? If so, the Three-Eyed Sword resolved to entertain him thoroughly—with compound interest on those fond old memories.
"What's the matter? Ha. You don't even know that... Ahh. Now I see. You're a new face, huh. Here!!!"
The thug peered at the lower half of his face, then fumbled something out of his clothes and thrust it toward him.
"...Money?"
What the thug was holding out was a money pouch.
"Your tab from last time! Don't tell me you dawdled all the way here because you couldn't pay? I've been waiting so I could settle the whole thing for you today!"
"A tab?"
He's the one who ran off with money. The Three-Eyed Sword couldn't make heads or tails of it.
"Where'd you stash your delivery box? Get it out quick, before the jajangmyeon goes cold."
"Ha..."
"You little... Don't tell me you forgot?"
So the man had him confused with someone else. The Three-Eyed Sword felt a flicker of disappointment even as he paused, weighing how to explain—
"Delivery! Your order, sir! And I've come to collect your tab while I'm at it!"
Behind the Three-Eyed Sword appeared a Joseon man in a bamboo hat, lugging a strange wooden case.
"Huh? Wait, then..."
The thug looked the Three-Eyed Sword up and down, trying to work out what was going on.
"I am not Joseon."
At the faint killing intent that rolled off him, the thug finally grasped his mistake and bowed his head again and again.
"F-forgive me, Great Hero! Your outfit was just so similar...!"
Jo Cheol waved a hand as if brushing away a fly, then watched intently as the Joseon deliveryman handed over the food.
So Joseon folk are running a food delivery business in Wuhan?
No wonder nobody gave him suspicious looks despite the bamboo hat. Apparently his outfit was nearly identical to that of the Joseon deliverymen.
"I don't think we've met. Are you Joseon?"
Just as Jo Cheol turned to go, the young deliveryman—fuzz barely starting on his chin—called him back.
"Are you deaf?"
What a familiar situation. Familiar, in fact, from the very day he'd arrived in Wuhan. The Three-Eyed Sword's face crumpled in open irritation.
"That's harsh, when I only came to bring you good news. Even if your homeland betrays you! We will extend our hand to you! And should you ever need help, then—!"
"...I have no intention of joining your damned Joseon Hometown Association, so quit peddling it."
Insufferable people. The moment they spotted black hair, they came running like long-lost kin, asking if you wanted to join the Joseon Hometown Association.
Jo Cheol tipped his bamboo hat up a fraction, revealing his gray eyes.
"Ah! We're not that strict, you know. Any black-haired fellow can start the membership process. Just fill out the form with your address, name, workplace, wages, marital status, any special talents or connections—nothing important—and write my name down as your referrer! They'll even give you a whole measure of rice!"
"Get lost."
The Three-Eyed Sword glared at the deliveryman, making it plain that any further pestering would be answered with his hands.
"Tch! And there went my measure of rice! If you ever need help, come to the Ungi Inn! The Joseon Hometown Association awaits you, always! Farewell!"
"...Too many Joseon folk is a problem too."
What a nuisance. Jo Cheol quickened his pace toward the water.
Oblivious to the carrier pigeon winging skyward above his head.
"Name, Jo Cheol. Alias, the Three-Eyed Sword. Borrowed money from the Jingmen branch of the Mangeum Money Exchange and fled. Located near Donghu Lake in Wuhan. His current lodging, the restaurants he frequents, and his usual haunts are all marked down as well."
In the mansion's office, one of the general managers I had newly recruited began laying out the intelligence they had compiled.
"You actually found him."
"I told you I would."
I nodded listlessly at Jeon Gilsan's admiring remark.
Did he think I used the referral system for nothing? The Wuhan Joseon Hometown Association is firmly under my control.
"Age forty-two. From Musu Village. Huh?"
One of the managers murmured in surprise.
"What is it? You know the place?"
"It used to be called Hwajeon Village. Everyone scattered when the famine hit, but a few Joseon families lived there too. It seems it's true that Jo Cheol's grandmother was Joseon."
"If it's his grandmother, he probably doesn't think of himself as Joseon at all."
It would be much the same as some Mr. James living in America refusing to call himself Mexican just because his grandmother was one.
"He took up the wanderer's life in his twenties and had earned the name Three-Eyed Sword by his mid-thirties. A genuine master."
That wrapped up the basic profile.
"Now that we've found him, we have to make him cough the money up. What's his financial situation?"
You borrowed from the Mangeum Money Exchange. You'll be paying it back. That conversation could wait. First we had to find what could actually be squeezed out of him.
The manager leafed through the documents received from the Money Exchange, then spoke with a darkened face.
"That's the thing... he's flat broke."
"Broke? I thought he was a master."
Wasn't it standard for anyone with a name to have some fortune squirreled away?
"He was attached to the Hu Family Estate in Jingmen, you see. He spent ten years under their roof, but the house went under. He never collected the money he was owed and ended up penniless, they say."
So it's like being owed severance by a company that's gone bankrupt.
"So that's why he borrowed."
"He said he meant to start a business, so they lent it to him. They never dreamed he'd bolt with the whole sum."
"I can picture Grandfather's fury from here. Lending to a penniless man with no collateral. Was he in his right mind?"
Jeon Gilsan snorted at the absurdity of it, then declared grandly that he would personally give the old man a lecture on sound lending practices later.
This guy had already downed his glass of wishful thinking in one gulp.
"If he owns nothing, recovering the debt will be its own headache."
As I murmured this and looked around the room, everyone averted their eyes, evidently fresh out of ideas.
Even Jeon Gilsan, who had been fuming moments before, ducked his head like a student scrambling to catch up on his notes the instant my gaze swept the room like a professor fishing for a volunteer.
This is a bind.
A martial artist with no assets. And the sum we had to recover was enormous. Tracking him down within a single day was all well and good, but the problems were still stacked to the rafters.
"U-um."
Miss Jegal, who had at some point edged close, tugged timidly at my sleeve.
"Yes, Miss Jegal? Did you have something to say?"
Did she have an idea? At the sudden rush of attention, she shot a nervous glance around the room, then seemed to steel herself, lowered her head, and spoke.
"W-well, you see... couldn't he just s-sell his body?"
Someone choked.
The room froze over in an instant.
Selling him off to a pleasure house. It's a method that comes up often enough when loan sharking goes sour, but still.
"Truly worthy of being the Mangeum Lord's own granddaughter."
Appalled whispers rippled through the room.
"N-no, that's not—that's not what I meant! It's because he's a m-master!"
"If he's master enough to be called one, I suppose his nighttime work must be well beyond ordinary. Gilsan—is there actually demand for that?"
Still, these were Miss Jegal's words. I couldn't simply brush them aside. I tossed the question to Jeon Gilsan, a man of genuine expertise in the pleasure quarters.
"I couldn't say, that's not really my scene. But word is some folks do go for older men."
"Fascinating..."
As expected of the Zhuge Clan! I'd heard they held a monopoly on every bizarre scheme in the martial world!
"N-nooo! Young Master Kang, that's—that's not it! Hng. I-I'm so sorry!"
Miss Jegal's face drained white. So that wasn't it, then.
"Ah. Did you perhaps mean that there might be people willing to pay good money to recruit a master of the Three-Eyed Sword's caliber?"
"Y-yes! Exactly!"
She nodded furiously, staging a desperate emergency escape from the swamp of misunderstanding.
"It's certainly a sound idea. But he fled precisely because he had no intention of repaying. Would we need to subdue him first?"
Tie him up in one piece, negotiate carefully, then sell him off to another sect for an advance payment.
"And can any of you subdue the Three-Eyed Sword without harming him?"
"..."
No one could answer Jeon Gilsan. The man was a master. And since this was a test, we couldn't so much as borrow the Mangeum Money Exchange's forces.
"Subduing him just creates new problems. What if he swears he won't pay even if we beat him half to death? We have to collect within a month, remember."
"No assets, no will to repay, and a master on top of it all. No wonder they rated it Impossible..."
Impossible difficulty.
And this was the target who had looked the easiest of the lot.
Even past what might have been the hardest gate, insurmountable obstacles kept rising to bar the road. From somewhere came a stifled, frustrated sigh.
Everyone held their silence, trading glances—but no one found a way through.
No one except one person.
"Hm?"
Miss Jegal was leafing through the documents the managers had organized. Was she looking for something? Her usual expression was nowhere to be found; she turned the pages with unbounded seriousness.
"Miss Jegal?"
"Um, Young Master Kang? There's something a little strange here."
She stepped to my side and, shyly turning her gaze aside, held out a single sheet of paper.
"Yes. Please, go ahead."
"It's the promissory note the Three-Eyed Sword signed. It seems it hasn't been collected yet."
Where her finger pointed was a blank space. A detail no one had thought to question.
"Not collected? You mean he hasn't cashed the note yet?"
"Yes! That's right!"
To think Miss Jegal would pull the single most crucial piece of intelligence out of the blank nobody had noticed.
As if delighted that I had caught her meaning so quickly, her eyes sparkled and she flashed me a bright, pleased smile.
The smile was far too close. The scent of hydrangea drifted across the tip of my nose.
"..."
"Young Master Kang?"
"N-nothing."
Oh no. For a moment there, my gaze had been stolen clean away without my noticing.
"Brother-in-law. Shall I spread your bedding out for you?"
Jeon Gilsan wore a sly grin.
"The Three-Eyed Sword still holds the note... If we can simply recover the principal, this could be settled with remarkable ease."
In the modern world it would have been processed as a bad check, but a note already issued was a matter of trust for the Money Exchange. If it came in, it had to be honored, no questions asked.
The fact that it hadn't come back meant only one thing: he had failed to cash it.
Recover it, and all that remained was to make him shoulder the interest.
"Fine news, I'll grant you. But how exactly do you get the meat out of a wolf's belly?"
"We make him spit it out of his own free will."
"What?"
I had sworn to prove myself to the Mangeum Lord.
The Impossible difficulty they had spoken of. Even things that looked impossible to solve, I would make succeed. I had to manage at least that much to become the successor of the Mangeum Money Exchange.
So what was the play? How did I take back the note tucked inside the Three-Eyed Sword's coat? I rifled through everything we knew about the man.
There was enough information. And I was prepared. Which meant—
"I have a way."
Morning in Wuhan.
The Three-Eyed Sword was fishing, same as the day before.
"Oh no! A junk fish again. You junk fish, you. Honestly, I ought to bring my uncle along. Hey!"
Nothing grates on an angler like a nuisance nearby—and when his own luck with fish had run dry, it grated all the more.
I let my line dangle and kicked up a pointless commotion, waiting for the Three-Eyed Sword to snap at me.
"...You're going to scare the fish away."
In the end, Jo Cheol couldn't hold his tongue.
"You rascal! See? I really did bring my uncle. He's here! ...Hm? Sorry, what was that you said?"
I waved my fish as I spoke, flaunting it at the Three-Eyed Sword, who hadn't landed so much as a minnow.
"Never mind..."
And where exactly do you think you're going?
"Huh?!"
For the very next step of my plan, I sidled up to the startled Three-Eyed Sword.
"I'm not Joseon. Enough with the damned Joseon Hometown Association already..."
How many times had this poor man been recruited? The moment I, a black-haired fellow, came near, the Three-Eyed Sword waved me off in irritation.
But you see, signing you up was never my goal.
"Uncle Deokcheol?"
Covering my mouth with both hands as though I had just witnessed the impossible, I drifted slowly toward him.
"I'm not him."
"Uncle Sangcheol? No, that's not it either. It was another name. Gangcheol? No, Gangcheol's the one who ran off with Maetal's sister..."
"I believe you have the wrong man."
No. I recognized you perfectly.
I needed to recover the promissory note the Three-Eyed Sword carried. So how does one go about that?
Here was a man who had fled with a fortune, hiding beneath a bamboo hat because there was no one left in the world he could trust.
He never knew when his pursuers might close in.
Everything would look suspect to him. He would see the whole world through wary eyes.
And to a man like that—
"Uncle Cheol who used to live in Musu Village! Don't you recognize me? It's me!"
I closed the distance, every step brimming with conviction.
"Who...?"
"It's me, Yoonho! Gaettongi, from Musu Village!"
If a trustworthy soul from your hometown appeared before you—
what would you do?