The Second Trial — 10
The Three-Eyed Sword, Jo Cheol.
He was not among the mightiest warriors in Hubei Province. And yet, any martial artist in Hubei who heard the epithet "Three-Eyed Sword" would instantly recall that elusive master — the one people asked, *you mean the wandering swordsman?*
If this were football, he wasn't the prodigy who rose through a famous youth academy and debuted straight into a top club. He was the kind of player who had ground it out on muddy school pitches, steadily stacking results until he became an immediate impact player the moment he entered the top-flight league in Korea.
In other words, he was nearly impossible for a manager like me — someone running a bookstore and a food delivery service while also operating a Joseon youth football club for black-haired kids — to ever afford. That was the Three-Eyed Sword, Jo Cheol.
And now such a man had landed right in front of me as an available asset. I had no intention of letting this opportunity slip.
'I pulled him out of the water and stripped him of his belongings, after all. He's still dazed — strike while the iron's hot and get him to sign the contract.'
I could have asked the Seocheon Escort Agency to lend me muscle, but that meant treading carefully around the Tang Clan and showing the agency due courtesy besides. Far better, I decided, to bring the Three-Eyed Sword over to my side while I had the chance.
"A proposal for me?"
Jo Cheol asked, still wearing the hollow expression of a man who hadn't yet crawled out of his despair.
"You have somewhere else to go, Brother?"
"Where would a wanderer go? The Hu Manor I'd attached myself to is ruined, and I have no money. All I can do is wander again, hiring out my blade for meals like the old days."
Past forty, and only now realizing he had to start over from nothing — perhaps that was why Jo Cheol heaved a long, bitter sigh.
"What if you settled somewhere new instead?"
"In Wuhan?"
"Yes. Why not join hands with the Joseon Hometown Association?"
Before shoving the contract under his nose, I wanted to sound out the heart of a man who had nowhere left to turn.
"The masters who fly and crawl through Hubei all flock here to Wuhan first. I appreciate the offer, but for a rootless wanderer like me, this town has little to eat."
He had a point.
Whether you trained at a prestigious orthodox sect to open a martial school, Wuhan. Whether you wanted to found an escort agency, Wuhan. Whether you wanted to start a business, Wuhan again.
A city where goods and people converged and vast sums of money changed hands was, inevitably, a city of cutthroat competition.
Just as a decent journeyman player in his twilight years transfers to a well-paying club abroad even if the league there is mediocre, it made far more sense for the Three-Eyed Sword to settle in some modest county than to compete in Wuhan, where his edge had dulled.
But still.
"And what if there were a place that desperately needed the Three-Eyed Sword, Brother?"
I had no intention of abandoning the contract just because he refused me once.
"Me?"
The Three-Eyed Sword stared at me as if I'd started speaking nonsense.
"Il-gu! Come over here!"
You have to put your terms on the table the moment the other party leaves the negotiating seat. I called over the Il-gu brothers waiting in the corner.
"Yes, Boss!!!"
Despite my telling them time and again to call me *Association Leader*, they'd apparently forgotten again, sprinting over with a hearty shout.
"Faces I haven't seen before."
"The Il-gu brothers. From the left — Choi Il-gu, I-gu, and Sam-gu."
My strikers in the Joseon youth football club. I introduced the reliable impact players I could always count on, lining them up before the Three-Eyed Sword.
"Pleasure to meet you, Brother Three-Eyed Sword! We've heard plenty about you!!!"
"Strong voices. Big-boned frames, too — looks like they've trained in the martial arts. Why are you introducing these boys to me?"
Everyone needed at the negotiating table was now assembled. I brought out the main subject in earnest.
"The Joseon Hometown Association will be opening a gambling house before long."
The gambling den seized from the shattered Domun — the establishment I'd entrusted to the Il-gu brothers — was about to open its doors.
"A gambling house……?"
"Yes. Quite a sizable one, even by Wuhan standards."
"Brother Kang. Don't do it."
When I spoke with a hint of pride, the Three-Eyed Sword threw cold water on me with a face gone stiff and cold.
"I'm sorry?"
"You saved my life, so let me return one piece of advice. It's true that money doesn't come easy to black-haired folk. But a gambling house? No. The Haomen lot will never stand by and watch. They'll torment you, dirty and underhanded, without end — and one wrong step, several of your people will spill blood."
"Brother—"
"Hear me out. There's a reason they call them the underworld. They're more vicious than any wanderer ever was. Do you think men like that will sit quietly while someone else takes their rice bowl?"
A faint warning wove through the concern in the Three-Eyed Sword's voice.
He wasn't wrong. Gambling houses, in any era, were places where you inevitably witnessed ugly things. That was exactly why, after long deliberation, I'd entrusted the whole operation to the Il-gu brothers — men already hardened to dirty work.
Brother Jo Cheol, your concern is appreciated. But you see—
"We've already received full permission from the Hyangju of Haomen."
"……What? How?!"
Because the leader of Haomen happens to be my lover. I didn't bother telling the startled Jo Cheol the truth.
"We acquired it without a hitch. In fact, if anyone tries to interfere with our business, it's Haomen that won't stand idly by."
"Heh heh……. I honestly don't know how far your reach extends, little brother."
Though clearly finding it hard to believe, the Three-Eyed Sword let out a laugh at a situation that seemed, impossibly, to be no lie.
Good. Now that we've both confirmed each other's conditions, time to lay the contract on the table.
"So, Brother Cheol. Our Joseon Hometown Association—"
"I'll have to refuse."
He shot me down before I could even pull the contract out.
"I'm sorry?"
"You want me to become the blade of the Joseon Hometown Association, no? I refuse."
"May I ask why?"
The gambling house is actually a far better workplace than the reputation suggests.
Brand-new facilities, a proper break room, and if you really want, we'll set up a simple cot so you can sleep and eat on-site.
And after your first year, we can even manage one day of paid leave every six months. You'll need the boss's personal seal on the request form, of course.
"The offer is tempting, I'll admit. Settle down in Wuhan, and a mere gambling house means my sword might be needed a handful of days a year. Lend my strength to the Hometown Association now and then. That's exactly the level you're after, isn't it?"
The journeyman of the martial world, as expected. A wanderer who's bounced from team to team knows his contracts inside and out.
"Precisely. And yet you refuse. May I ask why?"
The working conditions themselves seem fine. So why on earth refuse?
As I waited for his answer with undisguised curiosity, Jo Cheol seemed to choose his words for a moment before speaking.
"……Not enough to see me through my old age."
His reason was simple.
"Your old age, you say?"
"I'm penniless now. I'd need to work hard for ten years at least. Can the profits of a single Wuhan gambling house truly provide for my old age?"
"……."
The gambling house run by the Il-gu brothers was, strictly speaking, the property of the leader of Haomen.
The revenue from a Wuhan gambling den would be considerable, but once operating costs, bribes, and tribute payments came off the top, there naturally wouldn't be much left to hand the Three-Eyed Sword.
I didn't know how far he'd seen through things, but the message was clear: he would rather risk his life for a place that paid well.
"Well then, I'll take my leave. If fate wills it, we'll meet again someday."
"You rise without even asking what the contract terms are?"
The Three-Eyed Sword's thinking was sound, no question — the product of a wanderer's long-honed pragmatism. But still.
"Didn't I tell you? A single gambling house cannot provide for my old—"
"Even if the contract payment were this inn itself?"
I didn't drag that contract along for nothing, you know.
"……What?"
The Three-Eyed Sword, who had risen and was turning to leave, froze in place.
"The term is ten years. Full transfer of ownership comes after the ten, but you can start running the business within days."
Handing a man who lost everything only moments ago the very thing he wanted most in his hands. An offer that even the most stubborn refuser could not help but turn back for, at least once.
"Wasn't this inn just bait to reel me in?"
"Didn't I tell you? Everything I said was true — except the part about being called Gaettong."
And let me quietly shrink the scale of my earlier lies while I'm at it. I hid my past only because the Hometown Association asked me to. Everything else? Untouched, really.
I spoke with a confident smile.
"You're truly giving me this inn?"
The Three-Eyed Sword looked around the inn, disbelieving.
"I can't pay you the fortune you deserve, Brother Cheol, as you said. But the only people who can buy you this inn — a prime property that came on the market at exactly the right moment — are us."
There was no sum of money too large for me to refuse.
But a contract is not always about money. You first identify what the other party wants most. Then you can tease their greed and dig into their need.
And what remains after that is just one thing. A whisper.
Terms too good to refuse.
"Hoo…"
"You become the innkeeper on the spot. Is there really any need to spend ten years preparing for old age? Pour your energy in only when something urgent comes up, and spend the rest getting ready for a second life."
You were planning to leave the martial world for a second life anyway, weren't you?
The Joseon Hometown Association doesn't need the Three-Eyed Sword to fight desperate wars with his life on the line — we just need your nameplate to frighten off the rabble.
Whisper the sweet nothings, like a home shopping broadcast. Sign now, and you're the innkeeper immediately. All business revenue goes to Jo Cheol. Retirement planning, starting right now. Call anytime you're interested.
The kind of words that left a man nodding as if under a spell.
"So that's your way of doing things?"
The Three-Eyed Sword glanced around the spacious inn for a while, then chuckled and asked me.
One more nudge and I think he'd tip over. But there's an odd distance between us. I've laid out every condition I can offer — is something still missing?
"The Joseon Hometown Association's way."
In that case, I have a method.
"The Hometown Association's way?"
I turned and gestured toward the Joseon folk behind me. The people of Museok Village, who struggled to scrape by yet had all rushed to help their hometown elder in his hour of crisis, were watching us.
"Alone, we are persecuted black-haired souls. Together, we are strength. Thanks to the Joseon Hometown Association, you, Brother Cheol, gain an inn to open for business and fund your retirement. Thanks to the Joseon Hometown Association, the Il-gu brothers gain a big brother who can drop any knife-wielding troublemaker in one strike. And me? Well… one more franchise owner. Everyone wins, no?"
Touch the Three-Eyed Sword's sense of debt. Appeal to a man's sense of gratitude.
Brother Jo Cheol, you owe the Joseon Hometown Association your life, don't you? Settle in Wuhan and help us live together. All the while dressed up as mutual benefit, I kept subtly tugging at his gratitude and his debt.
"Everyone wins. Everyone wins, he says."
I carefully held out the contract to the wavering Jo Cheol. And then, with all the affection of a man truly gazing at a beloved elder from home, I asked:
"Will you become the blade of the Joseon Hometown Association?"
Jo Cheol's gaze stayed riveted on the contract for a long while.
The contract that would let the Three-Eyed Sword, Jo Cheol, live a second life. The contract that would pull his next ten years forward into today.
Before long, Jo Cheol smiled, as though he simply couldn't refuse any longer.
"……When the inn opens, I'll have to slaughter a pig. It's been a decade and more."
"And I'll be by to beg a bowl of the broth."