The Favor - 3
The cheonggi—the pure courtesans—were the idols of this era.
The Giru, the guild that governed the courtesan houses, had founded the Gyobang, a boarding academy where girls were taken in, fed, and raised from childhood—schooled in dance, music, poetry, calligraphy, and every refinement besides, all so that whatever manner of guest came calling, delight could be delivered without fail.
In exchange for the pleasures these women provided, cultivated over a decade and more of painstaking effort, the men who sought them out were bound by a single inviolable taboo.
Sell Singing, Not Flesh.
A song might be sold; the body never was. Flowers to be enjoyed with the eyes and savored for their fragrance, but never plucked. That was what the cheonggi of this age were.
And now, sitting before my very eyes, was a man who had just snapped off a flower that someone else had spent a decade and more lovingly raising.
"I assume you consulted the Giru beforehand... though of course, you didn't."
"The only permission I was granted was to bring Hongran out for an outside engagement—nothing more."
So the courtesan's name was Hongran. Imperial Inspector Jeong Munwon spoke as though confessing a sin.
You have stepped in it magnificently, sir.
Not that ending up with your favorite idol was impossible. There was a way to do it properly: sit down with the Giru and negotiate—cover every coin spent feeding and housing the girl since childhood, the cost of her education, all the revenue she would have earned the Giru in the years ahead, a handsome premium on top of that—and then purchase her courtesan registry.
Of course, Munwon had laid hands on her before ever buying the registry.
"Once the Giru learned the truth, they were hardly going to sit still."
A cheonggi belonged to the Giru. And overnight, the merchandise they had spent more than ten years polishing had been defiled. This was not a problem that ended with an apology and a payment for the registry.
Think of it as an idol agency. You pour years into developing an idol and finally scrape her up to success—and then one morning she calls a press conference and announces that she's pregnant and retiring on the spot. You think the agency just says "great work, best of luck," and waves her off with a smile?
With years still left on her contract, and God knows how much sunk into her training and endorsement deals, the lawsuits would begin before the day was out.
In the end, this was a flaw in the market itself. The Giru was in the business of selling pleasure to its guests, not selling women. Yet here a man could defile a courtesan—and the defiled woman would then be sold off to the very man who had defiled her.
Tolerate that structure, and the Giru's entire business ceases to exist.
"They say the cheonggi have grown lax, and they intend to use this chance to set a truly memorable example. Those arrows were always meant to come flying at me—but as things stand, it looks like that child alone will take the hit."
"If any ordinary man had broken that taboo instead of an Imperial Inspector, his body would have been floating down the Yangtze the very next morning."
A terrible price awaited the man and woman who broke the taboo. Had the man before me not borne the Emperor's own mandate—the inspector who had brought down even a Provincial Governor whose power once scraped the heavens—retribution would certainly have followed.
"I know it full well. Which is why I told them to wait—that I would raise whatever sum they demanded."
So that was why he had come to me.
"However much you wanted your favorite, sir, procedure was still procedure."
"It was a one-night mistake."
The inspector dipped his head at my rebuke and murmured it as though the words pained him.
"Oh, I'm sure. A mistake. You'd had a drink, the mood was right, and somehow her lips looked terribly soft, and since you could feel the touch of them against yours, well, naturally the clothes came off, and after a reasonable amount of exploring each other's skin the main event proceeded to its conclusion, and you sweated to your heart's content and slept like the dead, and woke up and went—oopsie! My, what a mistake. That kind of mistake."
…
A mistake is agonizing over whether to message the female friend you're pining for, fat-fingering send, and getting left on read. A mistake is not even making it through the evening before you're kicking your blanket in agony, then walking into the lecture hall the next day to find her dodging your eyes. Sleeping with a female friend "by accident" is just intent wearing a costume. I'd love to learn how to make mistakes like that myself. Filthy little deceivers, the whole lot of them.
"It truly was a mistake."
Munwon repeated it once more, looking genuinely wronged.
"Sir, setting aside the excuses—"
"I'm telling you, I really don't remember!"
"…I beg your pardon?"
What on earth was that supposed to mean?
"So you woke up and it was morning?"
The circumstances, as the inspector told them, were quite the fascinating affair.
"It's true I'd been drinking. It's also true that we came to our senses in the morning with not a stitch between us. But the middle—I honestly have no memory of it."
"Could there not have been some misunderstanding between you?"
"Judging by the circumstantial evidence that morning and the child's reaction, there can be no doubt it happened. But it was truly a mistake."
"You truly remember none of it?"
Carrying out that entire... involved sequence of activities with no memory whatsoever? I couldn't believe it. What if this was simply self-preservation talking? I bored into the inspector.
"I swear on my life, it's the truth."
Not one speck of a lie showed on the inspector's face—so it probably was the truth.
A thorny situation. If the inspector was genuinely at fault, there was no gap for me to wedge into. Drunk on liquor or drunk on atmosphere, the two of them had most vigorously engaged in activities breaching the Giru's contract—that much was fact. The proper outcome was for the inspector to pay the Giru whatever they demanded, damages included.
The problem was that if it went that way, I would never see a single coin of what the inspector owed me.
"…Hypothetically speaking, but."
I chose my words with exquisite caution as I studied the inspector's face.
There was one enormous crack in the story Munwon had told me. The man himself couldn't see it—but it was a crack just wide enough for me to squeeze my money through.
"Entertain that thought not one whit."
Munwon said, brow furrowing.
"Lord Inspector—"
"I'm well aware they call you the famed constable. But there are thoughts a man may think, and thoughts he must not."
"Opening up every possibility is a constable's duty."
I said it in the clipped, resolute voice of a detective one breath from announcing that the culprit was in this very room.
"Then close them."
At the inspector's command, I shook my head.
This matter had to be pried open, one way or another—for the inspector's sake, and for the sake of my own trial.
"No. Even if it makes me the villain, some things must be said. That courtesan may have been running a game on you."
Perhaps nothing had happened that night at all. Perhaps the courtesan had spun a web.
If my suspicion proved true, this whole affair could be resolved with surprising ease.
"Out of the question."
The inspector's voice rose a degree at my suggestion.
"Sir."
"She is a girl I have cherished like my own little sister. Thanks to her I obtained evidence that was all but decisive—evidence that, together with what the Shadowless Divine Thief delivered, brought the Provincial Governor crashing down. And you would have me suspect her?"
"There is a Joseon proverb, sir: you may fathom ten jang of water, but not one jang of a person's heart."
Perhaps the courtesan had marked a naive inspector as her ladder to a better life. Perhaps the Giru had decided to carve out a fat slice for itself.
"With that child, the waterway was sealed shut."
"I beg your pardon?"
"The first time we met, her eyes were already dead. Her mouth smiled, but she looked a breath away from dying on the spot. She reminded me of the little sisters I had left behind in my hometown, so I asked the Giru to lend her to me. I thought that if she were granted even a little freedom, she might find some hope to live on. And afterward, she truly did win her expressions back."
"It seems the two of you shared quite a deep bond."
The affection in the inspector's voice for the courtesan was closer to the tenderness one holds for family.
"How could I nurse lecherous designs on a child like that? And how could she ever do such a thing to me? It was simply my mistake. Nothing more."
His faith was a fortress. If I couldn't breach it head-on, I would start by nailing down the other facts.
"Is the pregnancy certain?"
"Certain. She missed her monthly course, and a physician was summoned to confirm it."
"And how much is the Giru demanding?"
"At first they asked the price of the registry, and I went off to raise it. The moment they learned she was with child, they doubled the sum. I scraped together every coin I could and brought it back—and they quadrupled it."
"They've found your soft spot, and they're shaking you by it."
"And if I fail to bring the money, there is no telling what horrors would visit Hongran and the child in her belly."
Munwon clutched his forehead in both hands, his voice thick with genuine dread.
"You handed the Giru everything—your own savings and the money you borrowed from Mangeum Bank?"
So this was the full story behind his name in the Impossible Ledger. With the courtesan he loved carrying his child, the inspector had been left with no choice but to grow weaker and weaker.
"That's right. Eh? But how did you—"
"I am the Mangeum Lord's prospective grandson-in-law. A few days ago, he mentioned that a certain Imperial Inspector—a man I happen to know rather well—had stopped repaying his loan, and told me to look into it."
"So that was why Mangeum Bank's warriors were posted at the entrance when I arrived. There is simply no fathoming where your reach ends… Yes. I borrowed from them on those terms, and then I let the due date slip past. I have no face left to show."
"There is no need to apologize to me."
"So—here is my question. Could you lend me some money?"
The inspector bowed his head to me, apology written across every line of his face.
"I could lend it. But they have no intention of selling, whatever you pay. Now that the incident has occurred, their purpose is to torment you and the courtesan to the very limit, and then hang you up as an example."
"I know there is no way out. But the fault is mine. A man must do all he can."
So what was the play? Lending him the money was the right move for winning his goodwill—but nothing guaranteed that my lending it would solve anything. And my objective was not goodwill for its own sake. It was to recover the money the inspector had borrowed. I could not simply stand by and watch.
"Might I take a crack at solving that riddle?"
"You? If you mean to tell me to suspect that girl—"
"You need suspect no one, sir. The doubt can be mine alone to carry."
How could a man suspect the one he loves? Which is precisely why, now and then, the world needs a constable cold enough to look at the case with clear eyes. I held the inspector's gaze, willing him to see it.
…
The inspector's eyes wavered. When every road is closed, refusing a helping hand is not so easy. One more push.
"Untangling troublesome disputes is constable's work too, is it not? Even if fault does lie on both sides, I may yet broker a settlement both parties can live with."
Even if the two of them had indeed made their mess, I would try my hand at mediating it. In this world, for minor civil matters, constables routinely exercised public authority and stood in for the magistrate. For the inspector, it had to be a tempting offer.
"Hmm…"
Munwon hummed low in his throat, teetering on the very edge of yes.
Good. From inside my coat I drew the two items the inspector knew all too well.
"Why on earth are you carrying a baton and binding rope—?"
I laid the emblems of a constable's office—the baton and the binding rope—down before the inspector, dropped to one knee, and looked up at him.
"Will you grant me leave to become your constable, Imperial Inspector?"
Lend me your name.
As the famed constable, I will untangle this mess of yours.
Imperial Inspector Jeong Munwon regarded me for a long moment. Then he lifted the binding rope lying before him.
"Then I ask this of you."
Courtesan affairs were not my field of expertise.
I needed someone to advise me on the inspector's case. And as it happened, a genuine expert on all things Giru was within arm's reach—so off I went to seek counsel.
"Do I know the courtesan Hongran? Who do you take me for? There isn't a Giru in Wuhan I haven't walked into, and no famous courtesan I haven't met. Of course I know her."
Jeon Gilsan jabbed a thumb at his own chest, proud as a peacock.
"What an achievement."
I couldn't decide whether to laugh at the mere fact that Jeon Gilsan knew her, or to ache for Gilsan's mother—whose heart must be smoldering, knowing she would smack him across the back of the head the instant she caught wind of her son bragging like this—so I settled for a sour smile.
"Look—when the grandees of Wuhan rent out the grand rooms to play in, and you line the courtesans up starting from Maehyang, Hongran just barely scrapes onto the list. She doesn't leave much of an impression, but she'd manage a seat at the end of the row."
"Really. So that's her tier."
In other words: signed to a first-tier girl group, but the member whose name never quite sticks.
"But why do you ask about Hongran? Don't tell me you—"
No. And why was he giving me that look? What delusional misunderstanding was this?
Even the Maehyang he was so infatuated with ranked leagues below Lady Jegal. Did he really think some courtesan would turn my head?
"The Imperial Inspector got Hongran pregnant. Without a word to anyone."
I let out a small sigh and laid out the facts.
"…Has he lost his damn mind?!"
There it was. Even Jeon Gilsan—a man who practically lived for the pleasure quarters—reacting like this was what passed for normal.
"He claims there were circumstances. What's your read?"
I laid out everything the inspector had told me, along with my own thoughts.
"It's not impossible…"
Chin propped on one hand, Gilsan chewed over my story for a while before nodding.
"Yeah?"
"A Giru drowning in debt might try to land one big payout. Or a courtesan got herself into trouble and pinned it on a rich man. It happens."
"Right. That's exactly what I'm saying."
So my suspicion wasn't groundless after all. If so, good.
"So what do you do? That's a possibility, nothing more—and if it turns out the inspector really did screw up, this is not a mess you can wade into."
"I have no intention of over-investing in this either."
Time was tight. I had been given a month, and sorting out the Saman-geom affair had already burned through a chunk of it. Even if the courtesan or the Giru were weaving some scheme, I couldn't sit around twiddling my thumbs waiting for evidence to surface. And if the inspector truly was at fault, my efforts would likely be wasted anyway—the registry would have to be bought and damages paid regardless.
"So?"
I had no intention of clutching at a slim possibility and nothing else. That didn't mean there was no way through, though. Even the most hopelessly tangled skein can, at times, be undone with a single cut of the blade.
"We break through the front. I'm heading to the Giru—so lead the way."