The Favor - 6
When I opened my eyes, I could only see half the ceiling.
Had I lost consciousness?
What happened? Why could I only see half my field of vision? Had something gone wrong with one of my eyes?
"Hoooooo."
I heard the sound of smoke being drawn into someone's lungs and released again. The sliver of ceiling I'd managed to see vanished behind a haze of smoke.
Only then did I grasp the situation. My eyes were fine. I was lying across someone's lap.
"If you're back with us, get up."
"Oh no!"
Hurrying to rise at the voice of the Gi-mun Hyangju, I found my face blocked by the very obstruction I'd been trying to escape, and collapsed right back onto her knees.
Emergency escape! Emergency escape!
I rolled away from her lap with a maneuver that would have earned a nod of respect from Sonic the Hedgehog.
"What an entertaining little spectacle."
"Where am I...? Ah!"
Looking around, I saw the unconscious Hongran and Jeon Gilsan. This was the top floor of the courtesan house where I'd been just moments ago. Right. I remembered now. The Gi-mun Hyangju had subdued me.
The last memory before blacking out came flooding back. Whether Hongran had passed out from the gag cutting off her breathing, or from the shock of being nearly dropped and then hurled to the floor, one thing was certain — the moment the Gi-mun Hyangju walked in, she fainted on the spot.
Seeing that, the Hyangju flew into a rage without giving me a single chance to explain. With a squawk, I briefly took flight through the air.
"Is your body alright?"
"I'm fine."
Circulating my internal energy, I was relieved to find no injuries. The Hyangju nodded at my answer and returned her pipe to her lips.
"Hooooo."
"Haha. Gi-mun Hyangju...?"
Why did the mood feel so strange? Her expression was exactly like a senior soldier sizing up the youngest recruit who'd just committed a colossal blunder in the barracks. It seemed she was deciding whether to thrash me first and then reason with me rationally.
"In my long life, I have seen every manner of foolishness imaginable."
"It's a misunderstanding, I swear. She was about to take her own life, and I only moved to stop her."
"Two men pin down a single courtesan, stuff a gag in her mouth, and bind her hands and feet — any one of my girls would try to end her life."
"......"
It was a perfectly reasonable observation, from anyone's standpoint. But I was genuinely innocent here!
"Hooo. If it weren't you, I would have been certain you intended to violate a Cheonggi — a pure courtesan. I'll give you a chance. Speak."
Through the hazy smoke, I could see the gleam in the Hyangju's eyes — the trust in me had not entirely died.
"There are... complicated circumstances."
"Go on. Tell me what caused this whole commotion."
I began explaining desperately, desperate to clear up the misunderstanding.
——
"That is why I came here — at the Imperial Inspector's request."
"I heard that the child is carrying the Inspector's baby."
"There seemed to be circumstances around it that hadn't come to light, so I came to hear her side of the story. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect her to react the way she did."
I looked over at Hongran with the most aggrieved expression I could manage.
"Men who can't contain their lust — is that anything new? A flower that has already been broken once must be handled with the utmost care, lest it fall to the dirt."
What a thing to do — forcibly dragging in a woman whose early pregnancy left her fragile and unstable. The Hyangju's reproachful gaze swung toward me.
"How is it that you're here, Gi-mun Hyangju? As I understood it, the owner of Hyewol Pavilion is not you."
The Gi-mun Hyangju owned the finest courtesan house in Wuhan, Hwayuenu, along with several others — but Hyewol Pavilion was not among them.
"I was in a meeting with the other house owners when word reached me that you were raising hell at Hyewol Pavilion, so I came to see for myself. And what I found was that little tableau you just displayed."
"Haha."
So the Hyangju had been at the same gathering as the Hyewol Pavilion's owner.
"Well, hearing you out, I suppose I was a touch heavy-handed."
"Not at all. Anyone would have drawn the same conclusion in that situation. But speaking of which, Gi-mun Hyangju — I believe the Hyewol Pavilion's owner is up to something."
If Hongran herself was fine, then the only remaining piece on the board was the Pavilion's owner. I waved off the Hyangju's apologetic look and pressed on with the conversation.
"Something, you say? What scheme could she possibly be running beyond trying to sell the girl at a premium? You plucked the flower before anyone could buy it — surely paying the price for that is only right?"
"That's not true...!"
A voice, strained as if squeezed through clenched teeth, rang out from behind us, cutting off the Hyangju mid-sentence.
"Hongran?"
"So you're awake."
Hongran, having regained consciousness, pushed herself up and knelt.
"A price? There is no price! It's all a terrible misunderstanding!"
"A misunderstanding? You'd shield a man who broke a flower right in front of me?"
The Hyangju snorted, as if she couldn't believe her ears.
"It's not like that! Master Jeong has done absolutely nothing wrong!"
Under the Hyangju's gaze, Hongran looked one breath away from bursting into tears.
"So something did happen. Speak."
Now I was curious too. The Inspector had no fault?
If that were truly the case, had it been a conspiracy between the Hyewol Pavilion's owner and Hongran after all, just as I'd suspected? Or was it the owner's scheme? What on earth was going on?
Hongran bit down hard on her lip, her trembling eyes darting again and again toward the Hyangju, before at last she opened her mouth.
"The truth is..."
"The truth is?"
"I... I forced myself upon Master Jeong."
What?
———
"Every single day was another day I wanted to die. Every time I was carried up into that courtesan house, I thought, over and over, that it would be better to simply throw myself off. And in the middle of all those days, I met Master Jeong."
A dying flower had been watered with the stream of love.
"Master Jeong was the only one who treated me with genuine sincerity. He treated me not as a courtesan, but as a woman."
Jeong Mun-won had said he treated her like a younger sister from his hometown — but apparently, that was not how she had received it.
"He told me that if things went well, he would buy out my registry. Honestly, I didn't believe him. I only wished that my bond with Master Jeong would last a long time."
The memories of his time undercover. The way she had comforted him when the Imperial Inspector nearly lost his post. Unmistakable love was blooming across Hongran's face.
"Not long ago, Master Jeong came to visit looking cleaner and brighter than usual. He said he had succeeded in arresting the Provincial Governor. It was something I should have congratulated him for — but I was terrified."
Her happy expression did not last long.
"Terrified?"
Hongran nodded at the Hyangju's question and continued.
"The older sisters in the house kept saying that the Inspector was bound to be summoned to the capital. And once he was there, he'd be dallying with all those lovelier courtesans of the capital — would a man like him even remember a nobody like me? I knew it was nothing but jealousy talking, but I couldn't shake the words loose."
"Tch. And so you sinned."
"He is a man who takes responsibility. I thought that if we spent just one night together, secretly, outside — he would never, ever be able to abandon me. But then, before I knew it, in a single night..."
Hongran's voice was thick with tears.
"So a child took root."
"It's all my fault! I got him drunk and I did it! Master Jeong is truly blameless!"
"You were taught, always, to guard your virtue! And this is what you did?!"
"I don't care what happens to me. It's my fault. I — I can't let a creature like me ruin Master Jeong's life. Please, at least spare him... Waaah-hah-hah!"
The tears finally broke through. Unable to finish, Hongran collapsed forward and wept, inconsolable.
"......Leave us."
————
"Love is poison to a courtesan. A lifetime of teaching, and it amounts to nothing. Hooooo."
As bitter as the sigh that left the Gi-mun Hyangju's lips was the cloud of smoke she exhaled with it.
"The Imperial Inspector is a rather good man, you know."
He reeked of widower loneliness and seemed the type to wake up on a cot at the office, knock back a shot of liquor with his hangover soup, and get straight back to work — but he struck me as a man who'd be faithful to a household.
"All men are the same, and it's precisely that they don't know it. They spend money and show you only their best face right in front of you, and that is how you end up deluding yourself about who they are."
"The Inspector is still trying to see this through to the end, so I'd say he proved himself different this time."
"......"
Zap. A razor-sharp glare nailed me to the spot.
"Haha."
My apologies. You have your own hardships to bear, Gi-mun Hyangju, and I had to go and misread the room.
The Hyangju let out a small sigh at my laughter and turned to face me.
"I understand why you raised hell at Hyewol Pavilion, and I understand the circumstances between those two. Well then. What do you want to do about it?"
"If it's all the same to you..."
Could you perhaps just let her go free of charge?
"If you intend to mumble your way through this with some nonsense about everyone winning, don't bother opening your mouth at all."
"......"
Seen through, apparently.
"It takes a good fifteen years to take in a child still wet behind the ears and raise her into a proper courtesan. You spent the last six months learning exactly how difficult it is to buy out even a single courtesan's registry — surely you haven't forgotten?"
That particular lesson did seem unnecessarily brutal, in hindsight.
"What about the redemption fee that was already agreed upon?"
"No. Whether the flower was snapped by force or offered up its own neck to be snapped — if I make a single exception, that exception becomes the method. No matter the circumstances, the price must be paid. That does not change."
"Gi-mun Hyangju."
Have a heart. When I gazed at her with my most earnest expression, the Hyangju averted her eyes slightly and went on.
"Strictly speaking, the Hyewol Pavilion's owner is the victim in all this. There are precious few courtesans at Hyewol Pavilion of Hongran's caliber. If she walks out too, it will be a devastating blow to a house already teetering on the edge."
Solid logic, all of it.
And here I'd been hoping some conspiracy was lurking underneath. So long as the fault lay squarely between a man and a woman, there was no argument I could mount.
Was there no other way?
"She is a courtesan who already tried once to end her own life. Leaving her as she is hardly seems like it would benefit Hyewol Pavilion."
"Nothing out of the ordinary, this affair."
Was Hongran just one among countless courtesans' stories to her? My appeal to sentiment was blocked in an instant.
"Then I ask that you arrange a meeting between me and the Hyewol Pavilion's owner. I would like to speak with her directly."
Gi-mun Hyangju — just step away from the negotiating table, and I'll cook the owner of Hyewol Pavilion myself.
"She's fled."
A voice dripping with contempt slipped from the Hyangju's lips.
"Pardon?"
"You have become quite famous, you see. She sent word to me that she hadn't the confidence to face you."
"Hahaha..."
Fleeing before I could even grab her by the collar.
"If you truly refuse to give up, I do have a proposal."
Perhaps because I smiled awkwardly yet showed no sign of intending to abandon the matter, the Gi-mun Hyangju raised her pipe to her lips and, after a moment, put a proposal on the table.
"A proposal?"
"The price cannot be erased as though it never existed. However — I will tell you of terms upon which both sides may yield."
———
"Aigo, my poor aching bones."
In the office of Ungi Inn's main branch, near Hyewol Pavilion, Jeon Gilsan lay sprawled across the bed tucked into the corner, groaning theatrically.
"You doing alright?"
"Can't say I wasn't wronged, but nothing's badly hurt, and I got a fine show out of it, so all's well."
"A fine show?"
Gilsan's eyes lit up as he looked back at me.
"I lived to see the one and only master of Hwayuenu lay a man across her own lap. Aigo. Anyone who knew her back when she was called Hubei's Number One Courtesan, twenty years ago, would faint dead away from the shock."
"So you did see that."
You little rat. You were playing unconscious the whole time I was out, weren't you.
"How do you even know the Hwayuenu's master?"
Gilsan interrogated me like a coworker who'd just stumbled on a couple secretly carrying on an office affair.
"We got a bit closer, over matters concerning Lady Ha Yeon."
She's a grandmother, you idiot. Don't go imagining strange things.
"'A bit closer,' my ass... Fine. Anyway — what did the Hwayuenu's master say? That in the end, the fault lies with the Inspector and Hongran?"
The proposal the Gi-mun Hyangju had laid out was simple.
"She'll knock the redemption fee down to three times the original. Either we bring the money — or she tells us to take the money back instead."
"Take it back?"
"Hongran's the one who sinned. So she says she'll grant him the right to walk away clean-handed."
Out of respect for Hongran's own wishes, if the Inspector wished it, every coin he'd entrusted would be returned in full. Considering the scale of what the two of them had done wrong, it was a far from unreasonable offer.
Except for one problem.
"Well, that works out, doesn't it? Isn't this our chance to strike one name off the ledger? Let's go persuade the Inspector right now to take the money back."
"You think he'd take it? He'll just ask to borrow money instead."
The point being, there was no chance in hell the Imperial Inspector would accept money back in his own hands.
"You think so? Then is the Inspector's case closed here?"
"I suppose. Maybe this is where we fold... though something about it leaves a bad taste."
With the fault established as lying between the two of them, there was nothing more we could grasp at.
It was all well and good that it took less than a day to resolve. If only I could have solved the Inspector's problem and gotten the money back. What a shame.
"Master of the House. My apologies for interrupting, but an urgent message just came in from the Yichang Printing Workshop."
One of the general managers I'd recently selected approached me, glancing about nervously.
"What's the matter?"
"The paper mills in Wuhan have been putting off our paper deliveries, day after day. We go through such enormous quantities, you see. It seems the mills are playing games to drive the delivery price up."
"Have you looked into other mills?"
"Won't do any good."
Jeon Gilsan shook his head.
"Hm?"
"How many paper mills do you think there are in Wuhan? They've already gotten together and agreed to raise prices in lockstep. Go anywhere, it'll be the same."
Jeon Gilsan was the young master of Mangeum Bookstore. His word was not to be taken lightly.
"He's right. There's nowhere else that can match our existing supplier's quality and steady volume, so I came to ask what we ought to do."
"Word gets out that we're printing money, and now they're holding our paper hostage."
The paper from Wuhan's mills had excellent production volume and unit costs, and came down to Yichang by water transport — and using the Wuhan branch of the Seocheon Escort Agency even meant free freight rates.
Business at Daseogak was booming, after all. If the price was reasonable, maybe we simply had to pay it. Holding raw materials hostage like this was a headache, though.
Hm? Just a moment. Hostage?
In a flash, something the Mangeum Lord once said flickered through my mind.
"Hold on."
There might just be a way after all.
"Why are you going to the paper mills? Never mind that. Get the Imperial Inspector to come out here."
"What is it?"
"The courtesan affair. I think there's still more to be done with it."
This was not yet a situation worth giving up on.