The Paper Mill — Part 1
The Imperial Inspector had agreed, quite willingly, to serve as my shield.
“The trouble is a mountain, but we've got exactly one man to climb it.”
With that, the finest card possible had been laid on the table for collecting on the Impossible Ledger. Who to go after for the money, and how to get it — now was the time to think it through, carefully.
“You've got it rough, don't you, brother-in-law?”
Jeon Gilsan, lounging in the main hall over a cup of tea, called out to me as I studied the Impossible Ledger with grave attention.
“At this point you just commute to the estate entirely, huh?”
He was showing up earlier and earlier these days. At this rate he'd be demanding breakfast next.
“A man needs rest when he can get it. Seems like I've been working overtime lately. First the Three-Eyed Sword, now the Imperial Inspector — am I not practically the MVP of this whole affair? If I'm not careful, Jeon Gilsan's going to turn into Jang Jabang before I know it.”
Gilsan's shoulders were practically lifting off toward the ceiling. He was grinning so smugly into his tea that — well, it wasn't that he hadn't helped, but why did I feel this overwhelming urge to deny it?
“So you came here to loaf, is what you're saying.”
“Every day I get entertainment better than wine and gambling. Where else could compare?”
Despite my jab, he nodded along and admitted it without a shred of shame.
“……That's a problem. A real problem.”
“Forget my problems and deal with that one first.”
Gilsan, still holding his teacup, spoke to me with careful hesitation. Ah. That problem.
It couldn't be helped, I suppose.
In the corner of the hall Gilsan had just stealthily glanced toward —
“Mmmmmgh…… No. Even so, that's not fair. It wasn't. My fault, that is. Even so, it reeeeally wasn't.”
Lady Jegal sat there muttering to herself, radiating a gloomy aura that practically screamed do not approach.
“Why is she like that all of a sudden?”
Gilsan asked me, complaining that even though she was his own cousin, he couldn't begin to understand her behavior.
“Well…… after we got back from the Inspector, I explained the whole case to her.”
The Inspector affair had wrapped up nicely, after all. From the frontal assault, to Gilsan's heroics, to the grand entrance of Bailiff Kang, to the death-defying suicide attempt we stopped — right up through the threats and negotiations.
I'd been hoping for a warm reaction to my dazzling exploits. Instead, after a single “Well done,” she'd been mysteriously under the weather since yesterday.
“You told her all of it? In detail?”
Gilsan asked me, looking astounded.
“Why? What's wrong with that?”
“Tsk tsk. You know nothing about a woman's heart, do you? Hayeon's sitting at home listening to how you were in and out of the Gi-mun, kneading the Hwayeolru Madam's thighs and rubbing faces with her — and you never once thought about how that feels?”
“Want to say that again, you little—?”
Who did I knead, exactly? She's a grandmother, I told you. This idiot is saying something seriously dangerous.
“What? Sounds like a lie, does it?”
Gilsan countered with a perfectly serious face.
“Wait…… really?”
Oh no. Right — he'd said he was awake, pretending to be unconscious. Did I do something regrettable while I was out cold?
“Who knows?”
When I asked with alarm, Gilsan just flashed an unreadable, rotten grin.
No. Definitely not. Even if it were true, it wasn't. Asking further felt like getting dragged into Gilsan's rhythm, so I decided to focus on the present.
“Anyway, it was all work.”
When I protested, Gilsan sighed, then yanked me close by the ear where Lady Jegal couldn't hear.
“Honesty is not always the answer in a man-woman relationship. Work or no work — what fiancée on earth is happy to hear you say, 'I was busy popping in and out of the Gi-mun and left my fiancée at home'? You could've just glossed over it, but no, you had to go give the full performance.”
Had I, against my will, just recited army soccer stories to a woman?
A man like Kang Yunho. I might not know the secret to succeeding with a woman's heart, but I'd always thought I knew exactly how to fail at it. Being rejected at the confession stage every single time, I'd simply never learned anything about the world that comes after a confession succeeds.
“Lady Jegal.”
The shock was considerable, but Gilsan's words landed instantly, and I moved to correct my mistake.
“Mmmgh…… Huh?!”
Lady Jegal, mid-incomprehensible-groan, scrambled to her feet in flustered surprise as I approached.
“I was thoughtless.”
I apologized at once.
“Y-yes……?”
“However much it was for work, I failed to consider your feelings, Lady Jegal. I deserve every scolding you could give me.”
Intoxicated by my own success, I'd been blind to a woman's complicated, delicate heart.
Come to think of it — no wonder Lady Hayeon always insisted on tagging along whenever I went to the Gi-mun.
She'd follow me even when I told her she could go alone. I'd assumed it was just Gi-mun business, but it seemed the two of them had been talking all along.
Then it made sense. Lady Jegal surely understood it was work and couldn't be helped, but she must have felt uneasy about it all the same. Knowing her personality, she'd suffer in silence rather than ever say a word about it.
“What? No? N-no, no! That's — that's not it at aaall!”
Lady Jegal clasped her hands tight and shook her head vigorously.
“……You weren't upset because of me?”
You didn't feel bad about me going to the Gi-mun?
“Ah…… it's not thaaat……”
She couldn't meet my eyes.
“……?”
What was going on? As I waited with a curious look, she kept her head bowed low and spoke, almost shyly.
“I-I couldn't help at all with this matter, thaaat's all.”
“Ah, I see.”
“H-Hayeon unni went too, and I coulddn't—! Anyway, I should've been helping you properly, but it feels like you, Young Master Kang, did all the suffering aaall by yourself.”
Lady Jegal's shoulders slumped in apology.
So that was it. I ignored the small voice in my head pointing out that I'd suffered plenty too, and gave her my gentlest expression.
“I let you rest on purpose. It's not that you were no help at all.”
“Even so……”
At the crestfallen, puppy-like expression on Lady Jegal's face — down like this over such a small slip — I fought desperately to keep from laughing.
If Gilsan weren't here, I had a feeling I'd have just gathered her into a hug.
Even if I kept insisting she'd done nothing wrong, knowing her personality she'd just keep moping in guilt.
What to do.
Right. I have an idea.
“Honestly, I was a little hurt these past few days.”
I turned my head away slightly and said it in a faintly sulky voice.
“So it is true.”
Oops. One sentence from me and Lady Jegal's head looked ready to drop clean to the floor.
I crouched down at once, looked up at her bowed face, and went on.
“The highlight of my day was coming home from work and seeing your face welcoming me. You've taken away one of my few joys these past few days, you see.”
When our eyes met, I flashed her a smile laced with mischief.
“Eh?! Th-that, that's—!”
Where do you think you're going, bolting like that? I caught her hand at once.
“Your smiling face helps me a hundred times more than that fellow over there, you know.”
I jerked a thumb back at Gilsan, holding eye contact with the frozen Lady Jegal whose hand I'd seized.
“R-really?”
I affirmed her doubt immediately.
“Yes. Truly.”
She could never know how precious it was — going from a life where I'd drag myself home exhausted and turn on my computer with my toe in a dark, empty house, to a life where someone waited by the lit door smiling for me.
“Uh…… if you two keep agreeing with each other that easily, my feelings are getting a bit hurt over here.”
Quiet, you lightning-witted fool.
A strange flush was spreading across Lady Jegal's face. It was working, then. Time for the next stage.
“Hyah?!”
I grabbed the hand of this oddly half-smiling Lady Jegal and spun her around in a circle, like a round of ganggangsullae.
“Lady Jegal's smiling face is the BEST!”
I hyped myself up to maximum and showered her with affirmation.
“What? Hyah! It's, it's not anything like thaaat!”
Yes it is. And the corners of your mouth are rising.
“MVP of the Three-Eyed Sword case! The MVP of our household!!!”
“No, what did someone like me even dooooo.”
A small giggle was leaking out of Lady Jegal now.
“Lady Jegal is the best! Great at drawing! Brilliant mind! Beautiful smile! The best! The BEST!”
“Hyah! Let go! Hnngh!”
Your hands are more honest than your mouth, though. She gripped my hand right back, showing no intention whatsoever of letting go.
Unlimited positivity.
For a person who's wounded by the smallest things and reads vast meaning into the tiniest gestures of others, unlimited positivity is the very best medicine. Affirm the small things, praise the big things without limit. Express gratitude constantly, and that alone is enough to keep a person living with their chin up.
“Heheheh! I'm completely revived!”
At last, flowers of a bright, sunny smile bloomed across Lady Jegal's face.
“Now if only I could take you out and about with me — that would be even better!”
“I-I don't think that one's possible.”
She went serious in an instant.
“Ah…….”
So even that much is off the table.
Gilsan doubled over laughing at the sight of us.
“Keh heh. You might as well just walk up Mount Longzhong as you are. That aunt of yours at the Zhuge estate would run out to greet you in her socks.”
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
“Hoeju Kang, what shall we do about the paper mill problem?”
With the morning's problem solved, it was time to return to business. The general manager came to the estate office and asked about the matter left unresolved days ago.
“Buying through another supplier in Yichang?”
“It would cost far more than purchasing in Wuhan directly and shipping it.”
“Then hound them to at least deliver the contracted volume. They're hardly common rabble — they should honor a contract.”
“If we soothe and cajole them, they may manage to send the goods with the next convoy to Yichang. But after that is the problem. I'd suggest you meet with them before the next contract is drawn up.”
“Right. Just see it's done without delay. Dismissed.”
“Yes. I'll head back.”
“A problem. A real problem.”
I muttered, gripping my forehead.
“Just grab your rope and let's raise hell one more time!”
Gilsan, evidently unable to forget the taste of our Gi-mun rampage, made the suggestion as if the opportunity had been handed to him on a plate.
“Absolutely not. A famed bailiff only gets away with it occasionally — go after an official too many times and you won't recoup even your losses.”
I'm currently holding an Imperial Inspector shield. Advance notice given. One hundred percent case approval. That's why I can't.
“Aw, what's the harm? We flip the whole table, then get wined and dined for it. I get to see Maehyang, you get to knead the Hwayeolru Madam's thighs one more time — everybody wins!”
No. How many times must I say I didn't? Why do you keep framing it as if I did?
“Wh-what? The Hwayeolru Madam?”
Lady Jegal, who had been processing documents at the desk, looked up with her eyes gone perfectly round, as if to say, what on earth was that?
I shot a look at Gilsan instantly.
Even sneaking in would be a problem.
“Ah, that's…… I meant it as a figure of speech. Hahaha.”
Gilsan papered over it with a desperately cheerful face, but a flicker of uneasy suspicion never quite left Lady Jegal's eyes.
“Lady Jegal, could I have that list you prepared for me regarding the Impossible Ledger?”
I stood, smacked Gilsan once on the back, and asked Lady Jegal with a smile. Only then did she nod, seeming reassured.
“Here you are.”
That was close.
“Scouting the next target? You've got the Imperial Inspector in your pocket — can't you just tell the officials to hand over the money?”
“Barging into someone's house yelling, 'Pay up! My backers are the Imperial Inspector!' — no, we can't do that.”
One has to say things that make sense.
“Why not?”
“If we show up saying we've come to collect a debt, they won't even grant us an audience. I'm a black-haired barbarian, and they're high-ranking officials.”
They'd sneer, what barbarian dares invoke the Imperial Inspector? — and we'd be tossed out before we even reached the front gate.
“Then what do we do?”
“I happen to have some groundwork laid in advance, just in case.”
I wore the smile of a masterful stroke and waved the papers Lady Jegal had given me.
“The task you pre-arranged with the Joseon Hometown Association?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
Even before the Three-Eyed Sword Jo Cheol's affair had begun, I'd set several pieces on the board in case everything went up in smoke.
“Like what?”
“We're going to solve the paper mill problem and the Impossible Ledger problem in one stroke.”
Among those pieces, there was one we could use right now.
“What? How?”
“A list of the paper mill owners in Wuhan. Take a look.”
I handed one of Lady Jegal's documents over to Gilsan.
“Why's this one marked in red? Huh?! Gu Juk? Where have I heard that name……”
The one I'd marked in red was the final target of this Impossible Ledger. The one against whom I could maximize the protection of my dual identity — bailiff and Imperial Inspector ally — and the one with whom this trial could be decisively concluded.
“Gu-Gu Juk is the name of the Prefectural Magistrate.”
“What? Don't tell me—!”
The name that had made everyone on the Impossible Ledger tremble in fear.
“That's right. This time, we go after the Prefectural Magistrate himself.”
This time, our opponent was the Prefectural Magistrate of Wuhan.