The Paper Mill — 6
Wuhan was the most crowded city in Hubei Province, and its provincial capital.
A city split north and south by the Yangtze River, it drew people the way a flame draws moths — and with the people came crime in every shape and color, until the constabulary had swollen fat and unwieldy.
Wu Podu was the second-in-command of Wuhan's constabulary, a man so desperate to claw his way to the Chief Head Constable's seat that he spent his days scrambling for strings to pull among the powerful.
"Just what in blazes is going on with you!"
The moment Wu Podu laid eyes on me, he raised his voice as if he'd been waiting all morning for the chance. Not long ago he'd been trembling in his boots, terrified his bribery would come to light. I suppose the string called the Prefectural Magistrate felt sturdy enough to lean on now.
"Wu Podu, sir! What brings you here? Let me pour you some tea."
Whether he shouted or not, I simply smiled and gestured to a chair.
"Is this really a time to sit around sipping tea!"
"Aren't you here to talk with me? I have everything from refreshingly cold to comfortably warm. Have a drink while we talk."
If all he intended to do was vent, I had no intention of listening. Did he think I'd only understand if he yelled?
Wu Podu studied my face — mouth smiling, eyes most certainly not — sensed the stubbornness there, and let out a small sigh.
"……A lemonade, then."
In that case, I'd have a nice cold iced americano myself.
"Why do you insist on making something so simple so difficult?"
Wu Podu drained his lemonade in one gulp as if to douse the fire in his chest, then asked in an irritated tone.
"Difficult, you say?"
"Punish the ringleaders of this riot and disperse the mob. Done. Instead, why are you ordering constables to guard them?"
"It's neither a riot nor an uprising, is it? The workers simply refuse to work. Do you think beating them will make them pick up their tools?"
I answered with the stubborn rigidity of a bureaucrat who had never once bent a rule in his life.
"Man! Do you think I came here to trade quips? Do you even know whose paper mill that is?"
"The Prefectural Magistrate's mill, of course."
"And knowing that, you still—!"
Perhaps startled that I knew the facts perfectly well and was still digging my heels in, Wu Podu faltered mid-sentence.
"These are men who endured beatings with a whip and unfair treatment. They haven't mistreated their overseers or gone brawling in the streets. I will handle this strictly by the book."
"Tsk, tsk. Bailiff Kang, I suspect your lack of experience has blinded you to the situation. Do you have any idea how much uproar there is above us right now?"
Wu Podu glared at me with reproach, as if to say this was no time to worry about the little people below.
There it is. Pressure from the top.
Sweep the incident under the rug. Smother the investigation. The classic move of someone applying pressure from above. So the Magistrate intended to bury this at Wu Podu's level.
Then I need to make the Magistrate himself come out of hiding — not Wu Podu.
And conveniently, a man connected to the Magistrate's own string had come looking for me.
If he'd come to browbeat me into burying it, there was a way to make him dance to my tune instead. Provoke Wu Podu, and engineer a situation where the Magistrate himself grew desperate to meet me.
"It seems you know one thing and not the second, Wu Podu."
I raised one corner of my mouth and spoke with a sneer.
"What did you just say to me—!"
"We are standing in the middle of a political fight right now."
How can you not see what's happening?
I glared back at Wu Podu, who looked ready to bellow at any moment — with eyes burning past frustration into outright fury.
"A political fight? What on earth are you talking about?"
"……"
I took a sip of my drink and looked away. I had spoken in anger, but now I held my silence long enough to make it seem like a slip of the tongue.
Amplify the curiosity.
"Out with it! What political fight?!"
Wu Podu was a man clinging to the powerful for the sake of becoming Chief Head Constable. The only reason he was yelling at me now was to secure the fine new string called the Prefectural Magistrate.
And the way to move such a man as I wished?
"The Imperial Inspector is watching this situation very closely."
Tell him the string he'd barely managed to grasp was in danger of snapping.
"What?! Th-the Imperial Inspector? Over what?"
"How could I presume to guess the Inspector's grand intentions? I will only say that besides the Provincial Governor already under arrest, a certain Magistrate by the name of Gu Juk has been the subject of rather loud rumors."
"The Inspector has his eye on the Magistrate?!"
"I merely suspect, based on circumstantial evidence."
Keep it vague. Never assert — only insinuate, and let his mind do the rest.
Wu Podu's eyes went wide.
"There must be some misunderstanding! The Magistrate is a man prone to small misunderstandings, that's all it will be."
"A man who both verifies misunderstandings and manufactures them — that would be the great Imperial Inspector, wouldn't it?"
"Th-that's true enough."
Perhaps he finally realized this was no ordinary situation, because Wu Podu's voice began to tremble.
"From here on, it's only my speculation. Care to hear it?"
"Speak."
"If a riot breaks out in a prefecture under the Magistrate's jurisdiction, he need only shift the blame onto the local officials. The odds of the Magistrate himself being punished are vanishingly small. But this strike is different. In a situation that could tip into outright rebellion, the question of responsibility for this affair is rather… clear-cut, wouldn't you say?"
"If talk of rebellion enters the picture, the mill director alone cannot shoulder the blame."
"It doesn't even need to become a rebellion. This is the talk of all Wuhan. Wouldn't that be reason enough for someone to make a move?"
I spoke carefully, as if wary of prying ears.
"……You'd best suppress them quickly, before this problem grows any more tangled."
"Wu Podu, sir. I am acting strictly by the book for your sake."
I let out a small, weary sigh.
"For me? What nonsense is that?"
"Imagine the workers disperse on your order alone. The Inspector will surely think you let a golden opportunity slip away. Where do you suppose the arrows of his fury will point? This is the Inspector who had even the Provincial Governor dragged away in chains."
It was not a question that required an answer. My stony face was already fixed on its target.
Gulp. I heard Wu Podu swallow drily.
"Heh heh heh. I hadn't thought that far. But 'the Inspector,' you say? You speak of him rather familiarly."
"We shared drinks together only yesterday."
"……"
His new wife makes excellent drinking snacks, by the way. I'd said it as a joke, but Wu Podu's face stiffened into the tightest expression it had worn all day.
It meant everything I'd told him so far was not mere speculation.
I've frightened him enough. Time to open a crack.
I pressed a hand to my forehead as if my head were splitting.
"To be honest, I'm in a bind myself. I hear the Chief Head Constable caught wind that I'm the Inspector's drinking companion, and has decided to use me as his shield."
I voiced the grievance I'd been holding back, like a man pouring out his troubles. Make myself a man worth talking to.
"You weren't protecting them of your own will?"
"Of my own will! Do you think this is a battlefield where silent arrows fly thick as rain? I'm simply standing frozen, unable to go this way or that, watching the situation unfold."
I gave a short, indignant snort. I was not a confidant — merely a drinking buddy. Paint myself as a low-ranking subordinate appointed through connections alone, against my will.
Show him a man who could pull his feet out of the fire at any moment, the instant a better shield appeared.
"I see……. I misjudged you."
"For the time being, I have no choice but to move strictly by the book. Whether it's you or me, we can simply sit still for now — and if one of those arrows of fury pierces someone's heart, then we move again. Won't that do?"
Deliberately, I drew myself into the posture of a man drawing a bowstring, and loosed an arrow toward the window.
The arrow flew.
An arrow named the Imperial Inspector.
Whose heart it was aimed at needed no saying. Wu Podu could not tear his eyes from the direction the invisible arrow had flown.
"Thank you for the lemonade."
Wu Podu rose hastily from his seat, as if desperate to tell someone that an arrow was already in flight.
Exactly as I wanted.
"What in the world are you fools doing?"
In a room plastered with luxury goods from floor to ceiling, the paper mill's deputy director and Wu Podu trembled before a single furious roar.
"The mill workers are holding hostages, so……"
The deputy director explained the situation without daring to meet the Magistrate's eyes.
"I told you to mobilize martial artists."
"Those barbarian savages have lit bonfires all over the mill, my lord, and they look ready to set the whole place ablaze. If we send in martial artists to subdue them, something terrible may happen."
"Then send the constables and arrest the lot of them!"
"Th-that's the trouble — Bailiff Kang refuses to bend……"
"A mere bailiff, and you're all floundering at his feet! Wu Podu! Say something!"
The furious voice turned on Wu Podu.
"He is no ordinary bailiff, my lord. In a matter of mere months he resolved one major case after another — there is no one in Wuhan who doesn't know his name."
Wu Podu sang Kang Yunho's praises until his mouth ran dry, desperate to excuse his own failure.
"Have bailiffs grown so famous of late that they may ignore their superiors' orders?"
Naturally, the Magistrate was not a man to be persuaded by such a flimsy excuse.
This is bad. Cornered by the Magistrate's reproachful glare, Wu Podu decided to play the card he'd just carried in.
"Behind that famous bailiff stands the Imperial Inspector."
"What?! You — Jeong Munwon?"
The Magistrate jolted upright at the utterly unexpected name.
"Yes, my lord. The rumor is that Bailiff Kang Yunho is the Inspector's favorite."
"You mean Jeong Munwon stands behind this affair?"
"The Inspector is said to be watching this matter very closely."
"Jeong Munwon is watching me?"
A flash of fear crossed the Magistrate's face, which until now had been twisted with nothing but rage.
"Forgive my presumption, my lord, but there is talk that he intends to use it as grounds for impeachment……"
"Damn that Jeong Munwon! It was I who argued loudest for his dismissal last time, and now he comes for the Provincial Governor and next for my ankles!"
"I considered ordering Bailiff Kang firmly to stand down myself, but I feared what harm might come to you, my lord, if we took a hard line with a man who drinks privately with the Inspector."
"What am I to do about this! Isn't that mad dog Jeong Munwon trying to round up the innocent again!"
True, the Inspector's official rank was lower than the Magistrate's — but this was the man who had already had a Provincial Governor arrested and hauled off. Every official in Wuhan now walked carefully in the shadow of Inspector Jeong Munwon.
"Th-there is a way……!"
Even the great Magistrate was cornered. Wu Podu, grasping at straws, seized on a way to grow closer to the very string he'd just caught hold of.
"What way!"
"A drinking companion is not necessarily a loyal confidant, is he……?"
After all, no law said the Chief Head Constable alone must handle Bailiff Kang. If just one man stood forward to take the arrows, the whole affair could end quietly.
"……Explain. In detail."
"That man is only standing there because the Inspector forces him to. From what I saw, he himself is desperate to be done with it."
"Of course! No mere bailiff could orchestrate all this on his own! It was that damned mad dog Jeong Munwon pulling strings again!"
The Magistrate ground his teeth, as if at last he understood the whole picture.
"Since this Kang Yunho is the Inspector's drinking companion, if we simply make him act of his own accord, he is the perfect instrument to smother this affair."
The strike is clearly a trap laid by the Inspector, the Magistrate thought.
True to his notorious reputation, the Inspector had woven a meticulous snare — but he had overlooked one thing.
All they need do was make Bailiff Kang move as they willed. The man nominally in charge of the strike, and the Inspector's own drinking companion. Once Bailiff Kang danced to their tune, wouldn't the entire scheme collapse into nothing?
"An excellent thought. Summon this Kang Yunho at once."
And across the face of a Magistrate who had no idea whose plan he was now following, a smile of deep satisfaction spread.