The Paper Mill - 9

An Empty Name Certificate, of all things.

To think he would actually wield the forbidden black magic of corrupt officials — office-selling MAGIC.

From despised barbarian to a reversal of status in a single stroke.

In this world, merely passing the preliminary examination — the test that qualified a man to sit the civil service exam at all — was enough to be addressed as a "licentiate." Even the humblest ninth-rank sinecure made a man gentry all the same. Even a black-haired barbarian, scorned as we were, would become someone the people of the Central Plains had to lower their heads to.

So Gu Juk really had prepared a masterstroke.

"For the Magistrate to give, it is a small gift. For me to swallow, it is far too large a one."

I refused on the spot.

I have zero interest in a barbarian's life that begins with some token official post.

My days were busy enough raising my reputation stat and chasing money. I already had several businesses running and a succession struggle at Mangeum Hall to fight — the thought of clocking in at the government office to write up criminals' statements for a living held not the slightest appeal.

"You think standing beside the Imperial Inspector will fetch you a bigger gift? You think that naive Jeong Munwon will look after you?"

Apparently the Magistrate had understood my refusal in some entirely different way.

"Hahaha. A gift from the Imperial Inspector, my lord? I'm the one who pays every time we drink."

"Tsk, tsk. So the Inspector sucks the lifeblood from a bailiff living on a pittance? What a tactless lump of trouble. No — of course he's tactless. That's exactly why he acts the way he does!"

"He is a better man than you might think."

"The man only just scraped through the great examination! Now that he holds office, he ought to be worrying about whom to push up and pull along — and all he does is set fire to everyone around him! Stand beside a man like that and you'll burn right along with him!"

Gu Juk had worked himself up; his flat, doughy face had gone red from edge to edge. Had the Inspector stressed him out that badly? He really ought to watch his blood pressure.

"There do seem to be quite a few people who look upon him with unfavorable eyes."

I smiled a warm, guileless smile, like a junior looking out for his superior.

"The only reason I drink with you at all is that he has no one else to drink with! Well... the man did pull off something this time, so he'll climb high enough. But tell me this. Does Jeong Munwon strike you as flexible enough to drag you up the ladder with him?"

"Hahaha..."

I had, in fact, already received one scouting offer. No need to bring that up.

"Take it. How long do you mean to cling to a petty post without even ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a rank to its name? Shouldn't a man, once born, set out to accomplish something great?"

The Magistrate tipped his chin toward the Empty Name Certificate.

"It is a gift seductive enough to set my heart racing, but..."

What I want is money. What would I do with a certificate?

"Is it that you fear drawing Jeong Munwon's resentment?"

"That is not what troubles me."

So how do I talk you into paying the money back?

"Nonsense, then. Since you'll be holding office yourself before long, let me offer you one piece of advice. Politics has always been about deciding whom to make your friend and whom your enemy. See this matter through smoothly for me, and I will arrange a position for you here in the prefecture I govern. Keep performing as you are now and you might ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠rise all the way to Head Constable — and you'd never have to entangle yourself with that Inspector again."

"You misunderstand me, my lord. That is not why I hesitate."

It would have been so much easier if he'd just offered money from the start. But he shows no intention of paying up, so there's nothing for it.

Stick to the plan.

"Then what is it?"

"Having been hoisted onto the political stage against my will as I am, I've been racking my brain for a way to befriend the Imperial Inspector and Your Excellency the Magistrate alike."

Like a young man still green in the ways of the world, I gave a sheepish, artless smile and feigned embarrassment.

I must not, under any circumstances, make an enemy of the Magistrate.

Believe me, in my heart I wanted to seize him by the collar and shake the money out of him. But I was a barbarian bailiff, and he was the Magistrate. This was not a man who would cough up coin because I pressured him.

I had to make him part with the money naturally, without a single ripple of enmity between us.

"Hah... so Bailiff Kang turns out to be an ambitious man. But the political stage is not a place a mere bailiff can bend to his own will. If there is even one string you can grab, you should treat it as the opportunity of a lifetime."

This was a world where even a man holding a post like Wu Podu's scrambled desperately for the chance to clutch a single string of the Magistrate's. And his advice was sound, I'll grant: better to climb on one sure lifeline than to go up clumsily gripping two.

"You speak truly, my lord. I have been the foolish one."

Well, then, in that case...

"Then hurry and take— What?!"

I stuffed the Empty Name Certificate back into its tube and tossed the thing into a corner.

A glare of pure fury bored into me.

How dare a mere bailiff refuse his offer. Gu Juk's eyebrows trembled; he looked visibly stung by the insult.

Didn't matter. I accepted that furious glare along with a smile.

"Asking a man who is about to be dismissed from office to be my friend — that was greedy of me."

"Wh-what are you talking about?"

Gu Juk's fury curdled into bewilderment.

An incorruptibly clean bailiff of legend would have swept out the door with a parting shot about having nothing to learn from the likes of him.

But I was Kang Yunho, prospective grandson-in-law of the Mangeum Lord — a debt collector whose job was to make this man repay every coin he'd borrowed.

If Gu Juk had remained my superior from beginning to end, I could never have said the words pay me back. Who tells a superior to settle a debt? I would have begged him, most graciously, to please repay it — and been refused, most graciously.

With a sly grin, I lifted the bottle beside me.

The word "dismissal" was my way of resetting our relationship just a little.

"Before I explain anything — might I first pour you a drink?"

Over the rims of shared cups, of course.

The courtesans had all withdrawn; the room was ours alone.

Wherever the Magistrate's swagger of a moment ago had gone, he was now holding his cup out to me with eyes gone wide.

"It is true that I was forced onto this political stage. But that does not mean I have failed to do my duty."

The Magistrate's image of me was, inevitably, twofold: the green young man swept up in political strife, and the bailiff of great renown. Now was the time to put both images to full use.

"You did your duty?"

I cleared my throat, then shifted into a tone of voice the Magistrate himself knew all too well — the ringing cadence of an official proclamation.

"'The Magistrate Gu Juk is a corrupt official among corrupt officials! He wrings the common folk so mercilessly that their wails resound to the very heavens — therefore Bailiff Kang Yunho shall, until the strike and protests come to an end, find proof of Gu Juk's tyranny and corruption!'"

"Jeong Munwon...! That bastard, of all people!"

Well, I was laying it on thick.

"'Your humble servant Kang Yunho. It is true that I enjoy a reputation beyond my merits, but I am not so great a man as to disregard the Imperial Inspector's orders. I investigated with all diligence.'"

"Yes, yes. And did you find anything?"

The Magistrate asked with a scoff buried in his voice, as if to say a whelp like me couldn't produce anything if he tried.

"Yes. I did."

"What?! F-found what?!"

If I pour your cup full, drink it. Why must you keep spilling it?

Getting the strike protesters disbanded alone isn't enough of a card.

Less than ten days remained until the end of the examination, and the sum the Magistrate had borrowed was far too large to repay in so short a span.

If I wanted the money back, the moment today's gathering ended, debt repayment had to become his highest priority.

Would a man who had refused to pay no matter what I said really open his purse that easily? Which was why I needed one more card up my sleeve.

"It begins with the Imperial Inspector's impeachment of the Provincial Governor."

Hands clasped behind my back, I began to pace the room at an unhurried stroll.

The culprit is in this room. Now then — who could it be? I had decided to hold a detective's summation.

"You mean that affair where Jeong Munwon failed and nearly lost his post over it? What has that to do with me?"

A thread of tension ran beneath the Magistrate's irritable voice.

"The Provincial Governor had to send money to the central court over the impeachment. The evidence the Inspector presented was, in truth, stronger than anyone had expected."

"..."

The Magistrate's eyes narrowed. Why, I wondered. Was something coming back to him?

"The problem was that the Governor, to save his own skin, had to spend a sum that would stagger most men. The court may never have said so aloud, but the amount demanded must have been astronomical."

"Hmm..."

"The Governor wracks his brains. Where in the world can I lay my hands on that much money? And then — there it is! Squeeze the officials beneath me dry! A thoroughly fitting piece of reasoning from a man who had spent a lifetime wringing the lifeblood out of his people."

Mockery for the Governor — by now hauled off to the capital — still clinging to my face, I looked at Gu Juk.

I came here knowing everything. You. You gave the Governor that money.

"If what you say is true, then am I not the victim in all this?"

Apparently bankrolling a bribe counted as innocence these days. I snorted and pressed on.

"You told me yourself, Magistrate — politics is the act of making friends and of making enemies. The Governor has political sense too; he would hardly have squeezed his own subordinate officials and manufactured enemies of them. And so the Governor came to you, Elder Gu Juk, with a single proposal."

"What proposal?"

I picked up my own empty cup and poured the wine myself.

He would have to drink whatever I poured him, while I showed no intention whatsoever of touching a drop he poured. I drained my cup in one go, then fixed Gu Juk with a stare, like an interrogator closing in on the culprit.

"Magistrate. Under the pretext of flood-control works, you stripped the choicest plots of land for miles around clean out of their owners' hands."

"...!"

"The landowners' appeals came in like a hailstorm, yet somehow the whole affair was smoothed over in an instant. As though some understanding had been reached higher up."

"Base conjecture! Where do you get the gall to slander me?!"

The Magistrate's eyes were trembling. Where did he catch wind of it? A hundred thoughts must have been flashing through his head.

As if his clumsy protests were the most delectable of drinking snacks, I poured myself another and drank.

"True. It is suspicion. It may be nothing but conjecture."

Yes — the deal between the Governor and Gu Juk. Buried so thoroughly that a shake wouldn't knock loose so much as a speck of dust.

"Fine! So you mean to corner a man with no evidence at all?!"

"But tell me, my lord. Would I have been tossing around the word dismissal over mere suspicion?"

The Magistrate's face froze in the most entertaining way imaginable — no drinking snacks required anymore.

For the record, I hadn't performed any brilliant deduction or herculean investigation.

I read the Provincial Governor's corruption ledger ages ago.

I had already finished my conversation with the Imperial Inspector.

All I had done was bring up the affair in which Gu Juk had come under investigation, only for the internal inquiry to close with a verdict of suspicion well-founded, evidence absent.

"S-so you actually have evidence?"

That voice of yours. If only I could record conversations, I'd sprint straight to the Imperial Inspector with the tape.

From here on, it was time for the illustrious Bailiff Kang to shine. Pacing the room once more with my hands behind my back, I turned to look at Gu Juk with an air of perfect ease.

"You called the Imperial Inspector a man who knows nothing of the world. It is true — I think so as well. A man who spent his whole life buried in his books; his view is still narrow."

"What is that supposed to mean?!"

"I, on the other hand, know the ways of the world quite well indeed. I understand how money flows."

"Money... flows?!"

"The Inspector would surely have given up. Even in the corruption ledger seized from the Governor, whoever arranged this affair had been careful — the names of those who paid the bribes were written in broken characters, leaving no clear evidence."

The Governor sending money up to the central court was one bribery case. The Governor taking money from Gu Juk on the promise of favors was another. But this affair, at least, had left no evidence behind.

No clear proof that Gu Juk had lent that money to the Governor.

"You're telling me you truly found evidence...!"

I nodded, smiling.

"Consider the situation at the time. A staggering sum was needed at once, and unless the bribe money arrived before the evidence did, the Governor's neck was finished. So the Governor squeezed Elder Gu Juk and the county magistrates, and barely scraped the money together in a matter of days. And that is where the problem arises."

Most mistakes in this world are born of too little time.

Contrary to the Inspector's expectations, Lady Jegal and I did find it.

"A problem? What problem?"

"No matter how wealthy a man may be, he cannot raise an astronomical sum of ready money in an instant."

"...!"

How had the Provincial Governor raised such an enormous sum so quickly? How had Gu Juk managed to put that much money into the Governor's hands within days?

No — who in all of Wuhan could hand over that much money in a single payment?

And how was I going to get my money back from the Magistrate?

"Magistrate. It seems you borrowed a very large sum from Mangeum Hall not long ago."

The Impossible Ledger ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and the corruption ledger.

The answer had been sitting inside those two ledgers all along.