The Seventieth Birthday Feast (1)
Jinmyung looked up at Penglai Pavilion. Octagonal in shape, each of its faces bore a painting of an immortal.
The name Penglai, he had been told, came from the mountain where the immortals were said to dwell. The pavilion had been built so that the Eight Immortals might rest here on their travels.
It was a story his grandfather had told him more than ten years ago, when the pavilion was first raised. A faint smile crossed Jinmyung's face at the old memory as he climbed the stairs.
Eunseong was on the first floor. Jinmyung glanced around the interior for a moment before his eyes met his father's.
Eunseong broke off mid-conversation with a guest and came running the instant he saw his son. Jinmyung watched him offer a hurried apology and hurry over.
Has Father grown this old? The thought struck him. Ten years ago, when Eunseong had sent him off to Chang'an, the man had still looked strong and unshaken.
Now he looked aged and worn. And in that state, racing toward his son—
Thwack! A hand cracked down on Jinmyung's head. He threw up the arms he had opened for an embrace and clutched his skull.
"Your old man isn't old yet. How long has the seventieth birthday feast been going, and you're only just arriving?"
"How did you even—"
"Have a child of your own and you'll see right through them. Don't you understand why your grandfather is throwing a celebration this grand?"
Jinmyung rubbed his head as he spoke. Eunseong cut him off and pressed on.
"Is the reason the feast runs a full fortnight… because of me?"
"What else would you gather the whole family for? You were the first among the heirs to earn a merchant's credentials, and now you've even learned martial arts. If you don't become Young Master, who will?"
"My sister?"
Eunseong's eyes went wide.
"Your sister has an interest in medicine. She appraises wild ginseng from Joseon, but in the end she's a daughter married out of the house."
"There's always the option of a live-in son-in-law…"
"Enough. Let's see if you dare say that in front of your grandfather."
Only then did Jinmyung feel that his father was the same as ever. Eunseong led him toward the stairs to the second floor.
The many guests on the first floor turned to look at father and son. They murmured among themselves at the sight of Jinmyung.
He focused his energy into his ears, and their voices came clear — a method Ak Jun had taught him.
"That's the one…"
"Have you heard about what happened at the Dragon-Phoenix Assembly?"
Jinmyung felt the full weight of the old saying: a word without feet can travel a thousand miles. Climbing the stairs, he asked Eunseong,
"Were there any investors demanding their capital back because I crashed the Dragon-Phoenix Assembly?"
"Good. Worrying over the merchant group as a whole is one of a Young Master's duties."
Jinmyung closed his mouth. His father seemed set on giving him the position.
"Among the relatives posted to other branches, is anyone turning a solid profit?"
"Yeongmyeong and Yumyeong have done a little. But… neither of them has earned as much as your sister saved by driving down the price of ginseng."
People usually thought of increasing revenue as the way to raise profits. But Jihyeon had been skilled at cutting expenses since she was young.
Reducing outlays was itself a way of growing profit. Buy cheap and sell dear — that was the merchant's eternal truth.
"But that Mt. Hua Discourse of yours — wasn't that a venture that made money on nothing but a silver tongue and the competitive pride of martial artists?"
Eunseong said this as they climbed from the second floor toward the third.
"Which is why I didn't sign those contracts under the merchant group's name. I took them as personal income."
"And that is precisely why you need to belong to the group."
Jinmyung saw no way out. Better to work on Grandfather than Father, he decided.
The third floor of Penglai Pavilion was quiet. A handful of distinguished guests sat with Danjun.
"Everyone, allow me to introduce the Young Master of the Donghwa Merchant Group."
Caught. The moment Danjun heard Eunseong's words, he rose to greet Jinmyung with a broad smile.
Jinmyung realized his father meant to treat his succession as Young Master as a settled fact before the guests of honor — and that his grandfather was of the same mind.
I should have been training my martial arts in the carriage, not wasting the ride.
In the end, Jinmyung had no choice but to play the role of Young Master throughout the feast. Before guests from outside the merchant group, he performed the part faithfully.
He also asked his cousin Yeongmyeong and his younger cousin Yumyeong for help. Yeongmyeong arrived with his small nephew in tow, laughed that he had only enough capacity to look after his own children, and stepped back.
Yumyeong claimed his results were lacking and asked for business advice. Jinmyung gave freely of his counsel on the ventures Yumyeong was running.
Watching the two of them huddled together, Yeongmyeong muttered that they were wasting their time and simply drained his cup. So the first week of the seventieth birthday feast passed.
From the second week, the celebration became a family affair. Once the festivities at Penglai Pavilion concluded, they would go down to Yantai and hire a ship.
Jinmyung, Yumyeong, and Yeongmyeong were left with the cleanup. Cleanup in name only — the servants handled everything; the three of them merely answered minor questions.
Then a man came looking for Jinmyung. It was Hwangbo Bae, the same man who had been turned away at the gate.
"Ahem. Young Master. Once the tidying is more or less finished, I thought we might escort the Grand Merchant Lord and the Merchant Lord down to Yantai… What do you say?"
"Very well. I'll speak to Grandfather myself."
Hwangbo Bae had grown subdued ever since learning that Jinmyung was the Young Master. Leaving him behind, Jinmyung climbed the pavilion in search of Danjun.
Danjun stood alone on the third floor of Penglai Pavilion, gazing out at the sea. As Jinmyung mounted the stairs, Danjun turned his head and spoke.
"Do you know why I held my seventieth birthday feast at Penglai Pavilion?"
"Yantai is where you first settled after crossing over from your homeland, or so I've heard. This is the most famous pavilion there — it must feel like returning home in glory."
"Heh heh… Yes. That's right."
Danjun turned back to look down at the water. Jinmyung approached him.
"In my youth I heard a folk tale about the Eight Immortals of Penglai Pavilion crossing the sea. Each crossed by his own supernatural power — all except the beggar, Iron-Crutch Li, who could not cross at all."
"That's a little different from the version I know."
"Yes, it's told differently these days. In any case, unlike Iron-Crutch Li, Lan Caihe crossed the sea riding a jade tablet. Then Greed, the Dragon King's youngest son, appeared coveting that tablet and tried to devour all eight immortals."
Jinmyung listened to his grandfather's old story the way he had as a child, waiting for the next words as the memory warmed him.
"The eight immortals thrashed Greed soundly, and when he surrendered, Iron-Crutch Li rode him across the sea alongside the others."
The story Jinmyung knew was somewhat different. There was another version in which Greed coveted the immortals' treasures and got a thrashing for it. Danjun's telling mixed the two together.
"When I first heard that tale, I was as poor as Iron-Crutch Li. Too poor even to afford passage home across the sea."
Danjun surveyed the waters. Melancholy filled his eyes.
"I wanted to earn the fare home. That was my first greed — the hunger of a man who lived day to day. And now countless ships of mine link this place to the land of my birth."
"Have you ever gone back?"
"Once you become Young Master, won't I be able to set down some of the weight on my shoulders and return home at last?"
Jinmyung's face went blank with dismay. Seeing it, Danjun smiled gently.
"Did you complete the deal? Did you find the book?"
"Unfortunately, I haven't found the book yet. But I met someone who knows of it, and I obtained a lead."
Danjun looked at him with a smiling face. Jinmyung could see that the smile did not reach his eyes.
"I still haven't received your congratulatory gift. Did you prepare something?"
"I had meant to demonstrate my martial arts… but one thing led to another, and…"
"Ah well. Everyone's like that at your age. I also heard you've been staring at a certain portrait."
That bastard Ak Jun… Jinmyung muttered inwardly.
"So it seems you have no gift prepared. May this old grandfather name one thing he wants?"
"Anything but the Young Master talk."
"Very well. We'll leave that out."
Danjun looked down at the sea again. A great ship was floating off the coast of Yantai, being readied for the feast.
He meant to hold a family celebration aboard a vessel modeled on the Eight Immortals. Gazing down at the ship, he spoke to Jinmyung.
"Let's make a deal on credit."
"On credit?"
Jinmyung echoed. Credit was the one thing Danjun hated most. The request sounded to Jinmyung much like the wish his little nephew had made of him earlier — just grant me one thing.
"As long as it isn't about becoming Young Master… fine. One deal on credit."
"Good. Now then — why did you come up here?"
Only then did Jinmyung relay Hwangbo Bae's message. Danjun set off, and Jinmyung helped him down from Penglai Pavilion.
Danjun boarded a carriage bound for Yantai, and the tale of the Eight Immortals rose again in his mind.
Greed was a son of the Dragon King, yet he never became a dragon — all because of his hunger to swallow everything in the world.
He had encountered the Eight Immortals while trying to devour the sun rising over the eastern sea. Failing to swallow the sun, he saw the immortals crossing the water.
If he could devour eight immortals of such high supernatural power, he reasoned, he could swallow the sun as well. He attacked them, was defeated, and became Iron-Crutch Li's mount.
The folk tale ends there. But Danjun wondered: had Greed's hunger truly ended? And where did the Eight Immortals go once they crossed the sea?
Danjun knew a man who shared that same greed. A man who had at last become the sun that illuminated the world — the Ming.