My shout startled the man up there, and he slipped off the plank he was standing on.
“Gah-!”
Because of that, his neck caught on the loop hanging from the wooden frame of the building.
Seeing this, Escort Guard Seo Wu immediately sent out a blade of sword Qi.
“Slash-!”
That sword Qi sliced the rope around the man’s neck, and he dropped straight down.
“Thud-!”
“Huff! Huff!”
I ran over to him.
“Are you alright?”
“…Yes. I’m fine.”
Thanks to how quickly Escort Guard Seo Wu moved, his neck hadn’t actually been constricted for long.
If anything, his butt, which had taken the full force of the fall, probably hurt more.
I looked at him and asked,
“Were you trying to kill yourself?”
“…”
Seeing that he didn’t answer, I figured I’d guessed right.
No, more than that—where on earth did the guard who was supposed to be watching this place go?
I could find that out later. First, I needed to ask why the man in front of me had tried to kill himself.
“This is the new construction site for the Beijing branch of the Eunhae Merchant Group. I don’t know what your story is, but trying to commit suicide here? Don’t you think that’s causing us one hell of a problem?”
At my scolding, he dropped to his knees and bowed his head.
“I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry!”
The dead darkness in his eyes radiated deep despair.
“Sigh, what in the world drove you to this?”
“…I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Then I can’t help you. Palgap, report this to the county office. Tell them someone trespassed onto private property.”
“Got it.”
“And tell them that sneaking in so carefully and trying to kill himself here might have been done to cause serious harm to the Eunhae Merchant Group, so we want a thorough investigation.”
I kept going.
“Do you know how much money we’ve poured into this Beijing branch already? If a rumor spreads that someone died here, all that money goes straight into thin air!”
I wasn’t exaggerating.
If this guy had actually died here… I didn’t even want to imagine it.
“Just as Young Master says, this is a serious matter.”
“We really almost had a disaster!”
“Exactly, so we’ve got to get to the bottom of this. Once the county office starts interrogating him, he’ll talk whether he wants to or not.”
I looked at Palgap.
“What are you doing, hurry up and report it.”
As Palgap was about to leave, the man shouted in a panic.
“Th-that can’t happen!”
He grabbed onto the hem of my pants and begged.
“I-I was wrong.”
Now we were finally getting somewhere.
Judging by his clothes, he was a bit shabby, but he wore a scholar’s cap and had the look of someone who lived by reading and writing.
“So, what is it? I’m talking about why you tried to kill yourself.”
“That’s…”
He let out a long sigh, then pulled a book from his chest.
“It’s because of this book.”
The moment I took the book and saw the cover, I couldn’t help being shocked.
Huh? This book, why is this book here?
“Ah, that’s the poetry collection that was just published.”
Escort Guard Lee Pil spoke up when he saw it.
“People can’t stop praising it these days. They say it captures the utmost beauty that can be expressed in verse.”
Lee Pil might be an Escort Guard, but he was from the prestigious Tang Clan in Sichuan, so he often sought out poetry to read.
Which was probably why he recognized this poetry collection.
But the reason I was startled wasn’t because this collection was the one everyone was raving about lately.
It was because the title of this collection was [Il–gong Poetry Collection].
The author: Chu Il-gong.
Right. In my previous life, Chu Il-gong was the bastard who stole the poems Internal Chief Administrator Yu So-ak had written and published them under his own name.
But in this life, I made my move first.
I co-published the [So-ak Poetry Collection] with Internal Chief Administrator Yu. Thanks to that, I formed a connection with the Zhuge Family’s Grand Elder, and even now Internal Chief Administrator Yu stays in contact with the Grand Elder.
At Lee Pil’s words, the man began sobbing bitterly.
“It’s not! Hrk! That collection, it’s not that man’s! More than half the poems in that book… are mine!”
“What?”
Escort Guard Lee Pil asked back.
“So you’re saying this Chu Il-gong, the supposed author, stole your poetry?”
At that question, the man nodded, shoulders shaking.
Sigh, the saying “a dog never changes its ways” came to mind.
I’d thought that since I’d already released Internal Chief Administrator Yu’s poetry first, Chu Il-gong wouldn’t pull that kind of shameless stunt.
Yet he’d gone and found someone else to do the exact same shameless thing to.
Of course, the man in front of me could be lying… but the odds that someone who’d been crying like that and trying to kill himself was faking it were low.
Given his history, it made more sense to assume Chu Il-gong really had done this.
Yeah, he really is utter trash, that bastard.
“So I went to him, sniff, to protest, and all that. But… that man, he…”
“He treated you like you were crazy, didn’t he?”
At my words, he nodded over and over.
“It’s so unfair, so I…”
“So you decided to prove your innocence with your own death, and pulled this stunt.”
As I said that, I picked up the [Will]. It had fallen to the ground earlier when he took out the Il-gong Poetry Collection.
I unfolded the will.
Just as he’d said, it explained how unfair it was that Chu Il-gong had stolen his poetry, and that he would prove his innocence with his death.
“Sigh, how foolish.”
He flared up at that.
“It might look like nothing but a worm writhing to your eyes, but this is the best I can do! So don’t mock me!”
“Why would I mock you? I’m just stating the truth.”
I continued.
“Do you really think that hanging yourself with a will like this is going to make that man bat an eye?”
“…”
“You’ll be lucky if you’re not just mocked as an idiot who died because he couldn’t control his temper.”
At my words, he scratched at the floor with his fingernails.
I could see blood starting to flow from his nails, but I didn’t stop talking.
“If he were the kind of person who’d reflect because you died, he wouldn’t have stolen your poems in the first place.”
“Then what am I supposed to do? There’s no way to clear this injustice!”
A desperate scream.
The truth was, it wasn’t that there were no methods at all.
But those methods took a long time and a lot of money.
The reality that ordinary commoners had almost no way to clear their grievances left a bitter taste in my mouth.
“Before that, let me ask you something.”
“What is it?”
“Why did you have to pick here to die? Honestly, if you just wanted to die, there are plenty of other places.”
“That’s because this is the Eunhae Merchant Group’s construction site.”
What was that supposed to mean?
“The Eunhae Merchant Group is currently held in high esteem. And the third Deputy Merchant Lord of the Eunhae Merchant Group is famous in the martial world as a hero. So I thought my will wouldn’t be ignored.”
“…”
“And I thought my funeral would be handled properly as well. The truth is, my family is poor and we can’t afford funeral expenses…”
Oh, come on.
He had me, and then he lost me.
I’d been feeling pretty good hearing him speak so highly of the Eunhae Merchant Group, but the part about expecting us to give him a proper funeral suddenly soured my mood.
Excuse me.
Do we look like some charity that provides free funerals?
But… family?
“Do you have family?”
“My parents have passed away, and I have a wife and a four-year-old son…”
I couldn’t hold back and kicked him in the shoulder.
“Whack-!”
He rolled across the ground.
“Ow!”
He tumbled over the floor from the force of the kick.
“W-what are you doing?”
“Oh, my apologies. I just lost my temper when I heard that the head of a household was planning to kill himself and leave behind a wife and child.”
“…”
“How exactly were your wife and child supposed to live after that decision of yours?”
“T-that’s…”
His face flushed at my words, and he hung his head low.
Honestly, I could guess why he’d made that choice. He must have been crushed that badly.
Sometimes, people reach a point where they can’t see anything around them—there’s only one thing in their sight.
When that one thing disappears, they feel like life itself has lost its meaning.
For the man in front of me, that “one thing” was poetry.
Even so…
You can’t ignore the pain that the ones left behind will have to carry.
I spoke to him.
“Well, since this is also a kind of fate, why don’t you compose a poem.”
“What?”
“That way I can see whether you really have the talent you claim.”
“Why do I have to prove my talent to you?”
“Because if what you’re saying is a lie, I’m planning to drag you straight to the county office.”
“…!”
He flinched, then cautiously cleared his throat.
“Hum, hum, then you’ll need to give me a theme.”
“A theme, huh…”
I lifted my head. Maybe because winter had crept in all of a sudden, the stars in the sky were especially clear.
“Let’s go with stars and the night sky.”
At my words, he closed his eyes, then began to recite.
Each and every verse was truly beautiful.
Internal Chief Administrator Yu So-ak’s poems were beautiful, but what I was hearing now was just as beautiful.
It was like he was painting the night sky with words.
But this poem… felt strangely familiar. It was like a poem I’d read in my previous life.
A person’s style carries their own unique flavor.
So even if someone borrows another’s name, those who know can still recognize it.
As he recited, Escort Guard Lee Pil furrowed his brow, and the moment the recital ended, he exclaimed,
“This poem is similar to one in the Il-gong collection!”
“Of course it’s similar! He copied my poem!”
I calmly nodded and asked the man,
“Your poem is truly beautiful. You definitely are someone with real skill. What’s your name?”
“My name is…”
He hesitated, then said,
“Song Rok.”
“…!”
His answer shocked me.
What? Song Rok? The tragic poet Song Rok?
In my previous life, there had been an incident that caused a huge stir across society.
It all started with one poetry collection.
The poems in that collection were exquisitely refined and beautiful.
So people searched high and low for the author of that collection and finally found him.
But he shook his head.
“Those aren’t my poems. I compiled my father’s poems and published them.”
When they asked where his father was, the son led them to where the ancestral tablet was enshrined.
Along with the words, “It was my father’s dying wish.”
An ancestral tablet inscribed with the name Song Rok.
In other words, that poetry collection had been the posthumous work of the poet Song Rok.
That’s right.
The man in front of me had only become known after his death.
I really don’t know how that bastard Chu Il-gong keeps finding people like this.
In my previous life, it was Internal Chief Administrator Yu. In this life, it was the poet Song Rok.
No, I couldn’t just let this go.
Right then, Song Rok asked me,
“By the way, who might you be?”
“Me?”
I told him my name.
“My name is Eun Seo-ho. I’m the third Deputy Merchant Lord of the Eunhae Merchant Group.”
“…!”
At my words, he jumped in surprise, then hurriedly bowed his head in apology.
“I-I’ve spoken out of turn. Please forgive me.”
So he did realize that, thinking back on it, his words had been quite presumptuous.
Anyway, trash needs to be taken out.
“I’ll help you.”
“What?”
“I’m saying I’ll help you clear this injustice.”
“Th-thank you so much. You truly are a Handsome Young Hero.”
No.
I wasn’t helping him out of some heroic sense of justice.
This was payback for insulting Internal Chief Administrator Yu So-ak’s “petty skill,” hurting his feelings, and then stealing his poems in my previous life on top of that.
“There’s no need for such praise. In the end, you’re the one who’ll have to put in the work.”
And if everything wrapped up nicely this time, I was planning to get some compensation out of him too.
In the form of employment.
I remembered what his son had said about his father in my previous life.
“My father spent his entire life obsessed with poetry. He was nothing but someone who wasted food. My mother had a hard time because of him, and as soon as I became an adult, I started earning money. So please don’t ask me to write poetry. Just looking at poems makes me sick.”
There was nothing particularly charming about that story, but I still felt sorry for that family. And it would be a waste to let this talent go unused.
Well, the harder I worked him, the less chance his family would go hungry.
This winter in Beijing was even harsher than last year.
But something happened that made people forget all about the cold.
It started with a single posted notice.
[Imperial Poetry Competition]
[Poets! Raise your honor across the entire empire!]
It was an announcement for a poetry competition hosted by the imperial family.
Poets who wanted to make their names known throughout the empire started shifting their heavy behinds.
And what really got them moving was the prize money.
“Hey, did you hear? The prize for this imperial poetry competition is supposed to be enormous.”
Chu Il-gong and his friends were chatting about the hottest topic in Beijing: the poetry competition.
At this, Chu Il-gong forced himself to sound nonchalant.
“Ahem! Ahem! I’m not interested in the prize.”
Because the poetry collection he’d released wasn’t the result of his own skill.
“As expected, you’re a true poet, Il-gong. That’s why I prepared a gift for you.”
“A gift?”
His friend handed him a sheet of paper.
“It’s a participation slip for the poetry competition. I already submitted the application under your name. Hahaha.”
“…”
–TL Notes–
Tired of seeing Ads? Then please support me on Patreon! Any tier of subscription will make it so you won’t get any ads!
If you want to support me or give me feedback, you can do it at patreon.com/InsanityTheGame
Join my Discord! https://discord.gg/BWaP3AHHpt