At my words, his flustered expression was obvious, but he still shook off my hand and tried to make excuses.
“Th–this only happened because I spilled tea on it yesterday! Don’t go condemning an innocent person!”
“Do I look like an idiot who can’t tell a tea stain from fabric that discolored from freezing? And how are you going to explain the cloth itself being ruined?”
“I–I mean…”
Sweat was dripping steadily down his face.
There wasn’t any way out left for him, but he was still struggling.
“You bastard!”
Right then, the Commissioner of Land Affairs, now certain Pyeong Tak was the culprit, swung a fist at him.
Wham!
“Ow!”
Pyeong Tak clutched his face and toppled backward. When he moved his hands away, his split lips were bleeding.
When he opened his mouth, two white teeth, stained with blood, clattered onto the floor.
Wow…
Lord Commissioner, did you use those fists a lot back in the day?
He didn’t seem to know any martial arts at all, so how could one punch knock out two teeth like that?
That just showed how utterly furious he was, throwing his full strength into that punch.
“You knew how seriously I was taking this, and you still pull something like this?”
“I–I’ve committed a grave sin!”
“Who put you up to it?”
“P–put me up to it? There’s no such thing!”
Pyeong Tak shook his head desperately.
Of course he would. If he admitted there was someone behind him, then as the Commissioner’s deputy he’d be confessing to taking bribes, and his crimes would only get heavier.
But the Commissioner’s face stayed cold.
“Are you really going to hold out until you’re dragged off for interrogation?”
“Th–there really isn’t…”
Just then, someone spoke up.
“My lord, forgive me for speaking out of turn, but some time ago someone spoke to me about Deputy Pyeong.”
He was the Commissioner of Land Affairs’ other deputy.
“They said Deputy Pyeong had been spending a lot of time lately with people from the Five Stars Merchant Group.”
At the mention of the Five Stars Merchant Group, Pyeong Tak’s face clearly twisted with panic.
So the ones behind him were the Five Stars Merchant Group.
“There were more than a few suspicious things, so I had been investigating on my own. I meant to report once I was certain, but then this happened.”
He bowed his head.
“It was my failing that I did not warn you in advance, my lord.”
At that, the Commissioner shook his head, took the man by the shoulder, and straightened him up.
“It’s all right. I know you only held back to avoid stirring up trouble unnecessarily, Deputy Ji.”
“My lord…”
“Anyway, you mentioned suspicious things just now?”
At his question, the one called Deputy Ji nodded.
“Yes, that’s right.”
A thought flashed through my mind.
If he was willing to steal an artifact at the Five Stars Merchant Group’s orders, hadn’t he probably done similar things for them before?
Deputy Ji began to speak.
“Do you remember, my lord, when we put out a competitive bid through the Merchant Groups to supply lumber for repairing the buildings?”
“I do.”
“At the time, you told us to prioritize the quality of the lumber over the price, so we visited in person to inspect it, and the Five Stars Merchant Group had everything we wanted to see prepared perfectly in advance.”
“Right. Their stock looked the best, so the Five Stars Merchant Group won the bid, didn’t they?”
“Yes. But doesn’t something about that strike you as strange?”
While everyone else tilted their heads in confusion, I stepped forward.
“No Merchant Group can be perfectly prepared for exactly what the other side wants to inspect, not unless they already know that information beforehand.”
At my words, every gaze swung toward Pyeong Tak.
“No way…”
Deputy Ji continued.
“But the lumber they actually delivered was poor quality. The master carpenter complained several times, but the deputy in charge ignored those complaints.”
“And the deputy in charge was that bastard over there?”
“Yes, my lord. And that’s not all.”
As his list of misdeeds went on and on, the Commissioner let out a stunned, incredulous laugh.
Then he looked at me and said,
“In a way, you losing that artifact might have been a blessing for me. If I’d kept that fellow by my side, I would’ve suffered a great disaster sooner or later.”
At that, I gave a bitter smile.
Because I remembered that in my previous life, it was the Five Stars Merchant Group that swindled the Commissioner’s daughter and drove her to her death.
In that process of the Five Stars Merchant Group being utterly ripped apart, that deputy named Pyeong Tak had probably been swept away with them.
But so what if that happened? His daughter was already dead.
There’s no disaster greater than losing your child. So the Commissioner’s words weren’t wrong.
I cupped my fists and said,
“It seems Heaven and Earth’s spirits are watching over you, my lord.”
“You’re right. To me, it feels like the spirits of Heaven and Earth sent you to me as a benefactor.”
“I’m just a lowly merchant.”
“How could someone sent by the spirits of Heaven and Earth be lowly?”
He shot Pyeong Tak a brief glance, then gave orders to the soldiers.
“Tie that bastard to a post and gag him.”
“Yes, sir!”
I cupped my fists again and said,
“Then, may I go reinstall the artifact?”
“Of course! Go and get it set up at once!”
“Then I’ll take my leave.”
I headed to the cabin with the box, taking the Escort Guards with me. There, I opened the box and hung up the trinket disguised as the artifact.
Naturally, I didn’t forget to infuse it with cold Qi again.
The Five Stars Merchant Group probably didn’t have the faintest idea what was going on.
The Commissioner was likely to send troops to the Five Stars Merchant Group the moment we arrived in Guizhou.
Honestly, Merchant Groups buying off someone to get information is nothing unusual.
But the Five Stars Merchant Group should never have crossed this line.
From what Deputy Ji said earlier, Pyeong Tak had falsified paperwork for the Five Stars Merchant Group quite a few times.
No matter how important profit is to a Merchant Group, there’s a proper way to do things.
It’s not that we don’t know how to pull schemes like that off.
We just don’t do them because they’re not the proper way.
.
.
.
A few days passed.
After Pyeong Tak’s attempt to steal the artifact, I could now openly order the Escort Guards to watch over the box.
At this point, they no longer had any grounds to complain, “Do you not trust us?”
And honestly, after all that, wouldn’t it be ridiculous not to guard the box?
Pyeong Tak was still tied to a post.
Just being tied up in a place everyone passed by must have been torture for him.
For someone who had held the position of deputy, not just an ordinary soldier, his honor had been dragged down to the gutter.
But he had only himself to blame.
“How can someone who looks human do something like that? He knows perfectly well how much our lord loves his daughter.”
“Exactly! How could he do something like that to Young Lady Jaryeong?”
“To betray Young Lady Jaryeong!”
“A bastard who did something that awful to our Young Lady Jaryeong deserves to die!”
“It’s still a relief! If not for Deputy Merchant Lord Eun’s foresight, imagine how heartbroken Young Lady Jaryeong would’ve been.”
“Young Lady Jaryeong will smile when she sees those eyes, right?”
Listening to them, I tilted my head slightly.
They were more furious that Pyeong Tak had almost upset the Commissioner’s daughter than about him falsifying documents or leaking information.
I’d never seen her even once, but hearing how much everyone adored this young lady, I couldn’t help getting curious.
So when I saw an opening, I casually asked the one holding the White Tiger position,
“What kind of person is the Commissioner of Land Affairs’ daughter?”
“Hm? You mean Young Lady Jaryeong?”
“So the young lady’s name is Jaryeong?”
“Ah, that’s right.”
The Commissioner’s name is Dong Hui, so she must be Young Lady Dong Jaryeong.
“But why are you asking?”
“I know it’s a bit impolite to ask, but I feel like I should know, so I don’t make any mistakes later. And it’d be awkward to ask the Commissioner directly…”
“Mm, that’s true.”
He nodded and said to me,
“All right, I’ll answer what I can. What did you want to know?”
“Um, how old is the young lady this year?”
“She’s nineteen this year.”
In a typical official’s household, she would’ve been married already.
But since she’s bedridden, she probably hasn’t even been able to dream of marriage.
I nodded slowly and asked carefully,
“Then… has she been sick ever since she was a child?”
“Ah, no, that’s not it.”
He shook his head.
“Before I became a Hundred-Man Captain, I served as a private soldier in the lord’s household. So I know for a fact that Young Lady Jaryeong was very healthy when she was little.”
“Then, from when…”
He let out a deep sigh.
“About three years ago, when the young lady turned sixteen, she suddenly fell ill, and now even getting out of bed is hard for her.”
“I see…”
I nodded.
“And I heard the Commissioner of Land Affairs has been stationed in Guizhou all this time.”
“That’s right. He spent a long time here as the provincial Assistant Councillor and then Chief Councillor.”
They’re local posts, but in a province the Assistant Councillor who actually runs one of the six departments is a junior fourth-rank official, and the Chief Councillor heading a department is junior third rank.
And the Commissioner of Land Affairs is junior second rank.
In other words, he’d held high office right from the start.
Come to think of it, the current Commissioner is on the young side for someone in that position.
If that’s the case…
“By any chance, is there someone in the Commissioner’s family connected to the imperial clan?”
“How did you guess that? The lord did take first place in the imperial examinations, but in truth he’s also the maternal grandson of Prince Geonchung.”
So his mother is Prince Geonchung’s daughter.
Well, that explains it.
There are usually two main reasons someone can hold high office at a young age.
Either they’re insanely good at their job.
Or they were born with a golden spoon in their mouth.
Still, it’s surprising.
People born with a golden spoon usually don’t need to work to survive, so they rarely care much about studying, but he actually took first place in the exams.
But thinking it over, the Commissioner of Guizhou is pretty wise.
No matter how noble the bloodline, the further you get from the reigning Emperor’s generation, the faster your status drops.
On top of that, the current Emperor confiscated all the imperial clan’s assets and instead started handing out monthly stipends to maintain their dignity.
That means the Emperor’s grandchildren can still receive dignity stipends, but below that generation it becomes hard to get anything.
So he must have started studying early, for the sake of his descendants.
I hadn’t realized it, but he’s impressive.
And now I could guess why, even after placing first in the exams, he wasn’t in the central government but kept serving as an official in Guizhou.
Guizhou is far from Beijing – putting him here was likely the court’s way of keeping a close eye so no seditious force could rise up in this remote place.
In exchange, they’d given him a high post right from the beginning and put him to work.
From the Commissioner’s perspective, it’s a comfortable arrangement.
He doesn’t have to worry about drawing the Emperor’s suspicion or getting dragged into strange incidents; he can just live relatively at ease.
Thinking back on how peaceful Guizhou was in my previous life, he clearly has real administrative ability too.
Anyway, back to the original topic…
“It seems everyone is very fond of Young Lady Jaryeong.”
“Of course we are!”
He smiled, clearly pleased.
“Just seeing Young Lady Jaryeong gives you strength. She’s so gentle, so charming, and so beautiful…”
For quite a while, I listened to him praise Young Lady Jaryeong.
“And then that fucking bastard had to go and ruin things!”
And vent his anger at Pyeong Tak.
.
.
.
Drifting downstream on the Wu River, we finally started getting ready to disembark.
We were about to reach Guiyang, the capital city of Guizhou.
The boat slowed down, and soon the dock came into view.
A sailor tossed a rope, and a dockworker secured the boat.
Screee–! Thunk–!
A long plank was laid down, connecting the boat to the dock so we could disembark.
We walked across the plank and stepped off the boat.
There were quite a lot of passengers on board, so getting everyone off took some time.
It took about half a day to get from the dock to the River Transport Commissioner’s Office in Guizhou, so we could have gone straight there, but our horses had been cooped up on the boat for a long time and needed a rest.
There happened to be ten horses at a nearby stable by the dock, so the Commissioner sent nine warriors and one of his deputies ahead.
It was so he could send soldiers to the Five Stars Merchant Group before they caught on to the situation and made the first move.
Right now, Pyeong Tak was stuffed inside a huge burlap sack.
That way, the Five Stars Merchant Group’s spies wouldn’t be able to see him.
After resting for a day at a nearby inn, we prepared ourselves at first light and set out for the River Transport Commissioner’s Office.
The Commissioner’s family was staying in the residence attached to that office.
Has it been three years since I last came to Guizhou?
Back then, I came because of my uncle, Merchant Lord Eun Jo-san.
I hadn’t had any reason to visit in person after that.
These days, the Migwa Merchant Group only keeps its own name for form’s sake; in reality, it’s practically just a branch of our Eunhae Merchant Group.
And the thirty percent cut of all the profits from the Namho Merchant Group, the one we fought that nasty competition against back then, was still a very tasty sum.
I recalled the reply I’d received from Father this time.
[Since you’re going to Guizhou anyway, give my regards to Branch Chief Song Sik in my name.]
Since Father asked, I’d have to stop by the Migwa Merchant Group on my way back after finishing this business.
Before long, we arrived at the River Transport Commissioner’s Office.
“Your must be weary from your long journey.”
Officials in court robes came all the way out to the gate to greet the Commissioner.
The Commissioner stepped down from his carriage.
“You’ve worked hard governing the province while I was away. I’ll soon hold a banquet to reward all your efforts.”
“We are grateful for your generosity, my lord.”
It was at that moment.
Someone came rushing out from inside, clearly in a panic.
“Huh? M–my lord! My lord! It’s terrible!”
–TL Notes–
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