Mae Chu and I went over the terms one by one and added them to the contract.
Then we each signed and pressed our seals, and I paid the price on the spot with a draftnote.
“But Madam Cheongpa won’t leave her place, and Madam Mae Chu won’t leave this one either. Honestly, with a thousand silver taels, you could change your entire life. Isn’t that more than enough?”
At my question, Madam Mae Chu answered,
“She’s like that because she loves that tavern to pieces. That’s just how she is.”
Well, she did say she built Clear Wave Pavilion with her own hands.
“Then what about you, Madam Mae Chu…?”
“I was sold here when I was ten, and I saved and saved until I managed to get my hands on this pleasure house. In other words, this place is everything I’ve got. Where would I even go if I left?”
Hearing that, I couldn’t help thinking both women were incredible.
For a courtesan to save enough money to build or acquire a tavern or pleasure house was something an ordinary person could never dream of.
“But still, you must feel a bit bitter handing this place over to me like this.”
“It stings a little here in my chest, sure, but what can I do? I’m responsible for keeping this pleasure house afloat. If I can’t fulfill that responsibility, I’ve got no choice but to hand it to someone who can.”
She gave a small, easy smile.
“Still, I do feel lighter, like I’ve finally put down a heavy load I’ve been carrying for too long.”
To that woman, I held out another draftnote worth five hundred silver taels.
“Please take this. It should be enough for you to live on for the rest of the year.”
“Huh?”
“The thousand taels I gave you before were the purchase price for this pleasure house. That’s your personal money.”
“Oh! So I’m rich now.”
At her words, I smiled and replied,
“Since I’ve acquired this place, I should provide separate operating funds.”
“I’ll do my best to run this pleasure house well.”
.
.
.
Having secured Drunken Moon Pavilion as well, I strode confidently back to Clear Wave Pavilion.
“You’re back, Young Master?”
Escort Guard Seo Wu, who was at Clear Wave Pavilion, greeted me with a cupped–fist salute.
“Looks like there are even more people trying to sell information than before.”
“That’s right. As more and more people actually walk away with rice, the word is spreading.”
“I see.”
The Hangzhou branch chief of the Hao Clan was probably burning up inside, feeling like her blood was drying out.
When’s she finally going to come bow her head to me?
I just hope she doesn’t wait too long.
Hangzhou branch of the Hao Clan.
“These are the performance reports for this month.”
The Internal Chief Administrator held out the report to Branch Chief Yeon-yeon. She took it, opened it, and her brow twisted hard as she read through.
“…”
A disastrous performance.
The Hao Clan might say each branch operated independently, but at the end of the day, they still worked under the Hao Clan Lord’s oversight.
So once a month, each branch had to send their performance report to the main headquarters.
If this report went up as it was, there was only one possible response from headquarters.
Branch chief replacement.
At that moment, the Internal Chief Administrator spoke to her.
“Branch Chief, if I may speak frankly, our Hangzhou branch is currently failing to fulfill its role as a Hao Clan branch at all.”
“…”
There was only one thing that statement could mean.
Apologize to Eun Seo-ho.
And as the Internal Chief Administrator glanced at Yeon-yeon’s wrist, a bitter smile tugged at his lips.
The gaudy gold bracelets hanging off her wrist.
‘If you’re the branch chief, you should be willing to sell your own jewelry for the branch’s sake…’
At this point, they’d sold almost everything the branch owned that could be sold, yet the branch chief’s ornaments were still all there.
‘She was never branch–chief material in the first place.’
What good was ability if her capacity as a leader was smaller than that of an ordinary disciple?
“And there’s another report. Deputy Merchant Lord Eun Seo-ho has acquired four more taverns and pleasure houses around West Lake.”
“What?”
Yeon-yeon shrieked back at him.
“He got four more?”
“Yes.”
“Is his money rotting somewhere? Where is all that money even coming from…”
“As you know, the Eunhae Merchant Group is ranked twenty–fifth among the Hundred Great Merchant Groups Under the Heaven. And it’s the fastest–growing merchant group in recent years. There’s no way he wouldn’t have that kind of money.”
“…”
Yeon-yeon shut her mouth.
When they’d first gathered information on Eun Seo-ho, the very first thing she’d checked was the scale of the Eunhae Merchant Group. She already knew all this.
Looking back, you could say her biggest mistake was launching this whole scheme without really properly understanding who Eun Seo-ho was.
“In any case, I’ll submit the report as is.”
As she gnawed on her fingernail, agonizing, she lifted her head at the Internal Chief Administrator’s words.
“Internal Chief Administrator, if you send that report as is, I’m going to be kicked out of this position.”
“I know.”
“You know, and you’re still going to send this crap?”
“What else can I do? This is the reality.”
“Let’s change it.”
At her words, the Internal Chief Administrator’s eyes went wide, and he shook his head hard.
“Excuse me? Are you telling me to falsify the report? I absolutely cannot do that!”
“Then what am I supposed to do? If I get kicked out, you’re finished too! You think I’ll just let you walk away?”
“You really think the higher–ups wouldn’t notice even if I did falsify it? In any case, I will never do it. You might as well just kill me right here!”
“What? You bastard!”
“That’s why I keep telling you to just go apologize! This is all something you could’ve solved with a simple apology, but your damn pride dragged it out and turned it into this mess!”
“You…”
“We’ve got nothing left to sell, we can’t even pay the disciples’ monthly stipends, and what are you doing right now?”
All the resentment that had piled up inside the Internal Chief Administrator exploded at once.
“If a branch only has a branch chief and nothing else, is that still a branch? If you’re a branch chief, then you’re supposed to do whatever it takes to keep the branch running!”
“And who do you think you are, some bastard, to talk to your branch chief like that…?”
“Ah, just shut up and listen!”
He shouted at her.
“You’re nothing but greed! And stop calling me ‘bastard’ this and ‘bastard’ that! I’m not your bastard, and I’m old enough to deserve some damn respect!”
“You… you…”
Yeon-yeon was flustered by the Internal Chief Administrator’s rebellion. Until now, he’d always just meekly said yes and followed every order.
The Internal Chief Administrator pulled a folded sheet of paper from his robe and slapped it down on the desk.
Thud!
It was a letter of resignation.
“I resign. And I’m leaving the Hao Clan.”
Watching the Internal Chief Administrator walk away like that, Yeon-yeon clutched her head and screamed,
“What the hell am I supposed to do now!”
She fumed for quite a while before she finally managed to calm her anger down and stood up.
“This is all because of that Eun Seo-ho, that little bastard.”
She shouted toward the door.
“Is anyone out there?”
“Yes, did you call for me?”
“Get ready to go out. I’ve got somewhere to visit.”
Soon she finished preparing and headed out.
The place she arrived at was one of the deepest back alleys in Hangzhou, a spot people called the rat’s nest.
There, she found the third building and knocked on the door. A little hatch in the door slid open.
“What do you want?”
“I’d like someone erased.”
“Target?”
“Eun Seo-ho. Deputy Merchant Lord of the Eunhae Merchant Group.”
A short silence followed.
“Impossible.”
“What?”
“Who do you think this city is surviving thanks to right now? And you want us to erase him? The hell! I’m warning you, if you try to lay a hand on that man, you’ll die by our hands first!”
Clack!
The small door slammed shut, and all Yeon-yeon could do was blink in shock, her face frozen.
I patted my full stomach.
Was I feeling satisfied because I’d just acquired five taverns and pleasure houses around West Lake?
Or was it because of the dinner I’d just eaten?
Or maybe it was because of the person who’d come to see me.
“So, where is he now?”
“I’ve taken him to the second floor.”
Serving boy Dong-a led the way, and I headed up to the second floor. Soon, I spotted a middle–aged man sitting at a table, calmly drinking tea.
Dong-a had already whispered to me who he was.
Hwang An, Internal Chief Administrator of the Hangzhou branch of the Hao Clan.
As I walked up, he stood and greeted me with a cupped–fist salute.
“I greet you, Deputy Merchant Lord.”
“Nice to meet you. As expected of the Hao Clan’s Internal Chief Administrator, you recognized me even though I never introduced myself.”
“Of course I did. That’s how famous you are here in Hangzhou, Deputy Merchant Lord.”
He continued,
“And, I’m no longer the Hao Clan’s Internal Chief Administrator.”
“Huh?”
He’s not the Hao Clan’s Internal Chief Administrator?
“An hour or two ago, I was still the Hao Clan’s Internal Chief Administrator. But I turned in my resignation and walked out.”
“Ah, I see.”
So he resigned and came to me within a couple of hours?
I couldn’t help a little laugh at that level of drive.
And I could already guess why he’d come.
“That’s actually why I came here.”
Thump.
He dropped to his knees in front of me.
“Please hire me!”
Just as I thought.
“I understand completely if you’re taken aback. But I’m useful.”
He started earnestly listing off his experience and qualifications.
Watching him, I let out another laugh inside.
For the Internal Chief Administrator of an entire branch to run out like this meant they’d hit rock bottom with nowhere else to fall.
And even now, she still wouldn’t come to apologize to me? What kind of logic was that?
Setting that aside, the fact that he’d come to me like this was a windfall.
According to Madam Cheongpa and serving boy Dong-a, Internal Chief Administrator Hwang An was an extremely capable administrator.
Now that I owned Clear Wave Pavilion, they had no reason to lie to me, so I could trust that information.
With talent like this rolling to my feet, kicking him away would make me a pretty lousy merchant.
I bent down, took his hand, and spoke.
“That’s enough. You don’t need to say any more. How could I not know about Internal Chief Administrator Hwang’s abilities?”
“Thank you so much for saying that.”
“From how gaunt and thin you’ve gotten, it seems you’ve been through a lot.”
“I don’t want to badmouth the person I served, but… whew, yes. It’s been hard.”
“Very well. I’ll hire you, Internal Chief Administrator.”
“Is that really true?”
“Yes.”
I nodded.
“Then let’s talk about your monthly pay.”
.
.
.
And just like that, former Internal Chief Administrator Hwang An began working under Madam Cheongpa.
And from him, I got a few pieces of information.
The most important one was that Branch Chief Yeon-yeon had tried to falsify the report she was sending to the Hao Clan headquarters.
Would someone who’d already thought of falsifying the report suddenly stop just because her Internal Chief Administrator resigned?
Of course not.
Thanks to that, I was able to come up with a way to get rid of Branch Chief Yeon-yeon in one move.
“Escort Guard Jin Yu.”
“Yes.”
“Here in Hangzhou, do they have any Hao Clan disciples?”
“You’re not talking about the ordinary information–selling Hao Clan disciples, are you?”
“Right.”
What I meant by Hao Clan disciples were not the branch disciples, but disciples from the Hao Clan headquarters.
In other words, not the courtesans or serving boys who picked up tidbits of information and sold them.
Headquarters disciples of the Hao Clan had strong martial arts and outstanding skill at hiding their identities.
But Escort Guard Jin Yu, having reached the realm of a killing master, had an exceptional eye for spotting people concealing who they were.
“If you mean that kind of Hao Clan disciple, there is one. He actually came to Clear Wave Pavilion recently to sell us information.”
A small restaurant in Hangzhou.
Once, they’d had five serving boys. Now there were only two.
That was how much the customers had dropped off.
The two of them bustled around, carefully watching the owner’s expression. Just then, a group of people walked into the restaurant.
“Welcome!”
“Please sit wherever you like.”
The group numbered five.
One of the serving boys’ eyes lit up. He’d recognized exactly who had just walked in.
That serving boy was Shiliu.
His real identity was one of the Hao Clan headquarters disciples, part of the Clan Lord’s own direct unit, known as the Hundred Eyes and Ears.
‘That’s Deputy Merchant Lord Eun Seo-ho, the most famous man in Hangzhou right now, and Hwang An, Internal Chief Administrator of the Hangzhou branch. What are those two doing together?’
As Shiliu tilted his head, Eun Seo-ho and Hwang An started chatting.
“So this is the place that makes the best West Lake Sweet–and–Sour Fish in all of Hangzhou?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
West Lake Sweet–and–Sour Fish was a signature dish of West Lake, rich in freshwater fish, made by steaming a whole fish and pouring a sweet and tangy sauce over it.
“Thanks to you, Deputy Merchant Lord, I get to eat something this delicious.”
“What are you talking about? It’s thanks to you, Internal Chief Administrator, that I found such a good restaurant.”
“You haven’t even tasted the food yet, and you’re already saying that?”
“It means I trust the eye of a former Hao Clan Internal Chief Administrator.”
At that, Shiliu’s ears perked up.
‘Former Hao Clan Internal Chief Administrator? Former? So he left the clan?’
Keeping his expression carefully neutral, he took their order and brought the dishes out one after another.
“Still, to actually turn in your resignation! That must’ve been a really hard decision.”
“It was. But I had no choice. In the end, she even tried to falsify the reports we send to headquarters. I had no desire to die.”
“I understand completely.”
“To be welcomed like this after I walked out… I’m glad I left.”
Tampering with reports sent to headquarters was a capital crime, the sort of thing you’d be beheaded for with no room to complain.
As Shiliu focused his hearing on that conversation, a cold gleam flashed in his eyes.
Right now, I was sitting in that same restaurant.
And one of the serving boys was very subtly focusing his senses on us.
He was the one Escort Guard Jin Yu had mentioned, the serving boy who’d come to sell us information.
Anyway, this place’s West Lake Sweet–and–Sour Fish… it was seriously good.
Even better than the place I used to frequent for that dish in my previous life.
Which meant that in my past life, this place must’ve gone out of business too.
In that case, I should acquire this one as well.
And judging by the meaningful look that serving boy was giving us as he listened in on our conversation, our plan seemed to be working perfectly.
She really shouldn’t have put off coming to apologize.
–TL Notes–
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