You’ll find out soon enough. (3)
“I have confirmed it.”
“……That was fast.”
Chung Myung looked at Hong-ga as though impressed. Jwa Gohak let out a sigh and clicked his tongue.
“Hey, you Taoist brat. How do you expect to get anything done when you’re that naive? You really think a fellow like this conducted a proper investigation? No doubt he only found some useless…”
“As you instructed, I conducted a comprehensive investigation and discovered something strange. Recently, the amount of goods entering the Gahwa Merchant Guild has increased by twenty percent, but the sales recorded in the ledgers have actually decreased by around ten percent. Given the nature of a merchant guild, if the volume of goods increases, sales should normally increase as well, regardless of the profits.”
At the information flowing out like a crystal clear stream, Jwa Gohak blinked.
“Oh. Keep going.”
“Yes. Anyway, I therefore had my subordinates examine the ledgers, and found that around twenty percent of the goods that had come in had not been recorded. So I tried to inspect the condition of those goods, but… Strangely, although there was no record of them ever being taken out of the merchant guild, every last item had disappeared.”
By this point, Jwa Gohak’s mouth was hanging open without him even realizing it, and he could barely string his words together.
“Th… No, huh? How could… A laborer?”
Chung Myung looked at Jwa Gohak with an indifferent expression.
“What? Why?”
“No, I mean. How could a laborer know something like this?”
“What are you talking about? He knows because he’s a laborer.”
“B-But he was never educated.”
“Good grief.”
At Jwa Gohak’s stunned reaction, Chung Myung scowled fiercely.
“This is why I want to beat all these ink-stained bastards to a pulp. They think that anyone who hasn’t learned what they themselves have defined as scholarship must live like some ignorant peasant.”
“…”
“Hey, you bastard! Of course people who’ve actually worked in the field know more about it than someone like you who does nothing but read books!”
Jwa Gohak looked at Hong-ga with an expression of someone who had been grievously wronged.
Chung Myung wasn’t exactly wrong, but that was something you ought to say after taking a look at the person in question…
“A-Anyone would think that just by looking at him.”
“What? Are you saying that man can’t possibly be smart because he looks so rough?”
“Th-That’s not what I meant.”
Jwa Gohak flinched and frantically waved his hands.
“What I mean is that he… doesn’t seem like the sort of person who would go out of his way to solve something using his head, or something like that…”
“What? You’re saying he doesn’t look like that? A Confucian scholar is judging a person’s disposition by his face? Are you saying someone who looks like this shouldn’t look at ledgers? What was that saying? Even Confucius said, ugh! ‘Judging a person by employment’ [이모취업] or something? Huh?”
“It’s ‘judging a person by appearance’ [이모취인(以貌取人)*]. It means that judging people solely by their appearance leads to mistakes…”
“Oh my, so you know it. If you know it so well, why did you do that?”
“…”
“Look at this. You hurt his feelings.”
At Chung Myung’s gesture, Hong-ga desperately twisted his hideous face into a pitiful expression. There was no way around it – Jwa Gohak was driven to despair.
Watching Jwa Gohak suffer, the disciples of Hwasan shook their heads.
“There’s another victim.”
“It clearly makes no sense, and yet somehow it does.”
“Amitabha. Once the words start getting twisted, it’s all over.”
After tormenting Jwa Gohak to his heart’s content for quite some time, Chung Myung drained a glass of honey water and looked at Hong-ga.
“Anyway, so. To sum it up, unidentified goods are being brought into this place. And they’re doing it without even the laborers who work for the guild knowing much about them.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Tsk. So that’s how it is.”
There was definitely something suspicious about it. If only they could rummage through those goods.
“Can we track down the missing goods?”
“That might be a little difficult. Goods that have already left the merchant guild are hard to trace…….”
“Haha!”
At that moment, Jwa Gohak shot to his feet.
“See? You’re useless when it matters most! This is why one has to study systematically!”
“…Does this bastard actually want this to go wrong?”
“Of course not. What I mean is, with this method…”
That was when yet another tiresome argument was about to begin.
“Ah, now that I think about it, that shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Huh?”
“What?”
Hong-ga, who had casually joined in, continued speaking with a calm expression.
“I checked with the workers, and apparently shipments like this have been coming in at intervals of less than fifteen days since the beginning of the year. It’s been about ten days since the last shipment arrived, so another one should come in within three days at the latest. Why don’t we simply investigate that shipment?”
Chung Myung turned to Jwa Gohak.
“That’s what he says.”
“…”
With nothing left to say, Jwa Gohak once again clutched his head and began muttering something under his breath. Chung Myung clicked his tongue as he watched the pathetic spectacle, then turned to everyone and shrugged.
“You all heard that, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you all know what we have to do from now on, right?”
“Hm? What do we have to do?”
“What else?”
Chung Myung grinned, one corner of his mouth curling upward.
“We’ll have to live as perfect workers. For three days.”
❀ ❀ ❀
“Hey, you there! Why aren’t you moving faster?”
“Yeeeees, Sir! Coming!”
Jo Geol and Yoon Jong dashed over to the cart and began hauling the large crates away, lifting them with ease. The goods piled high on the cart began to disappear in an instant.
“Heheh. Well now, the fellows who came in this time are all strong.”
“Indeed. I heard they’re from Shaanxi. Are people from that region all like this? They don’t even look particularly strong.”
“The one who looks strong is over there.”
“Heave-ho!”
Baek Cheon, wearing a shaggy fake beard, carried three large crates at a time.
“Goodness, you’ll hurt your back doing that!”
“I’m fine.”
“Then this way, carefully, carefully.”
As Baek Cheon strode away carrying the crates, those who saw him clicked their tongues in amazement. He was carrying three heavy crates at once when even one would have been enough to make their legs tremble.
“Strong as an ox, that one.”
“He could make a fortune and live well without even working as a porter.”
“I even told him to enlist in the Imperial Army, but he said he preferred living like this.”
“Do you really believe that? Take it from me, that man isn’t the sort to do this kind of work. I’ll wager he was a bandit in the mountains and fled here after the authorities came after him. Mark my words, it won’t be long before he shows his true colors.”
“Tsk, tsk. You only say that because you don’t know.”
“Hm?”
“Apparently, he has a son. There doesn’t seem to be a mother, though.”
“Oh, really? Then is he raising the boy alone? Ahem. He’s a respectable man, unlike what he looks like.”
The people looked at Baek Cheon with pity.
With all those eyes on him, Baek Cheon quietly clenched his teeth.
“Any more cargo?”
“Goodness, why are you working yourself so hard?”
“I thought I’d feel a little better if I at least did some work.”
“What does that mean….?”
Seeing Baek Cheon irritably hoist another load onto his back, the others once again exclaimed in admiration.
“Anyway, all the people who came in this time are excellent workers. From now on, whenever we hire laborers, we should hire them from Shaanxi whenever possible. If I’d known everyone from Shaanxi was like this, I would have done so from the beginning.”
“Well, that doesn’t seem to be entirely true.”
“Excuse me?”
Just then, a loud voice rang out from somewhere across from them.
“What the hell, we’re a man short. Where’d that little runt disappear to again?”
One of the merchant guild members who had come out to check on things shouted angrily.
“That hopeless bastard was wandering around reeking of alcohol just yesterday, and now he has disappeared again? I clearly told him I’d beat him senseless if I caught him again!”
“H-He was definitely here until a little while ago.”
“Good grief! How did someone like that ever get hired? I keep saying we should throw him out immediately!”
“We’re so short-handed right now… Please give us just three days.”
“Damn it! This is why I can’t stand you Shaanxi bastards!”
The people watched the merchant guild member storm away, huffing angrily, and shook their heads.
“…There’s always a loach muddying the water, wherever you go.”
“People are the same everywhere.”
“Tsk.”
⠀
Hsssssssssss!
“Oh, no! It’s all burning! All of it!”
The horrified woman came rushing towards the pot billowing white smoke. She quickly lifted the lid from the pot set over the fire and looked ready to cry.
“No! You burned it again! Again!”
“…”
“I told you all you had to do was watch it and turn it over! You can’t even do that? Good grief, this is maddening! Oh myyyy!”
Listening to the woman’s scolding, Yu Iseol tilted her head.
“I was watching it carefully.”
“So what if you were watching it! You have to turn it over before it burns!”
“It wasn’t burning.”
“Oh, you’re going to be the death of me. Oh, dear!”
Tang Soso, who had seen what was happening from a distance, hurried over.
“I’ll make it again.”
“….Then what are we supposed to do with the burnt one?”
“It’s not that badly burnt. Even if we can’t serve it upstairs, we can eat it ourselves, can’t we? I’ll quickly make another batch.”
“Will you?”
“Yes, yes. My older sister [언니 – eonni] has never done this sort of thing before. Please be a little understanding.”
The woman looked back and forth between Yu Iseol and Tang Soso, then let out a deep sigh.
“All right. Do that. You certainly have your hands full.”
“It’s no trouble.”
“Tsk, tsk.”
The woman gave Tang Soso a reassuring pat on the shoulder and turned to leave the kitchen, only for the other cooks to quietly approach her.
“How can you just let this go? How many times has this happened already?”
“Enough. Let it go.”
“Even so, this is too much. How can you put that girl to work in the kitchen? If you ask her to wash the dishes, she breaks every last one. If you tell her to prepare the ingredients, she ruins them all. And when we finally put her on grilling, she burns everything.”
“She was good with a knife, though.”
“Now is not the time to say that.”
“I said, enough.”
The woman firmly waved her hand.
“From the looks of her, she seems a little slow. Look how hard that girl works just to take care of a sister like that. Don’t you feel sorry for her?”
“….I suppose you’re right.”
“We have to be a little understanding. We may be poor, but we’re not so coldhearted that we can’t look after one poor girl who is a little lacking.”
“…You’re right.”
“Come on, let’s get back to work. Hurry.”
“Yes.”
Tang Soso glanced at the kitchen workers as they dispersed again, then whispered to Yu Iseol.
“It’s all right, Sago.”
“…But I was watching it carefully.”
“It’s okay, it’s okay. It wasn’t anything serious.”
Tang Soso patted the dejected Yu Iseol on the shoulder.
To be honest, it couldn’t exactly be called Yu Iseol’s fault.
‘Sago did exactly what she was told.’
The problem was that her definition of ‘exactly what she was told’ was a little broader than everyone else’s.
When she was told to wash the dishes until they were spotless, she scraped away at specks so tiny an ordinary person couldn’t even see them and ended up smashing the dishes. When she was told to chop the ingredients as finely as possible, she minced them until they were as fine as strands of hair. And when she was told to keep a close eye on the fritters** to make sure they didn’t burn, she had simply kept watching them.
Right, Yu Iseol had done nothing wrong. She simply wasn’t accustomed to the peculiar culture of the kitchen, where you were expected to ‘use your own judgment and get it about right.’
‘Those people are the ones at fault. It’s not that Sago is too rigid in her thinking.’
If someone who did exactly as they were told couldn’t do the job, then the person giving the instructions had given them poorly. Wasn’t that only natural?
So, for now…
“Hey. If you don’t have anything to do, come help me with this.”
“Yes.”
Yu Iseol approached the person who had called her without the slightest hesitation.
“I’m going to pound this meat to make it tender. You can handle this much, right?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll have to pound it pretty hard. This meat is tough.”
“How hard?”
“Hm? Don’t worry about that. Just pound it with all your might.”
“Yes.”
“All right, I’m counting on you.”
Yu Iseol gripped the club.
“Ah…”
Tang Soso was about to say something at the sight, but one look at Yu Iseol’s dead-serious expression made her turn away.
‘Where did they keep the extra meat?’
Unless they were planning on making meat porridge, she’d better go fetch some in advance.
________
*In English the closest one would be ‘to judge a book by its cover.’ Chung Myung substituted 취인 with 취업 which made it sound like to judge someone by their employment.
**전 is a korean ‘pancake,’ usually savory. It is a mix of chopped ingredients of choice, coated in flour and egg.
________
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