WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Chapter 100: Camellia Heavenly Horse (1)

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Han's Myriad Commerce opened two restaurants in Chuncheon.

The first was Han's Chicken.

It stood along a street frequented by the wealthy, but it opened as a takeout-only shop with no dining hall.

'Good locations are small and expensive. Preparing ingredients is work enough, and then there's setting tables, cleaning, and washing dishes.'

So they stripped all that away and focused on the essentials.

Every evening, gentlemen and errand boys formed a long line outside before hurrying away with packages tucked under their arms. The sight itself became an advertisement.

'It's a shame we can't sell alcohol, but... you have to let some things go.'

They could sell alcohol elsewhere.

Then there was Han's Dakgalbi.

It was easy to reach but quiet, which meant the land was still cheap. They opened a spacious restaurant on that prime plot that would one day stand before Chuncheon Station.

The large kitchen sat in the center, with entrances on every side to streamline the flow of work. It mainly served families and large groups.

Both businesses did well.

They did so well that Chuk Hong-cheol was frightened.

"Our daily oil costs are 3 won. Flour, eggs, seasonings, everything else comes to another 3 or 4 won. That's about 250 won a month.

"We're buying chickens from old man Gye Myeong-ung for 50 jeon each. Then we sell fried chicken for 2 won and seasoned chicken for 2 and a half. We're selling fifty of each a day right now, so that's 225 won in daily sales. Take out the chicken cost, and that's 175 won.

"Then in a month... after all the expenses, the chicken shop alone makes 5,000 won?

"S-Sajang, is my math right?"

"Ah, Chief. It'd be wonderful if it were, but of course it isn't."

Han San snickered as he wrung a chicken's neck. "Cluck!" He stripped away its feathers as though undressing it and continued.

"There's no way business will stay this steady. Everyone who wants to try it will eat it once, then sales will start dropping fast."

Chuk Hong-cheol wrung another chicken's neck. "Cluck-cluck!" The chickens' final cries rang out in a jumble.

"Even if it drops straight to half, that's still 2,500 won, isn't it?"

In this era, ingredients were generally slaughtered or prepared ahead of time only in the quantity needed for that day, right before opening. Chickens especially were supposed to be kept alive until the day they were served.

If Han San had not been a hunter, and if the Chuk Brothers had not come from the butcher class, even preparing a day's ingredients would have been absurdly difficult.

"There's labor costs, including ours. Firewood too. Firewood will get more expensive as winter comes, and oil will be the same. We're placing regular orders for wrapping paper and all that. Above all, Chuncheon taxes aren't as loose as they are in Inje.

"Wouldn't the average monthly profit come to around 1,000 won? So maybe 2,000 won a month for both shops together?"

Chuk Hong-cheol caught his breath. At least that was a number he could understand.

Even so, it was still an enormous sum.

"Is the Inje-Sokcho market tiny, or is the Chuncheon market huge? We only opened two restaurants, but aren't we already making as much as all the businesses we ran before coming to Chuncheon? And in just one month."

"When the market gets bigger, the profits get bigger too."

"If I'd known this would happen, I should've come sooner."

"Not quite. When the profits get bigger, so do the risks. If we hadn't laid a solid foundation before coming here, the moment one thing went wrong, it could wipe us all out. We couldn't have handled the initial costs either.

"Don't you remember how much it cost to build these two shops? Materials, construction, labor, permits... Almost every last bit of our share of the proceeds from that month of trial sales at Blue-Gold Pavilion went into them."

It was like how, in a wuxia novel, one had to build a strong foundation before they could properly unleash sword aura.

Inner force built up with nothing but elixir pills was like a castle in the air. Before the sword aura of a true peak master, it would scatter in every direction...

'To think there isn't anyone in this land yet who can understand such a perfect analogy.'

Han San felt a little lonely. Was this the loneliness of a master?

In any case.

Han's Myriad Commerce was raking in money.

At this rate, they might have 2,000 won for the Meokbawi Valley construction as pure surplus money this month, without even having to wait until the end of the year.

'Seems it's about time I met Miss Ayame.'

Han San remembered what Ayame had said.

She had promised to arrange for them to rent a rock drill and skilled workers from the Hongcheon Sorim Mine as a package deal.

'In return, she asked me to help with some personal reporting.'

She had not said what the personal reporting would be about, but he could ask when they met.

Three days later, on November 7, 1933, the initial frenzy after opening had settled somewhat, and they finally had a little breathing room.

Han San and Hajama Ayame sat across from each other at an inner table in Han's Dakgalbi.

"Hmph."

As always, Ayame wore a newsboy cap and glasses. Unlike usual, both her cheeks were puffed up a little.

"Hmph. Hmph. Hmph..."

She kept poking at the rice cakes stir-fried with the dakgalbi, tap, tap, with her chopsticks. Han San watched her with a look that asked what on earth was wrong, then spoke.

"Um... Miss, did something happen...?"

"That holiday."

Ayame pressed down hard on a rice cake.

"You didn't invite me."

"Pardon?"

Han San blinked.

Ayame tipped her head back slightly as she looked at him.

"I heard from Uncle. You spent the holiday together in your village. You held a feast, performed ancestral rites, and took photographs."

"Ah... well, Miss."

Han San scratched the back of his head.

He had wondered whether to invite her, and she had even crossed his mind briefly when he stood before the ancestral table.

But...

"It just seemed strange to tell someone like you to come all the way to a slash-and-burn settlers' village in the middle of nowhere..."

Ayame tipped her head back a little further.

"You invited Uncle."

"He's a grown man."

"I'm older than you too."

"No..."

The seventy-four-year-old man rarely found himself so flustered. It was frustrating.

"The... roads are rough too."

"I'm a journalist. The first time San-kun and I met was when I went all the way to the gorge valley by your village."

"That's true, but..."

"Uncle took pictures with San-kun, ate food, heard amusing jokes, and enjoyed the local culture. I attended a dull party with a senior coworker and people from the Maeil Sinbo, where all they talked about was Cheorwon and whatever else. Hmph."

Ayame leaned her head back further and further as she pressed down on the rice cakes. Han San felt as though he were dealing with Bada during his teenage years in his previous life.

'I thought she was a quiet, gentle young lady...'

As he saw this side of her, throwing this sort of tantrum too, a question suddenly crossed his mind.

'What kind of life did this young lady have in my previous life?'

She was a Japanese young lady from a rich family, so perhaps she met a good young man, married, and lived happily?

'But the Japanese Empire fell...'

At least the Hajama family had been a settler family that had put down roots in Busan and possessed considerable wealth.

They probably had not been caught in air raids.

'What about after liberation?'

The chaotic period right after liberation had been harsh even for Koreans. How had that chaos come to a settler family that possessed such wealth?

Had they returned to Japan?

Had they remained in Busan?

And if they had stayed, what happened to them during the Korean War?

'I'm certain there was no Hajama family in this land during the military dictatorship.'

Han San scratched the back of his head as he recalled that his younger brother, Teacher Han Bada, had bought Hajama Fusataro's Dongnae villa and used it as a ryotei.

'Speaking of that Dongnae villa, why was there also...'

A slightly sulky, idealistic young journalist sat before him.

And in the secret storeroom beneath the mulberry field at that old man's villa, they had found a mountain of dynamite.

Han San could not begin to guess what lay between those two things.

There were too many demons in this land's modern history.

'Whew.'

Han San shook off his thoughts and lowered his head obediently.

"I'm sorry. If another chance comes up, and you're nearby on a business trip like now, I'll definitely invite you."

Ayame's deeply tilted head cocked to one side.

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

"Okay!"

Only then did Ayame pick up a rice cake and bring it to her mouth.

She chewed it, and both her eyes widened until they filled her glasses. After that, she became a machine that steadily carried chicken, potatoes, and rice cakes into her mouth.

She ate so quickly that it was as though she had forgotten all about being upset. As Han San watched the young woman eat well, he took out a bundle of manuscripts from his clothes to change the subject.

"By the way, Miss. Does Busan Daily have something like a spring literary contest? I know it isn't spring right now."

"A spring literary contest?"

"I know a young literary fellow who's writing a novel. Would you like to read it?"

It was the manuscript he had received when he went to settle the bill of exchange with old man Gye Myeong-ung.

Ayame took it with an interested expression.

* * *

[The Camellia Heavenly Demon]

Today, another disciple of our Mount Zhongnan Sect was being chased. It was when I came out after lunch to practice breathing and meditation. I was about to head up the mountain when cries of "Ow, ow!" broke out loudly behind me.

Startled, I turned around and, sure enough, two scoundrels were at it again.

"Ha ha ha! Take my White Horse Divine Sword, you hypocritical lackey of the orthodox sects!"

A follower of Jeomsoon's Heavenly Demon Cult, a fellow with a big head and a sturdy, badger-like build, was bullying one of our smaller disciples.

And he was not simply beating him. He showed off with profound footwork as he thoroughly thrashed him. Every time our ugly disciple was hit, all he could do was cry, "Kik! Kik!"

Of course, his chest had not even healed yet, but it was cut again, and fresh red blood dripped down.

"You fiends of the demonic path...!"

As I watched, my heart felt as though it were bursting and bleeding, and fire flashed in my eyes. I almost unleashed sword aura and hacked Jeomsoon's follower into a thousand pieces, but changed my mind and only separated them with a gust from my blade.

Jeomsoon must have started this fight again. I don't know why that girl, the saintess of the Heavenly Demon Cult, has lately been snarling as though she can't stand our Mount Zhongnan Sect...

* * *

Hajama Ayame quickly read through roughly fifty manuscript pages, then blinked.

"It's interesting!"

"Right?"

A female Heavenly Demon!

The last ten years of Han San's old age, the 1980s, had been the golden age of comic-book rental shops.

They occupied spacious basements where the rent was cheap. You went down cramped stairs and opened a door made of some unknown metal, perhaps aluminum or brass. Inside, worn leather sofas soaked in cigarette smoke welcomed you.

And every shelf was packed full of manga.

Lee Hyeon-se, Heo Yeong-man, Park Bong-seong, Lee Jae-hak, Ha Seung-nam...

'I remember a promising newcomer called Hwang Seong too.'

Among those countless manga were wuxia manga, and among them was a whole category that could be called stories about wicked women.

There would be some peerless beauty who was a demon of the martial world. She deceived the protagonist, poisoned him, threw him off a cliff, stabbed him in the back, stole a secret manual and ran away, stole a spiritual medicine and ran away, then declared that she would marry another man...

After receiving that complete betrayal gift set over the first two volumes, the protagonist would grit his teeth and set off to take revenge on the wicked woman...

There were plenty of manga that went on for ten volumes, twenty volumes, on that premise alone!

'It's 1933 now. The Camellia Heavenly Demon can truly be called a work more than fifty years ahead of its time.'

This was what a proper young literary man looked like. It was simply on another level from that frustrating, stifling drama called Spring, Spring or whatever that he had read in his previous life.

'No. That drama could become a wicked-woman story in no time if it were polished up a little.'

For instance, the protagonist could become the live-in son-in-law of some martial clan.

His father-in-law promised to teach him martial arts, but only made him do menial work. The eldest daughter of the household behaved toward the protagonist in a way he could never understand.

'In the end, the protagonist defeats his father-in-law in a martial duel, but that becomes the beginning of every tragedy...'

As Han San's thoughts swept through the depths of wicked-woman stories, Hajama Ayame gave her analysis.

"But San-kun, wouldn't it be difficult to enter this in a spring literary contest?"

Han San's face immediately fell.

"You think so too?"

"Yes. To begin with, there are too many proper nouns and pieces of background knowledge the reader needs to know."

"Proper nouns and background knowledge..."

"Things like Mount Zhongnan Sect, the Heavenly Demon Cult, and sword aura. Wouldn't first-time readers be confused?"

Han San let out a low groan.

Mount Zhongnan Sect was made up of good people on Mount Zhongnan, the Heavenly Demon Cult was a group of wicked fiends from the demonic path, and sword aura was stronger than sword energy, though some novels used a stage called sword thread. In this uncultured era, people had to have such self-evident truths explained to them.

"Also, this doesn't seem like something written to end as a short story. It feels like the beginning of a novel that will continue for a long time."

"That's true too..."

Han San sighed. Ayame thought for a while, then said, "Our newspaper has been considering expanding its serialized fiction. But that isn't something I can decide on by myself."

Even in future Korea, newspaper serials usually ran for years. It might not be quite that long in this era, but it was still the same kind of long battle.

Even if this young lady's grandfather held some shares in Busan Daily, getting a novel serialized was impossible.

Still, Ayame was well-informed.

"Even if newspaper serialization is difficult."

A wealthy young lady and a female reporter, Ayame was what this era would call a New Woman[1]. She immediately recognized what kind of readers this novel was targeting and what sort of things were popular among them.

"If this author can write enough for one volume, um, at least five hundred sheets of two-hundred-character manuscript paper, wouldn't publishing it be possible?"

Han San was startled.

"Could that really be done!?"

He had experienced this young lady's ability to take action.

Coming from Busan to Gangwon could be explained as a company assignment. Yet just because she was interested, she had taken her uncle's hand and gone all the way to Meokbawi Valley. After interviewing him, had she not immediately rushed to the Chuncheon military police detachment commander?

And now Ayame was saying this.

She was not simply offering the thought that it would be nice to publish it.

She meant she would try to get it published!

"Even if newspaper serialization is difficult, I think I can handle at least one article about a published novel myself."

She would even give it a generous promotion.

He had only slipped the practice work of a young literary fellow he knew to her in order to change the subject, but something... something was happening.

[1] "New Woman" was a colonial-era label for educated, socially independent women associated with modern fashion, paid work, and changing gender roles.

Footnotes:

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