WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 120: We Must Win (1)
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January 2, 1934.
After resting on New Year's Day, Han's Myriad Commerce reopened. Myo's Myriad Commerce, which had not taken even that one day off, was already open.
The battle for Chuncheon commerce resumed.
The situation was, in a manner of speaking, a race between Achilles and a tortoise.
Except Achilles was the one in front.
Whenever the tortoise crawled frantically forward, trying to lick the white-stockinged heel of Achilles, Greek mythology's proud pretty boy in drag, Achilles had already leaped another step ahead. When the tortoise crawled forward again, he moved just that much farther ahead once more.
“Han's Dakgalbi is serving pollock chicken porridge starting today! Drinkers! Come have a refreshing bowl and cure that hangover before you go!”
“You can take it home and heat it up, too! It doesn't smell fishy at all!”
Even after the pollock flesh was sold, the heads and bones remained. Boiled with the chicken bones from the dakgalbi, they made a refreshing broth without wasting a thing.
On the other hand.
“Damn it! Smelt is eaten whole, so there's nothing left over!”
“Should we make it with chicken bones alone for now?”
“No! That would just be an inferior imitation! Find out whether there's anywhere we can still get pollock!”
Myo San gritted his teeth and held on.
Still, there was one silver lining.
Whenever he needed a crucial component to keep up right away, suppliers that could resolve the bottleneck would strangely appear of their own accord!
“You really want to buy this at exactly this price?”
“Me too! I'll sell it too!”
“The song of the gullible cat echoes through Chuncheon...!!”
Having barely carried out the sajang's orders and caught his breath, the white-clad employee tilted his head.
“Why does that bundle peddler keep singing in the middle of doing business?”
“How would I know? Maybe it's some local custom.”
The prices were all awful, yet not so high that he couldn't pay them. So Myo San bared his teeth and paid anyway.
Days passed.
January 22, 1934.
The day Lee Jae-yu, head of the Gyeongseong Troika[1], was arrested, it was finally time for Myo San's second scheme to be put into motion.
“You're certain?”
“Yes! The information from that fake priest, Father Cho, matches the market intelligence perfectly. This is exactly when they're short on cash!”
“Good! Let's go!”
Myo San sprang from his seat with his close aides.
Han's Myriad Commerce's Chuncheon office.
“Sajang! We have a problem!”
“The promissory notes, all of a sudden...!”
The office was in an uproar.
Promissory notes that had begun arriving that morning lay spread across the desks. The issuers were businesses all over Chuncheon, flour merchants, oil merchants, sugar merchants, and more, but their payment dates were all the same, as if arranged beforehand.
The very next day.
Their combined face value was 930 won.
Normally, it would have been an amount they could laugh at.
The problem was that they were short on cash at exactly that moment.
“I-I'm sorry, Sajang! I should've paid closer attention...”
Chuk Jae-seok, the Intelli-Red acting as vice president, bowed with a pale face. The other executives all looked grim as well.
Only one person.
Han San lightly waved a hand.
“This isn't your fault, Uncle Jae-seok. The cash went where it needed to go. Payment for the pollock fishermen. Hong Kong merchandise. Operating expenses for the orphanage.”
“Still, the dates on these notes...”
“That's true. Different shops' due dates are usually spaced two or three days apart. This many dates lining up doesn't look like a coincidence.”
He could guess what had happened.
‘Someone must've sweet-talked our business partners into matching their payment dates. Our employees who visit those business partners probably wouldn't have noticed something like that.
I should replace all our business partners one of these days.’
At the same time, he was impressed.
‘They timed it perfectly for when we'd run out of cash. That lucky-cat bastard has some skill.’
He wanted him more and more.
While the sajang was lost in thought, the vice president was burning up inside.
“L-let's raise cash first! Borrow money... even if we have to put our freight carts up as collateral! Or sell off some shares in the shops...”
That was when it happened.
“S-Sajang! Something's wrong!”
Chuk Jun-ha rushed in, gasping for breath.
“There's not a single place willing to lend us money!”
Chuk Jae-seok jolted.
“What!? Jun-ha hyung, what do you mean...?”
“Our business partners and everyone else! Even the damn daily-loan lenders around Chuncheon! The people who usually bowed the moment they saw us are all avoiding our eyes! Even when we offer collateral! D-does this make any sense!?”
Of course it didn't.
If something that made no sense was happening, that meant someone had made it make sense.
And that person was shouting at the top of his lungs.
“I don't care how much it costs! Approach every place that might lend money to Han's Myriad Commerce! Tell them we'll give them money for free if they refuse to lend to Han's! Ten won! Twenty won! If they look like a big lender, give them fifty won for free if you have to!”
“Yeongchunsa Myo, the money we've handed out is already approaching 6,000 won...”
The white-clad employees of Myo's Myriad Commerce were as pale as the Chuk Brothers of Han's Myriad Commerce.
When something impossible was happening, someone had made it possible, and that meant that person was doing something insane!
Six thousand won!
The wolf bounty that had turned the whole Inje area upside down had been 300 won. More than twenty times that amount was now being scattered around under the pretext of telling people, [Don't lend money to so-and-so.]
This was a pure sunk cost. It wasn't money lent out, but money simply given away, so it couldn't be recovered.
And Chuncheon was enormous.
For now, they were only blocking places close to Han's Myriad Commerce, so it was still costing them a relatively small amount, 6,000 won! But once they went even one step farther out, the money required to cut off cash sources would literally increase exponentially.
Seated in the warmest part of the room, Yi Gyeong-deuk felt as though he could barely breathe.
“Fuck, my money...!”
Strictly speaking, it was money left over from Mun Bong-jo's organization, but it was his money now!
“It's all right, Do-yusa!”
Myo San crisply folded his handkerchief.
“The moment the sun rises tomorrow, Han's Myriad Commerce will be as good as closed!”
“Really!? It's really going to happen because they can't cover a measly 930 won!?”
“Not 930 won, the promissory notes. As I told you before, even one note going unpaid will destroy their credit. What madman would try to cross a collapsed bridge? This is the pinnacle of acupuncture!”
Myo San was brimming with confidence.
At the same time.
A conversation was taking place at the Blue-Gold Pavilion.
“Big sis. Can you help a little?”
Kim Mal-ja, who had come up to Chuncheon to offer New Year greetings before the Lunar New Year rush, asked without preamble.
Kim Seong-ja rested her chin on her hand and gave a soft, amused hum.
“You said you owned a twenty-five percent share. Looks like you're getting desperate, little sis.”
Kim Mal-ja didn't even blink.
“Of course I am. Aren't you? It's our family's share too.”
“Oh, come on. You're no fun. Shouldn't you be blushing and saying, ‘I-It's not like I'm doing this just because I own shares!’ while fiddling with your hairpin and thinking about San?”
“Fuck off.”
“You really have no cute side. Good thing Taeyang is at least a little cute. He should've been the younger sister...”
Kim Mal-ja only frowned. The hairpins on either side of her head jutted out like owl feathers, like extensions of her eyebrows.
Kim Seong-ja sighed deeply, then held up one finger.
“Anyway, I already made a move, you know?”
Kim Mal-ja's face brightened.
“Really!? Good. How much did you lend him?”
“Lend him? I said I'd provide the money if he gave me a bit of his shares. But...”
“But? What?”
“He turned me down.”
“What!?”
Kim Mal-ja was startled. He had refused a capital infusion in this situation!?
Yet Kim Seong-ja looked relaxed.
“Hm. Doesn't that mean he has a plan? He's not the type to sacrifice practical gain just to protect his pride.”
“What kind of plan could he have? Some lunatics are pouring thousands of won into trying to kill him! This isn't an ordinary situation!”
“Who knows?”
Kim Seong-ja tapped the tabletop with her fingertips.
“In old stories, there were usually one of two ways things went. Either some distinguished benefactor suddenly appeared from nowhere and funded everything, or the common people who had received favors collected pennies and brought them over. But.”
Kim Seong-ja's fingers tapping the table became noticeably more cheerful.
“The distinguished benefactor, me, got turned down. And the common people, hm? Little sis, is the world really such a beautiful place?”
“No.”
“Right? The world isn't an old story. Especially young people these days would hear an old story like that and say, ‘Ah, this is so cringe I'm dying. Try adding some realism,’ before throwing potatoes at it... So it makes me curious.”
Kim Seong-ja hunched over. Her outline rounded like that of a crouching owl, and both her eyes gleamed.
“Because he would never choose some predictable solution like that. He'd find the answer somewhere completely different.”
More than that—
“I think he'd smash the whole board so thoroughly that no one would even dare try reusing a scheme like this.”
Kim Mal-ja blinked.
“How?”
“That's what I'm wondering...”
Kim Seong-ja pressed her fingertips together before her lips.
“What could his method be...?”
Around that time, at Han's Myriad Commerce's office.
“I'll be back.”
Han San rose while wrapping a scarf around his neck. His tone was as light as if he were going for a stroll.
“S-Sajang! Where are you going?”
“To get money. I'll be back by evening.”
Once the sajang walked out, fire lit in the eyes of the employees who remained.
“W-we can't just sit around either...! Seniors...!”
“Right, rookie! Well said! Let's visit everyone we know first!”
The employees of Han's Myriad Commerce ran until their feet wore out.
But Chuncheon, Gangwon's grand eldest daughter, and its people were just as cold to me as ever. The familiar faces in Inje and Sokcho were warmhearted, but with the Lunar New Year rush approaching, they were short on cash as well.
While the red warriors who had once fought for Hyeongpyeongsa poured their loyalty to the company into the search, the sajang himself, who had turned them into such obedient employees, arrived at the tiled house of Gye Myeong-ung, Chuncheon's chicken elder, on the outskirts of the city.
The chicken elder, one of Chuncheon's wealthiest men, spoke as soon as he saw Han San.
“I'll be honest with you.”
Gye Myeong-ung sat on a silk cushion, stroking a pet chicken as he spoke.
“Yesterday, someone came by. They said they'd give me fifty won, no questions asked, if I refused to lend you money.”
“Oh.”
Han San found it amusing.
“Did you take it?”
“Of course not. What could I do with a measly fifty won? The money I make from continuing to trade with you is far greater.”
A group bound by profit was solid for that very reason, but Han San felt a small measure of gratitude for that loyalty.
Gye Myeong-ung wasn't done, though.
“But, Sajang Han. It isn't hard for me to lend you however much you need today. It isn't. But will that solve it? These people are scattering this much cash across all of Chuncheon. Looks like you've gotten yourself bitten by someone truly vicious.”
It didn't seem like a fight that would end after blocking this one attack.
“Next time. And the time after that. Will you come to this old man every time the same thing happens?”
Human kindness, trust, and loyalty were resources too, even if they were invisible and still measurable.
Filling a gap once and filling it over and over were completely different matters.
In other words.
“This is a kind of trial.”
Would he hurriedly patch up the crisis in front of him, or come up with a plan himself and overturn the board?
The answer would determine the [standing] of Han San as a merchant.
And naturally, Han San had an answer. The seventy-four-year-old man firmly believed that only action could move this world, and that action had to be his own, not anyone else's.
He grinned.
“Come now, Elder. Do you think I came here to borrow money?”
Gye Myeong-ung's eyes widened.
“Huh? Then why are you here...?”
“I came to sell.”
Han San pulled a paulownia box from his coat and set it down.
He opened the lid.
The scent of the mountains burst forth. The pet chicken, which had gone soft and flat like a rice cake under Gye Myeong-ung's caresses, sprang upright.
Inside the box.
A wild ginseng root the size of a child's forearm lay there.
“Gasp...!”
Without thinking, Gye Myeong-ung yanked out the neck feathers of the chicken he had been stroking.
“Clu-clu-clu-cluck!”
As owner and pet chicken shrieked together, Han San scratched the back of his head with an utterly humble expression.
“You told me when we first met, Elder. You said that if I ever dug up good wild ginseng, I should be sure to come see you.”
“I did! I definitely said that!”
Gye Myeong-ung nodded so fast it seemed to leave afterimages.
Han San smiled and stroked the paulownia box.
“It's eighty years old.”
“Eighty years!”
“Of course, it's heaven-seeded ginseng.”
“Heaven-seeded!”
“I'm looking to sell it for one thousand won.”
“One thousand won!”
“What do you think...?”
“I'll buy it!”
Gye Myeong-ung leaped to his feet.
Pulling the pet chicken's neck with both hands, one toward its head and the other toward its body, he roared.
“I'll buy it, buy it, buy it, buy it, buy it, buy it!! I'll buy it!!!
I'LL! BUY! IT! RIGHT! NOWWWW!!!”
If there had been a purchase button in front of him, he looked ready to mash it like a broody hen unleashing Rolling Thunder.
Han San grinned and slid the box over.
“Thank you, Elder!”
Click.
One thousand won for the wild ginseng came in as a healthy stack of cash.
[1] The Gyeongseong Troika was a clandestine communist organization in colonial Seoul, led by activist Lee Jae-yu and dismantled through mass arrests in January 1934.
Footnotes:
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