The Regressed Gangwon Hunter Makes a Fortune in 1933 - Chapter 121

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

Chapter 121: We Must Win (2)

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"My, my. What a cheeky little rascal you are!"

Gye Myeong-ung laughed heartily as he stroked the box of wild ginseng as though he had been given a treasure.

"Those madmen are raising hell, trying to cut off your source of funds. The whole Chuncheon marketplace is watching with their mouths watering, hoping to see a promising young man stumble and fall. Yet here you are!

You weren't running around looking to borrow money. You were out selling treasure!"

"Sir."

Han San grinned.

"The next time those bastards offer you 50 won to stop lending me money, just take it."

"No, really?"

"Yes. Why turn down free money from suckers? If something like this happens again, I'll be able to get through it on my own."

Gye Myeong-ung slapped his knee at the young man's confidence.

"Ha! But taking that money means joining in when they throw stones at you..."

"I'm telling you I'm fine with it."

Of course.

There would be a vast difference in how Han San treated people like Gye Myeong-ung, who accepted the money only after he told them to, and those who eagerly took it without a word from him.

Gye Myeong-ung smiled so broadly that every wrinkle vanished from his face. He set the exhausted pet chicken down beside him, then spoke as though plotting treason.

"Still, simply taking it won't do... Han San, how about this?"

"Yes?"

"From now on, if someone comes around telling me not to lend you money, I'll haggle and raise the price. Instead of 50 won, I'll ask for 100.

Then you and I split the money down the middle.

Isn't this the true way to get free money from suckers?"

Han San couldn't help but be impressed.

"Wow! Sir, you're not a great elder of the Kaesong Merchants' Fellowship for nothing!"

Gye Myeong-ung laughed heartily.

"People's memories aren't reliable, are they? Even when both sides make something perfectly clear, time passes and things tend to become fuzzy. If we make an agreement like this and take the money, there won't be any hard feelings later."

"Sounds great! I look forward to working with you, sir!"

"The pleasure is mine!"

They clasped hands firmly in midair. The wrinkled hand took the wild ginseng box, while the firm young hand took the cash.

Meanwhile, a grim air hung over the offices of Han's Myriad Commerce.

"Let's have the executives return their salaries!"

It was Chuk Jae-seok.

"We've been too busy doing business to spend money anyway, haven't we? We've all been saving it up. If we pool that, then scrape together every last bit we can, couldn't we come up with the 930 won needed to cover these promissory notes?"

Im Baechil was the first to agree.

"R-right, Senior Jae-seok...! I-I'll hand over all the money I've saved...!"

The Chuk Brothers didn't fall behind.

"Money is nothing but a tool of capitalism! People matter more! Where else could you find a sajang like ours?"

"Though the wordplay's fucking awful!"

"Our sajang is young, too!"

"Though the wordplay's fucking awful!!"

"That younger brother, no, he's practically young enough to be our nephew, and he's trying this hard. How can we hold back?"

"Though the wordplay's fucking awful!!!"

What would this world become if a young man like their sajang gained real power and money as an adult?

The former Hyeongpyeongsa members, now executives of Han's Myriad Commerce, had been discriminated against for belonging to the butcher class. Some had thrown themselves into social activism to break that discrimination, while others had done so because they couldn't stand to watch it continue.

They wanted to see such a world. They wanted to live in one.

Even if it would be a world with fucking awful wordplay.

"All right! Then let's gather up the money we have, leaving out only our living expenses..."

"What money are you gathering?"

Han San returned to the offices of Han's Myriad Commerce just as the campaign to save their sajang was in full swing.

Leader Chuk Hong-cheol clenched his fist.

"Sajang! Don't worry. We'll somehow..."

Once Han San heard what had happened, he was dumbfounded, touched, and a little sorry for them all at once. He could only scratch the back of his head.

"Oh, come on, you people... I told you there was no need for that..."

"No need? If we can't cover the promissory notes..."

"I brought the money to cover them."

Han San dropped three 100-won bills and seventy 10-won bills onto the table covered in promissory notes with a thump.

For a moment, the Han's Myriad Commerce executives failed to understand. Then they all erupted.

"What!? H-how!?"

"Already!? You've been gone for only a few hours. How did you get this money...!?"

Han San puffed out his chest proudly.

"Isn't getting money when we need it the sajang's job?"

As he had thought when he dug up the wild ginseng he had sent to Kim Yu-jeong, if he had spent most of his life as a hunter in the Gangwon mountains until he was seventy-four, yet didn't know where wild ginseng grew, then what had been the point of regressing? What good was his improved memory?

The emergency reserve of wild ginseng he had dug up before the first snow fell had now proven its worth.

"The sajang really had a plan all along..."

"You surprise us every time. Successful people really are different."

"Though the wordplay's fucking awful, of course!"

Han San accepted the employees' amazed remarks with a smile. As usual, he naturally filtered out the strange comment mixed in at the end.

What mattered more was settling the accounts.

"All right, all right. Tell the businesses that brought their promissory notes to come in one at a time. There's a good chance we won't be sharing a table with them anymore, so let's take one last good look at their faces."

An hour later, the offices of Myo's Myriad Commerce were thrown into chaos.

Baekbaekgyo's second-in-command, do-yusa Yi Gyeong-deuk, glared with bulging eyes.

"What!? They found the money!?"

"Th-that is... There is a man named Gye Myeong-ung who controls the chicken coops around here... He supplies chickens exclusively to Han's Myriad Commerce. They say Han San went to that old man's house and came back with money!"

"You son of a bitch!"

Yi Gyeong-deuk slammed his fist against the floor.

"Hey! You Myo bastard! We've already spent over 6,000 won today trying to cut off those bastards' funds! And it just failed like this!?"

"Heh."

Yet Myo San folded his handkerchief and snorted.

"Not yet!"

"What!?"

"That old man Gye Myeong-ung refused even the 50 won we offered him. From the beginning, I expected Han San to somehow raise money from a few prime business partners like him."

This was where a merchant's 【standing】 was decided.

Did they understand that loyalty, affection, and trust were resources that could be turned into something tangible, even if they couldn't be seen?

Myo San was a merchant who understood that principle.

Which was why...

"There is a limit."

Resources disappeared the more they were used.

"It's the same principle as a gambling den. The first debt can be repaid by the family. But what about the second debt? The third and fourth? At that point, people inevitably decide they'd rather all die together.

Even if, at first, they think they can repay a debt their precious child incurred, that as long as the child lives, it'll be enough."

As he spoke, Myo San took out a fresh stack of papers from his clothes.

They were new promissory notes.

"They total 1,100 won."

Yi Gyeong-deuk froze. The white-clothed employees stared at Myo San with goosebumps rising on their skin.

Myo San smiled.

"In one week, at the same time on the same day, we'll put these in front of them again. Until then, we'll keep their flow of money blocked."

Yi Gyeong-deuk had felt a flicker of relief at Myo San's claim that he had another move, but he jumped up again.

"Y-you're blocking them for another week!?

Hey! Hey, you Myo bastard! That'll cost us another 20,000 won!?"

"It's necessary."

Myo San spun the handkerchief in his hand, his narrowed eyes glinting.

"Emergency money is a bucket, not a well. Han San is finished this time."

A week later.

"Old man Gye Myeong-ung introduced me to you. I hear you really wanted to try some heaven-seeded ginseng? This one is eighty-nine years old. Ah, I hope it meets your standards..."

"Gaaah!!"

Click.

1,300 won.

"Hey! They covered it again!"

"C-calm down, Do-yusa! Now! This time, they've really reached their limit!

This money, uh, this money probably came from Hajama! I mean, that bastard Han San has been sticking close to the female reporter from the Busan Daily who came here on assignment! He must have borrowed it from that rich family's daughter!

But how much money could a woman raise here, instead of Busan? Their resources have finally run dry!"

"I-is that true!? Is that really true!?"

"It's true! One week! We just need to block them for exactly one more week! They say third time's the charm..."

"You bastard!"

Yi Gyeong-deuk hurled the kimchi he had been grinding between his teeth at Myo San, who had laid out those damned Han's Myriad Commerce promissory notes again.

"Another week!? Then it'll cost another 30,000 won! The cost keeps growing every day!

Someone leaked word that we're scattering money around, and now all of Chuncheon knows! Everyone's opening their mouths wide and trying to negotiate so they can squeeze out even a few more won from us!"

"That's exactly what I'm saying, damn it!!"

Myo San shouted back. The kimchi that hit him slid down the smooth cheek polished by his handkerchief.

"We've already spent 30,000 won so far! What's the difference between 30,000 and 60,000!?"

"How are they the same, you bastard!? It's twice as much!"

"They are the same! If we stop here, we've thrown away 30,000 won. But if we put in more and win! We'll recover every last bit and still have change left over! We'll eat up all the pie those bastards have been eating!"

If they stopped now, the money they had already spent would be wasted.

The same gambling-den logic now applied to the Baekbaekgyo lot.

Another 30,000 won of the cult's money was poured in.

A week later.

"Old man Gye Myeong-ung and Dr. Kim introduced me to you. You're Fujii Kantaro, aren't you? You have a farm in Cheorwon as well.

I think I caught a glimpse of you at the Soyang Bridge completion ceremony last time, but now I can properly greet you.

I heard you were interested in Korean heaven-seeded ginseng. If this eighty-one-year-old root suits you..."

"Whaaat!?"

Click.

1,100 won.

"T-they covered this batch of promissory notes too..."

All color had drained from Yi Gyeong-deuk's face.

"The money left in Mun Bong-jo's organization... We spent that long ago... After that, we started using my organization's money... And now... Even my organization's money..."

Yi Gyeong-deuk dropped onto all fours.

His cheeks puffed up with grief and injustice, while large tears streamed from his sparkling eyes.

"Sixty thousand won... After spending 60,000 won and making fools of ourselves, all we got... was giving those bastards three acupuncture treatments...? Gently blowing on the needles so they wouldn't even sting..."

"Mm."

At that moment.

Yi Gyeong-deuk had lost his mind, but Myo San had become calmer instead.

Yes, they had failed.

60,000 won was gone, and it had done nothing.

So what?

What did that have to do with him?

'Did my money vanish? No, it was that fucking Yi Gyeong-deuk's money.'

Of course, if he ever succeeded in getting rid of Yi Gyeong-deuk, all that money would have become Lord Yeongchunsa Myo's personal property. By that measure, it was truly a tremendous loss.

Still, Myo San had no choice but to remain calm for one reason.

'Look at that fucking bastard Yi Gyeong-deuk's eyes...'

Yi Gyeong-deuk wasn't calm.

How much was 60,000 won, after all?

For quick reference, the Soyang Bridge, whose completion had been celebrated by Gangwon's leading figures, including the governor, and for which congratulatory flower wreaths had arrived from across the peninsula, had cost a total of 240,000 won to construct.

60,000 won was exactly one-quarter of that.

One-quarter of the Soyang Bridge, a fortune that could have left its mark on this peninsula if it had been spent on anything other than cutting off Han's Myriad Commerce's money supply, had melted away in just two weeks!

"Myo bastard..."

Yi Gyeong-deuk slowly lifted his head and looked at him. Myo San quietly stared back.

Beyond those eyes, which almost looked dewy and sweet at a glance, blood vessels were slowly appearing. Didn't they look like the eyes of someone who would rush at him, chop him into pieces, and sell him to a butcher shop?

Before a madman, the one who went mad alongside him died first. Myo San had learned that principle throughout his life of hopping from host to host.

"Heh."

So Myo San raised his chin high and folded his arms.

Then he shouted like thunder.

"Not yet!!"

Yi Gyeong-deuk, still on all fours and gathering momentum as though he might leap at him at any second, hesitated.

"It's not over yet, Do-yusa! We still have one last chance to turn it around!"

"Turn it around...? What kind of turnaround...?"

Yi Gyeong-deuk repeatedly reached out as though to choke Myo San, then pulled his hand back.

"We gave those bastards three shots! We built up their health three times! We're acting like some genius acupuncturist at a station front. What kind of turnaround is there!?"

Myo San furrowed his brow, then relaxed it.

The phrase "station front" irritated him because it was redundant. And the fact that he could notice that redundancy proved he was still calm.

"The holiday gift market! Do you remember!?"

"The holiday gift market...?"

"Yes! The third strategy! Didn't I tell you that if we took control of the Lunar New Year season, we'd turn this around in one stroke!?"

Myo San fired off words at random to seize the initiative, then drove home his point.

"We only need to take that holiday gift market! I can take it, Do-yusa!

If I lose after coming this far, then those 60,000 won really will have been money thrown away for nothing!"

"...!!"

Yi Gyeong-deuk ground his teeth.

Because the money they had already spent was too precious, Yi Gyeong-deuk couldn't send Myo San to the [New World].

The bloodshot eyes of Yi Gyeong-deuk turned sparkly again.

"This time... This time we really win, right? We aren't... going to lose, are we?"

"We will win!"

With that declaration of victory, made without the slightest hesitation, Myo San stood with one hand on his chin!!! It was a pose that radiated towering intelligence.

"If those bastards bring out something shabby! We'll crush them with Myo's Lucky Box.

If they bring out something good! We'll copy it, improve on it, and get ahead of them.

In this holiday gift market! There is no way to fail, even if we want to fail!"

It was then.

"Do-yusa! Lord Yeongchunsa!"

A white-clothed employee kicked open the door and rushed in.

"Han's Myriad Commerce's Lunar New Year gift set has arrived!"

"Oh! It's here!" Myo San clapped his hands. "Bring it in! Open it! Let us put our Do-yusa at ease!"

"Yes!"

The wrapping cloth was undone, and the gift box opened.

In that instant.

A dazzling radiance burst from inside the box, a bright yellow light as though a golden chest had been thrown open.