WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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Chapter 131: Anti-Imperialist Communist Organization 【Gyeongseong Troika】 (3)
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Just as he had before Chuncheon, Gangwon's eldest daughter, Han San did not lose his confidence before Gyeongseong, Joseon's first princess and a princess of a fallen nation.
Ayame found it fascinating.
“San, have you ever been to Gyeongseong before?”
“No. I just find myself thinking, [Is this all?]”
“Hoo-oo-oomph. I wanted to get a picture of you looking around in surprise... I suppose I'll have to show you Tokyo or New York someday.”
“What were you trying to take a picture of? And whether it's Tokyo or New York, I doubt it'll get beyond [Is this all?].”
“Hoo-oo-oomph.”
As the time-class superior Han San coolly showed off his indifference toward cities, Ayame stuck out her lips and kept huffing.
The lesson was that if you wanted to capture romance, you needed to do it with people, not cities. Han San lacked romance inner force, however, so he failed to learn that lesson.
Fortunately, Han San's child-soothing inner force had reached the Profound Realm. Once he took Ayame to Jongno and fed her Western pastries and Japanese sweets in turns, as though alternating cold liquor and warmed liquor, her protruding lips gradually puckered back in.
“It's delicious!”
“It is. Nice and sweet.”
Han San watched Ayame eat with satisfaction, then rose from his seat.
“Shall we start our schedule, Miss?”
“Yes!”
Their first destination after arriving in the capital was a real masterpiece.
Gyeongseong Military Police Headquarters[1].
Soldiers with fierce light in their eyes, and people dressed in civilian clothes who looked unmistakably like police officers, hurried in and out of the place. Han San strode through the main gate.
“Sorry to disturb you while you're handling state affairs.”
He pulled out the calling card he had received during the Ginsei incident.
“Is Baron Tono here by any chance...?”
He had simply gone straight to Kannoizuna Toono, the Empire's Silver Fox.
“Hello, Baron!”
“Oh! What an unexpected visit, Han San! And Miss Ayame as well!”
For once, Tono's hair and clothes were disheveled. His eyes were somewhat hollow too, perhaps because he had been staying up nights often.
“You seem busy, Baron. If we've come at a bad time...”
“No, no! Since the two of you have come, I should make time.”
“Thank you. This is nothing much, but...”
Han San handed over pastries from Jongno, a special Han's Myriad Commerce gift set of dried pollack, and a complimentary copy of The Camellia Heavenly Demon.
Tono beamed.
“Oh, thank you! I was just in need of something sweet.
“And this is what the Governor was telling me about, dried pollack! Mm-hm, I'll take it home and eat it gratefully. I was in need of protein too.
“And this book is...”
“A martial arts novel. I don't know whether it'll suit your tastes, Baron...”
Though he said that, Han San suspected it would not be far from Tono's tastes. In his previous life, Han Bada had spent plenty of time with Tono, and those interactions had included cultural exchanges.
In short, most of Teacher Han Bada's cultural tastes in his previous life had come from Tono, and they continued even after Tono's death.
‘Berserk is a martial arts manga.’
Whatever the time-class superior's unquestionable genre classification might have been, Tono's eyes sparkled as he quickly flipped through the book.
“A sword chivalry novel! I had heard that it was popular in Busan these days. They say it was published by old man Hajama's company?”
Ayame smiled brightly and continued the conversation.
“Yes, for now. Soon, our own publishing house will be releasing it as well.”
When they told him about establishing a publishing house, Tono looked as delighted as if it were his own matter.
“Aha! Wonderful! Han San and Miss Ayame! A publishing house founded by a young Korean man and a settler girl joining hands. This is precisely the path the Empire ought to take.”
“Hehe...”
Ayame laughed with both hands clasped behind her back.
Since the Soyang Bridge completion ceremony, she had seemed a little wary of Tono. Looking at him now, though, he appeared to be an exceptionally upright baron with a truly discerning eye.
Han San rubbed his hands together.
“But Baron, this publishing business is... Forgive me for saying so, but isn't it a minefield? I'm an ignorant slash-and-burn settler by birth, after all. I don't think I should rush in blindly and invite misunderstandings.
“If there are people you could introduce us to, or things we should watch out for, please tell us anything at all...”
That was right.
Trying to get things done secretly while avoiding the Silver Fox's eyes was the work of amateurs.
The true expert's move was to openly use him as a source of information and connections!
As expected, Tono let out a deep sigh and adjusted his monocle.
“Practical politics. It is tiresome, yet impossible to avoid.
“Han San, Miss Ayame, you did very well to come see me. Gyeongseong has been terribly noisy lately. Just when the Baekbaekgyo[2] investigation was nearing its conclusion, too.
“Let's see, where should I begin...?”
Han San heard directly from a senior official attached to Military Police Headquarters about Gyeongseong's recent circumstances, the people they should contact and avoid, and every sort of precaution.
Naturally, it was not all the information available, but it was enough for him to move around Gyeongseong with confidence.
“Commissioner Choi Nam-seon, of the Korean History Compilation Committee[3]! Yes, carrying this will make it easier to arrange an appointment!”
He even received several handwritten letters of introduction.
Throughout the process, Tono did not show the slightest sign of finding anything strange.
Of course not.
They really were founding a publishing house, and they genuinely needed those letters of introduction. A strategy of ninety-five percent truth and five percent lies remained effective.
“Baron, thank you so much!”
Ayame, who knew nothing, looked sincerely happy. That made for a perfect screen. A young lady shield had been invincible in every age.
Still, Han San's guilt deepened slightly.
‘Once everything is truly over, then I'll definitely...’
Starting the very next day, he went on a pilgrimage through Gyeongseong's literary circles.
Under the excuse of recruiting publishing house staff and meeting prospective writers who might publish books with their company someday, Han San went around meeting everyone in Gyeongseong who could handle a pen.
“Mr. Ch'unwon! It is an honor to meet you like this. I was deeply touched when I saw the flower stand you sent for the Soyang Bridge completion ceremony...”
He began with people the Government-General would approve of, such as Chosun Ilbo vice president Lee Gwang-su and Korean History Compilation Committee member Choi Nam-seon.
“I read the declaration of ideological conversion you wrote early this year! ‘What I gained was ideology, and what I lost was art.’ That line stayed with me...”
Then, as if sounding things out, he met people such as Park Yeong-hui, whom the Government-General might still frown upon a little.
“Hello, Mr. Byeokcho! I've been enjoying Im Kkeok-jeong...”
He also met people with such a red flavor that the Government-General might furrow its brow deeply.
“Mr. Kim Yu-jeong? This is our first time meeting in person. This is dried pollack that I made myself, so try simmering it well. I brought plenty, so please take some to your older sister too...”
Naturally, he met some literary young men who would become pillars of martial arts fiction as well.
And then.
“Only four more places remain now.
“But Miss Aya, the schedule has gone on longer than I expected... They've also sent word from Chuncheon, asking me to come back quickly in case something has gone wrong with the business there.”
“Oh dear. Is it something serious?”
“No, I don't think it's anything major, but I should go back first. I'm terribly sorry.”
“No, no. Hoo-oomph, it's disappointing, but it can't be helped. Go back, San. I'll handle the rest of the schedule...”
“Ah, but I can at least visit one more place tonight. Professor Miyake, was it? I'll stop by his house before I leave.”
That final stop, reached after a high-speed series of left and right sidesteps quick enough to leave afterimages, concealed Han San's true reason for coming to Gyeongseong.
“Then, Miss. I'll see you later in Chuncheon.”
“Yes! Leave the remaining people and the printing-house visits to me!”
After parting with Ayame, Han San clutched the red hood inside his coat and headed for that true destination.
Professor Miyake Shikanosuke's official residence.
It was the house of a red fan who was hiding Lee Jae-yu, the red idol of the age.
Miyake Shikanosuke.
Professor in the Faculty of Law and Literature at Gyeongseong Imperial University[4]. Holder of the Second Chair of public finance.
What was public finance?
It was the study of a country's household affairs.
As his shaggy hair and gentle eyes suggested, Professor Miyake was a diligent scholar. He had remained diligent in his field even after becoming a professor.
At the end of that diligence, he reached a single truth.
“There is something wrong with this economy.”
The better the rice harvests in Joseon became, the more the farmers suffered. Even while rice was clearly in surplus, famine never ceased.
“This cannot continue. Not for the Empire, not for Joseon. Not for the common people, nor those above them! If the base collapses, how can the superstructure remain safe?”
The question he had held since his student days had ripened into certainty now that he had crossed the sea and taught students.
Naturally, the convictions of such a diligent scholar seeped into his lectures.
“Children, don't you smell Marx somewhere around here?”
“That professor teaches well, but...”
Professor Miyake became famous as [a professor with a political leaning].
During the day, he advised the Economic Research Society. At night, he held communist reading groups with his Korean students. There was no way such a double life could continue peacefully.
“Professor. I belong to the Far Eastern Bureau of the Profintern[5], the Red International of Labor Unions, commonly called the Red International...”
A young man with strikingly large eyes came to deliver an invitation.
“Professor, you know. Don't forget that you're a person of the Empire.”
A Special Higher Police[6] inspector who wore his coat loosely, left his beard untrimmed, and always wore a smile around his mouth despite having not a trace of laughter in his eyes, also said that with a hand on Miyake's shoulder.
Even through those increasingly turbulent days, Professor Miyake continued living diligently.
“Yeong-tae, take these and eat them.”
He packed homemade pastries for the young Red International union member.
“Chief Miwa, your tie is crooked.”
He even personally straightened the Special Higher Police inspector's clothes in the middle of campus.
“Professor! Please join the revolution with us!”
“Professor! I can't let this go! Never, ever fall into a strange path, understood!?”
As the professor with political leanings diligently played the role of a likable professor, each day grew more turbulent than the last.
Then one night in April 1934, someone knocked on his door.
“Who could it be at this hour...”
“Professor...!”
When he opened the door, a man in terrible condition stood there.
A handsome face. Blood scabs from torture scattered all over him. Yet despite it all, a fervor blazing like charcoal.
Professor Miyake, the professor with political leanings, naturally knew the man's face.
“Jae-yu!? You...”
For a moment, Professor Miyake could not understand why the young man he had heard was arrested in January was now standing outside his door.
Lee Jae-yu gave him no time to understand.
“Professor!”
Thump!
Lee Jae-yu braced himself against the doorframe. Professor Miyake looked up in surprise and met his eyes through his glasses.
“Professor... Please hide me!”
Those eyes.
His irises were red with the boldness of a revolutionary, and the whites of his eyes were red with the sorrow of someone being hunted. Professor Miyake stared blankly at those eyes, burning with flowing red light, then barely managed to avert his gaze.
“B-but I...”
“There is no one but you... I can ask... Kuh...!”
Lee Jae-yu dropped to his knees.
Perhaps he had reached his limit. This red man immediately lost consciousness, leaving the flustered professor with no choice but to bring him into the house.
“Ah, honestly...!”
First the Red International union, then the Gyeongseong Special Higher Police, and now the most famous young man in Gyeongseong's red world had come to visit him in the dead of night!
“I am only an ordinary professor who wants to study ordinary household affairs!”
What on earth was going to become of him?!
Professor Miyake Shikanosuke.
It was the moment when his already troubled household affairs became nothing but trouble.
Time passed.
Around Professor Miyake, who only wanted to be an ordinary professor, stories worth roughly four novels unfolded.
(The first volume would naturally star Lee Jae-yu, leader and fugitive of the Gyeongseong Troika[7]. The second would star Kwon Yeong-tae of the Far Eastern Bureau of the Red International union. The third would star Inspector Miwa of the Gyeongseong Special Higher Police. The fourth would be a collection of short stories.)
Leaving aside the emotional conflicts and exchanges that filled those four novel volumes, the conclusion could be summarized as follows.
1. Professor Miyake dug an underground hideout beneath his house and concealed Lee Jae-yu.
2. A woman came to visit.
“Comrade Miyake?”
The woman covered the lower half of her face with a red scarf. Only her languid eyes, visible above her nose, left a strangely lasting impression.
“Who are you?”
“You know Kwon Yeong-tae, right? Profintern.”
The woman with languid eyes stepped over the threshold as she spoke.
“You're lucky. We're the ones supporting your side.”
Professor Miyake hesitated. The woman tilted her head, her languid gaze unchanged.
“Comrade Miyake. You're in a precarious position right now.”
Professor Miyake knew better than anyone that his household affairs were precarious, but the woman meant a more existential threat.
“Things are a little dangerous for the Profintern right now. At this rate, you'll be arrested around May.”
“...Next month?”
“Yeah. And wouldn't that be a shame?”
The woman looked Professor Miyake up and down.
“You studied hard and became a professor. With knowledge like yours, you could hold a position even in the Soviet Union. How about coming with us this time?”
Professor Miyake bit his lower lip. Somehow, he had already sensed this coming.
He had wanted to remain an ordinary researcher of the Empire, but the Red International, the Special Higher Police, Lee Jae-yu, and now even the Soviet Union wanted him. From the perspective of public finance, this was clear excess demand.
“I'm sorry, but right now...”
When Professor Miyake unconsciously glanced toward his study, Lee Jae-yu burst from it.
“Professor!”
Lee Jae-yu glared at the woman with fiercely shining red eyes and moved to stand between her and Professor Miyake as if to protect him.
“Urgh...!”
But the aftereffects of torture flared up, and he swayed pitifully.
“Jae-yu! I told you not to come out!”
Professor Miyake hurriedly supported his shoulder. Even as he was supported, Lee Jae-yu reached out and slung an arm around the professor's shoulders.
“Professor... You can't go to the Soviet Union...! Kwon Yeong-tae, that stupid wild boar bastard, has finally brought this disaster upon you...!”
“Is this the time to worry about me? And Yeong-tae is not that sort of child...”
“Have you still not opened your eyes, Professor? That Yeong-tae bastard doesn't even know what revolution is...”
The woman with languid eyes quietly watched the men, who had forgotten about her and sunk into their own revolution.
Watching them, she muttered to herself with the expression of someone taking a bite of excellent popcorn.
“They all seem to have a lot of spare energy!”
“I suppose so.”
“Hoo-oomph. But so far, they're only kind of cute? My brother is still much cuter.”
“Is that so?”
“Mm-hm! But sigh, my brother has been becoming a proper person far too quickly lately. Seriously. Isn't there some older guy who could just keep causing trouble by changing the type of trouble without ever improving?”
“That's a very strange taste.”
“None of your business!”
The woman with languid eyes folded her arms with a huff, then turned her head as if she had just realized something.
“Wait, but that voice...?”
She froze.
Standing where the woman looked was a man in a red hood who had slipped in without a sound and responded to her.
And that man in the red hood.
Han San, who had just arrived, Red Mask, who had stepped into this hellscape at the exact moment the cauldron of chaos broke through the heavens, already regretted coming to this house.
It was spring.
[1] Gyeongseong Military Police Headquarters was the Seoul headquarters of Japan's colonial military police, which exercised broad policing and intelligence powers in occupied Korea.
[2] Baekbaekgyo was a Korean millenarian religious sect whose 1937 mass-murder case became notorious under Japanese colonial rule.
[3] The Korean History Compilation Committee was a Government-General body established in 1922 to produce official histories of Korea under Japanese colonial administration.
[4] Gyeongseong Imperial University was colonial Korea's Japanese imperial university in Seoul, operating from 1926 to 1946.
[5] Profintern, the Red International of Labor Unions, was a Moscow-based Communist International affiliate founded in 1921 to coordinate revolutionary trade unions worldwide.
[6] The Special Higher Police, or Tokkō, was Imperial Japan's political police, tasked with monitoring and suppressing dissent, particularly socialist and independence movements.
[7] The Gyeongseong Troika was Lee Jae-yu's clandestine communist organization, active in colonial Seoul during the mid-1930s.
Footnotes:
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