WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Chapter 134: Resolve Complete

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"You said we should quit the movement?"

Chuk Myeong-su asked.

Chuk Hong-cheol scratched the back of his head.

"Yeah. There isn't any real need to keep up the movement right now. We don't have much reason to reclaim our old status either."

The leader's conclusion was simple, but Chairman Junha scratched the back of their head with an uneasy expression.

"Tch. I feel bad for the other comrades..."

They had been lucky. They had met the sajang.

From the start, the sajang had treated them without prejudice and led them this far.

There were times when he killed people, but only when those people had tried to kill them first.

And the damned puns he occasionally made... Well, was anyone in the world perfect?

Everyone took a crap, after all. The sajang merely suffered occasional bouts of crapping with his brain...

'Anyway, forget the puns, and there was that matter involving Jae-seok, too...'

It weighed on them that they alone would slip away, leaving behind comrades who had not been lucky enough to meet someone like this and still had to keep fighting.

Once again, Chuk Hong-cheol, their leader, settled the matter simply.

"Then let's take a break. Don't quit."

"Take a break from the movement?"

"Yeah. If there comes a time when we feel we aren't being treated like people again, we'll pick it back up then. While we're being treated like people, we focus on what's in front of us. We'll alternate between the two."

As their leader laid out the situation, someone knocked on the door and Im Baechil entered.

"Hello, seniors...!"

The Chuk Brothers welcomed him with smiles.

"Oh, right. Chief Im. What's up?"

"That suit looks good on you. The saying that clothes make the man fits Chief Im perfectly, doesn't it?"

As they said, Im Baechil had completely shed the look of a newcomer and now wore a tailored suit that fit his huge frame.

The sharply tailored clothes gave shape to his bulky build, and his naturally simple face no longer looked unreliable. Instead, it had become a symbol of trustworthiness.

Im Baechil smiled shyly and raised the bundle in his arms. A savory, appetite-whetting scent drifted from it.

"Seniors. My mother heard you were nearby and told me to bring this over..."

Chuk Hong-cheol's face flushed bright red.

"Honestly, that woman..."

Though he cleared his throat for no reason, Chuk Hong-cheol accepted the bundle.

"Right. Chief Im... Aren't you having some too?"

"I'm fine. I need to help my mother see patients..."

"Such a filial son... Hey, Chief. If you say it like that, tsk. Wait here. Once I feed these guys, I'll come help too."

Im Baechil smiled. Without refusing, he gave a polite bow and headed outside.

Chuk Hong-cheol cleared his throat once more as he turned around with the bundle. Then he noticed the other Chuk Brothers wearing the same expressions he wore whenever he saw the sajang with Ayame.

"Im Hong-cheol..."

Chuk Hong-cheol shouted.

"Hey, where do you think you are? This isn't the Japanese archipelago! And how could I take not even her surname, but her ex-husband's surname?"

"No, we're thinking of Chief Im. Think about how he'd have to become Chuk Baechil overnight."

The Chuk Brothers clicked their tongues.

"Seriously, even if you're choosing a surname to use as an alias, why Chuk? Chuk? It sounds so country."

"It's like putting up a sign all over town saying you came from livestock slaughtering."

"Exactly. We could've just gone with Kim."

"At the very least, don't suggest we coordinate surnames. You shouted, [Let's Go with Chuk!] so loudly that I nodded without thinking, but it feels more like a mistake every day."

Leader Chuk Hong-cheol cleared his throat for what had to be the umpteenth time.

"I didn't know we'd be using it for this long..."

"Does that count as an excuse?"

"Why not? Look, if you've got complaints, let's all go tell the sajang together sometime. He said he'd straighten out our household registers once more, didn't he? It looks like he's been thinking about it too. When we set up the publishing house soon, we're going to print new calling cards to commemorate the company's upgrade or whatever. He said to let him know before then if we want to change our names."

The Chuk Brothers exploded.

"What? Why would he only tell the leader something that important?"

"What if the leader forgets and misses the deadline?"

Chuk Hong-cheol did not even blink.

"That's why I'm the leader. Don't forget I was the first one to meet the sajang."

"First come, first served!"

"Class violence!"

"Revolution!"

There was a time when the men took turns putting each other in headlocks and mount holds, then let go and laughed together.

Chuk Hong-cheol opened the bundle Baechil's mother had packed. As they ate the white rice cakes inside, they returned to what they had been discussing.

"Anyway, we have been lucky. There must be people who have to keep up the movement because they haven't been as lucky as us."

"Right."

"Let's regularly collect donations among ourselves and send them over. While we're taking a break from the movement, we can think of it as continuing the movement in a different way."

"Ah, then we'll have to work our asses off to make money."

"This just comes back to having to work hard, doesn't it?"

"Shall we all work overtime together?"

"Sounds good. Leader, hurry up and get out of here. You need to help Chief Im's mother."

"Honestly, you people."

The red fervor inside the Chuk Brothers finally began to ebb in earnest.

Han San's life became easier.

The Chuk Brothers had truly become executives of Han's Myriad Commerce.

It was a tremendous turning point. Until now, Han's Myriad Commerce had effectively had only two approval lines.

The site manager and Han San.

The Chuk Brothers had held executive positions, and Chuk Jae-seok had occupied something like a vice president's post, but they could not help having reservations.

At first, they had thought Han's Myriad Commerce was only a temporary shelter from the wind and rain. Later, they had worried that they might bring trouble upon Han's Myriad Commerce instead.

Now, things were different.

"Any business partner with complaints can come straight to me!"

The Chuk Brothers resolved to devote their lives to Han's Myriad Commerce. As they prepared to change their surnames and given names soon, the bond between the Brothers only grew stronger.

There was another reason Han San's life had become easier.

"Mr. Jae-seok! From now on, please handle anything below that yourself!"

They had shared secrets of this scale and resolved matters of this scale together. Han San could now place deep trust in Chuk Jae-seok.

As a result, someone had finally appeared to whom Han's Myriad Commerce could entrust its [money]!

Han San still managed the truly large sums himself, but having a vice president with independent final approval authority during his absence was significant.

One of Han's Myriad Commerce's most chronic bottlenecks had been cleared. In martial arts terms, it was like opening the Ren and Du meridians and completing the Grand Circulation[1].

And so.

"I'll decide this one myself. This won't do. Please do it again."

Chuk Jae-seok truly took his place as vice president and exercised his authority.

"Loyalty! Myo Gang reporting on the expansion into Cheorwon..."

With Myo Gang, a businessman burning with red loyalty, running all over the front lines, Won Autohunting finally went fully into operation not only in Chuncheon, but across all of Gangwon.

"At this point, the won balance goes up even if I do nothing but sleep."

Of course, Han San did not spend all his time sleeping.

A sajang had to bear a sajang's burdens.

"Sajang Han San. I hope we'll see each other often from now on."

"I hope so too, Chairman of the Chuncheon Merchant Association!"

"Han San, are you interested in the greatest of all roads, the railroad?"

"Oh, of course I am, Governor!"

Countless requests for handshakes came pouring in through every Gangwon political and business group chat.

Han San accepted every one of them. One-third of the won Han's Myriad Commerce employees had automatically mined flowed that way.

Another third flowed to some unknown place.

"Nephew, I understand. I'll make sure these gold valuables and dynamite... no, these red-painted sticks reach General Cheongcheon."

Finally.

The remaining third flowed into the Meokbawi Valley construction project.

"Is the construction going well?"

"Of course, sajang. You're pouring in that much money."

"Sajang! Just as you ordered, we've rounded up every laborer loafing around Inje town! We also brought every person you specifically called for!"

Han San beamed.

"Wow, welcome, everyone. You came all this way... You gentlemen are the ones who made that A-frame carrier for me, right? And you too, Foreman. Your name was Yoshihiro, wasn't it?"

There were familiar faces among the laborers they had rounded up.

Foreman Yoshihiro had worked under Surveyor Hajama and fled after being chased by Ginsei's pack. Afterward, people said Yoshihiro had been cursed with bad luck, and steady work had been impossible to find. At first, Yoshihiro did not recognize Han San.

It was only natural.

Only a year ago, Han San had been a slash-and-burn settler youth in unbleached cotton clothes and rubber shoes, carrying a wooden A-frame carrier as he climbed up and down cliffs on a single rope to clear a five-won quest.

That same slash-and-burn settler youth had become a sajang who not only hired them all, but piled special call-out fees on top like mountains.

"Good heavens! You..."

Foreman Yoshihiro's eyes widened. Even staring as hard as Yoshihiro could, the sight was impossible to believe.

Han San grinned.

"I still have that A-frame carrier reinforced with metal rods that you gentlemen made for me. I put it in front of the ancestral altar over there. Want to take a look?"

The ancestral altar he had used during Hangawi was still there, and it had also been used for the belated Lunar New Year festival.

It was for the utterly irreverent yet practical reason that Han San thought rebuilding and clearing away an ancestral altar for every holiday was too much trouble.

Whenever he got a new photograph, the silver cup Lee Beom-ik had given him, or anything else worth commemorating, he placed it there right away. The first item to go there had been that reinforced A-frame carrier.

When the foreman and laborers saw the A-frame carrier before the ancestral altar, which had practically become a Seonangdang shrine just for Middle Hamlet, they were overcome with emotion.

"Honestly. You never know what'll become of a person."

"That young man made all that money and became successful in just one year, while I'm still... I can't face my wife, damn it."

They lamented, but Han San comforted them.

"Come on, what are you saying? You treated me so well back then."

They had reinforced his A-frame carrier out of simple kindness when he had nothing. Now that he had some room to spare, Han San naturally did not treat them poorly.

"Eat plenty of chicken! I'll make sure you get generous construction bonuses too. And after this August, our company will probably start getting serious about civil engineering. If you'd rather work professionally for the long term instead of taking day labor jobs..."

"Really!?"

"Yes. Day labor has its own advantages, of course, so only if you want to. Even if you don't, whenever we run into each other at one of our company's work sites, I'll treat you all very generously..."

There was calculation mixed into it as well.

'Once the Great Flood of the Gapsul Year passes, reconstruction projects will open up everywhere.'

Unlike during Typhoon 3383 last year, Han's Myriad Commerce was now more than qualified to join those reconstruction projects. Han San had even been invited into the Chuncheon railroad group chat.

Reaching into the civil engineering business in earnest to take part in that reconstruction work was necessary and important.

Still, that calculation did not conflict with his desire to look after those who had treated him well.

Foreman Yoshihiro and the laborers also broke into broad smiles. There was no reason to dislike the prospect of a work site that paid them extra.

"All right! Let's give it our best!"

"Hey, mine foreman! What should we start with?"

The personnel and equipment sent into the Meokbawi Valley construction site grew by the day. It was enough to create a construction boom throughout the Inje area.

To outsiders, it looked as though a young sajang was making an absurd fuss over the valley right next to his hometown, and that was exactly how the rumors spread.

Deok-tae, the second chairman of the Meokbawi Valley Gorge Management Council, found it harder each day to keep his small mouth from falling open.

"No, really. To pour this much money into such a tiny valley..."

Beside him, Vice Chairman Cho Seo-bang wore an expression of detached acceptance.

"So what, old man? Some people spend their extra money chasing women, and some collect cars. Maybe Sajang San's hobby is improving Meokbawi Valley."

"I suppose..."

Deok-tae nodded. It should have been a good thing that so much money was being poured into the valley his family had worked hard to protect.

It had simply become almost frightening because the scale had grown so boundless, not because it was unwelcome.

"If San, that little... no, that huge fellow, likes it, then..."

Thanks to the young sajang's hard-to-classify eccentricity, [Meokbawi Valley Obsession], a significant portion of the profits from Gangwon's midsize company Han's Myriad Commerce became walls and levees.

Only one person knew what every single won being poured in truly meant.

The calendar pages turned.

May.

"San, I heard the dike down by the Nakdong River collapsed. Apparently, the floodgates weren't regulated properly. My grandfather is in Busan. Do you think he'll be all right? I've been continuing to prepare as you keep telling me to, of course."

June.

"Could there be a drought? Why is it so hot? They say not a drop of rain has fallen around Busan in particular. Just last month, when we heard a dike had collapsed, I never imagined we'd have to worry about something like this. The sky really is fickle, isn't it?"

Then July.

"Ah, it's finally raining. There won't be a drought after all. I hope my grandfather can rest easy... And I hope you can too, San. Like I keep saying, I've passed on your warnings to my grandfather and the people we know, telling them to prepare in every way..."

The rain fell.

Footnotes:

[1] The Ren and Du meridians are two principal energy channels in East Asian martial-arts lore; “Grand Circulation” denotes fully circulating inner energy through them.

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