WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Hunting Genius of the Japanese Colonial Era

Chapter 51

──────

The Club: South Jade Pavilion (2)

In his past life, he had met Kim Mal-ja about thirty years later, in the late autumn of 1962. By then she was past fifty, yet still dazzling, still dangerously beautiful.

And now.

Now, at just twenty-two, the woman before him carried not a trace of youthful greenness or awkwardness. If anything, she had the bearing of someone who had been mistress of this South Jade Pavilion from the moment she was born.

Some people in this world were simply born with a special [bearing], Han San thought all of a sudden.

"That's an awfully glad face you're wearing, isn't it?"

Kim Mal-ja, mistress of the South Jade Pavilion, smiled sweetly.

Han San tucked away the flood of feelings in an instant and bowed his head.

"It's good to meet you, Mal-ja noona."

"Oh? You recognize me? This is our first meeting."

"How could I not, when you're this beautiful? Taeyang told me a great deal about you, noona."

Kim Mal-ja's eyebrows twitched, and the two hairpins thrust in at a slant stirred along with the motion. A wry smile soon spread across her lips.

"That Taeyang talks about you plenty too."

Kim Mal-ja settled naturally into a seat. At the same moment she snapped her fingers, sharp.

"Anna unni. Some wine."

Mrs. Go came striding over and pulled the cork free.

'Anna?'

Come to think of it, everyone called her 'Mrs. Go' only because she was Go Tae-chon's wife. Not a soul in the village had ever spoken the woman's real name, Han San realized in that instant.

'I didn't even know this in my past life.'

Then again, who would care what the wife of a man like Go Tae-chon was called? And of those in the Lower Hamlet who survived the Great Flood of the Gapsul Year, there had been only Kim Tae-yang and Pi Sun-dae, more or less.

As he was thinking this, Mrs. Go poured a glass for each of them and withdrew behind them without a word. This too was different from the way she usually carried herself in the village.

"Looks like you've taken a liking to Anna unni?"

Han San faltered. Kim Mal-ja was watching him as though she found it amusing.

And Mrs. Go let out a great snort, hmph, then fanned herself languidly with the tray.

"What can you do, Mal-ja. This beauty of mine, drawing every eye just by existing, ah, honestly... Who could have guessed it would lure in even a little squirt like this."

Only then did the Mrs. Go that Han San knew return. The vulgar, age-defying chatterbox.

But.

'It's a disguise!'

It was pure intuition. The old hunter caught it on instinct alone. That Mrs. Go—this woman who went by the name Anna—had something about her.

And that something was dangerous.

And Han San let slip not the faintest sign that he had noticed.

He spoke with his face deliberately screwed up.

"Get a grip on yourself, ajumma."

"What? Ajumma?"

"You're an ajumma, aren't you. A woman with a child, no less. Is it really all right for you to be working in a place like this?"

"Good heavens. Mal-ja, did you hear that? My, my heart's... What's wrong with this kind of work? Now that I think of it, when this one was catching that badger back then, he opened his eyes up real wide like this, took up a sickle, and there he was, glaring at me in front of Jindong, and I tell you—"

Mrs. Go launched into her complaint. Kim Mal-ja, who had been listening with interest, looked back and forth between Han San and Mrs. Go, then set down her wine glass.

"That's enough, unni. The customer's king, isn't he."

"Hmph!"

Mrs. Go thrust her chin up and stepped back. The whole while, Han San merely kept his face screwed up tight, as if to ask why on earth that woman was here.

Just as he always did when dealing with Mrs. Go.

Whatever Mrs. Go's disguise might be, Han San's was no less convincing. The suspicion he held toward Mrs. Go stayed quietly in his heart, and his alone.

What he would do about that suspicion, he could not yet say.

Only that, from here on, Han San meant to treat this woman with a degree more caution.

Kim Mal-ja took a sip of wine and spoke.

"So you just came to pay your respects? And brought along such a cute little Japanese customer, no less."

"Cute?"

Surveyor Hajama blinked. Smiling brightly, Kim Mal-ja snapped her fingers once more.

"Girls. Our guest is cute, isn't he? Make a fuss over him, quick now."

Two waitresses who had been waiting in the corridor came in and took hold of Hajama by both arms.

"Come along, sir."

"My, aren't you a sturdy one."

"Wha—wha—whoa! Hold on, this is no mere physical contact. This is as if..."

Hajama, with no chance to resist, was buried in the waitresses' embrace and pushed off into the corner.

In an instant, only three remained at the main table: Han San, Kim Mal-ja, and Mrs. Go standing behind her.

Kim Mal-ja smiled.

"Now we can talk quietly."

Han San gave a wry smile.

"Thank you for the consideration."

"If you're thankful, then from now on leave my windows and drainpipes alone. The place was built not long ago. It would break my heart if it so much as got scratched."

Han San's wry smile deepened. Now that she mentioned it, he had been a touch rude.

"I'll keep that in mind. Hm—I can't quite call it an exchange, but I do have a gift I prepared."

Han San drew a paulownia box[1] from his coat and handed it over. When she flipped back the leather lid and saw the badger oil inside, Kim Mal-ja's eyes curved like a crescent moon.

"Hehh, what's all this."

"You ought to accept it. Flowers atop brocade. Wings on a tiger's back. Badger oil for noona."

"Listen to him talk. You'll have girls weeping all over the place. No surprise you're Taeyang's friend."

"Haha."

Having lightly loosened the mood, Han San drew something else from his coat.

"But I didn't come only to pay my respects. Take a look at this."

"Hmm."

It was three one-hundred-won bills.

The mistress of the South Jade Pavilion gazed at the bills, then propped her chin on one hand.

"Ginsei. I heard it was actually some Korean who caught it... Could that be you?"

Quick with the news, as a woman of the night should be.

Han San simply smiled.

"I just gave them a little help, that's all. The military police officers, I mean."

"You really do talk well. ...So? You want me to break some money for you?"

"This isn't an exchange house, you know," Kim Mal-ja said, holding a mouthful of wine.

Han San took a mouthful too.

"Do you need a fee?"

"Fee, my foot. I even got a gift. Besides, I'm hardly hard up for money."

Kim Mal-ja reached out. She picked up three dice from beside the table and rolled them around in her hand, clatter-clatter.

"What I am hard up for is amusement."

"Amusement."

"Mm. How about it? Care to play a round with me?"

Her eyes curved alluringly.

"Three rounds total. After each round you win, you decide whether to keep going. For each one you win, I'll exchange a hundred won with no fee. Win all three and I'll throw in a South Jade Pavilion VIP card on top."

This too was an offer she could make thanks to the [bearing] he had risen to by catching Ginsei.

Han San tilted his head.

"And if I lose?"

"Lose even one round and you take your money elsewhere to exchange. And you earn the VIP card by coming here and diligently piling up your mileage."

Han San looked at the mistress of the South Jade Pavilion with a face caught somewhere between a smile and none at all.

"What's the game?"

"Odds and evens."

Kim Mal-ja rolled the dice. Before the three of them had even rolled to a stop, the paulownia box she had received from Han San came down over them.

By luck alone you had a one-in-two chance, and the odds of guessing all three were that cubed—a mere one in eight—yet Han San answered without hesitation.

"Even."

A smile formed at the corner of Kim Mal-ja's lips.

She lifted the box. The dice pips lay revealed.

One, two, three.

Even.

"You got it. Keep going? Or take your hundred won and call it done?"

"Let's keep going."

"All right."

Kim Mal-ja threw the dice again and, tak, covered them with the box.

"Even."

Again Han San answered at once.

"Hmm."

Kim Mal-ja lifted the box.

Three, two, one.

Even.

"Keep going?"

"Keep going."

"...Hmm, all right."

Once more the dice rolled, and Kim Mal-ja covered them with the box.

"Even."

"...Hehh. Again?"

The mistress of the South Jade Pavilion let out a curious laugh.

"You happen to know what probability is? After two evens in a row, isn't it about time for an odd?"

"Probability and I are well acquainted. I know independent trials well too."

"Oh? You know about that as well? I'd have thought the only independence you knew was 'long live Korean independence.'"

"It's even."

"Really? No regrets? You really won't change it?"

Kim Mal-ja wore a delighted face.

"Yes. I won't change it."

Because—

'Because I've played this game before.'

Han San's eyes sank deep.

[This is my mother's pet theory, and I happen to agree with it. If you want to know the depth of a person, you have to gamble with them.]

In the late autumn of 1962, in his past life, Han San had sat across from Kim Mal-ja that time too.

He had played the same three-round odds and evens, and had guessed two rounds correctly in a row, just the same.

And then the third round.

[You really won't change it?]

The Han San of that time had wavered at those words. Unable to trust his intuition, at the very last of the last he changed his bet.

And the look on Kim Mal-ja's face then, all her amusement gone cold.

[I thought you were Teacher Han Bada's elder brother, but in the end you're just Taeyang's friend. You don't make the cut.]

At the time he had thought he was simply out of luck, but now, older and having even lived through regression, Han San understood.

'This game was never about guessing the dice pips in the first place.'

It was nothing more than a test of the [grit] to push the answer you'd settled on through to the very end.

Knowing that answer now, Han San did not make the same mistake.

"Even."

Han San said it firmly.

Kim Mal-ja gazed at him quietly. Only for a moment. Then, smiling broadly, she lifted the box.

"Yes."

Six, six, six.

Even.

"I like you."

Kim Mal-ja set the paulownia box aside and pressed down on the three dice at once with her index, middle, and ring fingers. Under pressure past their breaking point, the dice sprang up and were sucked into the box.

Ting, ti-ti-ding.

The dice bounced wildly around inside the box, and the moment Kim Mal-ja flipped it over with a tang and opened it, they were mounted just as before—six, six, six.

"That's right. A person has to have grit. The fickle sort are what I hate most. You can't trust them at your back."

Han San only smiled faintly. For all she said that, he did not point out that she had Mrs. Go standing right at her own back.

Because that very fact hinted at a great many things.

He held his tongue and asked instead.

"So am I a VIP now?"

"Mm. Take it. And take these too."

Kim Mal-ja drew a metal card with VIP written on it from her dress and pushed it across. Thick bundles of bills as well.

Han San took the card, but of the bundles he kept only one hundred won. The remaining two hundred he sent back.

Kim Mal-ja cocked her head.

"What's this? Too much for a tip."

"It's a commission fee. I'm a VIP now, so I can put in a request with you, can't I?"

"...Hehh."

Kim Mal-ja's eyes went round. The two hairpins pricked up to follow.

"How fun. What kind of request? Shall I sing you a 'Mal-ja, Mal-ja' folk tune?"

"No, what even is that... hm, I'm a little curious, but—no, anyway, never mind the 'Mal-ja, Mal-ja' tune."

Han San suppressed his curiosity. With a fair amount of effort.

"Make me a household register[2]."

"A household register? Ah, you said you were a Sebeom Valley local."

"Well, not exactly a local, but something close. So, a clean household register. No debts, no criminal record, nothing tying it down—fix me up one like that."

The mistress of the South Jade Pavilion drew out a Haetae cigarette and put it to her lips. She spoke with one eye cocked up.

"Hmm... well, fine. Buy a genealogy off a fallen noble, or bring some relative-less dead man back to life. But two hundred won for a single household register is a bit much."

"That's because there's more to the request."

Han San drew out the IMCO trench lighter[3] and lit Kim Mal-ja's cigarette for her. Chk. To the faint flicker of intrigue rising in her eyes, Han San went on.

"Set up a company too, while you're at it."

"A company?"

"Yes. With the representative under that household register's name, and the notarized documents all in order to make clear that household register is mine."

Kim Mal-ja looked at Han San with her lips parted a touch. The cigarette smoke flowing from them spread between the two of them.

"You talk about some interesting things. A company, notarization—out of the mouth of a boy who lived up on a mountain."

"Aw, you can't be this interested already. I'm about to tell you something even more interesting."

Even more interesting?

"What's that?"

"Buy up some land under that company's name."

Han San said it with a beaming smile.

"Thirty thousand pyeong at zero point three jeon per pyeong. Ninety won in all. The price of that land, plus the one household register I mentioned, the one company, the labor fee, the cost of greasing the officials' palms—all of it added up comes to the two hundred won I just handed you."

There was a small thud.

The cigarette had finally fallen from the mouth of the mistress of the South Jade Pavilion.

[1] Paulownia (오동나무) is a light, fine-grained wood traditionally prized in Korea for crafting chests and presentation boxes for valuables.

[2] The household register (호적) was the official family registry recording births, marriages, and lineage; under colonial rule it fixed a person's legal identity and was difficult to alter without money or connections.

[3] IMCO was an Austrian maker of all-metal "trench lighters," petrol pocket lighters of a design popularized among soldiers in the First World War and widely circulated in East Asia in the interwar years.

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried