WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Chapter 89: In 1933, the Automatic Hunter Makes Good Money (2)

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Han's Myriad Commerce Salt-Cured Mackerel Set-Meal Restaurant.

"Hey! Why's the rice so dry? How did you even cook it?"

"How long ago did I order? Are you grilling the mackerel, or did you go all the way to the sea to catch it? Or are you waiting until that mackerel gets married, has children and grandchildren, watches its whole life flash before its eyes, and decides it has no regrets left in its mackerel life before bringing it out here?"

"If that's what you're doing, at least send the mackerel peacefully to paradise. Honestly, what did this fine fish ever do to you? This isn't grilled mackerel, it's mackerel torture by fire!"

As the customers raised a clamor, Choi Seo-bang and his wife, who had been running the restaurant, went pale.

Things had certainly run well at first. Then time passed, customers began flooding in, and everything fell apart.

"Aigo, I'm sorry, San... I've never done this sort of work before..."

"I'm sorry too, San. At home, when I cook rice, it never turns out like this. But when everyone came in at once, I think I lost my head."

After business closed that day, Choi Seo-bang's family bowed their heads. Manbok, who was washing dishes, could not lift his head either.

Han San pressed a hand to his forehead.

"First, lift your heads... Hmm. Let me think about this."

Cooking took skill, and so did setting tables and clearing them.

If handling orders in the sequence they came in was easy, why would there be failed restaurants in the world?

'I need to straighten this out. If they botch ingredient management too and someone comes down with food poisoning... This being the era it is, Han's Myriad Commerce probably won't go entirely out of business, but the whole plan will go down the drain.'

There was a way.

'I could bring Mother into the kitchen and handle the tables myself. That would solve it, while we teach the employees and let them build experience.'

The problem was that it would take time.

Again, this was work that required skill! Learning a skill took time!

'Tsk. Should I just shut down the restaurant business for now and come back to it when we're ready? Cut the mackerel supply down to an amount we can clear through the market...'

"What's wrong with our Sajang San's face today?"

As Han San weighed whether to scale back the whole line of business, Kim Mal-ja, who was sharing drinks with him, spoke up.

"Malja noona."

Han San smacked his lips. Then he looked at the drinking snacks and liquor laid out before him, and his face brightened.

"Come to think of it, South Jade Pavilion is a kind of restaurant too..."

"What do you mean, a kind? It's one hundred percent a restaurant."

"Yes, yes, Malja noona. As you've probably heard, I started a restaurant business too..."

People tied together by profit could share their troubles.

Han San's plan was this.

Could he borrow two experienced new hires through Malja's connections? A head cook, someone to manage the dining room, that sort of person.

They could be borrowed from South Jade Pavilion, or perhaps one of the hostesses knew the work well. Either would do.

As it turned out, his calculation was right. The people she recommended simply went far beyond anything Han San had expected.

"What about Anna unni? And Tae-chon-ssi."

"What!?"

Han San practically leaped out of his seat.

"Does that make any sense, noona? Are you setting a torabasami to turn my business into gukbap made from nothing but sugar?"

"I'm telling you, Anna unni is trustworthy."

"Gukbap made from nothing but sugar."

"Hmm... No, she won't do that. She knows how to separate play from work."

Han San gritted his teeth.

Still, he was only reacting that way so he could pretend not to have noticed Mrs. Go's peculiar nature. Of course, he accepted what Malja said.

The real problem was the latter suggestion.

"Go Tae-chon? What use is that pseudo-intellectual..."

"Oh my. You're saying that?"

Han San closed his mouth.

He rubbed his chin and sank into thought.

'Go Tae-chon.'

Han San did not misunderstand Kim Mal-ja's words.

That "You're saying that?" was not a jab meaning, "You're a pseudo-intellectual too." It was a question: "Someone as remarkable as you can't find a use for Go Tae-chon?"

[ There is no one in this world without a use. ]

Teacher Han Bada had said that, and Han San agreed. Not as an empty slogan, but from experience that had filled him to the brim.

He had made armed retainers of the Hyeongpyeongsa members, turned the yokels of Middle Hamlet into excellent laborers, and was in the middle of training them to become candidates for Han's Myriad Commerce employees.

The thugs under Pi Sun-dae were now guarding carts with their fists. The armed Inwang Gang, which grew opium poppies, functioned as an overseas distribution network. Even Sawada, the military police detachment commander, served as a shortcut to the public authority of this era.

All personnel problems in the world, then, did not arise because people were useless. More often, they arose because even the person in question did not know how they could best be used.

'Go Tae-chon...'

Could Han San make use of him?

Putting aside every prejudice, Han San reconsidered him from the beginning.

A lumpen who had once dabbled at pretending to study in Gyeongseong. He had a son named Jin-dong, though Han San did not know what had happened between Jin-dong and his birth mother. He lived with Mrs. Go, who worked nights, and was always trying to figure out how to make money, but in reality he often caused trouble and ended up crying and clinging to Mrs. Go...

'Looking at it this way, he's like the protagonist of a novel.'

The problem was that the novel would be one of those short stories set in Gyeongseong in the 1920s or 1930s.

Han San did not like those sorts of novels. He liked martial arts novels, the kind where the protagonist had some sort of ability, at least.

Ability.

'Still, he did take over that tavern and hold on for quite a while... Pi Sun-dae and Gomchi both said his gukbap had improved day by day too...'

Just then, Kim Tae-yang approached in his South Jade Pavilion waiter uniform.

"Seriously, San! You came by and didn't even come say hello? That's hurtful."

Han San snorted.

"What hello? That outfit looks good on you, though."

"Right? I had this one tailored. The clothes South Jade Pavilion gives us don't have this kind of style. I got it made with the money I earned helping you, you know."

Every time Kim Tae-yang puffed himself up, the wolf-tooth necklace on his chest swayed.

Then an old man in a neat fedora waved a hand.

"Taiyo-kun! Come join this game!"

"Yes, sir! Ah, sorry, San. I'm busy right now. Ha, this popularity, honestly..."

Kim Tae-yang strode energetically toward the mahjong table.

Compared with when Han San had first met him, and even compared with this same time in his past life, Kim Tae-yang looked much more like a proper person.

"Tsk."

Han San scratched the back of his head hard.

"Should I give him a try? If it doesn't work out, I can cut him loose."

Once Han San made a decision, he acted at once. Since he was already home, he went to find Go Tae-chon.

"Ajae. Want to work?"

Go Tae-chon had frozen like a weasel that had spotted a snake the instant he saw Han San. At those words, his face went completely blank. Then a smile spread across his lips.

"Well! San, you young, sharp fellow! At last you've recognized my true worth..."

"I'm leaving."

"No! No, why are you leaving? Isn't that too fast!?"

"Are you doing it or not?"

At Han San's blunt manner, Go Tae-chon shrank back again.

"W-what sort of work...?"

"The kitchen. Our restaurant's kitchen."

"The k-kitchen? No! For work like that, huh, considering my financial knowledge, you should put me in charge of the books..."

"Ah, enough with the books already. Anyway, I heard your gukbap was decent enough.

"The wages are this much. This isn't permanent employment, it's a trial. We'll see how it goes for two weeks. If it doesn't work out, we won't see each other again."

Go Tae-chon worked his mouth for a moment.

Ordinarily, he would have exploded, claiming he was a far more big-time man than that. But he was cornered again.

Not because he had caused trouble. Go Tae-chon had never once in his life felt that he had caused trouble. It was because the typhoon had hit him head-on.

On the day of the typhoon, Han San did not discriminate, so Go Tae-chon had been rescued in time. But because he was not from Middle Hamlet, he had been excluded from the rebuilding. The entire house was damp, wind came in through the cracks, there was no food, and life was miserable.

Most of all, he could not face his wife!

In the end, Go Tae-chon let out several deep sighs.

"...All right, I'll do it.

"B-but listen! Huh? If I prove my ability, then when exactly will you entrust me with bigger work, like the books or property management? I'll do my very best..."

"Then get dressed and come out. We're leaving right away."

Han San informed him and walked out.

"Hooong."

Mrs. Go was in charge of the dining room. Before his wife, Go Tae-chon thumped his chest.

"No, I'm telling you, that little brat San, huh? He bowed his head to me like this and showed off that advanced Mainland custom called dogeza, saying this.

"'Uncle Tae-chon! Please, please help us! Without your cooking, our Han's Myriad Commerce will go under!' He begged me like that... Ha, what else could I do? I'm a great man, after all. A great man. I'm not some petty fellow who clings to old grudges..."

"Hooong."

"Uh, so I got the job... But if, um, if you don't like it, honey..."

"Huh? No, no."

Mrs. Go, who had been lost in deep thought, blinked and broke into a broad smile.

"You did well, oppa. That's really amazing."

"R-right?"

Go Tae-chon had been uneasy, but at those words he puffed out his chest.

Mrs. Go smiled sweetly, grabbed both his cheeks, and rubbed them.

"Then go into the kitchen and do your best, oppa. I'll get used to the dining room too."

"That's right! Modern Bar Special Mackerel Shop Grand Opening! Jin-dong, let's go! Let's show them the Go family's bloody revenge!"

Go Tae-chon entered the kitchen full of fighting spirit. The instant he did, the expression vanished from Mrs. Go's face.

She rested her chin on her hand and tilted her head, her eyes drooping lazily.

"Hooong. First Taeyang, and now Tae-chon oppa too... They aren't really going to become decent people, are they?"

That would be a little...

Unpleasant, she muttered, too quietly for the words to leave her lips.

It did not last long.

"But people have to work!"

She had been thinking of coming down to Inje town anyway. It was simply a little earlier than planned.

"Shall we begin!"

She opened one hand, made a fist with the other, and smacked them together before looking around the dining room.

In half a day, the place had been completely overturned.

"Choi Seo-bang-nim, serve the far tables first.

"Oppa. That stove over there is sitting idle.

"Jin-dong, quit fiddling with that and come bring water to the customers. Follow Manbok-hyung, hurry.

"Oh, sir, it'll be out soon. Please wait while you admire my beautiful face."

Go Tae-chon also did his share in the kitchen. He flipped grilling grates over the hearth, and his touch steadily grew more seasoned.

"Ah! The mackerel skin is perfectly crispy!"

"Why's the rice so sticky? It's wonderfully chewy!"

Choi Seo-bang and his wife were pushed back into assistant roles. Watching the Go couple, whom they had openly looked down on back in Sebeom Valley, they were left dumbfounded.

"A-are we worse than those two, honey...?"

"I knew Inje town was a frightening place..."

Han San encouraged the two as their spirits crumbled.

"See? So learn diligently. Surely you're ashamed to stay like this."

That was how the foothold for Han's Myriad Commerce's entry into the restaurant business held its ground. Money began rolling in again.

Still, once money passed through other hands, some of it was bound to leak away.

Problem Three. Embezzlement.

The fact that an embezzlement problem appeared as soon as Go Tae-chon came aboard might suggest a certain intention, but surprisingly, Go Tae-chon had not embezzled anything.

Rather, a previously overlooked problem had now taken concrete form.

'Everything we're buying and selling is cash business right now.'

Han San had no intention of being too strict. As an old man, he knew very well that money leaked once it passed through other hands.

'Payments to major suppliers can be done with promissory notes and credit, then I can settle them on fixed dates. There won't be much room for losses that way.

'The problem is that this only works for now. Once our business transactions get bigger in the future... And theft at the worksite is something you really can't avoid...'

Was the answer to say, [Bring back only this much, and you can eat whatever is left over]? Like when he had sent Chuk Hong-cheol on errands?

'But that doesn't feel like the answer either...'

Chief Secretary Chuk Jae-seok was the one who explained Han San's instinct in detail.

"They call it exclusive operating rights. A monopoly. You know how a state sells exclusive rights to a company bidding for a certain business? The state makes money just once when it sells the rights, and the company makes more than it spent buying those rights, so both sides win.

"The problem is, for that to work at all, you have to set the operating period on an annual basis. But the people running our sites don't have that kind of capital. Our company has to keep cash circulating too.

"So if we use that method, it inevitably turns into, 'Bring in this much every very short cycle.' Every day, every five days, every week, whatever it may be...

"And what does that become? Yakuza... It becomes yakuza-style tribute.

"Of course, there'd be no issue if it worked well in any form, but it doesn't work because when the timing starts to go wrong, the people at the sites have to make up the difference with their own money. Structural pressure forces them to do it.

"It's not sustainable."

"Then what's the solution?"

"In the end, modernization of the books. What magic is there?

"I understand the Sajang's thinking. There are plenty of ways to cheat even with books, and if people are not used to them, having them spend their energy writing accounts instead of working would cost us that much more. Still, it gives us something to go by instead of running everything by rough guesswork..."

Han San sighed. Was there really no other choice?

Then an unexpected person spoke.

"What about starting small?"

Hajama Ayame, who had been listening beside them with her head tilted, adjusted her flat cap as she spoke.

Footnotes:

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