Crossing rivers and mountains should have been grueling, but Jo Won's face was nothing but bright.
“This is Joseon.”
If anything, Jo Won looked thoroughly fascinated. In truth, Jo Won, his partner, and his retainers could all call Joseon their roots.
Jo Won was descended from those who had been dragged from Joseon to Qing during the Manchu invasion over a hundred years ago.
That was why his awareness of being Joseonese had faded, but there was a reason Jo Won had returned to Joseon.
“Hanyang.”
Jo Won was descended from Joseon slaves dragged to Qing, while his partner and retainers had been sold from Joseon to Qing when they were young.
That was why his partner and retainers had yearned so desperately for Joseon's mountains and rivers—things Jo Won himself could not empathize with.
Clatter, clatter.
Jo Won had lashed together two carts resembling ox-drawn carts and was pulling one with each hand. Ten thousand books were piled on top of them like mountains.
It was absurd that one person could pull two carts with one hand when even an ox would struggle, but it was hardly difficult for Jo Won.
“Hngh!”
Crack!
The rocks that occasionally got in his way shattered under the weight of ten thousand books, and with just a little exertion from Jo Won, the carts immediately began rolling with a rumble.
Eventually, Jo Won arrived at a place crossed by a broad river. Having reached Hanyang, the heart of Joseon, Jo Won's assessment was simple.
“Small.”
Everything in Joseon was small. Compared to the sprawling Central Plains, everything here seemed to be only about half the size.
“I didn't mean to inconvenience anyone.”
As a result, Jo Won had inconvenienced people without meaning to. Until he reached the broad river running across southern Hanyang, the Gyeonggang River, he had essentially blocked the cramped market streets with his two carts as he passed through.
People stared at Jo Won curiously, but not a single one approached him to speak.
“And hardly anyone wears a sword.”
Unlike in the Central Plains, few people here seemed to carry weapons. Other than that, however, Joseon and the Central Plains were fairly similar.
No—instead, Joseon's modest scale felt more crowded and more full of the warmth of ordinary human life. After gazing down at the river for a long while, Jo Won smiled faintly.
“Beautiful.”
Countless boats traveled up and down the Gyeonggang River without pause. Watching the scene was almost like looking at the Yangtze in the Central Plains. The boats moving along the Gyeonggang River were packed with people and goods. They docked at the river's ferry landings, unloaded their cargo, departed again, and then returned, repeating the cycle.
Not far beyond them, mountains and forests blended together. People and nature seemed to coexist only a step apart, and the sight was beautiful.
The Central Plains, where everything was huge and spread out, lacked this particular charm.
Everything was big, everything required traveling a long distance, and there were people everywhere you went.
Was that not why Jo Won had chosen Golden Basin Retirement at the age of only thirty-three? Rather than the complicated and arduous martial world, Jo Won had wanted to live peacefully with his partner and his like-minded retainers, tending a small manor while studying the sword.
Golden Basin Retirement meant filling a basin rimmed with gold and washing one's hands in it.
Calling it Golden Basin Retirement was rather grand when he had not accomplished anything particularly remarkable, but Jo Won had enjoyed that peace for exactly six months.
Six months.
“Yuha.”
That had already become something that happened more than six and a half years ago. Jo Won murmured the name of his partner, a name that had grown awkward even to call aloud.
But Jo Won pulled himself out of his reverie. He needed to quickly find somewhere to store the books piled like mountains on the carts. So Jo Won began pulling the carts once more.
After dragging them for quite some time, perhaps...
A place came into view where the river split in two and broad roads stretched in every direction, lined with hundreds of licensed market stalls and thousands of roadside vendors.
“Songpa Market?”
With his exceptional eyesight, Jo Won read the name written on a flag far in the distance. He pulled the carts there first.
“Finding a place isn't easy.”
Jo Won planned to settle in Hanyang because he believed it was the best place from which to travel out toward all four corners of Joseon and return.
There were plenty of people there as well, which meant plenty of mouths and ears coming and going. More than anything, he needed a building large enough to store these ten thousand books.
But so far, Jo Won had not found any suitable place. As he continued on, ramshackle huts gathered along the Gyeonggang River came into view.
“People live the same way wherever you go.”
Jo Won had passed from the royal palace where the king lived, through the Six Licensed Markets and the licensed markets, and then past Mapo Ferry, where a massive licensed market had formed. The buildings there were neat, and the mountain slopes were thick with grand, tiled houses whose roofs rose like whale backs.
But the moment he entered the area where darkness had just settled, countless huts built along the river came into view. These were surely people who had banded together separately to survive because they could not enter that splendor.
Clatter, clatter.
When the sound of the carts rolling came from outside, heads suddenly popped out of the huts and stared intently at Jo Won. He could feel those blatant gazes, but Jo Won saw no reason to react sensitively to them.
“If I'd known I'd draw this much attention, I would have rented a room at some inn and stored them there.”
But Jo Won soon shook his head. They might be ten thousand books, but if he left them unattended, packs of jackals looking to prey on expensive books would be everywhere.
Jo Won had no intention of losing even a single one of these books so pointlessly.
After all, these books were a kind of legacy left behind by his partner, Yuha.
Although he had read every one of them over the course of three years and memorized them all, leaving nothing new to discover, that did not diminish the books' meaning.
Rattle, rattle.
The settlement of huts was quite large. Looking at the people living there, Jo Won saw gaunt figures who lacked the strength to eat properly, with hollow cheeks and pitiful appearances.
They were probably people who earned just enough each day to keep food in their mouths.
They said even the king could not solve poverty, so these people had clearly gathered around Hanyang and the Gyeonggang River to earn money and ease their poverty as best they could.
Clatter.
Jo Won passed through the settlement of huts and stopped the carts by the river. Worried that the books might have shifted, he lifted the hemp cloth covering them and carefully put them back in order. Then he untied the old iron sword from his waist and placed it on top of the cart.
“Stay right here.”
Jo Won stroked the old iron sword as though speaking to a living person. Yuha had carried the iron sword he gave her wherever she went, rain or snow. It had remained clutched in her hand until the moment she died, and being with that sword sometimes made Jo Won feel as though he were with Yuha.
“Come out.”
After placing the iron sword on the cart, Jo Won spoke quietly toward the empty air. A moment later, the bushes beside the road rustled, and fifteen or so men rushed out from within them.
“What do you want?”
Their purpose was obvious from the look in their eyes. Jo Won was not unaware of it, but he asked them anyway.
“We're the Hangang Gang, and this is our turf!”
The man who appeared to be their chief flexed his arm muscles and shouted at Jo Won. Jo Won gave a bitter smile at the greed he sensed in their eyes.
“I didn't know there were martial sects in Joseon, too.”
“Martial sects? What's a martial sect?”
“Just pretend you know what he's talking about!”
They were thugs who inevitably gathered wherever money and power accumulated. As their chief had said, those thugs divided territory among themselves and operated within it.
But Jo Won had never imagined that, after leaving the Central Plains and coming all the way to Joseon, he would meet people who used “Gang” as part of their name.
“So. You want these books?”
Jo Won was strangely calm. The thugs felt uneasy for a moment, but there were more than ten of them, so they soon squared their shoulders and puffed out their chests.
“If you want to pass through our territory, you must pay the toll. Pay up!”
“A toll? How much?”
There were people in the Central Plains who demanded tolls from everyone passing through as well. Martial artists commonly called them Green Forest bandits or river pirates of the Yangtze.
Unless they belonged to one of the Nine Great Sects or Five Great Clans, it was generally better for one's peace of mind to pay them. The road ahead was long, and getting into a scuffle with bandits would only drain one's strength.
So Jo Won placed a finger on the coin pouch hanging from his waist.
Jingle!
When the pouch jingled, the greed around the thugs' eyes deepened. Their chief let out a sinister chuckle.
“All of it!”
“A toll should have a fixed amount. Isn't demanding everything a bit much?”
The chief grinned at Jo Won's protest. No matter how closely he looked him over, Jo Won did not have the physique of someone capable of fighting.
On top of that, he wore a pouch that jingled with coins, and the carts were filled entirely with books.
“Books can be sold for a very high price. If we just slice you open here and dump your body in the river, who would ever know the Hangang Gang did it?”
Even the cheapest books cost one nyang apiece. One nyang was enough to buy ten doe of rice. The carts were filled with books, so the thugs could not help losing their heads at the sight of such wealth.
“With that kind of money, we could take over a granary or a fish market in Mapo.”
At their chief's words, greed filled the other thugs' eyes as well. Seeing their expressions change, Jo Won let out a faint sigh.
“Why do you hold human life in such contempt while coveting only the wealth right in front of you?”
“What are you, some fallen yangban? Spouting Confucius and Mencius?”
The words that spilled from the thug's mouth would have gotten him arrested and subjected to death by a thousand cuts if a sadaebu had heard them. The chief nodded. If Jo Won was a fallen yangban, he might have come out to sell the books.
These days, anyone could become yangban if they had enough money.
Of course, the sadaebu known as the Gyeonghwa se-jok still stood firmly above them, but there was a great difference between buying one's way into the yangban class and not doing so.
'But the fact that he's carrying a sword bothers me.'
The Hangang Gang Chief was bothered by the iron sword Jo Won had placed on the cart. But when he thought of the books inside the cart where the sword lay, his courage suddenly rose.
Money.
With money, you could even command ghosts, and the opponent was only one man. The chief decided that this was a chance Heaven had granted the Hangang Gang.
“Get him!!!!”
At the chief's signal, the thugs charged at Jo Won. Not one of them hesitated as they rushed him, as though this was far from their first time doing something like this.
Jo Won let out a small sigh as he watched them charge.
“Well.”
Jo Won's lips parted slightly.
“Since I was frustrated by not knowing anything at all, this might work out.”
The only thing Jo Won disliked was that his first connection in Joseon would begin like this. The first step was supposed to be the most important, yet he had never expected to begin a relationship with his fists.
Swish.
Jo Won opened his clenched hand, stretched his fingers long, and raised the edge of his palm.