Thud.
“Hm.”
As the struggle for profits intensified between the merchants of Jongno’s licensed market stalls, who held the licensed-market monopoly, and the river merchants who opposed them with their own monopoly over the Gyeonggang River, many shadows began to form in Hanyang.
One of them was the Geomgye, which had begun to quietly raise its head again.
Street gangs were essential for fighting over commercial interests, and as people with nothing but their bodies began flocking to Hanyang, street gangs naturally began forming one after another.
And something else arose alongside the street gangs.
Information brokers.
In other words, people who bought and sold information began to appear.
Jingle, jingle.
Usun, who had been walking a tightrope until moments ago to liven up the crowd before secretly coming to spy on the Songpa Gang at the guild chief’s summons, realized he no longer had to worry about being discovered and began moving boldly.
“They got wiped out?”
Usun was an entertainer who played music while walking a tightrope, bells jingling at his waist. Entertainers like Usun, traveling musicians, performers, and others had gathered together to form an organization called the Performers’ Guild.
They were collectively called performers. Since they were all members of the lowest class of outcast commoners who lived by selling their talents, they were sometimes called entertainers and butchers as well.
But they did not sell only their talents. They sold information, too.
“The Songpa Gang?”
Usun clicked his tongue as he stared at the Songpa Gang’s courtyard, where blood had splattered everywhere. From the looks of it, quite a commotion had taken place inside.
“Who did this? Jongno? Ihyeon? Chilpae?”
But the Performers’ Guild had no knowledge of any thugs moving against the Songpa Gang from any of those places.
For the Performers’ Guild not to know what had happened in Songpa Market, where enormous sums of money changed hands and countless people passed through, was a blemish on its reputation.
Light as a bird.
Usun easily vaulted over the wall. The Geomgye members who saw him flinched in surprise, but when they noticed his clothes, Yellow Tooth spoke.
“Are you from the Performers’ Guild?”
“That’s right. What happened here?”
Usun clicked his tongue as he looked at Yellow Tooth. Everyone’s arms and legs were covered in blood, and it was obvious their tendons and meridians had been severed.
“...Help us.”
“We’re merchants who sell information. We don’t help anyone. Especially not the Geomgye.”
“Then we can’t tell you who did this.”
Usun looked uninterested at Yellow Tooth’s response. He had come here because the tavern keeper of Songpa Tavern had brought a bundle of money to the Performers’ Guild and hired them for a job.
Finding out what had happened here had merely been something he planned to do on the side. But if the child wasn’t here, Usun had no reason to put in any extra effort.
“Suit yourself. That isn’t what I came here to find out.”
Usun shrugged. Yellow Tooth watched him, licking his lips anxiously.
“If you pay me fairly, I’ll tell you.”
“You people...”
The relationship between the information brokers and the Geomgye was lukewarm. Strictly speaking, they weren’t enemies, but they weren’t friends, either.
They were all people from the same miserable bottom rung of society, trying to survive, so they kept their distance and treated one another with indifference.
“You’re planning to get out of here, aren’t you?”
Usun immediately saw through Yellow Tooth’s scheme. Yellow Tooth intended to leave this place. It was a reasonable choice, considering that in their current condition, they would be nothing but easy prey for other street gangs.
But Usun was curious, too.
“You’re still alive, so it doesn’t look like the guys from Jongno, Ihyeon, or Chilpae. But if you’re trying to run away like this, were they really monsters?”
“...I’ll tell you if you pay me.”
Information brokers didn’t only sell information for money. They also bought information with money. Usun rested a finger on his chin and tilted his head.
“Will that information be worth anything?”
“It will.”
Yellow Tooth gestured toward himself and his retainers.
“If we were beaten this badly, then the guys from Jongno, Ihyeon, and Chilpae must have been hit, too. You can sell it to them.”
“Oh... You’re right.”
Usun nodded. Then, as if he had made up his mind, he pulled a cash coin from inside his clothes.
Clink.
“Here.”
“What is this supposed to be?”
One cash coin was worth twenty pun. It took five cash coins to make a single nyang. Yellow Tooth’s eyes bulged as he thought Usun was making a fool of him.
“If I were you, I’d take even that and start talking.”
At that moment, a thick killing intent began pouring from Usun’s eyes. Only then did Yellow Tooth realize the state they were in.
Their tendons and meridians had been severed. Usun’s limbs were perfectly sound.
No matter how many of them there were, they could only become Usun’s prey now.
“I can make you talk without spending a single coin. You know that. We’ll do anything if there’s money in it for us.”
The only way to make someone talk without spending a single coin was torture. Yellow Tooth squeezed his eyes shut. His body was already a wreck; he didn’t want to inflict any more damage on it.
“But time is money, so I’d rather not waste it. Or should I put this in your mouth as traveling money for the road?”
Usun grinned as he looked at Yellow Tooth. Yellow Tooth sighed as if he had given up.
“So...”
Usun’s eyes gleamed.
“You little brat! You little brat!”
Whap, whap, whap!
“Ah! Ah! Mom, I’m sorry! Ah! Ah!”
Jo Won went to Songpa Tavern with Kim Oheung and Jang Obok. Gaettongi had guided the three of them there, but the moment they arrived at the tavern, the tavern keeper grabbed him and beat him until his rear felt like it was on fire.
“Ow... Ow, my butt.”
Gaettongi rubbed his backside as tears streamed down his face. It genuinely felt as though his butt were burning. Then the tavern keeper stormed over to Jang Obok and glared at him.
“How could you take a child to such a dangerous place?”
Jang Obok was a low-ranking official and a member of the middle-status class. As a result, he was utterly cowed by the furious tavern keeper.
“I, well... We didn’t even go into the dangerous area. We turned back at the entrance...”
“Even so!”
As Jang Obok floundered, Kim Oheung spoke to the tavern keeper.
“Go prepare us a place to sit. I’ll order plenty. All right?”
“You! Get inside!”
Perhaps she decided she still had to do business even though she was angry. The tavern keeper gave Gaettongi a stern look. Gaettongi made a miserable face and went into the room.
Rattle.
Clatter.
“Let’s sit.”
Jo Won parked the two carts inside the tavern’s woven-fence enclosure, then sat down on the platform beside them.
Once the tavern keeper disappeared, it seemed the other customers had left as well. The tavern was quiet and completely empty.
“The food here at Songpa Tavern is famous.”
Kim Oheung must have visited a few times before, because he said this to Jo Won while salivating. Jang Obok rubbed his stomach, apparently hungry after all the exertion.
“I’ll pay for everything the two of you eat today.”
Jo Won smiled warmly at Kim Oheung and Jang Obok as he spoke. After all, Jang Obok had been the first person in Joseon to offer him a helping hand.
And although Kim Oheung had been manipulated by the Hangang Gang Chief, he had realized his mistake and immediately turned away from him.
Jo Won wasn’t particularly old, but he knew at least that a person’s eyes were windows into the heart.
In that regard, Kim Oheung and Jang Obok’s eyes were clear, without a speck of dust. Their willingness to roll up their sleeves and help others was proof that they were true chivalrous heroes.
“Having met two chivalrous heroes, I, Jo, consider it fate. Allow me to pour you each a drink.”
Jo Won humbly praised Kim Oheung and Jang Obok as he filled their bowls with rice wine. But Kim Oheung and Jang Obok were the ones who couldn’t act carelessly in front of Jo Won.
The two prided themselves on having lived without restraint and believed they never shrank before anyone. Yet in front of Jo Won, their manner somehow grew cautious on its own.
Jang Obok, in particular, had once been dragged before Jang Jihang, the grandson of Jang Bungik, the Police Bureau Chief. He had not lost his spirit, earning Jang Jihang’s recognition and being released safely.
“Thank you.”
“Think nothing of it.”
They both demurred, then lifted their bowls and drained them in a single gulp. The cool rice wine slid down their throats, sending a warm tingle through them, and their faces relaxed with pleasure.
“You do have money to pay, right?”
At that moment, the tavern keeper emerged from inside carrying enough food to break the legs of the table and shot the three of them a suspicious look. Despite her wary expression, the table was laden with all kinds of abundant dishes.
She might have been glaring at them, but she seemed considerably relieved that they had brought Gaettongi back unharmed.
“Will this do?”
Jo Won pulled a gold piece from his money pouch and placed it on the table. Kim Oheung and Jang Obok’s eyes widened, while the tavern keeper stumbled and fell with a loud crash.
“Uh... Brother Jo!”
Kim Oheung, who had been stammering because he didn’t know what to call Jo Won, finally came to his senses and spoke. But his eyes never left the gold piece.
When would people like them ever have seen a lump of gold?
They had only heard rumors that such things existed. For all three of them—the tavern keeper, Jang Obok, and Kim Oheung—this was their first time seeing one.
The tavern keeper got up after landing hard on her rear and stared at Jo Won. Jo Won gazed back at her.
“Our child... What sort of serious trouble has he gotten mixed up in?”
“Yes.”
Jo Won nodded. At his affirmation, Jang Obok and Kim Oheung tilted their heads in confusion. Gaettongi had been with them the entire time.
“I heard there are people competing with those thugs from the Songpa Gang.”
At Jo Won’s words, Kim Oheung and Jang Obok nodded. Their low status had deprived them of an education, but neither of them was stupid.
“Once Gaettongi left, they would have realized that the Songpa Gang had fallen. With the skills of these two, that would certainly be possible.”
Jang Obok and Kim Oheung hadn’t looked inside the Songpa Gang’s courtyard. But they knew that Jo Won had walked out of the front yard in perfect condition, despite how different things must have been inside. The two lowered their heads slightly.
“I don’t know whether it’s a good thing for Gaettongi to come within their sight.”
“...But why give something so precious to people you’ve only just met?”
Jo Won shrugged. He had taken quite a liking to the boy’s audacity. But what he liked even more was this tavern.
It was on a road with a steady flow of people, but it wasn’t overly crowded. More importantly, there was a small hill behind the tavern.
A hill that size could be hollowed out and turned into a library.
This place, connected to that hill, was perfect for storing ten thousand books. There was nowhere he liked as much as Songpa Tavern.
A tavern, huh?
Of course, that meant he might end up running a tavern, something that had never been part of his plans.
The tavern keeper stared at Jo Won for a moment, then bowed at the waist.
“Thank you, sir.”
“I’m no sir.”
“You don’t have to be a sir for me to thank you.”
Ever since they had begun living in Songpa Market, the tavern keeper had felt that Gaettongi was growing more mature than he should be, and she wanted to move somewhere else for the child’s sake.
But without money, that had been practically impossible. Now an opportunity had appeared.
“Wait. Would you give us a chance, too?”
But then someone cut in.