Thriving

The street had been so lively the evening before that I made up my mind to spend the whole day walking Three-Without County, right through to this evening. All I had done for the place was gather people into it; I had put no great care into it beyond that. I left Yeo-seol in Cheong Yo and Song-ran’s keeping and went out into the street.

The name of the busiest street in Three-Without County appalled me.

Tae-san Road, of all things.

And that was not all.

“Let us go by way of Scholar Road.”

Scholar Road was the next busiest street after Tae-san Road.

“A plow they do not sell here you will find on Divine Sword Road.”

The ironware shops and the smithies all stood on Divine Sword Road.

And when I heard that the street selling mostly children’s goods was called Yeo-seol Road, my head swam. Most of the road names in Three-Without County had something to do with me.

Before I knew it, I had become as good as a god in Three-Without County.

It was then.

Someone came up to me.

“Good day to you, Scholar Divine Sword!”

The byname still shamed me, and my face flushed hot.

“Mm? It has been a long while.”

I looked at the two people in front of me and tilted my head. They were nobody I had ever had dealings with. Hwang Gok, the Young Sect Leader of the Gold Mountain Sect, and his younger sister Hwang So-ye had both been in the pavilion the day I first fed the Flying Dantian to Mak Ji-mong. Mak Ji-mong had kept them at his side because their house had formidable money behind it, but I remembered them as decent enough in themselves. As I understood it, they were the best of a bad lot among Mak Ji-mong’s acquaintance.

“Have you come to see me?”

Hwang Gok smiled a little.

“Yes. We have come to call on the master of Three-Without County.”

“What is it about?”

It was Hwang So-ye who answered.

“It is not a thing to say here. There is something we should like to put to you somewhere quiet.”

Seeing that a teahouse happened to stand right beside us, I spoke.

“Let us go into the teahouse.”

We took seats by the railing on the teahouse’s second story, and from there the street lay wide open below us. A teahouse still open at so late an hour was a truly strange thing in itself. It meant this street was that lively. When a candle was set on the table besides, the whole mood came alive.

“The master of Three-Without County has come to our teahouse, so I have prepared the most precious Longjing tea this house has. As the master of this land has visited us for the first time, today the treat is mine.”

The teahouse keeper served us the precious Longjing tea¹.

“No, no. I shall pay for the tea.”

“That cannot be. If I took tea money from the master, the merchants round about would drive me out. So I cannot take it.”

“Ho ho. For pity’s sake.”

I could only throw out an awkward laugh. Pleased about something or other, Hwang Gok and Hwang So-ye smiled warmly.

“Because we know very well that our being able to trade in Three-Without County now without a care in the world is all owing to the Scholar Divine Sword, Master Scholar Cheon.”

The teahouse owner, who had been bringing the tea out, suddenly bowed deep at the waist toward me, near enough to a prostration.

“My whole family too have lived at ease since we came to Three-Without County. I never knew that having not a single soul who meant you harm could set the mind so much at rest.”

I waved a hand at that.

“How should that be any doing of mine?”

“Not so. A while ago, after you held the rite of sworn brotherhood with the Young Sect Leader, the Supreme proclaimed that the Scholar Divine Sword was as good as a son of his own body, and that he would take the head of anyone who did you harm.”

“Does hearing that not frighten you the more?”

“Not at all. If anything, it is that which has brought order and justice to Three-Without County.”

Once the teahouse owner had withdrawn, I turned the talk quickly aside out of embarrassment and asked Hwang Gok.

“What business brings you to me?”

Hwang Gok set down the teacup he had been about to lift, and opened his mouth.

“We wish to ask leave of the master of Three-Without County. We should like to open the Gold Mountain Money House in Three-Without County.”

I looked Hwang Gok in the eye.

“If the Gold Mountain Money House means to open a money house in Three-Without County to make money, then I should like to oppose it.”

“I beg your pardon?”

The look on Hwang Gok’s face said he had never once so much as considered that I might object.

“Because I mean to forbid usury.”

The money houses of this age grew their money by usury and piled up wealth with it.

“You may not lend at usury, and I will give the Gold Mountain Money House no monopoly either, so how should it come to money?”

At that, the eyes of both Hwang Gok and Hwang So-ye wavered in confusion, as though this were the last thing they had expected. But Hwang Gok soon found his composure again and opened his mouth.

“If we accept every one of the Scholar Divine Sword’s conditions, will you permit us to open?”

I broke into a grin at Hwang Gok, who was showing some will in the matter.

“And there is this besides. I mean to build an estate in Three-Without County to look after the small children who have lost parents and family in the civil strife and the wars. You would have to support it regularly. Will you still do it?”

The terms were growing more outlandish by the moment.

Hwang Gok thought a moment, and nodded even so.

“Very well. We accept that condition too.”

I tilted my head. I had thought that conditions of this kind would make Hwang Gok give up on opening the money house.

“These must be rather exacting conditions. What is your reason for accepting them?”

Hwang So-ye answered.

“Because Three-Without County is the safest place under heaven.”

“Hm? Three-Without County?”

“I need not spell it out point by point — what the teahouse keeper said a moment ago is enough. That he minds nothing but his trade, without a care in the world. Do you not see how great an advantage that is?”

Hwang Gok added to it.

“The master of Three-Without County is the Scholar Divine Sword, Master Scholar Cheon, and behind him stands the Supreme, who backs that master to the hilt. If this is not the safest place there is, where would be? To this day I have never seen anyone here make a disturbance or pick a quarrel. Not even in the eating houses or the wine houses at a late hour. Because they know that a wrong step will see them made cripples and thrown out.”

Hwang So-ye smiled with her eyes.

“I have not even seen anyone pick a quarrel with the waiters at an eating house or an inn. That says everything, does it not.”

I nodded. It was not an order I had set out to make. It had simply arisen from the two of us, the Supreme and myself together, and for that very reason it was firmer than anything ever formally decreed could have been.

“Our Gold Mountain Money House too wishes to trade with an easy mind, and to keep its assets somewhere safe.”

They were bearing with this slight disadvantage so that they could use Three-Without County as a storehouse as well.

“If you will open even on such terms, I permit it. The Gold Mountain Money House must pay the price of the land it stands on.”

“Of course. We shall let you know what land and what quarter we need.”

Then it came home to me that I had nobody to handle matters of property like this.

This is the sort of thing I can leave to that fellow.

The man who rose in my mind as one I could trust with work of that kind was Hohyeon Byeok, my sworn brother. I had recommended him to Mak Yeo-heun as a Strategist, but that would be a long way from moving yet.

I had better tell him to come at once.

Just then the teahouse keeper came up.

“A guest wishes to see the Scholar Divine Sword.”

“Do you know who it is?”

“They said they had come from the Golden Heaven Escort Agency.”

At the teahouse keeper’s words Hwang Gok smiled.

“Hahaha. It seems there is an escort agency out to get in first, just as we are. The Golden Heaven Escort Agency has no branch anywhere near here — they must mean to open one in Three-Without County.”

The Golden Heaven Escort Agency was the family home of Jeon I-an, Namgung Hak’s wife. There was no reason not to meet them.

“Our business is finished, as it happens. Scholar Divine Sword, we shall rise first. It has been a profitable meeting.”

After the Gold Mountain Sect’s people had gone, the Golden Heaven Escort Agency’s people came over to my table.

“Good day to you. I am Jeon Yun-bong, branch head of the Golden Heaven Escort Agency at Nanchang.”

“If you are of the Jeon family…”

“Yes. I am a younger second cousin of the lady who is the clan matron of the Namgung Clan.”

So Jeon Yun-bong was of the household of Jeon I-an, Namgung Hak’s wife.

“I am glad to meet you. If you are of the clan matron’s house, you are no stranger to me. Do speak at your ease.”

Jeon Yun-bong waved a hand.

“Goodness me, what a thing to say. To the Scholar Divine Sword, who is the Unorthodox Supreme’s foster son, and the Young Sect Leader’s sworn younger brother, and the master of Three-Without County — how could I?”

At first I took it for teasing, but the look in Jeon Yun-bong’s eyes said they were treating me so in dead earnest.

Jeon Yun-bong covered their mouth with a hand and spoke low.

“And besides, you are elder brother to young master Namgung Mu-baek of the Namgung Clan.”

I laughed awkwardly.

“But what business brings you looking for me? Has something happened at the Namgung Clan?”

As soon as the words were out, Jeon Yun-bong laid out the Namgung Clan’s recent doings at length. The Golden Heaven Escort Agency stood in close relation to the Namgung Clan, and so had the clan’s latest movements at its fingertips. Thanks to that, I heard the clan’s news well enough at second hand.

“Are the Ice Palace’s people getting on well? The Demonic Cult and the Blood Cult must be after them.”

“There have been several clashes with bands of the Demonic Cult and the Blood Cult. But what is the Namgung Clan? It is not a place that rabble of that sort can do anything with. They took every last head. Young master Namgung Mu-baek in particular went at the front of the hunt.”

When I left, things between Namgung Mu-baek and Jong So-bin had looked well enough, so I asked.

“Is there no other news of those two?”

Jeon Yun-bong answered with the face of someone who had expected the question.

“There is no escaping the Scholar Divine Sword’s eye after all. The love between those two is famous in Hefei. It has gone so far that people say a wedding ought to be held.”

I nodded. Namgung Mu-baek had trailed after her so hard for so long that his heart must have reached her at last. In any case it was a relief to hear that Jong So-bin had come to no harm, because Yeo-seol’s safety was only assured while the Ice Palace’s people were safe.

“What has brought me to see the Scholar Divine Sword this time is a plan to set up a Golden Heaven Escort Agency branch in Three-Without County.”

I smiled warmly.

“Do so, by all means. Name the land and the quarter you want. I shall lend it to you free of charge.”

“Ah — no. That cannot be. As it happens, the clan matron of the Namgung Clan said plainly that the Scholar Divine Sword would come out with just such an offer, and told me that if you made it I was to refuse and pay the proper price.”

Jeon I-an’s thoughtfulness warmed my heart.

“In return — the escort guards I leave aside, but the escort hands and the agency’s laborers you must take from the people of Three-Without County. On that condition you may open your agency.”

Jeon Yun-bong sprang up and made a cupped-hands salute.

“They say the Scholar Divine Sword’s nerve covers the heavens, and it was true after all.”

“Not at all. I am glad of the chance to repay a kindness I had from the clan matron of the Namgung Clan.”

I returned the cupped-hands salute.

With a moved look on their face, Jeon Yun-bong spoke.

“Very well. Then before long I shall let you know the quarter our agency is to stand in.”

“It being an escort agency, see that you take good land near the official road.”

“The clan matron will be pleased when she hears of this. It has been a little hard to run things in Nanchang all this while, but in Three-Without County, being the Scholar Divine Sword’s ground, we shall be able to trade with an easy mind.”

Jeon Yun-bong made their farewell to me, then walked off as though on wings and was gone.

When I lifted my teacup with a slightly worn look on my face, the teahouse keeper brought freshly brewed tea.

“Er, I am sorry, but there is another person downstairs asking to see the Scholar Divine Sword.”

“Who is it?”

The teahouse keeper answered me.

“Someone who says they want to set up the largest eating house in Three-Without County. They have a large eating house in Nanchang as well, and they are well known in the food trade hereabouts. What shall I do?”

For a street to come alive, good eating houses and inns were indispensable. Tired as I was, I had to see them.

“My apologies to you, proprietor.”

“Not at all. How can you say such a thing? Will you see the guest?”

“Send them up.”

All at once there was far too much to do, and my head ached with it.

I had better call Hohyeon Byeok in quickly and put him to work. He can come and stay here, and play Strategist to the Dark Heaven Sect and chief steward of this place both.

I set about laying plans for how to work Hohyeon Byeok to the bone.