Abolition of the Wicked - Chapter 46

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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#046

Geom U-bin needed no pretext to leave the inn in order to conduct Sagi Liquor business.
Muhan was indeed different from Yangyang County—word of the Sagi Liquor had already spread through the city.
Since the Yuehaqi Pavilion, which supplied Sagi Liquor, towered above every other pavilion in Hangju, there was no reason the same could not happen here in Muhan.
The merchants most attuned to matters of profit were naturally aware of the movements of Geom U-bin and his companions since they had left Yangyang County.
“Sozu-seon, might I ask where you’re headed?”
A portly man in his fifties, his round cheeks creasing with a genial smile, posed the question—and Geom U-bin started in surprise.
“How do you know who I am?”
One of the lean, middle-aged men in the group spoke up.
“You’re the one who makes Sagi Liquor, the finest spirit in all of Zhongyuan. Any pavilion owner worth his salt would recognize you.”
All six men nodded in unison.
Geom U-bin asked, “Then are all of you pavilion owners?”

“Four of us run pavilions here, and these two oversee some of the finest inns in Muhan—both in the top five. Two more should be arriving shortly. Shall we order some tea and talk?”
Once they had taken their seats, they ordered the finest Longjing Tea available.
The obligatory praise of the Oseong Jang-won followed, and after two more arrived to make eight, the true reason for seeking Geom U-bin came out.
“We’ve come to ask if you’ll supply us with Sagi Liquor. Regardless of quantity, we’ll purchase the entire stock.”
“All eight of you?”
“Yes. We know the prices in Hangju, so factoring in transport costs….”
Geom U-bin cut off Bae Chong-mun, the lean middle-aged man, mid-sentence.
“I have no intention of supplying all of you.”
“No? Is there already a buyer you’ve agreed to?”
“No. Only one person among you will receive the supply.”
The eight men exchanged glances.
“What? Did he already make a deal with you?”
“We agreed to act together!”
“Not me.”
Geom U-bin rose to his feet. “Come back tomorrow morning. And don’t forget to bring the highest price each of you is willing to pay for the Sagi Liquor.”

“You’re saying you’ll hold a sealed-bid auction?” one of them asked.
“That’s right. No collusion whatsoever. If I find any trace of collusion, the Sagi Liquor goes to pavilions and inns other than yours.”
They could only watch as Geom U-bin’s figure receded from view.
They had arrived swollen with hopes of securing supply from the eight most successful pavilions and inns in Muhan, only to find themselves cast as concubines feuding over a single emperor.
“This boy’s business acumen is no small matter,” one muttered.
“That’s true. But we can’t let ourselves be played by a child either.”
“What about colluding?”
“How would he ever know?”
They all watched each other warily.
Jeong Gi-mong, who had suggested collusion, pressed the temptation further. “We each write down a reasonable price, and then we split the supply among ourselves. We can’t all go under anyway.”

Bae Chong-mun spoke, and all eyes turned to him. “We won’t all go under. One of us will become the owner of Muhan’s premier pavilion.”

“You’re suggesting betrayal?” someone asked.
“Think about who holds the knife. And honestly—can you truly trust that everyone here will keep their word?”
That these competitors had hated one another was common knowledge even to a dog that had lived in Muhan its whole life.
They had spent years hurling accusations at each other—swindlers, liars, wastrels—and speaking of honor now rang hollow.
“Then what if we set a ceiling price? If we bid too high, there’s nothing left to profit,” someone suggested.
“That’s collusion. Don’t you even know what collusion means?” Bae Chong-mun shook his head mockingly.
He stood, and Jeong Gi-mong asked, “You’re really going to compete in the sealed-bid auction?”

“I have confidence I’ll win,” Bae Chong-mun replied.
As Geom U-bin set his foot on the stairs to his room—having sown discord among the pavilion and inn owners—Yeon Geum-hong called out to him.
“Hang on!”
She was coming from the direction of the pavilion.
“What were you doing down there?”
“You’re arranging quite the spectacle. Why don’t you stay and watch too?”
“What kind of spectacle?”
“So Seok-san can finally see himself for what he is. It’d be tragic if a bald old fool died lost in his own delusions, wouldn’t it?”
It wasn’t an unreasonable sentiment—self-deception had its own comfort—but Geom U-bin chose not to argue the point.
As they crossed the courtyard toward the pavilion, Yeon Geum-hong spoke.
“There’s something I’d like to ask of you.”
While Geom U-bin listened to her request, Seo Seok-san was already laying his trap.
He’d taken a seat on the second floor, while the courtesan-performer Yeon Geum-hong had selected danced alone on the lower stage.
Viewed through the railing from above, she was breathtaking.
He’d asked for someone of inferior talent, yet she’d chosen a courtesan-performer who was clearly among the pavilion’s finest three.
“That girl has an eye for women, I’ll give her that. Not that her eye for women means a damned thing.”
His grumbling aside, his confidence remained unshaken.
Chae-mi’s dance was nearing its end. Five other courtesans performed alongside her, but Chae-mi stood out like a crane among chickens.
Every patron’s gaze on the lower floor had fixed itself upon her.
Seo Seok-san sat deliberately alone, three tables over from Do Pyeong-su and Jang Man-dok.
They watched the wager between Seo Seok-san and Yeon Geum-hong with keen interest. Just as Seo Seok-san was ordering Jeom So-i to bring him a pipa, Geom U-bin and Yeon Geum-hong appeared on the second floor.
It was a perfect opportunity to teach Geom U-bin how to captivate a woman’s heart.
Jeom So-i brought the pipa without delay.
The old instrument, grimy with years of handling, clearly hadn’t been touched in a long while.
Seo Seok-san needed no trial run; his ear alone was enough to tune the strings.
At last the dance ended.
While the other courtesans took their bows, the patrons would choose one of the dancers to accompany them upstairs.
Chae-mi descended from the stage breathless, yet her professional smile never wavered.
The moment she drew near the patrons’ tables, she would be claimed by one of them. Then Seo Seok-san would lose the wager before he’d even had his chance.
Ting!
Before it was too late, Seo Seok-san’s fingers plucked the pipa’s strings.
Any fool could draw a sound from a pipa with their fingers. Seo Seok-san’s technique appeared equally simple.
Yet the resonance that emerged was nothing like the ordinary. Those with even passing knowledge of the instrument could hear the difference, and as his fingers moved, even a novice would find themselves turning to look upon the player.
His music always touched the heart and ravished the soul. His voice could ring out like a general’s cry when the melody demanded it, or break with the poignant ache of a scholar shattered by lost love.
Seo Seok-san’s song, set to verses from Li Bai, the brilliant poet of the Tang, echoed through every corner of the pavilion.
Drawing upon a thread of martial force, the music reached every ear with equal clarity, transcending distance—a purity no court musician could ever replicate.
While Seo Seok-san played, no one stirred or spoke.
Patrons forgot their cooling tea and the taste of fine wine alike, rapt in his melody and song.
Even after his fingers slid across the final string and the performance ended, silence hung thick in the pavilion.
The afterglow he’d created lingered long.
Chae-mi’s dazed expression, her lips parted, made it plain the scales had already tipped decisively in Seo Seok-san’s favor.
But he did not stop there.
He began his final maneuver—to drive the nail through the coffin of her resistance.
Colorful silks hung from the pavilion’s railings as decoration.
Before the music’s resonance could fade, Seo Seok-san launched himself into the air, descended along a white silk, and landed on the lower floor.
“Oh!”
Someone gasped—because characters had been inscribed upon the very silk he’d grasped as he descended.

Moonlight fallen on the winter lake is clouded over,
And time has carried off my friend into the wine cup.
O moon and clouds—
When you turn to greet the coming dawn,
Please bear my regards to my friend beneath the sky.

The poem, trembling with the white silk, wrung tears from more than a few eyes.
Seo Seok-san descended lightly and walked without hesitation toward Chae-mi.
“Will you spend the night with me?”
Thoroughly enchanted by his music and verse, Chae-mi nodded, her eyes still distant and dreaming.
Seo Seok-san lifted his gaze to the second floor, but the railing obscured his view of Yeon Geum-hong.
By now, he imagined, she wore the expression of someone tasting bitter herbs, drowning her sorrows cup after cup.
“Come, let’s go up.”
In a pavilion, there are courtesans who sell artistry and those who sell laughter.
Since courtesans who sell artistry do so through their craft, they typically work in pairs with those who sell laughter. It’s rare for a courtesan who sells only laughter to enter a room alone, and rarer still for an artisan courtesan to do so.
An exception exists only when a courtesan-performer herself offers to play both roles—something that can be expected only from a regular patron, not a first-time guest.
Yet Chae-mi had just offered to play both roles for Seo Seok-san, whom she was meeting for the first time.
Seo Seok-san, having climbed to the second floor, could see Yeon Geum-hong sitting across from Geom U-bin.
When he grinned, Yeon Geum-hong turned her head away.
—Call me senior from now on.
Even through the Telepathic Communication bristling with provocation, Yeon Geum-hong gave no response. Do Pyeong-su, who had been watching, spoke up.
“Still got it, doesn’t he.”
Jang Man-dok nodded as well, a gesture acknowledging Seo Seok-san’s victory.
Seo Seok-san’s room had been prepared on the third floor.
Without ordering anything, the table arrived laden with delicacies.
The finest foods and the costliest liquor were accompanied by a beautiful courtesan-performer seated before Seo Seok-san.
It felt as if the days were returning when he had roamed Murim and earned the name Hwahwa Gongja.
‘Have I really spent the last twenty years living so dully?’
Age had set in, and the disappearance of his master had long since extinguished his appetite for women.
But having displayed his old prowess today and confirmed that he still had what it took, the nature of Hwahwa Gongja was beginning to stir within him again.
As he listened to Chae-mi’s faltering gayageum, he thought that when he returned to Hangju, he ought to venture beyond Oseong Jang-won and explore the pavilions.
When the performance ended, Seo Seok-san offered her honeyed praise, and Chae-mi, thanking him, poured him a drink.
That glass of liquor would be the last moment of happiness he felt that night.
“This humble courtesan shall take her leave now.”
“Hmm? Take your leave?”
“I have a prior engagement and cannot stay longer.”
“A—a prior engagement?”
For a courtesan-performer as beautiful as Chae-mi, having no engagements would actually be strange.
In the days when his hair was full, the courtesans would have fought over his appointments.
“I had not heard mention of any prior engagement. Surely such engagements can be broken, can they not?”
“My apologies. This guest has asked me to a promise I cannot break. I do hope you enjoy your evening.”
Seo Seok-san watched Chae-mi leave the room with a vacant stare. He felt no urge to stop her by force, and he was not even angry.
“Ah, shall I send you another girl instead?”
When Seo Seok-san shook his head, Chae-mi vanished with her final words: ‘You should receive the bill on your way down to the first floor.’
None of this felt real.
He had been rejected by a courtesan-performer. And not merely rejected—he had been overcharged for the fine foods and liquor as well.
“What in the world is this?”
Even with his hair thinned, this should not be happening.
He was the greatest Hwahwa Gongja of Zhongyuan, and his artistry could move every woman’s heart beyond the reach of mere appearance.
That was what he had always believed.
The shattering of that belief was unimaginable, and the unforeseen reality left Seo Seok-san’s mind blank.
Seo Seok-san left the room and descended the stairs with heavy steps.
He could not tell whether his feet were touching the steps or flailing through empty air.
‘Am I truly finished?’
Jeom So-i thrust the bill forward to him, drowning in self-recrimination. A bill for two silver coins stirred no feeling in him whatsoever.
Yet it ought to.
He had not a copper to his name. When money was plentiful, he could drink and revel as he pleased; when it was scarce, he could do the same—but those days were gone.
All of it had become the past.
Fortunately, he caught sight of Geom U-bin approaching.
Geom U-bin’s very presence was a comfort to Seo Seok-san.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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