An Advertising Genius Falls into the Joseon Era - Chapter 36

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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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Chapter 36
A few days earlier.
At the very moment Ha Yun was meeting with Im Sang Ok.
Song Do Hyun paced the corridor, lost in thought.
‘The head summoned that one alone…….’
Im Sang Ok’s summons was extraordinarily rare.
Most of those here had never had a proper conversation, let alone a private audience.
Song Do Hyun had kept his body here for over a decade, yet he’d never once met with him alone.
Business matters were always settled in Dae Cheong meetings. It wasn’t explicitly forbidden, but it was an unspoken rule.
Yet he had summoned Ha Yun separately.
And in front of everyone, no less.
The unspoken rule had been broken.
‘It’s unlikely he called her just for personal conversation…….’
If this had happened a few months ago, he wouldn’t have grown anxious like this.
He’d believed his abilities were more than sufficient to surpass her.
But now things were different.
The Goblin Marketplace.
Since visiting that place, unease had begun to take root.
The fundamental idea of exploiting shadows was the same between them.
But the vessel of thought itself—using artificial structures and the night sky—was entirely different.
Had it been a completely foreign idea, he wouldn’t have minded so much.
But because they’d begun from a similar starting point, the shock struck all the deeper.
It was from that moment.
That an unconscious habit was born in Song Do Hyun.
‘This won’t do……!’
Song Do Hyun gnawed absently at his fingernails.
‘Im Ha Sung……!’
Whatever others might think, he knew the truth.
That Ha Yun was not the real Im Ha Sung.
This was not suspicion.
It was certainty.
Ha Yun and the real Im Ha Sung were of similar age, true enough—but that was all.
The face, the bearing, the eyes.
None of it matched.
‘That one can’t possibly be the real Im Ha Sung!’
There was but one reason for such certainty.
The real Im Ha Sung was dead.
Though he’d crossed paths with her only once by chance, her face remained vivid in his memory still.
‘How could I forget? Im Ha Sung was the head’s youngest child, after all…….’
From childhood, Im Ha Sung had prepared for the civil service examinations and rarely appeared in public.
Even in the rare meetings, she’d used a childhood name, so no one had known her true name.
And crucially, there had been no funeral.
He’d only heard in passing, at some point, that she had died.
And even that whispered among only a select few.
As for anyone who knew this much about her—save himself, it would be Yun Jeop Jang, perhaps.
‘Someone appears with that exact same name as a merchant?’
This was no coincidence.
It was inevitability masquerading as chance.
And the fact that she wore a false identity at all meant
there was some grave flaw requiring her to hide who she truly was.
‘A fugitive slave or a criminal!’
Other possibilities were slim.
Without cause, there’d be no reason to live as someone else. In Joseon, where status was everything, impersonating another person was a grave crime.
Song Do Hyun’s eyes grew cold and hard.
‘I must find proof of her deception soon enough……!’
His gaze turned toward a single location.
‘To do so, I need to…….’
That gaze fell upon Ha Yun’s empty room. This moment, while she was in her meeting, was the only opportunity he’d have.
…….
Song Do Hyun glanced cautiously about. No sound of anyone nearby reached his ears.
Swish.
After confirming no one was nearby, Song Do Hyun slipped carefully into the room.
“Phew.”
Once inside, Song Do Hyun let out a short breath.
Having been here before, the space felt oddly familiar.
Apart from a few more clothes and trinkets scattered about, little had changed since his last visit.
“It seems to get messier every time I come.”
Song Do Hyun muttered, observing the garments strewn across the floor—a stark contrast to his own room, which grew emptier by the day.
After a quick survey of the space, Song Do Hyun set to work.
“There has to be something here that proves he’s a fake…….”
His hands moved with purpose.
He searched through drawers, under floorboards, beneath the bed—nothing left untouched.
“Not this, not that…….”
Yet no matter how thoroughly he looked, he found no evidence that Ha Yun was a fraud.
“Where could he have hidden it?”
All that surfaced were an improbable number of ornaments and accessories.
Song Do Hyun stared blankly at the pile accumulating before his eyes.
“All of this belongs to him……?”
Even for a man with a taste for collecting such things, this seemed excessive.
One or two pieces might be kept as mementos.
But accumulating dozens upon dozens of accessories was difficult to explain.
It wasn’t as though he gave them to romantic partners.
Song Do Hyun had never seen Im Ha Sung paired with anyone of the opposite sex.
He was a man obsessed with work, just as Song Do Hyun was.
What time did a work-obsessed man have to meet with lovers?
He hadn’t the time to spend money.
His purchases were limited to the occasional book or Scent Pouch.
Song Do Hyun’s own room had become lined with Scent Pouches carrying the fragrance of plum blossoms—at some point, he’d developed an attachment to that scent.
Then it happened.
As Song Do Hyun examined the accessories, his gaze halted.
‘That’s……?’
Among the mountain of ornaments, one piece caught his eye distinctly.
Carefully.
Song Do Hyun slowly picked it up.
What he held was a hairpin adorned with silver lily of the valley.
Familiar.
Unforgettable, really.
‘Why is this here……?’
This was the hairpin he’d given to the woman in the Goblin Mask not long ago.
The hairpin itself was far too distinctive to forget.
Or rather, truthfully speaking, he couldn’t forget that day because she was the first person to whom he’d ever opened his heart so completely.
It was unprecedented.
He’d never felt drawn to anyone quite like that before.
Even now, their conversation sometimes drifted back into his thoughts.
Had the woman not vanished like a goblin, he might well have asked where she lived.
Her presence had lodged itself so deeply in his mind.
“……!”
Song Do Hyun stared blankly at the hairpin.
Then something flickered through him like lightning.
‘Could it be……?’
The suspiciously abundant accessories.
The hairpin he’d handed to the woman in the Goblin Mask.
And that strange sensation from when he’d once carried Im Ha Sung.
The scattered pieces clicked into place, and he arrived at a single possibility.
‘Im Ha Sung is a woman……?’
His mouth hung open.
Had he been anywhere else, shock would have torn a cry from him.
‘How did I not see it all this time?!’
Now everything aligned.
All the awkward turns of phrase and gestures Ha Yun had let slip.
No matter how convincingly he played the role of a man, there were always parts that couldn’t be hidden.
Before he knew the truth, he’d simply thought of Ha Yun as an unusual person.
But now that he knew, everything felt different.
All that awkwardness—it had been the strain of imitating manhood.
‘Then the woman at the Goblin Marketplace….’
Song Do Hyun gazed down at the hairpin again.
Relief flooded through him at the thought of seeing her again, yet his mind reeled at the knowledge that the woman was Im Ha Sung.
‘But then, what is her true identity really?’
He’d discovered that Im Ha Sung was a woman, but that alone left too much unexplained.
There was no compelling reason to impersonate another person.
Being a woman wasn’t particularly problematic for a merchant.
Women merchants like Kim Man Deok already existed.
And with abilities like Ha Yun’s, anyone would have recognized her on the spot.
Yet she’d deliberately concealed her identity.
‘There must be a reason—a real one—for doing so.’
Song Do Hyun’s eyes narrowed.
He was back where he’d started.
He’d learned Ha Yun was a woman, but there was no progress beyond that.
No—discovering she was a woman had only opened up fresh complications.
‘What is this feeling?’
His chest had begun to ache for reasons he couldn’t name.
It felt as though a stone had settled there, leaving his heart heavy and tight—an ache that hadn’t existed just moments before.
‘I must have pushed myself too hard today.’
Unable to bear the tightness in his chest, Song Do Hyun forced himself to rise.
He began to restore the room to its original state.
He returned scattered objects to their places and carefully erased all trace of his presence.
……
As he reached to set down the Silver Lily of the Valley Hairpin at last, he paused, lost in thought, studying it for a moment longer.
That was when he heard it.
“Of all people, it has to be that one again…….”
A voice drifted in from outside. It was Ha Yun.
“So I’m supposed to share meals with that wretch, and sleep under the same roof?”
The voice drew steadily closer, though not yet near the room.
……!
Seized by urgency, Song Do Hyun slipped quickly from the room.
The Silver Lily of the Valley Hairpin remained clasped in his hand.

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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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