An Advertising Genius Falls into the Joseon Era - Chapter 58

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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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Episode 58
The next day.
“Haaah~”
Im Ha-yun stretched and rose from her bed.
The sun hung high overhead, but it didn’t matter.
The trading group had no work lined up for the time being.
A few reports to file, and that was all.
“Mm.”
Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Ha-yun made straight for the dining hall.
If there was anything she craved now, it was Korean food.
After months of eating nothing but Chinese dishes, her stomach roiled with longing.
“Huh?”
Ha-yun stepped into the hall and glanced about with a puzzled expression.
The corner seat by the window.
The person who should have been there was nowhere to be seen.
Song Do-hyeon spent longer at meals than most, bent over his account books.
So no matter how late Ha-yun arrived, she could always find him in the same spot, dining as usual.
But today he wasn’t there.
“Well, you’re finally awake?”
Han Seong-deok, who was eating, offered her a greeting.
Ha-yun approached and asked him.
“Where’s Do-hyeon?”
“Do-hyeon… eon?”
The unfamiliar, casual way of addressing him caught him off guard.
One of Han Seong-deok’s eyebrows arched upward.
“What’s this? Since when did you two get so close?”
“Why? Jealous?”
“Men don’t get jealous of each other.”
Han Seong-deok replied with a flat tone.
“It’s just strange seeing you two suddenly call each other so familiarly, when you were always bickering before.”
“Spend three months traveling together like we did, and see if you don’t grow fond of someone.”
“Fair point.”
Han Seong-deok nodded, as if conceding the argument.
“So where did Do-hyeon go? He’s usually at that table during this time.”
“Ah, you didn’t hear.”
Han Seong-deok recounted what had happened that morning.
“He requested leave to clear his head for a bit.”
“Leave?”
Ha-yun’s eyes widened.
“That workaholic taking a break? Even I didn’t believe it at first.”
“But this sudden…”
Just last night he’d shown no sign of it whatsoever.
Ha-yun pressed further.
“Do you know where he went?”
“I don’t know that much either. But he said he’d be back before it got too late, so don’t worry.”
“A sudden leave of absence…”
He could have given her a heads-up at least.
She’d have taken leave herself if she’d known.
Ha-yun felt a pang of hurt settle in her chest.
‘Where did he go without a word?’
With a petulant expression, she gazed at the window seat where Song Do-hyeon always sat.
***
Near Haeju in Hwanghae Province.
Here stood a small fishing village called Yongdang Port.
From early dawn, fishing boats came and went, and the smell of fresh-caught fish lingered perpetually at the docks.
Rough voices and curses echoed without ceasing, fitting for those who labored on the open sea; when night fell, the alleys filled with drinking songs and laughter.
Around the port, inns and pleasure quarters crowded the streets.
For sailors who spent months at sea, it was essential to indulge fully whenever ashore.
Wherever money and alcohol gathered.
Gambling was never far behind.
The far edge of Yongdang Port.
Coarse oaths echoed from a shabby gambling house where a game was in full swing.
“Damn it all! How does this kind of rotten luck even happen?”
“Ha! Looks like fortune’s turned vicious today, hasn’t it?”
“Hey, are you actually shuffling properly? Why do I keep drawing these garbage hands?”
If your purse is empty, why not fold? Stop making these ridiculous accusations.
“You just wait. I’ll be back soon enough.”
“We’ll see about that.”
The gambling house reeked of curses and alcohol, thick with smoke of indeterminate origin.
In one corner of that den sat a man utterly out of place.
He wore a silk robe that had no business being in such a location, and he’d pulled his hat down low to obscure his face.
In truth, finding such figures here was hardly unusual.
Gambling knew no distinction between men and women,
nor between nobility and commoner.
So one heard oft-repeated tales of yangban gentlemen who’d lost everything to the game.
That’s why the gamblers paid the man no special attention.
They knew well enough what news would reach them about him soon enough.
“Dealing the cards, gentlemen.”
Cards began to circulate across the table where the man in the hat sat.
What he was playing was called Tujeun—a game of cards.
A wager using sixty cards.
Six different images were drawn across them—man, fish, bird, pheasant, horse, rabbit—each bearing numbers from one to ten.
Players received two cards each, summed their numbers, and whoever held the higher final digit won.
But when numbers doubled—like a one and a one—it was called ilddaeng, and whoever held the higher doubled hand took the pot. Simple enough.
“Three.”
“Four.”
“Nine.”
“Hell…”
A gambler who’d checked his cards spat a low curse.
The man in the hat had won again.
It was the tenth straight loss.
At first, they’d thought it mere chance.
But the man seemed to possess an uncanny instinct for choosing only the hands he could win with.
This pattern repeated relentlessly.
Round after round, a mountain of cash accumulated before the man in the hat.
“Five.”
“Nine.”
“Jangddaeng.”
“Damn it. Lost again…”
The man in the hat had won once more.
As if he could read every card in the deck, whenever he joined a hand, he swept the pot clean.
“Listen, don’t you think you should ease up a bit?”
Finally, one of the gamblers who could hold back no longer issued a warning to the man.
“Seems to me you’re an outsider, and if you keep going like this, things won’t stay pleasant for you.”
A clear threat.
He was no mere gambler.
The man called Gyuchul was a member of the Yongdang Faction, the force that controlled Yongdang Port.
The reach of the magistrate’s office scarcely extended to such a remote place. It was effectively lawless ground.
A world where fists mattered more than laws.
That was Yongdang Port.
Gyuchul was one of its thugs.
……
Yet even in the face of Gyuchul’s threat, the man showed no reaction. He merely glanced sidelong at him.
“…Dealing the cards, gentlemen.”
The dealer, who’d been watching the tension carefully, began distributing cards again.
Shuffle.
The man in the hat and Gyuchul quietly received their cards.
“Jangddaeng for me!”
“Jangddaeng for me!”
For once, a substantial pot was forming.
Unlike games where the outcome hinged on a single card, this was a high-stakes hand where the weakest possible ranking was a three-pair.
In games like this, fortunes turned.
A man won everything.
Or he lost it all and walked away.
“Ha! This time, victory is mine!”
Gyuchul cried out boldly.
Then, as if to make a show of it, he laid his hand on the table.
“Nine-pair!”
The second-strongest hand in the ranking.
Only one hand could beat it: jangddaeng, a ten-pair.
Of course, a ten-pair could appear.
But if it came now?
That would be fraud, plain and simple.
A moment passed.
Swish.
A man wearing a gat quietly laid down his hand.
It was a ten-pair.
“Son of a—!”
The moment Gyuchul saw his hand, he shot to his feet.
“This is impossible!”
In a fury, he slammed the table.
“How can a ten-pair come up here!”
Gyuchul pointed an accusing finger at the man and began ranting wildly.
“I won’t accept it! This is cheating! Cheating, I tell you! That bastard must’ve pulled some trick!”
At his words, the man in the gat let out a low chuckle.
“Huh, a trick, you say…….”
The man muttered under his breath.
“Is it really so hard to memorize sixty cards?”
“What, what did you say!”
The man raised his hand and pointed to something.
There sat a container where the used cards were kept.
In Tujeun, used cards were stored separately to prevent anyone from marking them.
“…….”
For a moment, the man closed his eyes.
Then he began to recite the cards in the container, one after another.
“Human two, four, six, fish, one, eight, ten, bird, three, four…….”
“……Gasp!”
The gambling house fell silent in an instant.
Shock rose to the faces of those who had been playing alongside him.
“That, that’s absurd…!”
“Is there really a man who can memorize all of that?”
“It’s impossible….”
No wonder he’d won.
Once the secret was revealed, everyone stared at the man with dumbfounded expressions.
“See! It was cheating after all!”
Even so, Gyuchul refused to accept it.
Rather, he could not.
He’d lost ten nyang today alone.
To earn ten nyang, he’d have to spend a full week out on the sea.
“This son of a bitch knows every card! This is clear manipulation!”
In the end, unable to accept his defeat, Gyuchul rose abruptly and seized the man by the collar.
His hand tightened around the man’s throat.
“You scoundrel! Since you cheated, hand over every coin you’ve won today, or…….”
As the gat lifted, the man’s eyes that had been hidden came into view.
“……Hitch!”
Eyes cold and indifferent as winter ice.
It was Song Do-hyeon.
Gyuchul knew well that one did not touch a man with eyes like those.
Song Do-hyeon spoke at last.
“Who is your captain?”
“W-why are you suddenly asking about that?”
Just as she’d suspected.
Something about his appearance had seemed off from the start.
The way he’d bluntly asked about the leader made it clear: this man had come here with a purpose, whatever it might be.
Song Do-hyeon released his grip slowly, then spoke.
“Tell him I’ve come from Huksabang.”

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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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