Chapter 344. Oyeon Jik and the Taepyeong Tavern 3
The woman bowed her head to Youngwoo.
"It might get noisy outside, so I had them bring you in here."
Youngwoo asked at once,
"Are you hurt anywhere?"
She shook her head.
"I am not wounded. I just still have not managed to calm myself down. My heart keeps pounding, and sometimes it is hard to breathe properly."
As she spoke, she placed a hand over her chest.
Her fingertips trembled faintly.
Those were the same hands that had driven a blade into a man's back the night before.
Youngwoo had stood behind the hidden gate and heard everything that happened inside.
Now those hands looked as though they might struggle even to hold a teacup.
He did not sit down across from her right away.
For a moment, he remained standing.
It seemed that approaching too quickly might only burden her further.
So he stepped back and slowly bowed his head.
"You did something extraordinary last night."
Her eyes wavered.
She did not seem to know whether to take those words as praise, comfort, or something that forced her to remember what she had done.
Rather than add anything more, Youngwoo simply waited.
The soft hiss of steam from deeper inside the tavern and the distant murmur of the Southern Market gradually filled the silence between them.
"Because of you, we were able to take the city back."
The woman gave a faint, crooked smile.
"It should never have been taken in the first place. Lose it first, then go through all this trouble just to take it back?"
Youngwoo paused.
"That is true. Why did we let that happen in the first place?"
If it had never been taken, there would have been no need to recover it.
The words had been tossed out casually, yet there was something strangely deep within them.
Youngwoo's thoughts quietly settled around that single remark.
His master had once told him that truth was not found only in distant places.
It could be seen anywhere.
And wise people could be found anywhere.
The woman tilted her head slightly.
"You said you came to reward me?"
Youngwoo returned his attention to her.
"Yes."
At the mention of payment, her expression brightened a little.
"Well, there is no need to call it a reward. Just buy something from us. Business has been dead for quite some time after all that chaos."
She abruptly turned the conversation to business.
Youngwoo looked at her again.
She did not speak like an ordinary courtesan.
The way her eyes naturally took in the goods and the people inside the establishment was different as well.
"Are you the owner?"
The woman answered without the slightest hesitation.
"I work with an owner's sense of responsibility."
Youngwoo stared at her for a moment, then nodded.
"I see. So someone who is not the owner, but works like one, saved the country, and in return asks me to buy her liquor and food."
The woman smiled.
"That is exactly right."
"Then I will."
Youngwoo was about to order something immediately when she waved a hand.
"Oh, please. How much could you possibly eat by yourself?"
Youngwoo's expression turned serious.
"I am not a general anymore. And I will order the expensive things."
The woman could not hold back her laughter and shook her head.
"That is enough. If you really want to help, call in some of those soldiers outside."
At the word soldiers, Youngwoo's eyes lit up.
There were plenty of soldiers.
He could repay her request to "buy something" on a far larger scale than she had imagined.
"All right. I will do that."
He answered at once, then looked more carefully at her complexion again.
"But are you truly all right?"
The corners of her mouth moved as though she might smile, but did not quite manage it.
"This body is only going to rot away someday anyway. What does it matter?"
She tossed the words out lightly.
But there was nothing light beneath them.
Youngwoo could not answer immediately.
He remembered her hands trembling around the sword hilt the night before.
More than her talk of saving the country, more than her request that he bring customers, that final remark lingered with him.
Youngwoo shifted awkwardly.
"I fought all night and only just got up. I have hardly eaten properly. I will start by buying something myself. Just bring me a bowl of rice soup first."
The woman gave a short shake of her head.
"There is no money in selling things like that. You need to buy liquor and women."
Youngwoo went silent and blinked.
"Ah... liquor, then, perhaps..."
The woman raised one eyebrow.
"Why? What about the women?"
Youngwoo fumbled again.
The man who would not retreat before a blade somehow lost his composure before a question like that.
"I am a student of cultivation, so women are difficult for me. And I only drink a little when I am with the army."
The woman stared at him, plainly amused.
The commander who had cut through dozens of men and opened the southern gate the night before was now sitting in front of her, embarrassedly insisting that he was merely a student of cultivation.
Instead, Youngwoo rummaged through his travel pouch.
He took out a silver ingot, set it quietly on the table, and said,
"Then give me this much."
The woman's eyes widened at the sight of the silver.
The sulky look she had worn only moments earlier changed at once.
Her mouth softened first, then her eyes followed.
When the stern-faced beauty smiled, it was as though flowers had suddenly bloomed inside the cold room.
"Oh, you should have started with that."
She picked up the silver ingot with both hands and weighed it.
That brief movement carried the practiced instinct of someone who had lived by trade.
Her shaken nerves might not yet have settled, but her eye for money remained perfectly clear.
Youngwoo said, a little sheepishly,
"And bring me the rice soup too."
The woman smiled.
"That will be on the house. Since you refuse to buy liquor or women, you should at least eat properly."
There was nothing ugly about the way she cared for money.
It was her trade.
Work was work, and devotion to the country was something else entirely.
Youngwoo suddenly thought of the officers at Seonchun Pass.
Men who had skimmed military provisions and salaries and still stood there shamelessly afterward.
Those men should have gone into business.
Men like that had no place in the army.
If they were so talented at making money disappear into their own pockets, they should have been haggling in the marketplace instead of clinging to military office and ruining everything around them.
The only reason they stayed where they were was that officials and soldiers could get their hands on money more easily than merchants could.
Men who belonged in the marketplace had taken positions of authority.
No wonder nothing worked.