Chapter 345. Oyeon Jik and the Taepyeong Tavern 4
One silver ingot bought him a bowl of rice soup, a bottle of liquor, and a young woman.
When Youngwoo declined both the liquor and the woman, the young courtesan sat a short distance away and poured herself a drink instead.
Youngwoo asked,
"You pour for yourself?"
She lifted the cup and answered without the slightest embarrassment.
"What, should I throw it away? If I don't finish this, the house still gets paid for it."
Youngwoo clicked his tongue.
"Money, money, money."
The proprietress immediately scolded him.
"Oh, why are you giving a hardworking girl such a hard time?"
She was defending the courtesan for at least drinking the liquor that had already been ordered.
Youngwoo obediently lowered his head.
"Understood."
Then he took a spoonful of the rice soup.
As the hot broth slid into his stomach, the words came out on their own.
"Ah, this is good."
The proprietress knew perfectly well that he was only being polite.
She answered shortly,
"Glad to hear it."
"It really is good."
The proprietress narrowed her eyes.
"Such empty flattery. No wonder you became a soldier."
"But it is good."
"You would say that no matter what I put in front of you. When you live without enough to eat or wear, of course everything tastes good."
Youngwoo paused with the spoon in his hand and admitted it without protest.
"That is true."
The blood sausage in the soup filled his stomach nicely.
The rice softened in the hot broth, and every bite of rich offal seemed to bring life back into his hungry body.
Then a woman standing to one side remarked casually,
"That soup came from the place next door. You think we could run a tavern this big selling rice soup?"
Youngwoo's face fell.
He had spent his whole life in the military from a young age. How would he know the inner workings of a place like this?
No one had ever explained such a business to him, and he had rarely entered establishments like this in the first place.
He had simply assumed that buying even a bowl of soup would help their trade and household.
Looking embarrassed, Youngwoo said,
"Well then, I suppose I should go next door from now on."
"Ahem."
The proprietress laughed at the joke.
Her usually stern expression softened for a moment.
Youngwoo asked again,
"But where did you find the courage to do that?"
The proprietress tilted her head slightly.
"You saw it?"
"I heard it. I was waiting right outside the hidden gate last night, so I could hear everything. You shouted, 'I am Balhae too,' didn't you?"
The proprietress pressed a hand to her chest.
"Yes, I did. If I hadn't done something, I would have died too. Ah, it still frightens me when I think about it."
Youngwoo said quietly,
"I am Balhae too."
The proprietress immediately narrowed her eyes.
"Didn't you say you were from Goryeo? Oh, and saying that won't get you a discount."
Youngwoo laughed.
Even a woman hardened by the world had a country she called her own.
Those bastards did not.
He valued that feeling highly.
"That Oyeon Jik fellow from yesterday seemed to have taken a liking to you. Should I call you proprietress? Or manager?"
The woman snorted.
"Oh please. What is some penniless soldier going to do for my lot in life?"
"You have no interest in him?"
"Of course not. Once you live this kind of life, it is difficult to go back to an ordinary household."
"I apologize. I have been in the army since I was young, so I do not know much about the world. I seem to choose only the most ignorant things to say."
Youngwoo sighed.
He had meddled where he should not have.
Still, since he had already brought it up, he felt he should finish the thought.
"What I mean is this. Soldiers call the people who risk their lives beside them comrades. We often hold them closer than friends. That was the feeling I got from Oyeon Jik. He said a beauty like you was far beyond what he could ever hope for, but I only wanted you to know that he does have feelings for you."
The proprietress waved him off.
"Oh, what a nuisance. I have no intention of feeding some penniless idler for the rest of my life."
Youngwoo finished the last of his soup, then placed the pouch from which he had taken the silver ingot onto the table.
"I have nothing else to give you. I will leave this here. It may not be much help to a large household like this, but in truth, this is everything I own."
"Oh, you really don't have to—"
The proprietress said that, but snatched up the pouch at once.
Her delight was obvious.
Across from them, the courtesan steadily working her way through the liquor seemed half drunk now and did not even lift her head from her cup.
Youngwoo rose from his seat.
"You will probably have to start serving rice soup yourselves from now on."
The proprietress raised an eyebrow.
"Why?"
"The soldiers may start coming."
"Oh, what I sell is my own business."
Youngwoo straightened his back.
His voice lowered slightly.
"Do not let our boys go hungry."
He gave a light military salute.
Then he left the tavern.
The woman remained there for a long while, staring blankly at the road he had taken, where yellow sunlight spilled across the ground.
Outside, morning light spread through the Southern Market, and the old signboard of the Taepyeong Tavern swayed gently in the wind.
From that day onward, Balhae soldiers began frequenting the Taepyeong Tavern.
At first, only one or two came.
Soon it became five, then ten, then twenty.
Soldiers passing through the Southern Market recognized the sign and stepped inside, while those finishing shifts near the government offices naturally began turning toward the place in the evening.
They were not allowed to order more than one bottle of liquor.
That was Youngwoo's instruction, and the officers enforced it.
They were exactly the sort of men one might expect to pour liquor down their throats, start shouting, pick fights, and overturn tables, yet the Balhae soldiers who entered the Taepyeong Tavern behaved strangely well.
They bowed at the entrance, found empty seats, and sat down carefully.
After filling themselves with rice soup, meat, dumplings, and noodles, they gathered their bowls neatly to one side and left without causing trouble.
Watching them, the proprietress remembered Youngwoo's words.
What had he said?
That she should start making rice soup?
That she should not let his boys go hungry?
For some reason, those words remained in her ears.
When soldiers crowded into a tavern, there was usually drinking, swearing, quarrels, and someone eventually overturning a table.
But these men came to eat.
They drank down the broth like people who had gone hungry for days, chewed meat, and split dumplings between them.
The single bottle of liquor on the table passed from cup to cup, barely enough to wet their lips.
The proprietress shouted toward the kitchen,
"Hey! We should start making our own rice soup. Put plenty of meat in it and keep the broth going all night."
A huge man stuck his head out from the kitchen.
The cook puffed out his cheeks and frowned.
"Didn't you say there was no money in that and tell me not to bother?"
The proprietress jerked her chin toward the dining room.
"Look at them. They came here to eat, so feed them."
The tavern was already packed with soldiers shoulder to shoulder.
The large tables, small tables, and even the long benches along the walls were full.
Steam rose from bowls of rice soup still brought over from next door.
The soldiers ate in silence, spoons in hand.
One scraped the bottom of his bowl so as not to leave a single grain of rice.
Another swallowed a mouthful of broth and let out a long breath.
The cook looked at them and fell silent.
He had said it was not profitable, but the customers before him were clearly paying.
More importantly, they were faces that would return.
Tomorrow.
The day after.
And again, until order inside the city had been fully restored.
The proprietress spoke again.
"Go buy bones. Boil plenty of meat. Put in lots of scallions too. Soldiers are going to eat this. If you serve watered-down broth, I will kill you myself."
The cook turned away, grumbling.
"You say there's no money in it, then tell me to stuff it full of meat. Honestly."
"I'll worry about the money. You just make the broth rich."
From that night onward, the great cauldron at the Taepyeong Tavern never rested.
Firewood piled up in one corner of the courtyard, and bones and meat arrived in the kitchen.
The broth simmered through the night.
By dawn, the smell of meat had spread from the kitchen all the way into the alley outside the tavern.
The next day, the Balhae soldiers came again.
The proprietress stood with her arms folded and announced,
"From today on, the rice soup is ours. Not the place next door's."
One soldier laughed.
"Then I suppose it will be more filling."
"Eat your fill and behave yourselves on the way out, and I'll give you another bowl."
At that, the soldiers' faces brightened.
And so the Taepyeong Tavern changed.
It was no longer only a house that sold liquor and laughter.
It became a place where soldiers who had passed through war could fill their stomachs before setting out on the road again.