A Rival Appears
“This is Mansang, where you'll be working starting today.”
Im Sang-ok dismounted and led Hayun forward.
Hayun looked up, and a magnificent building filled her entire field of vision.
“Whoa……”
The sheer scale of the place—a great main hall with rows of connected buildings stretching out to either side—was more than enough to draw a gasp of admiration.
So this is Mansang……!
She swallowed dryly at the thought that this would be her new workplace from now on.
All around, the shouts of laborers hauling cargo without pause and the clerks inspecting it echoed through the compound.
“Thirty bolts of silk!”
“Five crates of brushes and inkstones each!”
“Twenty crates of ginseng here!”
“Hey! Handle that ginseng carefully! Each crate is worth over a hundred nyang!”
“Fifty crates of dried seafood, just arrived from Jeonju!”
“Qing medicinal herbs—intake complete!”
“The west warehouse is nearly full, so everything coming in from now goes to the north warehouse!”
“Yes, sir!”
The bustling energy was worthy of Joseon's greatest merchant guild.
Watching hundreds—thousands—of crates moving back and forth, she could almost believe she was looking at a modern logistics warehouse.
Scamper!
Just as Hayun stood transfixed, a middle-aged man came hurrying out from the inner quarters.
“Welcome back, Daebang.”
“Yun Jeopjang, was all quiet in my absence?”
“Of course not. With you away, Daebang, did you really expect this place to run itself? Tending to one matter after another, I'm about to tear my hair out.”
The man called Yun Jeopjang was, even at a glance, a seasoned veteran of the guild.
“Heh heh, always with the complaints.”
“In any case…… who is this?”
Yun Jeopjang's gaze shifted naturally to Hayun. Im Sang-ok smiled faintly.
“Im Haseong, a new Haengsu starting today.”
“A new Haengsu, you say?”
Yun Jeopjang's eyebrows twitched almost imperceptibly as he looked at Hayun.
Haengsu was a rank comparable to a modern-day department manager—and now some delicate-looking young whelp had walked in. Of course he was thrown off balance.
Worse still, the boy technically outranked him.
“That's how it's to be.”
“……Very well. Understood.”
A curt reply—but an unmistakable thread of resentment ran through it.
Im Sang-ok turned back to Hayun.
“This is Yun Pyeong, who assists in running Mansang. Most call him Yun Jeopjang.”
“Just Yun Jeopjang is fine.”
“A pleasure. I'm Im Ha…… seong.”
Formal greetings were exchanged, and Im Sang-ok clapped Hayun on the shoulder.
“You must be tired, so rest easy today and begin your duties tomorrow. Yun Jeopjang will show you the details.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yun Jeopjang, show Haengsu Im to his quarters.”
“Yes. Of course.”
“Then, I shall take my leave.”
With a backlog of work waiting, Im Sang-ok disappeared into his office first.
Once the two were alone, Yun Jeopjang began the tour.
“Haengsu Im? This way, please.”
“Ah, yes.”
They passed through the entrance, and an enormous warehouse came into view.
“This is the Mulcheong. Goods are sorted and inspected here.”
“I see.”
“That building over there is the Sangjingo. It's where we store valuables—silk, medicinal herbs, and the like—under separate lock and key.”
The Sangjingo……
“Deeper inside is the Jangbucheong. That's where the scribes like myself slave over the ledgers day and night. If you're ever looking for me, come to the Jangbucheong.”
“Understood.”
The buildings seemed to stretch on without end.
Hayun did her utmost to commit as much as she could to memory.
At last, deep in the heart of the compound, a long corridor appeared.
Dozens of doors lined both sides of the hallway, stretching into the distance like a hotel.
Yun Jeopjang stopped in front of one of them.
“This will be your quarters, starting today.”
“Thank you.”
“If you need anything, send for me at any time.”
“Thank you very much.”
Yun Jeopjang withdrew, and Hayun took a slow look around the room.
A small space, perhaps a hundred square feet.
A neatly made bed stood against one wall, and a desk and chair sat beneath the window.
Through the window, the courtyard was visible along with a clear view of people coming and going.
“Not bad at all.”
If the Life Tavern had been a goshiwon—a cramped boarding house—then this was practically a modern studio apartment. Having escaped a stuffy little box for a comfortable private room, her mood lifted considerably.
Hayun stepped in front of a mirror set against the wall and studied her reflection.
“Speaking of which…… this actually suits me pretty well?”
Even back in her short-haired days, people had often said she could pass for a man. Now that she was dressed as one outright, even she had to admit she made a fairly convincing fellow. If she'd had a younger brother, he probably would have looked something like this.
“Ahh, should I lower my voice a little too?”
To play the part of a man more convincingly, Hayun tried imitating a lower register.
“Greetings. I am Im Haseong.”
“Well met. I'm Im Haseong.”
“Ah, yes, Im Haseong at your service.”
“Heh heh heh, my name is Im Haseong, good sir.”
From now on, she would have to adapt to a new name—and a new sex.
If she wanted to avoid being dragged off to the magistrate's office again, the words had to slip out naturally, no matter who asked or where.
“But first, I'd better fix these clothes.”
Since no one knew her measurements, the clothes Im Sang-ok had procured were far too large. The sleeves swallowed her hands whole, the trousers pooled at her feet, and the barest movement sent the top billowing open.
“First, roll up the sleeves……”
Tastelessness she could tolerate no longer—clumsiness, absolutely not.
Hayun took off her top to straighten out the ill-fitting clothes.
That was when it happened.
BANG!
“What the—?”
The door flew open without warning, and someone strode in.
Hayun hastily threw her clothes back on and looked up at the uninvited guest.
Step, step.
The man who had barged in unannounced appeared to be about her own age.
Tall and well-built, with a straight, high-bridged nose and sharply defined features—even down to the fair, porcelain skin so rare in this era, he practically radiated young nobility. The only flaw was his sharply upswept brows, which lent his face a distinctly fierce cast.
“Hmm.”
The man roamed around the room without the slightest reserve, as if it were his own. He even looked at the floor. The traces of another man were everywhere in this room she had only just moved into.
Hayun frowned.
“Who exactly are you?”
“Ah, right. Where are my manners.”
The man gave a light smile.
“Pleasure to meet you. I heard a new Haengsu had arrived, so I dropped by to pay my respects.”
“……”
Irritated now, Hayun gave no answer and simply glared at him in silence.
Awkward, the man withdrew his hand from the doorframe and introduced himself.
“I'm Song Dohyeon. A Haengsu, like you.”
“Ah. I see.”
“And your name was……?”
Hayun hesitated a moment before speaking.
“Ahem. My name is Im Haseong.”
“Im Haseong?”
A flicker of something odd crossed Song Dohyeon's eyes.
Hayun asked, flustered.
“What? Is my speech strange?”
“No, it's not that, it's just……”
Song Dohyeon fell into deep thought. Then, as if nothing had happened, he smiled and moved on.
“I must have been mixing him up with someone. Haha. So many people share similar names, you see.”
Then his gaze sharpened into something altogether different.
“I hear the Daebang brought you back personally from the trade journey.”
“Yes. That's right.”
“For the Daebang to bring someone back himself, you must be no ordinary talent…… What remarkable goods did you sell, I wonder?”
There was something needling about Song Dohyeon's tone, and Hayun answered just as bluntly.
“Nothing remarkable, really. The goods were actually quite ordinary.”
“Ordinary goods. The Daebang isn't one to bring back a person over anything ordinary, though……”
“Does what you sell matter? It's the person doing the selling that matters.”
“And that sounds as though you're claiming some extraordinary ability yourself.”
Hayun answered with a shrug.
So Song Dohyeon threw out a more direct question.
“If it's not too rude to ask—which guild did you work for? We'll be working together from now on, so surely I'm entitled to know where you earned your trade.”
“Well……”
Hayun let the words trail off.
She could have kept brushing him off coldly, but as Song Dohyeon had said, if they were going to be colleagues, there was no reason to start off on the wrong foot.
So she answered honestly.
“Actually, I worked at a tavern.”
“A tavern?”
Song Dohyeon echoed the word, taken aback.
“You don't mean one of those back-alley places selling gukbap—soup and rice?”
“Yes. I ran a tavern for a while. Business was good, too. The Daebang himself didn't hold back his praise.”
“……”
A silence settled between them.
Bewilderment was plain in Song Dohyeon's eyes. Then he burst out laughing.
“Wahaha! You certainly have a way with jokes!”
He shook his head as though he couldn't catch his breath.
“No matter how much the Daebang may have softened, he would never seat some ragtag soup-vendor in a Haengsu's chair—am I wrong?”
His words had a point.
It was as if the chairman of a major corporation had made a restaurant waiter a department manager. For Song Dohyeon, who had clawed his way to the rank of Haengsu only after a decade and a half of hardship, his irritation was only natural.
Oblivious to all this, Hayun continued her boast with perfect composure.
“It's true. I really did sell gukbap. Over several hundred bowls a day. We were so busy my calves developed knots every single day.”
“……!”
Song Dohyeon's expression froze over.
His eyes were ringed with naked displeasure. He asked once more, his voice grave.
“Is that…… the truth?”
“Yes. The Daebang was so impressed by the tavern I built that he complimented me directly.”
“……”
By now, Song Dohyeon's face had gone beyond cold—it was glacial. He looked Hayun up and down.
“Hm…… I see.”
The conversation ended there.
Song Dohyeon asked nothing more about her. In his heart, curiosity had given way to another emotion entirely.
“Understood. Then I'll take my leave.”
His speech had changed somewhere along the way, and Song Dohyeon left the room, his expression utterly without warmth.
Watching him go, Hayun scowled.
“What's with that rude bastard?”
After that battle of nerves, the fatigue only hit her now.
“Ha. So there's turf-guarding here too, huh?”
For Hayun, situations like this were practically old news.
At twenty-five.
As a woman, no less.
She'd been made a team leader at a major corporation—she didn't need to explain what the looks around her had been like. Other departments picked fights at every turn, the executive director rejected her proposals into infinity, and even within her own team, her exclusion was carried out in broad daylight.
Company dinners she was left out of. Meals eaten alone. Even when someone made the coffee run, Hayun's cup was always missing.
Any ordinary person enduring that would have quit from stress or filed a workplace harassment report.
But Hayun overcame all of it.
How?
With skill, plain and simple.
She ambushed the executive director by presenting the very proposal he'd rejected—directly before the entire board of executives—and with relentless persuasion she won the chance to run it, delivering an unprecedented blockbuster hit.
That campaign won Hayun Korea's Advertising Grand Prize that year.
As scenes like that repeated, her teammates gradually came to acknowledge her—and eventually trusted and followed her more faithfully than anyone.
Thanks to Song Dohyeon's little visit, feelings she had long buried began to smolder back to life.
Song Dohyeon?
Recalling their conversation, Hayun steeled herself for life at Mansang.
Let's see who the real ragtag nobody is.