Chapter 09
“Ah, this is…!”
The man scratched his head, looking troubled. The hair he had barely smoothed back fell loose again, becoming a mess.
“That shop’s already been sold. Young Master Iseo put it up at dawn, and before long some scholar came and bought it.”
“What? Who was it? I’ll buy it back. I’ll pay double—just tell him to sell it to me again…”
“That’ll be difficult. Ah, I’m terribly sorry.”
The man bowed repeatedly in apology.
“Why?”
“Well… it was a scholar I’d never seen before.”
“Isn’t there a record of who bought it and where he lives?”
“There is, but I already handed over all the records when I reported it to the authorities earlier. And, well… I’ve already received the payment…”
The man trailed off, watching Hoyeon’s reaction.
Hoyeon frowned. This was a disaster. At this rate, there was no way to help Iseo.
After thinking for a while, Hoyeon looked at the man and said,
“Do you know who I am?”
“Of course, sir. Aren’t you the young master of the Vice Minister of Justice’s household?”
Rubbing his hands together, he continued.
“If you happen to learn who owns that shop, contact me immediately. Do you know where Young Master Iseo is going?”
“The shop owner? Yes, understood. I don’t yet know where Young Master Iseo will go, but if I find out, I’ll be sure to tell you.”
After finishing his words, the shopkeeper rubbed his hands together expectantly, glancing at Hoyeon’s sleeve. Hoyeon took out a few coins and handed them over, and the man bowed low.
“I’ll definitely let you know if I find out where Young Master Iseo is going. But… how do you happen to know him…?”
Seeing the sly smile at the corner of his mouth, Hoyeon frowned.
“No—never mind. I spoke out of turn. My mouth runs away with me.”
“Then I’ll leave it to you.”
“Yes, yes, you can trust me.”
Even after Hoyeon left, the man remained bowing for quite some time. Only after the shop door was fully closed and the interior grew dim again did he finally straighten up, tilting his head.
“Your Highness, it seems the wastrel from the Vice Minister’s household has taken an interest in that young master. A young man connected to Choi Si-hwan, and now Kwon Hoyeon is interested in him…”
Danyang muttered, looking toward the door where Hoyeon had disappeared, as if amused. Then, with a soft sliding sound, part of the wall shifted, and Ryun appeared.
“Iseodang…”
Ryun rested his chin on his fan, lost in thought.
Ryun had come early in the morning to Iseodang to buy snacks for the Queen Dowager, but he frowned at the sight of the closed shop.
Yooji had clearly said that Iseodang opened early in the morning. If you didn’t go early, all the popular sweets would be sold out. That was why Ryun had forced himself to wake early and come to the market street.
He hated waiting. According to Yooji, the shop should have already opened by now. But then, hearing the faint sound of suppressed sobbing from beyond the door, he frowned.
With a flick of his fan, Danyang rushed over and prostrated himself.
“Yes, Your Highness!”
“Find out what’s going on at Iseodang.”
“What? All of a sudden?”
Danyang balked at the out-of-the-blue order. Though he was acting as a broker in the market street for disguise, he didn’t know much about the young master of Iseodang.
To begin with, Danyang thought sweets were for women and children, and didn’t suit a manly man like himself. He had never even gone near Iseodang before. This was a very troublesome order.
Spying on powerful noble households was at least interesting—what was this? Investigating a confectionery shop?
Danyang frowned, staring at the ground.
Even the most skilled investigator needed some kind of lead.
Ryun’s seemingly offhand command displeased him.
“This concerns the Queen Dowager’s health.”
“What? Ah—yes.”
There was, as expected, no detailed explanation of how a sweets shop related to the Queen Dowager’s well-being, but Danyang had no choice but to swallow his complaints and leap onto the roof of Iseodang in the early morning.
Once he settled on the low roof, it wasn’t long before an old woman sat on the veranda and began lamenting behind the young man who was straining red bean paste.
“Even if it’s unfair, what can we do? Choi Si-hwan may not report it to the authorities, but he certainly has the means to harm Hyun-woo privately. With the threatening letters arriving every day and those thugs coming even to the temple to cause trouble, Hyun-woo is very worried.”
The young man continued working as if he heard nothing.
“Iseo, if you just help this once, Hyun-woo will come to his senses…”
Iseo still said nothing. He knew that whatever he said would be useless. Originally, he was supposed to die, leaving only his mother and Hyun-woo to suffer until Prince Je-an saved them. But thanks to him, they had lived relatively peaceful lives and seemed unaware of how harsh the world could be.
So this time, it was only right that Hyun-woo take responsibility for what he had done, whatever the outcome. But the opponent was Choi Si-hwan.
Choi Si-hwan handled everything—from usury to the kind of dirty work his father, Choi Chi-seong, could not openly manage. In some ways, he seemed even more fearsome than his father, the Chief State Councillor.
Choi Si-hwan had no sense of honor or restraint. He simply did as he pleased. If Hyun-woo failed to pay him on time and offended him, he might truly not escape with his life.
“I’ll put the shop up for sale. That should somehow cover the money.”
It was Danyang on the roof who flinched at those words. He had been watching with displeasure as Madam Jeong sat idly on the veranda worrying only about her eldest son while Iseo worked tirelessly. Now he looked away, then gazed pitifully at Iseo’s slender figure vigorously straining the red beans.
“Give that money to Choi Si-hwan. And tell him to manage his life on his own from now on. Now that I’ve sold the shop, how am I supposed to send him money?”
“Iseo, Hyun-woo was wrong, but as you know, he can’t do anything except study. Shouldn’t you keep supporting him like before—copying texts and selling homemade sweets? If the eldest succeeds through his studies, he’ll surely remember your efforts and take care of you later…”
Iseo sprang to his feet and looked at his mother.
There had been a time when he thought the same. That if he worked hard and Hyun-woo succeeded, the family would recover, and that would mean his own success too. He had sacrificed sleep and worked himself to exhaustion. In fact, until just yesterday, he had believed that. But now, doubts had begun to creep in.
“Mother, this isn’t the first or second time. Before, he was seduced by a courtesan and lost all the money for his civil service exam trip. And before that, saying exams were useless, he spent all the money I gave him on a scrawny pig.”
The pig ate more than expected, and a sickly animal was never going to grow well.
There were many more things Hyun-woo had done, but listing them all made Iseo’s insides burn, so he stopped, staring into space.
“From now on, whether he studies or not, I won’t interfere. Tell him to handle things himself.”
“How heartless. Our family ended up like this because of you in the first place!”
Iseo was dumbfounded. Because of him? It was true they had been accused of treason because he was betrothed to Prince Je-an, but both his mother and Hyun-woo knew it was a false charge.
And it wasn’t as if he had chosen that engagement himself. It had been arranged by his late grandfather, with not a shred of Iseo’s own will involved.
Moreover, the prince himself walked around freely, while only Iseo’s family had been ruined and never restored. Perhaps they had completely forgotten the massacre of the Hwang family, who had once held high office.
Iseo let his tired shoulders slump and turned back to his work, roughly wiping his eyes with his sleeve. The sight made Danyang’s chest tighten.
“In any case, I won’t give you any more money.”
Prince Je-an had returned, so he would surely find Hyun-woo and their mother and help them. Iseo himself was someone who should have died anyway. Rather than interfering with the story, he intended to sever ties and live quietly in hiding—like dust—watching the prince’s love story unfold as if reading a novel.
“I’ve done my duty. Now I’ll just live quietly and watch.”
“Ungrateful wretch!”
Madam Jeong stormed out of the shop. Danyang immediately jumped down from the roof and ran to Ryun.
Unlike his earlier reluctance, he now spoke as if it were obvious what should be done.
“So I told them the shop was already sold—but Your Highness is going to buy it, right?”
Ryun nodded, though he looked at Danyang with mild annoyance.
“Then how much does he owe Choi Si-hwan?”
“I didn’t hear that much.”
“Find out, and match the purchase price exactly to that debt. Make sure the remainder goes to that young master of Iseodang. Renovate the shop and leave it in his care—but bring in a few skilled craftsmen so he won’t be overworked.”
“Yes, understood. But why are you paying so much attention to that young man? He’s just a fallen noble who makes sweets, isn’t he?”
“This morning, the Queen Dowager thoroughly enjoyed the sweets he made.”
When Ryun visited her early that morning, he had carefully presented her with a bundle of sweets. She had finished them completely with a cup of ssanghwa tea and did not spare her praise. Though the palace kitchen maids were quite skilled, the Queen Dowager—who had been losing her appetite and growing thinner—had, for the first time in a long while, eaten with genuine enjoyment.
She might tire of them at any time, but until then, he could not afford to lose Iseo.
Lost in thought, Ryun suddenly looked at Danyang as something came to mind.
“By the way, what happened to the task I gave you before? Have you found anything?”
“Well… it’s been so long, and everyone seems reluctant to speak of it, so it’s not easy to investigate.”
It had already been eleven years. The incident in which an entire family was nearly wiped out for allegedly hiding him had remained a source of guilt in Ryun’s heart since childhood.
He had never even seen his betrothed’s face, and they hadn’t even exchanged names before the formal documents were sent—only that her family head had been a favored subject of the late king.
