novelraw Chapter 144 : Beauty That Sinks Fish and Makes Geese Fall
Chapter 144 : Beauty That Sinks Fish and Makes Geese Fall
Chapter 144: Beauty That Sinks Fish and Makes Geese Fall
Currently, the only outsiders allowed to enter Man Geum Trading Post were the courtesans dispatched from the brothel.
So we had devised a plan to sneak Jo Harang inside by disguising her as a courtesan from Cheonhwa Pavilion.
To that end, we’d gone all out, enlisting even Ilhong to transform the Tomboy of Mount Sung from head to toe. The result was so striking, I couldn’t help but wear a slightly stunned expression.
“Boss, how is it? What do you think of my disguise skills?”
Her face, once stained with sweat and dust from training, now revealed radiant skin like jade and an extraordinary beauty under Ilhong’s touch.
Her lion’s mane of wild hair had been tamed into graceful waves, and her fierce eyes were softened with a makeup technique that lent them a melancholic aura.
Add to that the cherry-red lips and a perfectly placed tear mole, and the Tiger of Mount Sung had vanished—replaced by a delicate, pure maiden.
“Ooh……”
A gasp escaped me before I realized it. Who would’ve thought the woman who constantly swung a broadsword and shouted about slaughtering villains had such a side to her?
Swish. Rustle.
Jo Harang kept shifting uncomfortably, seemingly not used to the fluttering silk dress and jingling accessories.
At this rate, she might be able to bewitch any target and lure them out in one go.
But there was one serious problem with the plan.
“A-as someone who has, um, long admired you, sir… may I offer you a drink……?”
When I told her to try seducing me as if I were the target, she stammered and broke down.
“A drink what? Keep going.”
“May I offer you a drink…? Ugh, screw this! I can’t do it!”
Apparently, her embarrassment had reached a boiling point.
With a face red as molten iron, she began thrashing in frustration.
She probably thought she was just slapping things in shame, but from our perspective, it looked like a full-grown tiger was throwing a tantrum.
Crash! Crack!
Sounds of destruction and devastation filled the room.
“Boss, do something! She’s wrecking the office!”
“Uh—stop!”
I stepped forward and chanted an anti-school-violence incantation, but it was no use.
The desk we had barely glued together finally gave in and collapsed completely.
Chairs, furniture, tools—everything shattered the moment it met her hands.
“Hey! Stop breaking the damn furniture!”
We were already in deep debt and needed to be frugal!
“Huff, huff.”
After I shouted at her several more times to stop, Jo Harang finally halted her outburst, catching her breath in heaving pants.
Every time she moved, her cumbersome accessories jingled, and she kept pulling them off and tossing them to the floor.
We hadn’t expected her to recite poetry, paint scrolls, or sing songs, but… even I had to admit, she was utterly hopeless at seduction.
“Jo Harang sojeo, please stop scratching your arms like that.”
“But this outfit is so itchy.”
Thanks to our hard work, the hardware had become that of an elegant beauty, but the software inside was still a wild girl from the mountains.
“Why do I have to do this, anyway?”
“What are you talking about? You were the one who volunteered.”
“Well, that was… b-because I didn’t know it’d be this kind of job!”
She fidgeted with her fingers, throwing a small fit.
“So you volunteered without even knowing what it was?”
We’d clearly mentioned alcohol and women. When she heard the name ‘Juwol-a,’ she’d jumped at the chance, so I thought she was confident.
“Hey, that was because you—”
“Because I what?”
“Ugh, forget it.”
Forget it, huh. Was she, like Ilhong, harboring complicated feelings toward Juwol-a?
Either way, sending her in like this was too risky—our chances of success seemed dismally low.
“Boss, so what you’re saying is, she looks the part, but the moment she opens her mouth, it’s all over?”
“Yeah, exactly.”
“Then… wouldn’t it be fine as long as she doesn’t open her mouth?”
She had a point.
Nodding in agreement, I turned to Jo Harang, who looked like a breathtaking beauty.
“This won’t work. Let’s go with the mystery strategy. You—just don’t talk.”
“Don’t talk at all…? Is that really okay?”
She hesitated, worried whether it was fine to pose as a courtesan and still stay silent.
“With your level of beauty, it’s more than okay.”
“…Heheh.”
If anything, it would be more effective.
Hearing that, she grinned bashfully, clearly pleased.
She flared up one moment and laughed the next. Honestly, the Purple Tenuity Star of our time was a woman no one could figure out.
The air was filled with the elegant melodies of the courtesans and the laughter of gamblers tossing dice and striking dominoes.
In the VIP room of Man Geum Trading Post, where a gambling den was in full swing, a man was finally savoring the feel of holding the tiles in his hands again.
“…This is it.”
Eun Yanggon, who firmly believed that he’d almost gone bankrupt last time only because his military funds had run dry.
This time, thanks to Man Geum Trading Post extending a generous hand, he came loaded with gambling funds that seemed nearly inexhaustible.
Even the food and drink weren’t the rough rice wine he had choked down before, but top-tier delicacies.
“You’ve won again, sir! Let me pour you another congratulatory drink.”
At either side of him were courtesans humming poetic verses and stoking his mood.
“I-I wonder if this is really okay.”
The luxury and extravagance were almost too much for someone born with a naturally timid disposition.
“It’s perfectly fine. You’ll be the Trading Lord of Eunseong Trading Company soon, after all.”
The courtesan assigned by Man Geum Trading Post flirted and pleaded with him not to forget her when that time came.
Caught in joy and yet entangled by unexplainable emotion, he slapped down the tiles with flair—thwack!
And then—he saw her.
A single stunning beauty who made his eyes widen in awe.
While everyone else clung to the gamblers hoping to catch some scraps, she alone stood apart, indifferent and aloof.
“Hoo… Could there really be a beauty that sinks fish and makes geese fall?”
A face one could scarcely look away from.
She looked so much like Juwol-a, the famed beauty who had risen to notoriety while he was banished, that he wondered if it might be her.
He dropped the tile he’d been holding and, as if spellbound, began following her.
From the whispers around him, he gathered she was a newly recruited courtesan from Cheonhwa Pavilion.
The way her gaze lingered out the window in melancholy, the sorrow etched on her face…
She clearly had a story. She must’ve been dragged into this line of work due to some misfortune in her noble family.
Though she hadn’t spoken a single word, Eun Yanggon was already spinning a tale in his head, entranced by her stoic demeanor.
“Sojeo, pardon me, but may I ask your name? I am Eun Yanggon of the Eunseong Clan.”
He found himself wanting to protect this delicate woman at all costs.
In a place as unsavory as this, where filthy gamblers and echoes of greed filled the air.
Eun Yanggon felt his heart churn with such emotions.
“I…”
“You?”
She looked troubled, unable to speak easily.
“Dan Mujin… is my name.”
“What a truly peculiar name.”
Dan, was it? The name that followed struck him as odd as well. It must be an alias.
Perhaps it was a name meant to keep men at bay.
“You don’t seem very pleased to be here. If there’s a story behind that, may I hear it?”
She wore a contemplative expression for a moment, then gave a small nod instead of words.
Eun Yanggon grinned at the sight—it almost looked shy.
“Where shall we go?”
“A hill… where the moon is visible.”
She seemed to want to escape this place, where the gamblers’ greed howled.
Perhaps it was suffocating. Eun Yanggon nodded, thinking the answer suited her demure appearance.
“There’s a scenic spot nearby, though we’d have to leave Man Geum Trading Post to get there…”
Just then, he recalled Geum Hwangdo’s warning—never leave the premises of Man Geum Trading Post.
But what kind of man would he be if he couldn’t even care for a beauty clearly in distress before his eyes?
Just as they were about to step beyond the threshold of the trading post—
“Eun Yanggon Gongja, didn’t the Lord of the Trading Post warn you not to leave?”
The goat-bearded merchant, with his villainous face, blocked their path.
He looked puzzled, but then, glancing at the woman beside Eun Yanggon, sneered knowingly.
“We’re merely going to look at the moon.”
“Gongja, the moon is just as visible from here.”
The merchant pressed him, clearly intent on making him stay put.
“Don’t stop me. We’ll be back after getting some fresh air.”
“But Gongja, the Lord clearly stated…”
“That damned Lord, Lord. Where am I not allowed to go on my own feet? Are you really going to shame the future Trading Lord of the Eunseong Trading Company like this?”
Alcohol dulls the senses. And a man with a woman by his side grows bolder still.
With the woman remaining silent, lips tightly sealed, Eun Yanggon stepped forward and barked at the merchant to back off.
“This will become a problem later.”
“Let it become one. I’m used to hearing such things.”
He had once been called the biggest delinquent in the clan.
Threats from underlings like this barely made him flinch.
“Gongja, over there looks nice…”
A soft murmur. And so, led by the woman, the man headed for a secluded spot.
Moonlight cast its glow over their heads, and starlight shimmered faintly.
Just as Eun Yanggon was about to ask why she had brought him to such a place—
Footsteps approached nearby.
“Who’s there?”
He flinched, wondering if the goat-bearded man’s warning had been right after all, but it turned out to be sturdy martial artists from Man Geum Trading Post.
“We heard you had stepped out. The Lord is worried. Please, return.”
“…How overly concerned. It’s just me and this frail lady here. What danger could there be?”
It was a quiet spot, not even the sound of a cricket.
Honestly, he couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about with Eun Hwaran.
His father Eun Jincheong might have been scary, but his sister? She had neither the guts nor initiative for anything, he thought, shaking his head.
“And Gongja, that courtesan at your side seems suspicious. The local courtesans say they’ve never seen her before…”
“Well, she’s new, isn’t she? No need for such suspicion.”
Cutting off the merchant as if to say one shouldn’t doubt such a delicate courtesan, Eun Yanggon stepped in.
But then, suddenly, a figure moved swiftly behind him.
Thwack! Thwack!
Silken robes flared wildly as sharp hands struck with precision.
“Hmph, even without saying a word, it still gets found out in the end.”
With precise chops to the neck, the martial artists from Man Geum Trading Post collapsed without proper resistance.
“…Huh?”
As Eun Yanggon stared in stunned shock, she casually removed her jewelry and ripped both sleeves apart with a loud tear.
Her bold, almost brash appearance made his eyes widen even further.
“What are you, wench…! Don’t tell me you tricked—Urgh!”
Thwack!
The answer came not from her, but from a young man who appeared beside him like a ghost.
“Dropkick!”
A bizarre form of kick drove both feet into Eun Yanggon’s chest.
“Gaaaah!”
Letting out a pained scream, he rolled across the ground.
But there was no time to rest. The young man who had suddenly attacked continued to pummel him with fists and kicks.
Beaten down without knowing why, the man shouted in protest.
“Guh! Wh-Who are you?! What grudge do you have against me?!”
“Me? I’m Eun Hwaran’s little brother.”
At those words, Eun Yanggon’s eyes bulged in disbelief.
“D-Don’t be ridiculous! She has no brother! I’m her only family now!”
And yet this man, who had tried to sell off that last remaining family member, dared to call himself family?
Dan Mujin scoffed and declared,
“No? I’m the only one now.”
The one who had abandoned his family for gambling and pleasure, and the one who had never known the warmth of family but cherished its worth even more for that reason.
It was obvious which of them had the right to be called family.
“You definitely need a beating.”
To think he tried to sell off his sister by sticking close to Man Geum Trading Post.
It looked like today was the day for Hundred-Knot Divine Fist to burn without mercy.
“W-Wait! I can explain. I was just—”
“Too late!”
Thwack!
And the next morning.
In the Trading Lord’s Office of Eunseong Trading Company.
Not long after rising from her chambers, Eun Hwaran found herself staring dumbfounded at a man whose entire body was swollen.
“So you're telling me…”
She pointed casually at the groaning, tightly bound man with the tip of her fan.
“This… is my orabeoni?”
“Yes. I wrapped him up and delivered him quickly.”
A bit swollen, sure—but apparently, that’s who it was.
Eun Hwaran stood dumbstruck, mouth agape, at the unexpectedly generous gift Dan Mujin had brought her.