Chapter 25
“Unless you’re going to buy something, don’t loiter around here for no reason. Business is bad, so everyone’s on edge.”
After realizing that Hayun wasn’t a customer, one of the merchants spoke curtly.
“All right, everyone, disperse. Let’s get back to our places.”
“Geez, I just wasted my time for nothing.”
“If I’d known this would happen, I would’ve slept a little longer.”
The merchants scattered and disappeared as though nothing had happened.
“Huh?”
Hayun looked at the merchants, who had appeared and disappeared in an instant, with a dejected expression.
“What are they, a swarm of locusts?”
Now left alone, Hayun slowly looked around Eun-pyeong Market.
‘If there’s one thing that’s fortunate, it’s that the market itself isn’t small.’
Eun-pyeong Market was quite large in scale. It had shrunk because of the fire, but ten years ago, it had been one of the largest markets in Uiju.
The biggest problem was simply that there wasn’t the slightest trace of liveliness in such a large market. It was in stark contrast to the other markets, which were always bustling with energy.
“Sniff, sniff.”
Just then, Hayun wrinkled her nose at the acrid smell wafting from somewhere.
“Is this… the smell of incense?”
Unbelievably, incense was still being burned throughout the market in memory of the merchants who had died.
Seeing this, Hayun clutched her forehead.
“This is really making me dizzy.”
The already gloomy atmosphere of the market, combined with the smell of incense, made it feel like a haunted house.
If there was one advantage to the atmosphere, it was that Hayun didn’t even realize that cold sweat had begun to bead across her back.
‘With an atmosphere like this, even customers who came here would run away.’
How on earth was she supposed to solve this problem?
There wasn’t just one or two things that needed fixing.
Hayun had only one month.
She was only supposed to be in charge of this place during the one month when the heat wave was raging.
“We don’t have enough time or budget.”
Since she had to support not only Eun-pyeong Market but all the markets in Uiju, the budget allocated to each individual haengsu wasn’t very large.
At most, around fifty nyang. In modern terms, it was roughly equivalent to a salaried worker’s monthly paycheck.
Reviving a dead market with that amount of money was close to impossible.
‘This is hard. Really hard.’
Hayun slowly began walking.
Nothing would be solved by simply standing around. She needed to move herself and find an answer.
“This place is practically a ruin…”
The deeper she went into the market, the more serious the situation became.
More than half of the stalls lining the passageways were empty.
There were occasionally stalls with goods displayed on them, but the eyes of their merchant owners showed absolutely no desire to sell anything. There were even plenty of places where goods had simply been left sitting there while the owner was nowhere to be found.
‘Do they actually intend to do business or not?’
If there were a market of the dead, would it feel like this?
A gloomy atmosphere hung over all of Eun-pyeong Market.
‘And what’s with the smell of incense?’
Suppressing the inexplicably unpleasant feeling, Hayun walked all the way to the end of the market.
Then she was left speechless by the sight she encountered there.
“Did a war break out here or something?”
If she had to describe the inner part of the market in one word, it was gray.
The entire surrounding area was stained black. Tree stumps with nothing but their trunks remaining were scattered here and there, and even those had been charred completely black by the fire. Around them lay debris that appeared to have once been parts of buildings, strewn about chaotically. Even the soil on the ground was completely black.
“Hmm.”
Hayun brushed her hand across the black soil on the ground.
The dirt trickled between her fingers with a dry rustling sound. It was almost more like ash than soil.
“Something definitely happened here…”
After making a complete circuit of the market, she had a rough picture of the situation.
The lifeless eyes of the merchants, the debris left behind like ruins, and even the smell of incense wafting throughout the entire market.
Whatever she didn’t know, it was clear that some major incident had occurred here.
‘What on earth happened here?’
As an outsider, Hayun couldn’t know the details.
If she wanted to revive Eun-pyeong Market, finding out what had happened here in the past was the first thing she needed to do.
“Excuse me.”
Just then, Hayun spotted a merchant doing business nearby and approached him.
“May I ask you something?”
“……”
The merchant stared silently at Hayun.
His gaze was remarkably impassive.
“This is quite a large market even now. Was it always this deserted?”
“……”
Hayun quietly waited for the merchant’s answer. But even after several minutes had passed, he merely stared at Hayun without giving any meaningful response.
So Hayun asked once again.
“Excuse me? Can you hear me?”
‘Nod. Nod.’
The merchant gave a small nod to indicate yes. But that was all.
He still didn’t give Hayun the answer she wanted.
It was as though he was waiting for something.
“……?”
Hayun looked down.
In front of the merchant’s stall were pieces of pumpkin taffy that looked like they had been made several days ago.
‘Nod. Nod.’
The merchant met Hayun’s eyes and nodded once again.
“Ah.”
Realizing what the nod meant, Hayun hurriedly picked up a piece of pumpkin taffy.
“I’ll buy this one.”
Only then did the merchant begin to speak.
“It wasn’t like this ten years ago.”
The merchant wasn’t mute.
He continued explaining.
“Back then, if you mentioned Eun-pyeong Market in Uiju, everyone knew it. It was one of the biggest markets.”
“This place?”
“Of course. It was always packed with customers. There were all sorts of goods, and people were overflowing with warmth and generosity.”
“What? Warmth and generosity?”
It was hard to believe.
She could understand there having been customers, but warmth and generosity?
The Eun-pyeong Market before her had not the slightest trace of such warmth.
The merchant explained why.
“There was a fire.”
“A fire?”
“A very big one.”
As he said that, the merchant lifted one side of his head.
A charred scar that had been hidden beneath his long hair was revealed.
“Gasp!”
Hayun was startled by the scar and fell silent.
Just looking at the scar was enough to imagine how fierce the flames had been.
“……”
Hayun couldn’t bring herself to say anything more.
The merchant was the same.
“……?”
The merchant remained frozen in the same position, his scar still exposed.
Several more minutes passed like that.
“……Excuse me?”
That was it.
That was all the story Hayun could hear for the price she had paid.
The merchant gestured toward the pumpkin taffy on his stall.
“…I’ll buy one more.”
Realizing that it was time to pay again, Hayun hurriedly picked up another piece of pumpkin taffy.
“It happened in an instant.”
The merchant then continued the conversation.
“The flames shot up and spread throughout the entire market. When I opened my eyes, everything around me was a sea of fire.”
His gaze drifted toward somewhere in the distance.
“I was lucky enough to survive, but the man in the shop next to mine, Mr. Park, was caught in the flames when the ceiling collapsed.”
“Oh dear……”
“The fire spread so quickly that there wasn’t even time to escape.”
The merchant pointed with his finger toward the old sites where only the foundations remained.
Even after ten years, the scars left by the fire still remained there. And the flames had swept through the merchants’ hearts as well.
“Silk, medicinal herbs, cotton cloth… even the shops we’d spent our whole lives building. Everything, quite literally, burned down.”
The merchant’s expression turned bitter, as though the memories from that time had resurfaced.
“After that day, no one came here anymore. More than a few people died here.”
With that, the merchant fell silent.
“…Excuse me?”
Hayun picked up another piece of pumpkin taffy, but the merchant seemed to have no intention of continuing. He simply closed his eyes slowly.
An awkward silence passed.
“…So that’s what happened.”
Hayun carefully put down the pumpkin taffy.
She felt uncomfortable, as though she had brought up something she shouldn’t have asked about.
“It’s fine. It’s not your fault, after all.”
As he said that, the merchant began packing up his stall.
“Business isn’t any good today either. I might as well close up and go have a drink.”
The merchant finished packing up his stall and left with a bitter smile.
Hayun stared blankly at his departing back.
“So the market burned down in a fire…”
She had expected something along those lines, but the scale of the damage was far beyond what she had imagined.
On top of that, there had been more than a few casualties.
Come to think of it, there were statues scattered throughout Eun-pyeong Market that seemed to have been placed in memory of those people.
“This isn’t going to work with ordinary methods.”
The more Hayun learned about Eun-pyeong Market, the heavier her heart became.
Only now did she understand why customers didn’t come here and why the merchants were so helpless.
In fact, when she had first arrived here, Hayun herself hadn’t had much motivation.
She had been fed up with the sweltering heat and the indifferent attitude of the merchants.
She had even considered simply killing time for a month and getting it over with. But now that she knew their circumstances, she couldn’t just stand by and watch.
The antique shop run by Hayun’s father had also been completely destroyed by a fire. Even now, Hayun could remember her father’s back as he sat there listlessly every day.
“Somehow, I’ll bring this place back to life.”
Hayun muttered to herself, her words carrying a double meaning.
“First, I need to find a way that costs as little money as possible.”
With a limited budget and only a limited amount of time, Hayun fell into deep thought about how to save Eun-pyeong Market.
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