Chapter 36
A few days earlier.
At the time, Hayun was having her meeting with Im Sang-ok.
Song Do-hyeon was pacing the hallway with a thoughtful expression.
‘Daebang-nim called that bastard separately…’
Im Sang-ok summoning someone was an extremely unusual occurrence.
There were many people who had never even had a proper conversation with him, let alone a private meeting.
Song Do-hyeon himself had been with Mansang for over ten years, but he had never once had a one-on-one meeting with him.
Any discussions related to work always ended in the main hall meetings. Though it was never explicitly stated, that was the unspoken rule.
But he had called Hayun separately.
And in front of everyone, at that.
The unspoken rule had been broken.
‘There’s no way he would call that guy just to have a personal conversation……’
If this had happened a few months ago, he would not have been this anxious.
Because he had believed that with his own abilities, he would be more than capable of defeating him.
But things were different now.
The Goblin Market.
Ever since visiting that place, a sense of unease had begun to sprout within him.
The basic idea of making use of shade was the same. But the very scale of thought behind using artificial structures and the night sky was different.
It was an entirely different way of thinking.
If they had started from completely different points, perhaps it would have been different. But because they had happened to start from similar points, the shock had been all the greater.
That was when it began.
Song Do-hyeon had developed a habit that even he himself was unaware of.
‘This can’t go on…!’
Song Do-hyeon unconsciously bit his fingernail.
‘Im Ha-seong……!’
Perhaps no one else knew, but he did.
That Hayun was not the real Im Ha-seong.
This was not a suspicion.
It was certainty.
Hayun and the real Im Ha-seong were around the same age, but that was all.
Their faces, their air, their eyes.
There was not a single thing they had in common.
‘There’s no way that bastard could be the real Im Ha-seong!’
There was only one reason he was so certain.
Because the real Im Ha-seong was dead.
He had encountered him only once by chance, but he still remembered that face clearly.
‘There’s no way I could forget. Im Ha-seong was Daebang-nim’s late-born child…….’
From a young age, Im Ha-seong had been preparing for the civil service examination and rarely showed himself at Mansang. Even if someone happened to encounter him, he used his childhood name, so no one knew his real name.
And, most importantly, he had not even been given a funeral.
He had merely heard that he had died at some point, almost in passing. Even that rumor had only circulated among a handful of people. Other than himself, the only person who probably knew this much about him was Jeopjang Yoon.
‘A haengsu with exactly the same name as him appears?’
This was not a coincidence.
It was inevitability disguised as coincidence.
And the fact that he was deliberately using a false identity meant that he had some serious flaw that needed to be hidden.
‘A runaway slave or a criminal!’
There were few other possibilities.
Otherwise, there was no reason to live as someone else. In Joseon, where social status was everything, impersonating another person was a serious crime.
Song Do-hyeon’s eyes turned cold.
‘I need to find evidence that bastard is a fraud as soon as possible…!’
His gaze turned toward a certain place.
‘To do that, I need to…….’
The place he was looking toward was Hayun’s empty room. While she was having her meeting, this was his only chance.
“……”
Song Do-hyeon glanced around. There was no sign of anyone nearby.
Rustle.
After confirming that no one was around, Song Do-hyeon cautiously entered the room.
“Phew.”
Once inside, Song Do-hyeon took a short breath.
Perhaps because he had been here before, the place somehow felt familiar.
Other than there being somewhat more clothes and norigae than before, there was little difference from that time.
“It feels like it gets messier every time I come here.”
Song Do-hyeon muttered as he looked at the clothes strewn messily about. It was a stark contrast to his own room, which grew emptier day by day.
After briefly surveying the room, Song Do-hyeon immediately began to move.
“There should be evidence somewhere in here that that bastard is a fraud….”
Song Do-hyeon’s hands moved busily.
He searched everywhere without exception, from the drawers and the jangpan to underneath the bed.
“This isn’t it, nor is this….”
But no matter how thoroughly he searched, no evidence that Hayun was a fraud appeared anywhere.
“Just where have you hidden it?”
All he found were a strangely large number of accessories.
Song Do-hyeon stared blankly at the pile of accessories before him.
“You mean all of these belong to that bastard…?”
Even if a man had a hobby of collecting things like these, this was going too far.
He could keep one or two as souvenirs. But collecting dozens of accessories like this was difficult to explain.
Nor were they things he would give to a lover.
He had never once seen Im Ha-seong spending time with a member of the opposite sex.
He was a work-obsessed person, just like himself.
Where would a work-obsessed man find the time to meet women?
He did not even have time to spend money.
Occasionally, he would buy things like books or hyangnang, and that was about it.
By now, Song Do-hyeon’s room was filled with hyangnang carrying the scent of plum blossoms. At some point, he had become obsessed with that smell.
It was then.
Song Do-hyeon’s gaze stopped as he examined the accessories.
‘That……?’
Among the mountain of accessories, one in particular caught his eye.
Slowly.
Song Do-hyeon slowly picked it up.
What he had picked up was a binyeo with a lily-of-the-valley ornament attached.
It was familiar.
No, it was impossible to forget.
‘Why is this here……?’
This was the binyeo he had given to the woman wearing the goblin mask some time ago.
The binyeo itself was so distinctive that there was no way he could forget it.
No, to be honest, he could not forget that day because she was the woman to whom he had opened his heart for the first time.
It was the first time.
The first time he had ever experienced being drawn to someone that strongly.
Even now, the conversation he had shared with that woman sometimes came back to him.
If the woman had not disappeared like a goblin, he might have asked where she lived.
That was how deeply her existence had been etched into Song Do-hyeon’s mind.
“……!”
Song Do-hyeon stared blankly at the binyeo.
Then something flashed through his mind like lightning.
‘No way!’
The strangely large number of accessories.
The binyeo he had given to the woman wearing the goblin mask.
And even the peculiar sensation he had felt when carrying Im Ha-seong on his back in the past.
The scattered pieces clicked together, finally leading him to one possibility.
‘Im Ha-seong is a woman…?’
His mouth fell open.
If he had been outside, he would have shouted from the shock.
‘How did I not realize it all this time!’
Only now did everything fall into place.
The awkward speech and gestures Hayun had shown all this time.
No matter how much she pretended to be a man, there were ultimately things she could not hide.
When he did not know the truth, he had simply thought she was an unusual fellow.
But now that he knew, it felt different.
All of it was the awkwardness that came from imitating a man.
‘Then the woman at the Goblin Market was….’
Song Do-hyeon looked down at the binyeo again.
He felt relieved at the thought that he could meet her again, yet his mind was confused by the fact that the woman was Im Ha-seong.
‘Then what on earth is that bastard’s true identity……?’
He had figured out that Im Ha-seong was a woman, but that alone still left something unexplained.
There was no reason for her to impersonate someone else in the first place.
Being a woman was not that great a problem for a merchant.
There was already a female merchant like Kim Man-deok. And with abilities like Hayun’s, anyone would have recognized her talent in no time.
Yet she had deliberately hidden her identity.
‘That means there must be a reason why she absolutely has to do so.’
Song Do-hyeon narrowed his eyes.
He was back at square one.
He had discovered that Hayun was a woman, but there had been no progress beyond that.
No, learning that she was a woman had instead created a new problem for him.
‘What is this……? This feeling?’
For some reason, a dull ache had begun in one side of his chest.
His chest felt stifling and heavy, as though a boulder had settled inside it. It was clearly an emotion he had not felt just moments ago.
‘I suppose I pushed myself too hard today.’
Feeling the pressure in his chest, Song Do-hyeon finally stood up.
Then he began putting the room back the way it had been.
He returned the scattered items to their proper places and meticulously cleaned up every trace he had left behind.
“……”
And finally, just as he was about to put down the lily-of-the-valley binyeo, he stared at it for a moment with a thoughtful expression.
It was then.
“Ugh, of all people, it had to be that guy again….”
Sounds came from outside. It was Hayun’s voice.
“That means I have to eat and sleep with that guy the whole time?”
Her voice was getting closer. Fortunately, she was not nearby yet.
“……!”
Feeling rushed, Song Do-hyeon hurriedly left the room.
The lily-of-the-valley binyeo was in his hand.
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