Black Swan Chapter 33

“Since I have to review the backlog of state affairs, you go and find my bride, Nanoh. I am specially bestowing upon you the title of Chairman of the Lee Hwa Marriage Promotion Committee, so accept it with deep gratitude.”

“…”

Suddenly, a deeply ominous premonition rushed over him. From Yoo Nanoh’s seven years of military life experience, whenever Lee Hwanmae handed his subordinates a title telling them to “accept it with deep gratitude,” not a single one failed to be a thorny crown.

For what reason did this perverted, sadistic bastard smoothly promise marriage… Could it be that he intends to ask me to procure a homely woman on par with Kim Hobong as a wife?

He was about to refuse the title right away, but stopped. Flies naturally swarm around a king’s marriage. There must be many powerful clans aiming for the position of external relatives to push their own daughters forward as Lee Hwa’s bride; it was cleaner for Yoo Nanoh himself to step up directly and select the bride.

“Let’s do that. I’ll select a bride from the commoner class. …By the way, the bride’s face doesn’t matter… at all? For example, the face… should it be, you know, shaped this and that… specifically… well, like a pig nose… o, or catfish lips….”

Yoo Nanoh unconsciously asked in a voice trailing off. Lee Hwanmae, who was getting up briskly from his chair, waved one hand with an annoyed expression.

“As long as her heart is kind, that’s enough. In a person, the heart is more important than the face, the heart.”

It was indeed an answer worthy of a homely-lover, but considering he didn’t demand bringing back female Kim Hobong, he figured it was something to be thankful for. Yoo Nanoh narrowed his eyes and asked back.

“Really? As long as her heart is kind?”

“Yeah, you punk. As long as her heart is kind. Even leaving aside a savage like you, since even the youngest fellow went and married a worthless, penniless guy, shouldn’t even I, the eldest brother, have a proper marriage?”

“Hmm, well that’s true. Even you need to have a decent marriage to preserve the family’s honor.”

At this point, Yoo Nanoh also started getting greedy. Now that he had taken the role of Marriage Promotion Committee Chairman, he wondered if he shouldn’t procure a woman whose face was as kind as her heart. It was questionable whether the homely-lover Lee Hwanmae would smoothly accept a pretty woman, though.

As Lee Hwanmae was shrugging on his uniform coat, he went, “Ah.”

“Oops, I forgot the most important matter. When choosing a bride, make sure to check her heritability. We need to bear healthy children.”

“A woman with a kind heart and no problems with her heritability—you mean those two conditions are enough? Okay, request received. Since I’m quite a busy guy myself, don’t attach any more conditions than that.”

Before the words could come out of Lee Hwanmae’s mouth—‘If possible, I hope you bring a woman who looks just like Hobong’—Yoo Nanoh quickly laid down the law.

“Good. The moment I return to the capital command, I’ll look into brides. I’ll procure one as fast as possible, so you just carefully decorate your honeymoon home.”

Not that it wasn’t so—he needed to get him married as soon as possible. Because, excluding the “King” title, Lee Hwanmae was merely a commoner-class eldest son of a head family who had long surpassed the average marriage age in this country to women—in other words, an old bachelor with severely poor conditions.

It’s a relief that the washed-up gisaeng resembles me and is even somewhat handsome. With that face, he’ll probably get married in no time.

His mood soared to the skies. In a situation where he had finally resolved his half-brother’s marriage problem, which had been a headache for a long time, Yoo Nanoh felt extremely lighthearted. Now, all that remained was to wait for the day cute nieces and nephews would be born one after another.

“Uha—!”

Yoo Nanoh kicked open the office door and shouted excitedly.

“All you unmarried women in this country, line up in front of me! The greatest brother-in-law in the world will escort you here—!”

∞ ∞ ∞

Yoo Nanoh’s optimism—that with a face like Lee Hwanmae’s, he could offset other adverse conditions and get married in no time—naturally went awry. True to an agricultural country with a strong tendency toward early marriage, the average marriage age in the Nation of Shin was nineteen years old for women and twenty-two for men. Finding a living Goddess of Mercy willing to go on a blind date with an eldest son of a head family who was a whopping thirty-two years old was not easy.

After combing through all sorts of matchmakers, Yoo Nanoh barely managed to find a living Goddess of Mercy. A 27-year-old woman with a neat appearance, parents engaged in education. No major problems with her heritability either.

The woman in question hadn’t married because she had devoted herself to studying for a long time. It wasn’t like she hadn’t had deep relationships with men in the past, but compared to Lee Hwanmae’s past—which was like a kitchen dishcloth torn to shreds—her side was a pristine white linen handkerchief. No matter how one looked at it, she was a bride too good to waste on Lee Hwanmae.

Yoo Nanoh harbored deep guilt and personally escorted the woman all the way to the blind date location. He returned home, firmly vowing to become a brother-in-law who treated his sister-in-law well until the day he died.

That night.

Around midnight, the door to Yoo Nanoh’s bedroom split in half, and a man in a pitch-black t-shirt with disheveled hair broke in brandishing a long sword. Wondering in shock who this crazy bastard was, he looked over to see none other than Lee Hwanmae.

“Nanoh, you! How could you introduce such a woman to me!”

“Why? What’s your complaint? You, is it because she’s too pretty?”

Yoo Nanoh stuttered unconsciously and asked back. Could it be that he should have sent a homely woman resembling Kim Hobong after all?

Lee Hwanmae shouted at the top of his lungs, brandishing his sword at his younger brother.

“The opposite! She was so frighteningly ugly that it pissed me off!”

“What?”

Yoo Nanoh seriously doubted Lee Hwanmae’s eyeballs. That fellow had been extremely suspicious from before… does he really suffer from prosopagnosia?

“Hey, I heard from Hobong, you always praised even that ugly fellow for being pretty, didn’t you? And yet this blind date partner was ugly…?”

“To Hobong, I just spoke empty words out of courtesy! In my eyes, this blind date partner looked ugly!”

“How can such a thing be!”

“Right here!”

“You said that as long as her heart is kind, her face didn’t matter at all!”

“That was just something I said! No matter how much I said that, I expected you to put forward a woman who at least meets the average! How can you, a guy who is quick-witted and smart, be like this! You should catch on at the slightest hint, you fool! I never even dreamed in my dreams that you’d actually put forward a homely woman with just a kind heart!”

“She looked like a pretty woman to my eyes! Anyone could see she’s a pretty woman!”

“To my eyes, she looked like Lady Park before shedding her skin!”

The brothers quarreled and engaged in a fierce brawl. Only after Ryu Hopi, who had been engrossed in finishing his manuscript in the studio, rushed out and desperately stopped them did the brothers cease their fight. As soon as dawn broke, Yoo Nanoh dragged his lunatic half-brother to a psychiatric clinic. Following a detailed examination, the doctor gave an opinion that Lee Hwanmae had a considerable level of PTSD and suffered from prosopagnosia limited to women.

“Didn’t he spend twelve straight years in a men’s bathhouse? In that case, there are male patients who occasionally fail to distinguish women’s faces. You can think of it as similar to the phenomenon where your vision temporarily blurs when you suddenly come out into a bright place after being in a dark place for a long time. It naturally improves if you continue social life, so don’t worry.”

Leaving the psychiatric clinic, the brothers entered a hangover soup restaurant. Perhaps due to being diagnosed with PTSD and a woman-only eye disorder, Lee Hwanmae had an uncharacteristically subdued atmosphere. Yoo Nanoh didn’t feel at ease either. They say even a hedgehog thinks its own babies are pretty, but even that wicked Lee Hwanmae was still his eldest brother after all, and his deflated appearance looked pathetic.

Right. He’s the hedgehog with the sharpest thorns in the world, but he’s my flesh and blood anyway.

Yoo Nanoh added a word to revive his older brother’s spirits.

“They say it recovers as time passes. Well, was saying a woman with just a kind heart is enough just something you said? Honestly lay out your ideal type. I’ll take it into consideration and look for one.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Lee Hwanmae unhesitatingly reeled off his ideal type conditions.

“A woman who doesn’t divide households with the main family and shows filial piety to her parents-in-law. A woman who takes good care of even her young brother-in-law, who is of an age to be her son, just like her own child. A woman who performs ancestral rites, which occur an average of twice a month, without a word of complaint. A woman equipped with cooking and cleaning skills second to none compared to our mother. Up to here are mandatory requirements.”

“…”

For a moment, Yoo Nanoh doubted his ears.

“Next are my personal wishes. A woman who believes that if her husband says soy sauce is soybean paste, it is soybean paste. Between nineteen and twenty years old. Slim legs that suit miniskirts. Bone-straight hair falling down to her waist. In particular, her neck must be long and slender like a willow branch, and it would be nice if she has a charm mole beside her left eye. Eyes with a subtle double eyelid. Baby-faced yet possessing a mature aura….”