Chapter 113: Bookstore (5)

Chapter 113: Bookstore (5)

Was earning someone else’s money really that easy?

From part-time gigs to the daily grind of a full-time job, the challenge of making money was a common refrain.

Earning money through honest work was just as tough today as it ever was, not to mention the added burden of business debts.

Could one truly stand before an audience unprepared, relying solely on their modest speaking skills? Some might pull it off, but I certainly wasn’t among them.

“What should we have achieved today?”

I asked Tang Hwarin, wearing a slight smile.

“What we aimed to gain was the Green Forest. What we intended to lose were the chains?”

“No... That’s the bandits.”

This woman said things that could cause trouble if overheard.

“Hehe. No? Then, was it to make the creditors agree to take on half of the bookstore’s debt?”

Tang Hwarin laughed as if she had nailed the punchline of her joke, catching me off guard with her words. She seems to be in a good mood today, likely because things went well.

“No.”

I shook my head, gently dismissing her suggestion.

“Then what?”

“Our objective today was to have the debt documents officially stamped.”

“Isn’t that essentially the same thing?”

“It’s different. Verbal agreements can be altered at any moment. We needed documents that hold unchangeable responsibilities and promises.”

Verbal agreements were too easily shifted. That wasn’t our goal. You must have misunderstood. That’s not what I meant.

No. Chief. When did I say that? Why are you misinterpreting my words and getting upset? Please, let’s change the manager. Just through words, faces are suddenly unrecognizable, and previously spoken words are denied.

Documents not acknowledged.

In any era, stamping a document was a way to prevent such misunderstandings and to assume full responsibility for the written content.

Today, our mission was to secure the stamps from all the creditors to solidify Tang Hwarin’s inheritance of the bookstore and her assumption of half the debt.

But there was a hitch.

The challenge was to review the documents and stamp them right there and then.

Even in modern times, where various remedies exist, rashly stamping a seal on a relative’s blank promissory note was enough to be criticized on the internet, let alone in this era.

That’s why we needed to do some preparatory work today.

“Hwarin, how many years would you need to pay off the debt with the earnings from this bookstore?”

I broached a somewhat heavy topic.

“For...life?”

Tang Hwarin answered in a slightly powerless tone.

“Exactly 150 years. I calculated it based on the net profit. So, Hwarin, you need to practice martial arts diligently. You have to live long to pay it off.”

“Tch. Mocking it as someone else’s problem.”

Tang Hwarin’s lips protruded sharply, appearing to sulk at my playful tone.

“If the ledger is accurate.”

“Huh? Don’t tell me you tampered with the ledger? Did you insert fake records?”

Tang Hwarin’s lips quickly retracted, and she looked at me with a surprised face, slightly opening her mouth.

“No. What was written there was transferred from the original ledger.”

No false records were noted in the simplified ledger made into a booklet.

“Then how?”Cheêck out latest novels at novelhall.com

“I tampered with the net profit.”

“Net profit?”

“Net profit is ultimately the amount left after subtracting the spent money from the earned money. No matter how big a store is, if it spends more, it’s worse off than a small store that earns well.”

“If you didn’t use fake records, how did you tamper with the net profit?”

“Your maternal grandfather. He owned many businesses, didn’t he? On the other hand, he managed them with a single ledger. When Uncle Manager said he needed to write separate ledgers for each business due to sales, suddenly, a good idea occurred to me.”

“What idea?”

“The method of significantly increasing the bookstore’s expenses without touching the earnings and expenses of other businesses.”

We must make what they were giving up seem insignificant by tempting the creditors with the prospect of debt repayment. This involved tampering with the bookstore’s ledger to show that the annual earnings were negligible.

The issue arose when other businesses were sold, and their ledgers were transferred.

If it’s discovered that we had disguised the bookstore’s expenses as those of other businesses or used fake records, it could lead to significant problems later.

“What’s that?”

Tang Hwarin asked, her curiosity piqued.

Hwarin, it suddenly occurred to me. There’s a way to drastically reduce the bookstore’s net profit just by manipulating the records in the ledger.

Why was she avoiding my gaze? Was it because she’s about to cry? Tang Hwarin lowered her head and averted her gaze.

“I’ll continue to help you in the future. Let’s do well together.”

I gently coaxed her into a hypothetical employment contract with a reassuring voice.

“How much will you help?”

“For a while?”

“...For 20 years?”

No. Shouldn’t she have become famous before that? Didn’t she have confidence in paying off her debt?

“Do you think it will be hard to pay off the debt?”

“No, it’s not that.”

“I’ll help indefinitely. If it becomes unexpectedly harder, let’s just abandon everything and elope together.”

If repayment became difficult over time, fleeing together was an option. If we worked hard and ‘copy’ fame using a printing press, we might strike gold.

By then, it would be okay to roam the world with Tang Hwarin as a bodyguard.

“Do you understand what you’re saying now?”

“Did I say something wrong?”

Just asking for help with my work since I’d be helping diligently. Was that too hard to understand?

“Sigh. No, that’s not like you. Just my wild imagination acting up again.”

Tang Hwarin, who had lifted her head, was no longer trembling in her eyes. Instead, she looked at me with a complicated and somewhat troubled expression.

Why was she like this?

“Haha. Yun-ho.”

Tang Hwarin chuckled at my puzzled face and called me.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you. Really. I’ll continue to repay this favor.”

Tang Hwarin placed her remaining hand on the back of mine, gripping our hands firmly together.

In her face, I saw not the despair and frustration of a few days ago but hope for moving forward.

“Aren’t you sleeping?”

In the cleaned-up bookstore attic, Tang Hwarin, lying in bed, called out to me sitting at the desk.

“You sleep first.”

I answered while grinding ink.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to write a novel.”

“A book? Don’t tell me, ‘The Tale of Hong Gildong’?!”

Tang Hwarin hurriedly threw off her blanket and asked me.

“No. Trying to write a storybook that might sell.”

“Hmm... Since we have to work tomorrow, don’t stay up too late.”

Tang Hwarin, losing interest upon hearing it wasn’t ‘The Tale of Hong Gildong’, covered herself with the blanket again and lay down.

I set the ink aside and started dipping the brush in ink.

It had been a long journey to get here.

Now that the case was settled, all that’s left was to manage the bookstore and continue writing.

‘What should I write?’

If fame was important, starting with popular genres seemed right. But what should I write? There was a commercially more popular genre in this world.

Erotic stories.

Should I write erotic stories, then? Would it be better to start with those modern, provocative erotic tales?

No.

I, Kang Yun-ho, had not forgotten the day I was writing ‘The Tale of Martial Heroes’. Nor had I forgotten the day I cried out to the world. Unless there’s no printing press left, I refused to completely abandon writing martial arts novels in this world.

Should I then write a martial arts novel?

Was it truly the mark of a genuine writer to tackle a genre doomed to fail once more?

No. As a writer, my duty was to pen something that not only fulfilled me but also resonated with the readers of this world.

I had pondered over a genre for months, and I made my decision.

Erotic stories, yet not quite erotic stories; martial arts novels, yet not exactly martial arts novels.

That was,

‘Let’s write erotic martial arts novels.’