Chapter 48: Anytime, Anywhere

Of course, the grand plan to change Joseon was still impossible for Wonja to achieve on his own.

Naturally, all of this was being conducted under the king’s permission, mediated through the ghostwriter Kim Josun.

Some time ago.

Kim Josun had sought out the king, carrying a report outlining Wonja’s plan.

However, the report he brought was the completion-final-ultimate-true-final-14 version, created after being rejected and rejected again by the harsh king.

Ever since he first returned from abroad, carrying a wooden box filled with potato and peanut seeds to present to the king,

and even during the tumultuous process with the ‘Tonggong Dogam’, Kim Josun had to revise the report so many times that the nightmare still lingered vividly in his mind.

"Marryeongseo..."

The king, who had been glaring fiercely at the bookshelf, surprisingly spoke up quickly.

It was Jeongjo, who had just been flipping through the final volume of , which had been presented a bit early.

"I was already considering telling the Baektap faction, including Park Ji-won, to compose and present a farming book next..."

As if pleased that their thoughts had coincided, Jeongjo showed a deep smile at the corners of his mouth.

In fact, in actual history, several years later, Jeongjo ordered Park Ji-won to write the , and Park Je-ga to compile the agricultural portions of Bukhakui into the .

In any case, the king’s intention to somehow enrich Joseon by spreading advanced farming techniques among the populace, and the proposal Kim Josun had brought today, unexpectedly aligned perfectly.

But, strangely, Kim Josun did not respond to Jeongjo’s words.

For someone who had never once gone against the king’s mood, it was an astonishing thing.

"Josun?"

"S-sorry, Your Majesty!! I was just surprised that my humble thoughts might have resembled your noble will even in the slightest…!!"

Of course, being someone whose social skills had evolved a notch in Qing, Kim Josun overcame this minor crisis in an instant.

However, there was another reason he was momentarily speechless before Jeongjo.

‘As expected, you can’t hide your bloodline…!!’

This was a feeling he’d had ever since .

Strangely, ever since the new novel had stirred up the capital, the king would roll out just the right policies to reform Joseon in step with the stories.

Of course, at that time, Kim Josun had no idea of the author’s identity.

But now, as the only one in all of Joseon to have accurately learned the true identity of ‘that person’, looking back, the phenomenon was profoundly meaningful.

Yongjong (Dragon Seed).

This refers to the descendants of the dragon—the honored ones who inherit the king’s blood.

Does a dragon’s son always grow into a dragon?

Though complicated circumstances kept the most honored father and son in Joseon completely ignorant of each other’s affairs,

it seemed as though their hearts were in sync, working together to unravel the nation’s problems.

Naturally, neither Jeongjo nor Wonja had intended this in the least.

But just as the gossips claimed, the form in which a popular scandal caused an uproar and was soon followed by a supplementing policy, was proving to be extraordinarily effective.

To Kim Josun, the only one with full knowledge of the story behind the scenes, it was a moving situation as seen through the eyes of a loyal subject.

Of course.

"At any rate... it’s only now that your report has become somewhat useful."

Watching Jeongjo finally give a passing grade to the report he had torn up in front of Kim Josun countless times,

the emotion Kim Josun had felt was instantly shattered to pieces.

"So, how will you spread this excellent crop among the people? Your previous reports lacked such considerations."

Tap. Tap.

Like a professor who bombards with F grades but now barely hands out a B, Jeongjo flicked Kim Josun’s report with his fingertips.

"Still, it seems your thinking has finally matured a bit, Josun?"

"Y-yes! It feels as though my eyes have finally opened under your wise guidance, Your Majesty!!"

In truth, until the previous versions, Kim Josun’s report had contained only vague remarks about entrusting the distribution of potatoes to the local officials.

That was the typical administrative style in Joseon, so his report was nothing out of the ordinary.

‘This isn’t it!!’

Deeming it insufficient, Jeongjo had shredded his report into confetti multiple times.

In the end, Kim Josun had sought out Wonja, begged for ideas, and finally managed to get a passing grade.

If it hadn’t been for the Young Master Wonja?

He’d probably still be stuck in the hell of endless rewrites, struggling to no end.

"Well, fine. This is worth a try."

But Jeongjo, who delighted in trampling his officials, paid no heed to Kim Josun’s thoughts and briskly folded up the report.

Apparently, the idea, which was submitted by a subordinate but had come from his own son, had quite piqued his interest.

"If you had failed to find an answer again, I would have rejected the idea of using  for ‘promotion.’"

Using the modern word ‘promotion’ passed along by Wonja as if it were a newly coined term, Jeongjo muttered.

"I don’t know what the outcome will be, but let’s try it."

"Thank you for Your boundless grace!!"

Thus, Jeongjo’s full permission was granted.

Relieved to have barely won the king’s approval, Kim Josun could finally bow deeply in gratitude.

Meanwhile, after his favored official backed out of the royal bedchamber...

"……."

The sun had set, and darkness began to fill Heejeongdang.

For some reason, His Majesty of Joseon did not light candles to brighten the room, but chose to sit quietly instead.

Jeongjo’s deep eyes were clearly staring into the darkness.

The events that had just transpired had long been erased from the king’s mind.

Instead, his thoughts were now consumed with one thing:

the way the entire process—from the publication of the novel to the implementation of policy—had fit together like perfectly interlocking gears.

‘Still reading such frivolous novels?’

And after experiencing this strange phenomenon,

why did Jeongjo find himself recalling memories of the past?

‘That’s true, Your Majesty. If you hadn’t shown favor to a lowly court lady, you wouldn’t have found yourself in this situation.’

‘Deok-im, you…!!’

‘If you continue to obsess over novels even on the day you personally chose my title with such affection, this concubine feels a little hurt.’

‘P-personally…!! Where did you hear that…?’

‘Though I’m now stuck here waiting only for you, I still have friends from the days I worked in the royal chambers, you know?’

‘Ah, ah!!’

As Jeongjo recalled the past, the corners of his eyes grew faintly red.

Those were the memories from the only five years of happiness in the king’s life.

It was just after he saw his first son, the future heir, born from his first love.

He was so overjoyed that, breaking with Confucian precedent, the old stick-in-the-mud had even personally selected the character for her new title.

‘Yi (宜)? Does that mean you think it was right that I should have been by your side, Your Majesty?’

‘C-cough…!!’

‘Or perhaps, by choosing 宜, you wished for the harmony of a family to stay with us forever?’

‘Q-quiet!! Lay out the bedding!!’

Though he’d always made his officials prostrate themselves and never allowed any woman in the palace to sway him—other than his birth mother, Lady Hyegyeong—

she was the only one who could shake San (祘).

Yet she never tried to shake the king carelessly.

But why was Jeongjo wandering through these memories on this night?

It was...

‘You once asked me when I would stop reading such novels, didn’t you?’

That night.

As the king lay in her arms, she quietly spoke as if in a dream.

Why was that remark, of all things, suddenly surfacing from the depths of memory?

‘Well. Could Your Majesty ever quit rising before dawn to read the classics?’

‘…No.’

‘Am I any different? Of course, if you command, I’d stop at once. Hehe.’

Though she said so, San knew she would never do it.

The two understood each other far too well.

She had entered the palace as a court lady right after the Imo Incident, cared for by Lady Hyegyeong as if she were her own daughter.

Though their positions were different, for twenty years they had watched each other closely from up close.

‘Your Majesty. Then, how about this?’

And.

She was the only person in the world daring enough to make a deal with the king that made even his ministers tremble.

‘I’ll prove that, someday, these novels you dislike can help you, Your Majesty. I promise.’

‘With some frivolous story…? Deok-im, you…?’

‘Yes. It won’t be easy while the child is still young… but someday?’

Even in the darkness, the bold smile she gave him—making his heart pound—was still vivid in Jeongjo’s memory.

"Was this... what you meant...?"

Jeongjo finally understood why those bittersweet memories had resurfaced.

This strange way the popular novel was aiding the king’s policies.

This was exactly what she had once said to him with a passing smile.

The king, who had buried his painful memories, had forgotten—but the once-happy Yi San had definitely been tempted by the promise she made so lightly.

Normally, the king would have dismissed all this as nonsense, the product of meddling ghosts and spirits.

But ever since her handwriting appeared in  and shook him,

in this situation, as if someone gone from this world was somehow connected to present events, Jeongjo could not bring himself to reject it.

If anything, he felt an oddly gentle familiarity.

"…However…"

Yet, as far as Jeongjo knew, the virtuous person writing novels to help the king was none other than his loyal official, Kim Josun.

There seemed to be no other logical candidate.

Fortunately, the king just barely managed to rein in the emotions threatening to overflow.

"If only it had been you..."

Before he knew it, in the deep darkness that had settled over Heejeongdang,

San murmured hoarsely.

---

Some time later.

At last, the final volume of  was released in Hanyang.

"The last volume is finally out!!"

"Let’s go!!"

However, what greeted the swarming readers at the bookstore was an unexpected notice.

"The final volume will be split into two parts...?"

"The other part won’t be out for ten days...?"

To the readers who had been eagerly awaiting the conclusion of , it was a bolt from the blue.

Naturally, a small commotion soon broke out in the bookstore.

"What’s the meaning of this, shopkeeper?!"

"If you can’t explain yourself, today’s the day you die and I die!!"

"Gak, gak!! Please, let go of my collar and let’s talk!! I beg you!!"

However, fortunately, the fire was quickly put out.

That was because the reason for splitting the last volume into two was not some underhanded ploy to squeeze more money out of the readers.

"Look at the thickness of the book! This isn’t like that scoundrel Kyeduksang at the Gyeonggi printing office trying to get rich!"

"H-huh…?"

"They announced there would need to be another book to give a proper conclusion! Calm yourselves now!!"

Well, even in this era, splitting single volumes to bulk up the page count was a familiar trick.

It was only natural that uninformed readers would flare up in an instant, but once they learned it wasn’t a cash grab, the commotion quickly subsided.

And, above all else,

readers who came to enjoy a good story were bound to become docile as long as they got what they wanted.

"Whew...!! At last!!"

"This is it, this is it!!"

As if they had completely forgotten grabbing the shopkeeper by the collar a moment ago,

the crowd of readers burst into broad smiles and began eagerly turning pages.

The fears of a few who remembered the case of  proved groundless.

 was racing toward the happy ending everyone hoped for.

Of course, even in the final volume, the protagonist Jin Jungil’s crises were not over.

Even though his second brother Jingi-dong, who had allied himself with a high official, was struck down by the king and dropped from the succession race, Jin Jungil still faced mountainous obstacles to seize the Yangsun Merchant Guild.

[……

"Jungil! Jungil! Something terrible has happened!!"

"What…!! Grandfather…!!"

…….]

This was because Grandfather Jin Daebang, who was sometimes Jungil’s mentor, sometimes his greatest rival, had collapsed.

He had intended to see his youngest grandson succeed, after watching Jungil build up his own branch and flourish,

but without leaving a will or even uttering any final words, he collapsed, leaving the succession of the Yangsun Merchant Guild in utter confusion.

Moreover, the other candidates for successor had no reason to look kindly on Jungil, who was clawing his way up from below.

Thus, ganged up on by his relatives, Jungil seemed doomed to fail at the last moment to seize the guild.

But...

[……

"Just one thing. I’ll bet everything on one last gamble."

"W-what?? Jungil. It’s all over. It’s too late to turn things around…"

"It’s not over until it’s over, uncle."

With that, the place Jungil sought out was the home of a certain favored official soon to be sent as envoy to the Qing.

"You say you know a new method for processing ginseng…?"

"Yes, sir. It will be a great reversal, bringing huge amounts of silver into this country."

"Ho…"

But soon after.

Jungil trembled at the answer he received.

It was...

"Th-this place…!!"

"Is this your first time at Changdeokgung?"

The high official he’d reached out to brought Jungil into the palace where His Majesty resided... ]

The higher the status and the greater the power of the person who acknowledges the protagonist, the more pleasure readers feel.

But for the one who saves Jin Jungil at his most desperate crisis to be the king himself, right inside the palace—

with such an unpredictable development, it was only natural that readers all across Hanyang felt a thrilling chill down their spines.

"Th-this can’t be real…!!"

"Isn’t the author going to get hauled off to the Uigeumbu for writing this…?"

"Maybe the  author who vanished will have company soon?"

Given that the author of the hanmun novel  had disappeared after publishing a similar story,

there were rumors among readers that perhaps the author of  would soon be strung up, forced to drink naengmyeon broth through his nose as punishment for angering the royal family.

At this time, even officials working late in the palace were starting to order naengmyeon deliveries, a sign of the budding delivery culture.

But of course,

this novel had been released only after Kim Josun’s report was torn up dozens of times and finally received Jeongjo’s approval.

Nothing the readers worried about came to pass, and there was no incident where police raided the bookstore to confiscate .

Meanwhile, some well-informed gossips figured out that the ‘naengmyeon through the nose’ rumor was false.

That was because they knew the episode about the red ginseng trade in the final volume of  was based on real events.

Word was spreading in Hanyang about someone who had overpowered Qing merchants and managed to fetch 1,800 nyang of silver per geun,

and some even guessed that the model for ‘the king’s favored official’ who helped Jungil in the story was none other than the Seobangnim of the Jangdong Kim clan.

"Ha ha. Kim Jikgak certainly made good use of recent events, didn’t he?"

"Didn’t he feel a pang of guilt writing his own story into a novel?"

"Hey now…!! Master Cheongjangwan!!"

Of course, the old scholars of Tapgol had figured out the truth as well.

Even now, despite improved circumstances, they couldn’t shake the old habit of gathering and passing around books to read.

"Hmm..."

"Yeonam sir? What’s the matter?"

However, Park Ji-won’s reaction was a bit different.

Not long ago, he had been appointed head of a fifth-rank department at Pyeongsi-seo, which had been expanded into Joseon’s version of a trade supervision board.

"This... there are details here that only someone directly involved could know..."

"Of course! The author of  is Kim Jikgak, isn’t he?"

The other scholars were as convinced as Jeongjo that the author was Kim Josun.

"Hmm. Looks like Kim Jikgak has gotten even closer to ‘that person’..."

"Sir? What do you mean...?"

"Never mind. I’ll tell you later."

The fact that Jeongjo had attached Kim Josun to Wonja as a close aide was a closely held secret known to very few.

Yet, though he had no access to the palace, it seemed Park Ji-won had deduced it just by reading the novel.

"Well, well. Working together with Kim Jikgak from now on doesn’t seem to be a mere coincidence. Hehe."

The current of history, shifting and changing, was smiling widely on them.

After Kim Josun, it seemed Park Ji-won was the next to sense it.

---

At any rate.

The protagonist of , Jin Jungil, used knowledge of the future to create red ginseng in Joseon ahead of time,

earned a fortune by visiting Qing, and, receiving the king’s special favor, launched his counterattack.

Jin Jungil, now prepared for his comeback, showed ‘the king’s return’ before the members of the Yangsun Merchant Guild in the highlight scene—

and thus, the upper part of the final volume of  drew to a close.

"Uh...?"

A few days later.

A citizen of Hanyang walking down Unjong Street opened his eyes wide in surprise.

"W-what’s with that crowd...?"

Unjong Street, connecting Dongdaemun and Seodaemun, was the central artery of Hanyang lined with all manner of shops.

Suddenly, a crowd was swarming around a luxury goods store in the middle of the street.

"Give me the colored spectacles that Jungil wore! The ones made from polished lead glass!"

"I want Suzhou blue silk imported from Qing! I heard Jungil made his outer robe from that!!"

Moreover,

the rush wasn’t limited to just that spot.

"Sir!"

Some time later.

A local office in Pyeongan-do.

"What is it!!"

"A cloud of people have suddenly gathered in front of the office!!"

"What?"

The magistrate, who had been enjoying a rare moment of leisure, was forced to rush out without even properly putting on his shoes.

But then—

"Marryeongseo!! Please give us Marryeongseo, sir!!"

"I heard we can get it at the local office!!"

"It was clearly written in the latest volume of !!"

※ Author’s Note

"As you commanded, when I asked the Left State Councilor Yi Bok-won and the Right State Councilor Kim Ik about the honorary title to bestow upon Soyonggung, they said, ‘Cheol, Tae, Yu, Heung, and Su seem good, but we dare not specify only one.’ Thereupon, His Majesty commanded: ‘Use the character 宜 (Yi).’"

– Jeongjo, Ilseongnok, 19 February, Gyemyo Year (1783).