Chapter 43
Freedom wasn't as sweet as I'd imagined.
What can I even say?
When you're making plans before a trip, your heart pounds at the thought of doing this and that, and you get ridiculously excited.
But once it's actually time to leave, it's kind of like the whole thing doesn't feel real anymore.
Still, once I leave Hanyang and arrive back home, and then see my parents' faces, it'll probably hit me all at once.
Isn't it said that you only really feel like you've gone on a trip after you get to the airport?
Master Succhan.
Just call me sir. I'm not a Succhan of the Hall of Worthies anymore.
In Korea, handing in a resignation letter doesn't mean you're out immediately; most of the time you still have to hand over your duties first, so they don't process your departure until a little later.
But Joseon is different.
If you're a high-ranking court official, the king has to personally approve your resignation, but I'm just a lowly sixth-rank official, so once I submit a resignation memorial, it has no choice but to be accepted.
So now that I've written and filed the memorial in the proper format, I can start packing and get ready to head back to my hometown.
Ah, right... and from now on, since I'll be courting Winter seriously with marriage in mind, I shouldn't keep speaking so stiffly.
Joseon doesn't really have the concept of dating, but the two of us are basically already a couple.
W-Winter.
It's only saying her name, so why is this so embarrassing? And why does the mood feel unnecessarily heavy?
No, maybe it's just my imagination that the mood has gotten heavy. It probably isn't really like that.
It's just that I have no dating experience, so I can't casually call a woman's name.
In Korea, you get plenty of chances to call a woman's name even if you're not close, but in Joseon, neither men nor women are called by their real names very often.
So calling her 'Winter' is practically the same as saying 'dear' or 'darling.'
Yes, sir.
Silence stretched between us for a while. Winter looked into my eyes for a moment before turning away. Her face was flushed red like an apple, and she lowered her head slightly.
I couldn't bring myself to face her either.
So when I looked away, this time Winter's chest came into view. I had no idea where I was supposed to look.
It was awkward and embarrassing, but I liked it too. This is driving me crazy. If this goes on and I even hold her hand...
My head was so full of random thoughts that I felt like I was about to lose my mind when Winter carefully opened her mouth.
"I'm worried that you may be deeply hurt, sir."
"Why would I be hurt? In Joseon, getting impeached while serving in office is practically an everyday occurrence."
Even Admiral Yi Sun-sin—so upright and so strict in principle that modern historians suspect he must have had zero social skills—was impeached countless times.
The reasons were absurd.
If you were appointed as a military officer in some frontier garrison, the common practice in Joseon was to send 'gifts' to your superiors and to the civil and military officials in Hanyang as well... and Admiral Yi Sun-sin didn't do that.
By twenty-first-century standards, that would be worthy of respect, if not outright praise as a model of an honest official.
To put it simply, it's like a company giving you up to 100,000 won per meal for food, yet you still pay for lunch with your own salary because you refuse to touch company money.
So even Admiral Yi Sun-sin had his post taken away several times; how could someone as incompetent as me possibly avoid it?
"I don't know much about politics, but ever since you were the magistrate of Jinhae, you've always looked out for the people's welfare and kept away from corruption. And when His Majesty the Retired King sought to introduce currency, didn't you offer your counsel for the people without asking for any reward, even staking your life?"
"That's just what a person is supposed to do. It wasn't anything remarkable."
"My father said that because you did what anyone should have done, the lives saved numbered in the thousands, even tens of thousands. However harsh the world may be, how could it be so cruel to you, who think of nothing but the royal ancestral shrines and the people day and night..."
Tears were pouring from Winter's eyes.
I did say all that, but that doesn't mean I don't feel wronged at all. Someone might think I'm a work-obsessed monster, a dead-eyed workaholic, but do I look like I'm not human?
If you're unfairly insulted, of course you'd boil with rage, and if you're impeached, it twists your insides.
"Didn't you only work for the people? And yet because of me and my father, you've been so harshly impeached, forced to leave your post before you could fully realize your lofty ambitions and return to your hometown... I feel like my heart is being torn apart."
Honestly, being impeached was enough to turn my stomach... but since it was clearly an impeachment orchestrated by Ryu Jeong-hyeon and his faction, part of me was thrilled.
If you're a high-ranking official, it would be one thing, but for a lowly junior official, if you get impeached and submit a resignation memorial, you can legally return home without the king's permission.
But when I think about how I've acted so far, I really do have the kind of image that makes me easy to mistake for a loyal subject who wants nothing more than to serve the nation as a lifelong Chancellor... so I guess I should clear up that misunderstanding.
"I don't care."
"Sir."
"I was born as the son of a yangban scholar-official family, and I laid the foundation for the Bangwon Law, which will make Joseon prosper for a hundred years—no, even a thousand. If the Bangwon Law benefits the people at large, then of course my name will spread far and wide too."
After I die, history textbooks will go into detail about the 'Bangwon Law.' And in them, there will also be the story of the Bangwon Law and the Jibu Sangso, along with the story of Kim Daebung, who laid the groundwork for the Bangwon Law.
And there will be plenty of papers analyzing why Kim Daebung returned to his hometown. Scholars with master's and doctoral degrees in this world will probably study my actions and think I'm very strange.
I'm not some bastard on a message board desperate to become a mod or a known regular, so why would I bother doing work I don't have to? The harder I work, the more I'll just get lumped together with 'Hwang Hui,' 'Jo Mal-saeng,' 'Myeong Sa-seong,' and 'Jang Yeong-sil.'
I reached out and took Winter's hand.
The softest touch I'd ever felt nearly made me lose my mind for a moment, but thankfully, I managed to hold on to my sanity.
Winter didn't seem to dislike my touch either; she didn't stiffen or pull her hand away.
As if telling me to do as I liked, she only lowered her head, her face red as a ripe tomato.
Though I wasn't going to do anything beyond holding hands...
I guess I could have gone further, but I don't have the nerve for that.
"Once we return to Yanggu County, let's greet my parents first."
Winter tilted her head.
It's said that in Joseon, when you took a concubine, you didn't hold a wedding ceremony, but that's not entirely true.
There were cases where no wedding was held when a woman who was a slave was taken as a concubine, but unless she was your own household slave, you'd still hold at least a very simple ceremony.
But Winter is a proper commoner—in other words, a seocheop, a commoner-born concubine—so of course there has to be a wedding. Well, we'll leave out the absurdly complicated process you'd have for a marriage between yangban families.
No matter how much I scale it up, it'll still end up being something like a village feast that's over in a hurry, unlike a modern wedding.
"...... Sir."
"I'll still need to take a principal wife separately, but I don't want Winter getting nagged at by her. So if possible, I'm thinking of choosing a wife from as humble a family as possible, so she won't dare treat you lightly."
Even if she's from a yangban family, if her natal home is poor, she won't be able to bully a concubine brought in from a wealthy merchant family however she likes. If she did, I might even send her away.
"After the wedding..."
In Joseon, dating wasn't really something you did before marriage; for the most part, you built up your love for each other after you were already married.
Getting married first and then dating sounds funny, but... what's so bad about dating after marriage?
"Let's go boating on Wolmyeong Lake, climb the mountains to see the autumn leaves, and go to the sea to eat delicious fish dishes made from freshly caught fish. And if we end up having children, we'll take them along too. That would be even better."
Since the era I've been reborn into is the early Joseon period, this is fine. People may point at me and call me a weirdo, but it's not such a terrible flaw.
"...... Yes, please take me with you."
Winter gently laid her hand over mine, as if she wouldn't let go.
Then, after a little while, Winter quietly left my room.
After confirming she was gone, I immediately got ready to write the memorial.
Leaving office and stepping down from government service is one thing; getting revenge on the bastard who made me swallow my pride is another.
"Let's see, what were Ryu Jeong-hyeon's slanders that went down in history again...?"
That bastard was famous for being good at usury.
He was the guy who went around handing out loans with jangri interest rates of 50 percent and gapri rates of over 100 percent.
In modern twenty-first-century countries, loans like that would make the contract void outright, but in Joseon, they were all perfectly legal.
King Sejong did manage to crack down on it and lower the interest rates somehow, but this still wasn't anywhere near a problem yet... so let's set that aside...
"Ah, now that I think about it, that piece of trash gave a government post to the guy who was brutally good at collecting money through usury, didn't he?"
I was going to leave him alone until he started opposing the Daedong Law... but he impeached me while I was minding my own business...?
Looks like this time, I really can't let it slide.
You're dead.