One
The laundry was a place where people paid to have others wash their clothes. The laundry ranged from clothing and blankets to tents, and because the work was notoriously grueling, it was one of the most shunned jobs around.
It was an indispensable place for armed escorts, clerks, and employees of merchant groups—older bachelors who had never married. It was wretched enough to grow old alone; to have to wash one's own clothes on top of that inevitably invited self-pity.
Those who came to the laundry either had such busy lives that they had no time to wash and wear their own clothes, or they were simply too lazy to bother and left it to the laundry—one of the two.
But whether busy or lazy, when they came to the laundry, they invariably brought a huge pile they had saved up. Moreover, when escort agencies returned from missions, customers would flood in all at once. In such cases, they would urgently hire help. Today was exactly such a day at Gyeongseong Laundry.
Several people had come to Gyeongseong Laundry after seeing the notice at the door. However, they were all women. Gojin stood among the women, waiting his turn. The women were already whispering about Gojin. His face was burning.
Ugh!
*S-so it's nothing but women after all.*
Though Gojin had been inwardly worried, it was indescribably awkward that he was truly the only man there.
But he had already stepped forward. He had firmly resolved to brazen it out.
The truth was, despite the shame and awkwardness, he could not retreat because he desperately needed the one-nyang payment.
Before long, his turn came. Gojin worked up the courage to state his intention to work.
"Y-you're joking, right?"
Cho-ok doubted her own ears at the words of the man before her saying he wanted to work at the laundry.
"W-why would I be joking?"
It was only the beginning that was embarrassing; once he had spoken, Gojin found courage.
"Please, just give me a chance. I will work hard."
Cho-ok was the owner of Gyeongseong Laundry. Until now, Gojin was the first person to come to the laundry wanting work. It was that rare an occurrence.
She looked at Gojin with a bewildered gaze.
Gojin possessed a handsome, jade-like face with black eyebrows that looked as though painted in ink.
That a perfectly able-bodied, decent-looking man had come wanting to do women's work like washing laundry was absurd in itself.
"You do know what washing laundry entails, don't you, sir?"
She checked with him just in case.
"I know that laundry is work women do. However...."
Gojin hesitated a moment. He couldn't bring himself to say that his circumstances were so desperate he had to take whatever work came his way.
However, Cho-ok was quick on the uptake. She sensed roughly what Gojin's situation was and took a step back for now.
"V-very well. There's no law saying men can't do laundry. That aside, have you ever washed clothes before?"
"I have never... done it before. But if you give me a chance...."
"Look, are you joking? I understand your intention, but we don't hire men here."
Cho-ok looked at Gojin with an exasperated expression. The fact that a man came to do laundry was one thing.
But with a scholar's headband on his head and a long robe draped over him, Gojin's attire was unmistakably that of a pale-faced scholar. A man coming to wash laundry wearing a scholar's headband and long robe—it was stupefying.
Anyone could see at a glance that Gojin looked like someone who had never done work like washing laundry. Had he not had such a decent face, she would have truly treated him as a madman.
"Sigh, I see. My apologies for bothering you."
Gojin politely apologized and withdrew.
He felt embarrassed.
But more than that, his heart felt empty at the thought of failing to earn the one nyang.
Was it because his retreating figure looked so pitiful?
Or was it because the sight of a man coming to do laundry was unexpected? The women who had come to work spoke up in one voice.
"Why don't you try giving him a chance?"
"Didn't you say you're still short of hands?"
"I think trying him out wouldn't hurt. Consider it being fooled for a moment."
They were neighborhood housewives who had known Cho-ok for a long time. When work piled up at the laundry, Cho-ok usually sought them out first.
"Hmm...."
Looking at Gojin's retreating figure, Cho-ok gently furrowed her brow. These were words from the housewives who had worked at Gyeongseong Laundry for a long time.
Giving him work was worrying because he did not look dependable, but neither could she wait indefinitely for workers to come.
She had a younger brother exactly Gojin's age. They had lost their parents when young and were left alone in the world, just the two of them. Since then, there was no work she hadn't done. She had worked herself to the bone, saving money, and was now past twenty, still unmarried, devoting herself solely to supporting her younger brother.
Her younger brother had entered a private academy to study hard for the civil service examinations. He had originally applied to Cheongun Seowon this year but had failed spectacularly, and was now attending a nearby academy.
When Cho-ok suddenly thought of her younger brother, Gojin did not feel like a stranger.
*He must be a student at a nearby academy, too. It's admirable that he's trying to earn money while studying because, like others, his circumstances aren't comfortable.*
It would take no ordinary resolve even to consider coming to a laundry, a place for women.
In the end, she called out to Gojin.
"Hey, you can really work hard, can't you?"
Overjoyed, Gojin ran to her in a single bound.
"Please give me a chance. I will truly work hard."
What couldn't he do if he could earn one nyang a day?
And so, Gojin barely managed to get work at the laundry.
Two
Gojin had thought his misfortunes were ending and his happiness beginning. If he could only earn money, he could study with peace of mind, and send the surplus home. His heart swelled with dreams.
But before even a moment passed, that thought shattered with a crash.
"Urk? Wh-what's with all that laundry?"
The moment he saw the laundry piled in the warehouse, Gojin let out an involuntary shriek.
It was too much even to call a lot.
There were various kinds—clothes, silk, blankets, tents—and the dirt and stains were so ground in that white clothes and fabrics had turned pitch black.
*Why... somehow this feels ominous.*
Even someone as composed as he could not help but panic at that moment.
Could he finish all that in one day? No, it was uncertain whether he could finish it even in several days, let alone one. As if reading Gojin's mind, Cho-ok spoke.
"It's a lot, isn't it? If you work diligently, you should finish it in about four to five days."
"Th-then, about the one nyang...."
"I'll give it to you when the laundry is all done."
Argh!
"I-I see."
When had he ever been so bewildered?
So it wasn't one nyang per day, but one nyang for four to five days.
Gojin wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, his expression troubled. As expected, it wasn't an amount one could finish in a day. Still, compared to the amount of laundry, four to five days was fast.
*Sigh, one nyang for four to five days is still a decent sum...*
He consoled himself. If it took about five days, that meant he could earn six nyang a month. This was more than the living expenses of an ordinary household.
Then Cho-ok added an explanation.
"But that's only possible for someone skilled at laundry. An unskilled person will probably take seven or eight days."
"Whaaat?"
Gojin's startled cry echoed to the heavens. At that moment, he had no idea how to manage his expression.
*If it's one nyang for seven or eight days, that's pure hard labor, isn't it?*
He desperately wanted to turn around and leave. But he had already come too far for that.
Before long, Gojin learned that laundry work was one of the toughest and most grueling jobs people avoided. It was exactly the place those urgently in need of money came to. He felt thoroughly trapped.
From that day, for several days, a spectacular sight unfolded at the riverside where the housewives gathered to wash: a scholar in a scholar's headband and long robe doing laundry.
"Ugh! Why won't these ground-in stains and dirt come out?"
Only now did Gojin realize.
Laundry was not something you could clean simply by soaking it in water.
Three
"Oh, if earning money is this hard...."
Gojin had washed laundry for the past eight days to earn one nyang.
Tears threatened to cloud his eyes. There wasn't a place on his body that didn't ache from how hard and difficult the laundry was.
His fingers hurt so much that for several days he didn't even have the strength to hold a spoon.
It was natural, given he was doing work he had never done in his life. At that time, laundry had to be washed by hand, one by one at the riverside, so his hands were bound to suffer.
After finishing his studies at the academy, Gojin would go straight to the laundry, receive his share for the day, and wash it at the riverside.
At first, he was scolded often by Cho-ok while learning how to wash. When passersby glanced at him, he wanted to find a mouse hole to hide in.
That was rather bearable.
Because his washing movements were clumsy, Gojin had to stay at the riverside until late every night. It was unspeakably embarrassing for a man to be washing alone at the riverside in the dead of night; there was no misery quite like it.
If there was one blessing, it was that there were few passersby in the middle of the night.
By the time he returned after washing, it was well past the third night watch.
The aftereffects extended into class time, and he nodded off several times and was scolded by the teacher.
After this repeated several times, the students of Class Two began to look at Gojin with contempt. Never before had there been a student like Gojin.
Cheongun Seowon was the foremost academy in the Central Plains, gathering only the most gifted students. They burned with passion to learn even one thing more; there was no one who neglected their studies to sleep during class.
"Look at that guy, sleeping again? Sleeping through class every single time."
"He's hopeless. What on earth does he do at night that he sleeps during class?"
"Did you say his name is Gojin?"
"How could someone like him get into Cheongun Seowon?"
"Could he have paid his way in? If not, maybe he's the headmaster's grandson or something."
"No way... Even if he were the headmaster's grandson, Cheongun Seowon has never once accepted a new student through improper means...."
"Maybe it's an administrative error. Sometimes mistakes happen and someone who failed is marked as a pass, right?"
"That makes some sense, doesn't it?"
The students harbored suspicions about Gojin's background. Looking at him, he seemed absolutely incapable of entering Cheongun Seowon.
The students of Cheongun Seowon had tremendous pride greater than anyone else's.
Yet Gojin's behavior stained their pride and then some.
How could Gojin possibly look good in their eyes?
Just the fact that he attended the same academy was enough to put them in a foul mood.
"I'll bet my name on him not being someone who paid a bribe to get in. He looks far too poor for that, doesn't he?"
That was the truth.
Gojin wore a worn scholar's headband and a faded long robe. Someone who had paid his way in wouldn't look so shabby.
"Tsk, tsk! Anyway, I feel sorry for whoever is in the same group as him."
"Studying with someone like that is disgraceful in itself."
At those words, two students flushed red.
"Ugh."
Bang Segeol and Yeongho Sangdal.
They were exactly the people in the same group as Gojin. Cheongun Seowon organized groups in each class. In particular, during discussion classes, debates were conducted by group.
*Th-this is a terrible calamity.*
*I'm just utterly unlucky. Why on earth did I have to end up in the same group as that guy?*
They cursed the heavens.
Normally, which class you were in was important, but in Class Two there were Jo Cheolgi and Yi Geomhak. In truth, there was almost no one who could compete against them.
It would have been a relief to be in the same group as Jo Cheolgi and Yi Geomhak, but unfortunately, they were in the same group as Gojin. Their fate was twisted beyond belief.
*In discussion class, our group is practically guaranteed last place.*
Bang Segeol and Yeongho Sangdal felt like crying.
Cheongun Seowon had ten classes of about twenty-some students each. Furthermore, depending on class characteristics, there were about seven or eight groups of three or four members each.
In each class at Cheongun Seowon, only a few with the best grades could take the civil service examinations. Naturally, group grades were reflected to a considerable degree. No matter how good one's individual grades were, if the group grades were poor, the average could plummet.
In other words, if one failed to rank in the upper tier of the class, they would not be given the opportunity to take the civil service examinations until graduation. Cheongun Seowon gathered only the most talented in the world. The civil service examinations were something only the geniuses representing the extreme minority among such talents could take.
In Class Two, Jo Cheolgi and Yi Geomhak were certainly formidable mountains to overcome. But there was nothing that couldn't be done if one worked oneself to death trying.
In individual grades, if one worked hard on one's own, there was at least a chance of winning. But group grades weren't something that could be solved by one person doing well alone.
Group grades required all members of the same group to do well, yet Gojin's appearance was the very picture of pathetic.
"Ah-ham!"
At that time, Gojin was yawning repeatedly, unable to fight off sleepiness.
There was no way the lesson content could enter his head now. His body was languid and tired, but starting today, he had to go out and find new work again.
"When class ends, I'll have to go out to the town again."
Gojin gazed at the bamboo forest beyond the window.
His head throbbed. He had never imagined, even in his dreams, that the mere thought of having to find a job could weigh on him so heavily.