Chapter 6: The Strict One

"Ma’am, I didn’t bully anybody," I said. "Your son stole our—"

"Inside."

She didn’t wait for me to move. She just walked forward, and I either stepped back or got run over by that chest.

I stepped back.

She slid the door shut behind her and looked around my room like it personally offended her. The cracked jar. The three-legged stool. The pink flowered robe on the floor.

She stared at the robe for a long second.

Then at me.

"I see," she said.

"That’s not mine."

"Clearly."

There was nowhere to sit except the bed. She sat on it like it was a throne. Back straight. Knees together. Then she crossed her legs, and that strict navy robe pulled tight over thighs that could crack walnuts.

My dick took notes.

She noticed. Again. Her eyes flicked down, stayed there a beat too long, then came back up even colder.

"I know your type, Baek Mu-jin," she said. "Third son. No responsibilities. Thrown out of his own clan for — yes, I heard about Elder Gu’s wife, the whole city heard. Boys like you push the weak ones around, chase married women, and think the world owes you something."

"Hey. Can you not stereotype me for five seconds?"

"It isn’t a stereotype if it’s true." She tilted her chin at my crotch. "I came here for a serious conversation about my son, and you’re standing there like that. Like a horny little boy."

"I didn’t plan this!"

"Boys never do." She pushed her spectacles up her nose. "You think you could handle a real woman? You’d fold in two minutes."

[Desire +15.]

The number popped up right in the middle of her insulting me.

Wait.

Somebody has to bring the spark. The system only pours oil.

So where was HER spark coming from?

"Here’s the thing, Madam Gwak," I said. "I can last a lot longer than two minutes. And your son wrote that formation, sure. But it’s a three-man pattern, and he tried to put only his name on it. He’s the one who stabbed his group in the back. Not me."

"Lies."

"Ask him why he ran."

She opened her mouth. Closed it.

Then she said, quietly, "My family is old. We donate to the academy every year. I can have you removed from it with one letter."

Fuck.

No clan. No academy. Eleven silver.

"So what do you want?" I asked.

She stood up.

She was a head shorter than me, but she walked into my space like she was taller. Close enough I could smell ink and plum blossom on her. Close enough I could see her pulse jumping under that tight collar.

"I want," she said, "to know if you’re all talk."

[Desire +20.]

I blinked.

"...What?"

"My husband died eight years ago." Her voice didn’t change at all. Still strict. Still cold. "I raised that boy alone. I run my family’s shops alone. Every man who comes near me wants my money or wants me to go away. Nobody has looked at me like that—" her eyes dropped to my trousers again "—in eight years."

Oh.

There it was. The spark.

Eight years of nobody. The system just poured oil on it.

"This has nothing to do with my son," she said. "Understand? Nothing. I’ll deal with my son tomorrow." She reached up and pulled the pin out of her bun. Long brown hair fell all the way down her back. "Tonight I’m asking you a question. Are you all talk, Baek Mu-jin?"

Holy shit.

I didn’t answer with words.

I grabbed her by the waist and kissed her.

She went stiff for one second. Then she kissed back like a woman who’d been starving for eight years. Her fingers dug into my shoulders. Her glasses went crooked. She didn’t fix them.

"Sit down," she ordered against my mouth.

I sat on the bed. She stood over me and started undoing the buttons of that navy robe. Top to bottom. Slow. Like a teacher at the front of the class, and I was the only student.

She wasn’t wearing anything under it.

This strict, proper, spectacles-wearing widow walked across Hangju in the dark with nothing under her robe.

She came here knowing exactly what she was going to ask.

The robe came open. Her tits spilled out — huge, heavy, soft — and she stood there with her chin up and her arms at her sides like she was daring me to say something.

"Well?" she said.

"Well what?"

"You’re staring like a horny little boy."

"Because I am one."

I pulled her down onto my lap and put my mouth on her chest.

She gasped. Loud. Way too loud for these walls. Then her hand flew to her own mouth, and her eyes went wide behind those crooked glasses, like she couldn’t believe that sound came out of her.

"Sensitive?" I said.

"N-no."

I did it again.

"Ahh—!"

"You said I’d last two minutes," I said against her skin. "You didn’t even last two seconds."

She glared down at me. Cheeks bright red. Then she grabbed a fistful of my hair and pulled my head back so I had to look up at her.

"Don’t get cocky."

"Too late."

[Desire +25.]

That was the last time she pretended to be in charge.

I’m not gonna tell you everything that happened in that room.

But I’ll tell you the stool with three good legs only has two good legs now.

And I’ll tell you that somewhere in the middle of it all — while she was gripping the edge of my bed with both hands and her hair was all over her face — I heard it.

Dong.

Dong.

Dong.

The night bell.

Yeon-hee. The hot spring. If you’re late, I’m starting without you.

Shit.

And then, from the other side of my paper-thin wall, I heard something else. A little knock-knock on the wood. Two taps. Very deliberate.

Ayla.

She was awake. And she was listening.

And then — I swear on my mother’s hairpin — a third sound.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

On my DOOR.

We both froze.

"Mother?" A thin, cracking voice. "Mother, are you in there? Your palanquin’s waiting downstairs. The bearers said you came up to Baek Mu-jin’s room."

Gi-chul.

Madam Gwak’s eyes went huge behind her glasses. Pure panic.

"Mother? It’s past the night bell. You said you’d only be a little while."

She looked at me. I looked at her. She was half-dressed, hair wild, glasses hanging off one ear. I looked like I’d been fighting a bear.

She opened her mouth. Nothing came out.

So I leaned in close and whispered in her ear, "Answer him. You’re the strict one, remember?"

She shot me a look that could kill a horse.

Then she took a breath, pulled herself together, and walked to the door — robe clutched shut with one hand, hair still everywhere. She didn’t open it. She just put her mouth to the gap.

"Gi-chul," she said. And holy hell, her voice was perfect. Ice cold. Full teacher mode. "Go home."

"But—"

"I am handling this. This young man and I are having a very... thorough... discussion."

I walked up behind her. Kissed the side of her neck. Just once.

Her whole body shivered. Her voice did NOT.

"He has been apologizing. At length."

I kissed her again, lower.

"...At great length."

A long pause outside.

"You sound weird, Mother."

"I have a cold. Go. Home."

"...Okay." Shuffling feet. "Are you coming back tonight?"

She looked back at me over her shoulder. Her eyes were dark.

"No," she said. "I have more to discuss."

His footsteps faded down the walkway. Down the stairs. Gone.

She turned around and leaned back against the door. Then she slid down it, sat right on the floor, and covered her face with both hands.

And started laughing.

Not a cold laugh. A real one. Shaking, breathless, a little hysterical.

"Eight years," she said into her hands. "Eight years I’ve been the most proper woman in Hangju. And I just lied to my son through a door with my hair down."

"You were really good at it."

"I know." She peeked at me through her fingers. "That’s what scares me."

[Desire +10.]

She left before I could tell her I had somewhere to be. Fixed her bun in my cracked water jar’s reflection. Buttoned that robe all the way to the throat. Pushed her spectacles up her nose. By the time she reached the door, she looked exactly like the strict monster who’d knocked an hour ago.

Except her lips were swollen.

She stopped with her hand on the door.

"I read the formation scroll at home last week," she said, not looking back. "There were notes in the margins. Old ones. In a hand that wasn’t my son’s." A pause. "Baek Mu-jin’s hand. Before you got... distracted."

I stared at her.

The old Mu-jin. He’d done the work after all.

"All three names will be on that scroll tomorrow," she said. "Not because of tonight. Because it’s right. And because my son needs to learn that stealing is beneath this family."

Then she glanced back. Just once.

"This changes nothing between us, Baek Mu-jin. You stay away from my son."

"And you?"

She opened the door.

"I’ll be by on the fifth day," she said. "To continue our discussion."

And she was gone.

I stood there for one full second.

Then I grabbed the cleanest robe I had, shoved my feet in my shoes, and ran.

The path up the hill behind the inn was dark and steep and full of roots. I tripped twice. Steam was drifting through the trees up ahead, glowing a little in the moonlight. I could hear water. I could smell minerals and pine.

Yeon-hee was up there.

She’d been up there since the night bell.

She’d said she’d start without me.

I came around the last bend, jade token already in my hand for the gate guard—

And stopped dead.

There was no gate guard.

There was a woman sitting on the stone bench beside the gate. Lantern at her feet. Ledger on her knees.

Clack.

"You’re late, Baek Mu-jin," said Hong Seo-rin. "She started without you."

She flicked a bead across her abacus without looking up.

"Before you go in... let’s talk about what my silence costs."