It was as though the sky itself had split open.
“Brrr! It’s cold, so cold! Is this even weather?!”
Chilbok made a great fuss as he trembled like an aspen leaf.
The whole world was white. Snow that had fallen through the night had piled up to our knees, and thick flakes were still pouring down without pause.
The whiteout was so severe that it was difficult to make out anything more than ten meters ahead.
Galsan Village was as silent as the dead.
Going outside in weather like this would be madness. Families short on firewood had likely bolted their doors and were enduring the winter by relying on one another’s body heat.
But morning in our Great Peace Domain was hotter than ever.
“Clear the road! The road!”
Manseok shouted as he wielded a snow pusher.
Each sweep of his massive arms sent mountains of snow rolling aside.
Behind him, workers dressed in thick padded clothes followed with brooms, clearing a path.
It led from the main house to the southern fields.
At its end stood our destination.
Three gigantic silkworm cocoons crouched atop the white field.
They were oil-paper greenhouses—bamboo frames layered with sheets of oiled paper.
Snow lay piled on their roofs, but the snow around them had melted into running water.
That was because of the heat pouring out from inside.
“Big Brother, hurry inside. The crops will freeze.”
Chilbok lifted the thick straw-mat door at the greenhouse entrance.
WHOOSH—
The moment the door opened, hot, humid air rushed out.
And with it came a scent that sharply stimulated my nose.
The scent of soil.
The scent of grass.
And the scent of life.
“Haah...”
I released the breath I had been holding and stepped inside.
Outside was a hellish world of minus ten degrees Celsius, but beyond this single threshold lay a warm, green paradise.
“It amazes me every time. Really...”
Chilbok murmured blankly.
An unbelievable sight stretched before him.
Long furrows and raised beds extended for fifty meters.
Green leaves filled them densely.
The outside world was black and white, but this place was bursting with color.
“Check the temperature.”
“Yes! Let’s see...”
Chilbok checked the bowl of water placed in the corner of the greenhouse.
“Big Brother! There isn’t even a thin layer of ice on the water! It’s still sloshing around!”
“Good. If the water has not frozen, that means it is above freezing. It feels warm enough for the crops to grow.”
I touched the ground.
The heat released as the compost fermented rose through the soil.
Microorganisms were busily breaking down manure, producing heat and carbon dioxide.
There was no better tonic for plants.
I slowly walked deeper inside.
At the far end stood a trellis covered in climbing vines.
Long, bumpy fruits hung in clusters between the broad leaves.
Their bodies were deep green, with yellow petals still clinging to their tips.
Cucumbers.
And not just any cucumbers, but plump Great Peace Cheongjang cucumbers.
“Manseok.”
“Yes, Big Brother!”
Manseok was already drooling.
All winter, we had eaten nothing but stored radishes, cabbage, and dried greens. Our craving for something fresh had reached its limit.
“Pick one.”
“Really? Can I eat it?”
“It is a tasting. We need to know how it tastes before we sell it.”
Manseok reached out with trembling hands.
His hands, as broad as pot lids, carefully wrapped around a cucumber.
The prickles poked his palm.
That was proof of its freshness.
SNAP.
With a crisp sound, the cucumber came away from the vine.
It was as big as an adult’s forearm and satisfyingly heavy.
“Do I just eat it? Without washing it?”
“We did not spray it with any pest-repelling herb juice, so what is there to worry about? Rub it on your clothes and eat it.”
Manseok rubbed the cucumber against his padded sleeve until the prickles came off.
Then he took an enormous bite.
CRUNCH—!
The sound thundered through the greenhouse.
It was only a slight exaggeration to say it sounded like dry firewood snapping.
That was how firm and crisp its flesh was.
Manseok’s eyes widened as though they were about to pop out.
“Mmph...! Mmmph...!”
Unable to speak, he simply chewed through the cucumber.
Clear juice ran down the corners of his mouth.
“Well? How is it?”
“B-Big Brother... This is water! No, it’s honeyed water!”
Manseok shouted with tears in his eyes.
“Water bursts all through my mouth. It’s cool and sweet... Wow... Can something taste this good in winter?”
Chilbok, who had been doing nothing but swallowing his saliva beside him, could not endure it any longer.
“Hey! Are you going to eat all of that yourself? Give me some too!”
Chilbok rushed over and picked another cucumber.
CRUNCH! CRUNCH!
The two of them devoured cucumbers as though they were competing.
Soon, the greenhouse was filled with the scent of cucumbers.
A fresh, clean fragrance.
After spending winter in stuffy rooms filled with stale smells, it felt as though my nose had finally been cleared.
I picked one for myself and took a bite.
Crunch.
Yes, this was the taste.
It was much richer than the greenhouse cucumbers sold in supermarkets.
Perhaps because they had grown slowly with compost heat, their flesh was dense and their sweetness high.
The coolness sliding down my throat felt as though it washed all the way through my chest.
“Ahh... That hits the spot.”
To the people of Goryeo, suffering from winter vitamin deficiencies, this was practically the water of life.
“Do not just eat cucumbers. Pick some of those too.”
I pointed to the lettuce bed spread broadly across the ground.
Tender light-green leaves bloomed like flowers. Red-leaf lettuce and green-leaf lettuce.
Chilbok picked a large handful of lettuce leaves.
They were soft and supple.
They felt like silk against his fingertips.
“Big Brother, if we eat this with meat...”
“It will be incredible.”
I grinned.
“Let’s grill pork belly for lunch. We will sear it on the cauldron lid, then make lettuce wraps.”
“Hooray! Long live Big Brother!”
Manseok danced with joy.
But the feast could wait.
For now, I needed to assess these green treasures with the cold eye of a merchant.
I held up a cucumber at eye level.
“Chilbok.”
“Yes, Big Brother. Smack, smack.”
“How much do you think we can charge for this?”
Chilbok wiped cucumber juice from his mouth and considered the question seriously.
He had been born a slave, but he had a talent for business. His instinct for the scent of money was natural.
“Hmm... In summer, when cucumbers are cheap, you can buy one for two or three copper cash, right?”
“That is summer.”
“Now it is winter—deep winter, at that. The rich people of Caegyeong will go mad for them... At the very least, fifty copper cash per cucumber? No, we should get one hundred, should we not?”
One hundred copper cash was one-tenth of a silver nyang.
It was the price of 1.8 kilograms of rice.
One cucumber for 1.8 kilograms of rice.
Commoners would faint if they heard that price. They would call it insane.
But I shook my head.
“Too cheap.”
“What? You think the price of 1.8 kilograms of rice is cheap? For one cucumber?”
Chilbok’s eyes went round.
“Chilbok. You still do not understand luxury goods.”
I rotated the cucumber in my hand.
“We are not selling vegetables.”
“Then what are we selling?”
“Vanity.”
“Vanity?”
“That is right. The people who buy these cucumbers will not buy them because they are hungry. They will buy the sense of superiority that comes from eating something no one else can eat. The envious looks they will receive when they serve bright green chilled cucumber soup at a midwinter banquet. That is what we are selling.”
I held up five fingers.
“One cucumber for eight kilograms of rice.”
“Gasp!”
Chilbok clutched the back of his neck.
Eight kilograms of rice was enough for a family of four to eat for a week. In silver, it was worth half a nyang.
Two cucumbers would be worth one silver nyang.
Last time, we had sold one bottle of Great Peace Wine for three nyang. Wine required a great deal of rice and a long aging period.
But cucumbers?
They could be harvested forty days after planting the seeds. The only costs were compost and my labor.
In terms of profit margin, they crushed Great Peace Wine.
“W-Will they sell? No matter how rich the nobles are, eight kilograms of rice for one cucumber...”
“They will sell out so quickly we will not have enough. Just watch.”
I was certain of it.
Human desire had no end, and the wealthy showed off their money on a scale beyond imagination.
Furthermore, Goryeo was currently ruled by the military regime. The sword-bearing men in power spent money as though it were water.
“Now, let’s harvest. Today’s target is one hundred cucumbers and fifty baskets of lettuce.”
“Yes! Understood!”
The two of them eagerly rushed in.
I stopped them.
“Hey, be careful! If the lettuce leaves tear, their value as merchandise drops. Do not break even a single cucumber prickle. Handle them like babies.”
“Ah, yes, yes! We will treat them gently.”
We began the harvest with great care.
We placed the cucumbers in bamboo baskets, and layered the lettuce so it would not be crushed.
Every time a basket filled, it felt as though the vault in my heart filled with gold as well.
An hour later.
The harvested baskets were stacked near the entrance.
It was a mountain of green.
“Now, shall we go sell them?”
Chilbok brought over an A-frame pack with burning enthusiasm.
“Big Brother, I will clear the snowy road myself if I have to. The people at the town market will lose their minds when they see this.”
Chilbok was already delighted at the thought of people’s stunned expressions.
But I shook my head.
“Put it down.”
“What?”
“We are not going.”
“Not going? Then are we going to let something this precious rot here?”
“We cannot go to them. We need to make them come to us.”
I looked up at the greenhouse roof.
Snow covered it, while the weather outside remained below freezing.
“Outside is a freezer right now. What happens if we carry this twelve kilometers to the town market? It will all freeze before we get there. Once cucumbers freeze and thaw, they turn mushy and become worthless.”
“Ah...!”
Chilbok’s face showed that he had only just realized it.
Vegetables with high water content were vulnerable to frost damage.
We would ruin all their value before they even reached the market.
“And it would not look impressive, either.”
I brushed the soil from my hands.
“Think about it. A dirt-covered farmer carrying an A-frame pack and shouting, ‘Cucumbers for sale!’ Or a wealthy merchant in silk clothes arriving in a golden carriage and pleading, ‘Please sell them to me.’ Which one looks more expensive?”
“The second one, of course... But will those high-and-mighty Song Merchant House bastards really come all the way here?”
“We have to make them come. Is that not what a merchant is capable of?”
I took paper and a brush from my robes.
Then I wrote a short letter.
[Spring Amid Winter]
[Come and see for yourself. Come late, and there will be nothing left. —Choi San of Great Peace Village]
It was an extremely arrogant and unfriendly letter.
But it was more than enough to stir curiosity.
“Chilbok.”
“Yes, Big Brother.”
“Go to town.”
“What? You just said we were not going...”
“Not with the goods. Go with this letter only. Deliver it to Manager Park.”
Chilbok pouted.
“Ugh, so I am still the one who has to force my way through the snow, am I not?”
“When you return, I will let you make lettuce wraps with two slices of pork each.”
“I will be back at once! I swear loyalty!”
Chilbok took the letter and shot off like a bullet.
Capitalism really was the best.
Nothing could defeat meat.
Two days later.
The snow had stopped, but the whole world remained frozen solid.
However, the road leading into the Great Peace Domain was noisy.
“Hey! Why is the road in such terrible condition?!”
With a grumbling shout, a carriage decorated with lavish ornaments came rattling in.
Its wheels looked as though they might sink into the muddy road at any moment.
Three or four attendants followed behind it.
It was Manager Park of the Song Merchant House, the owner of the Nakdong River ferry.
I sat on the wooden porch of the main house, leisurely drinking tea as I waited for him.
I had deliberately not even gone out to greet him.
I had to establish who held the upper hand.
“Goodness, Manager Park. What brings you all the way to this humble place?”
When the carriage stopped in the courtyard, I greeted him with feigned surprise.
Manager Park stepped down with a frown.
The moment mud splattered onto his silk shoes, his expression darkened even further.
“Young Master Choi, you summon people here and there... The contents of your letter were so absurd that I came to see for myself. Spring amid winter? Are you making a fool of me?”
He was clearly in a foul mood.
Naturally. He wanted to rest on a warm floor, yet he had been forced to push through snowy roads into the countryside.
If the goods disappointed him, he looked ready to turn the whole place upside down.
“Making a fool of you? That hurts me. Am I someone who says things without substance?”
“Hmph. I trust you because of Great Peace Wine, but what is this supposed to be? More liquor?”
“It is better than wine.”
I rose and led him onward.
“Come. Seeing it once is better than hearing it a hundred times.”
We headed toward the southern greenhouse.
Manager Park saw the unsightly oiled-paper tunnel and snorted.
“What is that? Did you cover it in straw mats and set up some shaman’s shrine?”
“You will understand when you enter.”
I opened the greenhouse door for him.
“Please, come in. Welcome to the spring of Great Peace.”
Manager Park entered with suspicious eyes.
Then—
“...!”
He came to a complete stop.
His mouth fell open.
The gat on his head nearly tipped backward.
“Th-This... What is this...?”
His eyes shook violently.
Instead of white breath, warm air enveloped his face.
And before his eyes stretched an endless wave of green.
“Grass...? No, vegetables? In winter?”
As though enchanted, he staggered forward.
He stopped before the cucumber vines.
Plump cucumbers hung in clusters.
Unable to believe it, he removed his gloves and touched one.
It was real.
Cold, firm, and fresh.
“This is impossible... It is sorcery. Sorcery!”
He had experienced every hardship and twist of fortune a merchant could face, but he had never heard of or seen anything like this.
There could be no such technology anywhere in Goryeo’s Eight Provinces, in Song, or even in the far western lands.
“What do you think, Manager Park? Is it spring?”
When I asked from behind him, Manager Park whipped around.
His eyes had changed.
His irritation and exhaustion had vanished without a trace.
There was only greed.
The eyes of a shark that had caught the scent of money.
“Young Master Choi... No, Lord Choi.”
His voice trembled.
“This... Sell the entire harvest to me. No, give all of it to me.”
“All of it? Without even hearing the price?”
“The price does not matter! Name it, and I will pay!”
He grabbed my hand.
“If I take this to Caegyeong, it will cause an uproar. What if I serve this at Lord Choe Chung-heon’s birthday feast? No, what if I place it on His Majesty the Emperor’s table? This is the kind of product that could change my status!”
As expected of a great merchant.
He had seen past the flavor of the cucumbers to the political value they carried.
“Please calm down. I called for you because I trust you, Manager Park.”
I deliberately hesitated as though troubled.
“However, they are extremely difficult to grow. They require a tremendous amount of firewood, and I have to sleep beside them every night to keep the temperature right. There is not much.”
That was a lie.
The compost had done the growing by itself.
But I had to make it sound difficult.
“One hundred cucumbers and fifty baskets of lettuce. That is all.”
I was emphasizing their scarcity.
“The price is...”
I held out my fingers.
“Eight kilograms of rice per cucumber. Sixteen kilograms of rice per basket of lettuce.”
Manager Park swallowed hard.
It was an insane price.
One hundred cucumbers meant eight hundred kilograms of rice—ten full sacks.
It was absurd for a few vegetables to cost more than sacks of rice.
But he quickly did the arithmetic.
What if he sold them to Caegyeong’s nobles?
He could easily get one silver nyang for a single cucumber—the equivalent of twenty kilograms of rice.
Even after transport costs, he would double his money.
No, more important than money, he could build invaluable connections.
“Fine! No, you are giving them to me cheaply!”
Manager Park shouted eagerly.
“Rice is too heavy, so I could not bring it with me. I will pay you with this instead.”
He took a silk pouch from his robes.
It was heavy.
When I opened it, two yellow lumps of metal fell into my hand.
Gold.
“Ten nyang of gold. That should be more than enough for the price of the rice.”
One nyang of gold was worth ten silver nyang—roughly two and a half sacks of rice.
Ten nyang of gold meant twenty-five sacks of rice.
One hundred silver nyang.
One harvest of cucumbers and lettuce for one hundred silver nyang.
It was an even greater windfall than Great Peace Wine.
“As expected of you, Manager Park. You are decisive.”
I accepted the gold.
It felt cold against my skin.
But in my hand, it felt hot.
“Then we have a deal.”
“Hahaha! Excellent! Give every future harvest to me as well! Let us write a contract!”
Manager Park excitedly walked around the greenhouse.
The sight of him stroking the cucumbers and calling them, “Oh, my little babies,” was quite a spectacle.
I stepped outside the greenhouse and looked up at the sky.
The snow clouds had cleared, revealing blue skies.
‘This is only the beginning.’
This gold was seed money for the next stage.
With it, I would build an ice storehouse, harvest ice, and arm Manseok’s guard.
Then I would turn the Great Peace Domain into an impregnable fortress that no one could dare covet.
“Big Brother! The meat is grilling!”
Chilbok shouted from the main house.
The savory scent of pork belly drifted on the wind.
A slice of meat wrapped in freshly harvested lettuce, with a generous dollop of savory dipping paste.
Just thinking about it made my mouth water.
“Good. I am coming!”
I shoved the gold deep into my robes and started walking.
Each footprint I left in the snow was a step toward rewriting the history of Goryeo.