Chapter 03
Princess Vegetable Stall
Songpa Market, “Princess Vegetable Stall.”
The shop had a loosely thatched roof that looked as if it might collapse at any moment.
In front, baskets overflowed with spring vegetables, and beneath the eaves a tiny old woman with an enormous head dozed on a wooden bench.
Phew, thank goodness.
Miyu, who’d been fretting the whole way, let out a long sigh of relief. She’d expected an angry scolding for being terribly late, but seeing the proprietor napping so peacefully eased her mind.
Too much had happened in too short a time.
She had fallen into a strange place, somehow become a market clerk, and even run into a gang of rebels on the way here.
People say some folks wake up famous. She had simply opened a refrigerator door and stepped into another world.
It felt like wandering a dark mountain trail and suddenly spotting the lights of a village.
This vegetable stall was her signpost for survival in this unknown land.
“Hello, ma’am. I’m the new clerk, Jo Miyu,” she said, straightening her clothes and greeting the slumbering grandmother.
No response—the old woman slept on.
She’s really carefree…
“Hello, ma’am!” Miyu tried again, a bit louder.
“Wh-what is it?”
The old woman snapped her eyes open and glared. Her head was large, her neck short, eyes sharp, mouth wide, and lips thick. Like a well-fed toad with no worries in the world, she sat firmly planted, clearly not about to rise even for a customer.
“I’m Jo Miyu, the new clerk. Park Mandol, the secretary of the Songpa Market Merchants’ Guild, told me to report here.”
Still half-asleep, the stall’s owner slowly scanned Miyu from head to toe, frowning.
Miyu quickly folded her hands and offered a gentle smile.
First impressions are decided in the first four minutes!
She recalled the psychological term primacy effect.
Dreaming of making big money, Miyu had diligently studied psychology and marketing.
The primacy effect means a first meeting sets the tone: 80 percent of sales depend on it, and visual impact counts for over half. That’s why ads feature attractive men and women, or cute babies and animals. Job interviews, dates—same rule.
“So you’re the new hire, eh?”
“Yes, pleased to meet you.”
She bowed again, this time with genuine sincerity. In the vast ocean of Joseon, this shop was her lifeboat.
“How’s Mandol?”
“Sorry?”
“Does he smoke namcho?”
“Namcho… what’s that?”
“Dambago—tobacco, dear. Good for the body. Don’t tell me a grown young lady doesn’t know? Namcho heals illness, lengthens life, fills an empty belly, warms you in winter and cools you in summer. A real marvel.”
Miyu remembered a YouTube video claiming that when tobacco first arrived, even four-year-olds smoked it for health. Still, she had no idea why this question was aimed at her.
“Tell Mandol this: if he doesn’t burn namcho, I’ll be truly hurt.”
The dialect confirmed it—this “Princess” meant she was from Gongju in Chungcheong Province.
“And you are…?”
“I’m Mandol’s mother. If a mother doesn’t fuss over her son, who will?”
“Come to think of it, you two do look alike.”
No one minds being told they resemble family, so Miyu smiled sweetly.
“Blood tells, doesn’t it? My Mandol is handsome—takes after me.”
Even a hedgehog thinks her baby pretty, Miyu thought wryly.
“How should I address you, then?”
The grandmother silently spread her thick lips in a grin and pointed with her brass pipe to the wooden sign hanging on the post.
“This is Princess Vegetable Stall.”
“Yes, I see.”
“Next door is the clothing stall—that’s Go-chang’s.”
Miyu glanced over and nodded politely.
“The owner there’s another granny like me. Call her Go-chang.”
“All right. Then you’re… Princess?”
“Show proper respect to your elders.”
“Princess… ma’am?”
“Good.”
The old woman nodded with satisfaction.
What a peculiar thing to fixate on… well, calling her that costs nothing.
“Then—”
Abruptly she cut herself off, closed her eyelids, and sank back into sleep.
“Then what? Ma’am? Princess?”
Slowly the Princess opened her eyes.
“What now?”
Blink. Blink.
“I’m new here. Could you tell me what I should watch out for or how things are done?”
“How old are you, anyway?”
“Excuse me? Why my age? I’m twenty-two.”
“When I was your age I had my fourth child—Mandol’s younger brother.”
Remember: first impressions!
“Haha, amazing! But, Princess, why mention that to me…?”
Miyu forced a friendly laugh, still trying to keep up.
“Twenty-two is old enough to figure things out yourself. Nothing to ask. A clerk sells vegetables, that’s all.”
“So you’re leaving everything to me?”
“Yep.”
The reply was indifferent.
Miyu looked over the produce. Every vegetable was fresh, but none looked as though any had sold.
“Are there usually so few customers?”
“Of course. Everyone’s got kitchen gardens, and wild greens are everywhere. What can you do?”
The words deflated her spirits.
“Princess, is this the only vegetable stall in Songpa Market?”
“There are two more.”
Color returned to Miyu’s face.
If vegetables truly didn’t sell, there wouldn’t be three stalls. People eat three meals a day, and for commoners vegetables, not meat or fish, are the affordable staple. The lack of customers must be a sales problem.
All right. Time to show what I can do.
A grin crept across her face.
“Are you crazy, laughing to yourself?” the Princess muttered.
“Princess, let’s figure out a plan.”
Miyu brushed off the scolding with a bright smile.
The old woman’s indifference might be a problem, but it also meant Miyu could try her ideas freely.
“A plan?”
“We can’t just sit around because business is slow.”
“There’s no law saying anyone starves. Don’t worry.”
“You’ll see. I’ll sell every last vegetable and make us rich.”
“Pfft.” The grandmother snorted.
“Get rich selling vegetables? That’d be like a hen courting a rooster! Only scholars who pass the state exam, big landowners, interpreters trading with Qing or Japan, or merchants running huge trade houses get rich. If selling spinach made you wealthy, street performers and kids playing stickball with pig bladders would all be millionaires.”
She clicked her tongue, unconvinced.
Miyu folded her arms, smiling serenely.
Yes. Maybe not now, but in the future.
Those street performers will become K-pop stars; the pig-bladder kids will one day earn hundreds of millions as pro athletes.
The world keeps changing.
“That’s why we need effort—thinking, finding a way.”
“Fine, try. Who’s stopping you? If nothing sells, we’ll just dump it cheap at the tavern so we can at least eat. That spinach, mung bean sprouts, chives, and lettuce—Dalbong’s tavern agreed to take them today anyway.”
She gestured toward the back.
“Let me have a look.”
Miyu strode inside like a general checking her strategy before battle.
“A peculiar clerk indeed,” the Princess grumbled, eyes closing again.
In the corner were piles of spinach, sprouts, chives, and lettuce—still crisp, nowhere near spoilage.
“They’re still fresh.”
“In three or four days they’ll wilt. These greens spoil fast. Sell them quick or you’ll never move them.”
The Princess answered without opening her eyes.
“If sold at full price, how much are they worth?”
“Plenty there. Two nyang each, so about eight nyang total.”
Miyu tried to gauge the value.
“How much is a bowl of soup these days?”
“Soy-soup rice? About one jeon, same as two cups of rice wine.”
A bowl of soup for one jeon? Maybe one jeon was around 5,000 won in today’s money.
“How many jeon in a nyang?”
“Don’t you know anything? One nyang is ten jeon, ten jeon is a hundred pun.”
So when beggars begged for a single pun, it was like asking for about five hundred won—fair enough.
Anyway, eight nyang was roughly 400,000 won.
“How much were you going to sell them for?”
“Five nyang. I paid four, so that still leaves one nyang profit.”
So only about fifty thousand won profit.
Our Princess is modest indeed.
Miyu closed her eyes and stepped into her mental “office,” the imaginary space where she stored everything she’d studied.
Before her stood drawers of marketing and psychology knowledge, neatly organized.
Which drawer held the key to this challenge?
Slowly she reached for one labeled “Leftover Effect.”
Then another: “Bandwagon Effect.”
Miyu opened her eyes with a smile.
“Princess, if you became rich, what would you want?”
“Well, though I’m old, I’d love to wear a skirt and jacket of sarang-neungdan silk, and cloud-patterned leather flower shoes. In summer, fine Hansan ramie; in winter, a sable-fur cap. But why ask?”
“Because you should wear sarang-neungdan before it’s too late.”
Miyu smiled mysteriously.
