At first, Ji Tae had worried that he had been mistaken to put Kwang Jo in charge of their search party. The first place he would have suggested checking was the harbor, as the criminals were most likely trying to get off the island as soon as possible. But the old island resident had a familiarity with Jeju and its residents that proved fruitful, after all. Ji Tae hadn't expected that the first person they interviewed would have information about the criminals, but the woman named Yeonri had been a pleasant surprise. Now, while the other search parties from the fort were scouring the docks, their group was following Kwang Jo in the opposite direction, towards the fields on the outskirts of the town.

It was promising to hear that one of the criminals, at least, was still on the island.

Ji Tae squinted ahead, to were the path curved around a bend in the road and disappeared from view. He caught a brief glimpse of what looked like a farmer farther down the road before the figure vanished around the bend.

"Now, as we come up on this cove on the left," Kwang Jo began, "You mustn't look down."

"Why not?" Ji Tae heard one of the soldiers under his supervision, Dae Hwan, grumble from the back of the group.

"Sometimes the women dive in the cove," Kwang Jo explained. "I'm not sure if today is one of those days, but just in case, we shouldn't look."

"Diving, in the cove?" Ji Tae asked. "Why?"

Kwang Jo looked surprised that the captain didn't know. "Well, it's what they do for a living. How else could we catch abalone and sea urchins? Fishermen can only do so much with their nets."

"So they aren't wearing any clothes?" Dae Hwan asked—and was that eagerness in his tone? Ji Tae turned and gave his subordinate a glare. Dae Hwan shrugged innocently.

Kwang Jo coughed at the inappropriateness of the question. "Well, they do wear something," he said. "But we still have regulations to give the ladies the privacy they require. We'll have to take you into custody if you cross those rules."

"Don't look," Ji Tae muttered to Dae Hwan.

"Okay, okay," the other man grumbled.

Just to be sure, when they came up to the cove twenty minutes later, Ji Tae put himself between Dae Hwan and the temptation to their left. As they passed, he did his best to block the soldier's attempts to catch a glimpse of any women who might be swimming below.

"It must be one of those," Kwang Jo announced, pointing at the houses ahead of them.

Momentarily distracted, Ji Tae almost missed Dae Hwan as he tried to slip around him. Before Dae Hwan could get a good look, however, Ji Tae grabbed his companion by the back of his collar and pulled him away.

"We came here with one goal, Dae Hwan," Ji Tae said, "and it was not to look at women."

"If you'd rather sneak glances at the fishermen, I won't tell," Dae Hwan replied airily.

"That's not what I—"

"Why don't we split up?" Kwang Jo interrupted. "We'll be able to interview everyone a lot faster. Captain, would you come with me?"

With a last warning glance shot in Dae Hwan's direction, Ji Tae joined the older man. The rest of the group split into pairs as well, and headed off to the different houses dotting the countryside.

Kwang Jo's pace was much slower than Ji Tae would have liked, but they finally made it to the first residence.

"Hello?" Kwang Jo called out from the gate, while Ji Tae lurked behind him, eyes darting across the yard and to each window, looking for signs of an intruder.

"Who's there?" a warbly voice called out, and after a few seconds of shuffling, a white-bearded face poked out from around the back of the house.

"Ehm, we're looking for a young man, not from around here—"

"Well, then what are you looking around here for?"

Kwang Jo cleared his throat and frowned. "Pardon?"

"If he's not from around here, what are you looking around here for?" the old man said. "Go look where he's around from!"

"Is there...is there someone else we could talk to?" Ji Tae asked. The white-haired man's gaze flicked immediately to him.

"I found him!" the old man said. Ji Tae figured he must have noticed his accent from the capital. "He's right next to you. What are you doing asking me for?"

"I'm not—" Ji Tae began.

"Is there anyone else here?" Kwang Jo tried this time.

"Everyone's either out diving or farming," the man said, waving a hand in dismissal. "Except for Sora, she's selling fish at the market today." With that last comment, he turned away and disappeared back behind the house.

Ji Tae turned to Kwang Jo with a sigh. "Shall we try the next place?"

But it was as the old man had said—the other houses Ji Tae and Kwang Jo tried to visit were all vacant. The only others Ji Tae saw in the area were the other soldiers from their group, knocking on the doors of other houses as well.

It wasn't until they were turning back that Ji Tae caught a flash of brown going down the path from one of the houses. It was a young woman, with her damp hair pulled back in a long braid. Her faded gray jeogori and grassy green chima skirt looked a little disheveled and she was still tying the knot on the front of her jeogori jacket.

"Excuse me!" Ji Tae called.

The young woman looked up, and nearly dropped the bundle of fabric she had pinned to her side under her elbow. Just before the material hit the ground, she managed to catch a corner and yank it back up.

"Y-yes?" she said. "Who are you?" Her eyes flicked warily between Ji Tae and Kwang Jo behind him.

"We're from the fort just outside town," Ji Tae explained. "We're looking for someone not from around here—a yangban from the mainland, with an accent similar to mine."

She frowned as she mulled over this information. "Well, there are lots of different people from the harbor," she said. "You'd probably have better luck searching there."

"We heard he had come this way, to look for work," Kwang Jo added, stepping up to stand beside Ji Tae. "It's very important that we find him."

She shook her head. "Well, I haven't seen any—" she paused for just a moment, then shook her head and continued. "I don't think I've seen anyone like that, but I'll keep an eye out."

Ji Tae felt the corners of his mouth sour to a grim line as he gave a short bow. "Thank you. Please tell the others here about him too, and let us know immediately if you find him."

He was about to turn back, when she asked, "What does he look like?"

Her voice wavered a bit nervously on the last word, and Ji Tae patted his side, only to realize that he had given the bag with the portraits of the two criminals to Dae Hwan.

"He's in his mid-twenties, about my height, and with the same accent," Ji Tae said. "His name is Hwa Woo Sung."

"Hwa Woo Sung," she repeated with a frown.

"There's also another, older man, Seon Hong Pyo," Ji Tae said. "The two of them escaped last night."

He hadn't meant to alarm her, but the young woman had paled considerably. "Escaped?" she echoed. "From the fort?" She looked between Ji Tae and Kwang Jo beside him, then launched into a series of worried questions. "Who are these men? Are they dangerous? Should we be worrying about defending ourselves?"

He should have kept quiet about the 'escaping' part, Ji Tae figured with a wince.

"Just, be careful," he tried to amend, but his response didn't seem to have much success in assuaging her worries. Instead, she wordlessly turned on her heel and fled down one of the paths leading to the houses that dotted the countryside.

"We should head back," Kwang Jo said. "Let's get the others and ask at some of the ships that are planning to leave soon. It's possible he could have circled back and decided against coming this way."

Ji Tae cleared his throat and nodded. "You're right. We can't afford to waste any more time here." He looked around for Dae Hwan, and finally found him searching a nearby field with the two other soldiers from their group.

"Dae Hwan! Let's go!" Ji Tae called. The other man looked up, nodded, and elbowed one of his companions in the ribs.

"We must be missing something," Ji Tae muttered to Kwang Jo. "I just don't know what it is."

Kwang Jo nodded. "I had thought we were on the right track too," he agreed. "We'll have to retrace our steps. Yeonri seemed positive that he had gone this way."

Ji Tae snapped his fingers as a thought occurred to him. "The cove! Do you think he had gone down the cliffs?"

Kwang Jo shook his head. "Unlikely. If he had, we would have heard the women yelling at him. Believe me, they have quite the lung capacity."

"But you said they sometimes don't dive in the cove, didn't you?" Ji Tae pressed. "What if today was one of those days?"

Kwang Jo frowned. "I suppose you're right. It wouldn't hurt to check."

"There's no one at the cove right now," a woman's voice called out from behind them. "I was just there less than five minutes ago, and saw no divers nor men."

Ji Tae turned to see a woman with golden-brown eyes and hair as dark as ink standing a bit farther down the path, staring at them. She looked a bit out of place in the countryside in her richly-colored hanbok. It looked far too expensive for a regular villager. Was she a gisaeng? And what was she doing here?

The woman smiled, and the look was somehow both charismatic and predatory.

"Well," she said, "aren't you going to thank me for saving you a trip?"

~~~~~~~

Hi!  Sorry for the posting delay.  Please let me know what you think of this chapter, and remember to stay on Moon Sun's good side and click that vote button!  Thank you all for reading.  Until next week!