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# Chapter 3. Incense Burner (香爐), The Path Ahead (向路)
"You mean, 'You're here'? Um... Grandpa, can you see me? It seems like nobody else can..."
"Bring it here, quickly! We're running short on firewood!"
"Huh? Firewood?"
Thud, thud, thud.
"I-I'm coming!"
A laborer carrying a huge load on his back hurried past me and unloaded the firewood in front of the kiln's firebox.
Oh.
The old man's words, "You're here," hadn't been directed at me after all.
"You sluggish fool! How many times have I told you that the pottery won't fire properly if the flames weaken?"
The old man scolded the laborer before beginning to feed the firewood into the firebox.
One piece, then another.
He carefully controlled the amount of firewood he added, making sure the flames didn't grow too strong too suddenly.
Beads of sweat dripped from his forehead because of the intense heat, but the old man paid them no mind and maintained his steady rhythm. Even in the way he handled the firewood, I could sense the soul of a true ceramic artist.
This old man seems like an incredible master potter. There's a saying that a craftsman's skill shows even in the way he tends a fire. Wait a minute... Could he be the person who made the incense burner?
Just as that thought crossed my mind, my vision went dark.
When my vision cleared again, the old man was working at a potter's wheel.
It wasn't one of the automatic wheels used nowadays, but an old-fashioned kick wheel powered by his feet.
At the tips of his fingers, the moist clay spun endlessly, gradually taking shape.
With every subtle movement of his thumbs, fingertips, and palms, the shapeless lump of clay transformed into a plate, a bowl, and a cup.
His skill was on a level that even the finest electric pottery wheel couldn't easily help someone replicate.
What an incredible master!
Once again, everything went dark.
Damn it, this is making me dizzy. Why does this keep happening?
When my vision cleared again, the situation was alarming.
Screams filled the air from every direction. The pounding of horse hooves, the ominous clanging of metal, and the dull sounds of flesh and bone being violently torn apart echoed throughout the area.
The government kiln reeked of blood.
Japanese soldiers.
A commander dressed in a full helmet and armor was swinging his sword from horseback, while the soldiers following him slaughtered people with spears and swords.
Blood sprayed from the villagers' necks and bodies.
It was a horrifying sight. For once, I was almost grateful that nobody could see me.
Where are the Joseon soldiers? Why aren't they stopping this? Where are they, and what are they doing?
The Japanese commander, wearing an ornate helmet, shouted.
"陶工は殺すな! Don't kill the potters!"
Somehow, I automatically understood the meaning of the unfamiliar Japanese words.
Was this a consideration from whoever was showing me these scenes?
Soon, the Japanese soldiers began binding the potters.
Amid the chaos, I suddenly grew worried about the old man and headed toward the place where his kiln had been.
The old man was resisting in front of the kiln, wielding a pitchfork like a weapon, much like one of the Four Heavenly Kings guarding the entrance to a Buddhist temple.
A Japanese soldier charged at him with his sword drawn.
The old man swung his pitchfork with his muscular arms, which had been strengthened through a lifetime of working with pottery.
Clang!
The old man struck with tremendous force, knocking the Japanese soldier's sword down to the ground.
He planted his foot on the blade, pinning it to the ground, then thrust his pitchfork upward into the soldier's neck.
"Urgh!"
Blood spurted from the soldier's neck as he collapsed.
Seeing this, two other Japanese soldiers charged forward in fury, raising their swords.
The old man managed to deflect one soldier's blade with his pitchfork, but the wide movement left his neck exposed.
The other soldier's sword shot toward the opening.
Bang!!!
I looked toward the source of the gunshot and saw that the Japanese commander had arrived on horseback.
Smoke rose from the matchlock gun he had fired while aiming from his saddle.
"Argh!"
The bullet had struck the arm of the soldier who was about to cut off the potter's head.
The soldier dropped his sword in pain.
I couldn't believe what I had just witnessed.
He shot his own subordinate!
"Did my order not sound like a command when I told you not to kill the potters?"
"I-I'm sorry, Commander Nabeshima!"
The man named Nabeshima swept his gaze like a snake over the ceramics scattered around the old man's kiln.
"Look at these ceramics. This potter will make the finest pottery in Japan for our family from now on! Once that happens, our family will dominate Japan's ceramics industry and become the wealthiest family in the country. Pottery isn't merely something used for bowls and plates! Each piece is a lump of gold capable of making us an enormous fortune. I'll say it once more. Do not kill the potters under any circumstances!"
Nabeshima shouted coldly.
He was the kind of man who could shoot his own subordinate without hesitation to protect potters who would become a source of wealth.
That was Nabeshima, the commander who had abducted the potters and brought them to Arita.
Once again, my vision went dark.
A peculiar scene unfolded before my eyes.
Japanese-style houses stood alongside kilns built in the Joseon style.
Yet, for some reason, I felt as though I had seen this place before.
Is this what Arita Village looked like in the past?
The potters hadn't been treated well from the beginning.
The captured potters repeatedly attempted to escape, and several times, they were killed by samurai from other domains.
After losing potters in this way, the Nabeshima family adopted a more accommodating approach to prevent further losses of these valuable craftsmen.
Perhaps they thought that if they treated the potters better than they had been treated back in Joseon, the potters wouldn't try to escape.
The nameless old man had also initially considered escaping. But after seeing the severed heads of potters who had attempted to flee before him returned to the village, he abandoned the idea.
He wasn't ready to die yet.
"I still have work I need to do, don't I? My hometown and nationality can wait."
With that resolve, the old man continued firing pottery in Arita, again and again.
If returning home was impossible anyway, then he would create the finest pottery in the world before he died.
That was all he cared about.
Apart from that, he paid attention to nothing else.
When his fellow potter, whose surname was Lee, changed his name to Kagegawa, and when another potter named Park changed his surname to Arai, the old man refused to change his name.
Whenever people around him suggested that he should change it as well, he would simply mutter:
"I'm just Nanashi, a man who fires pottery. That's enough for me."
The nameless old man forgot his hometown and even his family as he continued making ceramics.
Whether Kagegawa's pottery sold well or Arai's work earned praise from Japanese aristocrats made no difference to him.
He didn't care.
Recognition from others meant nothing to him. His sole goal was to create the ultimate piece of pottery, something he himself could acknowledge as perfection.
His hands were always covered in clay, and he was always found near his kiln.
The old man's burning determination to create the finest pottery before his death never went out.
That obsession, that wish, was the only force that kept him going as his hair gradually turned white and his back became hunched.
Yet the old man could never quite reach the supreme level of craftsmanship he envisioned.
I thought his work was already more than good enough. No, it was far beyond good enough.
I felt a shiver run through me as I looked at the ceramics the old man had created.
He hadn't received as much recognition as Kagegawa or Arai, but in my eyes, his skill surpassed theirs.
If only I could make pottery at that level!
The quality of his work was almost otherworldly.
And yet, the old man himself felt that something was missing from his pottery.
He couldn't bring himself to be satisfied.
It was like the final touch needed to complete a dragon painting. Everything was already there, but the dragon's eyes still had to be drawn. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't paint those eyes to his satisfaction.
Unable to understand the reason, the old man's eyes gradually became clouded with madness.
At some point, he became a madman, repeatedly smashing every piece of pottery he made.
He wouldn't even sell his work.
He would fire it, smash it, fire another piece, and break that one, too.
After several months of this, his money ran out, and he could barely afford food.
As he went without proper meals, his once sturdy body grew painfully thin.
Taku Yasutoki, the lord of Arita and a subordinate of Nabeshima, personally sent someone to stop the old man's madness.
But by the time that person arrived, the old man's insanity had reached its peak.
He climbed into the kiln along with his final pottery creations.
Could it be...? That black mark left on the incense burner...
The truth struck me like a tremendous shock.
The soot on the incense burner had come from a human being.
It was the blood, bones, and flesh of the very ceramic artist who had made it!
While I struggled to comprehend this dizzying revelation, the temperature inside the kiln rose beyond what a human being could endure as the piled firewood blazed fiercely.
Amid the raging inferno, the final pieces of pottery the old man had made were being fired to perfection.
At the moment when he felt the flames gradually engulfing his own body, the old man finally attained enlightenment.
He understood why he had never been able to create the supreme pottery he had long desired.
It was because...
For my pottery to be complete, I needed the soil of my homeland, not the soil of Japanese land...
The old man's burning body collapsed onto his final works.
Leaving behind a dark, deep stain.
Fire burns everything,
but it cannot burn pottery.
Pottery is born from fire.
Only you were able to recognize me!
A burning skeleton spoke to me.
Please, return me to Joseon!
The flames surged violently, and I felt as though they were rushing toward me and swallowing me whole.
"Hah!"
I blinked once, and I was back inside Arai's Workshop in Arita.
The experience I had just gone through had vanished without a trace.
Only the black mark on the incense burner remained unchanged.
"Hey, what's wrong with you?"
The incense burner slipped from my sweaty hands.
Fortunately, Lee Jeongsik, who was standing beside me, caught it just in time.
I had nearly dropped it and caused a terrible accident by breaking the piece.
After that narrow escape, Lee Jeongsik and I nervously glanced at the shopkeeper to gauge his reaction.
Fortunately, although the shopkeeper seemed slightly startled, he didn't get angry.
"Have you seen everything?"
Instead, he spoke in an extremely indirect, typically Japanese manner.
Lee Jeongsik whispered in my ear that, in Japanese-style communication, it meant something like, "Don't break any more of the other ceramics. Hurry up and leave."
"How much is this incense burner?"
The shopkeeper's eyes widened at my question.
"You want to buy it? You're the first customer who has asked about its price even after seeing that black stain."
"I didn't see a price tag on it."
I whispered to Lee Jeongsik that what I really meant was, "So, how much is it?"
For some reason, I felt that I had to fulfill the final wish of that old man who had been consumed by madness.
I had to buy the incense burner.
"Twenty thousand yen. Is that an acceptable price?"
"Two hundred thousand won?!"
A little while later, Lee Jeongsik and I left Arai's Workshop and continued walking down the street, looking at the ceramics on display.
Lee Jeongsik glanced at the shopping bag in my hand and said, "There are so many other beautiful ceramics here. Why did you have to buy that stained incense burner? And for 150,000 won, no less."
At least there was one small consolation.
I'd managed to bargain fiercely with that sly shopkeeper and knock 50,000 won off the price.
If I'd paid the full 200,000 won, my already meager bank balance would have suffered even more.
"I think there's someone who needs help attaining enlightenment."
"What? What does that even mean?"
Lee Jeongsik stared at me as though I were a lunatic.
"I'm joking. I bought it because I really liked it, apart from the stain. Back when we were undergraduates, I wanted to make white porcelain of this quality myself."
"It is a well-made incense burner, but what are you going to do with it?"
"I'll put it on the desk in my goshiwon and burn some incense. Who knows? Maybe it'll help me study better and finally pass the exam."
"Didn't I tell you to give up that damn civil service examination already?"
"Stop telling me to give it up. Just hearing those words makes me remember my exam results, and I feel like throwing up."
"We were born into this world with the historic mission of making Korean ceramics known as korea..."
"Seriously, that's enough."
And so, the matter was settled for the time being.
Still, it had been an incredibly strange and mysterious experience.
When I touched the incense burner, I hadn't merely seen those scenes. It had felt as though I had experienced everything in four dimensions, as if I had physically been there!
Those vivid memories would not be easy to forget anytime soon.
The incense burner of a nameless potter, a relic of the tragedy of the Imjin War, and the secret hidden within its blackened stain!
Lee Jeongsik had absolutely no idea what I had experienced during those brief moments.
"Oh, look at those accessories over there! They're earrings made of ceramics!"
He had already been distracted by another piece of pottery.
Despite his large build, Lee Jeongsik had a fondness for cute, delicate ceramic accessories.
The two-day, one-night Arita ceramics festival was practically heaven for him.
What about me?
I had enjoyed the festival, too.
However, even after a night had passed, the scenes I had witnessed continued to linger in my mind.
The old man's fanatical obsession with creating the finest pottery.
The madness that had ultimately driven him to burn himself alive.
What was so important about pottery that the old man had gone that far?
His story also made me reflect on my own life.
Why had I abandoned the path of becoming a ceramic artist and spent five years wandering down an entirely different road?
The path of the old man's life, revealed to me through the incense burner, left a profound and unsettling impression on me.
But the truly shocking event would not occur until I returned to Korea.