Treasure Map — 5

Anyone who had held a position of power in Seoul was bound to have left a trail on the internet.

Just how impressive ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠could this man possibly be? Let's find out.

I typed Ju Mandeok into the portal site's search bar and looked him up in the people dictionary. It turned up six men named Ju Mandeok in total, but only two had photos current enough to be useful.

I showed the pictures to Choi Hogyeong and asked, "Is the farm owner one of these?"

"That one there."

The man Hogyeong pointed to had a history as a district mayor. And his biological father was Ju Chang-nam — a former National Assembly member.

Where have I heard that name before?

I clicked through to check which district Ju Chang-nam had represented: Pyeongcheong-gun in Gangwon Province, along with Hoengcheong, Hongcheong, and Yeongcheong.

He was the assemblyman for our own district.

The moment that thought landed, a video flashed through my mind like a bolt of lightning. It was the clip I'd seen back in the earthbound spirit village — the hidden realm I'd reached after crossing the barrier while searching for Seo Jinwoo, who had gone silent on his way to meet me. The clip that had played when the spirits crashed into my body. In it, the village representative had mentioned Ju Chang-nam by name.

The village representative had stood at the front of the tour bus, wearing an expression of pure delight as he said it. But most of the villagers had been seething with resentment. Why on earth, they demanded, did a village perched halfway up a hill need to be included in a flooding zone at all? The residents opposed the civil works for the nearby highway, so the powers that be had simply decided to erase the entire village instead.

And then the accident happened, and every last one of them was wiped out.

All the villagers died — and even the lone puppy left behind in the empty village met a grisly end. No one was ever held accountable for the accident, and the whole affair was quietly buried. Figuring out that Assemblyman Ju Chang-nam had been the hand behind it wasn't exactly difficult.

But the farm owner was the son of that assemblyman?

I searched for Assemblyman Ju Chang-nam again, just in case there was someone with the same name. Nope. There was only one. A murderer who had loaded villagers opposed to the highway onto a tour bus, staged a fatal accident, and killed them all. Rumors of corruption swirled around him for years afterward, and yet he'd still managed to win another term in the National Assembly.

And his son, Ju Mandeok, had served as a district mayor before quitting politics and moving to the countryside to farm.

Like father, like son, huh.

In the articles about Ju Mandeok, words like corruption, illegal, and falsified showed up again and again. After becoming district mayor, he'd illegally rezoned park land, and while taking bribes to sell it off to a private developer at a fraction of its value, he'd been caught. An election law violation landed him a fine, and he was booted from office. Was committing dirty deeds involving construction and civil engineering hereditary?

Choi Hogyeong, watching my expression harden, asked carefully, "Why do you ask about the farm owner? Is he a bad person?"

"I think so. He seems to have a lot he wants to hide — he doesn't hire any of the villagers and only uses outside workers."

I told Hogyeong not to dig into Ju Mandeok any further. She could easily land herself in danger trying to gather information.

"So you're planning to bring that bad man to justice yourself, aren't you? There's no other reason you'd ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠be collecting all this information."

"What kind of power do I have to bring anyone to justice?"

Ordering a malevolent spirit to torment the man until his mind broke, maybe. Or, at most, a petty little revenge — digging through every corner of his life, exposing every illegal thing he'd done, and driving him out of the village. That was the extent of it.

Not that I could load him onto a tour bus and stage an accident.

Making the son pay for the sins of the father felt like crossing a line. But a man who did evil things absolutely had to pay the price for them. Ju Mandeok was currently lying to his employee about a hundred million won in repair costs — and someday down the road, he might end up hurting people, just like his father had.

I rose from my seat. "Please email me the coffee packaging design. I need to place the order."

"Of course."

"And I'm counting on you for the website design. I've already bought the internet domain and signed a contract paying the server fees monthly. Give me a call when the design's finished."

"Your drive is seriously incredible. I think you've adapted to farming life faster than anyone in our cohort. At this rate you'll be a wealthy farmer before we know it, right?"

"I think so too."

Since I was already rich, I nodded along without a hint of irony.

"I'll have to keep showing you my very best work, then. And actually — about that." Hogyeong walked with me all the way to my car. "I'll wrap the hundred coffee gift sets in bojagi made from my naturally dyed fabric. My treat."

"A treat, sure — but it's also a way to promote your natural dyeing workshop, Yeon-du. Am I wrong?"

When I stared at her and asked, Hogyeong burst out laughing. "So we're going for mutual benefit and mutual promotion, huh?"

"Exactly. We're farming school classmates — let's do it that way."

Honestly, I hadn't been planning to make coffee gift sets at all. But picturing coffee gifts wrapped in vibrantly dyed bojagi cloth struck me as a genuinely classy idea.

Wouldn't that look incredibly impressive?

If the response was good, I decided I'd package my doenjang and cheonggukjang in dyed bojagi later, too. The whole point of a gift was to move the person receiving it.

"Take care of yourself, Hogyeong. You only need to be careful for a few more days."

"Huh? Oh — oh, of course."

Hogyeong nodded along, with no idea what exactly I was telling her to be careful about.

Right away, I drove over to the area near Ju Mandeok's greenhouse and got out of the car. According to what I'd learned through the Agricultural Technology Center, the facility investor was a venture firm that had signed an agreement with the government. Funded by research grants, it had built an automated farming system and was now offering it to returning farmers through the center.

When I asked whether there was a greenhouse in Ugok 3-ri with damaged equipment, they'd said it involved personal information and they couldn't say. But when I asked whether repair costs could possibly run to a hundred million won, the officer couldn't hide how absurd he found the question — and his open displeasure. A repair bill that size would trigger a flood of civil complaints, and the venture would lose the business entirely, he said. In other words: that had never happened.

Just as I'd suspected, Ju Mandeok had been applying pressure on Bang Jeongsoo — keeping him from quitting so he could work him like a slave.

"Hey there. Who are you?"

As I poked around the entrance to the facility, a middle-aged man came walking out. It was Ju Mandeok — similar to his internet photos, yet somehow different.

And then I saw it.

What is that thing riding on him?

A man's head was peeking out over Ju Mandeok's shoulders. The figure clung to his back like a child being carried piggyback, dressed in a white long robe with a white square hat perched on his head.

A shaman! A Japanese shaman!

The outfit resembled something I'd seen in a manga about onmyoji, so I recognized it immediately. Good grief — what on earth did a man have to do to go through life carrying a Japanese shaman on his back?

Don't tell me he actually used Japanese sorcery?

I swallowed dryly and spoke to Ju Mandeok. "I was just passing by, and the facility looked so impressive I stopped to take a look. I moved out here from Seoul to Pyeongcheong-gun, you see."

"Ah, a returning resident? Where do you live?"

"Ugok 1-ri."

"There's someone like you living out there?"

Ju Mandeok gave my clothes an ostentatious once-over. The clear message: I looked nothing like a farmer.

"I bought an empty house in the village and fixed it up like a hanok guesthouse. People mistake it for a cafe sometimes, so cars wander in by accident now and then."

"Country people really have no basics at all, do they?"

He'd moved to the countryside himself, and there he was trashing the villagers to a stranger. In his own mind, he was superior — a world apart from the people scraping a living out of the dirt.

"You'd like to look around the facility? Then allow me to show you. Fellow Seoul folk should get along, don't you think?"

"Ah — well. Thank you."

Preening, Ju Mandeok led me inside the greenhouse. The Japanese shaman clinging to his back shifted its body, arranging itself so it could watch me — draping its legs across Ju Mandeok's shoulders.

What? Does it want a piece of me?

Ordinary ghosts and spirits born from objects hid or fled the moment they saw me. They were terrified I would annihilate them or send them off to the afterlife.

The Japanese shaman was different. Its bloodshot eyes fixed on me unblinking, it was driving its long nails deep into Ju Mandeok's skull.

Whether that man lives or dies is none of my concern.

As if my thoughts had reached it, the corners of the shaman's mouth curled upward toward its ears. Then it cradled Ju Mandeok's head and held him close.

Mutual benefit. Mutual promotion. Just like Hogyeong had said to me — weren't those two doing exactly the same thing?

Ju Mandeok smiled graciously. "This is the irrigation system — the heart of the whole facility. It draws up groundwater, purifies it, and waters the crops automatically."

"Automatic? Impressive. How much does a setup like this cost?"

"The watering system runs about thirty million? Drilling the groundwater well costs another ten, and connecting everything with piping runs about ten more."

Fifty million won invested in a single greenhouse? Whether the numbers were accurate or not didn't really matter.

A hundred million won in repairs was nonsense either way.

Ju Mandeok kept up a running commentary as he guided me deeper and deeper into the facility. The farther we got from the entrance, the more the place felt utterly cut off from the outside world.

Out of nowhere, something my farming school classmate Hwang Yu-hyeon had once said came back to me.

He'd said it made him imagine a psychopath, unable to resist a murderous urge, wandering in and slipping into the greenhouse — and there'd be nothing anyone could do about it. That was exactly the atmosphere the deep interior of a facility like this gave off: silent, sealed isolation, plain and simple.

"I know exactly who you are."

Ju Mandeok stopped mid-stride and turned to face me. The head of the Japanese shaman perched above him rotated a full 180 degrees and stared straight at me.

"You know me?"

"Yes."

Had it seen through the fact that I'd come because of Bang Jeongsoo? Or had it already sensed that I knew Ju Mandeok's father, Ju Chang-nam, had murdered the villagers of the flooded Ugok 5-ri by staging an accident?

Then Ju Mandeok flashed a grin. "You're the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠promotional ambassador for Pyeongcheong-gun, aren't you?"

Something in me deflated with an audible hiss.

"Ah. Yes, I am."

I answered with a flat smile. "If you're a county ambassador yourself, you could always just go down to the county office and ask to see the facilities..."

"I'm not the type to go around ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠asking for favors."

I let his words slide past me and glanced around the interior instead. Tomatoes were growing fresh and green.

"Do you happen to travel to Japan often?"

The barrier that had hung over the flooded village drifted back into my mind. There, a double-layered barrier had been woven so that the village was shunned by passersby in ordinary hours, but at certain specific times it would suck in anyone traveling through the Ugok Tunnel.

Could the Japanese shaman have been the one who laid that barrier?

I looked Ju Mandeok dead in the eye and asked, "I take it you're interested in Japanese sorcery? There's something like that hanging over there, you see."

On the exit door on the far side, opposite the entrance, hung a shimenawa — a sacred rope from the Shinto tradition.