A Genuine Windfall - 7
"Yi Yu-in, the adopted son Jinryeonggun took in, built a grand mansion of ninety-nine rooms in Gyeongseong and lived in every luxury imaginable."
Back in college, one of my professors had said that. He wanted nothing to do with the history of the late Joseon dynasty and the Korean Empire, he claimed.
The more you studied the chaos and ignorance of that era, the more fury and resentment it stirred up in you, he said.
But I believed that what needed to be known ought to be known, so I studied it on my own.
Which meant I knew more than most people did.
"They said Jinryeonggun and Yi Yu-in's fortune could have bought the entire city of Gyeongseong. When Yi Yu-in rose to high office, people supposedly thronged his doorstep until it wore down, arms laden with gold and silk."
At my words, Moon Sung-il spoke with a grave expression.
"I imagine Yi Yu-in built a ninety-nine-room mansion because he wasn't permitted to build anything larger than the palace itself."
"Exactly. But he must have furnished the whole house with the gold and jewels he took in bribes, and filled his storehouses to bursting."
In fact, my own research showed that Yi Yu-in, beyond the ninety-nine-room mansion, had bought up properties all over Gyeongseong and decked them out in splendor.
There were written records stating that his properties combined were larger and grander than the palace where King Gojong himself resided.
That was when the idea struck me like a jolt of lightning.
"Which is to say, it wasn't only invaders from abroad, like the Japanese raiders, who plundered our treasures and cultural heritage."
There was a saying for this, wasn't there?
The darkest spot is directly beneath the lamp.
"The traitors' fortunes must be hidden somewhere. We have records detailing even the minor habits of Sejo and Sukjong, so why would there be almost nothing recorded about Jinryeonggun and Yi Yu-in, who lived far more recently than they did? What do you suppose the reason is?"
"You're saying the traitors erased the records themselves?"
That was exactly it.
Jinryeonggun and Yi Yu-in, and all their collaborators.
The men who sold out their country would have wiped every record of their atrocities and spirited away their enormous wealth.
"Yes. Joseon was a nation with five hundred years of history. The Sui and Tang dynasties of China combined lasted barely more than three hundred years."
Moon Sung-il continued.
"Joseon was founded around the same time as the Ming dynasty, and it endured long after Ming had fallen."
I finished the last of the tea in my cup before speaking.
"The Qing dynasty, established after the fall of the Ming, is recorded as a 268-year dynasty, if you measure from its height to the deposition of its last emperor, Puyi."
Joseon lasted more than five hundred years.
It endured, maintaining one dynasty for an overwhelmingly long stretch of time.
Because King Taejo, Yi Seong-gye, had laid a rock-solid foundation, carried through Taejo's reign and on into Sejong's.
Yet after all those long centuries, the artifacts that survived seemed absurdly sparse, plundered as they had been.
It made no sense that the National Museum and the Kansong Art Museum held only a handful of ceramics and a few royal dragon robes between them.
Where had it all gone?
Why was it that cultural treasures nonexistent in Korea kept changing hands at auctions in New York?
Who on earth kept smuggling our heritage overseas and putting it under the hammer?
Even the National Intelligence Service was tracking it, yet they had failed to identify anyone.
There were no surviving records of the artifacts, and no way to trace who had sold what to whom.
This was the work of men who had exploited a chaotic age to line their own pockets.
"So here's my thought: we hunt down the hidden treasures of the traitors who destroyed Joseon. We make money, we do right by the country, and we give our business a clear identity. What do you think?"
"A splendid idea!"
Moon Sung-il had always been rich. Now, thanks to recent events, he was richer still.
"I've long wanted to do something more meaningful than simply making money. I wanted to protect our cultural heritage, the way Master Kansong did."
"Then let's plan the work together. It should be fun."
"Haha. When I first proposed we go into business together, I made it sound like I'd be the one directing everything."
He was right. That had been the plan back then.
Ghosts that might dwell in the artifacts, wicked demons, vengeful spirits—if any such things appeared, our work would be limited to purifying them, nothing more.
But now here I was, actively pitching the direction of the business myself.
I smiled and went on.
"I'd like to recover the cultural heritage that's been smuggled overseas, too. Like Yeon Chumo's longsword—we take back our treasures being sold off from North Korea to China."
"Excellent. Truly excellent."
Moon Sung-il seemed positively giddy about the work ahead. He rubbed his palms together, and his eyes sparkled as he looked at me.
"This conversation is bound to run long—shall we have a drink? If drinking with me is uncomfortable, I can always brew you another pot of tea."
"Uncomfortable? Not in the least. Wine would be lovely, and whiskey sounds even better."
Delighted by my answer, Moon Sung-il pressed the bell sitting on the table. A servant who had been waiting nearby appeared at once.
Moon Sung-il turned to me.
"Wine? Whiskey? Which would you prefer?"
"Both are fine. Whichever you like."
"Whiskey, then."
Moon Sung-il named a bottle to the servant and asked for light snacks, ice, tonic water, lemon, and the like.
And so the tea table turned into a drinking session, and I was deep in earnest conversation with Moon Sung-il when—
Gliding through the garden, the White Porcelain Grandmother drifted silently to my side and spoke.
"Pour me a glass too. The whiskey."
Our White Porcelain Grandmother had expensive taste, after all.
I set down the glass I'd been drinking neat and poured a bit of whiskey over ice in a fresh one.
Watching me fill two glasses, Moon Sung-il seemed to think I intended to drink one neat and chase it with the iced one.
In truth, that glass on the rocks was for the White Porcelain Grandmother.
"Ahh, now that's good!"
The pricey liquor clearly agreed with her. She downed a few more glasses, then said to me:
"So you want to find Jinryeonggun's treasure, do you?"
She'd been listening the whole time, out in the yard. To every word Moon Sung-il and I exchanged.
'Yes. I intend to find the treasure Jinryeonggun and Yi Yu-in hid away. You'll help me, won't you?'
"Pour me one more glass first."
As always, the old woman batted my words away with a prickly edge. Then, right around the time Moon Sung-il announced he was too drunk to continue:
"Tomorrow, take me to see Gyeongseong. Do that, and I'll tell you where the treasure is hidden."
The next morning, I rose early, washed up, and headed to the dining room, where the smell of soybean sprout hangover soup brushed against my nose.
The chef had evidently figured out that Moon Sung-il and I had been drinking late into the night, and cooked up the sprout soup accordingly.
Moon Sung-il had been wobbling drunk by the end of it, but apparently he'd gone for an early morning swim and sweated the alcohol clean out of his system.
The first habit of the wealthy.
They rise early. And they exercise the moment they're out of bed.
Lose your health, and you have to leave all that fortune behind when you die—so they guard their bodies all the more jealously. From what I'd observed of Moon Sung-il, his body came before his money.
Come to think of it, the reason he'd agreed to go into business with me was much the same as with Lady Wolyeong—he wanted protection in case a vengeful spirit ever came for him.
"You're up early."
"Compared to you, Mr. Moon, I'm quite late."
Smiling, I took my seat at the table.
Soybean sprout hangover soup, multigrain rice, an assortment of seasoned vegetable side dishes and savory pancakes, even a salad—it could have passed for a five-star hotel's breakfast buffet.
Properly light on the salt, not too spicy, and yet not lacking in flavor one bit.
Moon Sung-il said he would be meeting the Big Madam matriarch directly after breakfast.
"It seems the Big Madam feels some trepidation about bequeathing a fortune in the trillions of won to her children after she passes."
"If her estate is left to a museum in the form of master paintings, gold, and golden buddhas, it doesn't count as a private inheritance between individuals."
"Precisely. So for this transaction, the contract will be drawn up in the museum's name, and the payment will be received in Bitcoin."
"That's probably for the best."
At my ready agreement, Moon Sung-il blinked at me in surprise.
"Representative Lee Ho-young mentioned that you prefer cash transfers through your agricultural corporation."
That was how I'd taken payment for the meteorite. Just as Lee Ho-young had invested in my business that way.
I smiled.
"I do like cash, but I'm not foolish enough to contemplate receiving three hundred billion won in paper money."
"Oh? Haha."
Moon Sung-il laughed along with me, then continued.
"Still, if anything gives you even the slightest pause, please tell me freely. As you said yesterday, Mr. Kim—our business is only just beginning."
"Yes. Only just beginning."
I nodded, then turned my gaze toward the annex.
'That's right. We're only just getting started.'
After Moon Sung-il left to meet the Big Madam, I stopped by the annex to bring the White Porcelain Grandmother along with me.
There was no walking around downtown Seoul carrying a porcelain jar, after all.
Number 1 could roam the four corners of the earth for three whole days without me and be none the worse for it.
Even while I was in Seoul, he simply had to make it back home within three days.
The White Porcelain Grandmother, however, could not stray far from the porcelain.
'What's the farthest you've ever been from the jar? You've never once been apart from it for a full day, have you?'
"The truth is, since arriving here I went as far as down below. I thought the Han River was close by, you see."
'But your form didn't grow strange, or feel like it might fade away?'
"It didn't. But I fretted all the same—what if the streets grew too tangled for me to find my way back?"
So the grandmother was as hopeless with directions as Number 1.
'Then for now, just come with me as far as the celebrity's house just up ahead. If you're fine there, we'll gradually widen your range.'
"A celebrity's house?"
'Seo Jinwoo—an actor with ten-million-plus fans—lives around here. I promised I'd visit his place today.'
Last time, Seo Jinwoo had spontaneously fired up his camera app and gone live.
He'd promised to promote my business, but he'd been terribly disappointed that he couldn't fill three hundred thousand subscribers.
So today, he insisted, I simply had to come to his house.
'We'll get you to three hundred thousand subscribers and two hundred thousand followers.'
After the movie ended, at the restaurant, Seo Jinwoo had burned with determination.
He never said what kind of content he intended to make.
He only mentioned that Jeong Hyeoncheol—a detective from the Violent Crimes Unit at Mapo Police Station who had somehow become his friend—would be coming too.
Jeong Hyeoncheol was the Mapo detective who'd helped me catch the fatsia-shoot thieves, and he was co-owner of the abandoned house near the reservoir.
'Jeong Hyeoncheol gave up his ownership share, and this time I renovated the place into a café.'
He'd said he'd come down to Ugok 1-ri to fish every vacation he got, but he'd been so busy lately that I hadn't heard a peep from him.
When he heard I was in Seoul, though, he'd supposedly taken leave from work.
'Speaking of which, what should I bring?'
I was invited to Seo Jinwoo's house, and showing up empty-handed felt wrong.
The problem was that Seo Jinwoo was a man who had money, fame, every luxury brand in existence—everything.
"There's no gift on earth that could move a man who has everything."
As I muttered this stepping out of Moon Sung-il's estate, the White Porcelain Grandmother snorted.
"Enough of that nonsense. There's no such thing as a person who has everything in this world."
Then she tilted her chin toward a certain shop.
"That would make a fine gift. Go on and buy it—quickly, quickly!"
Nudged along by the grandmother's urging, I cocked my head in curiosity and stepped inside the shop.