A Full-Fledged Windfall – 8
Ding-dong!
The moment I pressed the doorbell, the front gate clicked open with a clack. Climbing the stone steps that led up from the gate, a lawn-covered garden unfolded before me.
While Moon Sung-il's house carried the formal, museum-like air of a carefully curated estate, Seo Jinwoo's home was bright and cheerful. The walls were painted white from top to bottom with the window frames done in blue, as if the owner had been aiming for the look of a villa on Capri in the Mediterranean.
They really designed it to scream 'eccentric celebrity lives here,' didn't they?
You could read a man's character from his house alone — and this one was transparent, clean, and sunny.
"The entrance is…?"
As I looked around, I caught sight of Seo Jinwoo through the living room's floor-to-ceiling windows, waving at me with a smile. I hastily hid the gift behind my back. My face flushed hot.
Ma'am, this really isn't going to work.
The gift I'd prepared was a bouquet of flowers and a cake. The White Porcelain Grandmother had recommended them so insistently that it was practically strong-arming — I hadn't been able to refuse. If I'd crossed her and she'd refused to tell me where Jinryeonggun's treasure was buried, I'd have been the one in trouble.
But the more I thought about showing up at the door of Seo Jinwoo — a man without so much as a girlfriend — carrying flowers and cake, the less sense it made.
You're not just trying to mess with me, are you, ma'am?
I shot a sidelong glance at the White Porcelain Grandmother walking beside me.
What if Jinwoo gets the wrong idea about me?
"What wrong idea?"
I'd rather not go into that much detail.
At my grumbling, the White Porcelain Grandmother let out a soft chuckle.
"I offer an old woman a helping hand so she might walk away with something, and this is what I get? The boy can't take a hint to save his life. Tsk, tsk!"
Hitching up her skirt with a flourish, she strode past me toward the house.
Walk away with something? With what, exactly?
I was tilting my head in puzzlement when—
"Yoonho!"
Impatient with me dawdling in the garden, Seo Jinwoo threw open the front door and came out. And then—
"How did you know today's my birthday?"
"Ah! Th-that's…"
How on earth did the White Porcelain Grandmother know Seo Jinwoo's birthday? Her entire existence consisted of sitting inside a porcelain jar or strolling around Moon Sung-il's yard.
"I'm old friends with the Grandmother Samsin, that's why."
I'm sorry, what?
"Oh my, and you actually believed that?"
The White Porcelain Grandmother snorted, then jerked her chin toward Abe trailing behind me.
"That ghost you insist on hauling everywhere knows how to read the stars. I asked him who we were going to see today, and he told me it was that fellow's birthday."
I didn't realize you two had gotten close enough to chat already.
"Well, we don't sleep."
"Whoa!"
Seo Jinwoo — the very "that fellow" the Grandmother had referred to — beamed as he accepted the cake and bouquet.
"Did you see my star feed? Anyway, thank you."
"Ah, sure."
"Strawberry cream — my favorite. I'm genuinely touched. And yellow roses… you must have taste similar to mine."
That's the White Porcelain Grandmother's taste, actually.
Still, birthday or not, I couldn't help thinking what a disaster it would have been if I'd shown up empty-handed. The Grandmother had said it herself, after all.
"Don't talk such nonsense. There's no such thing as a person who has everything in this world."
She'd been right. Seo Jinwoo had no friends or family to share his birthday with.
"Yoonho, you made it!"
As I stepped inside, Jeong Hyeoncheol's voice drifted over from the kitchen.
"It's Hyeoncheol. He was on duty yesterday, so he got off shift this morning. He's over there saying he's going to make me seaweed soup."
Seo Jinwoo's face was pure, unguarded happiness.
"I never could make friends comfortably, not even one — but thanks to you, Yoonho, I've grown close to Hyeoncheol too. I still can't believe there are people here to spend my birthday with."
For a star showered with his fans' love and popularity, life behind the scenes was lonelier than anyone on the outside could imagine.
When I gave a bittersweet smile, Jeong Hyeoncheol apparently decided the mood needed lifting.
"Voilà! Seaweed soup with a side of rice, and galbi-jjim — dinner is served!"
Hyeoncheol bellowed it out as he wiped the sweat beading on his nose with the back of his hand. Caught up in the energy, Seo Jinwoo's face lit up.
"Should we eat out in the garden? We could open a bottle of champagne too."
"Yes, that sounds grea…t."
I let the end of the sentence die in my throat.
Why is that thing coming out of there?
"Master."
Abe had been following quietly at my side when he suddenly darted in front of me. The reason was the ghost that had abruptly materialized behind Jeong Hyeoncheol — it had been hiding behind the kitchen refrigerator and then chosen that moment to reveal itself.
But here was the strange thing.
Just as Abe moved to shield me, this ghost seemed to be positioning itself to protect Jeong Hyeoncheol. Its face was sorrowful at a glance, resentment seeping through — but the resentment was not aimed at Hyeoncheol.
Abe, fall back.
"But, Master—"
It's fine.
I fixed Abe with a hard look and a subtle motion, ordering him back. Only then did he glide soundlessly behind me.
Hisssssss.
The ghost spewed out its deathly aura. Its long, loose hair defied gravity, stretching up toward the ceiling, and through that wild curtain it stared straight at me.
Like a hedgehog raising its quills.
It felt like the ghost was doing its absolute best to scare me off. Because I'd brought a Japanese shaman's ghost along, presumably. Ghost versus ghost — was that what this was?
And yet the White Porcelain Grandmother wanders all over the place and it doesn't bat an eye.
Brows furrowed, I studied the ghost guarding Jeong Hyeoncheol more closely. A hazy resentment, a profound sorrow, and beneath them, a deep, aching regret.
Could it be… Hyeoncheol's mother?
Even in death, she would have worried about her son — terrified that the much older half-brothers might torment him, play nasty tricks on him.
"Hyeoncheol, who made the galbi-jjim?"
Taking my eyes off the ghost, I walked over to Hyeoncheol.
"The seaweed soup smells like it was just simmered, but the galbi-jjim looks like it came straight out of the microwave."
When I said it with a grin, Hyeoncheol answered with an embarrassed laugh.
"Trying to catch a detective off guard with your interrogation tricks, huh? Haha. There's a place in front of Mapo Police Station that does a killer spicy galbi-jjim. I picked it up there."
"I see. Shall I plate it up?"
As Hyeoncheol and I chatted amicably, the ghost quietly let its hair drift down from the ceiling onto its shoulders.
It's decided I'm not a threat to Hyeoncheol, I think.
I glanced back and forth between Hyeoncheol and the ghost, then let out a soft sigh.
It's an honor to meet you, ma'am. I'm a friend of Hyeoncheol's.
I addressed her the same way I had Abe, but Hyeoncheol's mother pretended not to hear. She simply went on weeping — so heartbreakingly, so pitifully.
"Happy birthday, Jinwoo!"
"Let's go for a ten-million-won year!"
A modest birthday table had been laid out in the garden overlooking the Han River. After blowing out the candles stuck in the cake, Seo Jinwoo struck a pose so exaggerated you'd have thought he was standing on stage at a year-end awards ceremony.
"My heartfelt thanks to the two gentlemen celebrating my birthday tonight. To the CEO of my agency — that's me — thank you. To my manager hyung — present and accounted for — great work out there. I hereby dedicate the Best Actor Award, this most glorious of honors, to myself and the two fine gentlemen here with me."
"Hahaha!"
"Pfff-ha!"
At Seo Jinwoo's comic bit, Hyeoncheol and I burst out laughing in spite of ourselves. I mean, seriously — gunning for Best Actor when the movie hadn't even premiered yet?
"Jinwoo, you really can act, you know. I half thought I'd wandered into the year-end award show."
When I tossed the joke out with a laugh, Seo Jinwoo lifted his chin and raised his champagne glass.
"Well then — in that spirit, shall we have a toast?"
"Absolutely. To Ugok's Courtyard hitting ten billion won in annual revenue!"
"And to me getting a presidential commendation for outstanding detective work!"
"I like that one!"
We clinked our champagne glasses, each offering up his own wish.
People of different professions usually have nothing to say to one another when they meet. We were not those people.
"There was a murder in the Hongdae area recently. We found a ton of fingerprints at the scene, but none of them matched anyone in the system, so we'd been working on the theory of a foreign suspect."
As Jeong Hyeoncheol brought up the recent murder case—
"You know, the drama I read for last time had a serial killer in it. There was a case just like that."
Seo Jinwoo fielded it and kept the conversation rolling. And then I would—
"Sounds like the work of someone acting out of pure malice."
From there, our talk widened into human desire, malice, and the nature of man itself. We'd been deep in this serious discussion for a while when Seo Jinwoo asked Hyeoncheol:
"Oh, right! How's the inheritance lawsuit going?"
Hissssssss. A sudden chill swept through the garden.
The ghost, which had been radiating sharp resentment, broke down into heaving sobs of grief. The air turned so cold that my spine prickled despite it being mid-June.
Hyeoncheol's inheritance battle seemed to be going badly — there was no other reason his mother could be grieving like this.
"Ahem. Hyeoncheol — didn't you say Lee Ho-young was going to introduce you to a lawyer?"
Hyeoncheol shot Seo Jinwoo a quick look.
"It's your birthday today. Hearing about my problems would just put you in a bad mood."
"Where's the sense in that? It's because it's my birthday that we should get into the nitty-gritty."
When Seo Jinwoo acted hurt instead, Hyeoncheol found himself flustered.
"I'm only saying it for your sake, Jinwoo."
"If it's for my sake, then let's talk it through together. Right, Yoonho?"
Seo Jinwoo looked to me, as if asking me to back up his words. I stole a glance at Hyeoncheol's weeping mother, then nodded as if agreeing with him.
"I'm with Jinwoo on this one. What happened? Tell us."
"The truth is…"
Hyeoncheol forced the words out with difficulty.
"My oldest half-brother's business is riddled with illegalities. If I opened an investigation, I could probably have him behind bars tomorrow."
"And?"
"But they're telling me a lawsuit over being cut out of the inheritance is impossible."
"Why?"
"There was a memorandum my mother signed for my half-brothers. She even thumbprinted it, swearing that I wasn't actually my father's son — that I was born from another man."
"Nooo! That's not true! Those men threatened me — said they'd kill baby Hyeoncheol while he was still in swaddling clothes — so I had to sign it!"
I could roughly piece together what had happened. When Jeong Hak-su, who owned multiple properties, died suddenly, the children from his first marriage must have threatened Hyeoncheol's mother. Forced her to sign a memorandum declaring Hyeoncheol wasn't Hak-su's biological child. They'd figured that with her signature renouncing the estate, they'd never have to divide Hak-su's fortune — and her thumbprint would seal the deal.
Still, there was something I couldn't wrap my head around.
"Couldn't a DNA test prove you're half-brothers?"
"It could. Today, it could. But I gave up my claim to the estate more than twenty years ago. And there's no proof my brothers ever threatened my mother, either."
"So because you spent over twenty years living as though the property wasn't yours, you can no longer assert ownership. That's it, isn't it?"
"Yes. Exactly."
Hyeoncheol had written down the key points from his consultation with the lawyer, and he showed it to us now. The document he'd captured on his phone quoted an article of the Civil Code.
"The Right to Claim Inheritance Recovery?"
"Yes."
"Look here — Article 999, Paragraph 2 of the Civil Code. It says the right is extinguished three years after the day the injured party learns of the infringement, or ten years after the day the infringement of the inheritance rights took place."
Hyeoncheol exhaled a long sigh.
"There was a case that went all the way up to the Supreme Court, and because more than ten years had passed since the infringement, they ruled the suit couldn't even be filed."
At that moment — whoosh — the White Porcelain Grandmother slipped through the glass door into the garden and spoke.
"Where is that house?"
Sorry — whose house?
"The house of that scoundrel who stole the inheritance of the young man trailing that ghost about. Where does he live?"
And if I tell you, what exactly do you plan to do?
"What do you think?"
The Grandmother settled into the seat beside me, stabbed a piece of cake with her fork, and popped it into her mouth.
"Since I'm out seeing the sights of Gyeongseong anyway, I'll have to teach that pup a lesson he won't forget and have him dragged through the mud for it. That was my specialty, ho ho ho."
The corners of her mouth curled upward into a smile.
She certainly hadn't looked that way before — I'm sorry I ever failed to see it.