Preparing for Winter - 5
"I'm being careful about my business idea, since it could cause trouble if word gets out too early."
At my words, Carpenter Jang nodded slowly.
"Well, out here in the country, if word spreads that you're up to something, you'll get stubborn landowners refusing to sell. Even land that would never sell otherwise."
"That's exactly why I plan to keep it quiet."
"Understood. I'll keep my mouth shut too."
Carpenter Jang patted my shoulder as if to say not to worry.
"By the way, did you get the state land use permit?"
"Yep. I applied to the county office, and I'm set to pay the usage fee at the end of the month."
My plan was to build an earthen fermenting pit on part of the state-owned land on the mountain directly behind my house, a place where the soybean paste could ferment properly.
Mrs. Han Su-ja did say that temperature was crucial when fermenting doenjang.
Her signature soybean paste had a milder saltiness than most, which meant it was that much more sensitive to fermentation conditions — if the weather ran too hot or too cold, the paste would turn bitter or astringent.
That was why I'd come up with the idea of a pit where the temperature stayed constant year-round.
It didn't need to be big. I had no intention of mass-producing soybean paste and soy sauce factory-style from the start.
Growing Korean-grown soybeans myself came first.
The plan I'd set for myself was simple: use those beans to make paste and sauce, and earn more than the labor cost me.
And the most important part of all.
The moment I stopped enjoying the work, or caught myself thinking of cutting corners for extra profit — that would be the day I quit.
What I wanted out of this was a sense of accomplishment and pride.
It's not just about my own happiness. I want the people who cook and eat with my paste to be happy too.
Soybean paste stew waiting at home after a long day at work. I wanted to make a paste so good it tasted wonderful no matter who cooked it or how.
The same went for a simple bowl of soup.
Isn't a single spoonful of soy sauce, giving the broth its clean depth, the foundation of it all?
Food that fills the belly with contentment and warms the heart along with it.
And as long as making and selling my paste remained a joy, I would take my time, learning step by step.
Carpenter Jang looked at me, eyes gleaming.
"It's a fine thing, being your age. You can start anything. I'm jealous."
"I'm the one who's jealous of you, sir. You've reached a level no one else can follow."
Wherever Carpenter Jang's hands passed, the abandoned house was transforming into a handsome hanok guesthouse.
Mak-sun Halmeoni's house, half its roof collapsed in a fire seven or eight years ago, had become a brand-new home from top to bottom.
I clicked my tongue as I took in the exterior.
"I never imagined it could be restored this beautifully."
"Haha, well, I confess I put in a little extra care on that one."
Apparently, while redoing the roof, they'd removed the attic and raised the ceiling height.
The added sense of openness must have been considerable.
"Now, let's go have a look inside."
He opened the front door, and just as he'd promised, a bright, airy living room spread out before us.
The interior, once dark and gloomy under piles of junk, was now bright even with the lights off.
Afternoon sunlight slanted in through the glass windows — during the day, there'd hardly be any need to switch on a lamp at all.
Carpenter Jang headed toward the main room as he spoke.
"Halmeoni manages her business just fine now, but as she gets older there'll be more accidents, I expect. So I put a bathroom right in the main room."
The main room, spacious enough for Mak-sun Halmeoni to use entirely on her own, even had its own private toilet. Living there would be genuinely comfortable.
"Thank you for being so thoughtful with every detail."
"She's an old woman her own children abandoned. I figure the wallpaper and linoleum are on me, as my gift — so she can live out her days in comfort."
"I could cover that, you know."
"Aw, come now. I can't let you stroll into heaven all by yourself, can I? I've got to get there too, so we can meet up now and then and grill some eel."
He still remembered the eel I'd treated him to at our first meeting, and was joking about it.
I answered with a laugh.
"All right then, I'll give up my seat to heaven for you."
"Haha, much obliged. And don't worry — the wallpaper and flooring will all be flame-retardant material."
"Thank you, truly."
I was surveying the house and stepping back out through the front door when a worry crossed my mind, and I spoke up.
"What if Halmeoni insists this isn't the house she lived in?"
"Dementia or no, folks can always tell when something's good. The house she was living in before wasn't fit for a human being."
"That's true."
"And if she absolutely refuses, we'll just tell her this is heaven. That ought to do it."
"Haha. Can't argue with that."
Once the wallpaper and flooring were done, Mak-sun Halmeoni's house would be ready to move into, furniture and all.
As Carpenter Jang stepped out the front door, he asked me, "What are you planning to do about furniture? Not a single piece of the old stuff survived, so I threw it all out and packed up just her photo albums and a few of her clothes separately."
"A friend of mine is having the furniture custom-made. It should be finished soon — he does furniture design, you see."
My high school friend Ko Min-seok had designed the pieces and placed the order himself.
Two million won for the initial design work on the abandoned house remodel, another three when the blueprints were complete.
Once the furniture comes in, I should pay him for the design work separately, right?
It occurred to me that with that money, he could take his mother and the whole family on a proper trip. Would I need to add a bit more if I wanted him to go abroad?
None of it weighed on me in the slightest.
The 1.5 billion won from selling the meteorite, put to work carefully, had grown by roughly my old annual salary in the time since.
Even after covering the cost of repairing all the abandoned houses and Mak-sun Halmeoni's home besides, there was still plenty to spare.
So this is what they mean by money making money.
As I made my way back along the village road, the sun had slipped noticeably lower in just that short span of time.
As the quiet mountain valley sank into dusk, the smell of dinner cooking teased my nose.
"Looks like Hok's grandfather is making soybean rice again."
"Haha, so it seems. That doenjang stew smells wonderful!"
And that paste, of course, had come from Mrs. Han Su-ja.
Since Hok's grandfather lived alone, Mrs. Han Su-ja checked in on him whenever she could, making sure his soybean paste and gochujang never ran dry.
"Ahh, now that is a rich, earthy smell!"
The doenjang stew smelled especially delicious tonight.
I swallowed hard and turned to Carpenter Jang.
"Call it a day early today. You've been shuttling between two houses without a single day off."
"Maybe I will. Haha. I should call the wife and ask her to make doenjang stew for dinner tonight, too."
Once Carpenter Jang left with his crew, I switched on the yard lights until the whole space glowed and started tidying up around the tent.
With camping out and my household goods piling up day by day, the place would start looking like a refugee camp if I didn't stay on top of it.
"Meow."
"Where on earth have you been all day, showing up only now?"
Seeing No. 1 limping out of the grass, I smacked my forehead in belated realization.
"You went after a cat in heat and got yourself scratched to ribbons, didn't you?"
A couple of days ago, I'd spotted two cats that had migrated over from the next village over. They looked like a couple driven out by a turf war there — and apparently No. 1 had tried his moves on the female.
"Ha, seriously! So did you succeed or not?"
Paying his respects. Sure he was.
I clicked my tongue.
"Good grief. You got beaten to a pulp without managing a single thing."
So when he'd bonded with me, No. 1 had apparently become unable to leave a cat's body and fight in earnest without my permission.
I tilted my head, puzzled.
"Wait, hold on. Weren't you supposed to be a tiger?"
"Then explain to me why a so-called tiger went calling on a housecat like a suitor. Were you trying to woo her? None of it adds up."
No. 1 lifted a forepaw and began washing his face, cat-style. But as he did, the paw slowly turned red.
Blood?
"Hold still."
I bent down and took No. 1's face in my hands. Parting his fur, I found a wound where the flesh of his face had been torn away by a stray cat's claws.
It must have hurt quite a bit. Left untreated and disinfected, the wound looked bound to fester.
"Ha, honestly. There's no way a vet's open at this hour."
I disinfected the wound with antiseptic wipes from my first-aid kit.
And then.
Purrrr.
No. 1, eyes half-lidded, was gazing up at me and purring.
"What do you think you're doing?"
"You just purred at my touch! Maybe it's time those peanuts came off!"
At my words, No. 1 shuddered violently and scrambled backward.
"They're not even your own body parts!"
"Haaahk! Haaahk!"
"Where do you get off hissing at me?"
No. 1 stepped in front of me as if to shield me and growled low.
No. 1 arched his back, tail rigid and quivering, dropping into a fighting stance.
Ssssaaaaaa.
The grass rustled, and then a black shape the thickness of a grown man's forearm came sliding out.
"The guardian serpent?"
It looked exactly like the great snake that had lived beneath the house's foundations.
"Haaahk!"
"No, stop it. That's the guardian spirit."
I scooped up No. 1 and studied the great serpent.
So he's still here. He never left.
The Former-Former Village Chief, whose rites I'd performed, had told me that I would become this house's new guardian spirit from then on.
So why was the old guardian still unable to leave, still showing himself to my eyes?
I approached the serpent.
"What is it that keeps you bound to this house?"
Ssssaaaaa.
The serpent flicked its tongue and twisted its body, pointing toward the house.
"I think it said something. Translate for me."
I nudged my chin at No. 1, telling him to interpret.
"He's not a beast. He's the guardian spirit."
An evil spirit who couldn't manage multiple languages. Marvelous.
Just as I was glaring at No. 1 in annoyance—
Uuuuuung!
The guardian serpent opened its jaws wide and spat out a glistening, stringy mass.
Looking closely, it seemed to be dried radish greens — the kind pulled out mid-drying.
Don't snakes eat meat? Why on earth is it coughing up dried radish greens?
The serpent held its head high, flicking its tongue toward the kitchen of the remodeled house.
"Last time, a gold ring came out of that broken jar — could that be why you can't leave this place?"
Sssaa.
The serpent seemed to nod its head in a big, deliberate yes.
We couldn't understand a word the guardian said — but could it understand us?
Wasn't that precisely why it was called a guardian spirit?
After guarding a homesite for so long that it became a divine presence — that couldn't have been an easy transformation.
Ssssaaaaa.
Nodding its head once more in a great slow arc, the serpent turned and began moving along the path leading down into the village.
With the cat in my arms, I followed.
A short while later, the guardian turned toward Mak-sun Halmeoni's field and gave me one more deep, deliberate nod.
Ssssaaaaa.
Then it slid away between the furrows of the field and vanished.
Why had it brought me all the way here?
"Dried radish greens. A gold ring. And Mak-sun Halmeoni's land... oh!"
In that instant, a name flashed bright in my mind.
"Grandpa Yong-gu?"
The village head had grumbled about old man Yong-gu — how he'd bought up Mak-sun Halmeoni's land for a song and started growing dried radish greens on it.
He said he used under-fermented chicken manure as fertilizer and caused trouble for the whole village.
The gold ring from the jar had been a first-birthday ring and a woman's ring.
They'd never have fit the fingers of old men out working their fields.
What on earth happened back then?
Bzzz, bzzz.
My phone buzzed just then — a call from Mrs. Han Su-ja.
I had plenty of questions to ask her anyway, and here she was calling at the perfect moment.
I snatched up the phone at once.