A Windfall from Appraising Relics - 1

Woo Jang-ho, the lead instructor at the farming school, valued building connections far more than imparting agricultural knowledge.

"In business and in farming alike, it's people who make you successful," he liked to say. "And above all, you have to stay on good terms with the ones closest to you."

So he decided that every weekend, we would visit a classmate's farm and exchange ideas. The first stop on the list: the farmland of Hwang Yu-hyeon, the self-proclaimed Sacred Bone of the farming aristocracy.

"Since it'd be awkward to show up empty-handed, let's have the class leader buy the gift and split the cost N ways. Agreed?"

No one objected to Woo Jang-ho's proposal. Which meant I had no choice but to become the one in charge of actually preparing the gifts.

Wait—there are eight of us ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in this cohort, me included. That means I'll be buying presents seven more times!

Scrambling to find a different gift every single time was a chore in itself, and besides, some people would love whatever I picked while others would hate it. So I racked my brain and settled on a clever little shortcut: buy seven identical gifts upfront and just grab one whenever a visit came around.

"Now, what should I get?"

I was mulling it over with a cup of coffee when I found myself staring intently at my mug. That's it. Coffee!

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

At the last get-together, I'd noticed everyone had been drinking it.

"There's nothing anywhere in this country that tastes better than coffee brewed from beans I've roasted myself."

With all five of my senses unusually sharp, I could tell at a glance how a batch of green beans should be roasted just by looking at their quality and origin. The heat of the fire, how long the surface of the beans touched the high heat, the aroma released at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that moment, even the moisture spreading into the air—I factored in everything and roasted each batch to perfection.

Chi-ik!

I lit the fire in the stove and preheated the cauldron. Too much heat could scorch the beans, so I spread my palm out over them to gauge the temperature before opening the package.

Ethiopian. Brazilian. Colombian.

I scooped up a handful of green beans and brought them to my nose—grass, earth, and beneath it all, a hidden sweetness. A flavor still asleep.

Green beans only wake up when they meet fire.

I started with the Ethiopian beans in the cauldron.

"You're a delicate one, so I'll have to handle you gently."

Ethiopian Yirgacheffe needed its floral notes and citrusy acidity to survive the roast. I kept the flame at medium-low and stirred slowly so the beans heated evenly. The green beans turned yellow, then a pale brown. When I leaned in close, the aroma had shifted—the grassy smell was gone, replaced by the scent of grain.

Just a little longer.

Crack!

A small popping sound. The beans were expanding, their husks splitting open.

"Now."

I quickly scooped out the perfectly roasted beans with a sieve and dumped them onto the drying rack. As I fanned away the heat, a sweet fragrance bloomed all at once—flowers, unmistakably.

Next, the Brazilian beans. Treated as delicately as the Ethiopians, these would come out flat and bland. They needed a firm, thorough roast to bring out their nutty richness. I opened the stove vent, and once the cauldron was good and hot, I poured in the beans and stirred with vigor.

The color changed fast. Brown, dark brown, nearly black.

Crack-crack! Pop-pop!

The beans split with a burst of chocolate aroma. I pulled them off the heat immediately, and oil glistened across the glossy surface of the roasted beans.

"Delicious."

For the final Colombian beans, I started on medium heat, dropped to low once the color began to change, raised it back to medium when the loud crack of first crack rang out, then pulled them the instant they turned chestnut brown.

By the time all three batches were done, my forehead was slick with sweat.

But honestly? So worth it.

Bright floral notes, deep chocolate, smooth caramel. I let the beans cool completely, wrapped them in hanji paper, and packed them into gift boxes.

"This is only possible because I'm between jobs. Hand-delivering home-roasted coffee beans, wrapped and ribboned—does that even make sense?"

The moment I finished getting ready and opened the front door, it felt like an awl had shot straight into my face.

"Wow. My skull's ringing like a bell."

I'd had the house renovated with insulation in mind, so I'd had no idea it was this cold outside. The snow that had fallen overnight had frozen into a fine powder of ice, sweeping this way and that on the wind. Front Mountain looked like a landscape painting, and the village lay buried in white.

"Can't deny it's beautiful, though."

It was far grander than the mountain-village winter I'd imagined. So quiet, so still, it felt as if time itself had stopped.

I climbed into my car and eased onto the accelerator, gentle and careful. The snow had melted and refrozen, and the slightest touch of the brake sent the car spinning like it was on skates.

"I've got money. Maybe I should get a new car."

A four-wheel-drive SUV would slide around a lot less on icy roads like these, after all.

"Holy—! My car's ice skating!"

I had just barely scraped my way out of the village lanes and onto the two-lane highway when I spotted Bang Seonghyun running up ahead. The road itself was clear of snow thanks to the calcium chloride the snowplows had scattered, but the sidewalks were a treacherous mess of ice and packed snow—yet Seonghyun ran on without slipping even once.

"Seonghyun! Hey, Bang Seonghyun!"

When I rolled down the window and called out cheerfully, he waved and broke into a bright grin.

"Hello, Uncle! Where are you headed?"

"Visiting a classmate from farming school. What about you?"

"The dojang, sir. I'll be a third-year once the new year starts, so I'm trying to work hard."

"Good for you."

Training at the taekwondo dojang apparently wasn't enough for him—he ran to the township center and back every single day. It showed, too; his body had gotten even leaner and more agile.

"Nobody's been bothering you lately, right?"

"I stacked three breaking boards and snapped them like crackers, and now they won't even make eye contact with me."

"Haha, is that right?"

Given that display, I doubted the others would dare trouble him again, breaking boards or not.

Son Seok-ha, though. That one'll keep pushing it to the very end, I can feel it.

Not that Seonghyun seemed like he'd blink an eye even if he did.

"It's freezing out. Want a ride?"

"What's cold? I'm sweating!"

When Seonghyun peeled off his hoodie to show me, steam was rising off his body in wisps.

"You'll catch a cold. Put your hat back on."

"Haha, yes, sir! Oh—there's a tractor coming up behind you!"

"Huh, so there is."

Even on the highway, few cars headed toward our village, so the tractor was chugging along at a crawl. Behind it, I could see the village head's tractor puttering up the road.

"Looks like the village head is heading out to his greenhouse. You're really going to run all the way to the township?"

"I do it every day."

"Alright then, I'm off!"

"Bye, Uncle!"

I picked up speed and drove toward the address Hwang Yu-hyeon had given me. A short while later, I pulled into my destination—and stopped short.

"Wow. He really was Sacred Bone royalty."

Greenhouses and fields stretching to the horizon, a two-story house, even a grassy lawn.

Hwang Yu-hyeon is the Lee Ho-young of the farming world.

"All that land belongs to my father's farm. I run two greenhouse blocks and about twelve acres of my own, but I'm not looking to expand thanks to the government subsidies—there are caps if you grow too much. The land's already promised to me anyway, so there's no point grabbing it early."

Doom!

At Hwang Yu-hyeon's words, everyone's spirits withered on the spot. All we could do was roll our eyes.

"This is actually my first year growing strawberries in the greenhouses, and surprisingly, it turns quite a profit."

When we stepped inside the strawberry greenhouse, the sweet scent of berries carried on the warm air brushed pleasantly against my nose.

"We don't use any soil at all—everything grows in nutrient solution. From pH levels to the nutrient ratios, it's all controlled from my phone, so there's hardly any actual labor involved."

When Hwang Yu-hyeon pulled out his phone and tapped the screen, the fans mounted on the greenhouse ceiling began to turn.

"The temperature stays between ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠64 and 72 degrees, humidity between sixty and seventy percent. That's the environment strawberries love most."

He plucked a plump, ripe strawberry and offered it around for us to taste, then kept talking.

"It's organic, so you can eat it as is. Grown this way, the yield is about one and a half times what you'd get from conventional soil cultivation, and there's almost no pest damage. I sent samples to a few companies through my father, and now they're blowing up my phone demanding shipments."

Those of us who had only just been gearing up to try our hand at farming all stood there dazed, the fight draining out of our faces.

"I... I don't really understand why a professional like you is attending an agricultural school..."

Park Seok-tae, the member of our cohort most likely to end up a landless pauper, spoke up haltingly. "You don't seem like you'd get anything at all out of graduating from farming school."

"If you build a relationship with the staff at the Agricultural Technology Center, you can stay on top of crop conditions across the whole country, and network with all sorts of people—wouldn't you say?"

Then, out of nowhere, Hwang Yu-hyeon turned his head toward me and smiled.

"After all, if I hadn't attended farming school, I'd never have learned that Mr. Yoonho—a former banker with such a refined palate for coffee beans—lives right there in Ugok 1-ri."

So getting close to me is one of the reasons he's attending farming school?

What is this?

Is he keeping an eye on me?

I shrugged and answered. "The beans were a group gift. Our cohort pooled the money and split it N ways."

"I know it was a group gift. But whoever picked them has taste that matches mine perfectly—I thought, this man clearly knows good things. Excellent eye."

Hwang Yu-hyeon held up the shopping bag holding the gift of coffee beans and asked, "Where did you buy these? The aroma is wonderful."

"Online."

"You simply must tell me which site."

Explaining that I'd bought green beans and roasted them myself felt like more effort than it was worth.

"Sure, I'll let you know later."

The online shop that sold the green beans sold roasted coffee too, after all.

That aside—this place is impressive.

On TV shows about the countryside, farmers growing strawberries were always hunched over, practically crawling through their greenhouses. Here, the strawberry planters floated in midair, high enough to work standing up. Groundwater was pumped up, mixed with nutrients, and misted automatically, and the temperature, humidity, and ventilation all seemed to run themselves.

Twice a day, workers came through and filled baskets with strawberries, and the moment a basket hit a set weight, it glided along a rail and gathered with the others in one spot. From there they went straight into boxes and were delivered to buyers.

When the tour ended, everyone crowded around Hwang Yu-hyeon, full of envy and admiration.

"Wow, this is seriously impressive."

"This is what it takes to survive, I suppose."

It's fine. I'm growing soybeans.

Hwang Yu-hyeon does strawberries, I do beans.

No competition, nothing to envy. Just like a track athlete doesn't envy a swimmer.

That is, until Hwang Yu-hyeon opened his mouth again.

"Actually, I've been thinking of soybeans as my main crop. Watching the soybean war between the US and China lately, it hit me—the future of food is beans. The feeling just came to me, you know?"

Oh no.

I was going to have to out-farm the Sacred Bone of the countryside to survive.

This is why they say Korean farmers go broke in bumper years.

The moment Hwang Yu-hyeon started holding forth—spittle flying—about how beans were the food of the future, every single classmate in our cohort resolved to plant soybeans. And a bumper bean harvest means prices crash. Even then, they'd fetch more than the Chinese imports, sure—but you'd be selling your beans through tears at rock-bottom prices, and what would you have left to show for it? A herniated disc?

It's fine. I'm not selling my beans as raw commodity.

My plan was to make meju from my own beans and brew cave-aged doenjang from it.

Except—

"When you grow soybeans, you can make tofu, meju, doenjang, cheonggukjang, even cheonggukjang pills, so you'll never run out of markets. As long as the quality is good, local food co-ops will buy it all up."

Hwang Yu-hyeon led us to his warehouse, and—what on earth!

He was aging meju blocks in there!

"I make meju as a hobby. I'm thinking of packing the doenjang and supplying it to the local food co-op."

Suddenly my head throbbed, and I pressed a hand to my forehead.

"Ugh!"

"Mr. Yoonho, what's wrong? Are you feeling ill? If it helps, I was planning to show you only the outside buildings and then invite everyone inside the house."

Hwang Yu-hyeon supported me by the arm and led me into the two-story house.

"Whoa, this house is gorgeous."

"Look at that massage chair—that one costs a fortune."

"Yeah, Yu-hyeon really is an aristocrat. I'm jealous. Genuinely."

Fine. I'd made up my mind. If I was going to farm at all, I was going to do it properly.

Should I just sell the meteorites already?

Lee Ho-young was practically desperate to get his hands on one. After analyzing the fragment I'd given him last time, he'd driven the price all the way up to three billion won. That a lump of rock could command that kind of money.

I've got plenty of those.

Even after selling Lee Ho-young one meteorite, three would remain. So there was no reason to be precious about it—sell one off, then use the money to buy a Smart Warehouse. Supposedly, once you hung your meju blocks inside, they fermented all on their own. Humidity, temperature, even microbe development—the warehouse handled everything, smartly and automatically.

I want one. A Smart Warehouse!

Just then—zzzt, zzzt.

My phone vibrated, and I glanced down at my wristwatch.

That'll be Lee Ho-young saying he's just cleared the tollgate.

Today was the day Lee Ho-young was coming to see me, bringing along the sword possessed by a ghost and Moon Sung-il.

"Hello?"

Though hold on—the ghost sounded Korean, didn't it?

Enough to demand, specifically, that he not be sent into exile.