A Windfall Written in Slander
"What on earth is that man doing right now?"
The camera director grimaced as he watched Bae Jeonggi clawing at his own eyes and face with his fingernails from inside the car. To anyone watching, it looked grotesque and horrifying.
When blood began to bead along Bae Jeonggi's nails, the assistant cameraman wrinkled his nose.
"Why is he doing that? Is something wrong with his mind?"
"Could be possessed by a cat spirit."
"A c-cat spirit?"
"Or he's under attack from a vengeful ghost."
Could be both?
A shudder ran through me as I watched Bae Jeonggi mauling himself, my heart sinking.
No one else can see him like this.
But in my eyes, No. 1 was perched on Bae Jeonggi's chest, raking his face with his front paws. Beside him, a vengeful ghost kept whispering endlessly into Bae Jeonggi's ear.
"Set me free. Hurry. Please, set me free."
So this is what happens when you're attacked by an evil spirit and a vengeful ghost at the same time.
He was tearing at himself, choking on his own breath, until foam gathered at the corners of his mouth. And yet the dozens of cat spirits watching him somehow looked sorrowful.
Is it because even though he abused them, he was still their owner?
"Meow."
Then one of them suddenly slipped into the car and tried to block No. 1.
"Stop it. Don't hurt our master. There are lots of other cats at his house. If this man dies, they'll all starve to death."
"So it's you? You look exactly like your brothers collapsed over there — I'd say that's a yes."
When his name was called, the cat stopped mid-swat and padded over to the cat that looked just like him.
"Dung-i, wake up. You're not dead too, are you? Come on, get up. Please. Don't die like we did."
Watching the collapsed cat licked by Dung-i seemed to leave a bad taste in No. 1's mouth as well.
"He's not dead. This jerk squeezed his throat and shook him until he passed out."
At No. 1's words, Dung-i let out a breath of relief, then lowered his head.
"There are so many still locked up in that house. Please save them."
I walked over to Bae Jeonggi's car and spoke to him.
'I promise. You can rest now. You've suffered enough.'
I opened the Underworld Gate.
As brilliant light poured out behind me, Dung-i gazed at it, then slowly nodded.
"Yes. It was so hard. It hurt, it was terrifying, it was agonizing. I wanted to beg someone, please, just let me die quickly."
'I'm sorry. I'm sorry you weren't human, and I'm sorry I couldn't protect you.'
"There are good owners out there, too. I'll leave now, with my friends. Thank you."
As Dung-i walked past me, the other cat spirits that had been trailing Bae Jeonggi followed him toward the afterlife.
Dozens of young cats — cats abused until their final breath — walking in a line toward the Underworld. My own heart ached at the sight.
I'm truly sorry. I hope only happy things await you there.
And may you never be born again as a dog or a cat.
And so the cat spirits departed for the afterlife, every last one of them gone.
I glared at Bae Jeonggi.
'No. 1, keep going. Until that bastard confesses every last one of his sins.'
"Got it."
No. 1's jaws gaped wide, and his fangs sank deep into Bae Jeonggi's neck.
"AAAAAAGH!"
By the time the police I'd called arrived at the scene, Bae Jeonggi had already confessed to animal abuse charges nobody had even asked about.
Well, technically No. 1 is pulling his strings.
Tears and snot streaming down his face from the agony, Bae Jeonggi babbled on.
"I killed Dung-i and was going to swap in Moong-i, but I thought I'd get caught, so... so I was going to punish Moong-i instead... There's a monster trying to eat me! Help me, there's a ghost right next to me!"
He was telling the truth — but not a single soul believed him.
After the pet festival wrapped up, Governor Na Jeonghwan pulled me aside for a private word.
"I'm honestly embarrassed. We poured the budget into promoting Pyeongcheong County, and this is what happens."
What the media had seized on wasn't 'Pyeongcheon County, a great place to live with your pets,' but Bae Jeonggi's cat abuse scandal.
When the police raided Bae Jeonggi's villa, they found twenty cats locked inside — three of them nursing kittens, no less.
Just like Dung-i said. All those little ones nearly starved to death.
The show had been filmed entirely in an office-tel studio dressed up to look pretty, so they'd hardly ever visited the villa where the cats actually lived.
And apparently the number of cats Bae Jeonggi had killed was still climbing.
What's more, Bae Jeonggi had actually applied to the Pyeongcheong County Office for a grant to build an abandoned animal shelter.
"A cat abuser tried to take our county's money to build an animal shelter! Just how lightly did he take us, that he thought a few measly hundred thousand subscribers entitled him to shake us down?"
"I doubt Pyeongcheong was the only place he was reaching into. From what I've seen of him, he'd go anywhere money might come out of."
"Thanks to you, Yoonho, we managed to filter out a man who could have done serious damage to this county. If we'd leased him county land on the cheap, it would have been a disaster."
"That's... honestly chilling to hear."
A man like Bae Jeonggi, living next door to me? I didn't even want to imagine it.
"Ha ha. It won't happen, so rest easy. Oh, right — I heard you've been attending a farming school. How's the curriculum? Is it helpful for settling into the countryside?"
"Absolutely. I'm learning a great deal."
"Pyeongcheong is famous for its delicious mushrooms. You haven't toured one of our mushroom farms yet, have you?"
"No, I haven't."
Na Jeonghwan explained that mushrooms made up a hefty share of the county's winter income, and asked me to please come tour a mushroom farm sometime that week. If I did, they'd film the visit and use it to promote local specialties on regional TV.
"I didn't think it was right to have you film a promo video for free, so we've set an appearance fee, but the county councilmen haven't finalized the budget yet, so it may take some time."
Oh! They're paying an appearance fee?
Works for me.
"Take your time."
"Ah, and this is your prize from the cat tunnel game. You couldn't make it to the awards ceremony because you were catching a cat abuser, so I kept it for you. The cat tower worth five hundred thousand won and the runner-up prizes will be delivered to your house."
"Honestly, I'd be happy with just the gifts."
Still, I couldn't exactly call this pet festival a success.
There was the whole Bae Jeonggi affair — and on top of that, some people had come all the way to a pet festival just to abandon their dogs there.
I heard ten dogs were abandoned in total.
I simply could not understand how those people's brains worked.
'Nureong-i, let's go to the pet festival. If you don't win a prize there, I'm dumping you.' Surely nobody left the house thinking that.
Had they come to the pet event, decided another dog looked prettier, and dreamed of trading in the dog they had? Or had they simply grown tired of owning a dog, waited for the right moment to ditch it, and decided a festival crowd was the perfect cover?
Since Pyeongcheong County didn't euthanize abandoned animals, maybe dumping them here came with less guilt.
Either way, thanks to this event, Pyeongcheong County had spent its money and ended up saddled with a pack of stray animals.
And they decided to take in all the cats from Bae Jeonggi's house, too.
Which was exactly why accepting the prize money from Na Jeonghwan felt a little off to me.
"I'll donate it to the abandoned animal shelter. I can't take this money."
"The shelter's budget is already generous. And this prize isn't for you — it's for No. 1. No. 1 won first place fair and square, after all."
Saying the funds had already been allocated, Na Jeonghwan pressed the envelope into my hand.
"Just make sure No. 1 shows his face in those promo videos now and then. The response is different when a cat's on screen and when it isn't."
So that's why Dung-i TV made so much money. People really do love cats.
Even if No. 1 is an evil spirit.
Left with no choice, I accepted the first-place prize from Na Jeonghwan.
"Understood. I'll bring No. 1 along every time we film a promo video. And I'll buy him something delicious with this money. Thank you. I'll put it to good use."
Once I start making easy money appraising artifacts, I should make a proper donation to that animal shelter.
The day had finally come to take Grandma Mak-sun to Seoul.
Today she was scheduled for a full work-up at one of Seoul's top general hospitals.
I also owed Lee Ho-young a report on the meteorite sale and the appraisal results for the ancient book.
And I still have to settle Lady Wolyeong's grudge — the one living inside that tantō dagger.
I had ordered Lady Wolyeong to return into the dagger. When I told her we were going to Seoul to resolve her grudge...
...she had slipped quietly back inside the blade.
After making No. 1 climb into his carrier as well, I headed for Grandma Mak-sun's place.
Han Mija was already waiting, loaded down with luggage packed to bursting in case Grandma Mak-sun had to be admitted.
"Alright, we're off!"
I loaded everyone into the car and set out for Seoul.
A little later, back in Seoul, while Grandma Mak-sun's comprehensive examination was underway...
...I retrieved one of the meteorites from my private safe-deposit box at the bank and went to meet Lee Ho-young.
"This is the very meteorite you've been wanting so badly, Ho-young."
"Wow, I can't believe it. There's an actual meteorite right in front of me."
"The price is three billion won. Deposit it into my Nonghyup corporate account as an investment."
"Yes, sir! Right away!"
Lee Ho-young had his secretary, who worked on the floor below his office, draw up a contract as a company-to-company transaction.
Unlike antique deals, where a trustworthy middleman firm is brought in, this was a direct sale — so the contract served as a safety net.
"Thank you. Thanks to you, Sunbae-nim, Mars is finally in my hands."
His hands trembling, Lee Ho-young — gloved to the fingertips — gingerly touched the already-sealed meteorite.
Is that rock really that wonderful? He's neither a geologist nor a space scientist.
But to Lee Ho-young, the fact that he now possessed something no one else had seemed to give him a thrill nothing else in life could match.
"Well, seeing you this happy puts me in a good mood too."
"I feel like I've become something special myself. Thank you! Truly, thank you, Sunbae-nim!"
"Oh, come on."
I gave a casual shrug and took a sip of the tea the secretary had brought in.
Lee Ho-young spent a long while examining the meteorite before finally collecting himself.
"Ah, right!! Sunbae-nim, did you appraise the ancient book I gave you?"
"Yes, of course."
I pulled from my bag the ancient book, still wrapped in its silk cloth exactly as Lee Ho-young had entrusted it to me.
"This is what you'd call a bihwarok — a secret record of slander."
"A b-bihwarok?"
"That's right. A coded manuscript of gossip and grievances. It records the corruption, scandals, and crimes of the power players of its day — written in its own original cipher system, for fear of having three generations of one's family exterminated."
"So you... you deciphered the code yourself, Sunbae-nim?"
Lee Ho-young had studied ancient books with tremendous dedication, yet he'd never been able to identify what this one was.
But I'm different.
The ability the White Porcelain Grandmother had granted me — and the power that had grown stronger as I sent spirit after spirit to the afterlife. With those, I could see the past contained within this book.
I didn't crack the code. I saw the events themselves.
Just as I had when I touched the Japanese tantō and witnessed Lady Wolyeong's farewell to the surrendered samurai.
With gloved hands, I unwrapped the silk cloth and lightly ran my fingers across the surface of the ancient book. My vision blurred, as though I'd stepped into an old black-and-white photograph.
In what appeared to be the inner quarters of an old hanok, a stern-faced man was writing calligraphy, muttering under his breath.
"It's a wonder this country hasn't collapsed already. A Seonggyungwan scholar alters the name on his answer sheet to rig his exam results. A royal inspector takes bribes and turns a blind eye to corruption."
On the table sat a horse-shaped inspector's medallion, carved with five horses.
He appeared to be a secret royal inspector.
"I wrote down what I could not say, and the book I could not burn — so this is both my karma and my salvation. Rob and plunder to your hearts' content, you vipers."
Choked with fury, the man flung down his brush the moment he finished writing.
The splatter of ink it threw off remained vividly on the very last page of the book.
Back in the present, I looked at Lee Ho-young.
"A secret royal inspector, unable to expose the corruption he'd uncovered, made this book of slander out of sheer indignation. To be honest, I'm not sure something like this would even sell?"
"It contains the hidden side of history that appears in no official record, which makes it a source for historical reassessment. It could even be designated a National Treasure. Its academic value would easily run into the hundreds of billions of won."
"H-hundreds of billions?"
"Yes."
His lips seeming to have gone dry, Lee Ho-young drank his coffee before continuing.
"Let me just... gather myself for a moment."
He drew in a long, deep breath, let it out, and went on.
"If this really is a secret record of slander from the mid-Joseon era, then we've just been struck by a windfall of money."
A windfall of money?
A laugh burst out of me before I could stop it.
"So this is the feeling, is it? The thrill of recognizing the true worth of an old relic that looks worthless to everyone else. Now that I've felt this ability turn into actual money, I have to say — it's exhilarating."
"That feeling is exactly why I can't quit this business."
Lee Ho-young wore an expression of pure emotion. Then, as if suddenly remembering something he'd forgotten, he straightened up in his seat.
"Ah, wait — wait! You were right, Sunbae-nim. There was a long sword that came as a set with the Japanese dagger. And do you know what's even more astounding?"
"What is it?"
"The cherry blossom engraved on the dagger. It's the crest of the Moritake family."
He found the surrendered samurai's true home?
"Moritake?"
"Yes! They're a family of unimaginable wealth — and if the sword truly belonged to their ancestor, they say they'll buy it at any price, no questions asked."