Relic Appraisal Windfall — 9
Lady Wolyeong stared at Jo Seok-hyeon, her lips blackened and scorched, and murmured.
"Set me free. Please, set me free."
'You're someone who must be punished, so I'll only keep you sane until then. I will see your grievance undone—every last bit of it. Trust me.'
Whether my silent plea had reached her or not, Lady Wolyeong turned her head, looked at me slowly—then scattered like smoke, slipping into the dagger inside my bag.
'Thank you for trusting me.'
I bent down and picked up the katana. The moment my palm sealed perfectly against the hilt, I found myself holding my breath.
What is this?
I had never in my life held a long sword this heavy, yet I knew without being told that I had to sink my weight into my heels to lift it. The blade's heft felt utterly, inexplicably familiar.
And in that instant, the memories held within the katana came flooding into my mind.
A long-haired man stood on a beach where cherry blossoms rained down in full bloom. The man lashed to a wooden post, his arms bound behind him, was none other than Shoichi.
'This isn't the same vision I saw through Lady Wolyeong's dagger.'
He had evidently been subjected to savage torture; there wasn't a single unbruised patch of skin on Shoichi's face. An armored general came walking slowly, dragging his long shadow behind him, and drew his sword with a chilling hiss.
But the blade looked familiar. It was Shoichi's own katana.
Oh, heavens! The very sword his brother gifted him—and they mean to strike off Shoichi's head with it.
The raised blade flashed through the air. Blood sprayed in every direction. My vision was swallowed by darkness, then brightened once more.
A man was holding the katana. A middle-aged warrior who resembled Shoichi, only somewhat older. The hand gripping the blade trembled violently.
"Mother, if only I had returned a little sooner... I could have seen you off on your final journey. Forgive your unfilial son."
Where the warrior gazed lay the body of a white-haired old woman, arranged with quiet dignity. Looking closely, her features bore the refined likeness of Lady Wolyeong in her youth.
"I have recovered Father's sword, but it seems the truth that he was no traitor will only come to light after the war ends. I swear I will restore his name."
The middle-aged warrior seemed to be Lady Wolyeong's son.
Then this must be during the Manchu Invasion. She had been carrying a child in the late stages of the Imjin War, so she would have been in her forties when the Qing forces swept down. In those days, a great deed in battle could win a man high rank—and wash away even the stain of a traitor's name.
The man laid the katana down gently beside Lady Wolyeong's body.
"I'm sorry. No matter how long I searched, I could not learn where Father was buried. I will at least leave his sword at your side. Rest in peace, Mother."
The katana and the wakizashi. Lady Wolyeong, who had lost her husband and lived out her days as a government slave with those two blades as her only companions, was buried in the earth.
"Sunbae-nim?"
At the sound of Lee Ho-young's voice, I surfaced from the sword's memories and tightened my grip on the katana. The blade his brother had gifted—the blade that had severed its own master's head. A famed sword that had wandered through the long years before being laid to rest beside Lady Wolyeong.
"While you were investigating the people involved, was there no record anywhere that Shoichi had been exonerated—that his name was restored?"
"No, there wasn't. There is a surviving record that a Joseon woman who married Shoichi—Shin I-ho, in Korean—lived and died as a government slave, but that's all."
"And the son?"
"He had a son? I had no idea."
So it all ended in failure. His resolve to distinguish himself in war and clear Shoichi's name must have been forgotten the moment he fell on some battlefield.
And then—developers had dug up her coffin for a housing project, and worse, they'd stolen the katana away without so much as a cup of liquor poured for Lady Wolyeong's mummy. No wonder she had poured a curse into that blade and become a vengeful ghost.
"Shoichi the defector and Lady Wolyeong had a son who grew up to be a warrior. He seems to have distinguished himself during the Manchu Invasion and held power for a time. Thanks to that, he was able to give his mother—the woman who'd lived as a government slave—a proper funeral."
"So that's why there were grave goods in the coffin? The burial clothes the mummy was wearing were said to be of the very highest quality."
The person who had prepared with such devoted care the body of a woman condemned as a traitor's wife and enslaved, laid her in a paulownia coffin, and saw her properly buried. That person had been her son.
"Given that there's no record of the son anywhere, he must have died during the Manchu Invasion."
"That's my thinking as well."
"Hey, you! Don't move!"
Detectives came rushing out of the police station.
"Put the sword down. Now."
Apparently the katana's curse had people behaving strangely—there'd been some kind of commotion inside the station.
"I can just set it down here, right?"
I carefully lowered the katana onto the parking lot pavement. At that moment, Lady Wolyeong slipped out of the dagger and walked toward the detectives.
"Set me free—hurry! Untie it, I say!"
As the grudge-laden words of a wrathful ghost slipped from her lips, a bleak wind rose and hail began to scatter through the air. The chill that cut deeper than any cold left everyone feeling something terribly wrong; they exchanged uneasy glances.
'Lady Wolyeong, stop.'
I couldn't just stand by and let her unleash her curse on more hapless victims.
'It's over now. You need to go to the beyond to see your son. Shoichi will be there waiting.'
"Hnngh... set me free, please..."
'Yes. Lay down the grudge and the injustice alike, and go meet your family. It's time.'
Lady Wolyeong froze mid-motion, her lunge toward the detectives stilled.
I let out a breath of relief and turned to the police.
"There seemed to be a dispute going on here, so I came to break it up—then I spotted the sword lying out in the open and picked it up to move it somewhere safe."
"So you don't know any of these people?" The detective gestured at the man sprawled on the ground and at Jo Seok-hyeon, unconscious in the car.
"Not at all. I'm simply the owner of that cat."
"Cat?"
Number 1 came strutting over with his head held high, tail curled like a banner. I scooped him into my arms.
"My cat slipped away from me, but thankfully I found him safe and sound."
Once they checked the CCTV footage, they'd see exactly what I described—a man trying to calm his cat after it leapt onto some stranger's hood and started hissing.
"These people are dangerous. Get them into holding right away for everyone's protection."
At my words, the detectives glanced at each other, nodded, and hauled Jo Seok-hyeon and his crew up off the ground and into the station.
The next day, I had to make another trip to the police station to be questioned as a witness. That was where I learned that Jo Seok-hyeon and a lawyer named Park had been arrested on additional charges—for forging private documents to secretly sell off clan land worth some 40 billion won.
The news reports were damning: a professor of humanities at Hankook University, guilty not only of a stabbing rampage but of a 40-billion-won fraud on top of it. Hankook University announced it was launching its own internal investigation, and a notice suspending Jo Seok-hyeon's lectures went up on the school website.
Two days later, Grandma Mak-sun's comprehensive checkup results came in. Everything was perfectly normal. In fact, her body was apparently that of a woman in her seventies—a full twelve years younger than her actual age.
"I have an errand to run somewhere, then I'll come pick you up."
"Of course, take your time. I'm being pampered so thoroughly these days I can hardly tell whether this is a hotel or a hospital room."
After finishing my call with Han Mija, I left my parents' house and set out to see Moon Sung-il.
"Wow, what a place."
Hannam-dong—the very heart of Seoul's most famously wealthy neighborhood. Beyond the wall, I could see a building as elegant as an art museum. Moon Sung-il had come out to the gate himself and bowed deeply toward me.
"Welcome. To finally have CEO Kim in my home is an honor."
"Please, none of that. I'm the one who should thank you for the invitation."
Once I stepped through the gate and received Moon Sung-il's warm hospitality, the Han River came into view beyond the spacious courtyard.
"Is that the annex over there?"
Beyond Moon Sung-il's shoulder, I caught sight of a single-story hanok being used as a guest building.
"That's right. It holds the VIP reception room and my private study."
"Then the white porcelain must be in there too, right? The photo of the porcelain Lee Ho-young showed me had a hanok just like that in the background."
"Yes, it is. Let me show you the way."
Moon Sung-il strode into the annex.
"The porcelain is displayed in an even quieter chamber within. This way."
In a room reserved, among all his distinguished guests, for only those he trusted most, the white porcelain jar sat on display.
'He kept every promise he made when he took the porcelain in.'
A spot by the window with a view of the courtyard. Treat it as preciously as you would a treasure jar. Every single condition had been met, perfectly.
Moon Sung-il excused himself to prepare tea personally and slipped into the inner room. I approached the spot where the porcelain rested.
'Grandmother, have you been well?'
She drifted out of the white porcelain as smoothly as ever, greeting me with an elegance that had deepened since we'd last met.
"It's been a while. My goodness—you've received some truly extraordinary gifts since we last spoke, haven't you? Who has been showering you with such things?"
The White Porcelain Grandmother had seen at a glance that I'd grown far stronger, that I'd gained a great deal of power.
'I've been sending souls on to the beyond, and the ability just accumulated on its own.'
"At this rate, you'll end up the master of all creation! But mind you don't let on how remarkably you've grown. If your rivals catch wind of it, like they did in your past life, things will get tiresome."
'What do you mean by that? Past life?'
"Hohoho. One mustn't break taboos. I can say no more."
Having said only things I couldn't possibly parse, the White Porcelain Grandmother settled herself onto the sofa.
"Living one way is but a single lifetime, and living another way is but a single lifetime all the same... This time, spend a good deal of your hours on yourself. That is why you were born again."
'Did I know you in my past life, Grandmother? I held a long, great sword for the very first time today, and it felt so achingly familiar.'
"Hohoho, of course you did. Some memories fade, but the engravings upon a soul—those are impossible to forget. They remain."
Having satisfied herself that I was well, the White Porcelain Grandmother declared that would do and slipped right back into her porcelain jar.
'What was I in my past life?'
Engravings on the soul? Things that remain? My head was suddenly swimming.
"This is Sejak. If it doesn't suit your palate, I'll bring out a pu-erh instead."
A short while later, Moon Sung-il returned carrying tea he had brewed himself. He settled onto the sofa and set a cup before me. I savored the tea slowly before lifting my head.
"It's wonderful."
It tasted the way I imagined licking dew-soaked tea leaves would—fresh, green, with a sweet note lingering at the finish.
"Thank you. I do pride myself on my brewing."
"By the way, how is the investigation into Jo Seok-hyeon coming along? I need to get the katana back from the police before I can lay Lady Wolyeong's grudge to rest and send her on to the beyond."
"Lee Ho-young is bringing the katana over as we speak."
It seemed Moon Sung-il had called me over ahead of the others deliberately. There was something he clearly wanted to say to me alone.
"CEO Kim Yunho, I owe you a debt this time beyond all reckoning. If you hadn't pulled that vengeful ghost off of me, I might very well have lost my mind."
"I'd say it could have gone either way, honestly. Lady Wolyeong isn't a particularly wicked spirit."
Granted, being a wrathful ghost, she whined and complained constantly and made a mess of everything around her. And yes, she did cast a curse—but only once, and only on the katana.
"I hear you also take on the work of correcting history—righting the records of great figures who were misremembered or branded with stains they never earned. I ask you to set the record straight about Shin I-ho, about this righteous defector."
"Yes. That's exactly what should be done."
Moon Sung-il nodded with the force of a man making a vow, then looked at me and spoke.
"There is—well, there's a proposal I'd like to make. How would you feel about working with me? Money, I can make you in quantities that will turn your stomach."