Trait Enhancement-4
How was I supposed to process the news that a woman's earring had turned up inside the Buddha statue of a thousand-year-old temple?
Yeah. I choose not to.
It was clearly something that should never have existed, and yet there it was.
Korean Buddhism follows the Mahayana tradition — unlike Theravada Buddhism, which centers on individual enlightenment, its purpose was the salvation of all living beings. And rather than enshrining Shakyamuni alone, temples honored a whole pantheon: Avalokitesvara, Ksitigarbha, Amitabha, and many more buddhas and bodhisattvas besides.
Which is why buddha statues, bodhisattva statues, and guardian figures were crafted at temples all across the country.
I'd heard that the artisans who made sacred statues and ritual implements abstained from meat and kept themselves pure like monks for the entire duration of their work. Even the carpenters who raised the temple halls went so far as to forgo flesh entirely, keeping their conduct spotless.
So at exactly what stage of that process had a woman's earring ended up among the concealed relics inside a statue?
It must have driven the folks at Wol-sang Temple out of their minds.
They'd opened up the statue for restoration work, only for a woman's earring to fall out.
It suddenly made sense why they hadn't launched a public investigation after the relics were stolen.
They wanted to catch the thief quietly and bury the whole thing before anyone found out — that's why they put up such an enormous reward.
But something unthinkable was unfolding. The village chief of Ugok 2-ri, tomb raiders, and the Cheonligyo cult — all in league with one another.
Everything the cult attempted these days was falling apart. The solar farm project was dead in the water, and now their access route had been cut off too.
Any organization that finds itself cornered tends to lash out — picking fights, making desperate, extreme choices. Maybe that was exactly why they'd turned around and raided Wol-sang Temple: to redirect their internal crisis outward. If the cult had already condemned Buddhism as heretical, then raiding the temple would look like courageous missionary work.
But here was the thing. A religion only meant something while it behaved like one. The moment its members stole for their own profit, they abandoned every purpose they claimed to have and became nothing but criminals.
And the chief of Ugok 2-ri was an elected representative of his residents. If he'd resolved to run wild with tomb raiders and fanatics, Wol-sang Temple wouldn't be the only victim. Not just Ugok 2-ri — even our village, right next door, couldn't afford to relax.
I guess I'll have to pay a visit to Wol-sang Temple first.
I needed to get a feel for the atmosphere there before offering anyone a heads-up. The Cheonligyo cult was the one who'd stolen the secret the temple was desperate to hide. I could claim the hundred-million-won reward and make sure the bad guys couldn't run free.
Isn't that what they call killing two birds with one stone?
"So many cats! I love it!"
Chai adored cats. He especially fawned over Spirit No. 1, cooing about how pretty he was as he scooped him up and nuzzled his cheek.
"White kitty. So pretty, I love you."
[Master, get this human away from me. Tell him if he doesn't put me down, there's gonna be blood.]
Chai's going to look after you and your wives while I'm away from the house. And you're going to draw blood?
Was he seriously thinking of attacking Chai? I fixed Spirit No. 1 with a hard stare, making it plain that I wouldn't forgive such a thing.
His face crumpled into a tearful grimace.
[This guy take care of ME? Yeah, right. I don't ask just anybody to look after me— huh? Huhhh?]
Chai dangled the drawstring of his hoodie right in front of No. 1's eyes. The possession-instinct kicked in instantly, and No. 1 swatted at the swaying string with both front paws, throwing out kitty punches.
You still hate the idea of Chai taking care of you?
[Hate it! He's brainwashing me right now! Tell him to stop wiggling that string. I have to catch it, I can't stand it if I don't!]
Completely spellbound by the hoodie string, No. 1 even threw in a midair somersault. Honestly, watching him like that, he was just an ordinary cat.
[AAAH! No! That human's pulling out the churu! He's trying to seduce me! Demon! He's a demon!]
YOU'RE the evil spirit. Get a grip.
I snorted and headed out to the sunroom through the back kitchen door.
All the broken glass had been gathered into waste bags and hauled off, and the old framework had been dismantled, leaving the sunroom as nothing but bare ground. The new one had been measured and ordered from a manufacturer — once the glass and frame arrived from the factory, assembly was all that remained, so it wouldn't take long.
The new sunroom will be twice the size of the old one. I'm actually looking forward to it.
Until it was finished, I planned to do my cooking on the stove in the backyard.
How about wood-fired pizza today?
If I lit the fire and made tortilla pizzas, surely Chai would eat well.
"Chai! Chai!"
"Yes, hyeong-nim."
Chai, who had been playing with the cats, came out through the back door.
"You like pizza?"
"I like it. But too expensive. I can't eat it."
"Today I'll feed you until you burst."
I'd already bought more than enough ingredients. The only problem was the wind — it was blowing hard, and with the sunroom torn down, it seemed like a good idea to put up some kind of screen next to the stove. Then I remembered the village chief mentioning he had leftover bricks from rebuilding his fence.
"Chai, let's go say hello to the village chief."
"Village chief? Scary."
Apparently Ma Chang-guk, the Ugok 2-ri chief, had treated Chai badly too.
"Our village's chief isn't scary. He's a wonderful man."
I took Chai with me and called on the chief's house. I figured it was about time I told the chief and his wife that I was sheltering Chai at my place.
"Chai? Your name is Chai?"
"Somchai Kittikachorn. But please just call me Chai."
"Right, got it. Good heavens — it's been bitter cold out, and he was staying in a storage closet? The poor boy nearly froze to death."
Mrs. Han Su-ja loosened the jacket Chai was wearing, clucking her tongue in sympathy. At the news that he was twenty-three, she seemed to be thinking of her grandson away in the army.
The chief, for his part, made no attempt to hide his fury, growling that Ma Chang-guk of Ugok 2-ri was a man with no blood and no tears.
"Three whole years he worked for him, and then he tosses him out in the dead of winter? If he knowingly hired an illegal overstayer he'd be in trouble himself, but if the boy was falsely accused, shouldn't somebody step up and help him?"
"Seems like the Ugok 2-ri chief is only nice to his wife."
"Nice? To her?"
"I heard he bought her a designer bag — a real one, apparently — that cost over a million won."
At Mrs. Han Su-ja's grumbling, the chief exploded.
"He's out of his mind! A million won on one bag? Do you know how many sacks of calf feed that money would buy?"
"Then go marry a calf, you old fool."
As the couple's voices climbed, I waved my hands frantically and jumped in to mediate.
"It's a fake, actually. I saw it at the cherry trout festival awards ceremony. A Louis Vita."
They say the top-grade counterfeits can fool even experts, but this one looked like the cheap sort — practically shouting knock-off at a glance.
The chief scoffed.
"See? What did I tell you! No way that cheapskate spends a cool million on his wife."
"If it were genuine, it'd be three to five million, not one."
"Which is exactly why the man's insane. Who pays that kind of money for what's basically a market basket?"
"You'd be singing a different tune if someone handed you a million won in cash."
Mrs. Han Su-ja's face flushed crimson, and she stalked off into the inner room.
The atmosphere turned colder than an Arctic cold front, leaving Chai and me squirming in embarrassment. The chief heaved a long, wounded sigh.
"Aigoo, I'm getting too old for this. My wife's nagging is going to be the death of me."
"Well then, we'll... put those bricks to good use. We'll be going now."
"Yeah, alright."
I shot Chai a look to hurry him along and turned toward the gate.
Just then — bang! — the door flew open hard enough to split its hinges, and Mrs. Han Su-ja let out a piercing shout.
"Going where? Get in here right now!"
"Huh? Me?"
"Yes, you! They say our Yoon-ho boy is on TV!"
"What?"
The face of Team Leader Hong from the county office PR division — the one who'd asked whether it was all right to write up the story of me saving the pregnant cats from the wild boar attack — flashed quickly through my mind. Surely he hadn't tipped off a major terrestrial broadcaster about that.
"Good heavens, it's real! Our Yoon-ho's on Case Chief — the TV program!"
"What?"
"Seongeun mentioned something about it yesterday and I just thought she was rambling, but this must be what she meant! Everyone come quick!"
Mrs. Han Su-ja tapped the link Bang Seongeun had sent her. The screen jumped to Nutube, and the Case Chief logo appeared.
Wasn't that program famous for exposing business scams and bureaucratic abuse of power? Since when did a whistleblowing show cover heartwarming stories? Though apparently they did occasionally take feel-good submissions and air them.
Mrs. Han Su-ja turned up the volume.
"Last time they ran the story of that unmarried high school mom who ordered delivery food on credit because she was starving, and the owner of the guk-su restaurant went out of his way to find her and help her."
I remembered seeing that one too. It was the kind of story that squeezed your heart.
"Maybe people asked them to share more warm stories, since the world's gotten so cold? I mean, look, they're even running the story about our Yoon-ho boy."
"Wait, then why isn't our Yoon-ho's face on screen? It's just some county office worker's voice on the phone!"
Thankfully, the segment centered on the wild boar problem. Apparently boars had been turning up in cities lately, causing serious damage.
"In a mountain village in Gangwon Province, a young man who'd moved to the countryside had his home raided by a wild boar" — and just like that, my story slipped into the broadcast. They connected a phone call with the county office employee, gushing about how a brave young man saved a group of pregnant cats.
The man hadn't seen a boar up close? Excuse me — I'd watched one pass by plenty of times while pulling night guard duty in the army.
The county official's explanation continued.
Afterward, footage of my shattered sunroom filled the screen — probably material the county office had sent to the station themselves.
Who'd want to move to Pyeongcheong County after seeing that? Between the boars alone, I wouldn't want to come either.
The anchor appeared, announcing that was all for the incident reports, and moved on to the next segment. Mrs. Han Su-ja switched off her phone and looked at me, genuinely put out.
"A face like that, and they film everything but it? Why are we listening to some county office worker blathering?"
"I consider myself pretty lucky, actually."
"Lucky how? Most people go their whole lives and die without ever being on TV once, you know."
"He's got a point. Bit of a shame."
The chief said it while smacking his lips.
"While they were at it, they could've filmed our whole village — how great would that have been? I'd have given them a proper tour, no question."
"I think this is exactly the right amount, honestly. It'd be bad if our village got branded as a wild boar danger zone."
"Hmm. Fair point."
Zzzt. Zzzt.
My phone buzzed — a call from my mother. And that was only the beginning. Everyone had apparently caught the broadcast late, and my phone grew hot from the sheer volume of calls pouring in.
How on earth did everyone know I was the hero of the feel-good story? It turned out the clip was up on Pyeongcheong TV's Nutube channel. I checked, and sure enough — my face was plastered across the thumbnail.
I'd agreed to let them share the story as a heartwarming tale. I had never once agreed to hang my face over the front door like a shop sign. Or had I? The moment I became a promotional ambassador, had I signed away my portrait rights?
Then again, how can their copywriting be this bad?
In enormous block letters, the thumbnail read: "A Standoff with a Wild Boar? That's Easy Peasy!"
"A Standoff with a Wild Boar? That's Easy Peasy!"
— Pyeongcheong TV | Nutube Thumbnail —
"You know, Yoon-ho my boy, you really ought to open a café or a restaurant. I'm only saying this because I know it'd be an absolute jackpot."
The chief laughed heartily at me, noting that I was getting more and more visitors these days.