Segok-ri Reservoir - 3
With the village head and his wife having left the door unlocked to go film the movie, Chai and I sat out on the porch watching TV.
"Chai, are Korean dramas that fun? You look about ready to climb inside the TV."
"Talk later. I'm busy."
Chai was so absorbed in the drama while munching on sundae that conversation was useless.
K-content really is something else.
As for me, I couldn't focus on the drama at all.
"Ha, it's raining tomorrow?"
The bean sprouts had only just broken through the soil, and tomorrow came the rain. The day after, cloudy skies following more rain, apparently.
If this keeps up, the sprouts will rot in the ground.
Ever since I'd started farming, I'd become unusually sensitive to the weather. I could no longer watch the rain streaking down the window and admire the village scenery the way I used to.
"Well now, Yoonho's here already?"
The village head's wife stepped into the yard, her voice carrying an extra spring of energy. The couple had been slaving away at the film set all day, yet she looked like she was brimming with vitality.
"Is filming done for the day?"
"The catering truck never showed, so we wrapped early. And you've brought the director along with you?"
"Hello there."
Cho Woochul entered the yard alongside Mrs. Han Su-ja, and a staff member handling odds and ends trailed in behind them.
I believe he said he does script supervising or something like that.
I greeted Cho Woochul and the staff member.
"You've worked hard today."
"Hardly, Mr. Kim. Thanks to you, we got some absolutely splendid shots today. I honestly don't know how to thank you."
Just having Choi Hee-ah standing in my yard had been enough to elevate the entire mood of the scene, apparently.
He kept bowing his head, insisting he owed me so much and that he simply had to invite me to the VIP premiere. I had to attend and lend the occasion some luster, he said.
Meanwhile, the village head had climbed up onto the porch, spread out the table, and brought out some deodeok liquor.
Mrs. Han Su-ja had headed into the kitchen, apparently to start preparing dinner.
"Chai, we should head home now."
Better to put off the discussion about the vacant house repairs for another day, right?
Just as I was about to step down from the porch with Chai, the village head grabbed my arm.
"Go where? You're eating first."
"Pardon? Ah, well, I—"
All those snacks I'd bought in town had left my mouth feeling coarse. And since my car was parked down by the stream, drinking was out of the question anyway.
"You could eat at home."
"Sit down. She's made neung-i baeksuk for you."
"Ah, neung-i…"
When I'd first heard of neung-i baeksuk—chicken soup brimming with medicinal roots—I'd thought people were out of their minds. These days, I preferred plain old baeksuk, cooked with nothing but glutinous rice.
Because once the neung-i goes in, that's all you can taste.
"Come sit, Yoonho. I stuffed it full of neung-i and boiled up two whole hens just for tonight."
Mrs. Han Su-ja emerged from the kitchen carrying a pot of neung-i baeksuk. She seemed to have reheated a batch she'd prepared in advance.
Another hen down.
Every time a guest showed up at the village head's household, the chicken flock dwindled by one or two.
Since I started raising chickens myself, even fried chicken gives me slight pause now.
Chicks are just so adorable. Watching them crack through their shells and cheep around is enough to move you to tears.
"I'm really not hungry, though…"
"Sit down right now and have a bowl."
Nagged along by the village head, I reluctantly shuffled over to the table and sat.
Mrs. Han Su-ja set a bowl of broth with a chicken drumstick right in front of me.
"By the way, is the catering truck not coming again tomorrow? If so, I'll just boil up some noodles for everyone."
"No, no. I can't possibly leech off you that much."
"Leech? Nothing of the sort. Nothing beats a big bowl of noodles shared by everyone. Hohoho."
The village head poured me some deodeok liquor and met my eyes.
"You're not drinking tonight either? Don't tell me you've come down with something?"
"It's not that. My car's parked somewhere else, and I bought a truckload of seedlings that need moving. Can't drive after drinking."
"Ah, well then, that's that. There's never once been a sobriety checkpoint in the entire history of our village, you know… haha. But no, I absolutely don't touch the wheel after a drink, either."
The village head and Cho Woochul clinked their glasses and carried on talking.
Director Cho Woochul seems to be in good spirits too.
Cho Woochul chattered away with gusto.
They say plenty of film directors are gourmets. Supposedly this one had been shooting a film in Busan when he suddenly hopped a train to Jeonju just for a meal.
A privilege reserved for the days when cameras are actually rolling, perhaps?
"Back then, it was 'Director! Director!'—everyone waited on me hand and foot. Honestly, I started thinking I'd finally amounted to something."
"Well, of course. Anyone great enough to command that many people to shoot a film must be quite somebody, no? Am I wrong, Yoonho?"
"The village head is always right."
Offering the occasional appropriate murmur to the conversation between the village head and Cho Woochul, I ate my rice with pickled dried radish and fried chili peppers for side dishes.
I know this fried chili was made by Mrs. Han Mija.
Truly delicious.
It was made after the chili harvest ended, just before the first frost—she'd gathered the peppers that hadn't been picked in time and were starting to wither, dried them, and fried them up.
The heat, the concentrated flavor of the dried pepper, the golden batter and salt sprinkle—the addictive combination was something else.
This one dish alone would polish off a whole bowl of rice.
Not five minutes after declaring I had no appetite, I was the first to scrape my bowl clean.
My neung-i baeksuk had been quietly nudged over to Chai, who was working through it with gusto.
I'll head out once Chai finishes eating.
Just then, my phone buzzed.
"Seo Jinwoo's calling?"
The moment I muttered, checking the caller ID, Cho Woochul's head snapped up.
"Ah, I'd put my phone on silent—he must have called you instead, Mr. Kim."
Cho Woochul pulled his phone out of his pocket.
"Huh? He hasn't called me at all?"
Seo Jinwoo and Cho Woochul had known each other for over a decade.
Yet Seo Jinwoo had called me instead of Cho Woochul, and judging by his face, the director felt a little stung by that.
"Since CEO Bae's suicide, Jinwoo hasn't wanted to talk about personal matters with me. I suspect that seeing me reminds him of his conversations with her…"
"That makes sense. I'll take the call first."
I pressed the answer button.
"Yes, Jinwoo? Where are you? Ah… you're heading down to Ugok-ri right now? To film the movie, right? No?"
"That's right. There's no filming scheduled until the day after tomorrow."
Cho Woochul's words put me in an awkward spot.
It sounded like Seo Jinwoo was on his way down to Ugok-ri to see me.
Over the past few days, Seo Jinwoo had grown more comfortable around me, and that's how this tangled situation had come about.
When in doubt, best to fill Seo Jinwoo in on the situation, right?
"Jinwoo, I'm having dinner at the village head's house right now, with Director Cho Woochul, actually. Oh. I see."
"What did he say?"
"He says enjoy your meal."
"Oh, yes. Thank you."
"Jinwoo ate in Seoul before setting out, apparently."
Cho Woochul gave me an easy smile, as if to say take your time, and took a sip of his deodeok liquor.
I quietly got up and stepped out into the yard.
"What's your schedule looking like, Jinwoo?"
"I wrapped the drama shoot, and the film scenes are all being crammed into one block starting three days from now. So I'm taking two days off."
It sounded like he'd pushed himself through a grueling marathon just for two days of rest.
Well, he did go through something enormous—enough to make it hard to hold onto his sanity.
I knew all too well that what Seo Jinwoo had endured could never be easily healed.
And that even as he tried to act fine, memories would ambush him out of nowhere and cause him real anguish.
"Sure, come on down. I'll lend you my living room again like last time."
"No. I can't keep imposing on you. The reason I'm heading down early this time is to help with your business, hyung."
"My business?"
"Ugok's Yard. CEO Kim Yunho—am I right?"
On the display shelf in my living room sat the caricature my classmates from agricultural school had given me as a gift.
And beside it, the corporate seal of my brand, Ugok's Yard—my agricultural corporation.
He must have seen those and decided to help me out.
"If CEO Bae were still alive, she'd have watched my every move and manipulated me. But there's no one left to force me into anything now. And I'm going independent."
He intended to kick the company Bae Jung-hee had built to the curb and walk out.
"I want to start a one-man company and take care of myself for once."
"I'm rooting for you."
"So I'm starting with promoting your company."
"Excuse me?"
Had Seo Jinwoo gotten it into his head that I'd be growing European vegetables or tomatoes?
What I was actually doing was planting soybeans to supply doenjang and cheonggukjang to local food businesses.
[A-list star Seo Jinwoo confidently recommends it! Ugok's Yard Cheonggukjang!]
Something's off…
It really didn't suit Seo Jinwoo at all.
I tried picturing the commercial: Seo Jinwoo in an apron, dicing zucchini into a pot of cheonggukjang, then leaning down to whisper to a woman fast asleep.
"Honey, your soybean paste soup is ready."
Doesn't work.
Seo Jinwoo's usual ad portfolio ran toward banks, supermarkets, electronics, cosmetics—the big-budget stuff.
Putting him in a farm produce commercial didn't seem like a great idea, to say the least.
Then again, the sheer mismatch might make it go viral…?
In any case, it seemed best to discuss the details face to face.
"Where are you right now?"
"I just entered the Ugok Tun— kkkkzzt! Kshhhk!"
He'd just said he was entering the tunnel, and now the connection was crackling apart.
Bzzzt! The call dropped.
"Not this again."
Cell carriers had scattered only a handful of signal transmitters around Ugok-ri.
With a population that only ever shrank and never grew, the carriers had no incentive to install more equipment here.
So whenever heavy rain poured down or strong winds whipped up, my phone would sometimes go dead.
Never mind inside a tunnel.
"He'll call back, surely."
I told the village head and Cho Woochul that Seo Jinwoo was on his way, then headed home.
"Chai, come on, let's move all this."
We unloaded the seedlings from the car and carried the whole batch over to the garden plot.
Filming was scheduled in my yard again tomorrow, so planting was out of the question for now.
It looked like the earliest I could get the garden properly started would be three days from now, once filming wrapped.
"Good work today. Get some rest, alright?"
"But why isn't Jinwoo hyung here yet? He could have walked here through the Ugok Tunnel by now."
"Probably stopped to see Director Cho Woochul first, I'd guess."
Otherwise there was no way he wouldn't have arrived by this hour.
I checked my wristwatch, tilted my head, and called Seo Jinwoo.
"The person you are calling is not available…"
The call didn't even connect—it went straight to the automated message.
"That's odd?"
I was debating whether to simply wait it out when an uneasy feeling crept over me, and I called Cho Woochul instead.
"Hello, Director. I was wondering if you were still with Jinwoo. Someone who was supposed to arrive soon has gone unreachable…"
"What do you mean? You're telling me Jinwoo hasn't reached you yet?"
"That's right. When we talked at the village head's house, he said he was entering the Ugok Tunnel. Then the call cut out, and now his phone won't connect at all."
"It was the same with the catering truck."
Cho Woochul's voice was trembling as he continued.
"Today's catering truck lost contact right at the Ugok Tunnel too. They kept saying Ugok 1-ri had vanished from the map, and then they went silent completely."
"A-and you haven't heard anything since?"
"I couldn't tell you. Once a vendor breaks a commitment like that, I never work with them again."
Did that mean he hadn't bothered looking into what happened to the vanished catering truck at all?
This is bad. This is really bad.
In that instant, a memory I'd buried in the far recesses of my mind flickered across my brain.
The same thing happened to me once.
Back when I was house-hunting through the empty houses of Gangwon Province, my map app had suddenly gone haywire inside the Ugok Tunnel.
The moment I emerged from the tunnel, it kept directing me to strange, wrong places.
My destination had been set for the Pyeongcheong County Office.
Yet the app kept winding me around mountain roads, deeper and deeper into terrain utterly devoid of human presence.
In the end, I shut off my phone and pulled over onto the shoulder.
What was even more chilling was that not a single car passed along that road.
It felt like I was the last person left in the universe.
I didn't move an inch in the car. I was so exhausted I was afraid I'd crash if I kept driving.
I killed the engine and dozed off for a bit.
And I didn't stir again until daybreak.
Then, as dawn slowly brightened my field of vision, I saw it spread out before me: the Pyeongcheong Dam.
If I had kept following the app's directions, I would have driven straight into one of the villages submerged when the dam was built.
Or plunged off a cliff and drowned.
At the time, I'd laughed it off—said the place must have bewitched me.
Thinking back on it now, though, I might genuinely have been lured by something.
What do I do?
Calling 112 would only get me a single patrol car and two countryside cops rattling up the paddock ridges.
They would be of absolutely no help.
Cho Woochul had been drinking, and sending the other staff members out might only cause a second accident.
There was no guarantee they wouldn't fall under the same spell, whatever it was.
No. 1!
I sprinted to the backyard, snatched No. 1 up from the gazebo, and held the spirit cat aloft.
[Hm? What gives, Boss?]
We have to save Seo Jinwoo. And whoever's driving that catering truck too.