The Secret Hidden in the Blade
Si-woo entered the sparsely visited cafe in Hongdae that he had been to before.
He had thought he was arriving early for their appointment, but Han Ji-yeon was already waiting for him.
When she saw him come in, she sprang to her feet and waved.
"Over here! Si-woo!"
A corner seat divided by partitions.
Two Americanos were already waiting on the table in front of her.
"Si-woo, really, thank you. For reaching out to me first!"
Han Ji-yeon clasped both of his hands in hers as though she had just met a savior, her face bright with gratitude.
"Not at all. I said before, if there was any new news, I’d let you know first by text. And honestly, it’s more comfortable doing interviews with you, Reporter Han Ji-yeon, than with other reporters."
"Ah! Really?"
"Though this time, should we do the interview over a meal? Last time, it was our first interview, and I turned you down because I was afraid I’d choke while eating."
At the time, Han Ji-yeon had been disappointed that she couldn’t use the company corporate card to eat an expensive meal.
The memory came back to him all at once.
But she only gave an awkward laugh.
"What am I supposed to do? I rushed out so fast that I forgot the corporate card... I’ll buy you something delicious next time!"
"You’re not planning to use the corporate card as an excuse to wring another interview out of me next time, are you?"
At Si-woo’s joke, Han Ji-yeon smiled broadly.
"Next time, I’ll treat you with my own money. Thanks to you, I got promoted and even received a performance bonus. You’re basically my benefactor, so the least I can do is buy!"
Han Ji-yeon’s bright personality had a way of putting people at ease.
Before they got into the interview, she asked, "Would it be all right if I took the photos first this time?"
"Yes. Go ahead."
This time, he couldn’t let the photos turn out awkwardly like before.
He remembered Gong the Lady trying to hold back her laughter, saying that the photo looked unnatural because he seemed to be forcing the smile.
He had had no answer then.
Looking at it himself, the expression had really been painfully stiff.
"All right, look straight ahead. I’ll shoot from a diagonal angle so the backlight won’t wash you out."
Han Ji-yeon picked up her smartphone and shifted position.
"Since this is a window seat, the light’s great. The natural light is coming in from the side just a little, so your face will have some depth. Last time I had to rush the article, so I couldn’t touch up the photo, but this time I’ll adjust the color and contrast too."
After testing different angles, Han Ji-yeon said, "Ah, just tuck your chin a little. Right there! Yes, that’s perfect!"
Click.
When Han Ji-yeon checked the photo, he let out an admiring breath.
This time, the eye line was perfect, and even the small smile at the corners of his mouth looked good.
Good enough to save as a profile photo.
"Wow. You really are good at this."
"I’m glad you’re satisfied. Then shall we start the interview?"
As Han Ji-yeon turned on the recording functions on her laptop and phone, her expression sharpened into something serious.
"I’ll start with a light first question. How did Kato Kiyomasa’s sword come to be in Eterna Gallery?"
"According to Representative Shin A-young of Eterna, the sword was sold off for a pittance during the chaotic Japanese withdrawal immediately after liberation, when many objects were being disposed of cheaply. I heard that in August 1945, some Japanese man sold it in a hurry to a merchant in Busan and left. After that, it was kept in the merchant’s family for generations, and recently the descendants were sorting through the estate and sold it to Eterna Gallery."
Han Ji-yeon’s fingers flew across the keyboard.
"Up until then, no one had been able to identify the owner of the sword. How did you figure out that it belonged to Kato Kiyomasa, Si-woo?"
After collecting his thoughts, he began.
"When I checked the nakago, the interior part of the handle, I found a craftsman’s inscription engraved there. It was the signature of Fujiwara Masakuni, the second-generation swordsmith of the Gantetsukan school."
"Fujiwara Masakuni?"
"Yes. He was known as an exceptional swordsmith. One of the most highly regarded in Japanese history. At present, only twenty of his blades remain in the world."
Han Ji-yeon paused typing for a moment, clearly intrigued, and asked, "Then how did you realize it was Kato Kiyomasa’s sword?"
"The Gantetsukan school was the family of swordsmiths that served Kato Kiyomasa exclusively. In particular, there are records showing that the second-generation smith, Fujiwara Masakuni, created several works on Kato Kiyomasa’s commission around 1588."
Si-woo explained calmly.
"Then I noticed something odd in the craftsman’s signature."
Han Ji-yeon tilted her head. "There was something there?"
"There were tiny dots around the signature, breaking up the strokes of the kanji."
"Dots?"
"Yes. At first, I thought they were just marks left by age. But their positions were far too deliberate."
Si-woo moved a finger through the air, as if placing the dots one by one.
"So I connected them in order. And then the hidden characters emerged: Hotoyen Seijyo."
"What does that mean?"
"Hotoyen means fierce like a tiger and swift like a swallow, and Seijyo was Kato Kiyomasa’s Chinese-style name, Katou Kiyomasa."
Han Ji-yeon’s mouth fell open.
"Wow... so the swordsmith deliberately left the owner’s identity hidden."
"Exactly. For whatever reason, he scattered the strokes of the characters into dots and engraved them that way. To the naked eye, it would look like nothing more than the wear of time, but once you recognized the pattern, the hidden meaning could be read."
Han Ji-yeon kept exclaiming over and over.
"Wow... then you solved a riddle no one had been able to crack for centuries?"
"Yes. I was lucky enough for it to turn out that way."
Han Ji-yeon typed it all up with an eager look in her eyes.
Si-woo paused for a moment before saying, "Kato Kiyomasa is a figure who carries a lot of historical resentment in our country."
Han Ji-yeon nodded. "Right. He was one of the spearheads of the invasion of Joseon during the Imjin War."
"That’s correct. When the Imjin War broke out in 1592, Kato Kiyomasa led the Second Division and landed in Busan. He advanced through Gyeongsang Province and all the way into Hamgyeong Province."
He took a sip of his Americano to wet his scratchy throat.
"In Hamgyeong Province in particular, he captured two princes of Joseon, Prince Imhae and Prince Sunhwa, and took them as prisoners. He also fought in the Battle of Jinju Fortress and massacred countless Joseon civilians."
Han Ji-yeon cut in at just the right moment.
"What about during the Second Japanese Invasion?"
"He invaded Joseon again during the 1597 Jeongyu War. He built Ulsan Castle and fought fierce battles there against the allied Ming and Joseon forces. Even after the war ended, he forcibly took Joseon potters back to Japan and used them for porcelain production."
"Then how much is this sword worth at minimum?"
"I’d estimate a minimum appraisal value of ten billion won, but considering the historical story behind it, and the significance Kato Kiyomasa holds in Japan, I suspect it could easily be worth several times that."
She sucked in a sharp breath in shock.
"Then you mean several tens of billions?"
The next day, Han Ji-yeon’s article went up online.
In August 1945, a Japanese man had sold it for a pittance to a Korean merchant in Busan, and the merchant’s family had kept it for generations. Recently, a descendant sold it to Eterna Gallery while sorting through the estate.
The one who uncovered the sword’s long-lost owner was appraiser Kim Si-woo.
He had focused on the tiny dots in the swordsmith’s signature carved into the handle, and by connecting them in order, he had unraveled a secret hidden for ages.
As soon as the article was uploaded, it shot to the number one real-time search spot on portal sites.
Within thirty minutes, the click count had easily passed 100,000, and it spread rapidly through all kinds of communities.
More than hundreds of comments appeared in an instant.
The comments were pure chaos.
In the midst of it all, the Japanese media also began to move.
The Japanese right-wing group “Nippon Kaidan” immediately issued a statement.
Refusing to be buried by that, Korean historians and cultural heritage experts also voiced their positions.
Professor Do Hyeon-seok of the Department of History at Korea University said in an interview, "Legally, this is privately owned property acquired through legitimate means. No one has the right to interfere with that."
"Japan’s demand for restitution has no legal basis. It was a thing a Japanese man sold voluntarily after the war ended. Rather, while the issue of our cultural properties illegally removed during the colonial era still remains unresolved, demanding the return of an item that was legally traded is a textbook double standard."
Lee Woo-hyeon, a curator-researcher at the National Museum of Korea, made a suggestion.
"If this sword is displayed in a museum, it should be used as educational material on the history of invasion. It needs to be exhibited together with the atrocities Kato Kiyomasa committed, so that history will not be forgotten."
On Japan’s largest forum, 2channel, the related thread exploded with hundreds of comments in no time.
On Korean Twitter, the related hashtags dominated the real-time trends from first to fifth place.
#KatoKiyomasaSword
#KatoKiyomasa
#KimSiwooAppraiser
#EternaGallery
#CulturalPropertyControversy
#Siuuuuuuuu
Related videos flooded NYouTube.
A thirty-minute video uploaded by the history YouTuber Seeing History, who had 500,000 subscribers, passed 500,000 views within three hours of going live.
Si-woo’s smartphone had been vibrating nonstop.
Interview requests from the media poured in.
National broadcasters, cable news channels, everyone called.
Even Japanese outlets.
I can’t keep replying to these anymore.
Even turning them down one by one had become a job in itself.
Even answering while keeping the phone on charge had its limits.
He set down the smartphone he had been holding all day.
The scale of the reaction was beyond anything he had imagined.
It was lucky he had prepared a backup phone just in case.
As if it had been waiting for that exact moment, it rang.
It was Shin A-young.
"Si-woo, take a break during the promotion period. We’ll keep the gallery busy from here on out. Thanks to you, the promotion has gone perfectly."
Her voice was thick with satisfaction.
"Thank you."
"But Si-woo, have you by any chance not been sleeping? Your voice sounds a little..."
Si-woo wiped a hand down his face and answered, "Yes. There have been all sorts of calls. And texts keep coming in, too..."
"Ah, I see? I hadn’t thought of that. Our legal team will handle it for you. We’ll take care of media responses and organize the interview requests all at once from the gallery side. Please focus on your personal matters."
"Thank you, really."
Only after he ended the call did Si-woo finally let out a breath.
"Hoo... I can finally breathe."
At last, he had some room to relax.
After sleeping, he would need to deal with everything he hadn’t had time to handle until now.
All the money I’ve saved so far adds up to 800 million won.
And the money that would come in later from the work related to Hye-won and Shin Yoon-bok’s piece was a staggering 1.5 billion.
That makes 2.3 billion altogether.
He had made that much money only a few months after going on leave.
Now that he actually had it, he had been too busy to use it properly.
"Since I’ve got some breathing room... I should get out of this cramped one-room apartment first."
But before that, there was something he needed to do.
It’s time to cut ties.
The very first thing he had to do was go to the company, sort out his leave, and resign.
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