The Buddha That Emerged from the Wall
The VIP lounge of Eterna Gallery in Cheongdam-dong.
By the time Han Ji-yeon arrived, the Nutflix production crew had already taken over the space.
Wow...
She stopped short at the sight.
Filming equipment had completely occupied the lounge.
A huge camera, boom mics, light stands, reflectors...
She was supposed to conduct an interview in this kind of murderous atmosphere?
Her nerves clenched her fists.
“You must be Reporter Han Ji-yeon.”
Just then, Director Choi Min-ho came up and held out his hand.
“I’m Choi Min-ho, in charge of directing the Nutflix documentary.”
“Yes. I’m Han Ji-yeon from Joa Ilbo.”
Han Ji-yeon hurriedly handed him her business card.
Only after she shook hands with Choi Min-ho did it start to feel real.
This really is Nutflix.
She had done many interviews as a reporter, but never once with a production crew this large attached to them.
“Please have a seat here.”
At the staff member’s direction, Han Ji-yeon slipped the calming pill she had secretly prepared into her mouth.
Who knew I’d be taking a tranquilizer for an interview? They didn’t even give me one for the college entrance exam.
She had brought it just in case, and it was a very good choice.
Just imagining herself shaking so badly that her words would tangle was horrifying.
She could not end up frozen on camera as “that stammering reporter” for the whole world to see.
As Choi Min-ho checked the camera angle, he said, “We’ll film as naturally as possible. Just conduct the interview the way you normally would, reporter. We’ll follow along.”
Easy for you to say.
Han Ji-yeon screamed inwardly while keeping a composed smile on her face.
“Yes, understood.”
She finished setting up, switching on her laptop and voice recorder like a veteran reporter with decades of experience.
Stay calm. Just do what I always do. I’ve interviewed Si-woo several times before.
The lounge door opened.
Kim Si-woo walked in.
He lowered his head when he saw Han Ji-yeon.
“It’s good to see you, Reporter Han. I’m sorry for contacting you so suddenly. The filming crew must have surprised you.”
“Oh, not at all. It means I get to write an article and appear on broadcast too, so it’s a two-for-one deal! But what is this interview about this time?”
“Would you take a look at this?”
Han Ji-yeon’s gaze locked onto the screen.
Her mouth slowly fell open.
“...What is this?”
On the screen was a Buddha statue, faintly suffused with a golden glow.
A Buddha seated in lotus position, wearing a serene smile.
A smile so peaceful it seemed to calm the heart of anyone who looked at it.
It was the sort of Buddha statue she had only ever seen in history textbooks.
It was, in every sense, the very image of the Baekje smile.
For now, he had no intention of saying anything about the plaque from Daegwangmyeongjeon or the Qianlong Nine-Dragon Vase.
The plaque from Daegwangmyeongjeon would take at least several months of conservation work just to stabilize.
And the Nine-Dragon Vase had not even entered the auction process yet.
Besides, he had left that matter in Eterna Gallery’s hands.
It was too early to make it public.
There was something else he had not yet revealed.
A treasure from Baekje discovered in a forty-year-old house.
He switched the tablet screen on and showed her a single photo.
“This is a Baekje gilt-bronze seated Maitreya Buddha.”
“B-Baekje?”
Han Ji-yeon’s voice cracked.
No way!
It was the kind of object that made the words “national treasure” spring to mind immediately, even at a glance.
Han Ji-yeon’s expression sharpened into a reporter’s again, and she fired off her question at once.
“How on earth did you find this?”
Si-woo closed his eyes for a moment, as if searching through his memory.
“At first, I was looking for a house to live in. Then a realtor introduced me to an old detached house in Yeonnam-dong.”
“Yeonnam-dong?”
“Yes. It was over forty years old and so poorly maintained it had been treated like an eyesore. It had gone to auction, but after failing to sell several times, the bank ended up stuck with it as a bad asset.”
Han Ji-yeon tilted her head.
“How did you find it there?”
“While I was looking around the house, I noticed something odd.”
He flipped to the next image and showed her a photo of the interior as it had been at the time.
The mold-stained wallpaper, the sagging ceiling, the worn wooden floorboards were all laid bare in the picture.
“It was the master bedroom on the second floor. The size of the building seen from outside and the room size I felt from inside were subtly different. There was a dead space that didn’t make sense even on the blueprint.”
“A dead space?”
Han Ji-yeon stared in disbelief.
Could you really tell that just by looking?
“Yes. So I tapped the wall, and instead of a dull concrete sound, I felt an echo like there was empty space behind it. Instinctively, I knew something had been hidden there.”
She held her breath and listened closely to Si-woo’s account.
It felt like hearing a scene from a mystery novel.
“After paying the balance, I tore the wall open with a hammer drill and a sledgehammer. And then...”
Si-woo’s voice dropped lower.
“Between the walls, in a narrow gap barely large enough for one person to squeeze into, there was an old wooden box.”
“And inside that was...”
“That’s right. The Buddha statue was in it.”
He brought up the photo of the statue again.
Then he showed her a second picture of a faded letter lying beside it.
“There was more in that place than just the statue. The former owner also left a letter.”
“A letter?”
“Yes. It explained that the Buddha had been safeguarded by the owner’s grandfather during the Japanese colonial period and hidden in the wall in case his descendants sold it off for money. And at the very end, it said this.”
Si-woo pointed to the closing lines of the letter.
- In the final years of my life, I have fallen into dementia. There are many times when my mind is not sound. Even if I were to declare my wish to donate it, my son would surely derail it on the grounds that I am demented. When my mind briefly cleared today, I gathered what strength I could and wrote this down.
- I sincerely hope that someone else will find this letter. And I ask that whoever discovers this Buddha statue donate it in my place, so that people may see the Baekje smile.
- I know this is a selfish request. I am a man who has no right to ask it. But I humbly beg you to take pity on me and set right, in my stead, the wrongs I have committed.
Signed, Park Kang-hoon.
Han Ji-yeon could not speak for a moment as she read the letter.
A house on the verge of demolition.
A secret space hidden in the wall.
The desperate wish of an old man suffering from dementia.
This was not merely the discovery of a national treasure.
It carried a story inside it.
Han Ji-yeon lifted her camera and carefully photographed the faded letter left by the late man inside the envelope Si-woo had handed her.
The sincerity in the crooked handwriting seemed to pass through the lens.
After taking the picture, she steadied herself and looked back at the Buddha statue.
“That’s incredible... But how did you know it was a Baekje statue?”
As though he had expected the question, Si-woo enlarged the tablet screen.
He showed her the back of the halo, decorated with a magnificent flame pattern behind the Buddha’s head.
His finger pointed to the lower edge of the halo.
Though weathered by time, faint and clearly carved characters could still be seen between the corrosion.
“Would you look here? There are characters engraved on the back of the halo.”
Han Ji-yeon leaned in close to the screen.
Si-woo explained, reading each character one by one.
- In the twenty-third year of Baekje King Mu, in the year Im-o, this sacred image was cast for the peace of the kingdom. May our Baekje never perish for all eternity. Let the descendants of future generations properly protect it.
“The year of production and the purpose of its creation are both clearly recorded. This isn’t just a beautifully made Buddha statue. It’s a perfect artifact, a historical record with undeniable proof that it was made by the royal court of Baekje.”
“Ah...”
Han Ji-yeon shivered at the certainty in Si-woo’s voice.
This was not something that could be described with a lightweight word like a scoop.
* * *
After the interview, Shin A-young called him to her office.
“You did well. The interview was perfect.”
“Yes. Thank you. But what did you want to talk about?”
“Do you think you could donate it and receive fair compensation from the state?”
Si-woo swallowed a quiet breath and shook his head.
He had legally acquired ownership when he bought the house.
But getting proper compensation from the state would be extremely difficult.
- Article 67 of the Cultural Heritage Protection Act (Payment of Compensation, etc.)
1. The state may pay compensation or a reward, within an amount not exceeding 50 percent of the appraised value of the buried cultural heritage that became state-owned under Article 12 or the cultural heritage that reverted to the state under Article 14, to the person who discovered it or the person who notified the state.
In legal terms, compensation could certainly be paid. The problem was that the artifact they intended to donate was simply too valuable.
The matter would have to go through the National Assembly’s budget review process.
It was nothing unusual for deliberations in the National Assembly to be delayed by years.
Not only would compensation be postponed, but all sorts of talk would follow.
Should the state pay compensation with taxpayers’ money?
Budget shortages make such a large payment impossible.
The previous owner already expressed an intent to donate it, so why should compensation be paid?
We oppose using taxes to fatten a private individual’s wallet!
A compensation payment with no telling when it would come.
And the amount would be slashed to pieces.
More than anything, the Nutflix filming was the immediate problem.
If talk of compensation surfaced in this situation, he would be at the center of controversy.
It would bring him more harm than benefit.
“I also know it would be difficult to receive proper compensation. Since there’s also the Nutflix filming issue, I’m thinking it would be better to donate it cleanly and leave compensation out of it.”
“That’s a wise judgment. But Si-woo...”
Shin A-young activated the tablet screen and wore a rather serious expression.
“I have one way.”
Shin A-young’s business instincts came alive.
“When you donate something to the state, ownership does pass over. But there’s also something called designation of a managing organization.”
“Designation of a managing organization?”
“Yes. Instead of just donating it, you negotiate to transfer management rights to our gallery. Under Article 34 of the Cultural Heritage Protection Act, the state can designate a corporation or organization capable of managing the cultural property as the managing organization. In fact, many temples and private museums have already been designated as managing organizations for state-owned cultural properties and are preserving and exhibiting them.”
Shin A-young brought up the proposal on the screen.
“Eterna Gallery already has security systems and equipment on the level of a national museum. We can clearly demonstrate our ability to manage cultural heritage. When you donate it to the state, the condition we attach is that Eterna Gallery be designated as the managing organization.”
The tablet screen she showed him displayed a proposal.
Plan for the Establishment of a Special Dedicated Hall for the Baekje Gilt-Bronze Seated Maitreya Buddha
“We’ll create a special hall for this Buddha alone. A space where only a single light cuts slowly through the darkness and illuminates the statue. Visitors will feel fourteen hundred years of history with their entire bodies in front of its overwhelming presence.”
Still, he pointed out the part that concerned him.
“But if the state owns it, is it legally okay to charge admission?”
“Yes. There’s no legal issue at all. We do plan to donate 10 percent of the admission revenue, though.”
“That sounds fine to me.”
If Eterna Gallery, which had helped him so far, would store and manage it, he was in favor.
“If we do this, how about waiving our gallery’s commission for the Qianlong Nine-Dragon Vase?”
At Shin A-young’s words, Si-woo waved a hand.
“You don’t have to do that. The gallery has already done plenty for me.”
Shin A-young’s fine brows pinched slightly.
“If you won’t accept it, I won’t be able to make peace with it.”
Faced with her firm stance, he had no choice but to accept the proposal.
* * *
Over the next few days, starting with Han Ji-yeon’s exclusive interview, articles began pouring out one after another.
[JoongA Ilbo] The “Baekje smile” that shone after 1,400 years was found by appraiser Kim Si-woo again.
[Juseon Ilbo] “The sound was different when he tapped the wall” - Kim Si-woo, the “Midas hand,” how far does his eye for value go?
[Daily Mail] Buddha statue worth hundreds of billions donated - who is the man who discovered a national treasure?
[Times Square] “Finding 1,400 years of history in a house moments before demolition” - why the archaeology world is stunned.
In an instant, articles began flooding the internet with Kim Si-woo’s name.
The story spread through communities and social media of every kind.
Within just a few hours, Kim Si-woo found himself at the center of another major national issue in Korea.
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