The Sejong Gold Book
Si-woo finished speaking and looked over at the Kelly family.
He had explained everything he could.
The choice was theirs now.
The brief silence stretched longer than it should have.
Then Jacob’s father, Clark, slapped his knee and burst out laughing.
“Hahaha! If Grandfather had known this, he would have been utterly stunned!”
Laughter rippled through the room.
“That’s right, Father.”
Jacob, too, lowered his head, unable to hold back his laughter.
“Ah, sorry. He treasured it so much that he never let anyone touch it. If anybody even tried, there would have been a scene. Only half as a joke, of course. Haha. If he’d known it was such an extraordinary artifact, he might have fainted on the spot.”
Jacob’s mother dabbed at the corners of her eyes as she laughed.
“Your grandfather always kept that block of concrete hugged to his chest, saying it had saved his life. If there was even a chance it might stop something for him again, he’d carry it into restaurants and everywhere else. We always told him, over and over, to please just leave it at home.”
The Kelly family’s reaction was a little bewildering.
They were talking about an artifact with an astronomical value, and yet they kept bringing up their late grandfather before the artifact itself.
The looks on their faces were full of longing.
Expressions that seemed to pull old memories back up and let them live again for a moment.
It was easy to see what kind of person Herald Kelly had been just from the family gathered here.
Come to think of it, he had been the kind of man who laughed heartily after learning a bullet had missed him.
Jacob looked down at the gold seal and grinned.
Then, all at once, he lifted his chin with obvious pride.
“If I hadn’t dropped Grandfather’s keepsake, nobody would’ve known! Everyone gave me grief, but look at this. I pulled it off! And I had it appraised by Appraiser Kim Si-woo!”
He puffed out his chest as he spoke.
His father and mother both shook their heads at the same time, as if they had no idea what to do with him.
“That boy, honestly. If Grandfather were here, he’d tell him not to act so foolish.”
Clark muttered in a low voice.
“My son spent his whole life causing trouble, and it looks like he finally did something right for once. Hahaha.”
Laughter erupted again.
After a few more stories and in the bright, easy atmosphere, Si-woo asked carefully, “Then... what do you plan to do with the artifact?”
Clark looked at the gold seal and answered without the slightest hesitation, “It should go back where it belongs.”
His voice was firm, but calm.
He spoke as if it were the most natural thing in the world, with not a trace of doubt.
“We never even knew what it was worth in the first place. If we’d kept it like this, all we would have done was preserve one of Grandfather’s precious keepsakes.”
“Just to be clear, this is a treasure whose value is almost impossible to calculate. And you’re saying you’ll return it as it is?”
Si-woo asked again to make sure.
Clark replied, “Yes. I think if Father were still alive, he would have done exactly the same.”
Jacob’s mother quietly added, “Father always said that coming home alive from the war was already the greatest gift he could have been given.”
There didn’t seem to be a single trace of regret in the whole family.
Si-woo looked at them in amazement.
On the way here, he had imagined dozens of scenarios.
A legal dispute.
A stubborn objection from one family member or another.
All of those worries turned out to be pointless.
He had assumed that once they learned the value, there would be resistance.
“Thank you very much. If you return it, we will offer compensation appropriate to its significance, even if it may not be enough by Korean standards.”
Clark waved it off, though not in total rejection.
Jacob’s mother, too, nodded with a smile.
“We’d be grateful to receive that. But I’d like it to be displayed together with Father’s story.”
“That’s right. We’re tired of hearing it, but I think it would be good for other people to know about it, too.”
Clark looked up at the photograph of his father hanging on the wall, then slowly opened his mouth.
“Appraiser Kim Si-woo.”
“Yes. Please go ahead.”
“Father always said this.”
Clark’s voice grew lower.
“He said he never properly recovered the comrades who died on the battlefield. He said the fact that he couldn’t send them back home stayed with him his entire life.”
Clark’s gaze drifted slowly from his father’s photo down to the gold seal.
“Maybe that’s why we feel the same way. We’d like to return what Korea lost to where it belongs.”
The room fell quiet.
Jacob’s mother smiled softly.
Her eyes were slightly wet.
Jacob said nothing.
With red-rimmed eyes, he only turned his face away.
Si-woo looked at him, then said nothing, and instead studied the face of the elderly Herald Kelly in the family portrait on the wall.
In the photo, Herald was smiling like a mischievous boy.
The sight warmed something in Si-woo’s chest.
***
After excusing himself from the Kelly family, Si-woo stepped outside and pulled up his contacts on his smartphone.
Secretary General Gwak Tae-woo of the Cultural Heritage Repatriation Foundation.
He pressed the call button at once.
It was early morning in Korea, but there was no time to waste.
The phone rang twice.
“Yes. This is Gwak Tae-woo.”
His voice was far clearer than Si-woo had expected.
He must have been up since the crack of dawn.
“Hello, Secretary General Gwak Tae-woo.”
“Yes. Appraiser Kim Si-woo. Calling at this hour as well, I see. Is something wrong?”
Si-woo composed his voice and spoke slowly.
“Secretary General. I received an appraisal request by email by chance this time. At first I thought it was just a simple tip, but...”
He paused briefly.
“After checking the photos, I realized it was an extraordinary artifact.”
“What kind of artifact?”
Gwak Tae-woo’s interest sharpened immediately.
Si-woo laid out the story step by step.
Gwak Tae-woo listened in silence.
He did not interrupt once.
Especially when Si-woo mentioned that it was Sejong the Great’s gold seal.
Breathing came sharply over the line.
“......”
“Secretary General? Are you all right?”
“I-Is that really true?”
His voice trembled so badly that Si-woo half worried something might actually be wrong.
“The gold seal from King Sejong’s enthronement? Good heavens! Most of them must have been lost during the Japanese invasions... No, that isn’t even the important part. Could you please tell me again in detail?”
Si-woo calmly explained Herald Kelly’s story.
The artifact recovered from the breast of a North Korean soldier during the Korean War.
The story of an American veteran who had kept it as a souvenir for his entire life.
Secretary General Gwak Tae-woo listened quietly, unwilling to miss a single word, and then finally spoke in a tightly restrained voice.
Si-woo told him he was in California and in the middle of discussing it there.
Gwak Tae-woo asked cautiously, “What do the owners say? Are they cooperative? If it’s true, we’ll have to bring it back even if it costs a great deal. We’re prepared to pay whatever they ask. I could even speak to them myself.”
“No. That won’t be necessary.”
“Pardon?”
“The owners aren’t looking for a large reward. In fact, they want the artifact to return to Korea.”
“You’re serious?”
“Yes. I met them in person and spoke with them. They said if it was Grandfather’s wish, he would certainly have wanted that.”
Gwak Tae-woo spoke slowly.
“Well now. That’s a relief. I never imagined things would go so smoothly. Of course, given the value of the artifact, if it’s confirmed as authentic, our foundation will provide compensation. We don’t want other people hesitating to contact us because they’re afraid they won’t be treated fairly. And we’ll get in touch with the American side so the export process for the cultural property can move forward smoothly.”
“For now, I’m planning to keep the preservation state intact and have Crosier Fine Art conduct a preliminary examination for basic authentication. Would that be all right?”
“Hah-hah-hah! Of course!”
Gwak Tae-woo broke into a hearty laugh.
Even through the receiver, the relief in his voice was unmistakable.
“If it’s Crosier, then it’s world-class. We can trust them. Please proceed that way. I appreciate the trouble you’re taking.”
“Thank you. I’ll keep reporting as things move forward.”
***
The gold seal was picked up by a Crosier Fine Art artifact transport vehicle and taken away.
When Si-woo entered the California branch, James Miller came walking out into the hallway to meet him.
The moment he saw him, James Miller let out a cheerful laugh.
“I think I see Appraiser Kim Si-woo more often than I see my own mother in Texas. Hahaha.”
“Is that so?”
“I heard about it this time. The treasure of the most famous king of the Joseon Dynasty, King Sejong, right?”
“It’s an artifact known as the gold seal. One of the items received when a ruler was formally enthroned. We’ll need to analyze it in detail first.”
James Miller wore a confident expression.
“Don’t worry. You know the equipment Crosier Fine Art has is second to none anywhere in the world.”
They went into the conservation room and examined the artifact.
Choi Min-ho stood behind them, carefully holding a camera.
After taking the artifact, James inspected the concrete surface closely and continued speaking.
“It was wrapped in oil paper, and then concrete was applied over it. Thanks to that, there’s almost certainly very little internal damage. In fact, it’s been preserved quite well. Let’s check it.”
The analysis proceeded in stages.
First, with high-energy industrial CT and X-ray imaging.
They identified the precise position of the gold plates inside the concrete down to the smallest detail.
The layered structure of the gold seal began to reveal itself.
Next came a compositional analysis of the concrete on the outside.
Traces and constituents of old concrete were displayed.
After several rounds of basic testing, James Miller pointed to another piece of equipment and went on explaining.
“This is a terahertz spectroscopy device. It’s one of the most closely watched technologies right now in archaeology and art authentication.”
Si-woo nodded lightly in agreement.
He had already seen it used once on Gwon Yul’s ancestral sword.
“X-rays don’t pass through metal; they bounce back. But terahertz waves pass through nonmetal materials like concrete or oil paper and reflect off the metal surface.”
James Miller slowly moved the device toward the artifact as he spoke.
“We measure the time it takes for the emitted wave to return. Where characters are engraved, the gold plate has been carved away, so the reflective point is deeper. That makes the return time microscopically longer. If you convert that time difference...”
James Miller paused for a moment.
“You can read the lettering engraved inside without ever touching the concrete once.”
Si-woo stood in front of the monitor.
The equipment slowly passed over the surface of the artifact.
As the recessed markings appeared one by one on the screen, their shape began to take form.
The blurry image grew sharper and sharper.
The engraved Chinese characters emerged one by one.
Si-woo began reading them quietly to himself, one after another.
[When I consider this matter, the royal ancestral shrine and altar are weighty beyond measure, and in transmitting the great lineage one must choose a worthy man.]
[Chungnyeong possesses a gentle and clear nature, and as he has devoted himself to learning, his intelligence grows ever brighter.]
[Since the hearts of the people have already turned to him, this is truly the virtue bestowed by Heaven.]
[Therefore I bestow upon him the seal and the gold certificate, and hereby enthrone him as king. May you preserve the ancestral line forever and nurture the hundred surnames.]
A sentence more than six hundred years old was being brought back to life right here, right now.
These were the words Taizong had left for Sejong.
The weight of their meaning needed no explanation.
Si-woo had seen countless artifacts until now.
But for a Korean, the value of this one could never be measured in ordinary terms.
It was the gold seal received by the greatest king in history when he ascended the throne.
“Can you read it?”
James Miller asked carefully.
Si-woo’s throat tightened with emotion, and he gave a few dry coughs.
Then he began to read slowly.
Everyone looked at one another in astonishment at the content.
Choi Min-ho, holding his breath, filmed the whole scene with his camera.