Welcome to the Land of Fantasy
Two years earlier, Hui-yeom had entrusted Michelangelo with crafting the sculptures and ornaments inside the Beijing flagship of Caffe the One and gone south alone to oversee the State-run Ironworks.
Until the dam-construction business summoned him back, Michelangelo left a string of masterpieces at the Beijing Caffe the One.
In those days Michelangelo turned out every sort of thing with a freedom that rivaled Leonardo da Vinci himself. He was no longer a craftsman chased by sponsors and forced to fulfill commissions; he was free to drag every idea that flashed through his mind into the real world. For a once-in-a-generation genius, that environment was intoxicating enough.
The problem was that all that surplus passion and invention ran a little wild.
As a result, no one could quite decide whether Caffe the One was a place to enjoy coffee while looking at sculpture and art, or a place one visited to look at sculpture and art and only happened to drink coffee on the side.
Conversations among first-time visitors usually ran something like this.
“Holy shit! That scared the hell out of me! Wh-what is that?!”
“Wahaha!! People who take one look at The Great Tiger’s Hunt and fall over flat never get old.”
“Th-that thing’s fake, right? It’s fake, yeah?”
The great tiger statue had been carved with such living force—every single hair, every muscle fiber showing beneath the hide—that even Paeng Sang of the Hebei Paeng Clan had muttered about “the realm of living blades.” Once it was fully painted, it simply looked like a living tiger.
Placing it right at the entrance under the cheerful label “Evil-Dispelling Statue”… was that the Italians’ peculiar brand of black comedy?
A guest who flinched at the snarling tiger the moment the door opened would step inside and find a tropical rainforest waiting to greet them.
A narrow corridor ran straight to the counter, packed with plants that grew in the tropics and created the illusion of walking through a jungle… except every one of those living-looking trees and plants was a sculpture or ornament.
“Holy crap…”
“So this is what they mean by the finishing touch that brings a painting to life?”
“You know that story about the guy who painted a pine tree on a wall and a sparrow flew into it and cracked its skull? I’m starting to think it might actually be true…”
“Shit! That scared me!!”
“What?!”
“Hehehehe!! Got you again!”
Guests already seated inside watched the newcomers jump in exactly the same spots they themselves had jumped, and snickered with gleeful malice.
Step on a certain floorboard and a huge spider puppet would swing down from the ceiling with a whoosh. Whether out of concern for people’s hearts or not, it was not especially realistic: a fluffy, deformed SD-style spider with amber beads for compound eyes, hugging a large placard.
— This is an elegant resting place for enjoying Caffa and tea!
— Look with your eyes only; please do not touch!
— If you are here for stock trading, please exit through the opposite corridor (still under preparation!)
— One order per person! You carry your own food here! That is the house rule—no arguments!
— If you think I’m cute, shout “Mi is the best!” to the staff when you order. Something good might happen…?
“Heh heh, well now, that’s curious and fun.”
“The spider doll’s adorable!”
Having been treated to a mild surprise, guests drifted naturally to the order counter, where a smiling attendant asked what they would like to drink.
Even after they ordered and received a number tag, plenty of surprises still lay between the counter and their seats.
If the stretch from entrance to counter was a jungle concept, the first-floor hall of Caffe the One felt like a vast studio divided into multiple conceptual zones.
“Whoa, that’s the one, right? Lü Bu and the three sworn brothers of Liu Bei trading blows in single combat! Looks like they’ll come charging right over here and clash weapons any second!”
“And that… is Xiang Yu uprooting a mountain? Hah, seeing it like this, the name ‘Strength to Uproot Mountains and Spirit to Cover the World’ really suits him. Look at those veins standing out…”
“No way—is that sweat on his brow actual water? I can’t believe it…”
A zone displaying the heroes of history—Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Chu-Han Contention, and more—locked in combat and contest.
“Xiao He, Zhang Liang… so it’s not only the Seven Sages.”
“What’s this? Isn’t that Cao Zhi’s Seven-Pace Poem?”
“Judging by the bulging forehead, this unimpressive fellow must be Confucius. Heh heh, seeing him like this feels rather strange.”
“And this handsome man holding a feather fan—no need to look twice: Zhuge Liang.”
“The man opposite him, riding a carriage and barking orders… Sima Zhongda? Was Zhongda really this good-looking?”
“Whoa, this one… there’s no mistaking it. The Great Sage Equal to Heaven, Sun Wukong!”
“But… how on earth did they make it? He’s planted that stretched-out Ruyi Staff in the ground and just floating there in mid-air?”
The Sun Wukong statue in particular was the very emblem of the art of balance. The figure, staff elongated and braced against the floor, did not topple; it hung in place at a perfect equilibrium point, radiating dynamic motion.
Beyond him appeared every sort of beast from myth and legend—everything, that is, except the dragon that symbolized the Emperor and the imperial house.
And the crowning jewel among them was none other than the phoenix statue.
Everyone who saw the great phoenix cradling an egg in the center of the hall stopped dead as if nailed to the spot, unable to suppress their awe.
“Th-that…”
“Hahh… a wondrous thing indeed…”
—Piiieeeeeek…!!!
A decorative statue of a phoenix with wings spread wide, brooding over a massive egg. Beneath the nest sat a steam engine: sealed until the water boiled, then, once pressure built past a threshold, the outlet was forced open and steam rushed through a perforated bronze pipe, producing the cry of the phoenix.
The egg the phoenix cradled was already, in itself, an exquisitely delicate Fabergé egg. Through the hands of the peerless genius Michelangelo, the Imperial Eggs once famed in the Russian court had become ornaments still more luxurious and beautiful.
Yet somehow—whatever he had done inside—a crimson glow of firelight seeped from within the egg. Through deliberately left holes and cracks the red aura rose like heat haze, as though the egg might hatch at any moment.
And the true masterpiece was the phoenix’s eyes and plumage. The eyes were carbide lamps that cast a living glare; every single feather of the wings was a stained-glass shard crafted one by one by the Tang Clan’s glassmaster Niccolo.
The phoenix statue lifting those five-colored, radiant wings was sublime in itself and seized every gaze in the room.
Order number eighteen, your beverages are ready.
While guests stood dazed, staring at the phoenix and the other exhibition zones, a voice calling for customers and the chime of a bell would float down from the sound-pipes installed in the ceiling. Only then would they snap out of it, scramble to the counter, take the tray of tea and food, and hurry back to their seats.
After they had walked back and forth and seen every display in the hall, they themselves became the mischievous audience, laughing at the newcomers who startled at the tiger by the entrance—just as earlier guests had once laughed at them.
It was no idle fancy that Hui-yeom, looking at the place, had thought of the theme parks of future Shanghai Disneyland.
Of course the scale was smaller than a future theme park, and there were no rides or electrical gadgets of any kind, so in many ways it was simpler. Yet compared with the sets of “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Little Mermaid,” or “Aladdin” made of plastic and synthetic resin, the exhibition hall into which Michelangelo and the other artisans had poured their very souls possessed—well—something that might be called dignity, or the cultural stature of a human heritage, or simply price: in every respect it stood overwhelmingly higher.
At least to Hui-yeom, a man of the future, this side was several times more astonishing.
They’re hanging celestial-maiden statues from the ceiling and moving them with steam turbines so they look alive?
In the kitchen of Caffe the One, water was boiling. Steam generated by the great cauldron that heated water for coffee and tea rose to the third floor of the shop and connected to a special apparatus in the center of the hall ceiling. Naturally a coffee-water cauldron alone could never drive so vast a device, so the heat-engine room (boiler room) underground pushed up the extra steam as needed.
Steam spun a turbine; the connected drive shaft turned; gears turned. Then the metal rods linked to those gears moved, and the celestial-maiden statues attached to them glided forward as though flying across the sky. When they reached the end, the gears reversed and the maidens returned to their original positions.
Viewed together with the painted Milky Way on the ceiling, they looked exactly like the Weaver Girl crossing the Magpie Bridge. On the opposite side, of course, a painted-looking Jade Youth moved as if coming out to meet her.
The Cowherd and Weaver Girl myth staging a rendezvous on a coffee-shop ceiling, with steampunk technique, feat. Michelangelo… If you’re going to go crazy, at least go crazy with style.
To a man of the future it was merely a luxury that drew a hollow laugh. Naturally the people of this age found the stimulus far stronger.
While Hui-yeom stood lost in the spectacle, Sama Yun and U-ju—who had spent a long while racing about, shouting and sightseeing—returned and spoke.
“Isn’t Chief Mi a genius? He’s really incredible!”
“I have to admit it. Feels a bit over-engineered… no, a bit too much effort put in, but I wouldn’t dare touch anything for fear of breaking it.”
“Daddy! Daddy! There’s a snake over there!”
“Hm? Oh my goodness.”
A thin string was tied to one staff member’s ankle, and a snake dangling from the string looked for all the world as if it were chasing the employee. Anyone could see it was a puppet so that people would not panic from the illusion, yet for the little guests it made a thoroughly entertaining sight.
The attendant, as if realizing U-ju was talking about him, grinned, then pretended to glance down in confusion, cried “Uwaak?! That scared me!” and began hopping about comically as though fleeing the snake.
U-ju and the other small children scattered around the hall burst into peals of laughter.
Hui-yeom smiled, yet he filed a mental audit note that the staff really ought not to do that sort of thing—bumping into other guests or kicking up dust.
Thus the Beijing flagship of Caffe the One had long since become one of the capital’s greatest attractions, overflowing with art and spectacle, and business was of course booming.
After a pleasant time at Caffe the One, Hui-yeom and his party, guided by a high official who was to become director of the stock exchange, opened a door at the far end of one of the café’s corridors.
“Ohh…”
If on the other side of a single door lay a playground where fairy tales and romance, myths and legends still lived and breathed, this place felt like a temple: quiet water murmuring, the atmosphere still and composed.
Dark, nearly black-purple rosewood tables that looked expensive at a glance; where a giant LED screen showing securities prices would one day hang, an enormous wooden board filled an entire wall, bristling with protruding plaques and rings that served the same purpose. Along one side, twenty windows for currency exchange and trading business stood in a neat row, for all the world like the ticket windows at a racetrack.
“Hmm…”
After looking around, Hui-yeom spoke to the director.
“The interior is finished, I see.”
“Yes. Once the related statutes are complete, we can open at once.”
“I see…”
Hui-yeom gave a small smile.
“I look forward to it.”
The stock market—the very symbol and flower of capitalism. The day when it would finally show its face in the Central Plains was not far off.