The Original Gold Rush
The very next day after I sent the video, Director Bang Jingyu's acceptance message came through.
He wanted to take on the project himself.
Apparently, just as I'd guessed, his biggest concern had been whether I could cleanly bring his envisioned imagery to life.
"Seriously, if that's the case, you should have just called a meeting first."
It seemed he was a more cautious man than his appearance suggested — much like Uncle Chan-soo's assessment that he was unexpectedly timid for someone with his look.
"And the meeting and contract signing are in three days."
With the commander at the helm decided, the appearance contract and related meetings were scheduled for three days later.
This meeting was quite important, because we'd agreed to discuss the casting of the other actors as well.
The appearance contract itself was nothing special, but who got cast in this drama mattered a great deal to me too.
It would determine, right away, who'd be acting alongside me.
The writer, the investors, the production company, and the PD would each have their own casting ideas, so I expected some fairly heated debate.
"Not that I have any intention of voicing an opinion."
Honestly, I wasn't sure why they'd bothered inviting me to this meeting in the first place.
I didn't know any actors well, and there was no one I particularly objected to.
Brutally frank as it may sound, even if Jo Yooshin joined this drama, it wouldn't trouble me in the slightest.
No one would expect me to contribute anything brilliant anyway.
So the plan was simple: stamp my contract, quietly watch which factions wanted which actors, and mind my own business.
The very next day after Director Bang Jingyu was decided as this production's PD, the final script that Cheon Yua and Yang Yuri had agonized over all night was finally complete.
Just how many rounds of revision had it gone through?
According to Yang Yuri, after revision upon revision, the finished product ended up almost identical in form to the very first draft.
So in the end, all that circling led right back to the starting point?
Apparently, the parts Yang Yuri had reluctantly cut for the sake of realism were restored to their original state once Cheon Yua came on board, and that's how it turned out.
This was the original form of Joseon Gold Rush itself.
What kind of work was the Joseon Gold Rush that Yang Yuri had originally dreamed of?
"So I read it and... it's a completely different show."
The core story of the Joseon Gold Rush that had aired as a drama was about Bison Choi, a machine engineering student studying abroad in Russia, and Nam Seok-ju, a baekjeong from Joseon, who secretly mined the Unsan Gold Mine together.
Along the way they had to fend off Chinese and Japanese prospectors also after the mine, not to mention the monsters lurking nearby — an absolute circus of a party.
And in the end, didn't the Joseon imperial court get involved too?
Chaos erupted everywhere, but ultimately the two protagonists secured the mining rights to the Unsan Gold Mine, and that successful conclusion to the gold rush was how the drama ended.
There was nothing soft or romantic about it, but protecting the mine from China, from Japan, and from monsters while watching the imperial court's every move gave the secret mining a wonderfully tense, chewy quality.
People love doing things on the sly, after all.
And if that something is gold? Well, it's material guaranteed to make your heart pound.
I remember feeling an odd sense of satisfaction every time the gold bars the protagonists snuck out slowly piled up.
Even though none of it was my gold.
But with Lee Myung and Violet added, the story transformed completely.
Violet, an investigator dispatched by the Arcane Goldberg Company — holders of the Unsan Gold Mine's mining rights — made an official request to the Joseon court and brought Lee Myung, the sovereign's illegitimate son, into the survey team.
The two joining forces to develop the Unsan Gold Mine was this drama's core story.
As things unfolded that way, the original protagonists lost their positions.
To be sure, Violet and Lee Myung recruited Bison Choi and Nam Seok-ju into the survey team to help explore the mine, but those two characters were relegated to major supporting roles.
The existing plot — Japan, Qing China, and the monsters getting in the way — stayed intact, but with entirely different protagonists, it wouldn't be wrong to call it a completely different drama from the old one.
"Looking at it laid out like this, it's absurd. No way, right?"
Back in her Shin-gyo days, Yayul Hee had despised the Namgoong Clan more than any other orthodox sect.
No particular reason — she just said she hated them.
And this character, Nam Seok-ju...
The owner of Changcheon Group is Namgoong Seok-ju. Same name.
Even the surname Nam felt deliberate.
On top of that, this character's background is that of a baekjeong — the lowest caste, butchers.
Was there something oddly, suspiciously malicious about this?
It struck me as ridiculous enough that I asked if she had some kind of grudge against Changcheon Group, but apparently not.
Only after I pointed it out did she go, "Oh, really? That's Namgoong Seok-ju? Could this be a problem?" — so it clearly hadn't been intentional.
I also didn't think it would become an actual issue, so I let it pass as coincidence.
But knowing the Murim's Yayul Hee, I couldn't help wondering if she was feeling some instinctive aversion.
"Instinctive, huh. Maybe this story, too..."
Another reason these thoughts crept in was the story of Lee Myung and Wol-hee.
In the version without Violet — the first revision, where Lee Myung was added — Lee Myung and Wol-hee enjoyed a lovely romance that ended in a happy ending.
In the final version with Violet, their story comes to a rather bitter end.
And this story was one I couldn't help but find deeply familiar, which put me in a strange mood.
Even Yayul Hee herself knew it, which made it all the stranger.
Of course, I knew better than anyone that it was coincidence, but really, how do I put this.
"Bitter. It's bitter."
"What's suddenly so bitter?"
"Ah, Yua sunbae."
Good grief, she startled me.
I was biting my lip over a bittersweet old memory when Cheon Yua, as usual, appeared from behind and caught me.
The more I observed her, the more impressive her ambush instincts became.
And her footsteps were so light that the moment you let your guard down even slightly, you couldn't detect her approach at all.
Which meant that when you were lost in thought, as I was now, you were simply doomed.
"Ah ha, you're reading the script. What do you think? I liked it."
"Yes, I thought it was good too. It's just..."
"Just what?"
"I'm a little hung up on Lee Myung and Wol-hee not getting a happy ending."
"Oh, that."
"Did you happen to hear anything about it?"
"I heard it was written with a second season in mind."
"Ah, a second season?"
"Yes. The male and female leads are a two-top pairing, but there's no romance between them at all."
"That... is true. The male lead's romance belongs to Wol-hee."
"And that's the trigger for the second season."
"Ah... ah, I see."
Reading this script, you feel no romantic undercurrent between the protagonist Lee Myung and Violet.
To be sure, their bond as comrades rises with every episode, but that's closer to a bromance than a romance.
Considering that in most Korean dramas, where there's a male and female lead, romance follows, it was a somewhat novel approach.
In other words, Yang Yuri intended to let the romance between her two leads bloom in a second season.
"So this is buildup."
"Exactly."
"And if you think about Wol-hee's final fate... the second season..."
"I'd imagine so, yes."
If my hunch was right, and this drama did air a second season, the setting would most likely be America.
According to the setting, America is far more advanced than Joseon, overflowing with magnificent steampunk marvels.
If the first season succeeded and a second one set in America went up on an OTT platform, the reception would likely be pretty spectacular too.
"A rather shrewd gambit. And it holds up logically."
"I thought so too. Of course, whether season two actually gets made depends on how things go."
If she'd calculated the story that way from the start, then I suppose it was best to erase my pointless suspicions?
This kind of storytelling isn't exactly rare, after all.
There was still an unsettled feeling in my gut, but connecting my memories of Murim to this and sighing over it was something I ought to avoid.
After all, it was all in the past now — something that could never be undone.
Two days flew by in a blink as Cheon Yua and I ran lines with the finished script.
And then we sat down to a meeting with the people from Phoenix Studio, including Director Bang Jingyu.
The venue was the Flame Entertainment building.
Since the discussion promised to run long, we needed somewhere we could talk quietly for hours, and in the end it was decided the Phoenix side would come to us.
"Pleasure to meet you."
"I hope the trip here wasn't too much trouble..."
"Not at all. The building is so distinctive, it was impossible to miss."
"Glad to hear it."
Three people visited from Phoenix.
Director Bang Jingyu, now the production's overall lead (though since this was a drama, PD would be the more fitting title), plus one production administrator and one finance administrator.
The amusing twist was that this production's administrator turned out to be none other than Uncle Chan-soo.
Small world, truly.
The uncle I used to run into now and then at my father's shop suddenly popping up as the production manager was a rather novel experience for me.
Of course, this was a professional setting with no reason to introduce personal feelings, so I didn't let on that we knew each other.
"Let's start by reviewing the actors' contracts. First, actress Cheon Yua. Ah, would the others mind stepping out for a moment..."
"That won't be necessary. I already know all the terms."
The first thing we checked was the actors' guarantees — their pay.
Truthfully, Team Leader Seo had already walked me through this part.
My guarantee was set at a base of 500 per episode — very high for a rookie, absurdly low for a lead. That kind of price.
I had no complaints.
Rookies almost never step straight into lead roles to begin with, and I knew full well that even when they did, it didn't amount to serious money.
Realistically speaking, 500 per episode for my résumé was actually a generous deal.
"And besides, the base pay isn't the whole of it."
On top of that, this contract came with some substantial bonus clauses.
For TV broadcasts, there were bonuses tied to viewership ratings; for OTT, bonuses tied to rankings.
It was all a bit complicated, but the bottom line was a contract that could scale up to 5,000 per episode — bigger than it first appeared.
Of course, that ceiling required either ratings above 30 percent or a number-one ranking in every country where the OTT platform was available.
For someone like me, who firmly and unshakably believed this drama would deliver meaningful results, there wasn't a single reason to refuse.
"Are you truly certain these terms are acceptable?"
"Of course. I proposed them myself."
"But one hundred million per episode for Cheon Yua?"
"There are options, aren't there?"
"Still, this is..."
The funny thing was, Cheon Yua had also proposed a contract loaded with bonus options, just like mine.
Male actors typically command higher guarantees than their female counterparts, but in Cheon Yua's case, she operated on another level entirely.
For someone of her stature to sign for a mere 100 million per episode actually flustered the other side.
To be fair, her bonuses were just as staggering — if she matched my conditions, hers could jump to 500 million — but Cheon Yua being Cheon Yua, with the right project she could easily rake in three to four hundred million even without the options.
Seeing how much Cheon Yua walked away with once this production wrapped would be an entertaining spectacle in its own right.
"Very good. Now, let's look at the roles. As expected, the casting is where things get tricky..."
Once the contracts were settled, we moved straight on to casting.
After all, this was the single biggest reason everyone had gathered here today.
I intended to sit back and listen quietly no matter what opinions anyone offered.
But then—
"Never mind the rest — for Nam Seok-ju, I'd like Nam Hyunho."
"...Actor Nam Hyunho, you say?"
From the very start, a figure emerged that made my brow furrow.
Come on, Yang Yuri. Nam Hyunho? Are you sure this is right?
What exactly are you trying to film here?