The Matriarch's Three Lost Children
"Come in."
The man who greeted Kang-to at the front door was Lee Tae-seop. Apart from the housekeeper, there was no one else in sight. Had everyone vanished because they knew the awkward guest was coming? Or had Chairman Lee given them instructions to clear out?
"Wait here."
After offering Kang-to the sofa, Lee Tae-seop strode toward the stairs leading to the second floor.
"Mother."
At the foot of the stairs, he called upward, and a reply drifted back down.
"Has he arrived?"
"Yes."
"I'm coming down."
A low voice, but a voice with steel in it. And a moment later, as though she'd stepped down from some other world, an elegant woman in her eighties who looked no older than fifty descended the stairs. She was unlike anyone Kang-to had ever seen on the island.
"......?"
Kang-to stared. She had the poise of an elegant matriarch straight out of a foreign film, the kind of woman so refined she seemed capable of enchanting anyone who looked at her. Song Ji-na stood before him.
"So you're Lee Kang-to?"
Her firm voice aimed straight at him. What made Song Ji-na's elegance even more striking was the jewelry she wore. Starting with a necklace that looked simple but expensive, her earrings and rings flashed with the proud gleam of something precious.
But Kang-to wasn't spellbound for that reason.
He had seen the heir spirits.
Because their outlines were so faint, it was clear they had died before reaching five months in the womb. And there were three of them. They clung to Song Ji-na's shoulders and wrists, wearing eerie little smiles.
Still, even that wasn't the real reason he had gone so still. Before he realized it, Kang-to had pierced straight through to the root of Song Ji-na's fate, and the mismatch he found there was what made him tremble.
▮▮▮▮▯
It was good. Overall, it was close to the very best. But there was a problem in her youth.
He went deeper into that problem. She had three children. All three were sons. Those sons had become the heir spirits clinging to her now.
This?
Kang-to's gaze slid to the man who was his biological father.
Three heir spirits.
And Chairman Lee Tae-seop.
Put together, that made four. That was the problem.
Then what, exactly, was Chairman Lee's existence supposed to be?
"You say your job is shaman?"
The first question came with an insolent look. His voice carried contempt as well.
"Yes."
Kang-to was not the sort to cower. He lifted his eyes and answered with calm humility.
"And your mother was a shaman too?"
"My grandmother was a shaman."
He pushed one step further. A shaman was not just anyone's trade. It was something only those chosen by the gods could do. From the standpoint of faith, it made shamans blessed clergy.
"Do you have a photo of your mother?"
"I do, but—"
"Show it to me."
"Tell me why first."
That was Kang-to's answer. If Song Ji-na had been kind, he might have shown her without hesitation. But she still carried herself with that same haughty arrogance, and he had no desire to become a puppet nodding yes and obeying every order before such a person.
Chaebol wealth was a tremendous fortune.
But Kang-to had the fortune of the gods.
He had received the descent of the Supreme Heavenly God himself. That was not power that bowed before wealth.
"Chairman Lee told me he had an illegitimate child. He asked that the child be entered into the family register... which would make him part of our family, wouldn't it? Then we need to know his roots."
"My mother is dead."
"Even so, his roots remain."
"If this is about family registration, then it's my legal right."
Kang-to's eyes sharpened.
In truth, it was exactly the scene he had expected. Song Ji-na was the power behind one of South Korea's great families, the Cheonjo Group. She could hardly be pleased by the sudden appearance of an illegitimate son. More than that, an illegitimate child was still entitled to inherit. For people who already had so much, that was one of the most troublesome things imaginable.
"Your right?"
"Yes."
"Your name is Lee Kang-to?"
"Yes."
"Our family is not an ordinary family. We're not the sort of people who casually toss anyone onto the family register."
"I'm not just anyone."
"You think you qualify?"
"Isn't that why you had me brought here?"
"I hear you're already old enough to have a child of your own. What a shabby family that must be..."
"And yet I registered my daughter properly instead of making her an illegitimate child."
Kang-to's rebuttal landed like a rebuke aimed straight at Chairman Lee.
"How insolent..."
Song Ji-na's eyes hardened. She fixed him with that gaze, then rose with elegant composure.
"Enough. Give him some cab fare and send him back."
Leaving the words behind, Song Ji-na turned away. Kang-to caught her wrist.
"What do you think you're doing?"
There was a knife-edge in Song Ji-na's eyes. He placed a small note into her hand.
"Read it."
"......?"
Song Ji-na's proud gaze skimmed the note.
And then waves began to stir in her eyes. Kang-to saw straight through the heart of that disturbance. Shock and confusion flooded Song Ji-na's pupils. A woman who had stood with the poise of a titan in the world of high society was, before a divination that pierced destiny, nothing more than an old woman.
"......"
Her gaze returned to Kang-to. She was holding herself together with sheer habit, but her teeth had already begun to chatter, and her shoulders were convulsing too.
"Mother..."
Chairman Lee, too, looked utterly shaken by the sudden turn of events.
"Then..."
With perfect propriety, Kang-to turned away, solemn and steady.
"Wait."
Song Ji-na's impatience shot after him.
"Come with me. Chairman Lee stays here."
After tossing out the order in a voice gone tight with urgency, Song Ji-na drew a deep breath and climbed the stairs.
"What was that?"
Chairman Lee seized Kang-to by the arm.
"What did you write on that note?"
"You can ask Chairman Lee yourself."
"......?"
"May I go up?"
Kang-to asked, but Chairman Lee could not answer. Kang-to walked past him and stepped onto the first stair.
The note?
A chill smile brushed Kang-to's mouth.
[Is this really the first time you’ve had an illegitimate child?]
That was the note's message. Kang-to's divine divination was working perfectly, even in the lion's den.
The second floor seemed to be Song Ji-na's office as well as her bedroom.
Unlike the floor below, this was a space that opened out into the freer, more flamboyant world of a jewelry designer and a global celebrity. The walls were covered with photographs—pictures taken with world-famous figures such as the President of the United States, Musk, and Buffett, as well as with many of South Korea's own most powerful names.
They were all part of Song Ji-na's network. And the number of women was beyond counting too: former first ladies, and even the wives of chaebol heads who moved through society as public figures in their own right.
"Do you know anyone in here?"
Song Ji-na stood before the photographs.
That's me.
A person you couldn't even dare to look straight at.
Before the evidence of all those photographs, Song Ji-na's pride glittered like a jewel.
"I know three of them, but I won't say who because of work confidentiality."
Kang-to answered. He wasn't bluffing; among the photos were Gong Guk-hui, Hong Young-ja, and Cho Chul-woong with his wife.
"Confidentiality... What a convenient answer."
"Fortune-telling is life consulting. I can't just disclose a client's request to anyone."
Song Ji-na lifted the note.
"And this note. What does it mean?"
"I'm sure you understand it better than I do."
"So that was a little probe?"
"If you want a divine reading, you have to pay the divination fee."
"And you dare to run a business on me?"
"It's only fair that effort be paid for."
"Fine. Let's hear it, then. If you're right, I'll pay."
"It's ten million won per item. Clients who hear a reading tend to talk afterward, you see."
"Money doesn't matter."
Song Ji-na leaned back into the deep sofa. Crossing her long legs and resting both arms on the armrests, she still looked every inch the imposing matriarch despite her age. On the table in front of her lay jewelry design drafts and photographs of dozens of models. She was probably preparing for a jewelry fashion show.
"An illegitimate child."
Kang-to began with the key point. Only when Song Ji-na's gaze settled on him did he continue.
"You had three children."
"......?"
"One was lost in the womb, and the other two died before they could properly see the light of day."
"......?"
Again and again, Kang-to's divine strike landed, and Song Ji-na's face twitched.
"You seem to be skeptical, so I'll be specific: there are three heir spirits attached to you. One is faint, while two have defined shapes. The faint one is the spirit of a human child who died before the fetus was fully formed."
"Hey."
"I haven't finished my divination yet."
"......"
"Because of that, your right shoulder and lower back are cold and painful. The hospital won't be able to diagnose it. It's not a medical illness. It's because the two stillborn children are attached to your shoulders, and the miscarried baby is attached to your lower back."
"......"
"Those three children are all the children fate ever gave you. But add Chairman Lee Tae-seop downstairs, and that makes four. So if the biological father of the man downstairs is not your illegitimate child, then what else could he be?"
"......?"
Song Ji-na's patience crossed its limit. She did not merely sway now; she shuddered violently. The tremors ran from her shoulders down into her hands.
Drrr. Drrr. Drrr.
She tried hard to hold it in, but even her will could not restrain the spirit attached to her body.
The divination had struck home.
It was Song Ji-na's past.
In the Lee family, heirs were precious. It was enough that her mother-in-law had agreed to the marriage after looking at Song Ji-na's hips and waist. The fact that Song Ji-na's own family produced many children had helped too.
But fate was cruel. Her two older sisters had enjoyed abundant luck with children, each giving birth to three sons and four sons respectively, while Song Ji-na herself was not so fortunate.
Her first pregnancy ended in miscarriage.
She had cherished the child too dearly. The second time, she followed standard prenatal care. But just after the birth, she ran into a hidden disaster. The baby died two days after being born. The third time, relying on all the know-how she had gathered, she gave birth successfully. That time, sudden death swallowed the baby anyway.
Three tries, three losses.
The shock had been enormous. She developed a fear of pregnancy and could never bear another child.
It was the early 1970s, when family lineage was still everything. So her mother-in-law came up with a drastic measure: an adoption hidden behind the pretext of Song Ji-na going abroad to study.
"You don't mean to let the Lee family line die out, do you?"
"......"
"Go to Paris, study jewelry design for a year or two, and come back with a baby."
Her mother-in-law, who sold imported jewelry independent of her husband's business, was a sharp woman herself.
Song Ji-na had always liked jewelry work, so the excuse fit. Her mother-in-law suggested that if they were going to adopt a son, they should do it in a way that would not show. That was how Lee Tae-seop had been secretly adopted.
An adopted son.
He was no different from an illegitimate child.
Song Ji-na returned three years later. When she came home, her mother-in-law held out a baby of three months old. Since everything had been arranged by her mother-in-law, Song Ji-na followed through with the plan.
The pain in her waist and shoulders matched Kang-to's divination exactly.
No treatment she received helped for more than a moment. Because she traveled so often for work overseas, she'd even seen doctors in the United States and Japan.
There is nothing seriously wrong with you. It seems nervous in origin, so rest should help.
Every diagnosis was more or less the same. She hurt, but no medical explanation ever appeared.
She had never told anyone about it. Yet Kang-to said it out loud. It was so precise that she couldn't even summon the will to object.
"You..."
Song Ji-na, struck head-on by the divination, could only make her throat tremble.
"Three children and two painful spots. That'll be a fifty-million-won offering."
"What on earth..."
"I hear you have some prejudices against shamans."
"Well, all of South Korea—"
"Mrs. Song Ji-na... you're a world-famous jewelry designer. In other words, you're someone who works in a creative field. I'm disappointed that a person like you would hold such confirmation-biased thinking."
"What was that?"
"People who have prejudices against shamans do exist. But if you're someone who works in a creative field, shouldn't you avoid generalizing from prejudice? Aren't you someone who respects inspiration yourself, ma'am?"
"Lee Kang-to."
"A shaman is a profession that has continued for five thousand years. Historically, there were times when shamans were honored by the state, and times when they were shunned for their flaws. In the middle of all that, people like to point to a few fraudulent practitioners as proof and sneer and dismiss the whole field. But every group has people who go astray. There are politicians, lawyers, educators, scientists, and even clerics who commit dog-like acts just to satisfy their own desires. Isn't that true?"
"Oh?"
"Any more questions?"
"You sound awfully confident."
"It's the pride of the spirit that has descended into me."
"If you're so confident, then tell me who among the models here will be the main one."
Song Ji-na held out the model photos. At a glance, there seemed to be around ten of them. The look in her eyes began to shine again. What Kang-to had been right about so far belonged to the past.
Fortune-telling is good at getting the past right.
At eighty, Song Ji-na knew that much.
"This one."
Kang-to made his pick from the third photo, and it took him less than a second to decide.
"I knew it."
A cold smile flickered at the corner of Song Ji-na's mouth.
"Sorry, but the main model of this jewelry fashion show is this girl, Han Ji-yu."
Song Ji-na's choice was the first photo.
"I'm sorry too, but this woman will not be appearing on your fashion-show stage."
"What did you say?"
"Because she's not a living person."
"What?"
"Feel free to check."
"Shall we make it a bet?"
"Gladly. What's at stake?"
"If I win, then the family registration thing for your illegitimate child never happened. Instead, I'll set aside one billion won so you can even build a house on the island."
"And if I win?"
"Then you'll pay the fifty-million-won offering and go through with the family registration."
"Those are both already scheduled outcomes, so they can't be part of the bet."
"Then what do you want?"
"Truthfully, I had no particular desire to be acknowledged as an illegitimate child. I still don't. But the people on this side are vicious with their territorial bullying and discrimination, so I think I'll need a guardian."
"You're telling me to be your guardian?"
"If he's registered in the family, wouldn't that make him a new grandson? Chairman Lee here is an adopted son with no blood relation at all. If you raised one child, couldn't you raise two?"
"You little—"
Song Ji-na sprang to her feet, flaring up.
She was in her eighties, yes, but she was still the formidable woman who had built Cheonjo Group and stood at the center of global high society. She remained the shadow power behind the entire Cheonjo empire, and her presence was anything but ordinary.
But Kang-to had received the divine descent of the Supreme Heavenly God. Even if his opponent was a chaebol above chaebols, he was not the sort to be shaken.
"Instead, I'll give you two bonuses."
"Bonuses?"
"First, the fifty-million-won offering becomes a free service. And the matter of Chairman Lee's illegitimate child, which you have kept hidden your whole life..."
Kang-to cut the word in half, then let a breath pass before continuing.
"I'll keep that secret too. At least for as long as you live."
"How dare you..."
"Well, if you win, there shouldn't be any problem, should there?"
"Fine. Let's see just how amazing you really are."
Song Ji-na picked up her phone.
"Call Han Ji-yu."
When she spoke into the speaker, the call started ringing.
Tru-rururu. Tru-rururu.
Because the room had gone so quiet, the ringing sounded as loud as the village chief's announcement over a loudspeaker.
"Honestly, in all my years..."
When there was no response, Song Ji-na hit redial. Her eyes still looked offended by Kang-to's provocation, as if she meant to remember it forever.
"Why isn't she answering? Did she hook up with some second-generation chaebol sponsor and crawl into a hotel already?"
Just as she was about to dial again, the phone rang back.
"Oh, Eunseo, what is it?"
"Grandmother, did you see that news?"
"What news?"
"Han Ji-yu—the woman you were going to make the main model for this jewelry fashion show. She was just found dead at her home, apparently by suicide."
"......?"