A Deal with the Grand Matriarch
Lee Kang-to’s photograph was the last to be pushed forward, past Lee Hyung-wook, then Lee Eun-seo, and finally Eun Jeong-mi, before it came to rest in front of Lee Tae-seop.
That was Kang-to’s conclusion.
“Your basis?”
Song Ji-na asked with a single word. Kang-to took out two talismans.
“Please excuse me for a moment.”
He placed one talisman on Song Ji-na’s right shoulder and the other at her waist. Then, with reverent solemnity, he entered the state of spirit possession.
“Close your eyes.”
“......”
“What do you see?”
“It’s all black. Nothing at all.”
“It’s not just black.”
“There’s... something clumped together? Two lumps?”
“Focus a little more.”
“......?”
As Song Ji-na concentrated, she startled violently. Just as Kang-to had said, they were not mere lumps. Something was moving inside them. When she looked more closely, she saw two translucent children, their faces twisted with anger.
“Two angry children.”
“There should be something else.”
“Something else?”
As she sharpened her gaze, a smaller child came into view. That one was crying. And then...
[Mom]
The three children cried out together in resonance. Mom, mom, mom. Three voices pushed into Song Ji-na’s unconscious.
Mom?
Only then did she understand. These children, trembling with a faint, aching sorrow, were the stillborn and miscarried children of Song Ji-na.
My God.
Ice formed along Song Ji-na’s spine. At the same time, every hair on her body stood on end.
[Mom]
The children’s spirits drew near. Resentment and grief rippled through their eyes. Their gaze seemed about to pierce straight through Song Ji-na’s own, and Kang-to’s possession broke there like lightning.
“Open your eyes.”
“......?”
Song Ji-na swayed. She was still in the shrine hall, but her body felt as though she had just come out of a shower, drenched through.
“This...?”
“You never really saw your own children’s faces, did you?”
“......”
“Were they like the faces you imagined during your pregnancies?”
“Pregnancy...”
Drip.
A tear fell onto the back of Song Ji-na’s trembling hand.
Memories came flooding back from the days when she had been a bride fairer than flower petals, though now she was old and lined with wrinkles: the times she had gone out to look for baby clothes and birth supplies for the child she was expecting.
She had been happy.
The little faces she had imagined while folding and smoothing the baby garments.
But.
The children she had sent away without ever seeing their faces, without ever nursing them at her breast. The guilt and sorrow of a mother she had never been able to confess to anyone broke open like a dike.
Even a heroic woman cries.
Because she is a mother.
“Those babies remained as Taejagwi because they were unable to let go of that lingering attachment, but through their mother’s tears, they have now been sent on.”
“......”
“If you want scientific proof, then your shoulder and your waist should no longer hurt.”
“......?”
Song Ji-na jerked again.
It was true. Her shoulder, which had ached with an unpleasant tug whenever she moved, the one that had felt sore and knotted for no reason at all, was completely fine.
The same with her lower back. The pain that had occasionally flared like a burn and spread down behind her shins and even to the soles of her feet had vanished as if it had never existed.
Ding.
Song Ji-na’s temples tightened.
No matter how capable one was, the result made even that kind of suspicion feel impudent.
“Would that be proof enough?”
“......”
Song Ji-na gathered herself.
She was a woman of steel.
After returning from her studies in Paris, she had taken over her mother-in-law’s jewelry shop. It had been a bargain struck in exchange for the adoption of a son.
That bargain had worked, and she had gone on to enter the world of jewelry in earnest. Her credentials from Paris, combined with South Korea’s number one jewelry house, had easily lifted her beyond the level of her mother-in-law.
Everything had been smooth sailing, except for the fact that her husband had died young.
Leveraging the global network she had built through jewelry, she had even grown close to political power, and before she knew it Song Ji-na had become known as a woman who stood above the world.
With that momentum, she expanded the founding company of what had once belonged to her father-in-law, Cheonjo Group. Her network in China was formidable as well, so even when everyone else was taking a beating, Cheonjo Group’s local Chinese operations held steady. That had been Song Ji-na’s doing.
A woman of steel who never lost her dignity in front of anyone, including her adopted son Lee Tae-seop.
And yet.
Kang-to was different. At a glance, he looked like any ordinary man in his late twenties.
But when those unreadable eyes looked straight through her, every time their gazes met her chest gave an involuntary jolt. And what about the divine messages he delivered through those eyes and that mouth? Not once, not twice, not three times, but every single pronouncement had struck with uncanny accuracy; calling it a deity’s descent would not have been an exaggeration.
Thump.
Song Ji-na’s heart beat on its own.
When she first learned of this illegitimate son, she had been uncomfortable. There had also been righteous anger toward Chairman Lee for causing a disturbance through his own poor judgment.
Now.
At this moment, things were different.
- The young shaman Lee Kang-to.
- A thirty-year-old? No, twenty-eight, with a seven-year-old daughter, and a remarkably unusual character.
- A prophetic accuracy of almost 100 percent.
This was...
A treasure.
Just as Kang-to had said, this was not her first time dealing with an illegitimate child. What’s more, he was already complete as he was; he didn’t need investment or cultivation.
The ability to foresee human destiny, something even AI could not solve.
For Cheonjo Group, that meant investment advisory, consulting, corporate diagnosis, human resources management... For Song Ji-na, it could encompass network management, fashion shows, model management, and everything in between.
Haah.
Song Ji-na’s pulse quickened.
“.....”
Kang-to could see through her as well. She was a woman blessed with wealth, people, and family fortune. That was why even the adopted son she had taken in, Chairman Lee, had not fallen far short of her expectations. Not to mention the grandchildren, and even the daughter-in-law, who had all been exactly as expected.
That much was boring.
Song Ji-na enjoyed competition and the thrill of victory. People like her were quick to recognize the scent of real talent. Being a shaman might be a little off-putting, but it was not illegal.
Eye to eye.
They stood in a tense balance, but the deciding edge had already shifted to Kang-to.
Then.
At last Kang-to revealed his true card.
“Do you acknowledge the order of these photographs?”
Kang-to pointed at the pictures on the low table. The one in which he had been placed first.
“I... can’t very well deny it.”
“Then...”
Kang-to laid the family register on top of them.
“As the senior elder of Cheonjo Group, what do you make of this family register?”
“What are you getting at?”
“Chairman Lee Tae-seop... has become my legal father, not merely my biological one. But in cases like this, simply being entered in the family register does not settle the conflict, does it?”
“Go on.”
“You’ve come this far, so tell me what you really think. Was the registration just for image management at Cheonjo Group, or will you truly accept me as part of the family?”
“Isn’t that a matter between Chairman Lee and you? There is such a thing as making amends at the source.”
“There’s also the saying that a monk can’t shave his own head.”
Kang-to shot back.
“And what do you think?”
“As for the illegitimate-child matter... if we do a kind of family register factorization, several types emerge. One perpetrator, five victims, and one beneficiary.”
“Why seven? And who is the beneficiary?”
“You know who the perpetrator is, I assume?”
“Chairman Lee?”
“Correct. The victims are me, my biological mother, and Chairman Lee’s wife, son, and daughter. For them, too, it must have been a bolt from the blue.”
“The beneficiary?”
“The one sitting in front of me.”
“Me?”
“You gained another grandson, didn’t you? Without lifting a finger.”
“Ahahahat.”
Song Ji-na burst into laughter. Like the heroic woman she was, even her laugh was broad and fearless.
“That’s a nerve I can’t deny you.”
“You said the source of the problem should be the one to settle it, but here, we’re all interested parties. Chairman Lee won’t find it easy to reach out on his own because of his wife and children. In trying to gain one thing, he could lose three.”
“And you?”
“I have no intention of becoming part of a family that stays at odds with itself. Even if it’s a conglomerate larger than Cheonjo Group. As you can see, I don’t have much to envy.”
“Go on.”
“So if all this comes down to a formal registration and nothing more, then we can end it here. I’ll never look toward Cheonjo Group again. If you’re worried about a future property dispute, I’ll even sign a waiver renouncing my statutory share.”
“Then what is this family register for?”
“It’ll comfort my mother.”
“Lee Kang-to.”
“Yes.”
“Do you have a larger design in mind?”
“Your answer to my question comes first.”
“The answer is this family register. If I weren’t going to accept you, I wouldn’t have bothered bringing it. I also wouldn’t have asked about the relative standing of abilities in our family.”
[Accepted as family]
That was Song Ji-na’s answer.
“Then I’ll tell you.”
“......”
“Legitimacy. That’s the first keyword.”
“Legitimacy?”
“Chairman Lee needs legitimacy. If he’s going to ask his family to accept me, an illegitimate son, as a true member of the household, isn’t that right?”
“It is.”
“The three victims need it too, don’t they?”
“They do.”
“I’ll create that for you.”
“How?”
“Everyone seems to dismiss me because I’m a shaman, but what if I were a hero? Wouldn’t they treat me a little differently?”
“Probably.”
“The former minister and his wife who came with me earlier... I found their son’s body.”
“I heard.”
“If you find one body, the people involved are moved. But what if you find ten, or a hundred? Especially if they’re remains of sharp international interest?”
“Explain that in detail...”
“The remains buried during the Japanese occupation because of Japanese atrocities, the war dead from the Korean War, and even mass graves from the chaotic postwar years... If I find those, at the very least I’d be recognized as a person of national merit, wouldn’t I? The prejudice against shamans would go under as well.”
“......?”
“Please mediate that for me. On something a little bigger.”
“You mean you want to be included in the government’s remains-recovery project?”
“No. What would I do by joining that sluggish mess? I’ll do it alone.”
“Lee Kang-to.”
“You have plenty of connections, don’t you? If we frame it as a documentary, it should work.”
“Then KBC or MBS?”
“Did coming to the island make you shrink your ambition too? That wouldn’t be enough to erase the image people have of shamans.”
“Then BBC or NHK?”
“Exactly. If we can get something like BBC’s Monorama or a feature article in Skeptic, that should do it.”
“BBC?”
Song Ji-na’s eyes flashed.
Monorama on BBC was the pinnacle of documentary broadcasting. If it passed their scrutiny, no one would be able to pick a fight. And Skeptic had a similar reputation for exposing the flaws in pseudoscience. If they certified it, the effect would be the same.
“Lee Kang-to.”
“If we succeed, we can completely refresh the atmosphere in the family and the group. More than that, no one in South Korea will be able to sneer at you as the son or grandson of a shaman. Wouldn’t that be legitimacy enough for Chairman Lee and the family?”
“BBC, huh?”
“I assume you can mobilize that level of network.”
“What do I get out of it?”
“The strengthening of your standing as the family’s grand elder, which has gotten a little loose of late. As a bonus, you get one useful grandson and a great-granddaughter.”
“Even if failure would make me the laughingstock of the world?”
“I’ve already given you enough divine messages to make a judgment, haven’t I?”
Kang-to held up the article about the recovered body.
“......”
Song Ji-na fell silent for a moment.
The longer she thought, the calmer Kang-to became. Song Ji-na’s power, her aura, was still far from spent. More often than not, the last moment came with greater urgency. A candle before it goes out burns brighter. If that was true, then Song Ji-na could not refuse Kang-to’s deal.
“If this succeeds here, you’ll reconcile with Chairman Lee?”
“According to the family register, I’m supposed to become your grandson. Wouldn’t reconciling the son and grandson also be the job of the family elder?”
“Do you have another plan as well?”
“If you lay the stepping stone, I’ll prepare something decisive.”
“BBC sounds possible.”
“Then please throw that hook.”
Kang-to opened the file on the tablet.
Sammari Battle, Operation Thunderbolt
He tossed out two talking points.
“The first is where a British unit suffered a crushing defeat, and the second is a large-scale battle that included the British 29th Brigade in a joint operation. There should be unrecovered remains there, so if we present that, it should work.”
“British war remains recovery.”
“Yes.”
“......”
“......”
“Fine. Let’s go with BBC.”
Song Ji-na was decisive. She immediately took out her phone and, through her network of acquaintances, connected to BBC headquarters in the United Kingdom.
“Hello? Mitchell?”
As one would expect of an international negotiator, her English was astonishingly fluent. Kang-to could understand it too. One of the advantages of a provincial university was multiculturalism. Many such schools turned to foreign exchange students to solve their budget and enrollment problems. Thanks to that, Kang-to had made friends with students from many countries. Among them had been someone fluent in English, so he had learned the language properly without ever studying abroad.
Only after her third call did Song Ji-na finally hang up her phone.
“You speak English?”
“Of course.”
“Good.”
Just as Song Ji-na was smiling, the phone rang again.
“Ah, Mr. Anders, the bureau chief?”
After a few exchanged words, she turned to Kang-to.
“The BBC Seoul bureau chief says they want to do a preliminary test. When would be good for you?”
“Next Monday would be appreciated.”
“Hello?”
Song Ji-na returned to the call and sealed the deal.
“Monday, 9:30 a.m., BBC Seoul bureau. OK?”
“OK.”
Kang-to answered. That was the moment his opening move locked into place.
“Then,”
Riding the heated atmosphere, he moved on to an additional request.
“Since we’re making a big plan anyway, how about laying down a little merit to help it succeed?”
“Merit?”
“A large gesture of reconciliation with my dead mother’s remains, and then...”
“......?”
“Please support a desalination facility for this island. The budget would be around one to one and a half billion won.”
Kang-to’s option was out on the table.
“So you’re asking for a deposit?”
“Would that be how it works?”
A victorious smile curved Kang-to’s mouth.
“It would.”
“What?”
“The memorial offering and the desalination facility, I’ll handle both.”
Song Ji-na’s answering voice landed with astonishing weight.