The Chairman's Secret Safe (1)
The moment I opened the unlocked safe door, a brilliant radiance poured out, making the space beneath the desk glow dazzlingly. Yet the study itself did not brighten as though it were midday. Instead, what escaped the moment the door swung open was far from any dazzling light—an odor of very old paper. To me, it was a scent that stirred memories from childhood.
Back when I lived as Kang Min-chan, during my high school and university years, I had struggled terribly because I needed to study but had no books. As a student, I could not afford the reference books and major textbooks that others carried so casually. So I saved my allowance from the orphanage or my part-time wages and frequented used bookstores. Now, the price of a book was pocket change I would not even notice losing, but back then, the joy of buying a single desired volume at a bargain was immense. Though many strokes of luck had followed, in the end, the studying I had done then became the solid stepping stone that allowed me to stand tall in the Central Management Division. A blessing in disguise, perhaps?
The difference between the smell wafting from the safe now and the scent of those memories lay in its intensity. The odor of old paper from this safe—barely large enough to hold ten books even when packed full—was far stronger than the combined smell of thousands of volumes in a used bookstore. I wondered just how ancient the paper inside must be as I swung the safe door wide open. My guess proved correct.
Though the documents inside had rarely seen sunlight, stacks of paper yellowed at the edges and even through the center filled the safe. There was quite a lot of it; gathered together, it might equal the thickness of a single modern bookstore volume. Worried that the paper might crumble at my touch, I carefully lifted one bundle and drew it out. My initial plan was to flip through it quickly to see what it was, then examine the other items in the safe. But reading the contents of the bundle bound on the right side with a leather cord through punched holes proved no simple task.
Unlike the considerate publications of today, there was no title, no table of contents, no author introduction. Even the first page presented a greater obstacle. As expected of an old document, it was written in mixed Sino-Korean script, and even the Hangul differed greatly from the form used now. Scanning the first page from top to bottom, I encountered unfamiliar Chinese characters and the long-obsolete arae-a (ㆍ) appearing here and there. The moment I lifted my eyes from the book, I considered entrusting it to a professional for a translation. But I soon realized that was not a good idea.
Though I had yet to grasp the contents, this was something Chairman Kwon Byung-do had kept in strict secrecy. Moreover, the moment he returned from the brink of death, he had entrusted me with the safe's code—as if it were meant for my eyes alone. Just as I had decoded the Morse code in the executive office earlier, this was something only I could do.
With a sigh, I gathered every bundle of paper from the safe and stood. I placed them on the desk. Even if it took time, whether Chinese characters or archaic Korean, I had studied them all before. With the added convenience of search engines, interpretation might be slow, but it was not impossible. Sitting in the chair where Chairman Kwon Byung-do had spent most of his days before entering the hospital, I clutched my phone and began translating the safe documents page by page.
* * *
The previous night had passed faster than any other. Now, through the study window facing due south, sunlight streamed in alongside birdsong, announcing a perfect morning. For nearly half a day, I had immersed myself in translating the safe documents, forgetting even to eat except for trips to the restroom. One fortunate thing was that I had gradually grown accustomed to the documents. As I read, I became used to the vertical script that ran from right to left, no longer circling between the same two lines repeatedly. The Chinese characters I rarely used in daily work also required fewer searches. What surprised even me was how I had adapted to the archaic grammar and vocabulary I had only studied in passing during high school, allowing my reading speed to increase steadily.
And just now, I finished reading the entire bundle of documents, equivalent to a full book.
Whoa. Now I understood completely why Chairman Kwon Byung-do had gone to such lengths to show this to me at the very end of his life. From my personal perspective, it contained the origin of the ability to see future court verdicts that I had gained the moment I possessed Kwon Ho-gyun's body. Broadening the view, this was precisely the secret that had allowed the QS Group to rise to the pinnacle of the business world through the turbulent modern history of Korea.
The author of this document was the previous chairman, Kwon Seong-wook, and it was written in 1935, during the Japanese colonial period. Summarizing its contents, they went roughly as follows.
Chairman Kwon Seong-wook's father—my great-grandfather, Kwon Yang-hwa—was a nouveau riche who made his fortune trading rice futures in Pyongyang. Rice futures trading was similar to today's stocks or cryptocurrencies; one profited by correctly predicting whether rice prices would rise or fall in the future. Since the trades were conducted not with physical rice but as leveraged futures, Kwon Yang-hwa had essentially gambled his entire life on an enormous bet. But if a game was guaranteed to be won, could it truly be called gambling no matter how much money was at stake?
Kwon Yang-hwa had been certain he would never misjudge the fluctuations of future rice prices. His confidence stemmed from his friend, the Pyongyang Shaman. Though she now existed only as legend in the occasional surviving records, she had been famous for being on an entirely different level from other shamans. Ordinary shamans relied on the miscellaneous spirits they served to catch glimpses of what ordinary people could not see. The Pyongyang Shaman, however, saw the future directly, which led the people of Pyongyang at the time to call her a "living god."
Despite possessing such transcendent abilities that could have allowed her to live without envy, the Pyongyang Shaman was always melancholic. Her primary concern was also far removed from those of ordinary people; she reportedly found life itself too futile. Once she had enough money to live on, she stopped taking clients altogether and simply shut herself away at home, spending her time in a darkened room. The description of her fortune-telling house strangely resembled the place I had dreamed of while briefly asleep at the hospital after Chairman Kwon Byung-do collapsed—a spacious tiled-roof house that looked as though a wealthy person lived there, with people gathered like clouds in front, and a man blocking them from entering.
Judging from the life described, the Pyongyang Shaman must have been, in modern terms, an extremely capable hikikomori or a severe depression patient. The one person she took an interest in was Kwon Yang-hwa, her childhood friend from before she awakened her abilities. Ironically, though the Pyongyang Shaman had been deeply fond of Kwon Yang-hwa, she reportedly refused when he proposed after they became adults. Chairman Kwon Seong-wook, who had heard the story from his father Kwon Yang-hwa and written this account, seemed equally unable to understand. Still, from the explanation he had painstakingly recorded, it appeared the Pyongyang Shaman had seen too bleak a future for her own husband and children. Thus, she had resolved never to form a family or continue her lineage, which likely intensified her existential crisis—that this life would simply pass and everything would end.
Another clue to this circumstance was that the Pyongyang Shaman had doted excessively on the children of Kwon Yang-hwa, who had married another woman. When Kwon Yang-hwa's children needed something and were scolded by their mother, they would secretly visit the Pyongyang Shaman, and their requests would be granted without fail. The Pyongyang Shaman would immediately summon Kwon Yang-hwa and order him to fulfill the children's wishes. Since Kwon Yang-hwa was profiting handsomely from the rice futures market thanks to the Pyongyang Shaman, he had no particular reason to refuse her demands.
Then one day, after the Pyongyang Shaman told Kwon Yang-hwa about the future rise and fall of rice prices and he secured an unprecedented sum from the futures market, she made him a rather suggestive proposal by today's standards: to spare her a day without his family's knowledge. Kwon Yang-hwa knew he had earned the money to buy thousands of sacks of rice thanks to the Pyongyang Shaman, so he could not refuse. Thus, as requested, Kwon Yang-hwa visited her fortune-telling house late at night with a somewhat different expectation. What transpired between their bodies and spirits was not recorded in the book. However, the Pyongyang Shaman and Kwon Yang-hwa's minds formed a most unusual contract.
Perhaps it was an explosion of the Pyongyang Shaman's depression—that while others continued their lineage through children even after this life ended, she could not. On the spot, she declared that she would be reincarnated with the ability to see the future and possess one descendant of Kwon Yang-hwa in each generation. This way, one person in each generation of Kwon Yang-hwa's descendants would be able to see the future, ensuring the family's endless prosperity. From the Pyongyang Shaman's perspective, there was the benefit of escaping the miserable fate imposed on her and her descendants by living as one of Kwon Yang-hwa's heirs instead. Kwon Yang-hwa, knowing this was no joke, realized upon hearing it that the contract was mutually beneficial beyond measure.
The contract was immediately formed. Not long after, the Pyongyang Shaman ended her short life by suicide, likely due to her severe depression. And despite Kwon Yang-hwa's lingering doubts about whether the contract would truly come to pass despite the Pyongyang Shaman's strange abilities, its contents became reality.
Several years after the Pyongyang Shaman's death, a child in beggar's rags appeared in Kwon Yang-hwa's neighborhood. With no known parents or origin, the child survived by begging from villagers and sleeping under eaves. Then, roughly ten years later, the child vanished from the village just as abruptly as they had appeared. The safe document written by Chairman Kwon Seong-wook took an enormous leap at this point. Translated into modern language, the passage read:
—That child called Dog Dung was me. Although I am now writing this from within Kwon Seong-wook's body, I cannot deny that my mind still belongs to Dog Dung. And now, before my eyes, as Kwon Seong-wook's body and Dog Dung's mind have become one, something strange has appeared.
What the—? This is my story!