1
### Chapter 1. Divorce and Cultivation
“Aigoo, Dasan!! How did you end up like this?!”
“May the deceased rest in peace.”
“You must have suffered so much.”
…
There are moments like that in life.
Like,
feeling as though everything in the world is moving perfectly except for me.
Or?
Feeling as though everything in the world except me has been put in slow motion.
Or perhaps?
Feeling as though I have become completely separated from the world,
as if.
I am wide awake and watching a montage of my entire life flash before my eyes.
That sensation usually comes when you are alive but it feels like you aren't really living,
or when you are dead but it doesn't feel like you've actually died.
However, if there was one thing different about my case…
It was that this wasn't merely a feeling.
I was standing at my own funeral.
“Oh my… He was so young! Good heavens…”
The person who looked the saddest was, ironically,
the landlady of the monthly-rent house where I used to live.
She looked like an ordinary woman from the neighborhood,
but in reality,
she was a wealthy woman who owned an entire small villa building in the Hapjeong-dong area!
‘I'm sorry, ma'am. I couldn't even pay you back for those mini pork cutlets.’
She was a warmhearted woman who would occasionally make side dishes for me.
She had been a ray of light during my lonely life away from home.
And in front of that woman,
among all the decorations,
was a large photograph.
In the black-and-white photo, I was smiling brightly.
Did I even have a picture where I smiled like that?
Thinking about it carefully,
I realized it was probably the picture from when I had been selected as a new PD at the broadcasting station.
Yeah.
Those were good days.
It was sad that fifteen years had passed since then and I had died,
and that this was apparently the only photograph of me smiling in a suit.
“Ah, Dasan's mother… What are we going to do…”
“Hey, you bastard! Drink up. Drink, drink! You can always have another kid!”
Over there was my mother, being comforted by the woman who ran the neighborhood supermarket.
And, true to form as one of my father's acquaintances,
there was my father's friend, drinking straight from a soju bottle at someone else's child's funeral.
Mister.
My father is seventy years old. What do you mean, have another kid?
This is ridiculous.
‘You really came after I died!’
Aigoo, this is driving me crazy.
My mother, whom I had barely seen properly because she was always away,
had actually come.
I'd wondered before whether she'd come if I died.
And now that I had actually died, she really had come.
What an absurd family reunion.
Gluuuug!
That old man really was drinking straight from the soju bottle just because someone told him to.
I had begged him so many times to quit drinking.
I guess now that his son was dead, he had a good excuse to have a drink.
Sigh.
My mother, whom I could count on one hand the number of times I'd properly seen throughout my life, had come.
And my father, who had spent his entire life leaving everything behind and drinking instead, was here too.
Was I supposed to consider this a good thing or a bad thing?
Tsk.
“Dasan really died…”
“What the hell happened to him, anyway?”
“Let's just eat… You shouldn't ask questions like that at a funeral.”
You guys.
At least you came.
In this harsh life,
the four friends I'd gotten to know along the way had also come to my funeral.
There was a round table,
and since one of the chairs happened to be empty, I sat down too.
I wonder if this yukgaejang tastes good?
Cheolsu had stuck a plastic spoon vertically into his rice.
When I picked it up with my hand,
the translucent plastic spoon came along with it, almost like a ghost.
I scooped up a little rice with it,
then tasted the yukgaejang inside the round paper bowl.
It's not that spicy.
But it is good.
“That crazy bastard… That's why you have to marry the right woman.”
“I told you not to say things like that. Not at a funeral…”
“Hey, but it's true. His wife… I mean, his sister-in-law… No, that… Sigh. Anyway, if it hadn't been for that woman, would things really have ended up like this?”
That's right.
Good.
Curse her.
Curse her as much as you want!
“That crazy idiot was such a pushover. Did he really like women that much?”
Minsu.
Coming from someone who hadn't dated a single woman even after reaching forty,
there was a surprising amount of sincerity in those words.
“He did everything she asked and still got divorced…”
“How many luxury handbags did she have, anyway?”
“Honestly, didn't they get divorced because his wife cheated on him?”
“Circumstantially, that's what it looks like. It's just that there wasn't any physical evidence.”
My beautiful wife.
So, yes, she really was ridiculously beautiful.
Whatever else could be said about her,
you couldn't criticize her appearance.
She had been doing internet broadcasts even before she met me.
And after divorcing me?
She remarried within just a few months.
And who was her new husband?
Someone who had been watching her internet broadcasts for a long time.
One of her most devoted fans.
Apparently, he was one of those so-called chairman-level fans.
It was obvious what had happened,
but I couldn't prove it.
So I got hit with a very generous settlement.
Very generous indeed!
“Didn't I hear that after PD Gam quit, he established an investment company and was doing really well?”
“Tsk. Don't even get me started.”
That table over there was occupied by former coworkers.
They had ignored me while I was alive,
and now they were pretending we'd been close.
Well, let's hear what they have to say.
“It's true that he suddenly seemed to have some kind of god of stock investing possessing him. He made an enormous amount of money. But… You remember that divorce back then.”
After looking around,
he lowered his voice.
Whisper, whisper.
“Ah… Right. Didn't we hear that PD Gam got divorced because he cheated?”
“Shh! Why would you say something like that?”
“His wife was a little strange too. Didn't she remarry immediately after the divorce? There must have been something going on…”
“Tsk. Men need to choose their women carefully too. Is it only women who need to choose the right man? If you meet the wrong person, both men and women can have their lives ruined. That's what I'm saying.”
Exactly.
Nod, nod.
That old-fashioned old man actually said something sensible.
Maybe he was nearing the end of his life too…
The accusation that I had cheated was a complete fabrication.
Though the court didn't seem to think so.
Still, there were some facts among what these people were saying.
One day, I had suddenly developed a superpower.
A superpower that was ridiculously useful for investing in stocks.
To put it simply,
whenever I touched an object, I could see something related to that object's future.
Something like that.
I had used that ability to start sweeping up money.
By the end, my fortune had reached a staggering ten billion won.
There was one problem, though.
I had discovered this superpower far too late in life.
And the second problem was…
“They say he completely lost his mind after getting divorced and having all his assets taken away. And then this happened. What a shame.”
My life had been completely stripped bare.
My wife made sure to take everything that belonged to her until the very end.
These days, people on the internet called something like this butchering.
Meaning I'd been thoroughly taken apart.
It also meant that my wife, who had held on to me like an undervalued stock for so long,
had finally reaped her harvest.
‘Fuck…’
What did it matter now?
No.
It did matter.
Damn it.
It was unfair.
So incredibly unfair.
Why the hell had I lived and died like this?
Why did I have to be such an idiot?!
I had spent my entire life struggling because of money,
unable to properly receive help from my parents,
staggering through life alone.
Then I got married,
only to meet a monster who cared about nothing but money.
I had met a materialistic woman who had only wanted to use me, a newly appointed PD at a broadcasting station, to gain a foothold in the entertainment industry.
And I spent my life desperately trying to satisfy my wife's bottomless greed,
like trying to fill a jar with no bottom.
A life like that because I wasn't good enough.
And finally,
whether God had helped me or whatever had happened,
I developed a superpower.
I thought my life might finally turn around.
But not long after that, I died.
It was only then that I realized it.
‘There wasn't a single person in this world who had ever loved me.’
That was what hurt.
My friends used to ask me.
Why did I let myself get pushed around like that?
Why did I live like such a pushover?
Looking back now,
maybe it was because I simply couldn't accept that one sentence.
‘Was wanting to be loved really a sin?…….’
I was briefly lost in my emotions when,
suddenly, something appeared on the other side of the funeral hall.
Ssssss…
A figure emerged through the black shadows.
A black robe and a traditional black hat.
Even a pale face.
Anyone could tell at a glance.
It was the Grim Reaper himself.
So the time had finally come.
You're a little late.
The Grim Reaper pulled a long, rolled-up document from his sleeve.
He unfolded it and called out a name.
“Gam Dasan…”
Wasn't I supposed to be dragged away after he called my name three times?
Just hearing my name sent a chill through me.
Gam Dasan.
I hadn't even gotten the chance to properly fulfill my dreams as a man.
And now I was leaving like this.
“Gam Dasan…”
A cold sensation seeped through my entire body.
It felt as though I could see the Yellow River right before my eyes.
And finally,
just as the Grim Reaper was about to call my name for the third time.
Right then.
Baaaaaaaaaaaaam—!!
Huh?
A man wearing a robe made of white and red cloth,
with something resembling a black official hat on his head,
swung a fan,
and flew through the air before kicking the Grim Reaper directly in the temple.
Huh?
“Gam Da… twerk?”
Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwaang!!!
The Grim Reaper let out a strange cry as the flying kick struck him squarely in the head, sending him flying before he slammed into the wall over there.
The people in the real world didn't seem to notice anything.
They continued going about their ordinary business,
as if nothing had happened.
The only thing that happened was that the smoke from the incense placed in front of my portrait fluttered slightly in the wind.
Oh, shit.
What the hell is going on?
“That bastard! Who do you think you're trying to take away?! Tsk. How can you just cut off the family line of someone else's household?”
The man who seemed to have just saved me
walked toward me with a nod of his head.
His eyes remained fixed on the fallen Grim Reaper.
“Wh-who are you?”
No,
I'd done a lot of research on the afterlife.
But I'd never come across anything like this.
Snap~
The man stylishly opened his fan.
As he walked toward me,
he covered his face with the fan, revealing only his eyes.
“Brat, have you no manners when you're looking at your ancestral grandfather? Never seen an ancestor who cultivated himself and became an immortal before?”
Yes.
Of course I'd never seen one before.
But more importantly, one thought immediately came to mind.
‘Why is even this damn Gam family ancestor so damn flashy and carefree?’
Good grief.