“I made it!”
Son Kang-woo shouted in triumph at the cloud-filled sky and the land stretching out before him.
He stood on Daecheongbong Peak of Mount Seorak. At 1,700 meters above sea level, the summit was surrounded by layer upon layer of snow-covered peaks in the depths of winter.
No matter where he looked, nothing around him rose higher than the place where he stood. As he gazed down over the world and let out a mighty shout, all the gloom and frustration he had kept bottled up until now seemed to wash away.
“Hahaha! I've finally been recognized!”
Son Kang-woo burst into a triumphant laugh. His hearty laughter echoed back to him from the mountains.
Son Kang-woo was thirty-five years old, at the point in life when the turbulence of youth was giving way to the stability of middle age.
He was a physicist and a professor at Hanseol University, a regional institution. He had been known as a genius since childhood and had gained admission without much difficulty to the physics department of Hanguk University, the country's most prestigious university. He had then gone on to graduate school and earned his doctorate.
He had believed himself to be the greatest of geniuses, a leading figure destined to shoulder the future of his country's science and technology.
But that was when his path became strewn with thorns. He applied for professorships at major universities in the Seoul metropolitan area, only to be rejected every time he submitted an application.
It was not as though he lacked accomplishments. He was a world-renowned authority on room-temperature nuclear fusion technology, with several papers published in international SCI-indexed journals. Judging by his abilities, universities ought to have been competing to recruit him. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, things kept going wrong.
- “I'm sorry, but we've decided not to hire any new professors this time.”
- “Someone has already been selected by the higher-ups.”
- “There are people in the department who oppose your appointment.”
- “The university's finances have recently been...”
Every application he submitted ended in rejection, one after another, for reasons that seemed downright strange. After being pushed aside again and again, he had barely managed to secure a position at an obscure private university in a rural area that no one paid any attention to.
Research in science and engineering generally depended on teams of researchers working together in laboratories, and it required enormous funding. But unlike professors at prestigious universities, he was employed by an unknown regional institution and had no graduate students to assist with his research. Worse still, every application he submitted for government-funded basic research projects was rejected.
His life had refused to go his way to a truly baffling degree. Yet the more obstacles he encountered, the harder he struggled, until at last he had accomplished something.
Wasn't there a saying that happiness came after hardship? A ray of light had suddenly begun to shine into his life, which until then had been nothing but one setback after another. A major American defense contractor had contacted him, expressing an interest in applying his room-temperature nuclear fusion technology to military weapons.
The terms they offered were extraordinarily favorable, too. That single contract would provide more than enough money to fund his research for the next several years.
That had happened yesterday.
Today, hoping to cast off all his past suffering and make a fresh start, he had climbed Mount Seorak. It was the middle of winter, and the weather was hardly ideal. But what did that matter? He had climbed this mountain dozens of times, and he was standing at a turning point in his life.
Far below the cloud-covered sky, he could see mountain ranges winding into the distance. The majestic spectacle laid out by nature was enough to make his heart feel wonderfully free.
Standing alone on this lofty summit, gazing down over the world, he felt a magnificent sense of grandeur...
Like hell he did!
PATTER—
The wind picked up, and a snowstorm came sweeping in.
The clouds that had covered the sky turned into ominous black storm clouds before he knew it, and fog rose all around him in an instant.
“Damn it! No wonder I haven't seen any other hikers today!”
Had he made a mistake by getting so excited that he had set out without even checking the weather?
Still, treacherous as Mount Seorak was, a wet mountain trail posed little difficulty for someone as familiar with it as he was. Apart from the falling snow, it was no different from any other day.
He was just saying farewell to the summit of Daecheongbong and turning to leave when it happened.
“Kang-woo!”
Two men came walking toward him.
Son Kang-woo frowned at the sudden appearance of these uninvited visitors. One of them had a familiar face—someone he knew extremely well, in fact—while the other was a complete stranger. The contrast between the first man's refined, intelligent good looks and the other's coarse, vaguely menacing appearance was striking.
“What are you doing here?”
“Am I not allowed to go hiking?”
“No, that's not what I meant. It's just so unexpected...?”
The handsome man was Ma Do-hwan, a professor in the physics department at Hanguk University, the most prestigious university in the country. He and Son Kang-woo had attended the same physics department there, from their undergraduate years through graduate school. As a result, they had known each other for more than ten years.
Coincidentally, they even specialized in the same field: the development of compact reactors for room-temperature nuclear fusion.
Outsiders regarded them as rivals, but Son Kang-woo had never considered Ma Do-hwan a rival, not even once. As far as he was concerned, Ma Do-hwan was a man of mediocre ability who had gotten ahead solely by riding on his father's reputation.
With considerable help from his fellow students, Ma Do-hwan had barely managed to graduate from Hanguk University and build up a research record. Unlike Son Kang-woo, however, he had risen through the ranks with ease.
After earning his doctorate, he had effortlessly secured a professorship at his alma mater. That was because his father, Ma Guk-seong, was an influential politician who had served as Minister of Science and ICT. In South Korea, at least, Ma Guk-seong was a senior figure in the scientific and technological establishment, and his influence was immense.
“You look happy. Did something good happen?”
Ma Do-hwan approached Son Kang-woo and struck up a conversation.
They usually regarded each other with about as much affection as they would insects, so this sudden show of friendliness was suspicious.
“Something good? No, nothing in particular.”
“Come on. Didn't you hear from the Americans?”
“Americans? How do you know about that...?”
“I have my ways.”
WHOOSH—WHOOSH—
The snow fell harder and harder, beginning to pile up on his head.
To be standing on a mountaintop in weather like this, face-to-face with Ma Do-hwan, who was both an old acquaintance and an enemy—nothing could have been more bizarre.
“Kang-woo, it's time for you to go.”
“Huh? What are you talking about?”
“You've been standing in my way all this time, haven't you? Aren't you tired of it yet?”
An eerie smile spread across Ma Do-hwan's lips as he continued speaking. A sudden chill ran down Son Kang-woo's spine, and his chest tightened with dread.
Son Kang-woo stared at him, utterly bewildered.
“Ever since university, you've been getting in my way. If it weren't for you, my life would be a hundred times better than it is now. Because everyone compared me to you, I was always treated like an idiot. Even when we worked on research together, you stole the spotlight from me. And it's still happening! Room-temperature nuclear fusion? I'm good at that too, you know! So why did the offer from America go to you and not me? They passed over me, a professor at Hanguk University!”
Son Kang-woo could not make sense of this nonsense. How could a man who was already a professor at Hanguk University claim that his career had gone badly? And how could Son Kang-woo, who had barely managed to find work at a regional university, possibly have stood in his way? Which of them was the one who had gotten ahead without any real ability?
To be frank, wasn't Ma Do-hwan precisely the mediocre fool he accused others of being, rather than a genius? At least, that was how Son Kang-woo saw him.
“What are you talking about?”
“I've given it some thought, and as long as you're around, you'll keep blocking my path. It's already bad enough, but once you start receiving research funding from America, you'll become even more successful, won't you?”
“What does that have to do with you?”
“Everything. If you weren't around, I would have received that offer.”
At that moment, memories struck Son Kang-woo like bolts of lightning.
“Don't tell me... Were you the one who kept sabotaging my life all these years?”
All the incidents that had gone wrong while he was working toward his degree, the accidents that could easily have prevented him from graduating, let alone earning a doctorate, and the endless streak of bad luck whenever he applied for professorships... Could it really have been him?
“Heh, heh. You only figured it out now? I've hated you from the very beginning. I envied that precious talent of yours—the way you could produce research results without even trying, just because you were a genius. Do you have any idea how humiliating that felt? No matter how hard I struggled, you could solve problems in a single night that I couldn't solve at all.”
“...And how is that my fault?”
“The world would be better off without geniuses like you. Then nothing would stand in my way.”
There was murderous intent in Ma Do-hwan's glare. Son Kang-woo instinctively sensed danger and took a step backward.
SKID—
His foot slipped, and he staggered.
The man who had been standing silently beside Ma Do-hwan stepped forward. There was something cruel about his menacing face.
“W-what are you planning to do...?”
“I'm sorry, Kang-woo, but it's time for you to leave us. I'll see you in the next world someday.”
Son Kang-woo shuddered at the cruelty in Ma Do-hwan's eyes. How could a human being act like this? To think he had spent more than ten years around someone like him!
No, this was no time to condemn Ma Do-hwan's character. They were on a deserted mountaintop, and the two men in front of him intended to kill him. There was no way to escape. To make matters worse, the snow was coming down in torrents, as though providing musical accompaniment for his journey to the afterlife...
“Heh, heh. No one will ever know. You'll simply be another hiker who slipped off a snow-covered cliff and fell to his death.”
Just as Ma Do-hwan's mocking words reached his ears, the menacing stranger shoved him in the chest. Son Kang-woo tumbled straight over the edge of the cliff.
“Goodbye! I'll make good use of the research materials you leave behind!”
“Aaaaaagh!”
Snowflakes whipped against his face, and the wind howled in his ears. A life that had only just begun to blossom was coming to an end. Just like that, an expert in room-temperature nuclear fusion who might have changed the future of his country's science and technology disappeared.
* * *
“Aaaaaagh!”
Son Kang-woo screamed, but no sound came out. Something stifling was covering his face. Even so, after he had spent a while gasping for breath, the tightness in his chest gradually eased.
He finally managed to open his eyes, and the blurry shapes around him slowly came into view.
“Woo! Woo!”
He could barely make out the words. Why was he suddenly hearing a woman's voice?
“Kang Woo! Kang Woo! Can you hear me?”
“Try blinking your eyes. Your eyes!”
Son Kang-woo blinked unconsciously. His senses gradually grew clearer.
“Body temperature normal, pulse normal. Oxygen saturation normal. Vital signs good...”
As the commotion of voices filled his ears, the scene coming into focus startled him.
He was lying somewhere unfamiliar. It looked vaguely like a hospital... Had someone rescued him after he fell from Daecheongbong? From such a dizzying height? And in the middle of a snowstorm, no less?
“He's awake. After a whole week, no less.”
The voice came from someone wearing a white coat.
‘That must mean I've been lying unconscious in the hospital for a week.’
Son Kang-woo had little difficulty understanding the situation. He had no idea how he had survived, but considering the height of his fall, it would hardly be surprising if he had been unconscious for a week.
“Woo...”
A middle-aged woman beside him was holding his hand and crying. Son Kang-woo stared at her again and again, his eyes wide, but he could not remember who she was.
“W-who are you?”
“Huh? What do you mean, who? Don't you even recognize your mother?”
“What?”
But his mother had died a long time ago, hadn't she? Besides, the woman beside him looked nothing like the mother he remembered.
“Has he lost his memory? Do you at least remember your name?”
“It's Kang-woo.”
“That's right. Kang. Woo.”
“Son Kang-woo.”
“Son? Why are you adding Son? Your family name is Kang.”
“What?”
Since when had his surname on the family register changed from Son to Kang? While he sat there in confusion, the woman claiming to be his mother began firing words at him in rapid succession.
“There are only three days left! You have to go to school! I was so worried you wouldn't wake up in time.”
“What school?”
“Goryeo Science High School for the Gifted. You worked so hard to get admitted there. Don't you remember?”
High school? Why would someone who had graduated from university, earned a doctorate, and become a professor need to go to high school? He could not begin to understand what she was talking about. And now a woman he had never seen before was claiming to be his mother.
“Um... could I have a mirror?”
Feeling increasingly uneasy, Son Kang-woo asked for a mirror. Something was clearly very wrong.
A nurse standing nearby handed him a small mirror. When Son Kang-woo looked into it, his jaw dropped. Reflected in the glass was the face of a young student he had never seen before in his life.
He was no longer Son Kang-woo. From now on, he would live a new life as Kang Woo.