Several days had passed since Mr. Park's urgent yet secretive phone call.
In that short time, the atmosphere at the Lee Family Workshop had changed noticeably. The word Mrs. Choi spread during tea with Gangnam's wealthy wives proved far more powerful than Han-gyeol had expected. The heroic tale of how he had stripped away decades of mold and brought an authentic work by Sorim Jo Seok-jin back into the world spread from one person to the next, keeping a steady stream of visitors coming to the Lee Family Workshop through word of mouth.
The corkboard beside Han-gyeol's workbench was now packed with pinned commission forms for jobs waiting to be handled. Even at a glance, he had enough reservations backed up to keep him busy for two or three weeks. Considering how recently the workshop had been empty enough for flies to gather while he lost sleep worrying about interest payments, the change was staggering.
"Whew."
Han-gyeol exhaled lightly and set down the fine brush in his hand. Before him, a mother-of-pearl nine-sectioned tray whose cracks he had just repaired gleamed beautifully.
He leaned deep into the backrest of his new ergonomic chair. Between the improved workspace, the comfort wrapping around his body, and the mellow aroma of freshly brewed espresso drifting from behind him, Han-gyeol's efficiency had risen beyond comparison with before.
That was when it happened.
A deep engine rumble came from the alley outside the quiet workshop. It was not the light noise of an ordinary car or delivery motorcycle. It was the distinctive sound of a large luxury sedan with an overwhelming engine displacement, like something scraping along the road beneath it.
Han-gyeol rose and peered outside through a gap in the blinds. A top-of-the-line sedan, black as pitch and utterly out of place in the narrow, shabby alley on the outskirts of the city, had stopped with its hazard lights flashing.
Clunk.
The passenger door opened, and a man stepped out.
He wore a dark navy bespoke suit that fit without a single unnecessary fold, spotless shoes, and an expressionless face that seemed to conceal every emotion.
As though neither the surrounding stares nor the old alley interested him in the least, the man walked straight toward the door of the Lee Family Workshop. Instead of an ordinary briefcase, he held a large box carefully wrapped in the finest velvet with both hands.
Jingle—
The wind chime rang as the man entered the workshop.
"Welcome to the Lee Family Workshop."
Han-gyeol removed his work gloves and greeted him politely.
The man swept a brief, keen gaze over the workshop. He took in the strangely harmonious sight of the neat interior and antique tools behind its shabby exterior, then fixed his eyes on Han-gyeol.
"Are you Master Lee Han-gyeol?"
The man's voice was low, calm, and concise.
"Yes, I'm Lee Han-gyeol."
"It's a pleasure to meet you. I am the chief secretary of Taesung Group."
Taesung Group.
It was the very name Mr. Park had mentioned over the phone several days ago. The chief secretary of a corporate giant that held the Korean business world in its grip had personally come all the way to this humble workshop. And he was cradling something precious in his arms.
Keeping his reaction off his face, Han-gyeol calmly gestured toward the reception table.
"You must have had a long trip. Please, have a seat over here."
The chief secretary gave a slight bow and sat at the table. He placed the velvet-wrapped box he had brought very carefully in its center.
Han-gyeol served him warm coffee and took the seat opposite him.
"Mr. Park gave me a general idea of the situation, but I didn't expect you to come in person."
"The chairman gave explicit instructions. The object is far too important to entrust to anyone else."
Without touching his coffee, Chief Secretary Kim began undoing the knots around the velvet-wrapped box.
"I will come straight to the point. I heard you possess a wondrous skill capable of bringing even dead objects back to life. Master, I would like you to examine this object's condition."
Rustle.
The soft velvet fell away, and the lid of the lacquered wooden box inside opened.
The moment Han-gyeol saw the object revealed among the cushioning that filled the box, his brow tightened slightly.
It was not an intact vessel, but a miserable collection of fragments that had shattered into countless pieces.
Han-gyeol half rose from his seat to look into the box. The glaze coating the fragments was a mysterious, clear jade color, as though blue sky and the deep sea had been mixed together. It possessed the breathtaking color unique to Goryeo celadon.
The largest piece was only half the size of his palm. The rest ranged from fingernail-sized shards to pieces that had been reduced entirely to powder. The fragments that appeared to come from the lid still bore traces of an intricate openwork pattern, but every connection in the openwork had broken away, making it difficult even to guess what design it had once formed.
"This is...... a Goryeo celadon openwork incense burner."
Chief Secretary Kim's gaze wavered slightly at Han-gyeol's murmur.
"Correct. To be precise, it is the Goryeo Celadon Openwork Incense Burner with Seven-Treasure Pattern."
Han-gyeol released a deep sigh. Openwork, the technique of shaping clay and then cutting patterns through it to create empty spaces, ranked among the most difficult forms of ceramic craftsmanship.
When an openwork vessel like this broke, the fragments had uneven surface areas and extremely narrow contact points, so even forcing them back together would inevitably leave conspicuous signs of repair. Worse, a cursory visual inspection showed that some fragments were missing altogether.
Recreate the missing pieces, reconnect that intricate seven-treasure openwork, calculate the shrinkage that would occur during firing with perfect accuracy, and even match the color of the original fragments?
It was a mission bordering on the realm of the divine, something not even modern science could guarantee.
"The condition is hopeless. This will require work on the level of grinding down one's bones to recreate it, not merely restore it. To be frank, it makes me want to ask why it was neglected until it reached this state."
Chief Secretary Kim nodded heavily at Han-gyeol's cold assessment.
"You are correct, Master. In fact...... before coming here, we first showed the object to Professor Choi Myeong-ye, the foremost authority in cultural-heritage restoration."
Professor Choi Myeong-ye.
The moment he heard the name, countless thoughts crossed Han-gyeol's mind. Everyone in academia knew him. He was a titan who all but monopolized the Cultural Heritage Administration's major restoration projects and appeared regularly on television and in all kinds of media.
"What did Professor Choi say?"
"His judgment was unequivocal."
With a bitter expression, Chief Secretary Kim seemed to recall that day.
"It amounted to a death sentence. He said there was no hope for the incense burner. Even if the fragments were forced together, it would only become a crude monstrosity, so he declared that abandoning our attachment and disposing of it was the only way to preserve what dignity the artifact had left."
An object Professor Choi Myeong-ye had given up on.
That meant the director of a university research institute equipped with the largest budget, the most advanced equipment, and dozens of researchers in Korea had shaken his head at it. In this field, that was an official brand declaring it absolutely impossible to restore.
"Then why did you come to me? You could hardly have expected this small neighborhood workshop to revive an object even Professor Choi gave up on."
"Of course, rationally speaking, we should give up. However......."
Chief Secretary Kim gazed fondly at the fragments in the box.
"Chairman Kang of Taesung Group simply could not relinquish this incense burner. To him, it means far more than merely being national-treasure-class pottery. Desperate enough to grasp at straws, we searched everywhere until we heard the stories about you, Master."
Chief Secretary Kim looked Han-gyeol directly in the eyes.
"We came here because the chairman earnestly hoped that you, Master—with the eye and skill to uncover a master's authentic work from beneath rotting mold—might perhaps give him a different answer."
There was no arrogance in his voice despite his position as the chief secretary of a corporate giant. It carried only his loyalty and desire to somehow ease Chairman Kang's profound grief.
Instead of answering, Han-gyeol picked up the latex gloves on the table. After a moment's consideration, however, he set them down again and reached a bare hand into the box.
There was a limit to how much he could determine about the fragments by sight alone. To properly read the density of the clay, the thickness of the glaze, and the traces of time within it, his skin had to meet the object directly.
Han-gyeol's fingertips touched the largest fragment of the incense burner's body.
Given the cool temperature in the workshop, the ceramic fragment should have felt as cold as ice.
But.
'......!'
Han-gyeol's eyes widened slightly.
Rather than cold, a searing warmth pulsed against his fingertips like a heartbeat. It was not merely physical heat. It was the wave of someone's fierce, desperate emotion, steeped and condensed deep within the ceramic's pores over the course of many years.
Humm—
The familiar ringing struck Han-gyeol's eardrums. The color drained from his vision and turned it black and white, while a dazzling jade aura began erupting from the fragment like a storm.
Dense lines of brushstroke-like information appeared across the empty air.
[True Name: Goryeo Celadon Openwork Incense Burner with Seven-Treasure Pattern (Authentic)]
[Date of Production: Mid-Goryeo Period (Estimated 12th Century)]
[Condition: Completely shattered. Forty-five percent of the overall form lost; fragmented by severe physical impact.]
[Current Value: 0 won (Form lost)]
[Estimated Value After Restoration: At least 1,500,000,000 won]
One and a half billion.
That staggering number appeared before him, but Han-gyeol's attention did not linger on it. He focused beyond the number, on the old black-and-white vision formed by the aura pouring from the fragment.
Time stopped, and space warped.
The scene that unfolded before Han-gyeol was a bitter winter night sometime in the 1950s. A cramped, ramshackle room where a knife-sharp wind slipped through gaps in the walls.
Beneath the dim light of an oil lamp, a young woman knelt on the floor. Before her, the celadon incense burner that now lay shattered stood intact and beautiful.
Clasping her frozen hands, the woman bowed frantically toward the burner as a thin stream of sandalwood smoke rose from it. Hot tears ran ceaselessly down her cheeks.
'Please...... Buddha, spirits, gods of heaven and earth.......'
In the corner she faced, a young boy lay under a thick cotton quilt, gasping for breath. His face was flushed with fever as he groaned in agony on the boundary between life and death. In the desperate chaos of war, when not even a single dose of medicine could be found, the only thing his mother could do was light incense in the family heirloom and pray for a miracle.
'Please, just let my son live. You may take my life instead, but please let my poor boy keep breathing. Please, please.......'
The voice of that desperate prayer, which continued through the night as she touched the boy's forehead, pierced every corner of Han-gyeol's heart like incense smoke seeping through the burner's openings.
The vision slowly scattered, and the workshop's reality returned to Han-gyeol's eyes.
The fragment beneath his fingertips still throbbed with heat. It seemed to be begging him not to give up on it, not to leave the memory of that night shattered forever.
Han-gyeol slowly withdrew his hand. His breathing had quickened slightly, but his gaze had settled deeper and firmer than ever.
Chief Secretary Kim swallowed and asked in a tense voice.
"Master...... is it best to give up, as Professor Choi said?"
Despair already lay thick in his question. After watching Han-gyeol remain silent for so long while handling the fragment, he seemed to have resigned himself to hearing the same judgment Professor Choi had made.
But Han-gyeol wiped his fingertips on the handkerchief atop the table and shook his head firmly.
"No."
"Pardon?"
Han-gyeol fixed his eyes directly on Chief Secretary Kim.
"This is not an object that should be abandoned."
"D-do you mean......."
"This incense burner is not a monstrosity. Nor is it garbage to be disposed of."
Han-gyeol's voice was weighty and filled with enough conviction to command the air in the workshop.
It was an object steeped in a mother's tears and prayers. It was proof of a miracle that had saved a life and a spiritual refuge that had sustained the roots of the man named Chairman Kang. Throwing it away would be no different from tossing that mother's love into the trash.
"Even if I have to stake everything I possess...... I will restore it."
It was the moment when a young restorer from an unknown neighborhood workshop overturned head-on the death sentence Professor Choi Myeong-ye had pronounced.