Han-gyeol's firm, weighty declaration lingered in the workshop.
An unknown young man in an old workshop on Seoul's outskirts had directly contradicted something Professor Choi Myeong-ye, the absolute authority and living legend of Korea's cultural-heritage restoration field, had declared impossible.
Chief Secretary Kim's eyes trembled. Confusion and a glimmer of hope intertwined on his face.
"Master...... do you truly mean that?"
Chief Secretary Kim's voice had become far more cautious than before.
"Professor Choi did not give up simply because its condition was poor. His institute reached that conclusion after employing even 3D scanners and composition analyzers. He said the fragments had such narrow joining surfaces and so many missing sections that no modern adhesive technology could preserve the original load-bearing structure and keep the form intact."
He swallowed and carefully continued.
"We came here because of our chairman's desperation, but...... are you truly saying you can revive something even Professor Choi declared impossible?"
His doubt was natural. As the chief secretary of a major corporation who had met countless experts, he could easily have mistaken Han-gyeol's confidence for youthful obstinacy or empty boasting.
Han-gyeol's expression, however, remained as calm as a lake. He gazed down at the jade fragments scattered across the table and spoke.
"Professor Choi must have seen only this incense burner's 'value' and 'limitations.'"
Han-gyeol's gaze shifted from the fragments to Chief Secretary Kim.
"But I saw the 'story' contained within it. Pottery may be a vessel shaped from clay, but it can also be a vessel that holds someone's desperate hopes. Once you understand the weight of those hopes, you cannot casually tell someone to throw it away. Besides......."
Han-gyeol rose and walked toward the workbench.
"Even from a purely technical perspective, Professor Choi's diagnosis was wrong. This is not impossible."
Han-gyeol switched on the state-of-the-art digital microscope installed on one side of the workbench. It was an expensive piece of equipment capable of precision observation on the micrometer scale, purchased with the fee he had received for restoring the white porcelain not long ago.
He carefully picked up one of the largest body fragments and a broken openwork fragment, then positioned them beneath the microscope lens.
"Look at the screen."
As though entranced, the chief secretary rose and approached the monitor.
"The greatest reason Professor Choi judged it impossible to restore was likely that the fragments' joining surfaces, meaning their cross sections, were too irregular and contaminated for adhesive to work properly."
Han-gyeol pointed his laser at a particular part of the monitor.
"But the story changes when we examine the deeper layers of the fragments under a microscope. The paste clay (the clay used to form pottery) used by Goryeo potters endured tremendous heat, which gave its interior an extraordinarily dense structure. The exterior may have shattered, but the clay's framework itself remains remarkably sound despite eight hundred years passing."
The chief secretary repeatedly nodded as he studied the densely packed clay particles on the screen. An expert's confident explanation carried immense persuasive power in itself.
"What will you do about the missing section of seven-treasure openwork? There are too many empty spaces for it to support itself."
"That is the key. If I try to force only the surviving fragments together, it will naturally collapse."
Han-gyeol switched the image on the monitor to another fragment and continued his explanation.
"So I will use a highly reversible, restoration-grade synthetic resin as the base. Rather than simply filling the empty spaces, I will form a delicate new resin framework for the missing openwork pattern itself and interlock it with the existing fragments. You can think of it as similar to inserting the post for a dental implant."
Technical terminology poured from him without pause, accompanied by a concrete restoration briefing utterly devoid of hesitation.
The fog of doubt in the chief secretary's eyes had already cleared completely. The young restorer before him was not bluffing. He had already drawn a complete blueprint of the finished incense burner from among those shattered fragments.
"......Remarkable."
Chief Secretary Kim let out a deep exclamation and bowed politely.
"To be frank, I came here with considerable doubts, but after hearing your explanation, I am convinced the chairman's instincts were correct. I entrust this incense burner to you, Master. Please...... resolve the chairman's lifelong sorrow."
"I will do everything I can."
The commission was officially accepted. Han-gyeol took the velvet-lined box of fragments and renewed his resolve.
This restoration was not simply about earning money. It was the work of extending a dying artifact's life by breathing it back into existence, and a silent declaration of war against the arrogance of mainstream academia.
After the chief secretary left, a heavy silence descended upon the workshop once more.
Han-gyeol lowered the shutters and locked the door tightly. Cutting off the noise of the outside world completely, he sat before the workbench that held only the incense burner's fragments.
Hundreds of broken jade pieces. The first obstacle he had to overcome in order to return them to the complete form of an incense burner was 'assembling the puzzle.'
"Now, where should I begin?"
Han-gyeol picked up his tweezers and began sorting the base fragments that would form the foundation. An ordinary puzzle at least came with a picture, but these pottery shards were three-dimensional, and each had a subtly different curvature. Finding their proper positions by sight alone was as difficult as searching for a needle on a beach.
But Han-gyeol possessed a sense that transcended sight.
Whenever his fingertips touched a fragment, a subtle pulse traveled through his mind. Like an extremely faint magnetic pull, the fragments guided Han-gyeol's fingertips toward their original positions and the mates they had once touched.
Riiing—
Just then, the landline on one side of the workshop rang sharply.
Han-gyeol released a small sigh at having his concentration broken and picked up the receiver.
"Hello, Lee Family Workshop."
- Hey, Han-gyeol, it's me, Mr. Park!
Mr. Park's voice over the receiver had lost all its usual heartiness and sounded completely frozen.
"Yes, Mr. Park. I was about to call you, actually. Taesung Group's chief secretary came by, and I accepted the commission. Thank you for introducing me to such an important client."
- N-no, that's not the problem!
Mr. Park's voice diminished until it was barely audible, then became a furtive whisper, as though he were checking his surroundings.
- Professor Choi Myeong-ye just called me. He was beside himself, absolutely raging. I've lived a long life, but I've never heard that man spew such filthy abuse before.
Han-gyeol's eyes narrowed.
The cultural-heritage restoration world was much smaller than most people realized. Through a single connection, people could learn who was handling what object and which family's national treasure had entered the market. It seemed the rumor that Taesung Group's chief secretary had visited the Lee Family Workshop carrying a velvet-wrapped box had already reached Professor Choi in that brief time.
"What did he say?"
Han-gyeol asked impassively.
- What do you think? He raged about how some nobody with no pedigree had dared overturn his judgment!
Mr. Park grew heated as he imitated Professor Choi's manner of speaking.
- He claimed some neighborhood repairman stepping forward to fix what he had declared hopeless was an insult to academia. He called you a fraud and insisted you were obviously trying to fleece Taesung Group's chairman with some worthless patch job!
It was the fury born of vicious elitism and arrogance that could not tolerate seeing someone else repair what he himself had called impossible, paired with the twisted pride that decreed no one in the world should accomplish what he could not.
Mr. Park continued in a worried voice.
- Are you sure about this? If you fail this commission, Professor Choi will seize the chance to mobilize every media and academic connection he has and bury you so thoroughly that you'll never work in this field again. It isn't too late. Tell Taesung Group you can't do it and pull out.......
"Mr. Park."
Han-gyeol cut him off gently but firmly.
"I appreciate your concern, but I take responsibility for what I say. Whatever Professor Choi chooses to shout has nothing to do with me."
- You have no idea how vindictive that man is!
"Then he should not have treated someone else's precious story so carelessly in the first place. I don't care what rumors Professor Choi spreads outside. I intend to focus only on assembling the puzzle in front of me."
A brief silence followed over the receiver. Soon, Mr. Park gave a helpless chuckle.
- Good grief. You inherited Tae-jun's stubbornness exactly. Fine, if your mind is made up, I can't stop you. Call me whenever you need materials or tools. This old man will do whatever he can to help.
"Thank you. I'll come see you with good news soon."
Han-gyeol hung up.
Professor Choi's derision and interference only ignited a cold fighting spirit within Han-gyeol. He merely had to show those hiding behind the heavy shield of academic authority and ignoring true value what genuine restoration meant.
Han-gyeol returned to the workbench and faced the fragments once more.
The physical work of assembling the pieces would be exhausting, but time and patience could solve it. The greatest problem in this restoration project, however, lay elsewhere.
It was 'color (hue).'
The lifeblood of Goryeo celadon lay in its mysterious jade green (celadon hue), neither blue nor green, a distant and profound color created in the flames of a kiln by twelfth-century Goryeo potters through an exquisite blend of wood ash and iron. It was a color difficult to reproduce perfectly even by mixing every advanced chemical pigment of the modern era.
Moreover, the base he had to create to fill the missing pieces was not clay, but transparent restoration-grade synthetic resin (epoxy). The process of coloring synthetic resin to perfectly match an original celadon shard, known as 'color matching,' was a nightmare for restorers.
"Metamerism...... This is what drives people insane."
Han-gyeol muttered as he took out an empty palette.
Metamerism. It was a technical term for the optical phenomenon in which the same color appeared entirely different depending on the type of lighting.
Countless restorers had suffered crushing disappointment after celebrating a jade-green resin that looked identical to an eight-hundred-year-old celadon shard under natural light, only to take it beneath museum fluorescents or exhibition halogens and discover the restored section standing out in a sickly yellow or harsh blue. That was how close perfect color matching came to an impossible challenge.
If the incense burner was to live again, he had to create a resin of perfect jade green that would remain unchanged in darkness and in light.
Han-gyeol lined up dozens of bottles of natural pigments and chemical paints across his workbench.
Cobalt blue, ultramarine, chromium oxide green, yellow ochre.......
Han-gyeol raised the largest original celadon fragment to eye level. He gazed intently at its surface and focused every nerve on his vision.
Humm—
A deep, heavy ringing struck the detonator in his brain. A strange light swirled in Han-gyeol's pupils as his ability to see through to an object's essence intensified to its limit.
His ordinary sight vanished. The fragment's jade green broke apart into tens of thousands of pixels that flooded Han-gyeol's mind. Those pixels soon transformed into a complex arrangement of chemical symbols and numbers, floating in the air as a blue hologram.
[Analysis Complete: Target's Optical Absorption and Reflection Spectra]
[Optimal Color Mixture Data Derived for Target Achievement]
The system displayed the correct recipe before Han-gyeol's eyes. It was no simple combination of colors, but the perfect chemical proportions that would give it the same refractive index as the original glaze under any lighting.
'Chromium oxide, 0.3 grams.'
Han-gyeol placed an extremely thin sheet of paper on an electronic scale and portioned out the chromium oxide powder while controlling even his breathing. He stopped the instant the display read exactly 0.300.
'A minuscule amount of cobalt blue. No more than 0.05 grams.'
He portioned out and mixed in the cobalt-blue pigment as though lifting it on the point of a needle.
'And.......'
Han-gyeol's gaze turned to the final ingredient hovering in the air. It was his secret weapon for expressing the roots of the earth, the faintest trace of warmth hidden within the celadon's blue.
'A pinch of yellow earth.'
He pinched an extremely small amount of natural yellow-earth powder between his thumb and forefinger and scattered it over the transparent epoxy-resin solution.
Han-gyeol took up a glass rod and began stirring the combined pigments and resin slowly at a steady speed, careful not to form bubbles.
Scrape, scrape.
The transparent resin gradually grew cloudy, then swirled into a deep, mysterious color.
But he could not expect perfection on the first attempt. Even if the system provided flawless data, he still had to control the subtle chemical changes during curing and the surrounding humidity himself.
Han-gyeol spread a portion of the first resin mixture on a small plastic plate and rapidly cured it beneath an ultraviolet lamp. Then he set it beside the original fragment and shone the work light over them.
"......It's a little too bright."
The difference was difficult to distinguish with ordinary vision, but to Han-gyeol's sensitive eyes, the restoration resin appeared ever so slightly more saturated. It was a failure.
He immediately began a second mixture. He added 0.01 grams more yellow earth and reduced the cobalt blue. He mixed it again, cured it, and compared.
"Too murky. It has no depth."
Another failure.
Third, fourth, tenth, twentieth.......
He had no idea how much time had passed. The workshop filled with the acrid smell of epoxy and pigment dust. Han-gyeol's eyes were bloodshot, and cold sweat gathered on the forehead exposed above his dust mask before dripping down.
His shoulder muscles screamed, but Han-gyeol never stopped turning the glass rod.
The forty-second mixture.
Han-gyeol added one final, infinitesimal amount of titanium white to adjust the transparency. Then he cured the resin and lifted it with tweezers, bringing it gently beside the original fragment.
For an instant, Han-gyeol stopped breathing.
Beneath the work light's intense white glow, the boundary between the original shard and the piece of resin had vanished as if by magic.
With trembling hands, he switched to incandescent lighting, yet the two still blended perfectly.
Han-gyeol rose and approached the window. He compared the colors once more beneath the streetlight shining into the night and the faint moonlight.
"......I did it."
The voice that escaped his lips was terribly hoarse.
After dozens of blood-drying trials and failures, he had used the alchemy of chemistry to perfectly reproduce a color that matched the original celadon's jade green under every light and from every angle.
Han-gyeol leaned against the window frame and drew a deep breath.
He had fitted the jade-green puzzle piece that presented the greatest obstacle. But this was only the first step of a long journey. Now he had to use that perfect jade resin to shape the missing seven-treasure openwork anew in empty air.