The heavy sobs that had filled the spacious chairman's office gradually subsided.
Amid a solemn silence in which no one dared speak, Chairman Kang finally raised his head.
After wiping away his tears with a handkerchief, he cleared his throat several times and steadied his breathing before slowly turning toward Han-gyeol.
"Master Lee."
Chairman Kang's voice was deeply hoarse, but the emotion within it was more sincere than ever.
"I have seen countless miracles in my life and even made some with my own hands, but none were as perfect and beautiful as the one I witnessed here today."
He looked once more at the incense burner on the table. The distant scent of gray soot carried by the smoke rising through the seven-treasure openwork in the lid was the one refuge he had sought throughout his life.
"Professor Choi Myeong-ye and countless other scholars and technicians told me the same thing time and time again. Broken things must be discarded. Clinging to the wreckage of the past is foolish, they said."
Chairman Kang's gaze passed over the chief secretary beside him and came to rest on Han-gyeol's steady eyes once more.
"But you were different. You did not merely restore the incense burner. You perfectly rejoined my torn childhood and my mother's embrace, then returned them to me before my very eyes."
"I merely returned the time this object contained to its rightful place."
Han-gyeol answered calmly with a slight bow.
His demeanor held neither exaggerated humility nor arrogant superiority. A deep smile spread across Chairman Kang's lips as he watched that dignified figure.
"Yes, your skill is magnificent, and your principles even more so. I failed to recognize such a precious person and nearly threw the last trace of my mother into the trash forever."
Chairman Kang raised a hand and gave the chief secretary beside him a weighty glance.
Reading the meaning in his eyes precisely, Chief Secretary Kim took a tablet PC from his jacket, worked quickly across the screen, and approached Han-gyeol.
"Master. Please accept my own deepest and most heartfelt gratitude."
Chief Secretary Kim bent ninety degrees at the waist in a formal bow.
"The restoration fee we promised has just been transferred to your account, Master."
The instant he finished speaking, the smartphone in Han-gyeol's pocket gave a long, heavy buzz.
"And this is a personal token of the chairman's gratitude to you, Master."
Chief Secretary Kim took a black envelope decorated with elegant gold leaf from his inside pocket and placed it respectfully in Han-gyeol's hands.
As Han-gyeol accepted the envelope, Chairman Kang added in a kindly voice.
"It feels terribly shameful to add a few scraps of paper to an object of incalculable value, but please accept them without hesitation as an expression of my sincerity."
"This is......."
"It contains a lifetime VIP health-screening pass for Taesung Medical Center and a voucher for the regional specialty gift sets our group sends only to distinguished guests during the holidays."
Chairman Kang continued with a hearty laugh.
"An artisan like you who brings dead things back to life must cherish and care for his own body above all. If you ruin your back or joints, you will not be able to show the world those beautiful miracles for long, will you? Whenever you are ill, visit the VIP ward and receive the finest care from head to toe. I will assign my personal physician to you."
It was a generous and practical consideration worthy of a conglomerate chairman. The Taesung Medical Center VIP pass was not something a person could buy simply by having money.
Han-gyeol tightened his grip slightly on the envelope and bowed.
"I gratefully accept your warm consideration, Chairman. I hope the warmth of your mother within the incense burner remains at your side for many years to come."
Han-gyeol left the chairman's office under the chief secretary's guidance, just as he had entered it.
He remained astonishingly calm throughout the private elevator ride down to the first-floor lobby.
The moment he walked through Taesung Group headquarters' lavish marble lobby and stepped out into the late-autumn chill of the city streets.
Only then did Han-gyeol reach into his pocket and take out his smartphone.
When he unlocked the screen, a pop-up notification from his banking app appeared clearly before him.
[Deposit: 150,000,000 won]
One hundred fifty million won.
It was exactly ten percent of the 1.5-billion-won value of the Goryeo Celadon Openwork Incense Burner with Seven-Treasure Pattern.
Han-gyeol stopped dead. He counted the zeroes on the screen once, twice, three times, four times...... then slowly counted them again.
The twenty million won he had received for restoring the White Porcelain Bottle with Iron-Painted Cord Design had already been a fortune beyond anything he had ever touched, but the figure of one hundred fifty million won before him carried enough weight to numb his senses.
Countless people hurried past him on the street, but the only thing Han-gyeol could hear was the thunderous pounding of his own heart.
An emotion like molten lava surged from deep within his chest.
But Han-gyeol restrained the impulse and bit his lip firmly.
He could not get carried away. This money was the tremendous weight of responsibility the Lee Family Workshop would have to shoulder from now on.
Han-gyeol immediately started toward a nearby branch of his primary bank.
The employee at the counter checked Han-gyeol's account balance and momentarily widened her eyes. She appeared quite flustered to see a nine-figure cash balance in the account of a plainly dressed young man.
"Sir, how would you like us to handle this amount? I can explain our term deposits and fund products......."
"No."
Han-gyeol cut the employee off firmly.
"I would like to repay the mortgage loan secured against the workshop building under my name."
"Ah...... Yes, of course. Please wait a moment."
The clatter of the employee's keyboard rang out busily.
The toxic debt his grandfather had been forced to assume after mistakenly guaranteeing an acquaintance's loan.
The culprit that had choked the Lee Family Workshop, bent his grandfather's back, and stained even young Han-gyeol's youth gray was now collapsing under a single signature and a few clicks.
"The transaction is complete, sir. As requested, 130,000,000 won of the loan principal has been repaid, and the remaining balance is now......."
The employee printed a receipt and repayment statement and handed them to Han-gyeol as she spoke.
The remaining debt was now just over twenty million won.
Of course, that was still no small amount, but considering the income Han-gyeol could earn by operating the workshop from now on, it was a level he could repay in a month or two.
Receipt in hand, Han-gyeol opened the bank's door and stepped outside.
He walked briskly toward the subway station. There was one person he wanted to rush back to the workshop and tell the joyous news immediately.
An hour later, Han-gyeol entered the Lee Family Workshop and walked straight to the framed photograph on one side of the workbench without even removing his coat.
It was a photograph of his grandfather, Lee Tae-jun, wearing a benevolent smile.
Han-gyeol folded the repayment receipt from the bank and placed it gently beside the frame. Then he brought his hands neatly together and met the eyes in the photograph for a very long time.
"Grandpa."
Han-gyeol's voice traveled gently through the empty workshop.
"Can you see?"
His throat tightened, but Han-gyeol forced the corners of his lips upward and gave a bright smile.
"This workshop you wanted so desperately to protect will never be taken from us now."
His grandfather's smile seemed warmer today, and somehow proud of him.
"So now...... put down that heavy burden and rest in peace."
Han-gyeol wiped his eyes with his sleeve and drew a deep breath.
He had settled the debts of the past. Now it was time to don new clothes and face the future.
Han-gyeol went outside and looked at the front of the workshop.
An old wooden sign had been bleached by years of wind, rain, and snow. Even its name had faded where the paint peeled away, making it painfully similar to the Lee Family Workshop when it had once been crushed beneath a mountain of debt.
Without delay, Han-gyeol called a woodworking shop and a sign manufacturer.
He did not want the ordinary plastic or acrylic signs stamped out by machines. He wanted real wood that would not rot under wind and rain, and whose deep grain would grow more alive as the years passed.
The timber Han-gyeol personally visited the lumberyard and selected with great care was a thick, weighty slab of solid zelkova. Zelkova possessed a dense, hard structure and had been prized since ancient times for palace pillars and temple timbers.
Two days later, the custom-made new sign arrived before the workshop.
Wearing his work clothes, Han-gyeol climbed a ladder and pulled the rusted nails from the old, rotting sign one by one. Each time the sign struck the ground, aged dust billowed upward.
"Heave-ho."
Han-gyeol hoisted the newly carved solid-zelkova sign and fastened it firmly across the workshop's facade.
He climbed down from the ladder and took several steps back.
Deeply and clearly carved across the new sign in a thick, dynamic script reminiscent of a master's brush, rather than a thin and feeble typeface, were the four characters <Lee Family Workshop (Lee Household)>.
Warm, subtle LED lighting had been embedded behind the sign. When he switched it on after nightfall, golden light softly wrapped the zelkova's dark grain and cast a welcoming glow across the entire alley.
It was no longer a shabby repair shop tucked into the corner of the neighborhood.
"Incredible, absolutely incredible!"
Someone clapped while striding noisily down the darkened alley toward the workshop. It was Mr. Park, carrying an expensive gold-trimmed bottle of whiskey in one hand and a shopping bag of premium snacks in the other.
"You only changed the sign, but the whole neighborhood looks different. It has the face of a place destined for enormous success!"
Mr. Park laughed heartily and slapped Han-gyeol on the shoulder several times.
"Come on, let's go inside! I heard how you thoroughly put that arrogant Professor Choi in his place before Chairman Kang today, and I'm in far too good a mood!"
The two entered the workshop and sat facing each other before the newly purchased ergonomic chair and workbench, clinking their glasses together. The fragrant, potent whiskey flowed down their throats and released a thrilling heat.
"Ahh, that's good! The chairman's secretarial office could barely stop praising you today. Among Taesung Group's executives, they're practically worshiping you as a savior."
Mr. Park tossed back another swallow of whiskey and continued excitedly.
"It is no longer a matter of a few people hearing about you through word of mouth. Among the wealthiest one percent of Korea's business world, anyone who doesn't know 'the young master craftsman of the Lee Family Workshop' will be accused of living under a rock. Commissions will soon arrive by the truckload, so you'd better brace yourself."
"I merely carried out the restoration I had to do."
"You don't need to act humble. You've more than earned this."
Mr. Park's expression hardened for a moment as he lowered his voice.
"But Professor Choi will never sit still after the humiliation he suffered today, if only because of his pride. That man is like the mafia of academia. He crushes anyone who puts a scratch on his authority, no matter what it takes. He is certain to scheme behind the scenes and search for a weakness to exploit."
Mr. Park's concerned warning.
But Han-gyeol's face as he toyed with his glass held not a trace of anxiety or fear. Instead, his eyes reflected in the clear liquor shone as hard as a sharply honed blade.
"It doesn't matter."
Han-gyeol tossed back the whiskey in one swallow and spoke in a low voice.
"No matter how a wounded beast lashes out, it cannot cover up the truth. Whatever petty trick he tries, I need only crush it with the same flawless skill I have shown until now."
Han-gyeol set the glass on the table with a clack.
"I will not run or hide. If Professor Choi comes at me, I will gladly meet him head-on."
Mr. Park fell silent for a moment as he looked into Han-gyeol's firm, piercing eyes.
Where Lee Tae-jun had been a gentle artisan with steel beneath his softness, Lee Han-gyeol possessed a sharpness like a keen blade and the unshakable spirit of solid steel.
"Good grief. Every time I see that look in your eyes, even I get chills. Yes, one flawless result is more powerful than a hundred words."
Mr. Park laughed heartily and emptied his glass.
Even amid pitch darkness, the zelkova sign bearing the words Lee Family Workshop cast its warm golden glow without wavering, standing firm in its place.