"I cannot repair this jar."
Cheol-su blinked at Han-gyeol's firm sentence.
His unfocused gaze moved between Han-gyeol and the jar on the table as though he did not understand what he had just heard.
"That......."
Air escaped between Cheol-su's cracked lips.
"What do you mean? You can't repair it? I clearly read the articles and heard the rumors saying you bring even dead objects back to life......! If the cost is the problem, I'll find the money somehow. I'll repay it with interest, so please......."
"This is not about the cost......."
Han-gyeol swallowed his sympathy and cut Cheol-su off. Perhaps it would hurt this naive young man less if he made the excuse that the repair fee was the problem. But false hope would only fester until it burst. It would hurt now, but rotten flesh had to be cut away.
"This object is not old pottery. In other words, it is not cultural heritage."
"......What?"
"It is a modern, factory-made imitation with no value whatsoever as an antique. Restoring a fake so that it passes perfectly as genuine would make me complicit in the fraud. That is why I said I cannot repair it."
Fake. Imitation. Fraud.
The words Cheol-su had feared most and tried desperately to ignore deep within his mind escaped Han-gyeol's lips, draining his face white as paper.
The young man's pitiful gaze that had sought salvation only moments earlier soon transformed into uncontrollable confusion and rage.
"A-a fake? What kind of ridiculous nonsense is that......?!"
Cheol-su shot to his feet, panting as he urgently pulled a crumpled document envelope from his inside pocket.
"Look! Look at this! It's an appraisal certificate!"
With trembling hands, Cheol-su slammed the paper he had pulled from his coat across the table.
"The man gave it to me with the object! He said it was an official appraisal certificate issued by a famous antique-art association in Insadong. There's even a certificate of authenticity right here, so how can you call it fake without examining it properly?!"
Han-gyeol silently looked down at the appraisal certificate thrown across the table. It was a plausible document with an ornate gold-leaf border, densely packed Chinese characters of uncertain meaning, and several red official seals. It was precise enough to fool any ordinary person unfamiliar with antique art.
But it meant nothing. Han-gyeol knew better than anyone how many phantom associations and fraudsters lurked in Insadong's back alleys, printing dozens or hundreds of such false appraisal certificates for anyone willing to pay.
"I fully understand why you feel wronged, but that paper is a forged document with no validity or value."
"How would you know that? Are you the director of an appraisal institute or something? How can you tell whether it's real or fake at a glance?!"
Cheol-su clutched the blue-and-white porcelain jar to his chest as he denied reality.
"You can't fix it because you don't have the skill, right? Be honest! You're just afraid you'll make a mistake while working on it! Or do I look so poor that you're pulling this trick because you think I'll run off without paying?!"
"......."
Han-gyeol stood calmly without wavering at any of Cheol-su's abuse. Offering false comfort out of pity was something only fraudsters did.
An appraiser had to state the facts. No matter how cruel or sharp a blade that truth became, forcing this young man to face reality was the only salvation that would allow him to take another step.
"If you are angry because I cannot repair this object, you may curse me as much as you wish."
Han-gyeol's calm, low voice pierced Cheol-su's shouting and settled heavily over the workshop.
"But as an appraiser, it is my duty to show you why this object is fake and what the fraudsters did to it. Only then can you go to the police, report exactly how you were victimized, and help them track down the criminals."
"Look at this smooth color and the incredible dragon! How can you possibly call it fake?"
"A ceramic's ornate exterior is not everything."
Han-gyeol slowly approached the table. Cheol-su still clutched the jar, but under the pressure of Han-gyeol's certain gaze, he faltered and could no longer resist.
"Look at the foot on the bottom of the jar."
Following Han-gyeol's direction, Cheol-su carefully tilted the jar to reveal its base. Dark, yellowish grime that resembled soil caked the area around the white foot. To anyone, it would have looked like old dirt that had naturally seeped in over centuries or while the object lay buried underground for ages.
"The dirt is caked on, and the color is murky, correct? The fraudsters must have told you this proved it was a centuries-old authentic piece."
Han-gyeol put on gloves from his drawer, dampened a cotton ball with a little alcohol, and rubbed the dark grime around the foot.
If it had been ordinary soil or natural grime accumulated over time, the color staining the cotton should have been a murky brown or pale gray. Yet the cotton Han-gyeol used came away bizarrely stained a deep purplish red.
Cheol-su's eyes widened in surprise.
"This is not the grime of age."
Han-gyeol held the cotton with its purple stain before Cheol-su's eyes. The sharp, sour odor of harsh chemicals surged up and stung the nose.
"It is a chemical solution called potassium permanganate. It is used to make newly fired white pottery look like an old antique. An object that had truly rolled in the soil would never bleed purple like this."
"B-but......."
Cheol-su's lips quivered. He wanted to deny it, but the evidence of manipulation before him was unmistakable.
Han-gyeol's proof, however, did not end there.
"Second, look at that ornate blue-and-white design, the dragon soaring toward the sky."
Han-gyeol pointed at the claws of the blue dragon decorating the jar's center. Following Han-gyeol's fingertip, Cheol-su also looked down at the image he had been so proud of.
"Joseon-era blue-and-white porcelain was painted by potters who dipped brushes in cobalt pigment and drew directly on the white clay. No matter how skilled the artist, a hand-painted image always leaves traces. Ink pools where the brush begins, the pigment's shade changes when the brush turns, and pressure leaves a mark where the brush stops."
Han-gyeol's voice was cold and incisive, like a prosecutor analyzing evidence in court.
"But from the dragon's head to the tip of its tail, down to the smallest scales and claws, the pigment's width and intensity are eerily uniform, as if a machine stamped them out. There is no trace of a brush stopping, nor even a single place where pigment pooled."
"M-maybe the potter was simply too perfect? Because it was made for the royal court......!"
Cheol-su asked in return as though clutching at one last straw, but Han-gyeol quietly shook his head. He took a precision jeweler's loupe from the drawer and held it out to Cheol-su.
"Use this to examine the very tip of the dragon's claw."
Cheol-su accepted the loupe in trembling hands and brought it to the claw Han-gyeol indicated.
In that instant.
"Gasp......!"
The loupe slipped from his strengthless hand, struck the table with a light clack, and rolled away.
What Cheol-su saw through the loupe was not a beautiful brushstroke.
There were tens, even hundreds of thousands of microscopic blue dots invisible to the naked eye. Like a color photograph in a newspaper enlarged beneath a magnifying glass, the dots were arranged at regular intervals to form the dragon's shape.
They were halftone dots, unmistakable traces of mechanical printing created when a printer produced an image.
"Do you see now?"
Han-gyeol's confirmation struck Cheol-su mercilessly around the ears.
"This was not painted by a human hand. A specially made transfer decal fitted to the pottery's curved surface—in simple terms, an enormous sticker—was printed with the dragon, attached to the ceramic with water, coated with clear glaze, and then fired in a kiln. It is the cheapest and most common method used to mass-produce souvenirs and tableware in modern ceramics factories."
Soil grime fabricated with potassium permanganate. A printer-produced transfer decal.
The evidence Han-gyeol presented was so scientific and undeniable that it left Cheol-su no room to reject reality, no matter how little he knew about antique art.
The fantasy of a national-treasure-class work of pottery carrying a fifty-million-won price tag shattered completely amid the reeking chemical odor and tens of thousands of printed halftone dots.
"Ah...... Ah......."
All strength drained from Cheol-su's body. His arms slipped from around the jar, and he collapsed to the floor like a marionette with its strings cut.
"It's a lie...... It has to be a lie......."
His lips trembled as he stared blankly into space. Then a wretched howl like the cry of a beast began ripping through the empty workshop.
"Aaaaaagh! No! No, it can't be! If this is fake...... If this is fake, what am I supposed to do?! I could have started a happy life with Ji-eun in a decent home without making her suffer...... That son of a bitch! That raccoon-like bastard of a con man!"
Cheol-su screamed as he pounded the cold workshop floor madly with his fists.
More than the pain of losing the money, the guilt of having inflicted a lifelong wound upon the woman he loved tore Cheol-su's heart to shreds.
"Master...... What am I supposed to do now? Even if I go to the police, that bastard used a burner phone and disappeared. Will I ever get my money back? It's over for me. It's all over......."
Han-gyeol silently embraced Cheol-su where he sat collapsed on the floor.
What could he possibly say? Paltry comforts like 'The police will catch him if you report it' or 'You're young, so you can start again' would not reach this young man's ears now, not even by a single letter.
The fraudster had most likely already laundered the money and fled abroad or assumed another identity. Even if a miracle led to his arrest, there was no guarantee Cheol-su would recover the full amount.
Han-gyeol's gaze left Cheol-su sprawled on the floor and moved to the glossy fake blue-and-white porcelain, the source of every tragedy, before coming to rest on the box beside it.
It was the large paulownia box the fraudster had deliberately used as impressive packaging to sell the fantasy of national-treasure-class pottery.
The instant Han-gyeol's gaze turned toward the paulownia box, drawn by instinct.
Humm—
It was different from the sharp, violent mechanical noise and chemical stench he had experienced when he touched the fake pottery moments earlier.
Extremely weak and faint, yet a soft warmth began rising from the box like a heat haze, as comforting as a brazier thawing frozen hands in midwinter.
'Uh......?'
Han-gyeol's gaze wavered slightly.
Leaving the despairing, sobbing Cheol-su behind, he moved as though entranced toward the side of the table. Then he slowly extended a hand over the lid of the old, rough paulownia box, battered and stained into a sorry sight.
Amid the cold silence, Han-gyeol's fingertips touched the coarse wood grain.