Whenever the solution in the tank turned murky and dark red like blood, Han-gyeol opened the drainage valve without delay.
Rush, rush, rush.
Once the waste solution laden with old rust drained away, he refilled the tank with fresh EDTA solution heated to exactly 24 degrees and mixed to a 5 percent concentration. The process had repeated without pause for days.
"Haa."
Han-gyeol lowered his dust mask slightly and released a rough breath. Beads of sweat ran from his forehead and fell from his chin. Wearing rubber gloves that reached his shoulders, he plunged both arms into the tank once more.
Han-gyeol's hand, holding the badger-hair brush, carefully swept over the iron club submerged beneath the water.
Scrape, scraaape.
Rust debris softened by the solution rose like smoke as the bristles pushed it away. He could not apply excessive force even once. It was tedious, grueling work: give the chemicals time to break down the rust, then gently brush away only the decomposed residue.
At that moment, someone cried out in shock outside.
"Good grief, that's vicious!"
It was Mr. Park's voice. Han-gyeol rested the brush against the side of the tank, removed his rubber gloves, and stepped out of the sealed chamber.
Standing in the workshop reception room, Mr. Park pinched his nose with one hand and repeatedly fanned the air with the other.
"Welcome, Mr. Park."
"What in the world are you boiling that smells so awful? You'll drive everyone in the neighborhood away. It feels like my nose is rotting off."
Han-gyeol chuckled at Mr. Park's exaggerated complaints. He switched on the ventilation fan and handed him a glass of cold water.
"I'm doing some chemical separation. The air will clear shortly."
"Judging by your face, you must have stayed awake for several nights. New clients are waiting anxiously outside, yet you've locked the door and holed yourself up. What in the world are you doing in there?"
Mr. Park drained the water in one gulp and spoke as though scolding him. His gaze turned toward the tightly closed door of the sealed chamber. His expression said he was dying to know what kind of magnificent, national-treasure-class artifact Han-gyeol could be handling in there, enough to send away clients who came carrying bundles of cash and shut himself away.
Han-gyeol wiped the sweat from his forehead with a towel, silently studied the closed door, and answered.
"I'm mining stars."
"What? Stars?"
Mr. Park asked again in disbelief.
"Stars buried in darkness for hundreds of years. I'm digging them out and polishing them one by one."
There was a hint of playfulness in his voice, but his eyes were serious. Mr. Park met Han-gyeol's deeply settled gaze and asked no more. Whenever the young man wore such a solemn expression, it undoubtedly meant some extraordinary object was preparing to awaken beneath his fingertips.
"All right. Mine stars or mine the moon, but take care of yourself while you do it. What will you do if you collapse?"
After leaving several more worried words of warning, Mr. Park departed the workshop.
Once Mr. Park left, Han-gyeol returned to the sealed chamber. He had no time to rest. Not until he brought the sword, releasing its ancient breath within the tank, safely back into the world.
And so one day, two days, and then a week passed without rest.
The simple but extraordinarily precise routine of replacing the solution and brushing away the rust repeated every day. Han-gyeol's fingertips cracked and swelled, while the acrid chemical odor seeped deep into his hair and skin.
Yet Han-gyeol never rushed, not even once. Whenever the urge to twist the scabbard open by force arose, he recalled the red furnace and the artisans' beads of sweat he had seen in the vision. Compared with the devotion they had poured into the sword, the time he spent waiting was no more than an instant.
Then, late one night, precisely three weeks later.
Han-gyeol's eyes flashed sharply as he looked into the tank.
With both hands clad in rubber gloves, he carefully lifted the sword from the bottom.
The mudlike rust and decayed matter layered around the guard where the blade and scabbard met had dissolved completely into the solution and fallen away.
Han-gyeol held his breath, gripping the scabbard with one hand and the handle with the other. Then he very slowly twisted them in opposite directions.
Click.
For three weeks, the scabbard and blade had refused to move as though they were a single stone. Now an infinitesimal gap appeared between them.
"......It opened."
Han-gyeol immediately removed the sword from the tank. After thoroughly washing away the chemical solution under running purified water, he laid the sword flat upon a workbench lined with soft felt.
The next stage required physical force. Even so, he could not simply pull with brute strength. A gap had opened between blade and scabbard, but rust debris inside would still be causing friction.
Han-gyeol took a small, hard oak mallet from his toolbox.
He firmly secured the handle with his left hand and began tapping the scabbard very lightly with the mallet in his right.
Tap, tap, tap.
A regular, steady rhythm. He was using the minute vibrations created by the wooden mallet to separate the interlocked rust particles within and gradually release the air pressure from the gap.
Tap, tap, tap.
Han-gyeol's gaze remained fixed not on the point struck by the mallet, but on the hair-thin gap where the scabbard met the guard. He rolled the scabbard little by little, sending the vibrations evenly through it from every direction.
How much time had passed?
Crackle.
Amid the dull tapping of the wooden mallet came a sharp frictional sound, like something tearing.
Han-gyeol immediately set the mallet down, gripped the handle and scabbard, and pulled gently.
Sliiide.
As though being drawn from mud, the scabbard sealed for hundreds of years began sliding free with a satisfying rasp.
At the final instant, Han-gyeol abruptly stopped applying force and separated the scabbard completely.
"Haa......."
The instant the scabbard came free, Han-gyeol released an involuntary gasp of admiration.
Beneath the work light's intense glare, the blade finally revealed its true form after breaking through three weeks of darkness.
It was not the bright, gleaming silver blade one usually imagined. The iron itself had oxidized over the long years, taking on a deep and chilling dark-red color like congealed blood.
Yet it remained perfectly straight and smooth, without a single chip or break. Steel hammered and quenched thousands of times by Joseon's finest artisans. Its overwhelming density had survived centuries and the erosion of rust, preserving its skeleton intact.
From the dark-red blade's tip spilled a terrifying sharpness, as though it might cut at any moment.
"So this...... is the true bearing of a Four-Tiger Sword."
Han-gyeol lightly stroked the blade with a trembling hand. The touch of cold, hard steel traveled through his fingertips.
But this was no time for admiration. One final task remained: fully drawing this sword's true face, the stars hidden beneath its rust, back into the world.
Han-gyeol padded a securing vise with soft leather and firmly clamped the blade. Then he pulled the arm of a precision microscope closer and brought its lens near the blade's surface.
Thin oxide films still faintly covering the dark-red iron came into view.
Han-gyeol placed the scaler's sharp tip against the film's boundary.
Scrape.
He applied no force, merely brushing over it. Beneath the film he peeled away, a brilliant white-silver line flashed against the black base metal.
"Found you."
Han-gyeol's lips moved quickly. He made minute adjustments to the scaler's angle and began doggedly following the silver line, stripping away the grime covering it.
Scrape, scrape, scrape.
Wherever the scaler passed, white stars made from silver wire hammered into the pitch-black iron night sky began opening their eyes one by one.
The first star appeared, followed by the second, which gleamed along the line joining them.
Han-gyeol quieted even his breathing and focused his entire mind upon the sensation in his fingertips.
"Cheonchu (Heavenly Pivot), Cheonseon (Heavenly Rotation), Cheongi (Heavenly Mechanism), Cheongwon (Heavenly Authority)......."
The names of the stars forming the Big Dipper unconsciously flowed from Han-gyeol's lips.
The four stars forming the bowl revealed their silver forms in full. The scaler did not stop, continuing toward the handle.
"Okhyeong (Jade Balance), Gaeyang (Opening Yang), Yogwang (Shaking Light)."
The instant the grime covering the seventh and final star came away.
The enormous, brilliant silver Big Dipper decorating half the blade revealed itself completely.
"I'm not finished yet."
After carefully wiping away the loosened debris with a cotton swab, Han-gyeol shifted his gaze to the clusters of smaller stars surrounding the Big Dipper and moved the scaler toward them.
A celestial chart of the 28 lunar mansions dividing the sky into 28 regions. Every time Han-gyeol's fingertips reached them, its countless constellations awoke from deep slumber and lit their silver fires in turn.
The muscles in his shoulders screamed and his eyes felt ready to burst, but Han-gyeol did not stop working.
At last, once the celestial chart engraved on one face of the blade had emerged in full, Han-gyeol released the vise, carefully turned the sword over, and secured it with the opposite face upward.
This time, it was not a picture.
From the blade's base toward its point, vigorous seal-script characters brimming with spirit had been densely inlaid in silver wire.
Han-gyeol took up the scaler again and began carving out the rust covering every stroke of those characters.
Scrape, scrape.
As each silver stroke emerged clearly, Han-gyeol's lips slowly followed the character's path.
"Byeok (Repel)."
The first character flashed silver. It meant to force open and drive back.
"Je (Remove)."
The second character broke through the darkness. It meant to eliminate.
"Sa (Evil)."
That which was deceitful and evil.
Then Han-gyeol swept a cotton swab across the rust covering the final character.
"Mae (Demon)."
The character denoting goblins and evil spirits took perfect shape.
'Ward Off Evil Spirits.'
Repel the wicked and protect the righteous.
An absolute royal command bestowed alongside this sword upon the kingdom's bravest general. Those four chilling and magnificent characters shone in silver.
"It's finished."
Han-gyeol set down the scaler, released the vise, and lifted the blade with both hands. Then he switched on the main halogen light mounted to the ceiling.
Flash—!
The light's fierce beam cut through the air and poured over the blade.
For an instant, it seemed as though time had stopped within the workshop.
Deep dark-red steel, stripped perfectly clean of centuries of grime. Across it, the silver Big Dipper and the constellations of the 28 lunar mansions caught the light and began radiating a dazzling brilliance.
Not a trace remained of the iron club that had looked like construction waste.
Only Joseon's fiery spirit and the great labor of artisans who had preserved the sword from decay for hundreds of years shone there.
Goose bumps rose along Han-gyeol's forearms, and fierce emotion swelled between his ragged breaths.
The reason an old man who had lost his memories had held it until his final breath.
"Grandfather."
In a deep, solemn voice, Han-gyeol whispered to the Four-Tiger Sword with its gleaming silver constellations.
"The stars that only you remembered have finally risen once more."