"Welcome. This is the Lee Family Workshop."
At Han-gyeol's gentle greeting, the middle-aged woman lingering hesitantly by the door took a cautious step inside. She held a small mother-of-pearl-inlaid soban table with a broken leg. It was a precious piece her mother had brought when she married, but one of its legs had broken during a move.
Han-gyeol put on gloves and examined the broken surface of the soban table. The grain of the wood remained intact, and although the mother-of-pearl decoration made with cut-shell inlay bore the grime of age, it retained its unique iridescent brilliance. Instead of making grand promises, he reassured the woman with a warm smile. It did not take long to boil animal glue, fit a wooden dowel, and rejoin the broken leg so seamlessly that the damage vanished.
After that day, a small rumor began spreading by word of mouth through the quiet alley on the outskirts of Seoul.
'The grandson at the Lee Family Workshop inherited every bit of his grandfather's skill.'
'They say even dead objects breathe like new again when they go there.'
The rumor grew legs and brought the neighborhood residents to the workshop one by one. An old pendulum clock that had stopped, a silent phonograph, a chipped ceremonial-vessel set, even a mother-of-pearl cabinet with warped doors. They were neither great cultural artifacts nor pieces worth hundreds of millions of won, but each carried someone's precious memories and years.
Han-gyeol refused none of those humble requests. If anything, he thoroughly enjoyed the peaceful hours of work.
The sound of sandpaper rubbing across wood, the subtle scents of varnish and pine resin, and the bright smiles of people leaving with repaired treasures in their arms. All of it soaked into Han-gyeol's parched daily life like a welcome spring rain.
The repair fees ranged from tens of thousands to a few hundred thousand won. Compared with the fortune he had received for restoring the White Porcelain Bottle with Iron-Painted Cord Design, it was mere pocket change. But now that he was free from the pressure of the crippling interest payments due every month without fail, it was enough to keep the workshop running and let him enjoy the luxury of a warm cup of coffee.
One afternoon, with sunlight falling at a slant, Han-gyeol sat at his workbench polishing a newly repaired ebony cane with a soft cloth. It was a tranquil moment that had him humming to himself.
VROOM—.
Just then, a heavy engine's exhaust note shattered the silence of the alley and filled the space in front of the workshop.
Han-gyeol raised his head and looked out the window. A massive black luxury sedan, utterly out of place in the narrow, shabby neighborhood alley, had stopped outside the workshop.
The driver's door soon opened, and a middle-aged man in a neatly tailored suit stepped out. The moment he did, he scowled and looked around. Open displeasure and contempt colored his gaze as it swept over the muddy puddles and old slate roofs.
"What on earth do you expect to do in a hole-in-the-wall like this? I thought the navigation had sent us the wrong way. Look at this neighborhood."
The man grumbled irritably toward the passenger seat.
The passenger door opened, and a woman in her mid-fifties stepped out in an elegant dress. She was impeccably dressed, but unlike her husband, her face looked anxious and desperate.
"Honey, please stop complaining and help me for a little while. I barely found this place after asking everywhere. They say the restorer here is that good."
"What skill! Even Insadong's best experts told us it was trash and said to throw it away. How could some neighborhood repairman save it? You truly never give up."
Her husband, Mr. Kang, openly clicked his tongue, but grudgingly opened the sedan's rear door. Grunting with effort, he pulled out a long object wrapped in layers of large plastic sheeting and an old blanket.
Han-gyeol rose, brushing off his work apron. The door opened, and the couple carried their heavy burden into the workshop.
"Welcome. This is the Lee Family Workshop. How may I help you?"
At Han-gyeol's polite greeting, Mrs. Choi spoke urgently, as desperate as a drowning woman clutching at a straw.
"Excuse me, is this the workshop of the master who works wonders repairing old and damaged objects?"
"I wouldn't call myself a master, but I do restoration work. Set it down and show me."
Mr. Kang dropped the heavy bundle he was carrying onto the workbench with a THUD. The impact sent musty dust billowing through gaps in the plastic.
At the same time, the air inside the workshop changed completely. A viciously damp, acrid stench swallowed the clean scent of wood. The smell of mold that had festered deep inside after years without sunlight stabbed at the nose.
"Just smell that. The stench of rot is everywhere. Good grief, it's probably soaked into my car seats."
Mr. Kang pinched his nose and took a step back. Mrs. Choi, ignoring her husband's criticism, began carefully removing the outer blanket and plastic with trembling hands.
When every layer of wrapping had been stripped away, the object's identity was finally revealed.
It was an eight-panel landscape folding screen.
But its storage condition was so abysmal that calling it a folding screen felt embarrassing. The wooden frame had absorbed moisture and warped badly, while the xuan paper bearing the painting had gone beyond yellow discoloration: patches of blue-green and black mold bloomed across it like mushrooms.
The painting itself was in the worst shape. Ink marks blurred and stained by moisture had dissolved into smears so badly that it was difficult to tell what they had originally depicted. On top of that, someone appeared to have clumsily painted over it, and the crude, rough brushstrokes created a stifling feeling, as though they were choking off the painting's spirit.
It was such a monstrosity that anyone might have driven it out the door at the first whiff.
"This...... is in quite serious condition."
Han-gyeol slightly furrowed his brow and inspected the folding screen's surface up close.
"See? What did I tell you! Even an expert says it's serious."
As though he had been waiting for Han-gyeol's words, Mr. Kang raised his voice.
"Young man, let me speak frankly. This is an inheritance my father-in-law left my wife when he died. He treasured it all his life and was always saying, 'This is a family heirloom and an exceptionally valuable masterpiece.'"
Mr. Kang folded his arms and jerked his chin toward the folding screen with a disgruntled look.
"So after the funeral, I took this supposedly precious thing to the largest antique-art appraisal institute in Insadong. Do you know what the appraisers said when they saw it? They gave a derisive laugh and told me to dispose of it immediately."
"Dispose of it?"
"That's right. They said the painting was as crude and vulgar as something a neighborhood child had drawn, and most decisively, it didn't bear a single seal. In short, it was a cheap fake with no pedigree."
Mr. Kang's voice brimmed with frustration and irritation.
"My father-in-law was thoroughly deceived by some swindlers while he was alive and cherished a cheap fake because he thought it was precious. I've told my wife more than a hundred times to throw it out at once because it stinks and will spread mold throughout the house. But she stubbornly refused to let go and dragged it all the way here, determined to have it repaired."
Mrs. Choi's head drooped beneath her husband's cutting criticism. Her shoulders trembled faintly.
Tenderly stroking the moldy edge of the folding screen, Mrs. Choi spoke in a tearful voice.
"Sir...... my father lived his whole life as an honest, exacting man. He never brought anything into his home carelessly. The day before he died, he held my hand tightly, gave me this folding screen, and said it was a painting that would bring me great comfort in difficult times."
A large tear dropped from her eye and dampened the folding screen's wooden frame.
"Of course, the experts in Insadong may be right. My father may have been deceived. But...... the money isn't what matters to me. It breaks my heart to think that my father, who stood upright all his life, might be remembered as a foolish old man who was tricked by swindlers and cherished trash. Please, couldn't you at least clean off this mold and reconnect the parts of the painting that have torn? I can't throw my memories of my father into a garbage dump......."
Mrs. Choi's desperate plea plunged the workshop into a brief, solemn silence.
Even her husband, Mr. Kang, could not bring himself to say anything harsher in the face of his wife's tears. He merely cleared his throat repeatedly and averted his gaze.
Han-gyeol silently looked down at the folding screen.
He thought he understood why the appraisers in Insadong had judged it a forgery. The exposed brushwork was dull, and the ink gradation was discordant. Above all, there was no sign of the artist's seal or signature (inscription), the painting's equivalent of an identity card. It met every condition for an object with absolutely no value.
But Han-gyeol had eyes that could see what others could not.
He carefully removed his gloves. Then he extended his right hand and brought his fingertips to the surface of the xuan paper, where black mold had bloomed.
The moment he gently closed his eyes, that familiar yet strange sensation pierced his entire body.
RING—.
Along with the tinnitus reverberating through his head, his vision inverted into black and white. The sounds around him receded into the distance, and only the folding screen's time, touching him through his fingertips, surged in like a colossal tidal wave.
'This.......'
Han-gyeol's brow furrowed. The vibrations coming from the folding screen were anything but ordinary.
An ordinary cheap forgery should have carried the energy of shallow commercialism and an impatient copyist. The energy he felt from this screen, however, was different. Beneath the dank despair emitted by mold and moisture lay a majestic vitality rising from somewhere deep and weighty.
It felt as though he had encountered an enormous dragon buried in mud, holding its breath.
As Han-gyeol sharpened his concentration, the layers beyond the black-stained xuan paper began to separate one by one before his eyes. As though he were viewing a cross-sectional diagram, every fiber of the backing paper (paper mounted behind a painting) was scanned and poured into his mind.
At last, beneath the crudely overpainted black ink, the original's powerful brush lines, drawn by the true artist with his whole soul, emerged in a blaze of light.
Letters engraved themselves in the air as though dark ink were spreading across it.
[True Name: Sorim Jo Seok-jin's Eight-Panel Landscape Folding Screen]
[Date of Production: Korean Empire~Early Japanese Colonial Period]
[Condition: Deteriorated. Mold corrosion caused by excessive moisture; original form damaged by indiscriminate ink overpainting by an untrained person in a later era.]
[Special Notes: Custom Commission (Private Collection). A concealed mark exists inside the backing paper.]
[Current Value: 0 won]
[Estimated Value After Restoration: 55,000,000 won]
Han-gyeol slowly opened his eyes. A keen light flashed deep within his pupils.
Sorim Jo Seok-jin.
He had been the final court painter of the Royal Bureau of Painting in the late Joseon period and, alongside An Jung-sik, one of the two towering masters of modern traditional painting. In landscape and fish-and-crab paintings, he had been the greatest artist of his time, without peer.
This was no national-treasure-class masterpiece by a famous artist. It was closer to a rare minor work infused with personal affection, something he had likely painted with a relaxed hand as a gift for an acquaintance.
But its value was anything but slight. Properly restored, it would be worth fifty-five million won, easily more than the price of the luxury midsize sedan Mr. Kang had arrived in.
'No wonder the people in Insadong were fooled.'
Han-gyeol carefully examined the folding screen's condition once more. The crude brushwork covering the painting was not the artist's. When the painting deteriorated over time, someone had apparently tried to save it by clumsily painting over it in ink, killing all the exquisite technique of the original. Even the seal was likely hidden beneath the overpainting and dust or had been rolled inside the backing paper during the mounting process.
The genuine article lay silent beneath the shell of a fake.
Han-gyeol swallowed the thrill running down his spine, stepped back, and looked at the couple.
Mr. Kang was already fiddling with his car keys, assuming Han-gyeol's answer was obvious.
"Well, what do you think? If you've finished checking it, tell my wife clearly. Tell her not to waste money repairing trash and to throw it away with an easy mind."
Han-gyeol met Mr. Kang's gaze with eyes that were gentle but resolute.
"You must not throw it away."
"......What?"
"Because if this painting completely sheds the grime of age and regains its original appearance...... it will command at least fifty million won on the market."