"Did you say fifty million won?"
Mr. Kang's eyes flashed sharply. The contempt he had poured upon the folding screen moments earlier vanished, and his face transformed into that of a businessman calculating every figure. His suspicious gaze shifted between the moldy screen and Han-gyeol's face.
"Even the director of what they call Insadong's finest appraisal institute studied it through a magnifying glass for a long time before shaking his head. He said the painting style was crude and vulgar. Are you saying all those experts were blind, young man?"
His question was cutting. No matter how confidently the young man before him declared it genuine, common sense made it difficult to accept that he could overturn in an instant the verdict of experts with decades of experience.
His guarded stance made it obvious that he suspected this young repairman might be taking an unreasonable gamble to extract a restoration fee from them.
Han-gyeol was not shaken at all by Mr. Kang's sharp response. Instead, he shook his head with a faint smile.
"No. The appraisers in Insadong weren't wrong. To their eyes, this painting must certainly have looked like a wretched forgery."
"A moment ago you called it genuine, and now you say it really is a forgery. Are you playing word games with me?"
"Because they only saw the 'surface.'"
With his gloved hand, Han-gyeol carefully pointed to the center of the folding screen. Thick, crude ink marks ran chaotically across the yellowed xuan paper there.
"Over the many years this screen was exposed to moisture, the paper deteriorated and the original ink faded. Someone later took up a brush, whether out of good intentions or ignorance, and painted over the original lines because they couldn't bear to see them disappear."
Han-gyeol continued his explanation.
"The person who painted over it wasn't a professional artist. They thought only of darkening the faded lines and covered them with dull ink, completely ignoring the ink gradation and the speed of the brushwork calculated by the original artist. The 'crude and vulgar painting style' the experts in Insadong saw was this later overpainting. The genuine work lies trapped beneath layer after layer of black ink and mold, holding its breath."
Mr. Kang followed Han-gyeol's fingertip as he studied the painting. Looking again after hearing the explanation, he thought he could make out traces of other ink lines faintly bleeding around the thick, dark strokes.
"Then......."
Mrs. Choi asked in a trembling voice.
"Do you mean that if you remove only the overpainting, the real painting my father spoke of will emerge?"
"Yes. And you'll discover the real reason your father treasured this folding screen so dearly. His true legacy is hidden inside."
"His true legacy?"
Han-gyeol nodded. When he had looked through the folding screen earlier with his Mind's Eye, he had sensed something of an alien shape inside the backing paper supporting the painting. It was not a simple wad of paper. It was clearly a mark, or perhaps a message, deliberately concealed by someone.
"But how can you remove ink painted over paper? You can't erase it, and if you wash it with water, the paper itself will dissolve. What will you do if it becomes an even worse monstrosity than if you'd left it untouched?"
Mr. Kang raised another practical issue. He still had not let go of his suspicions. He was calculating that if the painting were completely ruined during restoration, the responsibility and cost would fall entirely on him.
Han-gyeol saw straight through Mr. Kang's intentions. The best way to ease a merchant's anxiety was to ensure he had nothing to lose.
"Your concern is justified. Separating only the later ink from the paper is an extremely dangerous process requiring advanced skill and patience. The slightest deviation could tear the original xuan paper or make even the original ink bleed."
Han-gyeol calmly continued, looking the couple squarely in the eyes.
"So I'd like to make you an offer. I won't take a single won as a deposit for this restoration."
"You won't take a deposit?"
Mr. Kang's eyes widened.
"No. I'll cover all restoration and material costs. Once the work is finished, take this painting yourself to the most authoritative appraisal institute in Korea. If they don't declare it genuine, or if the painting is damaged in the slightest during the restoration process, you don't have to pay me a single won. You may simply take the folding screen home."
It was a tremendous display of confidence. Without absolute faith in his own skill, no one could have proposed such extraordinary terms.
"In return......."
Han-gyeol's eyes gleamed fiercely.
"If the painting perfectly regains its original appearance and is recognized as genuine, I'll take twenty percent of the final appraised value as my restoration fee. Do you agree?"
Mr. Kang's mind raced.
If the restoration failed, the screen was trash he had intended to discard anyway, so he had absolutely nothing to lose. It would not cost him a single won. On the other hand, if the restoration succeeded and the painting was valued at fifty million won, he would receive a windfall of forty million even after paying the ten-million-won fee. What more perfect risk-free, high-return investment could there be?
"Good! If you're that confident, young man, I'll take the chance and entrust it to you."
Mr. Kang nodded readily. Greedy anticipation had already replaced the displeasure on his face.
Mrs. Choi, meanwhile, bowed deeply to Han-gyeol.
"Thank you. Thank you so much. I don't care how much it costs, so please, just recover my father's heart."
"Don't worry. I will bring it back out into the world."
The couple thanked Han-gyeol repeatedly before leaving the workshop. Listening to the luxury sedan recede into the distance, Han-gyeol turned toward the enormous mass of mold lying on his workbench.
Silence returned to the workshop.
The dank reek of moisture-laden mold polluted the workshop's clean air. Han-gyeol turned the ventilation fan to maximum, then took surgical latex gloves and a fine-dust mask from a drawer and put them on.
Now it was time to strip away the shell.
The first task was dismantling the wooden frame around the painting. Long exposure to moisture had swollen the frame until it tightly constricted the xuan paper. Trying to tear it free by force risked ripping away the painting's edges.
Han-gyeol picked up a thin bamboo spatula called a 'hera' and a rubber mallet.
He found the joint at one corner of the screen and carefully inserted the tip of the hera. Then he began tapping the back of the tool with the rubber mallet in a light, regular rhythm.
TAP, TAP, TAP.
The crisp yet cautious friction echoed through the workshop. Feeling the grain of the wood, Han-gyeol transmitted minute vibrations in the direction opposite the driven wedge. Rather than brute force, it was an advanced technique that used vibration to make the interlocked joint loosen itself.
CREAK.
After several minutes of tapping, a tiny gap finally opened between the wooden frame and painting panel, which had been so saturated with moisture that they had fused together.
Han-gyeol pushed a wooden wedge into the gap to secure the space, then carefully separated the eight panels of the folding screen one by one.
He laid the first panel, now free of the frame, flat on the broad workbench.
What came next was the heart of the restoration and its most nerve-racking hurdle.
It was the 'backing (paper mounting) separation' process.
Traditional Eastern paintings do not consist of a single thin sheet of xuan paper. To withstand the moisture in the ink and improve the painting's preservation, several layers of tough paper are pasted to the back of the thin painted xuan paper. This is called backing.
The problem was that prolonged exposure to moisture had tangled the painted layer, the backing-paper layers behind it, and the wheat paste between them with mold until they hardened together like a single solid stone.
Whoever had painted over it in a later era appeared to have applied ink directly to the xuan paper on the front of the painting, then pasted another layer of paper over it. Han-gyeol had to peel away that crude uppermost overpainted layer from the original painting beneath it, which had to be saved, without so much as a 0.1-millimeter error.
Peeling even slightly too deep would tear the original painting. Peeling too shallow would leave traces of the overpainting and prevent the original work's spirit from returning.
Han-gyeol slowly closed his eyes and drew a deep breath.
He focused his mind intensely, feeling the air fill his lungs. Every stray thought in his mind emptied to white, leaving a state of selflessness in which only the sensation in his fingertips was heightened to its limit.
When his eyes snapped open, his vision distorted strangely once more.
Together with a bluish aura, a Guideline visible only to Han-gyeol appeared in the air like a hologram.
[Restoration Guide: Multiple Backing Separation]
[Warning: Fibers in Painted Layer 85% Degraded. Extremely Vulnerable to Physical Shock.]
[Target Humidity: Maintain 65%]
[Recommended Separation Angle: Maintain 15 Degrees Against the Paper Grain]
Han-gyeol nodded and switched on the large ultrasonic humidifier beside the workbench. A fine mist streamed out and began moistening the air around the table.
He watched the readings on the thermo-hygrometer with hawk-like eyes. 50%, 55%, 60%.......
When the number finally reached 65%, Han-gyeol adjusted the humidifier's output and held the humidity steady. If it was too dry, the paper would crumble; if too damp, even the original ink would bleed. Sixty-five percent—this precarious boundary was the only environment capable of producing a miracle.
Han-gyeol took up a fine mister and sprayed a tiny amount of purified water onto the painting's upper-right corner.
HISS—.
Fine droplets settled on the moldy paper. He had to wait for the fleeting instant when the hardened old paste absorbed the moisture and softened by the barest degree.
As he counted silently, Han-gyeol took tweezers and the bamboo hera in hand.
His breathing stopped.
With the tips of the tweezers, Han-gyeol gently lifted a minute edge of the overpainted surface paper. It was a membrane of paper so thin it hardly deserved to be called a thickness.
At the same time, he slid the bamboo hera in his right hand into the invisible gap between the original painting layer and the surface paper.
RUSTLE.
The infinitesimal friction struck Han-gyeol's ears hard enough to raise goosebumps. It was the sound of paper separating from paper.
[Current Angle: 10 Degrees. Increase the Angle.]
A red warning message flashed in his vision. If the angle was too low, the fibers of the original xuan paper risked being torn away with the surface layer.
Han-gyeol minutely controlled the muscles of his wrist and slightly raised the angle of the hand holding the tweezers.
[Current Angle: 15 Degrees. Optimal Angle.]
The red warning changed to a soothing blue.
From here on, it was a battle of patience. Silencing even the sound of his breathing, Han-gyeol maintained the fifteen-degree angle perfectly and advanced the bamboo hera one millimeter at a time.
Beads of sweat formed on his brow and ran inside his dust mask, but he did not have the leisure to blink even once.
CRACKLE, RUSTLE.
Like a snake shedding its skin, the surface paper covered in mold and crude ink slowly began to peel away.
"Haa......."
The breath he had been holding burst from between Han-gyeol's lips.
The spot where the outer shell had peeled away. Beneath it emerged a landscape beautiful enough to make Han-gyeol's heart swell.
The true landscape painting that had lain hidden under that crudely overpainted mass of black ink.
The ink gradation (light and dark) was exquisitely controlled, pale ink expressing the remoteness of distant mountains and dark ink bringing out the vigor of nearby rocks. The dynamic technique, in which the speed and pauses of the brush remained palpable, was the very breath of a master that could never be imitated.
For an instant, the workshop that reeked of mold seemed to transform into a deep mountain landscape filled with the fragrance of ink.
'As I thought, my eyes weren't wrong.'
Thrilled, Han-gyeol continued working. Every time Master Jo Seok-jin's brushwork saw the light of day, the hot exhilaration of a craftsman also blossomed within Han-gyeol's heart.
His intense concentration continued until he lost all sense of how much time had passed. Darkness already lay thick beyond the window.
He had peeled away about half of the first panel when it happened.
Han-gyeol's fingertips felt a strange foreign sensation as he pushed the hera forward. The adhesion between the sheets of paper differed from the rest. Something felt minutely raised beneath them.
Han-gyeol's gaze sharpened.
When he carefully lifted the surface paper with the tweezers, something emerged from deep inside the backing paper.
It was not a simple clump of paper. It was a small scrap of thick, coarse material with a texture utterly unlike the xuan paper used for painting.
And on that scrap remained a faint but unmistakable trace of red seal paste.
'A hidden official seal (official stamp)......!'
Han-gyeol's heart pounded fiercely. It might have been the seal left by the painting's original artist, or a clue to the true legacy Mrs. Choi's father had wanted to leave his daughter.
It was the moment his hand closed around the handle to the truth. Han-gyeol held his breath and moved the hera with even greater care.