As True as a Dream

At dusk, in front of an abandoned well in Sindang Jeong Tomok village.

 “Thank you… Thank you so much.” 

As soon as she arrived at Gyeongseong Station, she picked up the child and rushed to Sindang Jeong Tomok Village.

 

She was relieved to see the mother waiting for her child as promised.

 

Hae-Joo had been worried that his mother would not come.

 

The child, who had kept his mouth shut and never said a word, burst into tears when he saw his mother.

 

Holding him tightly and apologizing over and over again, Hae-Joo looked at his mother and then turned around.

 “Hey, Miss, look, this…!” 

Too scared to take a few steps, the mother approached and held out a wad of bills folded in half.

 “This is the payment I was telling you about. It’s not much, but…” 

Hae-Joo stared at the money and asked bluntly.

 “Let me ask you something, why were you followed?” “What?” “No, don’t answer that, it’s a soldier thing, so it can’t be anything special, and I don’t want to know, because not knowing is the way to live a long life, I just…” 

Hae-Joo looked back and forth between the mother and the child standing next to her, who seemed to have a certain stubbornness and lecturing quality to her.

 

Many words ran through her mouth.

 

Don’t take him to dangerous jobs, don’t give him food, at least let him sleep comfortably, don’t leave him alone for days, don’t ask him to put up with random things…

 

These were the things she wanted to say to her mother when she was younger.

 

But she swallowed all those bitter words.

 

Instead, she took the money offered by the mother and squatted in front of her.

 

Then she held the money out to him.

 “Take it. Don’t give this money to anyone. If anything happens to your mother, run away and don’t look back. Stay alive. Stay alive somehow. This is your emergency fund for when that happens. Do you understand?” 

The child, so young, didn’t even understand half of what she said.

 

His eyes glazed over in incomprehension.

 “Child, you survive somehow, and when you grow up, you decide what kind of life you want to live. Do you understand?” 

Hae-Joo pushed the money into the boy’s hands and stood up.

 “This is what I gave him, so you can teach him how to live when you’re gone.” 

The child’s mother looked at her with a puzzled expression, but Hae-Joo had nothing more to say and turned away.

 

Hae-Joo stopped walking for a moment, but didn’t turn around.

 “It’s not like that! It’s just that I… I can’t watch my child grow up in a country like this, abused, treated like an animal, humiliated…! I’m just doing what I can!” 

The woman’s voice trailed off and Hae-Joo moved forward again.

 

She doesn’t want to talk about someone who lives in the wildness of these times.

 

Hae-Joo admires those who have dedicated their lives to Korean independence.

 

She’s proud of the students who continue to study under difficult circumstances.

 

She is impressed by the steadfastness of the people in the face of persecution and prosecution.

 

Hae-Joo is saddened by the children who smile despite hunger and poverty.

 

The land was miserable, but the people on it were not.

 

She just wanted to survive if she could, no matter what.

 

After all, if you live, there’s something else.

 

When you die, you’re just… buried without a tombstone in a barren wasteland with no idea where you are.

 

*** 

 

Yi Ho’s home in the Song Yue Pavilion.

 

Yi Ho stood in a large windowless room with tightly closed doors on all sides.

 

A dim light on the wall illuminated the vast room, which was unfurnished except for a large glass cabinet against the wall.

 

A hundred years ago, this room would have been filled with many oddly shaped objects.

 

Now, however, there were only a handful of useful items.

 

Even the tetrapods he used a while ago were down to two.

 Bang! 

There was a knock at the door, and the door to the mill room connected to the study swung open heavily.

 “I knew you’d be here.” 

It was Hongo.

 

He came straight to Yi Ho’s side and looked at the display case, which had more empty spaces than filled ones.

 

He immediately understood why Yi Ho’s expression was not good.

 

Precious artifacts were hard to find in the first place, but since Yi Ho’s body had begun to decay, there had been no new collections.

 

Besides, the world had changed so much in the past few hundred years that the heavens and the earth had opened up.

 

Plagues raged, wars broke out, nations fell, and chaos reigned.

 

The upheaval shook the very essence of the land, and many youkai died and many precious objects disappeared.

 

It would be difficult to find them in the future.

 “What’s going on? Shouldn’t this be the busiest time to open?” 

Yi Ho blinked at Hongo, then turned and walked out of the room.

 

When he sat down at the desk in the study, Hongo stood in front of him and revealed the reason for his visit.

 “The news about the identity of Ms. Yeon Hae-Joo you mentioned last time has arrived.” 

Hongo wrote down the news that the crows had gotten hold of and handed it to Yi Ho, adding,

 “According to what I could find out, Ms. Yeon wasn’t born a princess. At the age of seven, she moved to Sogok Village with her father and has lived there ever since.” “Father?” “Not her biological father, but her adoptive father. His name is Yeon Yangbu. He used to be a famous forger in Gyeongseong Province. Thirteen years ago, he sold a painting to a Japanese nobleman, but it was discovered to be a fake and he was hunted down, so he left Gyeongseong. By the time he settled in Gongju, he was already with Yeon Hae-Joo.” “A fake?” “Do you remember the Goryeo bronze Baksan lid incense burner that caused a stir in Gyeongseong 20 years ago? The forger of that incense burner is Yeon Yangbu.” 

The Goryeo Bronze Baksan Lid Incense Burner case refers to a very elaborate incense burner that appeared in Gyeongseong 20 years ago, claiming to be an artifact from the Goryeo Dynasty.

 

It was sold on the black market to a Western businessman for 1,800 won, and a few months later it was sent as a gift to a Korean merchant.

 

The merchant, who had expanded his business under Japanese auspices, is said to have treasured the incense burner so much that he slept with it by his bedside.

 

It is said that when the counterfeiter heard the story, he laughed at the foolish Mae Guk-no, who thought his imitation was gold and kept it as a treasure.

 “A smokehouse…yes. That would explain the counterfeit in his warehouse.” 

Yi Ho curled his lips into a tight smile.

 

The mystery that had arisen in Sogok Village had finally been solved.

 “There was a reason why Ms. Yeon’s jewelry sold so well among the entertainers. Maybe it’s because she was lucky enough to be taught by Yeon Yangbu. So when she went back to her hometown, was it to copy the painting? You said you’ve seen the Guishan Dao painting, right?” 

Yi Ho thought back to that day when Hae-Joo came out of the warehouse after spending a long time there.

 

The distance was so great that he could only follow her movements, not what she was doing.

 

When she came out of the warehouse, she sat in the great hall for a while and then retired to the west room.

 

It wasn’t until well after midnight that she turned off the lights and went to sleep in the east room.

 

The only thing he saw was the Guishan Dao painting that Hae-Joo had copied.

 

But she traveled all the way to his father’s place just to paint a picture? Hae-Joo?

 

Considering the round-trip train fare, bus fare, horse-drawn carriage fare, and lodging expenses to get to and from her hometown, it must have been more than that.

 

The painting materials in the west room of the thatched hut were not rare or unique.

 

As Yi Ho thought back over the day’s events, a realization flashed across his face.

 “Hongo, did Yangbu ever leave the village?” “He didn’t leave the village for twelve years, until the day he died.” “If he never left, how could he paint Guishan Dao so realistically?” 

The Guishan Dao he saw in the small village was not the same as the one painted by Hae-Joo.

 

Yangbu must have seen Guishan Dao before.

 

If so, they can narrow down the possibilities to a few.

 

The father and daughter may have come across the painting in Gongju somehow.

 

The smokehouse may have had a copy of Guishan Dao from the beginning.

 

Finally, there’s the possibility that Yangbu saw the Guishan Dao and forged it.

 

In fact, they don’t even know if the Guishan Dao that appeared on the black market eight years ago is the real thing or a forgery.

 

Therefore, the only clue he has now is Yeon Hae-Joo.

 “So where did Hae-Joo come from before she was 7 years old, and who are her parents?” “Born in Incheon, her father died of torture in prison, and her mother died on the street during the independence movement.” 

As Yi Ho flipped through the paper Hongo handed him, his mind flashed back to that day on the train when Hae-Joo had been strangely stiff and withdrawn.

 

“I went through the same thing as that kid when I was a kid, over and over again, and I feel so damn sorry for him, God.”

 “You look so active, I would have thought you had a loving upbringing, but you’ve had a lot of twists and turns, young lady.” 

Yi Ho glanced at Hongo, who was shedding useless tears, then turned his attention back to the paper.

 

In the back of his mind, he wondered if Hae-Joo’s preoccupation with life had anything to do with her mother’s death.

 “You must have heard the news. Should we make an appointment with her?” “Yes.” 

A few days ago, she had heard from the entertainer Yingyue that Hae-Joo wanted to meet her.

 

However, he had put it off for a while, waiting for the report on Hae-Joo that he had asked Hongo Wu to get.

 

Now it’s time.

 

Will the painting she will bring be a copy of her own work, a masterpiece from her studio, or the real thing?

 

Yi Ho was a little excited.

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