Artifact Reading Inspector

Chapter 10: Ma Won’s Ume Flower Seowon(2)

It was too hard, he felt disgusted. He legs trembled while his head hurt. He thought this time should go slightly better since it was the third time, but it didn’t.

“Haejin?”

“It’s-it’s nothing. Hu… I just got a little dizzy.”

“Are you okay?”

Eunhae looked at Haejin with concern.

She was sorry to see that he got sick at such an important moment. Haejin shook his hand and opened his mouth.

“I can still appraise this. Anyway, I am done.”

“Already?”

“Yes, this is a fake.”

There was someone who was even more surprised than Eunhae. It was the dealer who brought the painting. He started yelling, “What are you talking about? A fake? Can you take responsibility for what you just said?”

“Yes. If needed, I will take the whole responsibility.”

Haejin wasn’t doubting the painting, he was sure that it was a fake. The dealer was very discouraged.

“Then, then why do you say this is fake?”

“The painting’s lines are different. They are slightly different from Ma Wons’.”

Eunhae studied the painting again and asked, “How are they different? And how did you know that these are not Ma Won’s lines?”

She wasn’t trying to argue. She was just curious.

“There was a man named Tanzing in Shanghai, China. Do you know of him?”

“Tanzing?”

Eunhae tilted her head, but the dealer was shocked. His eyes widened.

“This-this is a forgery made by Tanzing?”

Either he was good at acting or he really didn’t know that it was a fake. He was even more shocked than Eunhae. He then stared at the painting.

Haejin didn’t care about him. He just looked at Eunhae.

“Tanzing was famous in the Shanghai area. He was a fraud who left his name in the art history of modern China by creating a number of forgeries. He fooled so many collectors and galleries that no one knows how many fakes he made even now. He found great artists of the time and made fakes.

Shizung Bai, who painted this painting, often painted Ma Won’s paintings. Apparently, he made another forgery other than the famous fake ‘Song In Reply’. Do you see the lines of the ume flowers?

They are bolder and rougher than Ma Won’s paintings. Ma Won would have trimmed this part a little more delicately.”

“Is-is that so?”

Eunhae accepted that because the real painting wasn’t there, but the forgery was so real that even Haejin would not have recognized it without magic or the real painting.

When Haejin looked into the past with magic, he saw a man in a small room doing his best to copy Ma Won’s painting. He recalled Tanzing as soon as he saw that. Tanzing was known for forging Ma Won’s ‘Song In Reply’.

He looked at it again after he found out that it was a fake. The lines were slightly different from Ma Won’s. An average expert would not have dared to say that it is a forgery.

“Shizung Bai painted for Tanzing. Zung Suyeo signed, Hu Zing made the seal and Tang An made it look old. Finally, Hwang Chozuin mounted the painting and finished it. It was a professional forging group. Most of Tanzing’s forgeries were sold abroad, so I don’t know how this one went back to China. However, the National Culture Appraising Committee of China is needed to appraise this.”

The dealer was enraged.

“So, you are saying that you just appraised an artifact that can be appraised only by China’s Appraising Committee?”

“If you really want to find out, you can send it to Europe or the United States. Radiography or infrared microscopy would tell that it was made recently. But, as the paint and the paper are the same as those used for the real painting, they would not be sure that it’s 100% fake. The Chinese people, however, must know Ma Won well, so they would be sure.”

“Haha, that’s impressive. I was fooled by this, and you found out that it was a fake. Of course, I will send this back to China and have it appraised. If it turns out to be real, I won’t let this one go.”

The dealer was really mad now, he was even speaking rudely. Haejin, however, didn’t even blink an eye at his threat.

“Let’s go.”

“Okay. And I will also not let this go. If this artifact turns out to be fake, you won’t be able to work in Insadong again.”

Eunhae’s warning made his face turn pale. Well, if he got busted after trying to sell a forgery to the director of one of Korea’s top galleries, he would not be able to pay for that.

They left the shop and went to the entrance of Insadong. Eunhae’s driver was waiting for them.

“Could you drop me at Saehan Apartment near Jonggak Station?”

“Oh… but you don’t look well… I think you need to go to the hospital. I will talk to the doctor, I know him well personally. He is really good.”

No matter how good a doctor was, he couldn’t solve the aftereffects of mana leaving the body.

“You don’t have to worry. I will be fine after getting some sleep. Please, go to the apartment.”

Eunhae didn’t make any other suggestion, she just sighed and nodded at her driver.

“Thank you. As you are leaving like this today, come back to the gallery tomorrow and I will pay for today’s help. As you have taken care of the case, you must be paid.”

“Since I just saved you from wasting five billion, may I have some expectation?”

“Huh, yes. Of course.”

She dropped Haejin at his apartment and left. Haejin bought a lot of bread from the bakery on the ground floor and went up.

At first, his legs trembled while his head ached. But now, he was also famished apart from the exhaustion and headache.

He ate all the bread and fell asleep without taking a shower.

Ziiiing…

He woke up at the sound of his phone. It was dark outside. He picked up his buzzing phone and checked the time. It was past midnight.

“Huh?”

He completely woke up because of the name on the phone.

Yang Byeongguk. He was the man who robbed the most graves with Haejin’s father… they might as well have been partners. Haejin didn’t call him when his father died, so Yang must not know about it.

“Hello.”

“Is that you, Haejin? It’s Byeongguk. I cannot reach your father, so I wondered if you know where to find him.”

“He… died. A while ago.”

“What? Yunseok is dead? Is that real?”

“Yes. I cremated him and scattered the ashes at sea. So, you don’t have to bother visiting him.”

Byeongguk was so shocked that he couldn’t speak for a while.

“Oh… I actually saw that coming. He didn’t look too well…”

Haejin thought so, too. That’s why he told his father to stop excavating and rest…

“You called me because…”

“Oh, you see… don’t you want a part-time job?”

“What part-time job?”

“I heard you work as a construction worker these days. Don’t do that. Just come and appraise something for me and I will pay you well. I was going to ask your father, but he is dead. So, what can I do?”

Appraising artifacts could be done by other people than Haejin, while his father didn’t appraise things in front of others unless it was a special circumstance.

And that special circumstance was…

“Is that something that has been excavated and sold illegally?”

Haejin’s father never revealed his knowledge to ordinary people lest they find out he was a grave robber. He only verified the artifacts he excavated and sold when they came out into the world again.

Of course, he didn’t do that openly, he did that secretly.

“You see… I don’t want to ask you a favor like this… but as you know, I don’t have a discerning eye! I cannot put it on auction, so I must find a buyer in another way. However, I can only deal with it if I know the value of this thing!”

Unlike Yunseok, Byeongguk sometimes brought in artifacts they excavated abroad and sold them in Korea. He believed that as many of ours had been taken from us, we should take away others’ too.

Yunseok didn’t try to stop it. Of course, the fact that selling artifacts in Korea paid more greatly attributed to that belief. Both Haejin and his father knew that.

“You have lots of friends in Insadong.”

“You don’t know this, but I always had my things appraised by your father before I sold them. People of Insadong might appear to be gentlemen but, on the inside, they are snakes that only think about how to rip people off. You cannot even believe a friend you’ve known for a decade in Insadong. Hu… I have relied on your father all my life, but he is gone now… I will have to give up now.”

Haejin knew Byeongguk since he was a toddler, so he wanted him to stop grave robbing.

“Yes, you should stop now. How long are you going to be chased by the police? Don’t you feel sorry for Sujeong?”

Sujeong was Byeongguk’s daughter and Haejin’s first love. Haejin had never seen her since elementary school because Byeongguk had sent her abroad when she was little.

“Hey, Sujeong would not have been able to study in Europe without that money.”

“Sujeong wanted to study in Korea, but you forced her to leave.”

“I couldn’t let her see her father getting arrested by the police! Anyway… Yunseok’s gone… and I am retiring. Ohh… what a disaster… anyway, please come and take a look.”

“Okay. Where are you?”

“Oh, I’m in Busan now. I will go to Seoul tomorrow and call you.”

“Okay.”

Unlike Yunseok who sold the artifacts he robbed at a low price in the black markets, Byeongguk often met and dealt with the investors to get the right price. He sometimes even got in trouble with chairmen and gangs.

So, he had been convicted 10 times already. Both the police and the Cultural Heritage Administration were keeping a close eye on him. After retiring, he would be able to live in peace.

Haejin didn’t realize it when he was talking on the phone but, after he hung up, he could feel his body full of energy. Every time he used magic, the pain and exhaustion decreased slightly and the energy he got after sleeping was getting bigger.

Haejin knew that his body was getting used to magic every time he used it and the energy came from the mana filling his body again, but he was still worried.

He couldn’t fall asleep again, so he spent the rest of the night at a nearby PC room and went to the gallery early in the morning.

Eunhae greeted Haejin in the office. As usual, her beauty made butterflies fly in his stomach.

“I felt bad about letting you go like that yesterday, but you look well now. I hope you are not on drugs or something?”

Judging from her concerned face, she wasn’t joking 100%. Haejin rolled up his sleeves and denied it.

“No. Of course not. That just happens to me sometimes.”

“Hmm… that’s good. Oh, and wait. I want you to meet someone.”

She left the office and came back in. Behind her, a young and handsome man followed.

Haejin thought he would never be defeated when it comes to appearances, but the tall man looked like a star who just popped out of a TV.

“This is manager Lee Jongmyeong of Mirae Corporate Group. He is the most important client of this gallery and also my fiancé.”

What the… her fiancé?