Artifact Reading Inspector

As usual, he went home late that day.

He had worked from dusk to dawn, so his back ached and his arms were sore. However, he didn’t

head straight home. He went to the convenience store. To relax the mind that was as exhausted as

his body, he needed some soju (alcohol) with a cup of ramen.

“Pant… pant…”

His home was in a slum. As he climbed up to reach his home, his breath got heavier. He lived there

for more than a decade and, even though he was strong because of his work, he could never get

used to the hill.

Creak…

He pushed the old and screaming iron gate. He then stopped, he couldn’t move. From the window of

his room, he could see a bright light.

He lived alone. If the lights were lit in his room, he could only think of two possibilities: someone broke

in or his father, who had left two years ago, came back.

Most of the people in the area were poor, so there was no way for a thief to be there. Therefore,

Haejin’s eyes turned red as soon as he saw the light.

“Father! Father!”

His father had never done anything for him, but he was the only family he had. So, Haejin missed him

more than he hated him.

He hurried to enter while calling his father.

“Haejin.”

“Huh? Father!”

White hair and a long beard that hadn’t been shaved for months. He looked like someone who had

been living in the wild all alone. If Haejin had met him on the streets, he wouldn’t have recognized

him.

His father’s face was pale. He had fallen on the floor and was calling his son. Surprised, Haejin went

to him and slowly got him up.

“Father, what happened? I will call 119 first. Just hang on.”

Yunseok, Haejin’s father, didn’t care about what his son said. From his bag, he slowly took out

something wrapped in newspapers and gave it to Haejin.

“This… this…”

Even without unwrapping it, Haejin knew what it was. It had to be another artifact his father robbed.

“No. I can live well even without this.”

Haejin quickly dialed 119 and asked for help.

Yunseok spoke with a trembling voice, “I am sorry. Because of me…”

“If you know that, then get up. What is going on?”

“It’s time. Do you know what’s happening?”

They had known that it would eventually happen.

A long time ago, when Haejin was in elementary school, Yunseok was forced to rob artifacts from

graves by an evil Japanese art dealer for a few years.

He worked without the right equipment, therefore he got lung disease. Next, he received a knee

surgery. His body was failing him.

At that time, Haejin suggested him to try something else since his health was not good enough.

Yunseok tried working at an Insadong (street full of shops that trade antique goods), but he couldn’t

make a lot of money. He then went back to grave robbing.

He didn’t have any choices. He was born during the Korean War, so grave robbing was the only thing

he knew.

“Just hold on. This has happened before. You will get better again.”

“This time is different. I know. I will not live anymore.”

Shaking his head, Yunseok barely managed to lift his trembling hand to stroke the face of his son.

“Poor child. It’s all my fault. Blame me.”

“It’s okay. It wasn’t that bad. No son has spent more time with his father than I did. I enjoyed our time.”

“Poor boy… poor boy…”

Tears trickled down Yunseok’s face. The hand, that was stroking Haejin’s face, lost its strength and

eventually dropped.

“Father!”

That night, Haejin lost his father.

The funeral was very simple. No one was coming to look for Yunseok so Haejin cremated him and

scattered the ashes in the sea. His father had spent all his life working in the tombs of other people,

therefore he would have said no to a tomb of his own.

Returning home, Haejin picked up the object that was in the corner of his room.

Yunseok used to take little Haejin with him and rob the graves in China, Vietnam and Cambodia.

However, the son didn’t think it was the right thing to do. So, he tried to stop his father, but he didn’t

listen.

After his health started failing, Yunseok used part of the money, that he earned through grave robbing,

for their daily expenses while spending the rest on buying Korean artifacts that were outside the

country and anonymously donated them to museums.

Haejin couldn’t understand his behavior. Yunseok told him that his grandfather, Yunseok’s father, was

an antique dealer who sold many Korean artifacts abroad. Because of that, as if this was the purpose

of his life, Yunseok wanted to repay his father’s debt after he got ill.

After secretly buying the Korean artifacts, he would always say, “If I do not bring back the Korean

artifacts like this, I will never be able to pay back the debt my father owes to this country.”

Haejin couldn’t understand the act of robbing the graves of other countries to bring back the artifacts

of their own countries. However, his father was so determined that he couldn’t stop him.

As Yunseok moved around regardless of the school schedule, Haejin barely managed to graduate

from elementary school and took the qualification exams for middle and high school. Instead, his

knowledge and discerning eye about antiques were better than most expert’s.

Because of that, Haejin studied archeology for a year at a not-so-good university to become a

professional archeologist. He didn’t want to be a grave robber. Instead, he just wanted to learn about

beautiful artifacts.

Next, his father was caught while illegally selling artifacts in Cambodia and was sentenced to two

years in jail. Haejin gave up his studies for his father and spent all their money and artifacts they had

to get him out of jail.

Haejin attempted to stop Yunseok from robbing again after that, but he didn’t listen. He tried to

convince his father to not work with anything related to antiquity and instead live through physical

labor… but now everything had come to an end.

Haejin’s eyes were bloodshot while he slowly unwrapped the newspaper.

“What…”

He laughed in despair. He didn’t expect a great artifact, he thought it would at least be something of

historical value. However, it was just a black brick.

But then, he felt that it was too light for it to be a brick.

“Huh?”

It wasn’t a brick. It felt rough to the touch, but it wasn’t cold like stone or metal. It was more like

leather.

He didn’t know why, but the moment he thought it was made of leather, he got goosebumps.

Haejin put the thing on the floor and knelt down to take a closer look.

There was a thin crack on the side. It was a book.

As Haejin knew that his father had died after getting an unknown disease while robbing a grave and

suffering for long, he believed in the existence of curses.

Distressed, he questioned the idea of opening the book. It felt somewhat ominous.

Even though he was thinking of getting rid of it, he couldn’t stop looking at it. After staring it for a

while, he then lifted his head. The sun was no longer up there in the sky. He looked at the clock, 9

p.m., 5 hours had already flown by. The strange thing was that his legs didn’t even ache.

He got the goosebumps again. Where did father get this? He still remembered the horror movie he

watched yesterday. It was a fake documentary about young men going to haunted houses to prove

unknown phenomena…

The moment he recalled that movie, he just flipped over the book’s page.

“Shit…”

He did it, but it wasn’t him. His hand got out of his control and opened the book on its own.

‘I am dead now.’ These were his first thoughts.

Next, he saw the letters on the book.

They were written in blood red on black pages. He had never seen these letters before. He used to

think there were few alphabets that he was not aware of thanks to his grave robber father, but these

were new.

This had to be a curse. He couldn’t stop the thought that if he kept reading, he will become crazy or

start seeing things like in the movies and novels to then end up killing people, including himself.

He went straight to the gas stove, turned it on and put the cursed book on fire.

At first, nothing was happening to the book. Like the charcoal that didn’t burn well, it caught fire only

after a long time.

Whatever it was made of, that cursed thing generated black smoke with a disgusting smell that he

had never experienced before. It was similar to burning plastic.

Nevertheless, Haejin didn’t move until it was burnt completely. He feared that if he looked away, even

for a moment, it would vanish and show up again elsewhere. There was a movie that had a similar

plot.

He gathered the remaining ashes and threw them out. Only then did he feel better.

“Why did he leave this to me?”

What were his reasons to like the mystery book so much that made him bring it to me? He must have

failed to sense the ominous energy it had.

That night, Haejin had a really weird dream. A person, he had never seen before, grabbed his head

while shaking it and muttering strange things. He had never heard that language before; however, he

could still understand everything.

When he woke up, he looked outside the window as it was a habit of his. The sun wasn’t up yet. He

then looked at the clock. It was just past 5 a.m.

Because of his pounding heart, he couldn’t go back to sleep. Therefore, he got up.

“That’s funny… have I read too many novels these days?”

The funny thing was that the language was meant to be some kind of magic that he had only read

about in novels. He thought that he had such a strange dream because of the many webnovels that

he had been reading. Shaking his head, he turned on the TV.

He had decided to take a few days off. Since his father had passed away, he had no more reason to

do physical labor. Of course, there was nothing else he could do, but he didn’t want to work so hard

anymore. He had saved up some money, so he could rest for a few months.

He spent the time with comedy shows and dramas that he couldn’t watch in the past. The sun was

now in the middle of the sky.

“Shall I eat some stir-fried rice?”

Since he was hungry, he picked up the flyer of a Chinese restaurant and was about to order delivery

when he received a call from a familiar name. It was Hwang who always used to work together with

him.

“Hello?”

“Hey, it’s me. How are you?”

“Just living…”

Hwang knew that Haejin was not at work because of his father’s death. It was strange for him to ask

how he was. Was there something worrying that he wanted to say to me?

“Hmm… actually, we found something strange at the site. This is your area of expertise, right?”

If it had been a body, Hwan would have called the police instead of Haejin. There was only one thing

that he could imply by strange thing: an old artifact. As he used to study archeology, Hwang would

sometime ask for Haejin’s help. Therefore, he called again.

“Have you told this to the owner of the building?”

The construction that was going on now was demolishing an old two-story house to build a five-story

villa on that site. If an artifact was discovered at the site, the owner of the building had to be informed.

“Of course, he does. I also told him about you so now he wants you to take a look. You know the

situation. He has loaned a huge amount of money to build the villa. He will go bankrupt if the

construction is stopped. We might not even get our money… you know what I mean.”

If one or two artifacts were discovered from the ground, they just could inform the government about it

and resume working. Of course, they could also secretly sell it. However, if it were a very important

historical site, things would get different.

If they informed the government and the site were to be designated as a historical site, the

construction would be stopped while excavation would start instead. That would be the end for the

owner. So, he was asking Haejin who knew more about this stuff.

“Okay. I’m coming.”

Actually, Haejin could not change the outcome. He could only let them know the result before the

people from the cultural heritage administration arrived. More importantly, he would be able to find out

what the artifact was.

He hurried to take a shower and left his home excited. This was how his father probably felt when he

saw new artifacts.

Blood cannot be denied.