Artifact Reading Inspector

Chapter 84: Baroque Special Exhibition (1)

“Do you have to be so strict?”

“I have my job. A hundred million won might look like a big sum of money, but just as you said, I will have to examine more than a hundred artifacts. So, that isn’t worth it, and if I do the all the hard work and my opinion doesn’t even get selected, then I would find no meaning in my work.”

“The meaning of you working would be the money…”

“I must keep saying that the money isn’t that big. Anyway, I’ve proposed my terms so, if you will accept them, please come to my museum. However, as for the paintings you ask me to appraise, I will do my best to appraise them. I promise it upon my honor.”

Misuk sighed.

“Hu… you are stubborn. Okay, we’ll think about it and contact you. And… I hope you won’t speak about what happened today.”

She was talking about trying to make a secret fund without her husband knowledge and getting busted by Haejin.

“Of course, I’m not going to. As long as you give me what I want later.”

“You dare to… blackmail me? Aren’t you scared? Or you just can’t think?”

“I’m not blackmailing you, I’m letting you see the reality. I also don’t know what kind of relationship you have with those art dealers, but you should stop contacting them. They’ve sold fakes to many madams before… if this gets bigger, you will be in trouble.”

Haejin said that not because he cared about Misuk but to stop any more innocent people getting fooled.

“Stop saying presumptuous things and leave.”

“It’s been my pleasure.”

Haejin bowed and left the mansion. It felt like he could breathe well again. That mansion was not cozy at all, it rather felt like a prison.

He left Pyeongchangdong and went home instead of going to his museum. He had used magic twice.

He didn’t want to do anything but to lie down and sleep.

He didn’t want to drive. He wanted to call a chauffeur service, but it would have been awkward to do so when he looked so sharp, so he drove himself.

As he was driving, his eyelids wanted to cover his eyes. He had to pinch his thigh to resist it.

The moment he reached home, he fell asleep without taking a shower. When he woke up, the sun was setting.

“Oh, what the…”

He checked his phone. He had gotten more than a dozen calls. Most of them were from Curator Lee Jisu, who managed the museum instead of Haejin. According to the text she sent after calling, she had called to ask about the next exhibition.

The rest of the calls were from Eunhae. She must have called to have dinner with him as she had just quitted her job. She must have been very disappointed, so Haejin called her immediately. She answered just after a couple of beeps.

“Hello?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I wasn’t feeling well. I fell asleep during the day and woke up just now.”

“Oh, shouldn’t you go to a hospital?”

“No, I’m fine now. Actually, I went to Pyeongchangdong. That drained my energy and I collapsed as soon as I got home. Oh…”

“I see, I was getting worried. However, why did my uncle call you?”

Haejin only said Pyeongchangdong, but Eunhae immediately understood it had been Sungjun.

“He had found out about your scheme. He called me and asked if it had been me who had given you that idea.”

“Wow… how did he find out so fast? She must have told on me as soon as I left! I thought she was better than that…”

She was thinking Curator Jeong Mina was the reason. However, it didn’t matter now.

“She probably did that because she had to leave. So, let’s forget about it. That wasn’t even the important part, the real reason he called me was to have me help with the Baroque special exhibition.”

“He wants you to help Hyoyeon.”

“Yes. They offered me a hundred million to assist her from the side, so I told them I’ll just appraise per artifacts. They said they had more than a hundred paintings to be appraised, so I said they should give me only those that have to be examined by me.”

At this, Eunhae laughed out loud.

“Hahaha! However, she cannot select those! Even if it were me, it would be hard for me to decide which paintings should be examined by you. Jeong Mina wouldn’t be much of help either. She’s in big trouble. The funny thing is that she probably does not know what kind of trouble she’s in now!”

“That’s why it’s even funnier.”

“Anyway, if you just woke up, you must not have had dinner yet.”

“Yes, my stomach is growling now.”

“Haha! Then, take a shower quickly and come. I haven’t canceled the reservation for dinner. It was the right decision to not cancel it. Come quickly, I’m hungry as well.”

The dinner was normal. They ate steak at a restaurant of Seorae Village, had tea at a nearby coffee shop and chatted, they then said goodbye after that.

In fact, any man would have been excited to have dinner with such a beautiful woman; however, from time to time, the museum and artifacts filled Haejin’s mind instead of Eunhae.

So, even during the meal, he just kept thinking about how he should proceed with the construction tomorrow at Iksan.

The next day, instead of going to his museum, Haejin went to Iksan. He had been told that the shaman of Yeonhwadang had left without making trouble, he was relieved about not being delayed.

He drove with ease.

When he arrived at the spot, a barrier had been set, and workers had demolished the walls with big hammers.

“Good morning!”

Haejin got out of his car and greeted them politely. The workers looked at him, their eyes were wide.

One of them took a safety helmet and came closer.

“Oh, are you the owner? You came faster than we thought. We thought you wouldn’t be here before lunch…”

“The traffic was good. The construction is going fast.”

“Demolishing a house shouldn’t take long, it will be done soon. The new building will be built according to the blueprint you sent me, so you don’t have to worry. I’ve built 8 five-story villas in this area.”

As destroying the building and start digging as if it were a historical site, when nothing had come from there, would be considered strange, Haejin had officially signed a contract with a construction company and was building a villa.

He was going through all that trouble to get rid of the slightest doubt. He had to look like he didn’t know an artifact would come out and suddenly won a fortune.

“Then please, do your best.”

Demolishing the two-story house wasn’t that hard. The workers first got rid of the things in the house, went in to smash the inner walls, and hit the house with a huge proclaim. Then, the house immediately fell.

The next step was to get rid of the debris. Demolishing the house and cleaning the debris only took two days.

Haejin stayed at Iksan for those two days. When Haejin’s opinion was necessary for the museum’s exhibition, he worked with emails and photos. Hyoyeon also called him in the meantime. She was willing to accept Haejin’s terms.

Haejin told her to wait and decided to go back to Seoul after finishing his business at Iksan. It was simple. An artifact had to come out during the groundwork.

After that, he would be able to stop the construction and start digging.

So, when the groundwork was being started, Haejin was there looking around. He believed it would come out…

“Oh, please. Stop going around here and go get some rest. We’ll do the work. Can’t you trust us?”

Of course, the workers didn’t like a civilian going around in the construction scene. Haejin couldn’t tell them the truth, so he made excuses and stayed.

“Khmm… the ground is important for the building. Just think of it as me not being here.”

“How can we think you’re not here when you can get hit by an iron beam and die?”

“That’s why I’m wearing this safety helmet. So please, don’t care about me and do your job.”

They kept talking like that while Haejin scanned the ground. Then, he spotted something.

“Wait! What’s that?”

“What?”

“Stop the work now!”

Haejin ran past the worker who asked back bluntly and jumped down into the hole that had been dug deeper than a meter. Then, he stroked something that was sticking out of the ground to clean the dirt.

“What are you doing?”

“Wait. Is there something there?”

The workers came in with curiosity. Haejin dug with his bare hands. Then, he yelled. He couldn’t hide his excitement.

“Stop working and go back! No more working today!”

The workers frowned and talked among themselves.

“What? Why is he doing that?”

“I don’t know. It’s probably about that black thing.”

“Then, this construction is over? Huh…”

They would be losing one work if the construction gets stopped, so of course, they didn’t like it.

That’s too bad, but this building wasn’t supposed to be demolished in the first place. Haejin had had it destroyed on purpose, so he had made and given work that wasn’t supposed to exist.

Haejin paid the workers well and sent them back. Then, he set the CCTVs at the scene and blocked it with a fence.

He knew the odds were in his favor. He carefully wrapped what he had excavated with vinyl and went to Seoul.

As it had been buried underground for such a long time, it had to go through the restoration process to recover its true self, but the smile on Haejin’s lips couldn’t disappear.

It was clearly the incense burner he had seen through magic. If the restoration finishes without a problem, Korea will get another national treasure.

He arrived at his museum in delight. Hyoyeon was already waiting for him at his office.

She said there was no time and they had to start immediately. At this, Haejin finished what he had to take care of in a flash and gave the incense burner to Jisu, instructing her to prepare personnel and equipment needed for the restoration.

Haejin followed Hyoyeon and went to Saeyeon Gallery. They went into Eunhae’s former office. It was occupied by a different person now. It felt slightly weird to go in there and sit on the sofa that was still there.

Hyoyeon put down the dozens of photos in front of him and quickly picked up some of them.

“These are the paintings we are considering, and these are what you should appraise.”

Appraisal for a special exhibition had to be done with photos instead of actual paintings. Bringing paintings cost a lot.

Because of that, they agreed on a fee of 0.5% per painting instead of 1%.

“I should examine only these paintings?”

Hyoyeon offered him only three photos. Was that self-pride? Or recklessness?

Her parents got her an appraiser for her first exhibition, and she was saying he needed to examine only three paintings… Haejin couldn’t see why. He was confused. Then, the door opened and a woman in her mid-30s came in.

She was about 170cm tall and thin. She was wearing a two-piece suit. She lightly bowed her head to Hyoyoen and sat opposite to Haejin.

“Hello. I’m Elissa Kim, personal curator of Director Lim Hyoyeon and Art Expert.”

She was speaking Korean, but her accent was awkward. She was probably from abroad. However, the term art expert was interesting.

That meant she was an expert who could determine both an artifact’s authenticity and its price. She looked young, so Haejin doubted that she was really that good.

“Nice to meet you, I’m Park Haejin. I guess you’re the one who selected these three paintings?”

“Yes.”

She smiled and nodded. However, Haejin had to resist his laughter.

One of the photos, which she didn’t pick, caught his eyes.