KNEEL Ch 9

“The director will make the rounds to contact people, and we will have a meeting in Dapsimni tomorrow.”

“Ah, I know Dapsimni. The place with many antique shopping complexes.”

“Yes. They say they’ll take a look around to see if any stolen goods have surfaced while they’re at it. We just need to go to the Building 2 complex.”

“Is there a meeting place there?”

“A research institute. It belongs to the director.”

“What do they research?”

“Women’s empowerment and world peace.”

As if. It’s a research institute in name only. Neil simply smiles without offering a rebuttal. As if to reassure Mi Hansol, who had become embarrassed by Neil’s gentle demeanor, Neil asks kindly.

“Then, Sol. Shall we go on an outing to Mr. Ahn’s house together?”

“…Okay.”

I’m the one driving, so why are you calling it an outing? Stop stealthily turning this into a date.

∞ ∞ ∞

It is a clean, pleasant, and spacious studio. That is what Hansol thought. It is more modest than Lee Gwi’s workshop because he does not raise many apprentices, but it has everything necessary for making temple bells. To a layperson, the courtyard—filled with various materials such as a furnace, molds, sand pits, and large cranes—looks no different from a construction site. Laborers are taking a break, wearing various protective gear including goggles and vests.

Ahn Moe, who had received advance notice from the investigators, greeted the two with a relatively calm air. It would have been better to burst in unexpectedly as they did with Lee Gwi. He probably has his alibi and everything all worked out. Even if he were to be placed on the suspect list, there likely wouldn’t be a single grain of evidence here. Now that Lee Gwi is hovering between life and death, Ahn Moe, his point of connection, was quite an important person.

Hansol observed Ahn Moe’s complexion while half-heartedly drinking the tea he poured. Neil was peeking around the drawing room with a nonchalant posture.

“Mister! Is this a family photo?”

“…Yes. My father and my twin sister.”

Unlike his tone, which carried the warmth characteristic of an elder, Ahn Moe does not even make a gesture of looking toward Neil, who is pointing at the frame. Mr. Ahn got tired of him early on, too. Hansol suppresses a leak of laughter and pretends to listen intently again.

“I did not know Brother Lee would make such a choice. Has he still not regained consciousness?”

“Yes. I will let you know as soon as the progress is reported.”

Ahn Moe was a middle-aged man with fine features and a very well-ordered appearance, looking young enough to make his age—nearly sixty—seem irrelevant. After looking at the photo of the swapped Buddha statue for a long time while wearing magnifying glasses attached to a silver string, he finally begins to speak.

“It is true that I sent a letter to Brother Lee. However, the talk of the Buddha statue is news to me.”

“What was your usual relationship with the master iron caster?”

“We studied together under my father. Brother Lee was a late bloomer, and I… had to carry on the family business according to my father’s wishes.”

“Ah, I see. Did you exchange letters regularly?”

“No. That was an invitation. This year marks the 50th anniversary of my father opening the workshop. I thought I might hold something like an alumni meeting for the first time in a while. Since Brother Lee, myself, and the master casters are all my father’s disciples.”

“Hmm, yes. I see.”

“You might find it strange, but that phrasing originated from a joke I often shared with Brother Lee.”

“…May I ask what it means?”

“When making a bell, the very top part—the loop where the iron chain is hung—is called the yongnyu, and the one who protects the yongnyu is none other than Porae. The thick stick used to strike the bell to make sound is called the dangmok. Although Porae is the third son of the Dragon King, he is deathly afraid of whales. Back then, whaling was legal, so the dangmok was usually made from whale bones washed up on the shore. It was meant so that when the bell was struck with the dangmok, Porae would get scared and cry out loudly.”

Of course, Hansol knows the structure of a temple bell well. However, Ahn Moe currently thinks they have read the contents of the letter. Neil was currently looking intently at the small hammers, chisels, and opaque rectangular blocks placed in a row on the workbench Yije, and Hansol quickly backed Ahn Moe up instead of shouting that Lee Gwi had burned his letter to a crisp.

“So you’re saying that’s why you wrote such a letter?”

“Yes. I always had a severe obsession with completing the Porae… and Brother Lee, being a typical model disciple, scolded me every time. He told me to just focus on carving the dangmok properly. Remembering that time, I wrote it half-jokingly, saying how could a bell with a poor yongnyu resonate perfectly, something like that…”

“Mister. Excuse me for a moment.”

“?”

In an instant, Neil’s voice was heard from nearby. Both Ahn Moe and Hansol reflexively raised their heads to look at Neil. Immediately afterward, a scene unfolded that was beyond absurd, bordering on ridiculous. Neil, who had been wandering all over the place until a moment ago, suddenly walked over and, without a moment’s hesitation, tried to thrust a sharp curved craft knife directly into Ahn Moe’s right eye. You commit a discourtesy like that? Dude? What are you doing? Hansol jumped up and blocked Neil.

“Hey, hey hey hey!!!! What are you doing? Are you crazy?!”

“I am not the least bit crazy, Sol.”

“You madman, ugh, move aside for a second! Are you alright?”

“Sol, look at this.”

Neil tilted his head to the side. The blade had stopped exactly about 1cm away from Ahn Moe’s pupil. However, Ahn Moe simply stared blankly at Neil without a single movement. Uh-huh? At Hansol’s voice, which sounded as if he had realized something, Neil retracted the curved knife with a skillful posture. On behalf of Hansol, who was calculating so furiously that his head felt like it might blow off, he kindly threw out a question. Mister,

“Since when have you been living with such a perfect glass eye?”

“…”

Unlike Ahn Moe, who kept his mouth shut, Neil is in full bloom with a smile. I’m so curious! Immediately following, Hansol makes the sign of the cross. Please, let me just vanish right here. Only me. Just me.

∞ ∞ ∞

Just so you know, I didn’t want to cut my own lifespan like this… by going on a “boss raid” of masters I’ve only seen in TVs, magazines, and newspapers. At this rate, permanent expulsion isn’t exactly out of the question. Ah, I crave a drink. Hansol, completely drained of energy, collapsed in the shade of a public rest area next to the parking lot and focused only on sipping the coffee in his tumbler through a straw. Neil looks down at Hansol, who is lying with his head on Neil’s lap as if it were natural, tilting his head.

“Sol, you always carry a stainless steel straw with you.”

“Eco-friendly is the trend. Marine life is suffering.”

“Uh, but only about 1,000 sea turtles die annually due to plastic. Whereas 250,000 die annually from bycatch.”

“…”

“The cunning fishing market makes Sol’s efforts futile.”

“Hey, have you ever been shot? I just feel like you have.”

“I have. Shall I show you the surgery scar?”

“Keep it closed.”

Hansol, having blocked a potentially fatal exposure of his front, became absorbed in reasoning again. The Buddha statue, Lee Gwi, the letter, Ahn Moe, the glass eye, the Buddha statue. The first question was, why did Lee Gwi create a forgery and trap himself? But if you knock on what you think is a door and it’s a wall, you should just break it down, right. So that’s why you tried to stab Ahn Moe out of the blue with a craft knife. At Hansol’s deep sigh, Neil summarized it for him.

“In my humble opinion, the fake Buddha statue followed the framework of the traditional casting method passed down solely to Lee Gwi, so the suspect was naturally only one person, Lee Gwi. But I wondered, could it be that Ahn Moe, who sent that strange letter to Lee Gwi, is involved?”

“Whether he went blind like Lee Gwi or not?”

“Yes. To be honest, I wasn’t sure. A state where one cannot see out of one eye. For this detail… in other words, for a perfect copy, isn’t it too much to go that far?”

“It’s not something a sane person would do.”

“And isn’t such a terrible act usually instigated by someone else? Like a father who intentionally blinds his pansori-singer daughter so that her sorrow seeps into her voice when she achieves mastery, or something like that.”

Hansol agreed with Neil’s point. It was, quite unexpectedly, because of the soap. Neil had likely gotten a hint from there as well.

It was lucky. Unexpectedly, there was at least one grain of evidence. It felt like a coincidence when first discovered in the bathroom, but even in the places Neil was examining, dozens of soaps made from tallow—that is, beef fat—were taking up space. Tallow is an ingredient you can’t miss because of its distinct smell.