Although yesterday everything had gone smoothly because of the spell, Haejin was expecting it to soon become a problem.
This was about tens of billions of money. If the artifacts turned out to be fake, those who had bought them had to deal with the consequences.
However, Haejin was a little surprised to see Hyoyeon so soon.
The sons and grandsons, who had participated in yesterday’s auction, had to be asleep now, and Hyoyeon was not even wearing her makeup. It showed that she had come as soon as she woke up.
Additionally, she couldn’t have found that out on her own without any help, someone must have woken her up and told her what she had done last night.
But who was it?
“I don’t know what you are talking about. Are you saying you sold fakes yesterday?”
Haejin thought Hyoyeon would, of course, deny it.
“I, I don’t know. I never thought they were fake. Park Haejin, you must know? Did I sell fakes or real? You must know!” Hyoyeon replied.
“Let’s go in. We shouldn’t talk about it in here.”
“Yes, let’s go up. Let’s go up and talk.” Hyoyeon was still too shocked. So, Eunhae took her arm and led her to her office.
She put Hyoyeon on the sofa and brought her some cold water.
Hyoyeon gulped the water down and turned to Haejin, “I think I am feeling better now. So, tell me. The porcelains I sold yesterday… what were they?”
“Let me ask you something first. What did you hear that you ran here so early in the morning? Did the people from Hwajin tell you?” Haejin asked.
“How could those idiots know anything about it?” Hyoyeon replied.
“Then how did you learn about this?”
Hyoyeon gave him some paper that was now crumpled. Her hands were still shaking while saying, “This… was sent to my secretary.”
Haejin looked at it. Surprisingly, it was the appraisal opinion on the porcelains Hyoyeon had sold.
Haejin immediately realized who had sent it. It was from Wang Mingwan. Although she had no choice but to let Hyoyeon go, she was angry and had to do something.
It wasn’t even that hard to recognize as most of the sentences in the document had come out of his very own mouth.
“Hmm…”
Although he wasn’t that close to Hyoyeon, she had come here for help. He couldn’t just make her leave. Being the enemy of the most powerful chaebol in the country couldn’t be good, after all.
“What do you think? Is it all true? It isn’t, right?” Hyoyeon asked.
Haejin then said, “Part of it… no, most of it is right, I think.”
Hyoyeon covered her face with her hands trembling. She had suddenly turned into someone who pulled off a fraud involving tens of billions of won on chaebols and their children. She couldn’t remain sane.
“And you didn’t know?” Hyoyeon asked.
“Honestly, I wasn’t sure. How could I discern the fake artifact from the genuine ones right in that room?”
Well, Haejin was actually able to do that. Additionally, if it wasn’t for that spell, most of the appraisers, who were present, would have realized that the porcelains were not of high quality. However, even though they were not good enough to fool appraisers, they were enough to fool ordinary people.
“Really? But what should I do now?”
“Just give back the money you got by selling those fakes. It wouldn’t be a problem then. You probably didn’t already spend that money…”
Hyoyeon then clenched her fists while raising her voice, “But this is about my reputation! It was the first event I hosted as the director of Saeyeon Gallery. If I admit that I sold fakes, I will become a laughingstock!”
“You, however, cannot turn fakes into real artifacts,” Haejin commented.
“Yes, but… oh…” Hyoyeon burst into tears. She looked so pitiful that Eunhae, who normally hated her, hugged her and comforted her.
After five minutes, she calmed down a little bit. Haejin put down the document and asked, “How is this linked to SH Global?”
“You mentioned that company yesterday… you can’t be thinking that I tricked people with that multilevel marketing company,” Hyoyeon replied.
Haejin then explained, “I know you have no reason to do that, but unfortunately, the porcelains you sold yesterday were what SH Global had bought in China a while ago. Not one or two of them, but all of them… do you know what I mean? If this goes wrong, it won’t end with just you getting humiliated.”
“Are you saying Hwajin will be associated with a pyramid marketing company?” Hyoyeon asked.
“Yes.”
Hyoyeon’s hands shook, and she started to bite her fingernail. Although she was Hwajin’s only daughter, she was just 20 years old.
Her arrogant attitude vanished in front of such a catastrophe.
“Then, then what should I do? No, I should call Hwajin’s lawyers. I must have them protect me.”
“Well, you can do that,” Haejin said.
“Are you going to pretend like it’s none of your business? You were there, too!” Hyoyeon was now acting as if they were friends that had to share their issues…
Haejin then asked, “So, what do you want?”
“I need your help. Why do you think I came here? I, I… didn’t even know that I had bought porcelains from SH Global,” Hyoyeon replied.
“That is why I asked how you got to know them… did you contact them first?”
Hyoyeon answered, “Actually… I was trying to get some Chinese porcelains, and I was told some people had smuggled in quite a number of them through Incheon Port.”
She could get information even faster than the NIS.
“And you are the only one who knows about it?”
“A few of the secretaries in Hwajin know,” Hyoyeon gave a simple answer, but it meant Hwajin had personnel working in the antique smuggling trade.
“So, they found out about it for you and contacted them?” Haejin made a guess.
“No, I contacted them on my own. However, they were not part of an organization. They were just some… individuals.”
“Individuals?” Haejin asked.
Hyoyeon then replied, “Yes, one of them must have been older than 40, and the other was…”
“The young man with piercing on his ears?”
“Yes. How do you know that? Oh, right. You must have seen him yesterday. He said his name was Kim Yongjun.”
“Where is he? He is the one who sold you fakes.”
Hyoyeon shook her head while saying, “I don’t know. I kept calling him after I got that document, but he didn’t answer. If he really is a fraud… I am in big trouble. I gave him ten billion won after the auction yesterday. And it isn’t a Korean bank account, so freezing it will take some time, and he will take the money before we do that.”
If they were using a foreign bank account, they wanted more than just getting some money with magic.
“Do you have any porcelain left? You couldn’t have sold all of them.”
“I sold all of them! Why would I have kept them?” Hyoyeon spoke as if Haejin was asking an obvious question.
Haejin started thinking, but then Hyoyeon snapped her finger and said, “Oh! I still have the one that was gifted to me. It looks like a rice bowl, and he said it was quite good. I was going to put it on auction, but then, I didn’t because selling what I got as a gift wouldn’t look good. But why do you want that?”
Haejin had no other reason, he just needed to find out everything about this fraud.
Now that he thought about it, Haejin had been stupid. If he had used magic to look into the past after he bought the real porcelains yesterday, by now, he would have known how they came to Korea and approached Hwajin. However, he panicked and just wanted to get out of there.
“Good. Bring it here. As soon as possible,” Haejin wasn’t interested in helping Hyoyeon, but he had to find out who the criminals were.
“Is it necessary?” Hyoyeon asked with doubt.
Haejin then replied with some irritation, “You think I’m trying to keep it?”
“Okay, okay. I was just asking.”
Hyoyeon then called her secretary and told her to bring the porcelain to Park Haejin Art Museum.
“First, call the people who bought fakes yesterday and tell them you will give back their money. It will be harder to take care of it if they get to find out about this later. You know that, right?” Haejin said.
“Hu… I’ll talk to the lawyers about it,” Hyoyeon replied.
“Okay then. Now, go back and get some rest.”
Haejin didn’t think the lawyers could give her another way. However, it would be easier to solve the matter if Hwajin stepped in, so he thought it was all the better.
Hyoyeon then asked, “You don’t need me here?”
“I cannot investigate this case for you. That’s the job of the police and the prosecutors. What I can do is to look at the porcelain and find out where is it from and how they made fakes look as reals. As for the rest of it, go and ask for the help of any prosecutor you know,” Haejin replied.
“Ha… the lawyers must be so busy by now because of the secret fund and the independent counsel…” Hyoyeon complained, but it looked like Haejin couldn’t help her more. So, she left.
After that, Eunhae worriedly asked, “What are you going to do now? Are you going to find them with your… ESP? What are you going to do with them?”
“I need to think first… finding out how they came to Korea and whom they are working with is better than not knowing anything. It would help me. Don’t just think that everything is going in the wrong direction.”
“Still, I’m worried, and I will handle Hyoyeon from now on. You are too busy and have too many things to take care of,” Eunhae said.
“Okay. Hyoyeon looks like someone who is going to ask me some crazy favors once she thinks we are a little closer,” Haejin commented.
“As she just said, Hwajin is in a crisis because of the secret fund paintings, so if people get to find out about this, the funds of the corporation won’t be enough. She will even have to spend her own money…”
“No, we don’t need to care about all that. Just have Hyoyeon’s porcelain sent to the restorations room and make your bodyguards start working from today.”
“Okay, don’t worry about it. You know I get scared so easily. I have a meeting with a bodyguard agency at lunchtime,” Eunhae replied.
“Good…”
Haejin then stood up and went down to the restoration room. He started pacing around the room. He had to take care of those pro-Japanese people who were trying to sabotage his excavation project, and now he had to face the mysterious criminals as well. His head was about to explode.
Hyoyeon’s porcelain arrived after an hour. It was a Blue Flower White Porcelain. Unlike Joseon’s porcelains, it was very fancy.
He focused and used magic. But then, “Hup! Oh…”
He suddenly felt a severe headache as if someone hit his head from behind. He was about to vomit.
Haejin ran to the restroom, grabbed the toilet, and threw up.
“Pant… pant…”
He managed to stand up and finally looked into the mirror. His face was pale.
“That bastard.”
The young man who had been present at Hyoyeon’s auction was a member of SH Global.
After he joined SH Global, he became a board member with his great appraisal and communicational skills, and he had been the one who led the fraud on the Chinese merchants.
After that, when the company fell, he brought the real artifacts to Korea, fooled Hyoyeon, and got a huge sum of money.
One good thing was that he wasn’t interested in finding Haejin. He just wanted money.
However, the problem was that he had put a listening spell on the porcelain to make even more money using Hyoyeon, and Haejin had just broken that spell without meaning to.
The man must have had been even more shocked than Haejin when the spell was broken. Haejin had to find him when he was still in a daze.
Haejin ran out and started his car. He knew where the man was, so there was no reason to hesitate.
Vroom!
Although yesterday everything had gone smoothly because of the spell, Haejin was expecting it to soon become a problem.
This was about tens of billions of money. If the artifacts turned out to be fake, those who had bought them had to deal with the consequences.
However, Haejin was a little surprised to see Hyoyeon so soon.
The sons and grandsons, who had participated in yesterday’s auction, had to be asleep now, and Hyoyeon was not even wearing her makeup. It showed that she had come as soon as she woke up.
Additionally, she couldn’t have found that out on her own without any help, someone must have woken her up and told her what she had done last night.
But who was it?
“I don’t know what you are talking about. Are you saying you sold fakes yesterday?”
Haejin thought Hyoyeon would, of course, deny it.
“I, I don’t know. I never thought they were fake. Park Haejin, you must know? Did I sell fakes or real? You must know!” Hyoyeon replied.
“Let’s go in. We shouldn’t talk about it in here.”
“Yes, let’s go up. Let’s go up and talk.” Hyoyeon was still too shocked. So, Eunhae took her arm and led her to her office.
She put Hyoyeon on the sofa and brought her some cold water.
Hyoyeon gulped the water down and turned to Haejin, “I think I am feeling better now. So, tell me. The porcelains I sold yesterday… what were they?”
“Let me ask you something first. What did you hear that you ran here so early in the morning? Did the people from Hwajin tell you?” Haejin asked.
“How could those idiots know anything about it?” Hyoyeon replied.
“Then how did you learn about this?”
Hyoyeon gave him some paper that was now crumpled. Her hands were still shaking while saying, “This… was sent to my secretary.”
Haejin looked at it. Surprisingly, it was the appraisal opinion on the porcelains Hyoyeon had sold.
Haejin immediately realized who had sent it. It was from Wang Mingwan. Although she had no choice but to let Hyoyeon go, she was angry and had to do something.
It wasn’t even that hard to recognize as most of the sentences in the document had come out of his very own mouth.
“Hmm…”
Although he wasn’t that close to Hyoyeon, she had come here for help. He couldn’t just make her leave. Being the enemy of the most powerful chaebol in the country couldn’t be good, after all.
“What do you think? Is it all true? It isn’t, right?” Hyoyeon asked.
Haejin then said, “Part of it… no, most of it is right, I think.”
Hyoyeon covered her face with her hands trembling. She had suddenly turned into someone who pulled off a fraud involving tens of billions of won on chaebols and their children. She couldn’t remain sane.
“And you didn’t know?” Hyoyeon asked.
“Honestly, I wasn’t sure. How could I discern the fake artifact from the genuine ones right in that room?”
Well, Haejin was actually able to do that. Additionally, if it wasn’t for that spell, most of the appraisers, who were present, would have realized that the porcelains were not of high quality. However, even though they were not good enough to fool appraisers, they were enough to fool ordinary people.
“Really? But what should I do now?”
“Just give back the money you got by selling those fakes. It wouldn’t be a problem then. You probably didn’t already spend that money…”
Hyoyeon then clenched her fists while raising her voice, “But this is about my reputation! It was the first event I hosted as the director of Saeyeon Gallery. If I admit that I sold fakes, I will become a laughingstock!”
“You, however, cannot turn fakes into real artifacts,” Haejin commented.
“Yes, but… oh…” Hyoyeon burst into tears. She looked so pitiful that Eunhae, who normally hated her, hugged her and comforted her.
After five minutes, she calmed down a little bit. Haejin put down the document and asked, “How is this linked to SH Global?”
“You mentioned that company yesterday… you can’t be thinking that I tricked people with that multilevel marketing company,” Hyoyeon replied.
Haejin then explained, “I know you have no reason to do that, but unfortunately, the porcelains you sold yesterday were what SH Global had bought in China a while ago. Not one or two of them, but all of them… do you know what I mean? If this goes wrong, it won’t end with just you getting humiliated.”
“Are you saying Hwajin will be associated with a pyramid marketing company?” Hyoyeon asked.
“Yes.”
Hyoyeon’s hands shook, and she started to bite her fingernail. Although she was Hwajin’s only daughter, she was just 20 years old.
Her arrogant attitude vanished in front of such a catastrophe.
“Then, then what should I do? No, I should call Hwajin’s lawyers. I must have them protect me.”
“Well, you can do that,” Haejin said.
“Are you going to pretend like it’s none of your business? You were there, too!” Hyoyeon was now acting as if they were friends that had to share their issues…
Haejin then asked, “So, what do you want?”
“I need your help. Why do you think I came here? I, I… didn’t even know that I had bought porcelains from SH Global,” Hyoyeon replied.
“That is why I asked how you got to know them… did you contact them first?”
Hyoyeon answered, “Actually… I was trying to get some Chinese porcelains, and I was told some people had smuggled in quite a number of them through Incheon Port.”
She could get information even faster than the NIS.
“And you are the only one who knows about it?”
“A few of the secretaries in Hwajin know,” Hyoyeon gave a simple answer, but it meant Hwajin had personnel working in the antique smuggling trade.
“So, they found out about it for you and contacted them?” Haejin made a guess.
“No, I contacted them on my own. However, they were not part of an organization. They were just some… individuals.”
“Individuals?” Haejin asked.
Hyoyeon then replied, “Yes, one of them must have been older than 40, and the other was…”
“The young man with piercing on his ears?”
“Yes. How do you know that? Oh, right. You must have seen him yesterday. He said his name was Kim Yongjun.”
“Where is he? He is the one who sold you fakes.”
Hyoyeon shook her head while saying, “I don’t know. I kept calling him after I got that document, but he didn’t answer. If he really is a fraud… I am in big trouble. I gave him ten billion won after the auction yesterday. And it isn’t a Korean bank account, so freezing it will take some time, and he will take the money before we do that.”
If they were using a foreign bank account, they wanted more than just getting some money with magic.
“Do you have any porcelain left? You couldn’t have sold all of them.”
“I sold all of them! Why would I have kept them?” Hyoyeon spoke as if Haejin was asking an obvious question.
Haejin started thinking, but then Hyoyeon snapped her finger and said, “Oh! I still have the one that was gifted to me. It looks like a rice bowl, and he said it was quite good. I was going to put it on auction, but then, I didn’t because selling what I got as a gift wouldn’t look good. But why do you want that?”
Haejin had no other reason, he just needed to find out everything about this fraud.
Now that he thought about it, Haejin had been stupid. If he had used magic to look into the past after he bought the real porcelains yesterday, by now, he would have known how they came to Korea and approached Hwajin. However, he panicked and just wanted to get out of there.
“Good. Bring it here. As soon as possible,” Haejin wasn’t interested in helping Hyoyeon, but he had to find out who the criminals were.
“Is it necessary?” Hyoyeon asked with doubt.
Haejin then replied with some irritation, “You think I’m trying to keep it?”
“Okay, okay. I was just asking.”
Hyoyeon then called her secretary and told her to bring the porcelain to Park Haejin Art Museum.
“First, call the people who bought fakes yesterday and tell them you will give back their money. It will be harder to take care of it if they get to find out about this later. You know that, right?” Haejin said.
“Hu… I’ll talk to the lawyers about it,” Hyoyeon replied.
“Okay then. Now, go back and get some rest.”
Haejin didn’t think the lawyers could give her another way. However, it would be easier to solve the matter if Hwajin stepped in, so he thought it was all the better.
Hyoyeon then asked, “You don’t need me here?”
“I cannot investigate this case for you. That’s the job of the police and the prosecutors. What I can do is to look at the porcelain and find out where is it from and how they made fakes look as reals. As for the rest of it, go and ask for the help of any prosecutor you know,” Haejin replied.
“Ha… the lawyers must be so busy by now because of the secret fund and the independent counsel…” Hyoyeon complained, but it looked like Haejin couldn’t help her more. So, she left.
After that, Eunhae worriedly asked, “What are you going to do now? Are you going to find them with your… ESP? What are you going to do with them?”
“I need to think first… finding out how they came to Korea and whom they are working with is better than not knowing anything. It would help me. Don’t just think that everything is going in the wrong direction.”
“Still, I’m worried, and I will handle Hyoyeon from now on. You are too busy and have too many things to take care of,” Eunhae said.
“Okay. Hyoyeon looks like someone who is going to ask me some crazy favors once she thinks we are a little closer,” Haejin commented.
“As she just said, Hwajin is in a crisis because of the secret fund paintings, so if people get to find out about this, the funds of the corporation won’t be enough. She will even have to spend her own money…”
“No, we don’t need to care about all that. Just have Hyoyeon’s porcelain sent to the restorations room and make your bodyguards start working from today.”
“Okay, don’t worry about it. You know I get scared so easily. I have a meeting with a bodyguard agency at lunchtime,” Eunhae replied.
“Good…”
Haejin then stood up and went down to the restoration room. He started pacing around the room. He had to take care of those pro-Japanese people who were trying to sabotage his excavation project, and now he had to face the mysterious criminals as well. His head was about to explode.
Hyoyeon’s porcelain arrived after an hour. It was a Blue Flower White Porcelain. Unlike Joseon’s porcelains, it was very fancy.
He focused and used magic. But then, “Hup! Oh…”
He suddenly felt a severe headache as if someone hit his head from behind. He was about to vomit.
Haejin ran to the restroom, grabbed the toilet, and threw up.
“Pant… pant…”
He managed to stand up and finally looked into the mirror. His face was pale.
“That bastard.”
The young man who had been present at Hyoyeon’s auction was a member of SH Global.
After he joined SH Global, he became a board member with his great appraisal and communicational skills, and he had been the one who led the fraud on the Chinese merchants.
After that, when the company fell, he brought the real artifacts to Korea, fooled Hyoyeon, and got a huge sum of money.
One good thing was that he wasn’t interested in finding Haejin. He just wanted money.
However, the problem was that he had put a listening spell on the porcelain to make even more money using Hyoyeon, and Haejin had just broken that spell without meaning to.
The man must have had been even more shocked than Haejin when the spell was broken. Haejin had to find him when he was still in a daze.
Haejin ran out and started his car. He knew where the man was, so there was no reason to hesitate.
Vroom!
