Episode 5
The Truth of the Dongbang Secret Record
“Heh heh heh. You seem quite interested in ancient texts as well.”
“It’s not that; my name is Dongbang Sak. Hearing the name Dongbang, I just… couldn’t help myself.” “Well. That’s a rare surname. Dongbang, you say…….” “Yes. Was it perhaps too difficult a request?” “What’s so difficult? First, I need to check what it contains myself, so come back tomorrow instead of today.” “Ah. Thank you. Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I paid my respects to the old used bookstore owner and stepped outside.
Filled with an inexplicable pull of fate, my heart—which usually didn’t beat so hard—began to pound violently.
“Huh? Why are you so out of breath? Did you run?”
“No. Just am, I guess.” “Well, you have been overdoing it lately. The day after tomorrow, we’ll be thirty. You need to take care of your health.”
“I told you, no. I’m fine.” “Want to rest tomorrow? I think it’d be okay to take a day off.”
Sangcheol spoke as if worried, but courier work was such that skipping one day made the next exhausting, so I couldn’t rest easily.
“No. Let’s just finish early tomorrow.” “Yeah? If you’re sick, make sure to tell me, okay?” “Got it.”
I reassured Sangcheol.
The next day, after finishing my courier deliveries, I hurriedly ran to the used bookstore.
“Boss!” “You’ve come.” “Yes.” “Hmm…….”
The old used bookstore owner’s expression didn’t look very good. It seemed the contents of the Dongbang Secret Record had been disappointing.
“I paid good money to have it interpreted…… What a waste. To think it was such an absurd book.”
“What was in it?” “Just take it with you. Give me ten thousand won.”
If it had been in the past, I would’ve given up, begrudging even ten thousand won, but working with Sangcheol had given me some leeway, so I could easily hand over ten thousand won.
“Ah. Thank you.” I handed over the ten thousand won and received the Dongbang Secret Record annotated edition, delivery box and all, that I had brought him.
‘Since it’s not yet kindergarten pick-up time yet……’
Rather than going home, I stopped by Bak Minjeong’s cafe and took out the annotated edition.
[Dongbang Secret Record: Annotated Edition] The title was in Chinese characters, but from the next page, Korean translations interpreting the characters were attached.
[This Dongbang Secret Record contains the story of I, Dongbang Sak. I, Dongbang Sak, had my name erased from the Netherworld’s Registry of Life and Death, becoming an immortal body. But immortality was never a happy thing. I had to live as a wanderer, fleeing the endless pursuit of the Netherworld and the gazes of people who saw that I neither aged nor died.]
The ensuing contents of the Dongbang Secret Record were a continuation of the grievances of the Ancestor Dongbang Sak that I had already heard in my dreams.
‘No wonder the old man said it was a useless book.’ To anyone reading it, it was a continuous stream of tales so preposterous one could call them a house of lies.
Meeting divine beasts, flying through the sky alongside the Azure Dragon—no matter that I had seen the Ancestor with my own eyes, these were hard-to-believe tales.
‘But something’s different……’ Though it was definitely a book called the Dongbang Secret Record, I could feel that the arrangement of the Chinese characters I saw was different from the ones carved on my body.
They were clearly similar characters, but because the meaning of Chinese characters could differ like heaven and earth depending on their arrangement, I left the cafe and hurried home.
Arriving home, I took off my clothes and began writing the characters in Yul’s Korean writing practice notebook. For places I couldn’t see like my back or buttocks, I even used a mirror and spent a long time writing them down. It didn’t seem like something I could finish in a day, so after courier work ended, I returned home immediately and kept writing the characters.
For a week, I even assumed embarrassing postures as I copied down all the characters, then began comparing and interpreting them against the characters in the annotated edition.
[Dongbang Secret Record. I have contained the secrets capable of shaking heaven and moving earth in this book, leaving it to the descendant who bears my karma.]
This was definitely a Dongbang Secret Record whose interpretation differed starting from the very beginning.
[In the past, humans grew arrogant after mastering martial arts and challenged even the Netherworld. As a result, the Netherworld forbade internal energy to annihilate martial artists. But humans who had ascended to absolute heights challenged the Netherworld in a different way. It was not martial arts, but the discipline called science—technologies of absolute forbidden domains that humans ought not gaze upon.]
‘Just what is this talking about? Science? In this era, science would be……’ As I interpreted further, I fell deeper into what the Dongbang Secret Record was trying to say.
Having finished all the interpretations, I couldn’t contain my shock.
“This can’t… be true…… If this is real?”
The absurd contents of the Dongbang Secret Record—they were tremendous technologies that even I, who had studied modern physics, would scoff at as impossible.
If these technologies were revealed to the world, a catastrophe incomparable even to nuclear war would befall humanity. I prided myself on having studied my fair share, but there were so many formulas I couldn’t understand, and the Dongbang Secret Record detailed so thoroughly how to use them that I began to worry about what I should do with it.
“So this is why the immortals didn’t pass these technologies down to people.”
The humans who had challenged the Netherworld were the beings we commonly called immortals. But even the immortals, knowing that the countless technologies they invented would become calamities for humanity, sealed them away and passed them to the Ancestor, an immortal being.
Perhaps the Dongbang Secret Record at the used bookstore had been a trick to deceive the eyes of the Netherworld. I suspected that while claiming to pass down such an absurd book to descendants, he had given the true original to me. Then what about the pill? Was it merely a pill that made the body sturdy?
I still couldn’t figure out the identity of the pill. Leaving behind the identity of the pill, which wouldn’t yield an answer no matter how much I worried, I pondered what to do from now on.
Depending on how I used these technologies that would surely change humanity’s future, not only mine but also Yul and Geon’s futures would change. The relatively useful ones might be patented and sold. But having worked at a large corporation, I knew well how futile patents were.
The moment I filed a useful patent in our country, countless copies would circulate, and large corporations would undoubtedly buy the patent for a pittance to line their own pockets.
Then there was only one thing I had to do.
“I’ll establish a company.”
Of course, I knew how absurd it was to establish a company in my current state. I had the technology, but I lacked funds.
I decided to burn the interpreted Dongbang Secret Record without leaving a trace. I hadn’t been able to memorize everything, but I stayed up nights to commit the annotated edition to memory. As long as the Dongbang Secret Record was carved on my body, I could interpret it at any time.
The next day, I met Sangcheol.
“Sangcheol. If you had a technology that could change the world, what would you do with it?” “Huh? Where’d that come from?” “Yeah. It’s a tremendous technology, something you’d call revolutionary. What do you think you’d do?” “Hmm… I’d probably sell it to a large corporation and live large.” “You trust large corporations?” “Well, you see it on the news too. People who sold patents abroad and made a ton of money.” “…….”
There was no country as harsh on patents as the Republic of Korea. Having worked at a large corporation, I knew well the tyranny of large corporations. Then would it be any different abroad?
I worried and worried, but the answer didn’t come easily.
“Sangcheol. I have that kind of technology. The kind that would change the world if it came out.”
“What? What are you talking about all of a sudden?” “I’m serious.”
I spoke to Sangcheol with a serious gleam in my eyes.
Squeak.
Sangcheol pulled the truck onto the shoulder and faced me. Perhaps sensing that my gaze held no lie, his expression grew serious.
“So you have that kind of technology…… Well. I can’t believe it, but you don’t seem like you’re talking nonsense either.”
“If we use this technology, we really won’t have to envy the chaebol.”
Chaebol. The Hansong Group suddenly came to mind. If I really became a chaebol? I felt like I might be able to land a heavy blow on the Hansong Group.
I didn’t care if people pointed fingers, calling this a petty man’s vengeance. No, even if I didn’t seek revenge, if I became a chaebol, Hansong would likely interfere.
“Do you happen to remember Yun Ssak and Jang Rang?” “Ssak…… Rang……!!” Why wouldn’t I know? If one of Hanseong High School’s famed treasures was me, the other treasures were Ssak and Rang, who hung out with Sangcheol.
They were childish nicknames from our youth, but Sangcheol, Ssak, and Rang—called Samcheon, as in the Three Heavens of Hanseong High School—were both problem children and the pride of Hanseong High School.
Samcheon—the teachers’ biggest headache, yet the greatest pride of the students attending Hanseong High School.
“Speaking of which, I never asked about Ssak and Rang. You guys were really close. How are they doing?”
Seeing Sangcheol’s face darken in an instant, there was clearly some problem.
“Ssak and Rang…… They became gangsters.” “!!!!”
The fighting skills of Samcheon were incredibly famous. Adults pointed fingers, calling them problem children, but they had protected kids from the bullies of other schools like apostles of justice. Yet within the school, far from playing the bully, they had led diligent school lives. Hearing that two of Samcheon, who had been called legends of Hanseong High School, had become gangsters, I doubted my ears.
“Gangsters…… Why?” “It’s……”
Samcheon, who had no interest in studying, went their separate ways after graduating high school. As Sangcheol already knew, he had gotten a job at a factory, but Ssak and Rang couldn’t control their young blood.
Their fighting skills were already famous throughout the neighborhood, so word even reached local gangsters. Perhaps it had been curiosity. The organization was a trap that once stepped into, even the famous fighters Ssak and Rang couldn’t escape.
With their families even taken hostage and threatened, Ssak and Rang had to keep fighting for the organization, repeatedly being thrown in and out of prison.
“If I had that technology…… I’d save Ssak and Rang and start a business together. It wouldn’t even have to be a business. I just wish I could laugh and chat with Ssak and Rang like before. Like you and me now.”
At Sangcheol’s words, I felt an intense, inexplicable thumping in my chest.
In that moment, an image struck my mind. I pictured myself, Sangcheol, Ssak, and Rang in fine suits, walking under escort toward a massive building. It was so vivid that I spoke to Sangcheol without realizing it.
“I’m going to say something really shameless…… Let’s start a business.” “A business? With that technology?” “Yeah. Let’s start a business with this technology. Honestly, I don’t have the funds. You can be the president, so lend me the money.” “…….”
Sangcheol seriously contemplated my words. That time of contemplation was so long, so very long that it burned my insides with anxiety.
“What kind of technology is it?”
Whether he had finished contemplating or not, at Sangcheol’s question about the business item, I explained the first business item to execute.
“You know how strict the greenhouse gas regulations are in Europe right now, right?” “Do I? I don’t really watch the news, so I don’t know.” “Hmm. Anyway, it comes out on the news often. That’s why the automobile industry that has to export to Europe is in a state of emergency.”
“I see……”
Sangcheol seemed to have no interest in how society worked and listened to my words with one ear out the other.
Then I spoke enthusiastically.
“This device is a machine that, when installed on trucks, buses, and various automobiles, purifies exhaust gas and emits clean, pure oxygen.”
“That makes money?”
“Even now, there’s a device called a catalytic converter inside cars. What we’ll make will be a tremendous product that far surpasses existing catalytic converters.”
“Really?”
Sangcheol didn’t know the circumstances, but this was truly a groundbreaking technology. Currently, the trend was that greenhouse gas emission regulations were being implemented worldwide, and numerous research institutes were conducting studies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But until now, they hadn’t been able to create a catalyst with performance matching what I intended to make.
I took out my notebook and began writing down chemical formulas, explaining to Sangcheol by what principle this was possible.
“If you make this bigger, it can be used in factories too. In other words, as soon as we produce it, we’ll hit the jackpot.”
“Hmm. If what you say is possible, that would be something tremendous……”
It was Sangcheol’s tone, harboring doubts about the efficacy of the device I had explained.
“How about we start by making a prototype and testing it?”
“Should we? Sorry, I feel like I can’t trust you somehow.”
“Don’t be sorry. Of course you should be suspicious. I’d be suspicious too. Let’s make a prototype first and check if this really works.”
“Yeah. First, we should look for a factory that can process the materials.”
Sangcheol and I united in spirit and began looking for factories after courier work ended. And so, bit by bit, we began preparing to create the prototype.