Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The Report Card of a Life

It seemed my son was finally getting married.

They say that from time immemorial, a meeting between the two families has always been a silent battlefield where both sides clash without a single gunshot.

‘For the sake of my son’s happy home! I’ll swallow my temper and go in!’

With that resolve firmly set, I stepped out.

The moment the people from the other side of the in-laws saw me at the meeting place, they flinched.

“Oh my, heavens!”

“Ahem!”

It was because of the burn scars covering more than half of my face.

I removed my fedora and bowed as politely as I could.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Cha Jeong-hyeok, Gang-u’s father.”

As expected, the words that poured out right in front of me were sharper than the tip of a knife.

Their eyes scanned me up and down, appraising me with heat.

As if this were a place meant to evaluate my entire life.

“I heard you live in a multi-family house in Sillim-dong?”

“So you can’t even help with the deposit for a villa. Ahem!”

“If you’re living off dirty money... are you a sanitation worker by any chance?”

Somehow, life had turned out filthy, and I was living by handling black money.

People in this underworld called me the ‘Sillim-dong Ant Hell.’

If the chaebol families operated in the light, we moved in the shadows.

I was one of the five big shots who controlled South Korea’s underground finance.

“Of course, you wouldn’t have prepared for your old age either.”

“Don’t tell me you’re planning to take living expenses from the kids?”

Since this was an important matter, I had to make my stance clear.

I waved my hands.

“Of course not. Even if I can’t help the kids as a parent, how could I cling to them like a parasite? I’m not shameless enough for that.”

It was a remark meant to clear up the misunderstanding.

But the people from the other side were staring at my hands in shock.

I hid my stubby hands under the table and tried to lighten the atmosphere with a smile.

I failed.

Because of the gold teeth—four on top and eight on the bottom—the atmosphere grew even colder.

“You’re missing two fingers?”

That was from when I got tangled up with gangsters back in the day... If I told the truth, would they faint?

“Earlier I saw you limping too.”

That was from getting involved with a Joseon-jok hitman... There’s no way to explain this either?

‘I need to change the subject.’

I slowly took out what I had prepared in advance.

It was two extremely worn bankbooks.

“This is what Gang-u’s late biological mother left behind.”

She was a woman who carefully saved even small amounts of money.

The moment she saw the bankbooks, the woman who would become the mother-in-law snatched them like an eagle.

After flipping through them, she snorted.

“No matter how much dust you collect, it’s still just dust, isn’t it? To shove something like this forward and call it a bankbook. I’m truly speechless.”

The prospective mother-in-law gulped down water.

Then she glared fiercely at her daughter.

“Hey, do you really have to go through with this marriage? No matter who you pick, you always choose someone worse than an orphan!”

Then, silently with her mouth, she pressed further.

-You said he has a lot of money!

The prospective daughter-in-law, under interrogation, kept her mouth tightly shut and glared coldly at my son.

My son was being cursed at with eyes even by the woman he was going to marry.

“I’ve already handled all the ancestral rites and holidays, and there’s no need to look after me, so just pretend I don’t exist.”

I lowered my head.

“Could you just look after our child? If you ignore the father, he’s quite a decent man. I’ll leave it to you.”

A request must always be accompanied by sincerity.

‘Just in case, I prepared a 124-pyeong Han River view penthouse.’

Seven rooms, four bathrooms, four parking spaces per household, a house deed worth 14.9 billion won.

I was just about to pull it out from my breast pocket when my son was faster than me.

“Father, lift your head. Why are you bowing like a criminal?”

My son threw down his napkin and stood up abruptly from his seat.

“Hyun-young, I’m sorry. I don’t think I can go through with this marriage after all.”

“Gang-u!”

“I don’t think I need to explain the reason.”

“I’ll just ask this. Gang-u, you really can’t even bring a single 80-pyeong apartment in Gangnam?”

My son squeezed his eyes shut.

“Were all the luxury goods, foreign cars, and spending habits that Gang-u showed all fake?”

“Father, that’s enough. Let’s go.”

My son stormed out of the meeting place without looking back.

I also stood up abruptly.

“Our child is still young and doesn’t know any better. I’ll go get him right away.”

“Hmph, forget it! It seems we won’t be seeing each other anymore!”

The prospective mother-in-law irritably threw down her napkin and tried to stand up.

My gaze toward the people from the other side naturally turned cold.

When our eyes met, the woman who had been throwing a tantrum hesitated.

“The family meeting isn’t over yet.”

Naturally, my tone also grew cold.

The people from the other side glanced at me, hesitated, then sat back down.

“That bankbook isn’t yours yet either.”

The prospective mother-in-law had sneakily taken the bankbook, but the prospective father-in-law hurriedly snatched it and pushed it toward me.

Only then did I withdraw my gaze and turn my back.

I limped after my son with my uncomfortable leg.

There was still room to salvage this.

“Gang-u!”

My son was sitting on a bench in the rear garden, smoking a cigarette.

The red light raced quickly down the cigarette stick as it burned.

It looked just like my son’s insides burning away.

The words I had prepared for him retreated back into my throat.

In the end, all I could do was sit beside him and pat his shoulder a couple of times.

“You suffered.”

“Suffered? You were the one who heard the insults, Father. I’m sorry.”

“What’s there to be sorry about? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Having no eye for women is the sin.”

My son let out a long sigh.

This kid had been singing since he was young about wanting to get a good woman and create a home where laughter never stopped.

“Wasn’t she a woman you loved enough to even think about marriage?”

“It’s fine.”

“That’s enough. There’s no need to break off the marriage over money.”

“I was always confused. Whether she loved me or loved my money. Now that I’ve confirmed her true feelings, it’s a bit bitter.”

Feeling frustrated, I took out a cigarette and put it in my mouth.

My son lit it for me.

“About that bankbook. You said Mom saved it for me.”

“Yeah. Probably, from your mom’s perspective, it was money she squeezed out and saved.”

Why did I bring that here today?

“Buy your daughter-in-law something delicious, buy snacks for the grandchildren. Even if your mom couldn’t buy a house, she could at least do that much, right? Consider it the wedding gift your mom prepared.”

“Ha······.”

My son had a complicated expression.

“This is the wedding gift I prepared for you.”

I held out the house deed and bankbook I had been about to take out earlier.

My son firmly shook his head.

“How can I accept even this? Raising me is already more than enough, Father.”

“Take it.”

I forced it into my son’s hand.

My bankbook must have been quite thick.

‘This is the report card of my life.’

I added a few more documents on top of it and held them out.

“What’s this now?”

“A weapon I brought just in case.”

Would I come to a battlefield empty-handed without a weapon?

It meant I had thoroughly investigated the other family’s background.

“Ha, what a trashy household.”

As he flipped through the documents I gave him, my son kept letting out empty laughs.

In my son’s grip, the documents crumpled tightly.

‘Did I give them for nothing? No. It’s a hundred times better to steel your resolve after knowing than to get stabbed in the back without knowing.’

It’s also true that seeing the filthy side you didn’t need to see makes you feel dirty.

I patted my son’s shoulder a few more times.

“Go back in. If she’s a woman worth holding onto, then hold onto her.”

“Even after seeing this household’s state, you’re telling me to hold onto her?”

“Just because a few grapes are rotten doesn’t mean you have to throw away the whole bunch.”

“······.”

“Just look at the woman. Whether she’s a decent woman if you ignore her parents, or whether she’s a woman you’d want to spend your life with even if you have to accept her parents. That’s the only thing you need to worry about.”

I grinned.

“Don’t lose someone precious by unnecessarily putting up your pride. That’s something only a worthless man does.”

“Hoo······.”

“Just live happily. That’s really all I need. So······.”

“Come to think of it, I left Mom’s bankbook behind. Wait a moment.”

My son also grinned.

It was the expression of a man who had solidified his resolve.

“That’s too much for Hyun-young. Thank you, Father!”

My son headed toward the meeting place, waving the documents that thoroughly investigated the other household as if to show them off.

“You said it, Father. The secret to happiness is giving up what must be given up. I have no intention of picking up and using toilet paper smeared with shit.”

It meant it was over.

‘Damn it, if I knew it would turn out like this, I should have dragged them to the basement first, threatened them, and then proceeded with the meeting.’

Our company’s underground workshop has excellent soundproofing, after all.

I furrowed my brow and inhaled the cigarette smoke deep into my lungs.

“Life really isn’t easy······. Cough cough!”

A cough burst out.

It wouldn’t stop easily.

Woo woo woo.

I took out my smartphone.

The caller was the director of Taeseong University Hospital.

For reference, he’s my one and only close friend.

-Hey, Cha Jeong-hyeok! Aren’t you going to rush to the hospital right now? You’re a terminal lung cancer patient!

That was the reason I had hurried my son’s marriage.

“Didn’t you say a year at most, half a year at the shortest? When was it that you told me to just prepare my mind?”

-So you’re going to just sit there and die nicely? Fine, good. Hang up. I’m calling Gang-u right now.

“Who said I’m not going? I’m going, I’m going!”

-That bastard doesn’t listen to a word I say unless it’s about selling his son. I’ll give you thirty minutes. Got it?

Click.

The guy hung up first.

“Seriously, that temper. Who else would be my friend.”

I rubbed the cigarette butt, burned almost to the filter, into the sand-filled trash can to put it out.

*

I left behind the guys who wanted to follow and took the wheel myself.

Perhaps because it wasn’t peak commuting hours, the road to the hospital was fairly empty.

-There is a children’s protection zone ahead. Please drive safely.

An intersection in front of a kindergarten.

Kids wearing matching yellow uniforms lined up and boarded the bus one after another.

Without realizing it, a smile spread across my lips.

They were small, pretty children.

“There was a time when our Gang-u was just that small too.”

When I brought him in after he had been wandering the streets in the dead of winter, crying from hunger, Gang-u was exactly that size.

I couldn’t bring myself to turn my back on the child.

Instead, I recovered the corpses of the child’s parents that had been left in the house, held the funeral, and put Gang-u on my family register to raise him.

Vrooooom.

A 25-ton trailer came charging from the opposite lane.

Even though the light was red, its speed didn’t decrease at all.

‘What kind of crazy bastard is driving like that······ huh?’

It was drowsy driving.

The trailer charged toward the kindergarten children.

“······!”

A silent scream burst out.

A foreseen horrific tragedy rose in my mind.

‘No! The kids······!’

In an instant, every thought crossed my mind.

I bit my lip hard.

‘Damn it!’

From decision to action.

It was so fast that even I couldn’t believe it.

I stomped on the accelerator.

Then came the brake.

The brake pedal wasn’t enough, so I yanked the side brake hard as well.

Screeeech! Crash!

The charging trailer slammed straight into the side of my car.

A tremendous impact followed.

It was worse than I had braced for.

Cra-cra-cra-crash.

The car spun like a top, flipping over and over in every direction.

That was my last memory.

*

King Yama spoke.

[Cha Jeong-hyeok, age 52, accidental death. You struggled alone throughout your life. It was an unfortunate life.]

The 52 years of life I had seen in a flash were summarized in two words.

Solitary struggle and an unfortunate life.

I had no particular thought of refuting it.

Because that was the truth.

[With such a filthy fate, you would have ended up as a disabled person or a homeless person, unable to avoid a lonely death.]

I looked down at my uncomfortable limbs with a bitter expression.

Because my physical body had disappeared, even that looked blurry.

But the burn scars on my face and the surgical scar from the kidney I had to sell for money still throbbed.

[Even after receiving heavenly punishment, you somehow managed to achieve a decent later years. Admirable.]

Was that so.

[Heaven’s net is vast and wide; though it may seem sparse, nothing slips through.]

It means that heaven’s net is large and wide, appearing sparse, yet nothing ever escapes from it.

[What a strange fellow. Even though you spent your whole life wandering the back alleys and living a degenerate life, you always struggled not to cross the final line. It must not have been easy.]

King Yama smiled benevolently.

[All this time, you raised another’s child as your own, showed leniency to the weak, and from time to time looked after unfortunate neighbors. How could I ignore such merit?]

I closed my eyes.

I realized that this was the true report card of my life.

[Furthermore, you sacrificed your own life in place of the fifteen young souls who had been scheduled for the underworld. This can be called the noblest form of self-sacrifice.]

Thank goodness. The kids must be safe.

[With this, I forgive all the sins you committed in your past life.]

Wait. Wait a minute.

“Sins from my past life?”

[Yes. You sold out the country in your past life.]

To think I had sold out the country in a past life.

[Because of the sins of your past life, you had to live an unfortunate and arduous present life, so you should resent yourself rather than heaven.]

There was a time when I resented heaven, wondering why only my life was such a gutter.

But now that I looked, there was a reason for everything.

So I became extremely curious about that past life.

“How exactly did I sell out the country?”

No matter how I look at it, it doesn’t seem like it could have been done in an ordinary way.

[Very well. In consideration of the merit you established this time, I will specially allow you to see it directly.]

Something fell with a thud.

[It is the Mirror of Karma that reflects the karma of your past life.]

The Mirror of Karma reflected the past life.

A general at the very forefront who swept away the Japanese pirates invading Joseon.

That general was me.

-Do not retreat! Drive back the Japanese enemies and save this country and its people! Everyone, follow me!

And so I fought to the death against the Japanese enemies until the very end and fell in battle.

[······.]

“······.”

Silence flowed.

King Yama’s already pale complexion instantly turned blue.

I brushed my hair back and smiled.

“Heavenly punishment?”

King Yama urgently shouted.

[Heaven’s net is vast and wide; though it may seem sparse, nothing slips through. This life, I will take responsibility for. You shall live as the greatest lucky man since the dawn of history!]