“T-Tae-san…”

Son Yu-ri said his name in shock.

She couldn’t make sense of it.

Why on earth would a first-year law student be taking a junior-year art class?

Every art student in the room looked completely bewildered.

No law student—no student from any other department—had ever signed up for a junior-year advanced required course, not since Hanguk University was founded.

“Freshman, there’s been some mistake, right?”

“No!”

Jang Tae-san’s booming answer left Professor Sim Cheol-su speechless.

“Oh my. He’s gorgeous. Yu-ri, do you know that law student?”

An Hye-ran was suddenly very interested.

The art school and the law school were the closest to each other on campus, and plenty of campus couples had ended up married.

The art school women, dressed at the height of fashion—unlike the drab women in law—called the law school men emergency rations.

If you were going to graduate from art school and get some job anyway, it was quicker to snag a capable law student and cook him up right.

The law school’s bar pass rate was so far above everyone else’s that if you raised one right, you’d hit the jackpot for life.

Most Hanguk University art students came from well-off families, so a few keys were no problem. (TL Note: In Korea, a bride’s family was once expected to bring “keys” to a marriage with a prestigious groom—an apartment, a car, an office. “Three keys” became shorthand for the price of marrying a doctor, lawyer or judge.)

Some law students went after art students for exactly that reason, too.

A law student’s diploma and future, an art student’s wealth and looks—they’d become goods of equal value, to be traded.

The handsome law students especially got claimed early by the art students.

“Jang Tae-san. I’m sure a Hanguk University law student wouldn’t do this, but you didn’t sign up for this as an elective, did you?”

Professor Sim Cheol-su asked, baffled.

“That’s right. I heard majors in other departments count toward elective credit.”

“This class is a hundred percent studio work!”

At the cheerful answer, Professor Sim Cheol-su made sure he’d heard right.

Unless he’d lost his mind, nobody would take a junior-year advanced major course that even art students shook their heads at.

As an elective, no less.

“Professor, was what I heard a minute ago a lie?”

“What did you hear?”

“That a painter should speak only with his paintings.”

“Well, that’s for those of us who major in it…”

“I major in painting, too.”

“What? Painting?”

Jang Tae-san’s answer made no sense, and Professor Sim Cheol-su’s mouth fell open.

Hanguk University’s art school and Hongin University’s were the two great peaks of Korean art education.

It wasn’t a school every dog and cow could get into.

It was where the country’s best young artists were chosen.

And a law student had just said his major was painting.

Without a moment’s hesitation, too.

“Jang Tae-san, enough fooling around. You’re a freshman, but my patience has limits.”

Professor Sim Cheol-su’s face hardened.

The Buddha of Hell was stingy with grades but always smiling. Now he was thoroughly offended.

This was beyond courage; it was bravado, reckless and foolish.

He knew law students had a crazy streak, but this went too far.

“Redo your course registration. The next week is the add-drop period.”

He held back his anger and explained as kindly as he could.

He figured that was explanation enough.

“No. I’m going to earn this credit fair and square, on my skill.”

“Hey! You little punk! You think painting’s a joke? Do we look like a bunch of daubers to you law students? Huh!!!”

Sim Cheol-su roared.

However accomplished, an arts professor in Korea could never match the law school’s connections and tradition, and his furious cry came from that.

It was also jealousy of law students, whose lives could change with a single exam.

Long ago, a woman in his class he’d loved had married a four-eyed loser who’d passed the bar.

The bitterness he’d buried exploded.

“I like painting more than the law. And what’s wrong with being a dauber? If you can just paint, isn’t that happiness?”

“Hnngh.”

Sim Cheol-su groaned at Jang Tae-san’s answer.

He concluded the kid was a lunatic who couldn’t be reasoned with.

“How am I supposed to teach someone with no fundamentals? Not even a god could do that!”

“Yes, he could.”

“No, he couldn’t!”

“Then I’ll prove it.”

“Pr-prove what?”

“Give me the same assignment as the students here, right here, right now.”

“The same?”

“The medium doesn’t matter. Drawing, watercolor, oil—pick whatever you like.”

Jang Tae-san’s bold offer rubbed the art students the wrong way.

A law student who’d rolled in from nowhere had put a scratch in the pride of the art students who’d dug in here first. (TL Note: A twist on the Korean proverb “the rolling stone knocks out the stone set in place”—a newcomer pushing out those who were there first.)

This was a declaration of war!

“Hahaha, hahahahahahahahaha.”

Professor Sim Cheol-su laughed heartily.

But his eyes were cold.

“I do the grading.”

“Of course.”

“If you fail, you shut up and get out, right?”

“If that’s what you want.”

An invisible battle of pride.

The art students’ heads were getting hot too.

Tae-san…

Only one woman found this moment a nightmare.

Sorry, everyone. I don’t want to do this either.

I wasn’t some gang enforcer out to wreck another department’s class.

This wasn’t my idea.

Art and I had never gotten along, ever since I was a kid.

We were the school version of real-life siblings—the kind who can’t stand each other.

Then, not long ago, something happened.

It was during course registration, when first-years got to pick first.

To start, I dropped every law class.

Under the new rules, you could only sit for the bar if you’d completed thirty-five credits in law and had a certain English proficiency score.

That meant taking a full load of law classes.

I couldn’t let that ruin my wild and varied freshman year.

There was no guarantee I’d ever get to regress again.

I dropped all my law credits and signed up for the self-study bachelor’s degree exams.

At the beginning of February, I’d quietly finished applying for the first round.

Getting thirty-five credits done this year would be nothing.

And then I boldly filled my entire first-semester schedule with electives.

Just as I was happily signing up for the classes with lots of female students…

An art school course caught my eye.

A two-credit course called Understanding Art.

Should I learn a little about art?

I thought about it for a moment.

The briefest moment—you could call it an instant.

In the blink of an eye, it happened.

Pat!

Light flashed, and I got an invitation from the gods.

And then…

“You’re finally here~.”

Someone called to me, very warmly.

Where is this?

A long, long corridor appeared.

It was about five meters high, and the walls on either side looked to run for kilometers.

I knew right away it wasn’t the human world.

“Who are you?”

A man came into view.

A face I’d seen plenty of times.

His hair was in a topknot, carelessly tied up with a cord.

His shaggy beard was the very picture of a free spirit.

He wore something like a scholar’s robe, something like a hanbok.

In his hand was a porcelain gourd bottle.

“It’s Uncle Hwaseon.”

“What? U-uncle?”

This was the first god I’d met who called himself my uncle, flat out.

There was no uncle like that in my family.

“Why are you my uncle? Are you one of my ancestors or something?”

“Why so picky? When people live on a scrap of land this small, all the blood gets mixed. So we’re all uncles and aunties. Don’t you call the lady at a restaurant Auntie? Same principle.”

“Ahh…”

The gods have a strange way with words that makes you nod along.

But I’d seen that face somewhere…

“Hwaseon… Whoa? Ch-Chwihwaseon?”

“Heh heh heh. That’s right—the Chwihwaseon you know, your Uncle Chwihwaseon.” (TL Note: Chwihwaseon, “the drunken painting immortal,” was the nickname of Owon Jang Seung-eop (1843–1897), a Joseon painter as famous for his drinking and his women as for his brush; his life became a celebrated 2002 Korean film under that name.)

“Ahhhh!”

After Auntie Jang-geum, Jini noona, Mister Nam Sa-go and Mister Park Yu-bong, Gam-chan the reaper and the Daoist Official, a new homegrown Korean immortal had appeared.

Only then did I know exactly whose face it was.

It was the spitting image of Jo Min-sik, the big star of Korean film.

“Your face…”

“I had work done.”

“Work done?”

“Didn’t Jang-geum noona tell you? That a god’s name changes to whatever people call him.”

“She did.”

“Faces are the same. Gods can change their faces into whatever shape humans imagine. It’s a god’s privilege.”

“Ah!”

Everything Jang-geum noona had told me made sense now.

Gods aren’t human.

For beings who exist as energy, changing a face seemed like nothing.

“But why did you call me…”

I’d been planning my class schedule; there was no reason to get summoned.

All I’d done was think about art for a second.

Not even eagerly—just a fingernail’s worth of interest.

“Oh, come on. Between pros.”

“What? Pros?”

Since regressing, I get called a pro a lot.

“Tae-san. Let’s help each other out. If you’ve got plenty of points, you ought to donate a few to your poor immortal uncle. And I’ll pass my skills on to you. Isn’t that the cooperative spirit of mutual aid, the love of humanity?”

Isn’t love of humanity something living people are supposed to share with each other?

Uncle Chwihwaseon sure had a way with words.

The Chwihwaseon I knew, Owon Jang Seung-eop, was different.

He was a man who’d risen above worldly life, even escaped the comforts of the royal court, and lived exactly as he pleased.

But the Chwihwaseon in front of me, calling himself my uncle, looked like a con man out to take my karma points.

I wasn’t that drawn to art as a subject.

I’d like to learn it, but I didn’t particularly need it right now.

“What would I learn it for?”

I’d dealt with an immortal or two before.

By now I was an expert at throwing my weight around with immortals.

“You know art makes money too, right? Unlike the old days, these days if you paint well, you’ll never go hungry.”

“Oh, come on, between pros. Painters only make money after they’re dead. And I’ve got plenty of money.”

It was an offer with zero appeal.

“Tae-san! When you’ve got plenty, you need to know how to be generous! Or even after you become an immortal, people will call you a miser!”

This time it was a threat.

“I’m giving plenty while I’m alive. I’m going to earn karma points by the ton and become a self-made immortal nobody can look down on.”

“Hnngh.”

The immortal uncle’s face grew desperate.

“Leaving your girlfriend a gorgeous portrait—isn’t that part of a man’s charm? You know da Vinci, right? That’s how that kid got famous too.”

Uncle Hwaseon seemed to know Leonardo da Vinci, too.

“Do you know how good camera quality is these days~? Paintings can’t keep up.”

“The touch of the hand is different. The care is different. Women fall for a man with skills. Back when I lived in the human world, if I handed a gisaeng a painting, my drinks and meals were free.”

Uncle Chwihwaseon never said anything that didn’t help his case.

Every Korean knows he chased countless gisaeng skirts with his painting.

He never painted unless a beauty was pouring his drinks.

The Korean version of Nova hyungnim.

“That’s a story from the old days, when romance was still alive. These days you have to take pictures with an expensive camera to get anywhere. And if you get free drinks and meals, people talk. I’m not a beggar—why would I mooch?”

“…”

Every offer he made got turned down, and Uncle Chwihwaseon looked frustrated.

His dejected face was pitiful.

To me, karma points were overflowing; to the immortals, they were food they couldn’t do without.

“You know how hard it is to earn karma points, right?”

“Of course… Even painting all of this barely covers my drinks.”

“This is your workplace?”

“A man’s gotta eat. You think immortals get fed for free?”

“You didn’t earn many points while you were alive?”

“…I’ve got a hell of a temper, you know. I’d earn them and blow them, earn them and blow them…”

“Then how did you become an immortal? The Jade Emperor Cup? Or self-made?”

“Well…”

Chwihwaseon scratched his face with his big hand.

He looked embarrassed; the words came out hard.

“I-I’m a c-contract immortal.”

“What? A contract immortal?”

(End of Chapter 112)