“Haaaa…”

Professor Sim Cheol-su of the Hanguk University art school still couldn’t bring himself to leave the classroom.

Class had ended and the students had gone.

Lunch was long over.

Much of the afternoon had passed.

But he couldn’t leave.

He wasn’t hungry.

He just stood there in a daze, staring at the sunflowers.

No one who painted could ever walk away from this spot.

The sunflowers had swallowed him whole.

Countless painters had tried, but no one had ever perfectly reproduced van Gogh.

The madness of color that only van Gogh could give off.

The dreamlike vision he’d painted in The Starry Night.

Even the two hundred or so works he’d poured out in the fifteen months before his suicide didn’t compare to this painting today.

A single brushstroke carries a painter’s soul.

He went back over the law student’s brushwork in his mind.

Oil painting—fussy and slow to dry, it had never caught on with the general public.

But it could fully express a painter’s intent, and its deep, glossy color was a great strength.

That was why nearly all the great masters preferred to work in oils.

For a painting with real depth, no medium matched oil.

“He used the turpentine and linseed oil more precisely than I do. Everything was rough and crude, but that was deliberate too. Every bit of it…”

The law student had squeezed paint from the tube and dipped it lightly in the turpentine cup to thin it.

A technique impossible without perfectly calculating the consistency.

The same went for the linseed oil used in the later stages.

It was the hand of a master who’d painted in oils thousands of times.

He was a respected mid-career artist in the Korean art world and a Hanguk University professor, and he felt a deep, bitter shame.

It looked like van Gogh’s method, but it followed the rule of fat over lean to the letter.

The basic principle of oil painting: each layer you paint over must have a higher oil content than the one beneath.

Easy to say, but it’s both a fundamental and an advanced technique, learned only by repeating the experience countless times.

“How could anyone paint something like this in yellow…”

When you paint a subject in a single hue, it almost always fails.

But today that basic theory had been broken.

A monochrome technique only a master like van Gogh could pull off.

Even he hadn’t reached that level yet.

“He used oils like acrylics. All carefully calculated! No, that was… instinct!”

Not just blending, pointillism, knife painting and impasto—he’d done glazing and gradation, techniques meant for after the paint dries, the way you would with acrylics.

That was how he could create a masterpiece like this in three hours.

“Mmmmmm.”

The deeper he fell into the painting, the more he could only groan.

The shock he’d felt at the Van Gogh Museum in the Netherlands came back to life.

As a young man, he’d seen van Gogh’s paintings and lost his appetite for days.

The paintings of a master beyond the reach of any era were like a towering cliff.

And today he faced that lost shock and terror again.

If he took this painting to the leading appraisers right now, every one of them would cry out that it was a van Gogh.

Only the style had changed.

It was different from van Gogh’s world, which fed on anguish, despair and madness and spat them back out.

The sunflowers before him overflowed with life.

Full of vitality under warm sunlight, they stretched their stems toward the sky.

Peace instead of madness, a beautiful reality instead of a dream.

Tremble.

His whole body shook.

His creative drive had dulled once he became a professor and his reputation grew.

Where the desperation had been, only technique was left.

He’d hit the wall they call mannerism, and the fire of creation had gone out.

But today a blazing desire kept stirring inside him.

“Professor Sim! There you are!”

Just then a man rushed into the classroom, sounding urgent.

It was Professor Cha Dong-han of the Eastern painting department, Sim’s art school classmate.

“Professor Cha. What’s wrong?”

Professor Cha was known for his grave manner—every inch the Eastern painting professor.

Yet here he was, his face flushed with excitement.

And carefully holding a single sheet of rice paper.

“My God, do you know who I just met?”

“Who?”

“I’ve met a Painting Immortal!” (TL Note: Hwaseon, 畵仙, “painting immortal”—the same word that is Uncle Chwihwaseon’s name.)

In Western painting they called it the god of painting; in Eastern painting, the Painting Immortal.

“A Painting Immortal?”

“Look at this painting!”

Cha Dong-han didn’t even glance at the painting on the easel; he carefully unrolled his sheet of rice paper.

He handled it as gently as if he were bringing out the world’s most precious treasure.

“Whoa!”

“See? My God… doesn’t the tiger look alive? Look at those eyes! Doesn’t it look real, like it’s about to leap out and roar at the world?”

Cha Dong-han appraised the fierce-tiger painting with tears nearly in his eyes.

Incredible skill!

Professor Sim Cheol-su specialized in Western painting, but at a certain level you transcend East and West.

Even at a glance, he could see it was an extraordinary fierce-tiger painting.

A huge tiger roaring on top of a cliff.

The thick ink strokes were full of power.

The mane flying in the wind and the savage eyes.

The sturdy legs planted with pride.

Sharp teeth showed between its snarling lips.

It was menacing just to look at.

It gave off such raw ferocity that it looked ready to leap out and tear your throat open.

Even the moonlight, hanging bright and cold, added to the mood.

And it was a masterpiece that rendered light and shadow in nothing but ink.

“Your work? It’s amazing! You really have met a Painting Immortal!”

Sim Cheol-su sincerely congratulated his close friend Cha Dong-han on his breakthrough.

This was the friend who’d won the gold prize at the Korean Art Exhibition back in their school days.

A painting like this was the best work in Eastern painting in years.

Show it in a gallery and buyers would come running—the very best of the best.

“…It’s not mine.”

Cha Dong-han shook his head.

“Then whose? A grad student’s?”

“No.”

“Then who?”

“An undergrad.”

“Ohh! A genius has shown up in Eastern painting?”

Sim Cheol-su was delighted at the arrival of someone great enough to bring glory to the whole school, whatever the department.

He’d found one himself in his morning class.

With two genius undergraduate students, Hanguk University would beat Hongin University in one stroke and take the top spot.

“Huh?”

Then Sim Cheol-su saw the seal on the painting.

Chinese characters, elegantly written in one corner.

“Tae-san?”

A name all too familiar.

He looked up quickly at the painting on the easel.

“Huh? What’s this painting? Is th-this a van Gogh?”

Cha Dong-han was stunned.

At a glance, the oil painting could pass for a van Gogh.

Van Gogh’s intense trademark style had been reproduced perfectly.

But this was the art school’s studio.

There was no way a van Gogh, worth billions of won at the very least and tens of billions at most, would be here.

What’s more, it was different from the twelve sunflower paintings van Gogh had created.

The style was similar, but the image and energy it gave off weren’t.

“T.S.!”

Cha Dong-han spotted Tae-san’s initials in one corner of the sunflower painting.

“Professor Cha.”

“Huh? Professor Sim.”

Cha Dong-han answered, still reeling from the sunflowers.

A sunflower oil painting only van Gogh himself could have imitated.

He couldn’t take his eyes off it.

“Did a student from another department sit in on your afternoon class, by any chance?”

“Huh! Yes!”

“A law student?”

“H-how did you know?”

“!!!”

Sim Cheol-su’s eyes went wide at Cha Dong-han’s answer.

“Jang Tae-san!”

“That’s right! Jang Tae-san!”

“What was that?”

“What was what?”

“How on earth can someone who’s not an art major paint like that?”

“Why, law students aren’t allowed to paint?”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“Then what are you curious about?”

“Haa.”

Son Yu-ri let out a long sigh.

She must be so curious right now her head was about to explode.

“Pour me one, please.”

I held out the cup in my hand.

“You’re drinking makgeolli the minute class lets out? This is our second jug.”

“I’m craving it.”

“What? Craving it?”

Borrowing Uncle Chwihwaseon’s abilities all-out had left me parched.

I was dying for sweet, fizzy makgeolli.

It isn’t something I usually drink, but the whole time I was painting the tiger, all I could think about was makgeolli.

I’d left the minute class was over.

Outside the classroom, it was pandemonium.

Dozens of art students whispered as soon as I appeared.

I heard them calling me a genius painter who’d reproduced van Gogh’s style in three hours.

In the afternoon class, I’d earned the title of Painting Immortal.

Cheers and sighs burst from the classroom I’d just left.

What I’d painted was the hard-won mastery of Uncle Chwihwaseon, a man who’d owned his era.

I’d experienced firsthand what possession really is.

My three afternoon credits were an art course, too.

In the Eastern painting studio, I’d made the same bet with the professor.

And it ended in my total victory.

I’d lost myself in the paper like a madman and summoned a fierce tiger.

When I came to my senses, a snarling tiger was glaring at me.

The professor looked at me with awe, asking if the Painting Immortal had come down on me.

I came outside.

Son Yu-ri, who’d been waiting, followed me.

And we went to a makgeolli pub in front of the school.

I ordered makgeolli in a big earthenware bowl and a green-onion pancake.

In no time, she and I had emptied a jug.

“It’s nice drinking makgeolli with you, Senior Son.”

“What?”

I didn’t seem to have fully come out of Chwihwaseon’s possession yet.

A man’s bravado, you might call it.

Now I truly felt what Uncle Chwihwaseon must have felt, painting while sharing drinks with gisaeng of peerless beauty.

I held my cup out to the lovely Son Yu-ri without hesitation.

She filled it with makgeolli.

Gulp.

I opened my throat and poured the makgeolli down.

“Kyaaa!”

With a few cups in my stomach, I could finally breathe.

For an artist who’d burned up his passion, a cold drink was the best gift there was.

“You know you’re a freshman, right? Drinking on the very first day of the semester, really?”

Son Yu-ri asked the common-sense question.

I looked at her steadily.

Beautiful women have clear eyes, too.

Her dark eyes sparkled.

After two cups of makgeolli, her eyes had gone soft and moist.

“I’m drinking with you because it’s you, Senior Son. I’m a picky guy.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re beautiful.”

“…”

That one word shut Senior Son Yu-ri up.

My eyes turned hot too.

Chwihwaseon… that uncle of mine was a no-good painter.

Once I’d painted and had a drink, my blood burned like an active volcano.

I think I understand why famous artists are womanizers.

They try to make up for the exhaustion of creating in all the wrong places.

Senior Son Yu-ri’s face flushed red.

This is dangerous!

I kept telling myself this wasn’t right, but my eyes wouldn’t listen.

I looked at Son Yu-ri with a burning heat.

A red-hot signal.

Son Yu-ri lowered her head.

We were both old enough to know what that meant.

Ah! I’m about to do something reckless tonight.

“Hey! Tae-san!”

Just then someone beside me called my name.

Damn it…

(End of Chapter 114)