Artifact Reading Inspector-Chapter 110: Soldier from the Tomb (3)

Apart from that gift, Haejin started to frown at seeing the plane tickets she gave him. The plane would leave today afternoon.

“I’m sorry, but I’ll get my own ticket, so could you delay my stay at the hotel?”

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

Wang Mingwan frowned.

“I have something urgent to take care of.”

Wang Mingwan crossed her arms and looked at Haejin. Was she trying to find some hidden meaning in that, or thinking that he was lying? Haejin didn’t know.

She took a deep breath and coldly asked, “Don’t you know that the things in the black market can disappear at any time? Why are you delaying the trip? You must know the relationship between our countries will get even worse if you don’t take this seriously.”

Haejin couldn’t just tell her to shut up and wait. She was close to Wang Huiyang, and if he fails to take care of this matter, Ambassador Yang Dojin would be in trouble again.

Plus, apart from Dojin’s personal issues, if Haejin couldn’t gain Wang Huiyang’s trust, it wouldn’t be good for Haejin’s plans of retrieving the Korean artifacts.

“Actually, I know the guy who has the biggest influence in the antiquity black market in Japan.”

“You mean you are not his friend?” 𝑓𝘳ℯ𝒆w𝘦𝘣𝙣𝘰ѵ𝘦𝚕.c𝗼𝓶

“Yes. If he sees me, he might use the yakuza to bury me alive in concrete. It wouldn’t be a problem if I stay in Korea but meeting them in Japan, without any preparation, would be very risky for me.”

Haejin spoke honestly because he thought Wang Mingwan would find out later. Additionally, he had no reason to bother and hide it.

“Hmm… then I can send some bodyguards with you.”

“Chinese bodyguards?” Haejin asked back.

“However, if I think about it, it won’t be easy. Sending bodyguards abroad… if it wasn’t Japan, we could use the local bodyguard company, but in Japan, the yakuza owns the bodyguard companies, so it wouldn’t help.”

“That’s why I need time.”

“What are you going to do?”

“The National Intelligence Service from Korea has promised to help. I will go to Japan with a fake ID. Time is needed to make that fake ID that would let me pass the customs and immigration.”

Wang Mingwan nodded and relaxed.

“Korea really cares about this.”

As the NIS was helping, she was glad to know that Korea was taking this matter seriously.

“Yes. So, although I understand you are worried, please give us some time. We are trying as best as we can.”

“Hmm… good. You said you will get your plane ticket. I guess you will depart from Korea?”

“Yes. I am going to Seoul this afternoon, and I will go to Japan as soon as I’m ready.”

“Good. As for the hotel, call me and I will immediately make a reservation for you.”

She stood up and was about to leave, but she turned again as if she recalled something.

“Oh, there’s one more thing I should tell you…”

“What?”

“I heard Lee Shian talking about you… did something happen between you two?”

Haejin was surprised, he didn’t know what to do.

At the time, Lee Shian was after him, and he could assume that the weird man who came after him, some time later, was working with him.

“Well, I didn’t know him… maybe he thought he had been humiliated there. So, he wanted to recover his honor…”

“I didn’t say to whom and what he said, but you are so nervous.”

Haejin’s heart dropped.

“Oh, I, I just…”

“Well, we are looking for traces of the missing Lee Shian. I’ve done some research, after buying the painting in Hong Kong, you parted ways with that rude young girl and took a ship to Incheon at Zhangzhou Port, Xiamen…”

This was getting weird.

“Are you suspecting me?”

Wang Mingwan smiled at seeing Haejin getting nervous. That kind of smile on the face of such a huge woman was even more threatening.

“Don’t worry. We checked on the CCTV that he went straight to Beijing after that. I just wonder a little how you and Lee Shian knew each other. And, why you bothered to use Zhangzhou Port instead of the Hong Kong International Airport.”

“Khmm… I had my personal reasons…”

“Okay, I won’t ask further. Just take care of this matter well.”

Wang Mingwan left after a bunch of threats.

Haejin flopped into a chair at seeing her go away. It’s been a while since he felt his legs lose strength after he started to use magic.

“Wow… she is scary,” he muttered to himself and shook his head. When did she find out about his tracks… at least she didn’t openly threaten him but simply implied it. Therefore, she didn’t want to be on his bad side.

Anyway, he had convinced Wang Mingwan, so he went to Seoul without worries. He went straight to his museum where a man in his mid-30s was waiting for him.

The moment Eunhae saw Haejin, she brightly smiled and came closer. She pointed at the man behind her. 𝙛𝔯𝒆e𝔀e𝗯𝓷𝗼𝘃e𝚕.𝒄𝗼𝗺

“He has been waiting for you for about half an hour. I asked who he was, but he didn’t answer… do you know him?”

“No.”

“But what did you do it China? You didn’t say much… and you didn’t reply often.”

Actually, when Haejin was in China, she showed curiosity about what he was doing there through texts, but he didn’t tell her the details.

“I’ll tell you later. Have you checked if Jaewon put that buddha on sale in Insadon?”

Eunhae was disappointed and pouted.

“How could you say that? I’ve been so worried.”

“Haha, I’m sorry. I was too busy. I must go to Japan urgently, but I’ll buy you a meal later.”

“Something expensive, then!”

“Of course.”

Eunhae smiled and took out her phone to show Haejin a photo.

“I doubted that he would move immediately, but he did. There’s a rumor about an antique shop in Insadong called Hansang trying to sell a buddha. I am not close to that shop’s owner, so I had someone to take a photo of it in secret, and that was it.”

In the photo, there was the buddha that Haejin had appraised.

“How far has that rumor spread?”

“As I heard of it, so did all the middle merchants with money in Insadong. This photo was taken yesterday, so at least…”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes, after tomorrow, the probability of the buddha staying there would drop below 50%.”

Eunhae was being generous when she said 50%. Such a well-preserved buddha with a historical value would lure in buyers in no time.

In addition, considering the possibility of an organization thinking of taking it and selling it at an even higher price, it could have left Korea already.

“Hmm…”

Haejin was thinking about this when Eunhae managed to speak to him.

“Are you… going to let him do that?”

“I have no choice. I’ve warned him already… he is moving so loudly, so don’t even bother to find out where it will get sold to.”

Eunhae was relieved to hear that. She nodded.

“Okay. If he gets lucky, he might be able to get away with this, so…”

Haejin, who had been impressed by Wang Mingwan’s ability to get information, thought it was unlikely. And, if the Korean-China relations were to be improved, this kind of artifact problems would be dealt with great care.

Haejin had a simple conversation with Eunhae and went to the man who had been waiting for him.

“I am Park Haejin. May I ask who you are?”

Haejin already had his guesses, but he asked to be sure.

The man got up and offered his hand with a smile.

“Nice to meet you. I am Jeong Sanghun, head of the NIS’s International Team 2.”

“Oh… okay. Let’s go in first.”

Haejin took him to Eunhae’s office. He looked at Eunhae to ask her to leave, and she left immediately.

“Wasn’t that the director of this museum?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm… the actual owner has great power, after all.”

He wasn’t teasing him, he spoke as if Haejin looked special.

Haejin didn’t want to make excuses, so he changed the subject.

“I heard from Ambassador Yang Dojin, that you would get me a fake ID…”

Sanghun asked with a vague expression that was somewhere between a smile and seriousness.

“I did some research. You have an extraordinary background. How was your relationship with your father?”

Haejin was sure that the man already knew, so he told him the truth.

“Good. I learned a lot from him.”

“Like appraisal and excavation?”

He stressed the word ‘excavation’.

“You are wrong, I never took part in grave robbing. I watched and learned from the artifacts my father excavated, but he never allowed me to excavate myself.”

Haejin didn’t feel good about making excuses, but it was the truth, so he spoke openly as if saying, ‘so what?’, but Sanghun’s reaction was not what he had expected.

“You don’t know how to do rob graves?”

He was puzzled, but Haejin could see that he wasn’t joking.

“Yes. Do I have to know?”

“Hmm…”

He pondered on it as if he had encountered an unexpected problem.

Then, he said, “First, we heard about this matter from Ambassador Yang and looked through it. As it was to improve the relations between Korea and China, we decided to hire you temporarily and give you your new ID. But…”

“But?”

“There is something we need the help of an expert, and that is…”

He was hesitating, Haejin then spoke for him.

“That is me. Am I supposed to do rob some graves?”

Sanghun couldn’t answer and didn’t say anything. Then, he moved on as if nothing had happened.

“First, this is the ID you will use in Japan. You are a businessman going back and forth between Japan and Korea, and you import agricultural products from Japan.”

The ID he gave Haejin had the name Kim Seongjun, a new address, and a new social security number.

What was surprising is that the photo on Haejin’s former ID card had been changed to look like someone else.

“Impressive.”

“We are the NIS for reason. When you go to Japan, you will have to… slightly change your looks to look like this photo. It won’t be hard, we can change you very quickly. When you arrive, our agent there will help you.”

Haejin wondered if he had to do all that but thinking about how he might run into Ando Hadake’s men, he decided it was better that way.

“Thank you, it will help me a lot.”

“But how are you going to approach it? Can you just get near it?”

Of course not. Even though the antiquity black market deals with a huge sum of money and make only a few deals so that it never stops bringing in clients, even that has standards.

They would never show the Terracotta Soldier if Haejin just went there and demanded to see it. He would have to be grateful if they said, ‘there’s no such thing’ and let him leave in peace.

“I am planning to use an artifact of this museum as a bait. As the NIS is helping, I am going to get the permission to take it abroad. You can help me with that, right?”

Haejin thought, of course, Sanghun would say yes, but he smiled bitterly and said something Haejin didn’t expect.

“If I hadn’t heard something from one of our agents this morning, I would have agreed with you.”

“What did you hear about?”

“An interesting artifact showed up in Insadong yesterday.”