DW 05

Chapter 5

“No.”

Even with Kwon Ha’s immediate reply, Do-ah did not lower her guard.

The mere thought of the outsiders who had come to Yehwari in recent days filled her with disgust.
People who strutted in with polished words and city manners, only to sneer at their traditions and soil the peace of the village.

Just hearing the name Daesung Brewing was enough to sour her tongue.

Do-ah’s deep, unreadable eyes fixed sharply on Kwon Ha, as though to pierce through him.

After a long pause, Kwon Ha finally began his explanation.

“Well, let’s see… I’m the CEO of a small start-up. A one-man company specializing in handmade traditional liquor pairing.
I came here seeking the wisdom of Iwhado-ga to help bring Korean traditional liquor to the world stage.”

“…”

“Ah, my manners! I should at least give you my business card…”

He patted his pockets with exaggerated movements before exclaiming,

“Oh. I left it behind.”

A faint snicker echoed somewhere among the white blossoms.
Do-ah looked around, but saw nothing except the endless sea of pale pear flowers.

Her irritation mounted.

That smirk on the man’s lips felt like mockery.

I am from Yehwari. The granddaughter of Master Choi Eun-ja, and the one who will inherit Iwhado-ga.

Her grandmother’s words flashed through her mind —

— When you return, come straight to the inner hall.

With that, her tone hardened.

“Enough jokes. You’re not the first to come here talking big.”

“I’m different from those people—”

“No. You’re all the same, as far as I can see.”

Her ankle throbbed, but her stance did not waver.

“So leave. Yehwari doesn’t need outsiders.”

She brushed past him. Each step sent a sting through her twisted ankle, but she gritted her teeth and kept walking.

Then came the man’s low voice behind her.

“Who are you to tell me to leave or stay?”

“Is this entire land yours or something?”

“…”

“I didn’t think so. Then what gives you the right to treat me this rudely?”

Rude?

Do-ah exhaled a bitter sigh.

Who was being rude to whom?

But perhaps she should have expected this — men like him rarely strayed from the same pattern.

He must be from Daesung Brewing.

The more she looked at him, the more that innate arrogance seeped through his words and gaze.

It was a sense she had honed after years beside her grandmother — the instinct to read people.
And that instinct whispered now:

This man is trouble.

Do-ah turned slightly, her gaze sharp as a blade.

“I am from Yehwari. I belong to Iwhado-ga.”

“…”

“This place belongs to everyone in this village. That gives me every right to say what I just did.”

Her words cut like frost.

“So get out. Now.”

* * *

Kwon Ha stared after her vanishing figure, then let out a breathless laugh.

One of her neatly tied locks had caught a pear blossom petal.

He couldn’t stop replaying the sight of her walking away.

“Pretty lips, filthy words.”

What was this feeling?

Annoyance, certainly—but why couldn’t he look away?

Those crimson lips, the bright clarity in her eyes—she glowed all the more against her pale skin.

And those eyes… eyes that refused to yield.

His thoughts tangled the longer he stared into the memory.

Just then, his secretary, Shin, approached, face drained of color and hands trembling around a phone.

Unaware, Kwon Ha spoke in his usual commanding tone.

“Secretary Shin. Find out who that woman is.”

“Sir… Earlier you asked me to find out who the successor of Iwhado-ga was, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And now you’re asking me to find out who that woman is, correct?”

“Exactly. So?”

His tone sharpened; he hated hearing the same thing twice.

Instead of answering, Shin handed over the phone.

Kwon Ha frowned but glanced down at the screen.

Photos—several of them, taken from different angles—but unmistakably the same woman who had just thrown him out.
Expressionless in every shot, as if smiling had been forgotten long ago.

Below the photos was a summary of her background.

“Efficient as always, Secretary Shin.”

“The Chairman sent that file himself, sir.”

“Ah, of course. That explains it.”

He scanned the document—

“Name, Joo Do-ah… thirty years old. Acting up to her older brother, huh? How insolent.”

A smirk flickered over his face—until his thumb stopped scrolling.

His eyes rippled like water struck by a pebble.

“You’re joking. Tell me you’re joking, Secretary Shin.”

Silence.

“No way. Say it isn’t true.”

“It’s true, sir.”

The answer came flat and certain.

Kwon Ha shook his head in disbelief, lips parting soundlessly.

“How… how could she be…”

“The successor of Iwhado-ga?”

* * *

Choi Eun-ja sat upon the wooden veranda, body sagging from exhaustion.

Eighty years weighed on her bones, and illness pressed even heavier.
She leaned against the main pillar, eyelids fluttering shut, when the familiar voice of Jeong-ja called out.

“Master! I’ve stored all the single jars in Yeowol Storage.”

“Well done.”

“What about the snow pear ginger liquor from two years ago? I reckon it’s time we opened them…”

That liquor—Seol-Igangju—was one of Iwhado-ga’s treasures.
Made with rice, nuruk, cinnamon, ginger, turmeric, honey, and pear, it was always brewed on the first day of snowfall.

A strong, fragrant medicinal liquor—the opposite of Cheondo Ihwaju, their famed heavenly pear wine.
Each ingredient was fermented separately for six months, then blended and aged for up to three years.

A demanding craft, but one that produced a drink so exquisite reservations were booked years in advance.

“We’ll check on it when Do-ah returns.”

As if on cue, Do-ah appeared, pulling a small wagon behind her bicycle, its bed filled with empty bottles for the new batch of Cheondo Ihwaju.

“I’m back, Grandma.”

“Did everything go well?”

“Yes. Mr. Bang said his stock isn’t quite ready yet, so he’ll bring it himself.”

“Good. Let’s head to Yeowol Storage first, then.”

Jeong-ja clapped her hands gleefully.

“Finally! It’s happening at last!”

Do-ah merely nodded, her expression calm but determined, as always.

“So it’s decided then,” Jeong-ja chuckled to herself.
“Who else but our Do-ah could take that place?”

She turned to leave—only to freeze at the sight of two silhouettes beyond the wall.

“Hey! Who’s there!”

* * *

Behind the high wall of Iwhado-ga, two men stood.

The wall was tall, but for Kwon Ha—well over 190 centimeters—it posed no obstacle.

Beyond it, he could see the woman again, speaking with the elderly master.
The resemblance wasn’t in their faces, but in the air around them—
that same cool, unwavering composure.

“So what you’re saying, Secretary Shin…” Kwon Ha muttered, eyes fixed on her,
“is that I have to go in there as that woman’s assistant? Eat, sleep, and—excuse my language—shit in that cottage?”

The “s” in assistant came out so forcefully it might as well have been a curse.

“The term ‘assistant’ would be more accurate than ‘shittabari,’ sir. And for the record, it’s not exactly a cottage.”

“Secretary Shin. For god’s sake…”

He wasn’t talking about semantics.

Today, of all days, Shin’s obliviousness was unbearable.

Kwon Ha shook his head, clenched his fist, looked up to the sky, then laughed—
laughed until even his secretary flinched.

“Ha! This is insane.”

To an outsider, he looked half-deranged.

And in a way, Shin agreed.

As Kwon Ha tilted his head back and muttered to the clouds, his voice carried both outrage and disbelief:

“Tell me, Secretary Shin. Does any of this make sense?”

And then—

“Christ. At my age, with this career, this face—”

He couldn’t finish the sentence.
The rest was just a raw, unprintable expletive swallowed by the wind among the pear blossoms.