Jinyoung’s mood got worse and worse with each passing day. They returned to the campsite, and he wasn’t happy to learn that, again, the excavation had turned up nothing of consequence. Jackson and Yugyeom reported finding flat stones with sharp edges, what could have been primitive tools, but they would have to be sent off for carbon dating for them to be sure. Minho, all the while, was keeping a close eye on the team’s work, hovering over Jinyoung like a hawk ready to strike at his first slip-up.

Arguments broke out often, even among members of the team who were friends. The heat didn’t help, either. Trivial things, like misplaced water canteens or not returning the tools to their proper places. 

Sometimes, Jinyoung would pass by the resting area and cast a scowl in Jisoo’s direction, as if she were a bad luck omen preventing them from making any significant discoveries. Jisoo voiced this concern to her father.

“You shouldn’t flatter yourself, Chu,” her father said. “Jinyoung’s upset at everyone, not just you. We’ve been here for weeks without any luck, so of course, we are all a little on edge.”

“I don’t get it,” Jisoo said, fanning herself with her father’s straw hat. “He seemed so sure of himself in his dissertation. He bet his life that Homo erectus was here, but we don’t seem to be finding anything.”

“I told you, didn’t I?” said Minho, who was lounging in a deck chair further in the tent. “This whole trip was just a stunt to shock the academic community. Jinyoung knows it, too, there’s nothing in this valley.”

“There’s still time, Minho,” Mr. Kim said. “We have our permits for a year, and it’s only been a month and a half. There are other parts of the land that we can try.”

“Speaking of land, Mr. Kim,” Minho said. “Have you heard what’s happened to Hanguk Land Holdings?”

Both Mr. Kim and Jisoo looked to the young man in the deck chair. 

“They’re going under,” Minho said. “At least that’s what my father told me. He just got off the phone with our broker when he called to tell me about it. He must have been worried about you, I know you own quite a few Hanguk shares yourself. You may want to consider dumping them.”

Indeed he did. When the excavation wrapped for the day and the team gathered for dinner, Mr. Kim announced his intention to ride back into the city for the weekend to take care of business. Jinyoung, seeing that the search was going nowhere at the moment, was persuaded by Jackson to let everyone else have the weekend, off, too. 

So the next day, the team loaded up the vans and the trucks and, after stopping off at the Five Stars Guesthouse for a short break, made the rest of the drive back down the mountain. They arrived at Gunghwa, the nearest city to the Han Mountain Range, where the team scattered about town to find their own accommodations. Some put themselves up at a modest motel. Jinyoung and Jackson had leased an apartment for the season. Mr. Kim checked himself and his daughter into the Palazzo Rubino, a true five star hotel. Minho decided to stay there, too. 

When Jisoo first walked into her and her father’s suite, the first thing she noticed was the air conditioning. She didn’t even realize that she was getting used to the muggy mountain heat until she felt the cooled hotel air and felt like she was freezing. 

Living in the mountains with few modern conveniences readily available was giving Jisoo a new perspective on things she used to take for granted. Showers and indoor plumbing for example. At the Five Stars Guesthouse, if she wanted to bathe, she’d have to pump water into a five-gallon bucket and then take it into the bath house behind the main house. Then, she had to use a smaller bucket to scoop up the water and pour it over her body. If she wanted the water heated, she’d need to wait even longer since Subin had to heat it over the stove first. 

And beds. For weeks, she’d been spending the night lying on a threadbare cot. The only time she didn’t sleep on it was when she slept on the stone alcove in the forest. Her back must be full of knots and tight spots. She wondered if she warranted a trip to the spa downstairs. 

While her father excused himself to use the telephone in the lobby, Jisoo took this opportunity to wash up. The Palazzo’s washrooms were large and immaculately clean. As she scrubbed herself in the shower, she was both disgusted and oddly fascinated by how much dirt she was able to wash off herself. 

Jisoo stepped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around her body, and then stood in front of the mirror. 

Social had crowned her Heiress of the Year in 2016. She normally tried not to read tabloids, especially when she was in them, but her friend Lisa had read the article aloud to her when they got lunch once.

The magazine had praised her porcelain white skin, her slender, soft physique, and her thick black hair. Her time in the sun at Hibiscus Valley had bronzed her skin a little. Hiking up and down rocky paths had helped her build up a little strength, and the humidity was changing the texture of her hair a little. She laughed and wondered what Social would make of that.

She randomly wondered what Jinyoung would make of that. 

When they first met at Five Stars Guesthouse over a month ago, he’d made it clear that he wasn’t too keen on her kind. She liked to think, though, that their little adventure in the forest had changed some of that. Maybe they weren’t exactly friends yet, but he thought better of her now, didn’t he? 

Jisoo frowned at her reflection. He was so hard to read. 

Minho was easy. Song Minho was the son of Song Taekyu, the Minister of Culture and his mother inherited the majority shares of Kwon & Kwon Manufacturing from her father. He had daddy issues and played second fiddle to the most popular boy in his high school and graduated without any distinct honors but leveraged his connections to land a job at the Department of Antiquities. Minho was an incessant flirt, but limited his attentions to maybe one or two girls at a time, and Jisoo knew that he’d always had a crush on her. 

He was always complimenting her beauty, sometimes at the expense of other girls. He was always a bit of a bully to her past boyfriends, looked for any excuse to spend time with her, and always off-handedly mentioning how much of a catch she was. She was sure he was as much attracted to her father’s money as he was to her.

Yes, Minho was easy. Jinyoung was tricky. An enigma.

She knew who his father was, and she knew that he was adopted, and obsessed with paleoanthropology. But who were his biological parents? Where was he born? What was he like in high school? College? Did he play sports? Who did he date? Was he dating anyone now?

Jisoo accidentally knocked her toothbrush into the sink. 

It was inconceivable a month ago that anyone would deign to be friends with with Jinyoung, let alone date him. But now Jisoo realized that it was quite possible that he might have a girlfriend. 

She retrieved her toothbrush, and her fingers curled into a fist around it. If he did have a girlfriend, who was she? What was she like? What did he even consider attractive?

A sharp round of knocks at the door shocked her out of her thoughts. Must be Appa, she thought. She tightened the towel around her body and then walked through the suites to open the door for her father, but she nearly jumped out of her skin to see who it really was. 

“Minho?” she said, and then closed the door a little more to hide behind it. Minho grinned.

“Oh, whoops,” he said. “Sorry,