Chapter 31

Writer Choi Gi-yeong’s work, May the Mountain God Protect You.

Joo Sae-i knew this work extremely well. There was no way she couldn’t have known it.

A time-slip period romance, produced in partnership with a Gyeonggi-do tourism project.

Set during the Japanese colonial era, the male lead was a mountain god and independence fighter. The female lead was a modern-day high school student who’d fallen into the past.

Except there was one thing different…

A one-act drama?

May the Mountain God Protect You had been released as a film in her first life.

Across a runtime of just over two hours, it showcased an independence-movement narrative alongside the two leads’ relationship, and went on to draw twelve million viewers—Writer Choi Gi-yeong’s screen debut.

A well-made commercial film that had dominated the Korean box office for a while.

The so-called “Mountain God” craze had even sent tourists flooding to the real Gyeonggi-do locations that appeared in the film.

Come to think of it…

“It was a project that nearly fell apart during casting. If Director Kwon hadn’t stepped in, I don’t think we would’ve even dared adapt it into a film.”

Writer Choi Gi-yeong had said something like that at the press screening—that without the sharp instincts of Director Kwon Hui-taek proposing it, production would’ve been nearly impossible.

I watched it in theaters three times myself.

Three times in theaters hadn’t been enough for Sae-i—she’d later bought the VOD and rewatched it more than ten times. She liked this work that much.

She could recite the lines if you so much as tapped her.

And yet, in this life, the writer had written this with Sae-i herself in mind as the female lead. Her face was already eighty percent won over as she opened the script. And then…

This is so much more fun than the movie…

As if to prove the nickname “Korea’s king of drama” hadn’t been handed to her for nothing, the script pulsed with dozens of times more energy than the film.

On top of that, the female lead’s personality was a little different from her first life. If anything, it came through even more vividly here—vivid enough that the character almost felt alive.

She hadn’t even turned many pages, yet it already reeked of a hit.

At the café, hunched over her laptop, Jeong Ye-rim could barely contain her shock.

She was a K-drama otaku—a “drama addict,” as the slang went. The drama clip account she ran had tens of thousands of followers.

Her handle was rom-com-chug—rom-com addict.

Having devoured every rom-com there was, she’d become a well-known name among drama addicts, and today, too, she’d settled into her favorite café to watch dramas.

The recently premiered MVC Monday-Tuesday drama, Trade. It was doing well enough that her drama-addict friends filled up timelines every Monday and Tuesday without fail.

I really don’t get sports dramas.

Jeong Ye-rim watched almost every genre without discrimination, but she kept her distance from sports dramas, so she’d skipped Trade, the baseball drama, altogether.

Still, shouldn’t Sunday nights normally be full of wailing and screaming across the timeline, everyone dreading school and work the next day?

Instead, her friends were practically giddy, looking forward to tomorrow’s new episode of Trade.

Watching all this unfold, Jeong Ye-rim came to a decision.

Being contrarian for the sake of it isn’t my style.

Unable to stand watching everyone else enjoy something she wasn’t in on, true drama addict that she was, Jeong Ye-rim had finally started her binge-watch the day before.

And right now, she was watching the episode everyone said had the famous scene.

Just as she was about to reach the scene her friends kept talking about, with a social media window propped in the corner of her screen so she could keep up her commentary thread—

“Have you ever watched my drama?”

A voice cut through her earphones, and she looked up at whoever had spoken.

Writer Choi Gi-yeong…?

Any true drama addict had the faces of most star writers memorized.

Recognizing Writer Choi Gi-yeong at a glance, she instinctively scanned the girl sitting across from her.

An actress?

Still young-looking, but a striking beauty with real presence. The kind of face that screamed “I’m an actress!” to anyone who looked at her.

Jeong Ye-rim slipped one earphone out and quietly eavesdropped on the conversation. The famous scene in Trade and her commentary thread were already the last thing on her mind.

How am I supposed to just sit here and not listen…

From what she managed to overhear, the girl’s name sounded like Joo Se-hui? Something like that, anyway.

But the face and the name were both unfamiliar to Jeong Ye-rim—apparently a newcomer.

From what she could gather, even Writer Choi Gi-yeong had only met her through her younger sister’s production, so this must be her first project, not yet released.

Jeong Ye-rim glanced at her laptop screen.

duocchung 🔒 @shoutoutorc

Trade binge-watch thread

└ what is this, baseball rules right off the bat????

└ oh they picked a good actor for Kim Ju-bin’s role

·

·

·

└ wait is THAT scene coming up now??????

└ hamnyanya 🔒 [why’d it cut off here??]

└ meungnasa 🔒 [chug stopped mid-thread and went where?………]

└ rody 🔒 [um did this person maybe die watching the drama]

Right before the important part, the thread had cut off abruptly, and her friends were leaving outraged mentions about it. Having checked every notification, Jeong Ye-rim closed out of her commentary thread and quickly pulled up a new post window.

duocchung 🔒 @shoutoutorc

guys something’s happening in front of me hold on…get out of my way…

After firing off the post, Jeong Ye-rim stole another glance at the table where Choi Gi-yeong sat.

Who was Choi Gi-yeong, after all? The master of rom-coms, the mother of rom-coms, the god of rom-coms, the creator of rom-coms, the whatever-else of rom-coms…

To rom-com addict Jeong Ye-rim, she was practically a second mother. And her “father” was Choi Gi-yeong’s younger sister, Writer Choi Gi-jeong.

Devoted enough to dissect the Choi sisters’ dramas shot by shot, she knew Choi Gi-yeong’s personality inside and out.

A writer with an iron-clad vision for every character she created, known far and wide for being prickly and hard to please.

And yet here was that very same Choi Gi-yeong, wearing the friendliest smile as she talked to this girl.

What’s more, she’d pulled out a bundle of paper that looked like a script, and was flipping through it with eyes full of anticipation, looking at the girl she presumed was Joo Se-hui.

Joo Se-hui took the script, read through it in one go, and then declared—with a face full of conviction—that she absolutely wanted to do it, no conditions attached.

At that expression, like she already sensed it would be a hit, Jeong Ye-rim’s whole body fidgeted in her seat.

Should I just snatch the script and read it, consequences be damned…

Barely suppressing the reckless impulse, she turned her attention back to the two of them.

“Want to try a reading right now?”

Is this really happening?

She’d heard Writer Choi Gi-yeong’s casting process was strict, but she hadn’t imagined it would be like this.

Having this kid do a reading after just one read-through of the script? And the other person was a complete newcomer?

Just as Jeong Ye-rim was doubting her own ears—

“I’ll do it. I want to try.”

“I knew you would. Just read the female lead’s lines. I’ll cover the rest.”

Is this actually real…

Watching the bizarre spectacle unfolding in front of her—a star writer and a rookie actress—Jeong Ye-rim screamed internally.

The two of them settled on a scene in no time at all. Jeong Ye-rim swallowed hard, watching the scene unfold.

Joo Se-hui read through the designated section of the script, slowly blinking as if settling into the role. After one deep breath, her expression shifted in an instant.

Her calm face switched, as if the screen itself had changed, into the face of a plucky, quirky girl. Before Ye-rim could even register the shock, Joo Se-hui opened her mouth and delivered the first line.

“Where was the Korean history test range again?”

It was, honestly, an utterly ordinary line.

And yet there was something about that particular voice and that rock-solid delivery that pulled you in completely.

“Ugh, seriously. It’s our homeroom teacher’s subject, she’s going to chew us out if we fail it.”

The moment she heard Joo Se-hui’s voice, Jeong Ye-rim yanked out her remaining earphone too.

Right in front of her eyes, Choi Gi-yeong’s new work was being unveiled.

The script reading ended there, and Jeong Ye-rim, who’d been watching as if hypnotized, let out a long breath.

This is it. This is really it.

Still lingering in the afterglow, Jeong Ye-rim rapid-fired a string of posts onto her timeline.

duocchung 🔒 @shoutoutorc

you guys……..

└ saehaeppi 🔒 [u up?]

└ bin-a 🔒 [i asked you two hundred times if you saw episode 8’s Ji-woo acting chug please]

duocchung 🔒 @shoutoutorc

forget Trade forget everything

I……..

I just witnessed in person the casting for Gi-yeong-mom’s new project….

└ bin-a 🔒 [??]

└ rody 🔒 [huh?????? a Choi Gi-yeong new project??????]

└ noongibaesseuk 🔒 [the K-drama scene’s been getting lax, guess gi-yeong-mom’s here to whip it back into shape……]

└ hamnyanya 🔒 [how is it?]

How is it, she asks?

Choi Gi-yeong’s kimchi stew is delicious as hell, that’s how it is.

Out of the flood of replies, Jeong Ye-rim picked out that one question and answered it.

└ hamnyanya 🔒 [how is it?]

└ duocchung 🔒 [i’m cutting all dramas until this one drops and going into training mode f*……..]

└ hamnyanya 🔒 [●▅▇█▇▆▆▅▄▇ already digging the grave, rest in peace]

And so, starting with Jeong Ye-rim, anticipation for Choi Gi-yeong’s new project began quietly spreading through the secret accounts of the K-drama world’s most devoted fans.