The Genius Construction Worker Who Moved to America - Chapter 24

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 24

Repairing the Wall with Ash and Yellow Clay

Scritch-scritch-scratch! Hiss-hiss!

Moments ago, the Consulate Lobby had thrashed like prey in the jaws of flame. Now it was filled only with cold silence.

The marble floor and wooden-finished outer wall of the Foyer were blackened with soot, but no more smoke curled upward.

The people inside the Lobby stood speechless, their eyes fixed on the scene before them.

Among them, the one who looked most dazed was Smith, the examiner who had casually flicked aside Kang Jun’s Visa documents.

Smith stood motionless, still gripping the broken fire extinguisher, his lips trembling.
He kept glancing back and forth between the charred Lobby floor and the blackened outer wall of the Foyer.

“God… We’re finished. Finished, I tell you. The U.S. Ambassador to Canada is coming the day after tomorrow….”

A sigh escaped from Smith’s lips.

His composure was crumbling. Of all times, it had to be the day after tomorrow—when the U.S. Ambassador to Canada was making an inspection visit.

With a high-level official’s visit looming, the first-floor Lobby and Foyer of the Consulate had been reduced to charred ruins.

Smith sank to the floor and cradled his head in both hands.

“When the Ambassador sees this… It’s over. My pension, my promotion….”

Kang Jun and Sophia still stood before the desk.
Sophia pushed her glasses up her nose and stepped closer to Kang Jun, whispering carefully.

“What do we do, supervisor? That employee doesn’t look capable of conducting an interview right now. He’s completely lost it.”

Sophia was right. Smith seemed utterly indifferent to the specialized worker Visa documents they’d submitted.

Kang Jun watched Smith stare blankly, blinking mechanically without responding to his call, and shook his head slowly.

‘So much for getting the stamp.’

If the Visa review was postponed indefinitely, he’d be branded an Illegal Resident and expelled from the United States. He had to reverse this situation somehow.

Kang Jun fell silent for a moment, thinking.
His eyes swept across the charred outer wall and the ruined Courtyard.

A smile spread across Kang Jun’s face. Wasn’t it said that crisis breeds opportunity?

Kang Jun approached Smith. He crouched down, met his eyes, and spoke in a grave voice.

“I think I can help with this situation.”

Smith lifted his head with a choked expression, looking at Kang Jun. His unfocused eyes were full of disbelief.

“You…? How on earth could you? Are you looking at that blackened wall and telling me this?”

Kang Jun continued without a trace of confusion, his tone steady.

“I’m fairly skilled with my hands. And from what I hear, some very important American Ambassador or someone is coming tomorrow. I imagine they’d be quite pleased to see the place looking like this, wouldn’t they?”

Smith’s shoulders tensed. Kang Jun’s words—striking at the heart of the matter—made his eyes waver.

“Moreover, if word gets out that a complainant staged an arson incident, you won’t be the only one held accountable. Your superiors up the chain will answer for it too, won’t they?”

“Hah…!”

Smith’s face had gone ashen. He stammered out a question.

“Are you… are you blackmailing me?”

“I’m just a complainant who happened to witness the scene. Let’s call it a negotiation rather than blackmail.”

Kang Jun rose to his feet, slipping one hand casually into his pocket.

“I’m a construction technician. A very quick one, in fact. What I’m proposing is to resolve this entire situation in a single day.”

Smith’s jaw dropped.

A single day? That expansive Entrance exterior and the charred Lobby floor?

If he contracted this out to local firms, site inspection, cost estimation, material procurement, and construction would take a minimum of two weeks—that was the workload involved.

Yet Smith had just witnessed something extraordinary: when this East Asian man placed his hand on the floor, an eerie chill had seemed to radiate outward.

But there was still a problem. Smith glanced about nervously, his voice dropping to a whisper.

“Even if you could actually do it, there’s an issue. If we use the Consulate budget now, it’ll leave an accounting record—the higher-ups will find out immediately. In the worst case, the media could pick it up.”

“Then this isn’t a decision you can make alone. Report to the highest-ranking person here right now. Time’s running short.”

At Kang Jun’s words, Smith nodded and bolted up the stairs toward the Consul General’s office on the second floor.

Sophia watched Kang Jun with anxious eyes.

“Supervisor, are you sure about this? Settling all of this chaos in a single day?”

“Don’t worry, Sophia. I brought the Tool Bag, didn’t I? This will be a cheap price to pay for keeping my Visa stamp.”

Moments later, hurried footsteps echoed down from the second-floor stairwell.

The man who came rushing down alongside Smith was none other than the U.S. Consul General in Vancouver, Williams.

The moment Consul General Williams saw the charred Entrance and Lobby on the first floor, he pressed his hand to his forehead in shock.

“Oh, my God… we’re truly finished.”

As Smith whispered the situation to him, the Consul General turned to look at Kang Jun. He hastily straightened his clothes and approached with a formal bow.

“So you’re the one they call Mr. Kang Jun. I was just reading a letter from Mayor Scott praising you as an exceptional technician. I sincerely apologize for my staff’s rudeness and for dragging you into this unfortunate affair.”

Williams got straight to the point.

“Mr. Kang Jun… can you truly contain this situation?”

“Not contain—restore. If you doubt my abilities, there’s nothing I can do about that.”

Kang Jun replied coolly, and Williams grabbed his arm in desperation.

“No, no! Please, I’m begging you. Erase all traces of this before the American Ambassador arrives.”

But he soon added a condition, his expression turning cautious.

“However… as my staff mentioned earlier, budget allocation is currently impossible. Staffing support is equally difficult, I’m afraid. The maximum I can contribute from my own discretionary funds is two thousand dollars. We must complete this work within that sum, but still… do you think it’s feasible?”

No money, no manpower, no tools. Most contractors would be cursing by now.
But Kang Jun simply smiled as though delighted by the news.

“That works perfectly. I prefer working alone anyway.”

Sophia’s eyes widened with bewilderment at his response, but Kang Jun said nothing and began methodically surveying the damage.

The destruction fell into four major zones.

The Courtyard where the arsonist had crawled, the Entrance where flames had first spread, a section of the exterior wall surrounding it, and the Lobby floor that Kang Jun had frozen solid with his Cooling Skill.

‘Time to run an estimate.’

Kang Jun closed his eyes and muttered to himself.

[Skill Activated: Master’s Blueprint (Lv.1)]

Whirrr—

A translucent hologram unfolded across his field of vision.

Material quantities, workflow paths, load distributions, moisture content of the timber, and the depth of char—all crystallized into precise figures.

[Restoration Master Plan: Complete]

▶ Damage Zone: First floor Entrance wooden panel exterior and Lobby marble; Courtyard entry path of the Consulate.
▶ Assessment: Exterior panel surface charred to 1.5cm depth. Interior frame survival rate: 95%.
▶ Required Materials: Natural waterproofing and pest-resistance finishing compound blend.

With the blueprint now etched into his mind, Kang Jun’s eyes sharpened.

He began with the most severely damaged section: the Entrance exterior wall.
The Entrance wall was finished with solid log timber panels. The fire had swept through, leaving only charred husks behind.

Kang Jun handed the two thousand dollars the Consul had given him to Smith.

“Smith, drive into town right now and pick up the materials I’m about to list for you.”

Smith’s eyes bulged as he read the hastily scribbled list Kang Jun handed him.

“Two sacks of glutinous rice flour? Coarse salt? Perilla oil? And yellow clay? Mister Jun, you’re saying you’re going to repair fire-damaged walls, but why are you having me buy cooking ingredients?”

“Stop asking questions and go. Time is short.”

At Kang Jun’s impatience, Smith clamped his mouth shut and bolted outside.

Meanwhile, Kang Jun unzipped his Tool Bag. He withdrew a small metal shovel and a sharp scraper.

Whoosh.

Kang Jun unfurled the ladder, leaned it against the charred Entrance wall, and climbed swiftly.

“Well then. Let’s begin.”

In one hand he gripped the small shovel, in the other the scraper.
[Passive Skill: Craftsman’s Grip Strength (Lv.1) activates.]

The veins in his forearms rippled and bulged beneath the skin.

Scrape! Crackle-crackle! Crack!

Kang Jun wielded the shovel and scraper in alternating arcs, stripping away the charred surface of the wooden panels that had become nothing but blackened crust.

With superhuman grip and precision, he left the untouched wood beneath intact while peeling away only the carbonized layer in one clean pass.

“Wow….”

Consul General Williams and the staff watching the spectacle stood slack-jawed. The sight of him scraping the exterior wall with nothing but a single shovel, no machinery in sight, was nothing short of miraculous.

In barely an hour, the blackened wall had revealed the wood’s natural, pale underside.

Kang Jun descended the ladder and began carefully gathering the coal dust and ash scattered across the ground with a broom.

Sophia watched him work and asked with concern.

“Supervisor, what exactly do you intend to do with this worthless ash…?”

Kang Jun rubbed the fine coal dust between his fingers in the container and broke into a knowing smile.

“Worthless? This is the heart of the entire project.”

Squeak!

At that moment, Smith entered the courtyard carrying the materials he’d purchased.
His hands were laden with bags of glutinous rice flour, a container of perilla oil, coarse salt, and yellow clay.

Kang Jun began pouring the materials Smith had procured into a large mixing tub.

First, he poured the blackened ash and coal dust he’d scraped from the wall, then mixed in the yellow clay.
Next, he stirred in glutinous rice paste dissolved in water, and finally dumped in a bucketful of perilla oil and coarse salt.

“What exactly are you making?”

Smith asked from beside him, his eyes gleaming with curiosity.

“It’s a traditional Korean construction technique. It’s a method of coating the exterior wall with ash and glutinous rice paste combined with perilla oil.”

Beneath Kang Jun’s hands, the mixture of ash-gray and yellow clay blended together into a complete paste.

“Ash from fire carries a strong alkaline quality that blocks the approach of mold and insects. It serves as a natural pest resistance coating.”

Kang Jun lifted the mixture on a scraper into the air, and it flowed down in thick, viscous ribbons.

“Finally, the perilla oil and salt. The salt prevents cracking, while the perilla oil seeps into the wood grain and forms a waterproof coating. For rainy climates like this, there’s no better finishing material.”

At his clear explanation, Smith and Consul General Williams, who had harbored some doubt, could not help but marvel.

Kang Jun placed the finished mixture in a container and climbed the ladder once more.
He picked up the trowel and began spreading the paste over the wooden panels of the exterior wall.

Slap! Sweep—! Slap!

Kang Jun’s hands moved without hesitation, spreading the mixture thin and even, completely filling the wood grain as he worked.

By afternoon, half a day had passed.
At last, the repairs to the outer wall by the entrance were complete.

“Good heavens… Is this really possible?”

The moment the work finished, Consul General Williams, Smith, and Sophia stood speechless, their jaws hanging open.

The grimly blackened exterior wall had vanished without a trace.

The finish that Kang Jun had created by blending various materials evoked the patina of aged fine bronze. Adding to this was the subtle luster of perilla oil gleaming softly across the surface.

It was a depth of color that paint could never mimic.
Kang Jun’s work was far from finished.

“It’s not complete yet,” he said quietly.

Kang Jun set down the trowel and picked up a pointed awl.

[Skill Activated: Human Protractor]

Whoosh—!

His eyes blazed with golden crosshairs. Kang Jun began carving lines into the still-drying wall surface. Without a single measuring tool.

Scratch. Scratch—

Perfect vertical and horizontal lines appeared in relief across the stone. The plain slate-gray wall transformed into an elegant block pattern.

“L-look at those lines, sir! Consul General! How can he possibly draw such perfectly straight lines?”

Smith cried out in astonishment.
But the Consul General was staring elsewhere.

“Wait… The spacing and positioning of those lines. That’s…!”

Slowly, the Consul General raised his finger and pointed toward one corner of the courtyard.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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