Chapter 29: The Makjang Goddess Appears

On the very front page, in bold typeface, were the large words: ‘Makjang Life Ma Boksoon’.

There was no mistaking it—it looked exactly like a drama script book.

After hesitating for a moment, Jo Minseong checked that no one was nearby. He decided he would just read the first page, and so, without picking up the script, he began to read the exposed first page with his eyes.

[To try living properly. Why was that always so difficult?]

With that meaningful opening narration, Jo Minseong tore through Ma Boksoon’s first page in a single breath, and thanks to his experience reading scripts hundreds, if not thousands, of times, he caught on immediately.

‘This is a hit script.’

It was only the first page, but for a script to have such a powerful pull—to make someone want to turn to the next page right away—was a rare thing indeed.

In the end, Jo Minseong picked up the script.

His intense desire for a good script had won out over his flimsy sense of morality.

Turning each page as if bewitched, he felt a level of immersion he had never experienced before.

It was a flawless script, so perfect he couldn’t find a single thing to revise, even if he looked for it with eyes wide open.

The script’s protagonist, Ma Boksoon, was a woman in her forties—a skilled lawyer.

She lived a happy life with her well-off and affectionate husband and their daughter, who had entered her rebellious teenage years but was still lovely. Then, one day, she received a letter from an unknown sender.

‘The daughter you gave birth to is not your biological child.’

Wondering what kind of nonsense this was, she tried to discuss it with her husband, but his phone was turned off.

Feeling uneasy, she rushed to the shopping center where her husband was listed as the owner.

When she checked the car parked outside and noticed just how darkly tinted the windows were, she opened the door.

There, she found a lipstick that had fallen on the driver’s seat.

At that moment, a thought struck Ma Boksoon.

Her husband was having an affair.

But the daughter was definitely hers.

How could the child she carried in her womb for ten months and gave birth to not be her own?

……

“Who on earth wrote this?”

It was, as the title suggested, a makjang, but the story, the emotional flow, and the logic were all perfectly convincing.

Before he knew it, Jo Minseong was so immersed in Ma Boksoon’s predicament that he found himself burning with anger—a reaction he found surprising.

Jo Minseong flipped back to the first page to look for the author’s name, but no matter where he looked, he couldn’t find it.

‘Come to think of it, this café is attached to The Shop Officetel.’

The Shop was known as a sanctuary for writers, filled with famous authors—a holy land for studios.

If someone could write a work of this caliber, they had to be a literary giant of makjang drama, someone on the level of Writer Im Sunok or Writer Kim Sunghan.

But he had already read scripts from both of those writers long ago.

If there was a script that even Jo Minseong, with his connections, had never seen before, it meant the writer was either writing secretly behind the production company’s back or was a newcomer.

‘No way. With this level of completeness, there’s no way it’s a newbie…….’

Just then, someone tapped Jo Minseong lightly on the back.

“Excuse me, but that’s mine.”

Lee Junghyuk, who had just come out of the restroom, pointed to the script Jo Minseong was holding, his face clear and open.

“Oh!”

Before he knew it, Jo Minseong let out a delighted cry, as if he had discovered a legendary Pokémon.

“Writer Lee Junghyuk?!”

---

Meanwhile, as always, Seo Ji-won had come to Lee Junghyuk’s workspace at The Shop Officetel.

Whenever she had a schedule at Yeouido Broadcasting Station, Seo Ji-won always managed to squeeze in a visit no matter what. Thanks to this, the assistant writers were now comfortable treating her like one of them.

After the filming of , Seo Ji-won had become noticeably brighter.

No, to be precise, it was more like the naturally cheerful person she had always been could finally show her true colors after years of being subdued.

The fact that, after her contract with her previous agency, Zeus Entertainment, ended, her new agency was shouting, “Let Seo Ji-won do whatever she wants!” and pushing her forward had played a part as well.

“Do you know if the writer is planning to include a main character’s girlfriend role in ?”

“Well, we haven’t heard anything about that.”

Seo Ji-won was in the studio, sharing the famous cream buns that Manager Woo had queued for an hour at the Yeouido department store to buy, along with assistant writers Im Seong-hee and Jung Tae-mi.

“Ji-won, you can’t do  anyway, since you have overseas schedules.”

“Oppa, there’s no such thing as impossible in this world!”

“You’re going on tour in Taiwan and Vietnam, sleeping on planes, and then filming in Korea? If you can pull that off, go for it.”

In reality, thanks to releasing a single album for the  OST, Seo Ji-won had gained popularity in Taiwan and Vietnam and was scheduled for solo concerts there.

“If I keep my overseas schedules as short as possible, I can come back, right?”

“I can’t allow that.”

Recently, romance-comedy scripts had been flooding in for Seo Ji-won.

Yet, she ignored all the others and insisted she wanted to be in Lee Junghyuk’s next project, . For Manager Woo, this was nothing short of a headache.

“Why won’t you let me?”

“What manager in their right mind would cut out a high-profile schedule that could raise their actor’s value, right as they’re hitting their peak?”

Manager Woo, hunched at the edge of the desk like a bear, chewing on a chocolate cream bun, responded with a retort that left Seo Ji-won sulking.

“Fine. For your sake, oppa, I’ll focus on the schedules I already have this year.”

“Thank you. If it weren’t for the overseas tour, I would’ve considered it seriously too.”

Woo Seung-beom, who had polished off three buns in an instant, wiped his hands with a wet tissue as he spoke.

Im Seong-hee comforted Seo Ji-won, suggesting that it was unreasonable anyway.

“Come on. You’re not going to appear in  as a supporting character, are you? Unless the writer writes a whole new drama with you as the lead.”

“Would the writer really do that for me?”

Right then, Lee Junghyuk returned through the front door.

“Huh? Writer! Why are you so late?”

“Oh, I was meeting someone at the café.”

Because his hands were full of coffee to go with the cream buns, Woo Seung-beom ran over to take the coffee from him.

“Who? Someone you know?”

“No, it was my first time meeting him. He said he was the director at Ten Enter.”

“Hm? Ten Enter—that’s where Director Jang Byunghyun, who did , just signed, right? Kim Hye-joo and Park Hyung-jun sunbaenim are also with them.”

“Oh, Park Hyung-jun is with them too?”

Seo Ji-won, quick as ever, grabbed her own iced latte with almond milk and zero-sugar light syrup and continued her questioning.

“So how did you end up meeting someone like that? And at a café, no less.”

“He was sneaking a look at my script while I was in the restroom.”

“What, ?”

“No, a different one.”

At that, the assistant writers, Seo Ji-won, and Manager Woo’s eyes all lit up, and they bombarded him with questions.

“There’s another project?”

“Wow. Our writer is a monster, huh.”

“Wait, is that a new script you’re holding?”

“Can I see it? Is the main character a woman? How old?”

“The main character is a woman in her mid-forties. But the genre’s makjang.”

At the word makjang, the chattering in the room stopped for a moment.

“Makjang?”

“You wrote a makjang, writer?”

The assistant writers, who knew that I never touched the makjang genre, asked, “Why all of a sudden?”

Without hesitation, I answered, “Because it’s fun.”

As soon as I added, “Don’t read it if you don’t want to,” everyone’s eyes lit up and they rushed in.

Even Manager Woo, who normally wouldn’t comment unless asked, seemed intrigued that I had written a makjang.

Restless Jung Tae-mi sprang up and eagerly copied the first episode of the Ma Boksoon script from the copier.

Everyone took a copy and, for the next twenty minutes, they all read in silence.

Though five people were sitting around the living room, the only sound was the turning of pages.

Seo Ji-won was the first to finish. She closed the script and immediately yelled out.

“I have to do this project, no matter what!”

“I told you, your schedule makes it impossible.”

“Writer, this is just way, way too fun!”

“This is the most entertaining makjang drama script I’ve read, no, actually, the best script I’ve read in years.”

“So what does Boksoon do when she finds out her husband’s cheating?”

“What do you mean, what does she do? She gets her revenge!”

‘Should she kill him, spare him, dump him, take him back?’ They started a heated debate, guessing at the next episode.

Just watching was enough to feel the excitement in the air.

“If I can’t play Ma Boksoon, I’ll play the mistress who has an affair with the husband.”

“I don’t think that suits you.”

“Why not? I can do a great job acting as the other woman.”

“No, the character description says, ‘She possesses an unreal, overwhelming beauty.’”

At that, Seo Ji-won rolled her eyes in disbelief.

“It’s not that you’re not pretty, but the mistress in Ma Boksoon needs to have a truly otherworldly visual.”

“Aha, so you’re planning to cast a complete newcomer, aren’t you?”

I nodded at Im Seong-hee, who understood my point.

“Yes, it has to be a kind of beauty that people have never seen before—otherwise, the audience won’t buy it.”

I collected the script Seo Ji-won had finished reading and quietly stood up.

“Well, I’m going to go write the next episode now. You all relax and enjoy yourselves before you leave.”

With that, I gathered up the cream buns and coffee and returned to my room, leaving Seo Ji-won staring after me.

Closing the door, I once again skimmed through .

After first seeing this story on Godflix, the image that lingered most strongly in my memory was not of any main character or incident.

‘It was the overwhelming visual of a supporting character.’

A husband cheating on a wonderful wife was a common trope in makjang dramas.

It was an overused and boring setup—or so I thought.

But as soon as the supporting actress playing the mistress appeared, all that predictability went out the window. Any man who didn’t fall for that woman would have to be inhuman.

And now that I’d adapted it into a script with my own hands, I knew.

‘The script of  was designed from the start to highlight the mistress’s surreal beauty.’

A woman with features and proportions so perfect, it looked as if she’d been synthesized by AI.

The more you looked at her, the more unreal she seemed, and yet you couldn’t take your eyes off her. Even as I watched, my mouth would unconsciously hang open.

‘It’s overwhelming.’ There was no better way to describe it in the script, so that’s what I wrote.

Seo Ji-won was pretty, but not enough. In fact, no Korean actress I knew would be enough.

I wondered if there was even anyone in real life as beautiful as the actresses that appeared on Godflix.

“If she’s not at that level, for some reason it just won’t be satisfying.”

I had a strong feeling that the core of this drama would be that female supporting character.

Genius Writer Makes a Killing With Apps, Chapter 29

eBook Release Date | 2025.02.26

Author | Duruchigi

Published by | Heo Heungbeom, Park Geonwon

Published at | Poten