He Opened a Matchmaking Agency in 18th Century London - Ch. 1
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- He Opened a Matchmaking Agency in 18th Century London
- Ch. 1 - Is this the 18th century England?
◈ Taewon Marriage Information Co., Ltd.
Hyun Tae-oh’s steps came to a halt as he headed toward the bathroom.
He overheard his name mentioned in a conversation among employees around the corner.
“Did you hear? Mr. Hyun Tae-oh, the executive director, personally matched the second daughter of the Geosan Group with the eldest son of the Hwaryong Group, and they’re getting married soon!”
“Really? They’re actually getting married? I thought the families didn’t get along at all, and it would never happen. How did it work out?”
“In the end, Mr. Hyun Tae-oh pulled off another huge deal.”
“Whoa, the executive director’s skills are amazing! Is there even a limit to what he can do?”
“Do you think he was some kind of top diplomat in his previous life? Someone with the ability to stop wars with his excellent negotiating skills.”
“No way. At this level, he must have saved the country several times in a past life. These achievements are beyond belief. Our company became the number one matchmaking agency in less than 10 years because of him.”
“But I heard a rumor that Mr. Hyun Tae-oh has a Ph.D in psychology. Could that be true? I heard the CEO scouted him because of it.”
“No way! Why would a psychologist work as a matchmaker? Does having a psychology degree make you good at matchmaking? That’s nonsense. It’s all just rumors.”
The whispers of the employees reached Tae-oh’s ears.
‘… they’re making me feel embarrassed. I can’t even go to the bathroom.’
Hyun Tae-oh.
Known as a living legend in the marriage information industry, he was the man who brought Taewon Marriage Information Co., Ltd. to the top spot in Korea within eight years of its establishment.
After meticulous analysis, the marriage success rate of the clients he personally matched, whether regular or elite, was 98.3%.
It was an almost unbelievable figure.
The remaining 1.7% was due to unexpected accidents involving the clients, so in reality, every couple he had paired ended up getting married.
However, it wasn’t just the astonishing marriage success rate.
Even more remarkable was that none of the couples he had connected had ever divorced.
As word of this spread, Hyun Tae-oh’s popularity in the matchmaking market skyrocketed.
But Tae-oh’s incredible achievements were not the result of mere luck.
They were the product of his innate talent combined with a hidden background.
Since childhood, Tae-oh had a peculiar interest in understanding human psychology and observing their behavior. By the time he reached middle school, he amazed those around him by being able to detect lies just from changes in people’s eye movements.
In high school, he even helped police capture an apartment security guard who had been planning to kidnap a kindergartener, earning a commendation from the chief of police.
When he became a college student, Tae-oh realized that his sharp instincts weren’t just a hunch but a form of psychological science, so he decided to major in psychology without hesitation.
After studying psychology in college, Tae-oh went to the U.S. and earned a Ph.D, becoming a clinical psychologist who worked at a university hospital.
—
Clinical Psychologist.
A clinical psychologist was quite different from a counseling psychologist, whom we commonly associated with therapy. In the U.S., clinical psychologists aimed not to <counsel> but to <treat> patients with mental disorders, similar to a doctor.
While psychiatrists mainly treated mental illness with medication, clinical psychologists treated it through psychotherapy. Typically, they collaborated with psychiatrists in university hospitals to care for and treat patients.
To become a clinical psychologist, one must earn a Ph.D recognized by the American Psychological Association (APA) and obtain a license, making it a highly challenging and well-paid profession.
—
Tae-oh skillfully applied effective psychological therapy to his patients, and news of his abilities spread quickly, making it difficult to schedule a session with him.
His exceptional ability to understand and empathize with human emotions allowed Tae-oh to comfort and heal the wounded hearts of suffering patients, often without the need for medication.
However, such extraordinary abilities did not always bring praise. Envy and jealousy inevitably followed.
Doctors and other clinical psychologists often dismissed or slandered him, treating him as a quack or a fraud.
Though he found satisfaction in seeing his patients heal, the escalating rumors and jealousy gradually wore Tae-oh down.
Then one day, while treating a patient suffering from emotional distress due to a romantic relationship, Tae-oh discovered that human love followed certain patterns and that if people with compatible tendencies were matched, they could maintain a deeply fulfilling relationship.
He immediately began analyzing his single friends and matched them based on these insights.
Watching their happy relationships and marriages unfold, Tae-oh experienced a sense of achievement that he had never felt at the hospital.
Soon after, he abruptly quit his job at the hospital in the U.S. and returned to Korea, joining his uncle’s newly established matchmaking agency.
By actively using his methods, he was able to create the miraculous results he achieved today.
—
At a hotel ballroom in Seoul.
The wedding of the director of Daekwang Medical Center’s daughter and the second son of Myungsung University’s dean had just concluded, and the reception was in full swing.
Off to one side of the bustling banquet hall, a man was surrounded by a group of middle-aged women, enduring their demands.
It was Hyun Tae-oh.
“Director Hyun? When are you going to match my eldest daughter? Hmm?”
“Mrs. Kim, what are you talking about? There’s an order to these things. My son is desperate right now! He’s almost in his mid-thirties. Director Hyun, you should prioritize him!”
“Oh dear, my daughter is returning from her studies abroad soon, so please make some time to meet with her. Don’t just promise to take care of it.”
Sweating nervously, Tae-oh kept bowing repeatedly.
“I’m so sorry, I’m sorry. But could you please come to the office later…?”
“Oh please! Even if we come, we never get to meet you. They always say you’re not in.”
“Exactly! It’s harder to meet you than the president of the country!”
“Schedule something for me today! Otherwise, I won’t let you go.”
“Me too, me too!”
These women were all from distinguished families. Tae-oh couldn’t just run away or ignore them if he wanted to continue working in this field.
Only after promising several times to make time for them did he manage to escape.
—
Thud.
“Phew-“
Tae-oh collapsed onto a folding chair on the balcony, releasing a long sigh.
Though this wasn’t the first time he’d experienced such situations, today felt especially exhausting.
‘I’m… so tired.’
He downed the remaining wine in his glass in one gulp and gazed blankly at the night view before him.
But at that moment.
“Ugh!”
A terrifying pain shot through his chest, as though his heart was about to burst.
And then…
“Ugh!”
The chest pain seemed to shift upwards, soon turning into a blinding headache.
“Aargh!”
Tae-oh clutched his head, feeling as though it would explode, and collapsed to the side.
Thud—
*
*
*
*
*
*
How long had he been unconscious?
Smack!
A sharp pain in the back of his head jolted Tae-oh awake.
But…
‘?’
He looked around in confusion.
The balcony with its stunning city night view was gone, and he found himself in a rustic, barren place with a rough wooden table and a few strange household items scattered about.
‘What is this? Where am I?’
Following the pain in his chest, an intense headache hit him, and he collapsed. When he woke up, he was here.
At that moment, an elderly foreign woman with two missing front teeth glared at him fiercely and yelled.
“Theo! What do you think you’re doing, sleeping at the table? If you’ve finished stuffing yourself, get out and find some work, will you?”
She was an old white woman, her face deeply wrinkled, with a scowl that could sour milk.
‘Am I still half asleep? How does this foreign grandma, who looks like a witch, know my name…?’
At that moment.
Zing-
Staggering from the overwhelming dizziness for a moment.
Something unbelievable began to happen.
The unfamiliar surroundings suddenly became… familiar.
And not just that. Memories of this rundown, shabby house started flooding in all at once.
“Wait, is this where I was born… and raised?”
“What nonsense is this idiot spouting now? Did you dream something crazy?”
Tae-oh intuitively realized he had entered the body of a young man in his mid-20s named Theo Sanderson, a lower-class Briton living hundreds of years ago.
And he quickly recognized that Theo Sanderson’s life had been his own in a previous reincarnation.
‘I’ve… entered the body of my past life? And it’s Theo, a name so similar to mine? This can’t be real… this… must be a dream.’
The old woman, glaring daggers at him, could hold back no longer and shouted furiously.
“How long are you going to sit there with that stupid look on your face? You should’ve found a job by now!”
The woman, brandishing a worn-out wooden spoon, was Theo Sanderson’s mother. More accurately, the stepmother from his past life.
“If you don’t make a wage today, don’t even think about coming home! Got it?”
Theo was practically thrown out of the house.
Clang—
The moment he opened the door, he found himself in the slums of 18th-century Bristol, England.
(A/N: Although <England> at the time was officially known as the <Kingdom of Great Britain>, the novel uses <England> for the sake of clarity.)
‘What… what is this?’
Everything felt strange, yet at the same time, oddly familiar.
Tae-oh began walking aimlessly, letting his feet take him wherever.
He knew every corner of the alleyways. He even recognized many familiar faces.
Despite the extreme confusion, Tae-oh couldn’t help but laugh at how casually he greeted his acquaintances.
‘Is this a dream or reality? Am I dreaming of being in my past life? But it feels far too real for that.’
The old neighborhood was run-down and filthy.
The unpaved roads were muddy, and garbage and filth piled up, spreading a foul stench. Massive rats scurried about as if they owned the place.
The residents were as shabby as the neighborhood itself. Their faces showed the struggle of just getting by.
‘Am I experiencing Alice Syndrome after that splitting headache?’
Psychologists referred to people who couldn’t distinguish between reality and fantasy as suffering from Alice Syndrome, much like Alice in Wonderland.
However, Alice Syndrome typically involved distortions—like parts of the body or objects appearing larger or smaller than they actually were.
Everything here appeared normal in size and felt vividly real, so it couldn’t be Alice Syndrome.
‘No, that can’t be it… then what on earth is going on?’
Tae-oh’s mind was swirling in chaos, caught between his past and present lives.-
***
Before long, Tae-oh found himself in front of a large warehouse near the Bristol docks.
This was where Theo Sanderson had worked.
“Hey, Theo, you’re here?”
The workers gathered outside the warehouse were all familiar faces, chatting with worried expressions.
Tae-oh slid into their conversation.
A bald man grumbled.
“When the hell is this scurvy outbreak gonna end? We can’t load or unload anything because no ships are sailing. At this rate, we’re all gonna starve!”
“Who knows when it’ll end? When scurvy’s around, all you can do is wait. If you’re unlucky enough to catch it, you’ll bleed out everywhere and die horribly. We could catch it ourselves if we’re not careful.”
“We’ll starve to death before the scurvy even gets to us!”
Suddenly, a memory from Tae-oh’s past life snapped into place.
‘That’s right, I remember. The scurvy outbreak got so bad around this time that the ships couldn’t sail for almost half a year. It caused so much hardship because there was no work. So, this really is the time period I’ve returned to. This isn’t a dream, is it?’
Scurvy was a disease that caused bleeding gums, bloody urine and stool, and eventually led to death. It was the disease sailors feared most.
Out of 1,854 crew members who embarked on a British naval expedition, over 1,400 died from scurvy, with only 400 returning alive. Scurvy was the sailors’ worst nightmare.
On land, it rarely occurred, but it was rampant among those who spent long periods at sea, which led people at the time to believe it was a curse of the sea.
‘All they had to do was eat fruits and vegetables to get vitamin C and cure it, but back then, they thought it was some terrible plague.’
At that moment, Tae-oh stepped on a piece of paper.
‘Huh? An almanac?’
The paper had the word <Almanac> printed in large letters.
(A/N: An Almanac is a printed publication that provides information such as dates, the movements of the sun and moon, astronomical phenomena, landmarks, and other technical details.)
Beneath the word, the current year was printed.
‘1774? So I’ve returned to England 250 years in the past?’
In his past life as a dockworker, he had never cared about the exact year.
His only concern had been scraping by day to day.
But now, things were different.
As a doctor in psychology, Tae-oh had a wealth of knowledge from clinical experience and extensive reading.
He was particularly knowledgeable about history.
For someone like him, 1774 was no ordinary year.
‘1774… that’s right—this is the year leading up to the American Revolution!’
***
A week passed.
Tae-oh lay on a worn-out bed, holding his empty stomach after failing to find work again.
‘I lived as a dockworker all my life, never married, and died in my early 40s after being hit by a carriage. After that, I don’t remember anything.’
He assumed that the accident had ended his life.
‘A dockworker hit by a carriage? Is that all my past life amounted to?’
Though he didn’t believe in past lives, he had vaguely expected that if such a thing existed, his past self would have been someone special.
As a clinical psychologist with a successful career, he’d even fantasized that his abilities were somehow linked to a remarkable past life.
But no, it turned out he had been nothing.
A lowly dockworker, scraping by in a slum.
‘Did I collapse from overwork at that wedding reception and die? Is that why I’ve returned to my past life? But why would dying send me back to a previous life?’
He had asked himself countless times how he’d ended up here, but no answer came. The more he asked, the more meaningless it seemed.
‘Am I really going to live in this dump forever, leaving behind my supercar and my beautiful house? How on earth do I get back to the present? This is driving me crazy.’
By now, his past life felt more real, and his life in Korea seemed like a fading dream.
***
More time passed.
And the hope of finding a way back grew dimmer.
Because he couldn’t find any way to go back.
Instead, a new thought began to form.
‘I know the future of this past life, don’t I? If that’s true, maybe I can change it.’
In a sense, it was a pointless question.
If he couldn’t return to his original time and had to live this life, he had no choice.
If he wasted time hoping to return, he’d just repeat his past life’s miserable fate.
Growl—
‘I’m so hungry. The pain, the hunger—it all feels so real. This isn’t a dream or illusion. I don’t know why this bizarre thing is happening to me, but one thing is clear—I’m finding it harder and harder to go back.’
It would be unbearable to live the rest of his life at the bottom.
Tae-oh suddenly jumped up from his bed.
‘Why am I sitting around feeling sorry for myself? I’m not the same uneducated dockworker I once was. I’ve studied, and I know what’s coming. I have knowledge of modern business strategies and history!’
Even if I can’t return right away, shouldn’t I at least try to transform Theo Sanderson’s pathetic life?’
***
That evening, Theo visited a man named Samuel Scott.
Samuel Scott owned several mid-sized trading ships and was considered a respected figure in Bristol.
“Well, if it isn’t Theo.”
“Good evening, sir. It’s been a while. How have you been?”
“I’ve been fine, but what brings you here?”
Years ago, Samuel had sailed with Theo Sanderson’s father, who had died a decade earlier.
Theo Sanderson had only managed to secure his job as a dockworker thanks to Samuel’s connections.
“Well, sir, with this scurvy outbreak, there’s been no work.”
“Yes, it’s been a terrible mess. I’ve lost a lot myself.”
“That’s why I’m here, sir… you may not believe this, but I know how to cure scurvy.”
Samuel’s eyes widened in disbelief.
“Why are you suddenly coming here and say such nonsense? How do you know about the cure for an incurable disease that countless doctors have tried so hard to treat but is still unable to?”
“…..”