Summary

Jeon Yeong-il, a factory supervisor, arrives at work and receives a call from Chae Gwang, the military police's chief of communications. There is a fuel shortage and it is very cold. Chae Gwang asks about a factory employee, Seol Yong-su, who is nicknamed “Irya Madya.” Yong-su was a friend of Yeong-il's father since childhood and Yeong-il thinks of him as an uncle. Chae Gwang says that military police visited Yong-su's home to trim tree branches that were interfering with their phone lines, and Yong-su threatened them with an axe. Yeong-il explains that the elm tree they wanted to cut was planted in 1948, to commemorate Yong-su's joining the Communist Party. He remembers Yong-su telling him as a child that it was a magic tree, that one day “sugar candy and honey cookies will rain down from it,” and there would be...