(English) TO THE MOON
Living on a monthly salary isn’t enough!
Isn’t there a way to get rich quick?
A full-length novel from the author of The Joys and Sorrows of Work
A hyper-realistic and relatable novel for office workers
To the Moon tells the story of three women, Jeong Da-hye, Kang Eun-sang, and Kim Ji-song, who work at the same company. Da-hye works in branding on the snack team, Eun-sang works in management support on the sales team, and Ji-song works in accounting—and despite their differences in age and experience, they think of each other as office friends because they started working at around the same time and went through orientation together. Spending most of their day at the office and basically only going home to sleep, the three form a special relationship, sharing everything with each other: the good, the bad, the funny, the outrageous, the joyous, and the unbelievable. The reason they were able to become so close so quickly was because they all had the tacit understanding that they were the same type of people: the type of people who never receive anything more than “satisfactory” on their performance evaluations; who live in shoddy rented apartments; whose only way of relieving boss-induced stress is by eating sweet desserts. Indeed, the shared understanding that they themselves must be the ones responsible for their own lives creates a feeling of kinship between them.
But then one day, noticing that Eun-sang is in an uncharacteristically good mood, Da-hye and Ji-song sense that something good must have happened to her. When pressing Eun-sang about it, they find out that Eun-sang has recently made a fortune investing in a cryptocurrency called Ethereum. Eun-sang tries to convince Da-hye and Ji-song to invest in Ethereum with her, but Ji-song refuses outright. On the other hand, Da-hye is moved when Eunsang says, this is the only way for people like us to make it big. Finally, after going to look for a new apartment and realizing that she wants to live in a more expensive place, Da-hye decides to take out her savings and start investing in cryptocurrency.
Strapped to the same rollercoaster, Da-hye and Eun-sang weather a storm of spikes and sharp drops in Ethereum’s prices. All the while, Ji-song continues to look down on her two friends’ investing. Then while the three of them are on vacation together on Jeju island, Ethereum’s prices skyrocket and the balance of Da-hye's virtual wallet finally hits 100 million won (roughly 100,000 USD). Having experienced the joy of their first spike, both Da-hye and Eun-sang try again to convince Ji-song to invest. Eventually, Ji-song decides to invest her entire savings into Ethereum, but by the time they return to Seoul, Ethereum prices have crashed. Eun-sang feels responsible.
“You can’t hold cryptocurrency in your hand. It only exists on your card. If I can’t sell this back, all my life savings will be lost. I’ll have to start again from zero.”
Can the three of the make it to the moon and a future of getting rich quick?
