Translator: Wan ED/PR: Personal Ghost
⟨Chapter 54⟩
⟨Summer Shadow⟩
On the fifth day of the Water Ox year, the weather was clear and sweltering. Mu-gyeong came to visit in the morning, and we had a conversation, while drinking tea. Suddenly there was a commotion outside, and as we looked out, the town people were clamoring in shock. They said that the lady from upper town, who often quarreled with a neighbor old woman, stabbed her to death and was escorted to the government office. Overhearing that she was touched by a Geureumae, I thought it queer and asked some people for details. What I heard is organized here.
Geureumae originally meant shadow according to the local dialect, but somehow it appears to also point to a minor ghost. That thing often appears on the summer days when shadows are clear. It seizes shadows and becomes the shadow instead to, by a strange phenomenon, possess people. The people touched by the Geureumae lose their reason and act wild. They steal and eat food from others’ kitchens or get rid of their clothes, and dance making horrible noises, and often harm the people they hold a grudge against.
In the 『Doctrine of the Mean』 it’s called a ‘Walking without a shadow of shame’. It means that one should not be ashamed of one’s shadow even when walking alone by oneself. That Geureumae might be an absurd story told by country men, but it matches the words of old sages, even if by luck, so how could I leave it private? As a teaching that we should refine our minds, as to not have even a speck of disharmony.
『Baeksa’s Days Records』
Sunlight was scorching.
His head was hot. The whole world was swaying and buzzing rang in his ears.
Harassed by vertigo, he barely reached the traditional street. He crossed the front yard of the old hanok remodeled as a tea house, pushed open and entered through the wooden door and immediately headed to the backyard.
Opportunely, all yokai were gathered there.
The fox yokai was fishing at the maru[1]. But he threw his fishing rod not into water, but a piece of paper. The fishing hook lengthened and entered deep into the circle drawn with a brush. Everyone pressed their lips shut and only stared at the fishing rod, and were startled when they felt a presence.
“Damn it! Even yokai get startled when a human suddenly appears in broad delight. Can’t you be a bit more careful?”
Heuk-yo admonished him like this, but then she looked at Yu Dan’s complexion and was startled again.
“What’s up with your face? And what about school? Isn’t it time for you to still sit in class?”
“I left early.”
At those words, the yokai were even more shaken. They all knew very well that Yu Dan adamantly avoided being late, leaving early or being absent. Baek Ran put down the fishing rod and asked.
“What wrong thing did You touch again?”
“I didn’t touch anything.”
“Then why are You sick?”
Chaeseol approached and touched his forehead, and her eyes grew wide.
“You have a fever! It’s serious!”
“Ehem, such things should be said carefully, but…”
Chaeu whispered to everyone with a very quiet voice.
“In fact, I kept worrying. I mean the last time with that Plum Blossom Spring’s tree. If the Heaven noticed that uncle manager Bak-ssi ended up sent to the Plum Blossom Spring—.”
“It’s not Heavenly Punishment.”
“Ack! You heard everything? There is no way You could do that.”
“That’s the problem. I hear everything too well.”
Yu Dan put down his bag and splayed out on the maru.
“It happens every year on the brink of spring and summer. I can’t sleep. My head hurts too much. Until last year I thought it was a cold. But after everything I have been involved in this year, I thought it may not be nothing.”
“Of course it isn’t. How can You be so dull?”
Even though the fox yokai made a pitiful face, he didn’t see it. Yu Dan laid down on the cold wooden floor. He heard something moving underneath. Looking through the crack in the maru, something bright red and sprouting many legs shivered and crept over.
“What is that?”
“Something is there?”
Heuk-yo stuck her hand under the maru. Unable to catch it with her hands, she pulled out a sword and continuing to rummage, wedged a war, and then barely caught it and dragged it out. Everyone looked at the wriggling thing in surprise.
“Nunim[2]! No matter how I look, it seems to be a carrot!”
“Goodness! Now that I think about it, I sat here a long time ago, peeling carrots and ended up losing one. From the looks of it, I dropped it under the maru, huh?”
“We didn’t know anything and only ended up torturing the innocent rabbit yokai. How pitiful. Unnie, bad.”
“Tsk, tsk. How long was it under the maru to become a yokai? Give it to me. I’ll have to just teach that bastard.”
Do-ssi took the wriggling carrot yokai, and glanced at Yu Dan.
“But you really hear everything, even that strange bastard crawling?”
“Everything.”
Yu Dan replied with a dying voice.
“I knew it.”
Baek Ran nodded his head.
“You could say Your senses are in the overdrive. You see much better, You hear much better. You may even have visual and auditory hallucinations. You are so dizzy, You can’t walk, and are so tired You’re on verge of dying, but can’t sleep.”
“Yeah. That.”
“It’s because it’s summer. The whole world is overflowing with energy, so no matter what You are, it’s the season of activity. Yokai, monsters, ghosts, spirits are all the same. The sensory system that senses those things catches all those active movements, and cannot handle it. Those symptoms continue for a few days, and then slowly disappear, correct?”
“That’s right. You know it. Can we do something about it?”
“Please endure.”
“What?”
“There is no helping it. You feel like this because Your body cannot handle it. It will be fine, when it will be able to handle it.”
“When it will be?”
“The owner doesn’t know, so how could I know?”
“If you don’t know, how should I know?”
“Please don’t nitpick on my words.”
He wasn’t nitpicking on his words, he asked because he was truly curious. He wasn’t able to speak any longer, because he didn’t have any energy. Yu Dan turned over.
“Anyway, can I sleep here?”
“It’s alright. If You’re okay with us fishing.”
The kindhearted wild ginseng yokai boy spoke quickly.
Soon, everything around him became quiet. It seemed that everyone ended up going somewhere. Yu Dan lied down on his back again. The sunlight was shining directly on his head, so he covered it with one arm, and that was perfect. Through the askew eave, he saw the blue sky. The wind blew, and something appearing like a fish lazily passed him by.
“But it’s a bit better here.”
“I’m glad. You have broken my peace, so I sure hope it’s a bit better.”
The fox lamented.
“It’s quiet, so what noise do I keep hearing?”
“Please ignore it.”
“That’s not easy. It feels like my ears are full of worms. The noise becomes distant then close.”
“That’s a regret, eh?”
“But when you talk, I don’t hear it.”
“That’s really a regret, eh?”
A splash of water. He heard a sound of something quietly hitting the waves in a distance.
“How bad. You shut up right away.”
“Shh! So it doesn’t flee.”
Baek Ran clicked his tongue.
“That won’t do. How should I make You use consciousness quickly? Traditionally in such a cases a blunt weapon was used, but I have manners, so…”
“Are you going to use a lethal weapon?”
“Please be quiet. I’m thinking right now.”
“What kind of lethal weapon?”
“Yes, as expected a chainsaw… won’t do, a sick move, that’s it.”
“Sick move?”
“In the old times, when illness was unknown, or no medicine worked, the prescription was that the people leave the house and move to another place for treatment.”
“A kind of convalescence.”
“That’s right. In Joseon period especially, the kings, queens and concubines often moved to the houses of relatives or nobles when sick. Taejo, Taejong, Jeongjo… Among them, the most fun stories involve sick moves of Sejo.”
“What?”
“As You know, Sejo caused a Gyeyu coup and usurped the throne from his young nephew Danjong. In other words, he took it by force. But after doing so and raising to the position of a king, he suffered from a strange disease of unknown origins.”
“Wasn’t it perhaps supernatural?”
“We have no way of knowing it. They called it a strange illness at the time. After no matter how many famous doctors he summoned, no one could cure him, and even the best medicine had no use, Sejo went to the famous temple to try to cure the strange illness with the power of Buddha-nim. That place was the Woljeong Temple in Odae Mountain. It was a temple where during the reign of the Silla Queen Seondeok, monk Jajang received the revelation of Manjushri.”
Baek Ran spun up the wishing string, while continuing the story.
“Sejo first gave worship at the Woljeong Temple and then, while heading to the Sangwon Temple, he discovered a clear spring valley and decided to take a bath there. Hating to show his body, swollen and covered in bloody pus, he told the servants to step aside and washed himself alone, but there was a child monk playing in the forest.”
“Wait. No way, is he going to be killed for seeing his body?”
“That’s not it. Sejo called the child monk and asked him to wash his back.”
“Predictable development. Even if he is a king, he can’t help but have an itchy back, eh? Anyway, that child monk was his disguised nephew, trying to take revenge. I call it, it Danjong.”
“No.”
“What? Tell me if that’s not it.”
“The child monk thoroughly washed Sejo’s back with all his heart. Finishing a bath and leaving, Sejo told the child monk ‘Wherever you go, don’t tell you have washed the king’s body’. At that the child monk answered ‘Wherever the great king goes, don’t reveal that you saw Manjushri in person’.”
Yu Dan fell into thoughts for a moment.
“So you mean to say that the child monk was Manjushri?”
“That’s right. Startled, Sejo looked around, but the child monk already disappeared into thin air. And the bloody puss that was flowing from his body was already cleaned away.”
“How strange. Why did he cure him? He took the king’s position by force.” [3]
“Wasn’t it to teach him something? How can I know the thoughts of Buddha? Anyways, Sejo ordered a painting of Manjushri healing his strange illness, and created Wooden Seated Child Manjusri statue. But…”
“But what?”
“But I was telling You this story to try to make you lose consciousness, so why are You listening so diligently?”
“Ah, right.”
Yu Dan closed his eyes.
Listening to the sound of casting a fishing string and splashes of water droplets, he tried hard to fall asleep. But it didn’t work out.
“Summer also brings back some of my memories.”
The fox yokai mumbled as if talking to himself.
“In the old days, a grand ceremony was held on summer. The people from all corners of the land would gather to witness what the thing called Cheon-ho looked like. The family, which offered incense on the first day, sneaked into the line on the last day, and I remember being amazed how the children grew within those few days. Summer is such a season. You look around and everything is growing quickly.”
You look around and everything is growing quickly.
Those words strongly burrowed into his head.
“Was it a very long time ago? The days when many people came to you like this.”
“Very, very long time ago.”
Was it more than a thousand years? He imagined ancient people kneeling in front of the fox yokai and lighting up the incense. He seemed to get a bit sleepy now.
“Now that I think about it, that word.”
He heard his own voice in the distance.
“Isn’t it strange?”
“What is strange?”
“The name ‘Ran (orchid)’? Isn’t that the name of a flower given when opening a shop? Why name an animal after a plant? It’s like calling a cat saury.”
“Humans gave me such a name, so what could I do? When I was first born in this land, they didn’t know what I was and what they should do. Because no human saw Cheon-ho in reality. They didn’t know what they should call me, so they looked at my tails and named me after the most precious thing they thought about. That was the orchid that came from the Qin Empire. So it ‘strangely’ happened that ‘an animal was named after a plant’.”
“Then why ‘Baek (white)’? Cheon-ho is golden, so why? Shouldn’t it be Hwang Ran?”
“At first I was too dazzling, so they thought I was white.”
Yu Dan smiled. For some reason it was too funny. Baek Ran cast the fishing rod and looked at him.
“You’re really sick, eh?”
“Truly, right. Mia noona said that Cheon-ho had nine tails. But why do I see only one? Occasionally there are times were two seem to overlap, like leaving an afterimage.”
“Ah, that’s because it’s a painful memory.”
“….”
“… When I say that, everyone shuts their mouth, it’s truly satisfying.”
Behind the fox, who said that, nine tails unfolded like a fan. Yu Dan abruptly stood up.
“You’re joking?”
Then he put his head back to the floor right away.
That’s a pity. He almost fell asleep a moment ago.
It seemed like sleep would come, when Baek Ran told the stories, but if the calm was disturbed, the sleep escaped again like a ghost.
“Ah, right. Can’t you play that? What was it called. Sleep song?”
“It’s difficult to control. And even if I could, I would have to put down the fishing rod and go get geomungo[4], and that’s too annoying.”
“But I have to sleep now.”
“If someone please would take away this patient…”
“I hear all your thoughts.”
“It’s okay. There are numerous stories about Sejo’s illnesses.”
“What is he? Strange Illness King? Tell a different story.”
“But I like stories about Sejo’s illnesses. The strange illness of Sejo was cured by Manjushri, who he met in the Odae Mountain, but not everyone was so merciful. As the legend goes, Sejo, who suffered from a vicious wart illness, went to the Geungang Mountains…”
At last the sleep found him.
It wasn’t a deep sleep yet. He drifted in the half-sleep, keeping his eyes half-open to the noise.
*~*~*
[1] maru — open floor
[2] nunim — older form of ‘noona’.
[3] “How strange. Why did he cure him? He took the king’s position by force.” — ‘taking by force’ is talking about it lightly. Sejo’s coup was quite bloody, well, all coups are, but Sejo was certainly not holding back, killing off his brother, his brother’s family, the officials and concubines who supported his brother or the current king, his nephew Danjong, sending all family members of those officials and concubines to death or slavery, and then finally killing Danjong two years later (I suppose the 14 year old didn’t seem like a first priority threat).
[4] geomungo — a type of traditional Korean instrument, resembling zither.
Translator’s note: Summer Shadow story is five chapters long. Yu Dan’s sick because of supernatural count: 6. And Baek Ran is quite cute here, talking because it makes other sounds go away.
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