Translator: Wan ED/PR: Personal Ghost
⟨Chapter 7⟩
⟨Soul wrapping cloth⟩
In the old days, in a certain village lived a magnate called Yun Rich.
One day, his only son in three generations, suddenly fainted and stiffened. When an excellent doctor was asked, he said that a monster stole the child’s soul and the only way for him to return to his senses was for him to drink a medicine from boiled asters before the night ended.
Yun Rich ran so fast he wasn’t able to put on his shoes. He clearly remembered there was a group of asters growing by the river, but he couldn’t find it at all. As he circled over and over, the moonlight gradually grew dim.
Then, he spotted a woman by the riverside, sitting on the bulging bundle. “Didn’t You perhaps see asters around here?” Yun Rich asked, and the woman bowed her head without a word and pointed towards the depths of the river bank.
Overjoyed, Yun Rich crossed the river bank without hesitation. However, what met his eyes was just a black water flow. Only then did he realize. That was a monster, huh? And that wrapping cloth that woman was clenching was holding the soul of my very child, huh?
When he urgently returned to that place, the woman was already gone. Instead, in the place where that woman sat and which she covered, were only remnants of a squashed group of asters, shinning blue and green in the light of dawn.
『Maegong Fairy Tales』
Behind his back, the water stream scattered into pure-white.
Yu Dan was sitting with his back to the fountain. He wasn’t alone, there was someone else with him. She, who was at his side, had long, straight hair, a tidy sweeter and a skirt, and a bag placed on her knees. It was an appearance of an ordinary university student.
But it was all a mask. A mask to desperately hide the ‘difference’ from others.
Mia was like this since a long time ago. She wanted to go out with ordinary friends, and live an ordinary life.
However, regretfully, there was always that unexplained gloomy energy seeping through. It seemed as if she alone was always standing in blue light. Even when Yu Dan turned around without thinking, and found her standing behind him with an expressionless face, his heart would drop.
Sometimes there seemed to be young ladies with too much time and kindness, who became friends with her, but when they got involved in some kind of supernatural incident, they would immediately distance themselves, every one of them.
Though she lived for over twenty-two years, her biggest worry was that she didn’t have a friend. Na Mia began to talk into the cup.
“Again.”
Yu Dan frowned.
“What do you mean again?! I already repeated it three times! I told you everything just a moment ago!”
“But that’s strange.”
“What is strange? Didn’t I say that misfortune spoke to me? So I just talked to it nicely, and it returned to its origin.”
“No, besides that. The part where everyone begged you to come again because they liked you so much.”
He couldn’t help but feel a prick of conscience. Was that extremely gloomy thing that sharp?
“How careful the store yokai are? There is no way they would like a human coming as he likes to play and mess around. You would have to turn over your bank book for cakes, snacks and ice cream to just be able to win them over.”
“Well, I’m a bit useful, you know?”
Yu Dan refuted his maternal cousin noona’s words.
“I can see strange things better than others, even better than noona, right? Didn’t they say that the world is getting murkier? So, the incidents that shouldn’t occur gradually increase without anyone’s knowledge. We’re talking about the supernatural things. We have to make sure to return them to their origin…”
He mumbled incoherently the words that he heard around the fox yokai, but the park scenery entered his vision.
As it was Saturday, it was crowded. People, who were delighted when seeing the buds that sprouted on the trees. The people, who giggled, while training riding bicycles. Children, who couldn’t stay quiet even for a moment and ran around. Everyone looked happy.
“No, world and what’s not… As expected, you might as well go to hell.”
“You, again. You’re surprised.”
Mia opened her eyes wide and said:
“Then why are you like this? Isn’t that shocking that you suddenly became nice?”
“Did you go mad? When did I become suddenly nice? I’m busy playing.”
“Excuse me? That’s a big deal. What should I do?”
Mia stared at him as if he was pathetic.
“Why are you like this again? What big deal?”
“Think about it. Not only did you safely survive a supernatural incident, you even remembered that clearly. Do you know what that means? In the possessed people’s eyes, you will probably look like a savior. You should know very well how desperate the supernatural can make people, because you went through it. They will frantically cling to you to save them. And if you won’t help them, they will hold a grudge and even curse you. Would you like to drown like a water ghost? In those people’s misery.”
A shiver went down his spine. But he forced himself to pretend it was nothing.
“What, you think I’ll obediently get drowned? I’m doing it because I got it.”
“Okay. Do your best. Anyhow, stay safe.”
“Are you going already?”
“What? Do you have something to talk about?”
“I have. What is Cheon-ho?”
Mia, who stood up, grinned.
“It’s a fox born from the bestowed heavenly energy, right? It’s different from common yokai, it’s a holy and worshiped by humans divine creature. In the old times, even kings came searching for it to ask for advice. Its fur is a dazzling golden color, its mystical powers are extraordinary, its personality is compassionate and merciful.”
“Nonsense! Lies!”
“That’s what books say.”
At that moment, a call ring rang out. It seemed that the suspicious place she was working part-time at was looking for her again. Mia hurriedly ran off without saying goodbye, while accepting the call. Exactly the same as when she arrived, she left like a wind.
“What? Didn’t you say ‘Stop loitering at home and go on a walk with me’?”
Moreover, didn’t she invite him, saying she would buy him lunch? Forget the lunch, she only left extremely ominous words. Yu Dan grumbled, while drinking the remaining cola.
As he sat, having nothing to do, he suddenly recalled the words of the fox yokai.
This world was a very dangerous maze. You don’t know what will appear when you turn around the next corner.
When he sat in a bright park like this, those words felt like a lie. Everyone looked happy, without any worries. Among them, a married couple, who brought a son, about seven or eight years old, grabbed his eye. At that happy scene, his nerves suddenly flared up.
As expected, he really hated weekends. He should have gone home.
He wrapped the scarf, that loosened up, around himself again and stood up.
When he reached the crosswalk, the traffic light turned to red. He hated waiting, so he turned towards the overpass, and was just about to ascend the last steps of the long stairs, when…
His vision blurred, and a strange tinnitus rang in his ears.
What?
Yu Dan covered his right eye with one hand.
Among the people crossing the overpass…
A teenage girl caught his eye.
A skirt roughly fluttered in the wind. It was a female highschool uniform. She didn’t even think about how disheveled her hair was, and was just staring blankly at the cars passing far below. It seemed like she would fall down at any moment.
What the hell was she doing?
At that moment, the girl turned her head. As her hazy gaze wandered around in the air, she spotted Yu Dan and flinched in surprise.
“You…”
A strange glow entered her empty eyes. Her lips, white like that of a dying patient, moved slowly. However, her words were buried in the roar of passing cars.
Yu Dan asked back.
“What did you say?”
“I’m scared…”
The girl spoke again. Her voice was so weak, it seemed it would go out at any moment.
“I’m scared. I can’t come back home because I’m scared. How on earth did it happen?”
“What? What happened?”
“You got it. You can help me, right?”
Her eyes shinned strangely.
Was it perhaps that? Was she possessed by supernatural? Did he discover another one?
At that moment, he remembered Mia’s warning.
— Would you like to drown like a water ghost? In those people’s misery.
As he looked at this female student, he felt very uneasy. Something was seriously wrong. Yu Dan hesitated, and then turned
“You’re too much. How can you do that without hearing the story?”
The girl’s cry, made him stop in his tracks.
— Are you going to chase me away, without even listening to the story?
Didn’t he himself say exactly the same words? When he was almost hastily thrown out by Do-ssi. The indistinctive feeling he had at the time returned to him in full.
Yu Dan turned to look at the girl.
“But I don’t know anything.”
At that moment, the body of the female student tilted.
He thought she was going to fall off the overpass and stretched his hand out startled, but luckily, she didn’t fall. The girl stared at Yu Dan, barely holding onto the balustrade. It seemed that she didn’t even realize that she almost dropped below a moment ago. Because her mind was full of just one thought.
“Please help me. Only a shell remains from my dongsaeng. Because of me…”
Previously desperate expression became even more desperate.
Really, me, in the end…
Yu Dan followed after the girl as he grumbled.
He wouldn’t be able to help all of the people. So he had to judge well.
Her appearance from behind was tidy, if one excluded the disheveled hair. He didn’t realize it before, because he was too flustered, but her front was also neat. With horn-rimmed glasses on a clean face, she had an upright look[1], that would treat coldly a male student with a bad impression like Yu Dan, without even talking to him. But such a kid was begging him to go to her house with her? And, what was that? Only a shell remains from her dongsaeng?
“What the hell are you talking about? Speak a bit more clearly.”
“I also have no idea.”
While they entered the neighbor apartment complex, the girl mumbled as if complaining.
“My dongsaeng is just five years old. Because he is a little brat, I can’t help times when I’m a little annoyed. Even so, I never hated him…”
She said that her parents-nim went on a symposium or something like that. After coming back from school, she wasn’t even able to change from her school uniform and was doing homework, but her dongsaeng was repeatedly pestering her to take him to the playground. He was too annoying, and she worried how the hell she was going to endure it, if he was going to be like that every day until their parents-nim came back.
“I was just thinking. How good it would be if I could turn him off and on, like a robot? I was just thinking that…”
Before the girl opened the door, she hesitated for a moment.
He could guess what she was thinking.
Shit, wouldn’t it be better if I heard that I’m crazy or that I’m a liar? How much better it would be if nothing of it happened….
She was desperately wishing for it.
However, after the door opened, an oppressive air swept over them.
Her wish didn’t come true.
Yu Dan looked at the little kid at the kitchen table. He had curly hair, feeling exactly like a little rascal, but when he was sitting with his back straight, his head raised and without any expression, he looked like a wax figure. After they walked up closer, he saw a blue band attached to his knee. It was obvious who attached the band.
“I came out to take a look at him, because he was too quiet, and he was like this.”
The female student sunk down to her knees in front of her dongsaeng as if crumbling down.
“Wake up. Please, wake up. I’ll take you to the playground. I’ll take you there every day. So please open your eyes. Okay?”
She pleaded desperately, but the kid didn’t even twitch. His eyes didn’t even blink. ‘Grotesque’. That was the word that came to mind.
“What to do? I think his breathing became even weaker than before. Why? Our parents-nim will return soon. What should I really do?”
The girl mumbled to someone, who wasn’t there.
“It’s all because of me, you know? I should have stopped myself from having such bad thoughts. But it’s not true. There is no way this is true, right? This is…”
Her voice seemed to be squeezed from her lungs.
Yu Dan stretched his hand out and touched the child’s face. It felt like touching paper. He could figure out why the girl expressed it as a ‘shell’.
He looked around.
There was a sinister feeling hovering in the air. However, there was nothing particular about the air itself. The dishes were scattered across the comfortable apartment, as if they were toys. But then, he noticed a small window in the corner, it was opened.
“Did you open that window?”
The girl raised her head. She followed Yu Dan’s gaze and stared at the window, she weakly shook her head.
“No.”
He approached it and covered his right eye, to examined it in detail.
He noticed dark traces around the window. They looked like stains, no, footprints. The moment he saw those pitch black marks, he somehow had a terrible feeling.
“Someone came in. Made your dongsaeng into this and then left.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
The female student bowed her head again. She gripped her shoulders, trying to stop herself from crying, but in the end, dark and round droplets dripped on her school uniform skirt.
What should he do? She ended up crying.
Yu Dan helplessly stared at the footprints.
Those dark smudges didn’t give him a very good feeling. It was a similar feeling to when he looked into the deep and dark pond, where who knows what lurked. That was what the very ‘danger’ meant, right?
So he had to back out. That was the right thing to do.
However.…
There was one thing Mia’s words were wrong about.
They wouldn’t curse him and resent him because he said he couldn’t help.
This female student didn’t have any more strength to grab onto anyone. Even if Yu Dan turned around to leave, she would just collapse and cry. It didn’t seem she would be able to follow him.
Because of that, he couldn’t leave.
Yu Dan sighed
“I’ll go ask.”
The afternoon light had a soft, golden color.
The bookshelves from old wood densely populated the four walls, and the always cool study, had a thick smell of ink.
The fox yokai was in the middle of writing.
As he pitifully had nothing to do as he waited, Yu Dan stared at the tidy writing growing in a line after line on the white paper. The twins, who were serving on the side by pouring water into the inkstone and grinding ink, glanced at him.
“As expected, You have a virtuous mindset, huh? After meeting with a troubled female student, You came here running without a break out of worry.”
“What?”
Yu Dan bristled.
“No! I ran into her when I was just going home, and only came here to ask about it when taking a stroll around here. You are so hung up on that female student.”
“You’re the one who said that. Chaeu merely said that you’re virtuous or something, and you’re taking it as a personal attack.”
“Ah, yes, young master-nim. I made a slip of a tongue… Anyhow, it has to be solved quickly, but please wait for a moment. We’re writing a thunder qi protection talisman for madam.”
Yu Dan glanced to the room corner again.
In fact, from the beginning, he was very bothered that there was someone sitting with her back to them here.
As she was a well-dressed madam, with her long hair hanging loose and wearing a pale-pink chimajeogori[2], there would be nothing wrong about her, if not that he heard she came out of a pond in the swamp park.
“She is in trouble because suspicious silhouettes often shimmer in the pond water. New children will be born soon, so we can’t let wicked things wait for an opportunity to target them.”
“Right. Right. For the sake of the miraculous talisman, you have to stay quiet from now on.
Chaeseol emphasized.
At that moment, they heard the sound of a brush being put down. Everyone flinched.
*~*~*
[1] upright look — 관상 (kwansang) — a good-looking face, which signifies that one is upright and has a good fortune. The opposite of it would be a folk belief that if someone looks ugly, they must be evil.
[2] chimajeogori — a general term referring to a top and a skirt of the hanbok worn by women.
Translator’s note: ⟨Soul wrapping cloth⟩ story is 4 chapters (including this one) long.
Also, the western folk tales are also brutal, but damn the eastern ones o.o”, I feel bad for Mr. Rich.
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