BBS (79)

Translator: Wan ED/PR: Personal Ghost

 
 

Second story

〈Chilseok Night Lovers〉

 

So remote, the Draught Ox star,

While the Weaver Girl shines brightly in the Milky Way.

Delicately she lifts a pale hand,

clack, clack goes the shuttle of her loom.

All day long without finish,

she sobs and sheds tears like rain.

The Milky Way is clear and shallow;

they are but a tiny distance from each other,

at most the width of a stream,

yet their affection can never speak. [1]
 

『Wen Xuan (文選) 』
 

“… The whole country is mostly bright, noon will be sweltering hot, and at its peak it will feel over forty Celsius — deaths from the heatwave will continue….”

Such weather reports were never wrong.

Even asphalt seemed pure white under the merciless downpour of sunlight. Yu Dan stood at the sidewalk and looked in front of him.

Cars were rushing on the Olympic highway at full speed.

Bright red flames surged up in this hot weather. In billowing black smoke, people were rolling in fiercely burning flames around a toppled car. Each time other cars swished past them, their forms blurred, but they didn’t disappear.

Yu Dan observed them.

For a moment cars came to a lull.

Thinking he really went crazy, he crossed the balustrade and stepped on the road. He grabbed onto one of the rolling engulfed in flames forms. It was extremely hot. He curled up and shuddered as a horrible illusion of pain and flames spread over the skin of his whole body.

It wasn’t really happening to him. It was just a memory engraved into the souls of others. Mumbling this, he swung the horn and sucked up the flames with a sudden gust of wind.

“Ah, alright.”

As expected, he succeeded.

When flames and soot disappeared, the soul returned to its original form. It was a middle-aged woman wearing a one-piece dress with palm tree pattern.

Yu Dan also quickly dragged out the other souls. One was an elementary school boy, and the other looked exactly like the other. They were twins. When the burning pain disappeared, the souls looked around bewildered.

“Dad?”

Behind the wreck of a car, another form was rolling, swept in flames. As it was on the other side of the road, he couldn’t readily jump to him.

Yu Dan continued to observe, and in a moment the cars cleared up again, he hastily climbed over the balustrade. But because of the truck, that was rushing from the distance and loudly honking at him, he climbed back right away. How crazy did they think he was?

Only after a few attempts he was barely able to grab the remaining soul and drag it over. After swinging the horn, the flames were instantly sucked in, and a middle-aged man in shorts quickly stood up.

“Dad!”

The family had a moment of peace, but…

“But didn’t we have a traffic incident?”

“Right. The car was on fire, remember?”

“How are we unscathed?”

As if it was strange no matter how they thought about it, they all looked down at their bodies in unison. Trees, bushes, and ground were reflected through their translucent bodies.

At last realizing what had happened, they were stupefied. In the silence, the cries of cicadas were loud.

“We were going on a vacation…”

“Then this. What should we do?”

The family looked at him in unison. Their gazes pleading for help. Yu Dan hesitantly opened his mouth.

“Uh… I’m not quite sure, but there is a place that can help in such cases. I can take You there…”

“Ah, thank you. We’re truly indebted to you.”

“No, no.”

He waved his hand. He didn’t have qualifications to hear such words. He just wanted to test out the horn.

Yu Dan walked up towards the bicycle he left in the bushes at the roadside.

But how was he going to bring them over?

He imagined everyone riding the bicycle. Of course, it was impossible.

In the end, he pulled the bicycle and took the lead. He sometimes looked back, making sure that the family was following and didn’t get left behind.

He was completely exhausted once he arrived at the Banwoldang. All the water in his body was poured out as sweat, and he was on the brink of dehydration.

Do-ssi jumped up when bell at the door rang out. Before Yu Dan could say anything, he figured out the situation.

“You brought another ghost, huh?”

He flopped down without replying.

“Alas, alas. Traffic incidents are really scary. We have to say something to soothe them, right? Come this way first, please. Once You collect Your thoughts, You can hold Your hands, and we will help You to go to a good place.”

Do-ssi took the souls and disappeared. Chaeu quickly brought cold water, and Chaeseol handed him a cold towel.

After drinking almost the entire pitcher, his senses soon returned. The wild ginseng twins looked at him with pitiful faces.

“It’s good to do good things, but your face is completely cooked.”

“What on earth happened to those ghosts?”

Yu Dan shook his head.

“The ghosts weren’t the problem. I walked over three hours pulling my bike. That family couldn’t ride it, but I couldn’t just leave my bike.”

The twins looked at each other.

“Hey, when we wandered round the street, we saw a bicycle station. Can’t you leave a bike there?”

“Ah…”

Yu Dan was at a loss for words.

Looking back, he didn’t think of it at all. He couldn’t leave the bike. And he couldn’t leave the ghosts. His head was completely filled with just two of those thoughts, so like a fool he ended up dragging them all here. It was his personality to begin with, once he got entrapped with one thought, he couldn’t think of anything else…

He was so taken aback by it, he summoned the horn.

“You should have told me! I asked you what would be a good way a few times, and you didn’t reply!”

“Oh, I guess the two of them got really close.”

“I thought so, but this guy doesn’t seem to agree.”

“You even anthropomorphized it. Uh, but isn’t Your face growing redder? It must be heat. Eat cool watermelon, while You cool down.”

The twins took Yu Dan to the backyard.

The yard surrounded by the shadows of thick trees was filled with laundry for some reason. All kinds of things like clothes, capes, hats, gats[2] and so on, from different periods that yokai here wore were spread on laundry lines, and fluttered in the wind. It was an amazing sight.

Heuk-yo sat on a maru and was looking at it pleased. Yu Dan asked:

“Is that perhaps one in a hundred years laundry day?”

“It’s not laundry. It’s wind drying. There is a saying that if you dry clothes on Chilseok, they won’t be eaten by bugs or go sour for the next year.”

“Chilseok? The July Chilseok?”

“Yeah. Today is the seventh day of July according to the lunar calendar. The one day in the year when the Cowherd and Weaver Girl step on the bridge created by magpies, cross the Milky Way and meet.”

“Right. They say there was a Milky Way in the past, right? I can’t imagine stars flowing through the night sky like a sea.”

At Yu Dan’s words, the twin’s eyes opened wide. The two children quickly grabbed and pulled Yu Dan to the second floor. And the moment they opened the study door, they shouted loudly:

“Cheonho-nim! Cheonho-nim! We heard something really surprising!”

“I already heard that someone walked for several hours dragging a bicycle and family of ghosts.”

“That’s not it! Yu Dan-i never saw the Milky Way until now!”

“He doesn’t even know that the Milky Way really does flow like a river!”

Unlike the excited twins, the temperature difference on the other side was enormous. Baek Ran was lying down in the study, just like before, and replied apathetically as if everything was annoying.

“What can he do? Because of the air and light pollution, if it’s not a place like Jiri Mountain[3], it will be difficult to see the Milky Way.”

“But isn’t it a serious problem? Even the people, who reminiscence about ‘laying in the garden on the countryside when young, and looking at the Milky Way’, are departing from this world, and a generation of humans who never saw a Milky Way is born?”

“We’re feeling a cultural shock that it could come to this. But also a pity. Dripping with sweat, he did a good thing today, and even became red like a ripen apple. Shouldn’t he at least once get to experience the Milky Way?”

“Should he?”

“He should!”

“That’s right!”

The twins strongly insisted. Baek Ran slowly stood up against his will.

“Ah, that’s so far though….”

“Wait a moment! Shouldn’t we pack some simple things before departing to Jiri Mountain?”

“What nonsense are You spouting? Are You thinking I’m going to use uncivilized methods to show You the Milky Way?”

Baek Ran walked up to the bookcase, opened one of the numerous drawers and took out a rather big lacquer box. Once he opened the lid, gourd bottles laid down in layers and divided by partitions came into sight. He chose one in the middle, put it down on the floor, and just let it fall down.

At that moment, the study turned pitch-black. Dazzling light descended from the ceiling. Yu Dan looked up in shock.

It wasn’t a ceiling now. It was a night sky filled with countless stars. In the center of it, a cluster of stars stretched out long. Like from the legend of Cowherd and Weaver Girl, the night sky was divided by the milky river of shining stars — he looked at it with wide-open eyes.

“That’s the Milky Way, huh?”

“Yes. It’s the real Milky Way as seen by the people of old.”

He looked down at the fox’s words — the floor disappeared. In the black darkness he saw just a few thatched houses lit up with lights.

“Then this is…”

“Why are You asking that. Naturally under the old sky would be the old ground.”

Suddenly he felt dizzy. Then where was he right now?

The moment he faltered and hit the ground, the night sky, the stars, the Milky Way and the detached houses, abruptly disappeared. They were back in the fox’s study.

“That’s the end of it. You saw the Milky Way.”

Yu Dan looked at Baek Ran with a blank face. His mind returned a bit later than the body.

“Now that I think about it, ‘Blue sky Milky Way[3]’ isn’t right. Shouldn’t it be changed to the ‘Black sky Milky Way’?”

“Ye! That’s right! Logically speaking, You’re correct!”

“However, the song would have a vastly different feel. It would be gloomy.”

“That’s because noona’s heart is pitch black.”

The twins chatted loudly, while Beak Ran picked up the gourd bottle. Seeing this, Yu Dan had a thought again.

“Wait. Thinking about it, didn’t you just say that the distance to the drawer is too far?”

“What about You trying to pack Your baggage the moment the words about showing You the Milky Way came out? Doesn’t it seem like thinking process was omitted in the middle? Even if we were really going to the Jiri Mountains, were You thinking of just obediently following, no question asked?”

“Aye, Cheonho-nim. It’s vacation. Don’t even the best students go on half-vacation in summer? He is so pitiful with no people to take him around.”

“Well said. Shouldn’t Yu Dan-i forget about studying for a day at least and have fun playing?”

“No. In the current situation he should remember studying for at least half a day.”

“So what I was saying—“

Cheoseol raised her voice to bury Baek Ran’s words.

“How about waiting until midnight and crossing the actual Milky Way?”

Yu Dan thought he heard wrong and asked:

“Did you just say ‘actually cross’?”

“Ye! Fun things happen on the Chilseok night. How about, Cheonho-nim? Yu Dan-i is pitiful, right? When he stayed for a night in the store, all kinds of strange guests visited. Maybe this time will be the same.”

“What the hell are you talking right now?”

“I’ll explain. As You already know, our shop has many rooms. Among them, there is a room that opens only once a year, on Chilseok night. The guests, who come to visit at that time, can enter that door and meet someone they truly loved in their last life.”

At Chaeu’s words, Yu Dan blinked.

“What a strange story. Feels like a lie.”

“It’s not a lie, you can go see them for a real.”

“Hmm. So you’re going to see other’s past lives? In addition, someone they truly loved? That gives me goosebumps. How do you guys have so many dreams and hopes about the human world? I used to flip through channels, but only romantic dramas were broadcasted — I wanted to gouge my eyes.”

Baek Ran threw him a look that said ‘that’s so pathetic’.

“Please look at this dreary thing. He looks to have a sensitivity of a tailbone.”

“Tailbone?”

“It means completely degenerated. A part of Your character is comparable to a vestigial bone, isn’t that amazing? One day I should lure You with a game and capture You. It would be good to take You to the research institute.”

“Hmph. Cheonho-nim have no right to say this. Even when he sometimes watches drama with us, it’s just for fun of guessing who will end up with who like it’s a hamster breeding farm.”

“Look at that! There is evidence! Who is a real dreary thing!”

“Right. Compared to Cheonho-nim, our Yu Dan hyung-nim is very emotionally developed. Then You’re going to check it out with us, correct?”

“Wait a moment. Now that I think about it, from bringing me to the backyard to showing me the clothes on the laundry lines, to the conversation just now, everything was calculated, wasn’t it? What are you guys are doing there? If you’ve started a pyramid scheme, you would do really well.”

“Do you recognizing our abilities perhaps mean that you will go with us?”

At Chaeseol’s question, Yu Dan couldn’t’ reply right away.

In fact, he wanted to leave somewhere, anywhere, for a bit since the first day of vacation. That place across the Milky Way, it has to be really big, but…

The problem was the owner of this shop. Yu Dan stealthily glanced at Baek Ran.

“Well. I was simply following you around, but what if something happens? Won’t you be in big trouble again?”

Whether he heard that or not, Baek Ran was just looking at the cover of a book that was on the desk. Then he discovered a broken seam and as if it was very interesting, he started to play with it with his hand.

Yu Dan quickly put his brain to work.

Because that fox was for some reason so extremely emotionally suppressed — like the deepest place on Earth, the Mariana Trench — him saying ‘absolutely not’ to this problem could be interpreted as ‘well’, and ‘no’ as ‘persuade me more’, while not saying anything meant ‘fine’. In other words, that silence could be seen as agreement.

The twins glanced at Baek Ran, and quickly spoke.

“What incident? We’re just going to enter the room inside the shop.”

“We’re just going to observe the previous lives of others. Even if we do something, there is no way that we can change the past that already happened. Even if we try to cause an incident, we can’t.”

They said this much, so what now?

“Well then…”

Yu Dan slumped to the floor like he couldn’t win.
 

*~*~*
 

[1] Translation of So Remote, the Draught Ox Star is from eastasiastudent.net site by Hugh Grigg, reposted with permission. East Asian Student have many more translations and materials about old Chinese texts and culture, so make sure to check it out if interested!

[2] gat — a traditional cylindrical hat.

[3] Jiri Mountain — second highest mountain in South Korea. Currently a national nature park.

[4] Blue sky Milky Way — ‘Half Moon반달 (bandal)’ a children song written by Yun Geukyeong (윤극영) Link to performance by Sesory Music School: https://youtu.be/7ejhlhtYR34?si=BimwpqTpj6v6FnN-

Translation of the song:

Blue sky Milky Way on a little white boat

Is a cinnamon tree wooden rabbit

No sail raised, there is no barge pole

Goes, there it goes, to the West

Crossing Milky Way to the cloud land

Passing the cloud land, where are you going?

In the distance, sparkling bright

Dawn star is your lighthouse, find the way

– – – Fin.

(Someone experienced with eastern beliefs might have noticed, yes, this is a song calling back the dead)
 

Translator’s note: Yu Dan learned how Baek Ran ticks.

Chilseok Night Lovers story is four chapters long.
 

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