Boy Monster Chapter 51

As time passed, Jae Eunho opened his eyes. The beautiful wind and waves that had covered Gyeongseong subsided. The sound of the drums faded, and the shaman’s voice was no longer heard. As if exhausted, Jae Eunho caught his breath for a moment, then bowed politely to the surrounding monks. Moving his parched lips, he said, “It is finished,” and slowly walked out of the main building.

He was a man who possessed a colder flame than anyone else behind his graceful face. This was Jang Hwonwoo’s third assessment of Jae Eunho.

“Well done. Eunho, you are an outstanding Sa Yeonri who will be remembered for ages to come.”

That evening, Jang Hwonwoo saw his father, who had returned after completing the great affair, praising Jae Eunho. Kneeling before the head of the family, Jae Eunho bowed his head with a silent smile. His ankles, neatly placed together beneath the long hem of his clothes, held Jang Hwonwoo’s gaze for a long time.

Afterward, the man who was his father spent the night making love with some unknown woman. The reason he didn’t bother to hide his tryst from his son was to imprint it clearly upon him. Look closely at my position, where I can take any woman as I please. If you meet the conditions I desire, you will succeed me in this position, so become someone I need.

To Jang Hwonwoo, who had been treated worse than a stray dog until his Hwelju ability manifested, that man was not a father. He was simply the head of the family. Even while calling the man ‘father,’ Jang Hwonwoo had never once thought of him as such.

It was likely the same for him. To the family head, Jang Hwonwoo was not a son but an heir.

He had told Jang Hwonwoo this: The one who succeeds me cannot be a weakling. I have no need for such a person.

You must never appear easy to deal with. You must make it so that no one can look down on you. To do that… sometimes you need to be stricter than anyone else.

He had also heard that for this reason, the man had argued to the king that Jae Eunho’s parents must be executed. And that they must be executed in the most terrifying way possible.

Hearing that, Jang Hwonwoo understood why the man named Jae Eunho openly ignored him. He could understand why he hated him with such cold, frigid animosity. Because he was the son of the man who had driven his parents to their deaths.

However, Jang Hwonwoo still found it uncomfortable that the man would smile and act friendly toward the family head, yet show his true feelings so plainly to him. Do you think I’m a child who knows nothing? What will you do if I tattle to the family head? Just how much will you hate me if I stay quiet? It was more laughable than infuriating. Should I teach him a lesson? Make it so he has no choice but to smile sweetly at me too?

Jae Eunho didn’t show himself at all the next day, perhaps because he was in pain. After spending the day pacing in front of the plum tree and going in and out of the inner quarters, Jang Hwonwoo tailed Jae Eunho as he left the courtyard the following night.

He had overheard the family head telling one of his men that today was the day, once a month, when Jae Eunho had to ‘attend to his practice.’ He was curious what a Sa Yeonri who already possessed outstanding resonance abilities would be practicing.

Jang Hwonwoo crossed the garden, muffling his footsteps. Before entering a deep room in the main building, Jae Eunho muttered this:

“I told him to avoid a brightly moonlit night. He didn’t listen, the son of a bitch.”

He couldn’t understand what it meant. On that late night, with crickets chirping, the boy hid his presence and slipped into the darkness. He pressed his body against the wall and even held his breath.

The sounds flowing through the wall were only the groans of one man and the rustling of a blanket.

“……”

The sound of flesh slapping against flesh did not last long. It was only a few minutes, but it felt long.

Until the affair ended with a long moan, all that was heard was the man’s panting; Jae Eunho’s voice was not heard at all. It was a silence that did not even let out a breath.

A short while later, the man left the room and went toward the family head’s quarters. Jae Eunho came out of the room with his usual gait, then seemed to stagger and slump down on a cornerstone. The boy pricked up his ears. He heard the crackling sound of leaves burning in a lit pipe. The scent of tobacco smoke drifted around the wall.

Jae Eunho smoked for a long time. Only his breaths, exhaling smoke, were heard intermittently. The chirping of night insects and a gentle silence filled the boy’s chest. A long while later, Jae Eunho stood up and left the main building.

Even after that, the boy did not move from his spot for a long time. When he came to his senses, the full moon was too bright. So much time had passed that the moon had moved.

The boy rubbed out the footprints left on the ground.

Jae Eunho. It was the name of the man who, during two visits, had left the only lasting impression on the boy’s body and mind.

The boy thought in the darkness. If I come to this mansion, that man is here.

The moonlight filtering through the leaves shone as white and hazy as his ankles had been, walking in the rain.

:･⚜️⊹.️

The following year, Jang Hwonwoo, now ten years old, was formally registered in the family and moved into the mansion. The official training to become the heir to the family head had begun.

The original plan was to bring him in when he turned thirteen, but thanks to the family head boasting everywhere about how Jang Hwonwoo had laudably volunteered to begin his training and studies early, Jae Eunho also heard the story.

From the age of ten, the boy began preparations to become the head of the Sashimcheon family. On the day Jang Hwonwoo set foot in the mansion as an official son, a lantern festival was held. The boy was serious, knew how to smile appropriately at the right time, and made no mistakes. He looked like a natural-born leader.

Unlike his father, he showed no emotional turmoil and had a gentle demeanor, yet he could not hide his sharp intelligence. This, combined with eyes shadowed by sorrow and darkness, made the people of the mansion unable to treat him carelessly, even though he was a child. Moreover, with the family head’s favor, even his older brothers could not show their jealousy. The only one in this mansion who treated Jang Hwonwoo coldly was Jae Eunho.

In 1934, the situation in Gyeongseong was precarious. While modern boys and modern girls called for free love, danced drunkenly to music, and artists lamented the times, the movement to protect the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea continued. Traitors who relied on the emperor’s power continued to hand over the nation’s sovereignty to the Japanese Empire. Japan, which had laid railroad tracks in Manchuria in exchange for arbitrarily ceding Gando to China, was turning its fighter jets and missiles beyond Northeast Asia.

“Where in the world is he, the master of Sa Hwelju!”

The family head grew more savage by the day. Even his hopeful son, Jang Hwonwoo, had offered his blood at the Hwangudan Altar, but the result was that his body could not receive the power of Sa Hwelju.

The one whose blood color did not change under the bright moonlight was the master of Sa Hwelju. The one who could bear Sa Hwelju in their body was found only in the royal lineage, but since it was, on very rare occasions, found in someone not of the direct bloodline who then ascended the throne, the family head was frantically searching through all the royalty and Hwelju bloodlines.

“We need that power to win the war! Am I wrong? We must find the bloodline that can bear the power of Sa Hwelju quickly!”

The more the nation was endangered, the greater the family head’s craving for Sa Hwelju grew. Currently, Sa Hwelju was sealed in a folding screen. Crown Prince Yeongchin had also offered his blood at the Hwangudan Altar, but he was not the master of the power. He had ascended the throne in a situation where they could not find a crown prince who could receive Sa Hwelju’s power amidst foreign invasion and Japanese tyranny.

The family head judged that this nation had a chance of winning only with the power of Sa Hwelju, which could control life without lifting a finger.

The psychics of Sashimcheon were dispatched to increasingly dangerous battlefields. Some Hwelju returned injured, or disappeared without a word. Moreover, even as the nation’s sovereignty was in peril, Gyeongseong, where capital had taken root, grew more and more splendid. The magnificent modern houses of high-ranking officials who had amassed wealth caught the family head’s eye.

His violent behavior increased in proportion to his stress. The incidents of him assaulting Hwelju and Yeonri became more frequent than before. There were also times when he cast unnecessarily gruesome curses or spells. His outstanding ability and leadership gradually spun out of control, but because the chaos of the era was so great, such tyranny seemed like a natural course of events.

No one could stop the family head’s impatience and violence. This became even more so after a monk who offered advice was barred from setting foot in the mansion.

Jae Eunho, destined to be offered up as a Sa Yeonri, could not remain idle either. Jae Eunho aimed for the cracks as the family head became more and more mentally unstable. To his face, he bowed his head, but behind his back, he schemed to make him lose his leadership. His goal was to slowly instill negative thoughts in the Hwelju and Yeonri to make them dissatisfied with the family head’s methods of control.

‘Even if that demon dies, we can save our homeland. There are many brilliant strategists. We just have to get rid of the family head, gain our freedom, and reclaim our country.’

Jae Eunho believed so and steadily built his plan to make that hope a reality.

Today again, Eunho gathered the young Hwelju and Yeonri and taught them about Sa Hwelju. As he was leaving the inner quarters after class, a small uniform followed him. It was Jang Hwonwoo.

“Sa Yeonri-nim, what was today’s lesson about?”

Jang Hwonwoo, who had started living at the mansion, made sure to speak to Jae Eunho at least once a day. He didn’t have time to deal with a child. On top of that, he was the son of the man he wanted to eliminate, which made it even more annoying. Jae Eunho finally snapped at him.

“I heard you were sensible and mature, but it seems you’re terrible at reading my mood. Can’t you see I’m busy?”

“I came here while I’m busy, too.”

“Sigh… You. Don’t look for the love you didn’t get from your parents from me. Go look for it somewhere else.”

He had spewed venom at a child. But Jae Eunho, who had been holding it in for months, had reached his limit. He had to get rid of him this way. The boy blinked his eyes and then replied.

“You’re being too harsh. It’s the opposite.”

“What?”

“I came to give you love. Hee……”