Wandering Through – Vol. 1 Chapter 27 – Second Life 01

Author: Nikss

Sitting down where Ban had been sitting, the Gukmu wiped his clothes, soiled by the uninvited guest’s behavior.

No amount of scrubbing would make them as clean as the first time, but it was better than nothing.

He repeatedly scrubbed a dry cloth over his clothes. He hadn’t been doing this for long when he heard the footsteps of his expected guest.

“Did you know?”

Asked the same question as the uninvited visitor who had thrown him to the ground, Gukmu returned the same answer.

“I spoke in no uncertain terms, Huishan.”

However, what followed was different.

“I’ve always been honest with you. You’re the one who doesn’t believe.”

The woman, whose name in this life was Eunbi, but who was more often called Huishan these days, chewed her lip.

Gukmu lowered his gaze to his still-stained clothes.

“In my previous life, I told you not to marry him, and I told you not to kill him, but you listened to none of it.”

“…You.”

She was silent for a long moment after the words left her mouth. He did not urge her to go under the roof, even as the rain grew thicker.

As the drops pooled on her chin and dripped, she continued, her voice small enough to be lost in the sound of the rain.

“…I knew you had me in your heart.”

“Did you think I would have lied to you, jealous of your marriage?”

“I did.”

“I have wished you well all my life.”

“…”

“I did not pray for your misfortune that I did not have you. That is the heart I have given to you. Huishan.”

And I didn’t bother to add that you trampled on me. Because we both already knew.

💫

Second Life 01

One year after the end of the Joseon Dynasty.

“You will be nameless, always and forever.”

His god was jealous and would never let him have any of it.

Not a name, not a relationship, not a life.

Even his mother was worried about offending his god, so when he was old enough to walk, she built him a shrine in the mountains, behind the shrine temple, where he lived alone.

Only when he had important guests would they climb the mountain to use his powers.

The name he was called changed every time.

When he was a baby, they called him Ganan, and when he was older, they called him Jagomi.

After that, it changed every time. His mother never called him by the same name more than three times.

Ten years old, he was called Yeoldol, and a kind man gave him silver…

At least for a while, his visitors called him Little Shaman.

Even that wasn’t his name, but he never received more than two guests who said they were uneasy about it.

The only exception was the youngest daughter of a Samhan clan, whom not even the King could touch.

Not knowing anything else, her mother paid a thousand gold coins for the sickly little girl.

Perhaps it was because of a certain monk who said that a young shaman with great faith would cure a person if they stayed with him for three years.

Neither he nor she was too old to teach men or women, so they were not too embarrassed to keep him.

For the next three years, half the month, she stayed at his shrine. She made a fuss whenever she came, dragging her servants upstairs, but he didn’t mind, because they didn’t mind him either.

The problem was the youngest child, a four-year-old who knew nothing.

“Jagomiya, what are you doing?”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“I see. But Jagomi, what are we doing?”

“Nothing.”

They were both very strange kids in the eyes of others.

Three years passed without them saying much to each other, and when she was healthy enough, she went back down the mountain.

He didn’t think he’d ever see her again, but she would often come back up the mountain, sit on the floor next to him, and watch the clouds without saying a word.

“Jagomi, what fun do you have here?”

Even after he grew taller than her, she always called him Jagomi, the name introduced to her by her stepmother when they first met.

Suddenly, one day, it felt like his name.

Days when she didn’t come became boring. His days became divided into days when she came and days when she didn’t.

But even when he realized it, it didn’t change anything, because she sometimes came, and he acted no differently than he had before.

One day, the year she turned fifteen.

“A tale has been told to me. Let’s see if we’re compatible.”

He did as she wished, wordlessly. As he calculated the date of her birth, which she had given him, she asked him, hesitantly.

“Jagomi, you are not a bad match.”

“What should I be sad about?”

“Because when I get married, I won’t come here anymore.”

She looked at the clouds as usual, and then, unlike usual, she said the same thing one more time.

“When I get married, I won’t come here anymore.”

He stood still and watched her sideways face instead of the clouds.

For a long time, they remained silent, but no one pressed him to speak. He waited until the sun was tilting sideways to speak.

“Don’t marry. Huishan.”

“Why. Are we not compatible?”

“Yes. The groom is a man destined to be killed and die, and the bride is a widow to live with for the rest of her life.”

She burst out laughing. As if she had heard something ridiculous.

“The other monks are raving about it, but not you.”

“…”

“It’s the will of the family, so what’s the big deal? If it’s bad, it’s bad, if it’s good, it’s better.”

“…But don’t do it.”

“Jagomi.”

He said the same thing three times for the first time in his life.

“This man will make you unhappy. Don’t marry him.”

“Then who will I marry?”

He didn’t answer, and she got up.

“If my groom dies suddenly and leaves me a widow, who shall take me? For a widow is not a fit mate for any lowly lass.”

Whether she was joking, serious, mocking, or something else, I couldn’t tell. All I know is that she left, and never climbed the mountain again.

…until her groom was dying.

💫

The first year of the Joseon Dynasty.

“Jagomiya. Jagomiya!”

The knocking on the door in the middle of the night was desperate.

He opened the door, and as soon as he did, she was in his arms, clinging to him like a broken record.

“Help me, please, help me…”

Even though they hadn’t seen each other in years, she clung to him as if it were yesterday and choked back sobs.

Behind her, a man was being carried by an elder, and several others were clustered around him.

Frantically, she dragged him to the man being carried by the elder.

“Help me with my husband, will you, Jagomi…”

“The doctors…”

“They don’t know. The man is dying and they don’t know. Does that make sense? If that makes sense…”

He beckoned to the sweating them and led her into the shrine.

The doctor, Duot, rushed over and clasped the man’s hands and feet. The white-faced old man, who looked like an official, frowned and scanned the hall inside the shrine.

“If His Majesty knows…”

“Then you mean to tell me that we should leave him to die as he is, out of breath? We should do something, something!”

She sharply retorted from her position on the floor in exhaustion.

The white-faced old man muttered with a stern expression.

“If your majesty doesn’t get better, His Highness will reprimand you even harsher.”

“I can’t just do nothing when my husband is dying because I’m afraid of being reprimanded by Shibu!”

There was a loud shout, and then a wail of a child. The old woman carrying the swaddled baby couldn’t help but cry out.

Huishan immediately took the child over and sat down next to the bedridden man, speaking to him.

“Your hand is now past the stone. You must open your eyes. Or on whom do we depend for our survival?”

The man’s eyes remained closed, unmoved by the desperate words. He was certainly too young to die now, with the faintest hint of age still showing on his handsome face.

But in his eyes, the man’s life had already come to an end.

All the masters in the eight provinces of Joseon could not save him.

Likewise, he could not prevent the man’s death. If that was the end of his life, no matter how much she begged, how could he…

“—My lord, do you see me?”

At the sound of her voice, he lifted his head sharply.

The man who should be dead opened his eyes. He flinched as he met the man’s eyes, which hadn’t yet returned to focus.

At that gaze, his god was pleased. The one who had been with him since birth.

There was a very strange sensation.

It was as if his whole life had been orchestrated for this moment…

He walked out of the shrine. He had to. Likewise, he knew clearly where he had to go. He climbed the mountain.

At the base of a giant old oak, a small body, clad in rags, lay prostrate. He stood before it.

The muddy face looked up, saw him, and grabbed his leg.