Be the Sacrifice Chapter 3

Hee-sa suddenly realized something and broke into a wide, radiant smile once more. 

 

The idle villagers, envious of the sacrificial offerings whose sick old mothers had been healed and whose lives had grown bearable, would spin wild tales and whisper them behind their hands.

 

“Hee-sa!”

 

“What? It’s not exactly wrong, is it?”

 

Hee-sa let out a soft, melting laugh. In the darkness of night, with her face so eerily pale it could easily be mistaken for a ghost’s, that smile looked almost otherworldly—beautiful, haunting, dangerous.

 

In a village that still believed in the Mountain Lord and offered living sacrifices, such rumors were allowed to exist. 

 

Because they clung so fiercely to the shaman’s word, because they believed without question that Hee-sa was no mere demon but the Mountain Lord’s own envoy, the village remained quiet.

 

“If you keep smiling like that, people really will start calling you a monster.”

 

“Seems I’m not cut out to be a god after all.”

 

Hee-sa answered lightly, as though it truly didn’t matter to her either way. She didn’t choose just anyone as a sacrifice. 

 

Usually the shaman made the selection, but on rare occasions Hee-sa herself would point. 

 

Almost always, the shaman picked those in desperate straits—the poor, the ones with sick family members drowning in medicine debts—and sent them up the mountain.

 

And every single one had returned alive. So far, no trouble had ever arisen.

 

But ever since the day Hee-sa had named Hong Yeomrang, the shaman had been seized by dread.

 

Why him? Of all the people in the village, why single out Hong Yeomrang?

 

Hee-sa never extended mercy to those who already had plenty. 

 

Until now she had always chosen from the truly wretched—those who could barely afford medicine, whose households teetered on ruin.

 

Occasionally a woman had been chosen, yet the village’s gossip and leering fascination always fixed on the men instead, tongues wagging endlessly.

 

They would laugh it off—“Better not let jealousy taint the offering”—and move on.

 

But Hong Yeomrang was not someone the village could simply laugh about and forget.

 

This would become a problem. A catastrophic one. The shaman’s premonition was bone-deep. 

 

And so once again, the tears came pouring out in heaving sobs.

 

“Stop your blubbering and get moving.”

 

The tobacco in the general’s long pipe burned feebly, almost lifelessly. Hong Jang-gun—General Hong—puffed hard on the pipe for the third time, lighting yet another bowl, before he finally spoke to the son seated before him.

 

“Two months from now, word has it the royal family will begin collecting four-pillars charts to select a royal son-in-law.”

 

The air between father and son thickened with unspoken weight—ambition, resentment, and the sharp, inevitable pull of fate already tightening around Hong Yeomrang like invisible threads.

 

Hee-sa’s pale, luminous smile lingered in the memory like moonlight on still water, beautiful and perilous, while the village whispered and the mountain waited.

 

And somewhere in that silence, something unspoken between them had already begun to burn.

 

The rumor only circulated among the highest ranks—so it was no longer rumor, but certainty.

 

General Hong still believed in the exceptional four-pillars fate written in his son’s birth chart.

 

And yet… could a son who would not hesitate to report even his own father to the authorities truly devote himself to the revival of the family line?

 

As time passed, the general found himself unable to trust even his own flesh and blood. He had sent the boy down to serve under a famously incorruptible superior, thinking at least that friend would never be accused. 

 

But somehow the son had only grown more rigid, more unyielding—and now General Hong felt strangely inconvenienced by his own child’s presence.

 

“I didn’t say anything at all.”

 

“That’s exactly why—shut your mouth and get going! Go up the mountain and seclude yourself in training or whatever it takes.”

 

In the worst case, this village would become their final line of defense. 

 

No one was dying. People came back carrying wild ginseng, rare medicinal herbs, precious goods. 

 

All he had to do was play along with the villagers’ rhythm for a while. In wartime, harmony with the common folk was the most vital thing of all.

 

But in truth, what tormented General Hong most was his own upcoming birthday, only half a month away.

 

Gifts would arrive from every direction. And once again, he would find himself glancing sideways at his son—watching for judgment.

 

“Ah… you mean go up the mountain, not the capital.”

 

Hong Yeomrang gave the faintest nod, an expression crossing his face that even his father could not read. 

 

Was it acceptance? Refusal? Resignation? 

 

When the boy was small, such inscrutability could be forgiven as childishness. But now—barely past twenty, already hardened—should this son one day drag his father back to the authorities on charges of bribery… the shame would be enough to make a man want to hang himself.

 

He had to keep the boy out of sight until the palace made its decision on the royal son-in-law.

 

And then, perfectly timed, the boy had been named the sacrifice.

 

A sacrifice.

 

The great house of a distinguished military hero—first producing a prospective royal consort, now about to produce a living offering to the mountain.

 

No matter which way one looked at it, Hong Yeomrang stood at the very center of the storm.

 

Beside him, the eldest son pressed his lips tightly together, shoulders trembling as he fought back laughter.

 

“Tsk… every single one of my sons…”

 

The headaches, the shame, the endless anxiety—they all belonged to General Hong alone.

 

Yet in that moment, even as the general seethed, Hong Yeomrang’s quiet profile carried an eerie calm. 

 

Somewhere deep inside him, the memory of Hee-sa’s pale, luminous smile flickered like foxfire—beautiful, untouchable, and terrifyingly alive. She had chosen him. 

 

Not out of mercy. Not out of politics.

 

She had chosen him.

 

And now the mountain waited, patient and ancient, while something unspoken between them coiled tighter still—half threat, half promise, entirely inevitable.

 

“Will you really accept someone who has become a sacrificial offering into the palace? If word spreads that he’s been defiled, wouldn’t His Majesty fly into a rage upon learning of it?”

 

“If my older brother keeps his mouth shut, there’s no chance this village matter will ever leak as far as the capital.”

 

Hong Yeomrang spoke with a gentle, almost tender smile directed straight at Hong In-nam’s face—the face of a man clearly reveling in this moment, frantic to drag him down. 

 

The smile was soft, yet it carried an edge sharp enough to cut through the air between them.

 

“I went into the mountains for training. As for the sacrifice, I’ll send up some suitable young man in my place.”

 

“What? Isn’t that deceiving the entire village? What if a tiger appears again, or next year brings famine…?”

 

“I never imagined my own son would actually believe in such absurd superstitions.” 

 

General Hong’s voice was stern, final. 

 

“Just play along convincingly for a while. That’s all that’s needed. We preserve the village’s respect, and the second son enters the palace safely—there’s no need to expose any shame.”

 

At his father’s harsh words, Hong In-nam—who had suddenly been branded the fool who believed in old wives’ tales—clamped his mouth shut.

 

And yet… it felt real.

 

He had gone beneath the sacred tangs tree himself, weeping, praying with desperate fervor. He had heard the story: a man offered as sacrifice had saved his ailing old mother. 

 

In that moment of grasping at straws, he had tried it too—despite telling himself it was mere superstition.

 

In yangban families, not a single person had ever been chosen as an offering. 

 

People even praised the mountain lord for watching over the needy in that way. So he never truly believed his younger brother would become the sacrifice.

 

But then he did.

 

It was real.

 

“Father!”

 

“As your brother said—if you just keep quiet, that’s all. You alone!”

 

For the first time in his life, he had fallen in love—achingly, helplessly—and the object of that love was a princess.

 

Hong In-nam stared at his father with raw resentment: a man who had no intention of ever considering his eldest son’s fate, his saju, his destiny. 

 

After one trip to the capital, the once-steady eldest son now fluttered like a kite with a torn string—limp, directionless, pathetic in General Hong’s eyes.

 

“There’s said to be a monster in the mountains.”

 

“Ah… I’ve seen it myself.”

 

The words hung between them, heavy with unspoken things—fear, fate, and the quiet, burning awareness that something irreversible had already begun to shift inside Hong Yeomrang’s heart.

 

Hong In-nam nodded at Hong Yeomrang’s words, the motion slow, almost reluctant, as if the weight of the secret they were weaving pressed down on him.

 

The villagers spoke of her in hushed tones, the woman who appeared on the mountain paths. She never aged, her beauty frozen in an unearthly grace that made people whisper yokai—demon—yet the shamans swore she was the mountain lord’s own messenger. 

 

No one dared speak ill of her. She harmed no one. 

 

When travelers lost their way in the deep night, she would emerge from the mist like a dream made flesh, walking ahead with silent, effortless steps. 

 

Follow her, and the village lights would soon appear below, safe and warm.

 

Even outsiders who passed through carried the same tale: she was no malevolent spirit, only a guardian veiled in enigma.

 

“Be careful with your words around the villagers,” Hong Yeomrang said quietly. “They call her the mountain lord’s envoy.”

 

“If something neither ages nor dies walks among the living, isn’t that the very definition of a monster?” 

 

Hong In-nam countered, voice low.

 

“Watch yourself.”

 

General Hong, who had never laid eyes on her and knew her only through rumor, privately agreed she must be some kind of yokai. She appeared without warning and vanished just as suddenly, leaving no trace, no proof of flesh or bone—only the shiver she left behind in those who glimpsed her.

 

“Let’s say I went to hunt the monster,” 

 

Hong Yeomrang decided, his tone firm, final.

 

Not as a sacrifice offered to the mountain, but as a warrior who had taken up arms against the strange being haunting their peaks. 

 

At those words, a spark lit in General Hong’s eyes—sharp, approving.

 

“Exactly. A man who passed the military examination has a duty, to slay wicked spirits and bring peace to the people.”

 

Whether he could truly capture or kill her was another matter entirely.

 

She was called the mountain lord’s envoy, yet her existence remained maddeningly uncertain—spotted only in fleeting moments, like a ghost drifting between trees. 

 

If she vanished entirely, the villagers might never even notice. 

 

And if rumors ever spread that he had become tainted as a sacrificial offering, this story would shield them, how could a newly certified military officer simply ignore a monster preying on his own village?

 

For the first time, General Hong felt a rare alignment of spirit with his second son. 

 

A deep, rumbling laugh escaped him—genuine, unguarded.

 

But when his gaze met Hong Yeomrang’s—quiet, steady, almost distant—the laughter died. 

 

A flush of awkwardness crept up the general’s neck. He quickly lifted his pipe to his lips again, drawing deeply on the tobacco as if to hide behind the curling smoke.

 

In the silence that followed, Hong Yeomrang’s thoughts drifted elsewhere—unbidden, unstoppable. 

 

To her. To the princess whose face had lodged itself in his chest like an arrow he could neither pull free nor ignore. 

 

Every heartbeat carried her name now, soft and insistent, turning even this grim conspiracy into something charged with secret longing. He would climb that mountain not just for duty or deception… but because somewhere in its shadowed depths, fate—or perhaps something far more dangerous—awaited him.

 

Hong In-nam and Hong Yeomrang rose together after the briefest of bows, their father’s dismissive wave cutting the air like a blade.

 

Hong In-nam’s legs had gone numb from sitting so long; he limped awkwardly, each step a small humiliation. Hong Yeomrang, by contrast, moved across the wide wooden floor of the main hall with effortless grace—tall, steady, untouchable. 

 

Even in this moment of shared conspiracy, he looked infuriatingly superior to his elder brother. 

 

Resentment flared hot in Hong In-nam’s chest.

 

“So even the great Hong Yeomrang dislikes the whispers circling the position of royal consort?” he said, voice laced with spite. 

 

“Does the thought of becoming the princess’s husband offend your noble pride?”

 

“Royal consort?”

 

Hong Yeomrang stopped mid-stride. 

 

The sudden halt made Hong In-nam freeze as well, one foot still hovering. An old childhood instinct surged up—get too close and a fist would follow. He knew the feel of those knuckles too well.

 

“Father must have promised to submit your saju,” 

 

Hong In-nam pressed, “and now you strut around like you’ve already won the palace.”

 

Hong Yeomrang turned fully, eyes narrowing to dangerous slits.

 

“You still cling to that superstitious nonsense. What exactly does my fate have to do with anything?”

“That…!”

 

Hong Yeomrang’s gaze flicked upward for a heartbeat, as though seeing something far beyond the rafters.

 

“You and that shaman are in league with the girl perched in the tangsan tree. The two of you plotting together, trying to trap me—did you really think I’d just stand there and let it happen?”

 

“What are you even talking about?”

 

Hong In-nam’s confusion was genuine. He had seen nothing atop the sacred tree—no girl, no yellow cloth clutched in pale hands, no lithe figure half-hidden among the thick summer leaves. 

 

But Hong Yeomrang had seen her clearly. 

 

Every furtive movement, every stolen glance downward. The way she watched him, breath held, as though the entire mountain held its breath with her.

 

A low, mirthless laugh escaped him.

 

He had never believed—not once—in the fortune-teller’s babble about becoming the royal son-in-law. He wanted no stain on his life, no shadow cast by mountain gods or village gossip. 

 

That was why he had chosen to hunt the so-called monster himself: to erase her, to silence whatever strange power she held over the village… and perhaps over him.

 

The irony was almost poetic. 

 

His father’s scheming and his brother’s petty jealousy had aligned perfectly with his own resolve, but not for the reasons they imagined. He cared nothing for the title of General, nothing for a princess whose name alone made his pulse stutter traitorously in his veins.

 

To Hong Yeomrang, father and elder brother suddenly looked eerily alike—both clinging desperately to old superstitions, both blind to the truth staring them in the face.

 

And somewhere high above, unseen by the others, a girl wrapped in yellow silk pressed her palm to the rough bark, heart hammering, watching the man who had sworn to destroy her walk away—unaware that every step he took toward the mountain was already drawing him inexorably toward her.