Chapter 58
“…….”
“I told you not to let your guard down.”
Another person answered in a dissatisfied tone.
“Do you think we let our guard down because we wanted to? That girl was being so docile that we figured there was no way she’d run away.”
“Exactly. And we did our best. Who would’ve thought she’d shoot out needles right there? We were so startled when the guy guarding her collapsed. Thankfully, he was only paralyzed.”
“Still, it wasn’t an ordinary paralysis poison. He couldn’t move for nearly half a day.”
‘What are they talking about?’
I concentrated and listened carefully to the men. The sound of people clicking their tongues came from here and there.
“So, is that guy all right?”
“He should’ve recovered somewhat by now, right? He was furious. He was ranting that once he caught her, he’d teach her a lesson.”
“Give me a break. What good would it do for him to teach her a lesson? We have to sell her off immediately once we catch her…”
One of the men suddenly gave a hollow laugh.
“Can we even catch her? We haven’t seen so much as a single strand of her hair until now. Seems like she really did get away.”
Someone sighed before responding.
“Tell me about it. Honestly, when she ran into the mountains, I thought we’d catch her in no time. How far could a brat possibly get? I never thought she’d disappear this cleanly.”
“Are you sure she ran into the mountains? Could she have taken another route?”
“No way. The only place she could’ve hidden was the mountain. Everywhere else is open fields. If she went there, she would’ve been spotted immediately…”
The men grumbled and vented their frustrations. One sighed about what a pain all this was, while another spewed vulgar curses.
Someone quietly muttered,
“…Should we search the surrounding area again?”
Another man shouted angrily.
“Search again? We just searched every nearby village until we were half dead! At this point, either someone is helping her or she’s gone far away. She could’ve already crossed into Guangxi.”
“Should we go back to Guangxi?”
“Forget it. We can’t waste any more time here. We told the Chief that we’d bring her to him soon, but we’ve already been dragging our feet without saying a word. This is going to become a serious problem.”
“But if we go back empty-handed like this…”
The men continued arguing back and forth for a while.
But they couldn’t reach an agreement, and eventually it was the voice of the man who had first entered the shrine that settled them down.
“All right, all right, enough. For now… let’s go back.”
The surroundings instantly fell silent.
“Go back? If we go like this, we’re going to get an earful.”
“Then are you saying we shouldn’t report it? We need to tell them what happened even now. What do you think will happen if we hide it without saying anything and they find out? Don’t you remember what happens when someone violates the rules of our Ssangsa Bang?”
No one answered. Whatever those rules were, they seemed to be quite strict.
The man clicked his tongue and continued.
“Let’s go back, report what happened, and follow the Chief’s decision. He’ll hold us responsible for losing that girl, but we did our best, so I’m sure he’ll take that into consideration.”
“Can’t be helped, I suppose? Let’s go back once the rain stops.”
“Haa, what kind of trouble are we going through because of that girl…”
The men each grumbled a word or two, but everyone seemed to accept the decision.
After that, they continued talking for a while longer. Most of it was about something called the Ssangsa Bang or whatever, so I couldn’t understand much of it. Still, there was one thing I could tell.
They were going back. They were giving up on searching for the person they had lost.
And perhaps, that person they had lost was…
‘Pyeonghyeon.’
I glanced down. Right below me, Pyeonghyeon was trembling violently.
‘So this was the situation she was in.’
I knew Pyeonghyeon was hiding something. From the way she couldn’t bring herself to talk about it easily, I had also figured it couldn’t be anything ordinary. But I never imagined she was being pursued by people like those men.
They had even been searching for Pyeonghyeon right up until a moment ago. They had searched not only the mountain but all the surrounding villages as well. Just realizing how persistent they had been was enough to make my skin crawl.
Should I consider myself lucky that we hadn’t reached the village sooner? If we’d been discovered on the way, or if they’d found us in the cave…
‘Heaven must have been on our side.’
I rubbed my chilled chest.
The good thing, at least, was that they were about to give up searching for Pyeonghyeon. If they had spent a little more time searching, we wouldn’t have been able to escape in the end.
‘Go already. Hurry up and go…’
I waited with bated breath, wishing for the rain to stop quickly so they would leave. As though my wish had been granted, the sound of the rain rapidly faded.
Once the rain stopped, the men began getting up one by one.
“Before we leave, let’s fill our stomachs at a nearby village. I’m starving to death.”
“Good idea. A little alcohol on the side would be perfect.”
Footsteps sounded, followed soon by the creak of the door. The men had left the shrine.
Silence descended.
Even after their footsteps faded into the distance and could no longer be heard, I didn’t immediately come out from beneath the altar. There was no telling whether someone might still be there.
Only after quite some time had passed did I finally crawl out from beneath the altar.
As I came out, Pyeonghyeon also crawled out after me, staggering as she did. Perhaps she had been under so much emotional strain that even in that short time, her face looked haggard.
I quietly looked at Pyeonghyeon before calling her in a low voice.
“Pyeonghyeon.”
“…….”
“It was you, wasn’t it?”
The person they were talking about.
Perhaps she understood what I meant, because Pyeonghyeon lowered her head deeply. She didn’t answer, but it was clearly an affirmation.
I let out a deep sigh.
“So that’s what was going on…”
“…….”
“For now… let’s run.”
“What?”
Pyeonghyeon raised her head.
“What do you mean, ‘what’? You heard them say they were going to the village. This is our chance. While they’re eating at the inn, we need to get as far away from here as possible. We don’t know when they’ll come looking again.”
“…….”
“Honestly, there are more than one or two things I want to ask you right now. But this isn’t the time. I’ll ask you once we reach somewhere safe.”
“…….”
“You’ll tell me everything then, right?”
At my words, Pyeonghyeon inhaled sharply. She looked straight at me and nodded.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
I turned my back and sat down in front of Pyeonghyeon. It was my usual signal for her to climb onto my back. Pyeonghyeon seemed to hesitate for a moment, but soon reached out and climbed onto my back.
I stood up with Pyeonghyeon on my back. There was no time to waste. We had to get away from here as quickly as possible.
I strode toward the shrine’s door. My heart was pounding. Ignoring the ominous feeling that kept creeping over me, I reached out.
Creeeak.
The door opened.
I froze.
Strangely, a shadow had fallen over me.
What was this? Why was there a shadow? And it was a shadow much larger than me, too. Almost as if it belonged to one of those men…
“Found you.”
I raised my head.
There he was, a man. The man grinned, exposing his yellow teeth.
“Little rats.”
***
Bang!
“Ugh……!”
I groaned as I was thrown into a warehouse.
In the end, we’d been caught. There hadn’t been any time to do anything.
The moment I noticed the man’s presence, other people were emerging from behind him, and before I could even take a single step, someone grabbed Pyeonghyeon by the scruff of her neck.
In the end, our hands and feet were tied with rope, and we were loaded onto a horse. After seemingly traveling somewhere, we were eventually dumped into this warehouse.
The man in front of me let out a sinister laugh.
“Heh heh, I knew you’d be there.”
“How did you know? I didn’t even notice.”
I was curious too. How did he know?
“You don’t know that either? There were footprints inside the shrine. The floor was so covered in dust that they were easy to see.”
“Someone else could’ve come through there, couldn’t they?”
“That’s possible, but strangely, the footprints were small. To be honest, I wasn’t certain either. I waited outside just in case, but when I still couldn’t sense any movement, I thought I’d been mistaken.”
‘Damn it.’
“But after waiting a little longer, I heard something from inside. And after that, you kindly came out all on your own.”
‘Damn it!’
I ground my teeth.
In the end, I’d lost the battle of patience against that man.
I should’ve waited longer. No, if this was how things were going to turn out, I shouldn’t have entered the shrine in the first place…
As I dwelled on my regrets, I heard voices outside.
“Hey, if you’ve put them in there, come out! We caught them safely, so let’s take care of the urgent business first.”
“Urgent business?”
“Apparently, the Vice Chief is nearby. Let’s bring the Vice Chief here, have him check the kid, and take them along with us. At the very least, if we go with the Vice Chief, don’t you think it’ll lessen the Chief’s anger?”
“Good, good. That sounds better.”
The men began filing out. Then one of the men suddenly made eye contact with me, pointed at me, and asked,
“But what are we going to do with this one?”
“This one?”
“The one we caught along with her. Honestly, judging by the way they look, I can’t even tell whether it’s a boy or a girl. Are we taking this one along too?”
“Hmm…”
The man outside looked at me. His snake-like, narrow eyes traveled up and down my body, sending chills all over me.
The man muttered,
“Who cares whether it’s a girl or a boy? Someone as ugly as that isn’t going to fetch anything anywhere. We’ll just get an earful for trying to pass off something like this as merchandise. And being so young, it’s useless anyway…”
“…….”
“Let’s kill it later and throw it into the mountains.”
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