As True as a Dream Chapter 119

Governor Saito was briefed briefly on Mao’s situation.

 

The gist of it was that a constable and a deputy constable patrolling near the residence had heard gunfire in the night and entered the residence, where they found twenty-six dead Japanese soldiers in the garden and Mao, who was on the verge of death.

 

Saito’s face was expressionless, but a storm was brewing inside him.

 

‘Who the hell!’

 

What kind of a lunatic would break into the residence of the Governor General of the Joseon Governorate and do such a crazy thing!

 

As his anger rose like wildfire, his once-clear reason went up in smoke.

 

Ding!

 

“[I’m late, I’m sorry.]”

 

There was a knock on the door of the hospital room, followed by a doctor in a white gown with his head more than half covered, who entered and bowed respectfully to the governor.

 

“[Enough of the formalities, tell me what condition Mao is in now.]”

 

The doctor’s head jerked up once more at the vigor in Saito’s voice.

 

“[When the young lady arrived at the hospital, the situation was not good, with deep stab wounds on both shoulders, a gunshot wound to the left side of her abdomen and a bullet wound to her leg.]”

 

“[And?]”

 

“[We have completed the surgical treatment necessary for your situation, but….]”

 

When the doctor could no longer speak, Governor Saito turned around.

 

“[…I’m sorry. We tried our best, but it depends on Lady Mao’s will as to whether or not she will be able to wake up again, and even if she does, the right leg that was shot… will most likely be limp.]”

 

Having finished speaking with difficulty, the doctor closed his mouth as if in pity.

 

Governor Saito’s face, which had been stoic, grew increasingly grim as he listened to the doctor’s words.

 

Mao’s face, which had always been full of life, with its white face, pink cheeks, and camellia-like lips, looked as if she were about to die.

 

And that’s what squeezed the breath out of Governor Saito’s lungs.

 

‘Mao’s will? How ridiculous.’

 

He didn’t realize that the doctors’ words were a death sentence.

 

The half-hundred-year-old doctor was saying that Mao was hopeless.

 

Governor Saito’s whites burned at the thought that he might have to send Mao away after his beloved wife.

 

Mao was his beloved wife’s treasure and his only blood relative.

 

He felt sorry for his eldest daughter, who spent most of her time alone and without her parents because of his frequent travels to war, and that made her even more precious.

 

As he grew older and rarely went to war, he held her in the palm of his hand as if to repay her for what he had done for her, wondering if she would fly away if he blew on her or hurt her if she fell.

 

And this beautiful, innocent child would live this life forever, safe and sound, as long as he was here.

 

But the day would come when his life would be in danger at such a young age.

 

‘How dare you bring the daughter of a general of the Imperial Japanese Army and the daughter of the Governor General of Korea to this point.’

 

The momentum that had been somewhat subdued in recent years due to the absence of warfare has exploded into ferocity.

 

‘Dead?’

 

‘Hopeless?’

 

‘Mao’s will?’

 

‘Bullshit.’

 

‘No one is dead!’

 

‘Who is hopeless!’

 

He couldn’t let Mao die in vain like this.

 

He had to do whatever he could to save him.

 

Breathing in and out harshly with rising anger, Governor Saito turned abruptly and left the hospital room.

 

He stormed down the hallway and out of the hospital, looking everywhere.

 

Soon his eyes caught sight of a child hopping around under a tree, seemingly enjoying himself as if he were playing a game of tag with the tree, and he approached the child.

 

The child ran wildly, not seeing Governor Saito off to one side, and ran straight into him.

 

Saito grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him upright.

 

“[How far along are you with the Human Blood Stone?]”

 

Saito asked coldly, and a strange light shone in the child’s unblindfolded black eyes.

 

“The color isn’t quite right yet. We’re 560 people short.”

 

Staring down at the childlike figure, Saito remembered the doctor’s words of woe.

 

The doctor’s words of woe, that Mao could only be awakened by her own will.

 

“[…Kill him.]”

 

“What?”

 

“[Kill. All of them. Until the human blood stone is complete.]”

 

Governor Saito’s voice was like a deep abyss that once you fall into, you can never rise again.

 

“Are you sure you want me to kill them? All of them? Can I eat them? All of them?”

 

“[Yes. Do as you please, kill or eat, it’s up to you, but the stone in your right eye is mine.]”

 

“Okay. I can make another one. Hee hee hee! Kill, kill, kill! Eat blood, eat blood! Ahhhhh!”

 

Governor Saito’s jaw tightened as he watched Man Insa leaps jump higher than before, humming a folk song.

 

Mao could live if he had the blood stone.

 

He had originally wanted it to cure Mao’s illness, but now it had a different purpose.

 

Governor Saito thought of Mao lying on his bed with nothing but a sigh.

 

There’s no time or space to think things through.

 

It was a shame that he couldn’t use the Great Blood Stone on Mao right now.

 

It would save her life, and her limp leg would be as good as washed.

 

Governor Saito walked back to the hospital room, leaving the Man Insa pacing around the room, his mouth watering as if searching for prey.

 

“Mom!”

 

Running, not caring if Governor Saito was coming or going, Kyung-in suddenly ran to a shrunken, pale-complexioned woman standing off to one side, grabbed her by the hem of her skirt, and shook her.

 

The woman closed her eyes tightly at his touch, then took a deep breath as if holding something in, and opened her eyes.

 

She opened her eyes and took a deep breath as if holding something in.

 

A being in the shell of her son, but not at all like him.

 

“Humans are so greedy, Mommy. That’s what makes it so funny, that they don’t mind killing and dying for a piece of rock, don’t you think, Mommy?”

 

The Korean woman, called Sae by the people in the governor’s residence, pursed her thin, roughly chapped lips.

 

“…Kill…kill them, really? All of them?”

 

“My father says I can kill them. He says so. I’m hungry. Hungry and hungry and hungry. Doesn’t mom feel bad when Kyung-in is hungry too?”

 

Sae wanted to scream at the top of her lungs that she’s not his mother.

 

She wanted to scream that a monster like him is not her son, and that he killed her son.

 

That day.

 

She remembered the day everything changed.

 

Just two months earlier, Sae had stolen important documents from the home of her Japanese employer and boarded a train to Gyeonggi Province with her three-year-old son, Kyung-in.

 

She was on a mission to hand over the documents to an independence movement group.

 

But Japanese soldiers chased her to the train, and she left Kyung-in with a Korean woman in Ssangmyeonbuji.

 

When she left him, she thought she might lose him forever.

 

But she thought it was better to live out her life with him than to be captured.

 

Fortunately, she was not discovered on the train, and she asked the woman who took care of her one more time for a favor.

 

She asked the woman who took care of him to bring him to the abandoned well in Sindangjeong, Gyeongseong.

 

She was lucky enough to meet a good person and was able to see him again.

 

The woman who took care of the child then, with clear eyes, advised her and Kyung-in.

 

“If something happens to your mother one day, you run away and don’t look back. Live. Live somehow.”

 

“Teach him how to live when you’re gone.”

 

Sae was both embarrassed and grateful at the woman’s accusatory tone.

 

She had done everything she could to protect her country.

 

There was nothing wrong with her patriotism, but the woman’s words were not wrong either.

 

If she couldn’t take care of her own child, how could she do anything more?

 

That day, Sae’s heart ached with remorse as she saw the child crying and clinging to her leg, and she realized that from now on she would take good care of this beautiful piece of flesh that had fallen from her body.

 

“Kyung-in… I’m sorry for today, but from now on… I’ll never leave you alone. Okay?”

 

“Mom, hehe.”

 

Kyung-in, who didn’t know anything yet, just laughed along with her and followed the butterfly as it flew away.

 

Sae looked at Kyung-in with tender and affectionate eyes, who hadn’t said a word of complaint despite the hardships of running away.

 

But then, out of nowhere, a black snake wrapped itself around his ankle and, in the blink of an eye, slithered into the tiny child’s mouth.

 

Sae was too stunned and horrified to scream.

 

The black snake’s tail disappeared into his mouth in an instant, and he fell to the ground, stiff and rigid.