As True as a Dream Chapter 58

Two men sitting across from each other in the great hall, talking, jumped to their feet in surprise as three men burst into the courtyard.

 

“Chief Li…?”

 

“You… Yangbu…!”

 

The shaman’s black eyes swept wildly in all directions, ignoring the two men’s conversation, and soon he was in the west room, flinging the door wide open.

 

Jige, who had been sitting with Yangbu, jumped to his feet in surprise and rolled his eyes.

 

“What are you doing? What is this…! Chief Li, who is this shaman?”

 

“Brother, calm down. I told you; we’re doing good for this patrol tonight!”

 

Jige gasped as Yangbu shivered.

 

Everyone knew that they would be doing good for the victims in the neighboring village tonight.

 

But when the man jumped into the courtyard, they stood still, and when the shaman went into the western chamber, Jige wondered why Yangbu was suddenly so angry.

 

Just then, the shaman, who had been shuffling things around in the west room, picked up a long, black, horizontal box and threw it into the great hall.

 

It opened and an old scroll rolled out, looking very old.

 

“This… don’t touch it, I’m keeping it for someone else!”

 

The knife the shaman held above his head was about to plunge into the scroll.

 

Nobody knew what was happening.

 

In the blink of an eye, the shaman lay dead in the corner of the courtyard.

 

Chief Li was horrified and rushed down from the great hall to the shaman and helped him to his feet.

 

Ignoring the man, Yangbu picked up the painting from the ground and carefully placed it in a box.

 

“You bastard!”

 

At that moment, a voice as shrill as a shaman’s blade slammed into Yangbu’s back.

 

Startled, Jige stumbled backwards.

 

“Do you realize what you have here?”

 

The shaman with blood at the corners of his mouth pressed his hand to his chest and glared at Yangbu.

 

Yangbu stepped back, clutching the box to his chest in confusion.

 

***

 

The knife in the shaman’s hand trembled, and the rings rattled again.

 

“What nonsense are you talking about, how can a painting harm a man?”

 

“Doesn’t a black snake live in the painting?”

 

The shaman glared at the box in Yangbu’s hand with a ferocity that sent shivers down his spine.

 

“The spirit has spoken, and if you do not remove the painting, another man will die tomorrow, and the child in the east room will not live another month!”

 

The shaman’s voice trailed off and Yangbu’s face turned pale.

 

Then he stamped his huge feet and stood on the steppingstones beneath the Great Hall.

 

“You impostor! How dare you speak of a pierced mouth. How dare you play with my daughter’s life! Chief Li, take this crazy man out of here right now!”

 

“That child! Isn’t she sick after coming in contact with the painting? The flesh of the painting has hit her! If you don’t believe me, just wait, she will surely die!”

 

After speaking, the shaman turned to leave, but suddenly, he turned around and charged at Yangbu.

 

His persistence was frightening.

 

But before he could touch the box, something hit him, sending him flying into the courtyard.

 

The shaman finally sat up and coughed up a mouthful of red blood.

 

The shaman looked like a ghost.

 

The whole place was eerily quiet.

 

Chief Li and Jige were white with fear, and Yangbu was stiff and rigid.

 

Yangbu did nothing.

 

But before the shaman could touch the box, a force pushed him away.

 

Yangbu’s heart began to pound in his chest.

 

He had only kept the painting at the request of an acquaintance.

 

But the shaman said that if he kept the painting, it would kill him and others.

 

Yangbu didn’t believe in superstition, but he couldn’t play hardball anymore.

 

He could never gamble with Hae-Joo’s life.

 

She was a miracle in his lonely life.

 

The next day, Yangbu took the Guishan Dao and went to the city at dawn to find his friend.

 

But the acquaintance, who had agreed to stay at an inn called Zhao’am for a while, was not there.

 

Yangbu asked the innkeeper to give the Guishan Dao to his acquaintance, and then he hurried back to the village.

 

On his way back, he heard that three more people had died in Dongguan Village.

 

Frantically rushing home, Yangbu stepped into the great hall, but his legs gave out and he collapsed.

 

The reason was that the Guishan Dao was lying on the side of the Great Hall.

 

‘He left it with the innkeeper! Why is it in the house?’

 

The shaman’s words flashed through the pale Yangbu’s mind, sending him into a crucible of terror.

 

Rolling into the room where Hae-Joo was lying, Yangbu picked up Hae-Joo, whose entire body was black with fever, and glared at the painting.

 

***

 

Yangbu had not moved from holding Hae-Joo all afternoon.

 

He was paralyzed with fear that if he put her down, she would die.

 

It was late at night when he heard someone at the gate.

 

It was the voice of someone he knew.

 

Yangbu jumped up, threw down his Hae-Joo, and ran out barefoot.

 

The acquaintance said that he had come for the painting he had left at the inn.

 

Yangbu ran back to the Great Hall, grabbed the Guishan Dao, and shoved them in front of him.

 

“Do you… do you know what these paintings are…?”

 

“A painting is a painting, what do you mean?”

 

“You don’t know anything?”

 

Seeing the lighthearted, even mocking tone of his acquaintance, Yangbu realized that this simple guy really didn’t know anything.

 

The acquaintance laughed and patted Yangbu’s shoulder.

 

“What do you mean, I don’t know? Anyway, Thank you. I’ll be on my way, so I’ll leave you alone. You look hungry, so eat some meat, Yangbu, here you go!”

 

Before Yangbu could catch up with him, the acquaintance scurried out of the courtyard with the Guishan Dao.

 

When the painting disappeared from Yangbu’s thatch, no more people died that day.

 

***

 

When she finished listening to Uncle Jige’s story, she sat down on a rock under a pine tree.

 

“Your father cried a lot, but crying won’t solve anything. The people are gone, but you’re still alive. Every day you go to the old man’s house and beg on your knees. He told me that he deserved to die… that he didn’t want you to know… that he didn’t know what he had done… that he would take their lives himself.”

 

Before Uncle Jige went back into the straw, he said this to Hae-Joo, sobbing.

 

Hae-Joo couldn’t say anything.

 

That day, she remembered her father smiling broadly and bragging about the Guishan Dao.

 

After her fever had subsided, he would sometimes stare blankly at the distant mountains.

 

Yangbu laughed bitterly and said that he was burnt out from worrying about her, but it wasn’t true.

 

Looking back, she also remembered the seemingly rigid relationship between Yangbu and Chief Li Zhang.

 

He was a kind, smiling old man to her, but for some reason, he was blunt.

 

As she calmly remembered these things one by one, she remembered another thing that she thought was strange.

 

Drifting, long songs, lyrics and chants…

 

These villages are relatively close to each other, and many people go back and forth, but Hae-Joo is the only one who has never been there.

 

Yangbu always said, “I’ll take you next time,” but in the end, he never took her.

 

When she was a little older, he would somehow prevent her from going to those villages, although she would rather send her to the city to distract her with new paint or jewelry.

 

“Your father was only forty-two when he left. I don’t know why he left so early. He said he was more worried about living that long. If it wasn’t for you, he would have gone sooner.”

 

Hae-Joo bit her lip hard.

 

Eight years ago, twenty-one people from all four villages except Sogok Village were killed by that curse.

 

Twenty-one.

 

Twenty-one people, more than you could count on your fingers and toes.

 

At the thought of that number, Hae-Joo felt a tightness in her chest.

 

Her hands shook and her vision blurred.

 

The guilt that Yangbu must have felt for the past eight years, laughing and joking and talking like a fool without saying a word, sickened him.

 

Hae-Joo couldn’t lift her head either.

 

The tragedy that most people remembered as a horrible death had started in the thatched hut where she and Yangbu lived.

 

If only they hadn’t settled in Sogok Village.

 

If only they’d passed this place.

 

If only her father hadn’t brought the painting.

 

If only her father’s acquaintance hadn’t entrusted him with the painting.

 

What-ifs that she couldn’t change, but wished she could, swirled in her head.

 

“Ahhh… what if…”

 

Hae-Joo buried her face in her hands.

 

She felt like she had a stone in her chest that she couldn’t swallow.

 

‘How can I live? How can I live if I feel sorry for all these dead people? How did my father live?’

 

“How will I go to ….?”

 

Her breath caught in her throat and she thumped her fist loudly against her chest.

 

Suddenly she was ashamed of this life she’d kept, this life she’d guarded so cunningly, so viciously.

 

That was it.

 

A black shadow appeared in front of her.

 

She looked up and saw Yi Ho.

 

He looked down at her, his forehead furrowed.

 

“How long will you stay here?”

 

“When… did you get here?”

 

“I’ve been here all along.”

 

As if he didn’t know that, Yi Ho clicked his tongue softly and rubbed his forefinger over the corner of her eye.

 

“I haven’t been crying.”

 

“I mean, when you’re upset, it’s better to cry.”

 

“For what?”

 

“Did you kill them?”

 

“What?”

 

Hae-Joo blinked at the bluntness of Yi Ho’s words, which were direct and even a little cold.

 

“Why should you feel so guilty? You almost died back then, too, remember? Your foster father wouldn’t have brought that painting back to the village if he knew it was something like that, would he?”