As True as a Dream Chapter 70

They hadn’t even started walking toward the inn when Hae-Joo tugged lightly on Yi Ho’s shirt sleeve.

 

The playfulness that had been teasing him was gone from her face.

 

It was as if she had finally decided to let Yongzhou go first and start the conversation she wanted to have with him.

 

“Boss, do you remember the newspaper article we saw at Gyeongseong Station?”

 

“An article? You mean the article about the body you found?”

 

“Boss, you also said that the atmosphere in Gyeongseong has been terrible lately. Do you know why it’s terrible?”

 

Yi Ho narrowed his eyes at Hae-Joo’s question.

 

He had heard about it from Hongo earlier and had asked him to find out more.

 

A series of disappearances and a series of murders.

 

There’s no smoke in the chimney if there isn’t any.

 

Not since the Japanese invasion had Korea been in such unexplained turmoil.

 

He hadn’t yet received a report from Hongo on his findings, but from what he’d heard, there had been a number of murders where the blood was missing.

 

That was strange, he thought.

 

His intuition told him that this rash of events could not have been caused by humans.

 

‘Could it be the work of a ghost from Japan, or a bloodthirsty youkai that had survived somewhere, or a curse born of the wishes of those who had died in such a horrible and senseless manner in this land?’

 

But ever since his first day in Sogok Village, when Uncle Jige told him of the horrors in the villages outside of Gongju, a theory had formed in his mind.

 

All 21 victims of the eight-year-old Gongju murders had almost no blood left in their bodies.

 

The victims of the recent attacks in Gyeongseong were also said to have lost a lot of blood.

 

‘What if the same entity is responsible for these two incidents?’

 

It’s clear that the perpetrator of the murders is the “Man Insa” he’s looking for.

 

What if… the “Man Insa” he’s looking for is already in Gyeongseong?

 

He’s been running around hoping to find the Guishan Dao, but the Guishan Dao could already be somewhere in his area of operation in Gyeongseong.

 

Even worse, if he’s right, “Man Insa” has already jumped out of the painting and is on the move.

 

In the first place, the clue of a body with blood drained from it should have been enough to make him consider the possibility that it could be “Man Insa”.

 

But he overlooked that possibility because he was so focused on the fact that the Guishan Dao disappeared eight years ago and hasn’t been seen since.

 

“Boss, can you hear me?”

 

When Yi Ho looked away, Hae-Joo scratched her forehead and spoke again.

 

“Recently… in the last month or two, there have been many cases of people going missing or dying in Jingsheng Province. The first one I heard about was three members of the Xin Tang family starving to death… but when I heard about it again later, they said that all of their blood was missing. Do you know why it was called a Western ghost attack? It’s in the West.”

 

“There are ghosts called vampires, and they feed on human blood.”

 

“How do you know that?”

 

“Because every person has a specialty.”

 

Yi Ho didn’t know whether to laugh or feel embarrassed when he answered jokingly.

 

He wanted to laugh at Hae-Joo’s cleverness, at her ability to think and reason her way to an almost correct answer without him having to mention it.

 

On the other hand, he was troubled by the fact that this woman, who was so concerned about the lives of the twenty-one members of Gongju Village, was better off not knowing.

 

After all, she was the one who had asked Hae-Joo to find the Guishan Dao.

 

“I didn’t know it was a specialty.”

 

Hae-Joo laughed, as if to lighten the mood, but soon added, “I’m sorry.

 

“The body I saw… His body was also cut off at the ankle when I found it… No, I should say it was chopped off… I don’t think it was a straight cut.”

 

Hae-Joo’s complexion turned blue as she continued.

 

She said it wasn’t a pretty corpse, but it was so horrible that her face changed in an instant?

 

Yi Ho frowned and reached for her hand, then stopped.

 

“When you feel like you can’t live without me, then we can talk again. Until then, let’s not do this.”

 

‘It’s really annoying. It was a one-sided promise from Hae-Joo. Why does she care so much about that promise?’

 

I bet, but Yi Ho can’t figure out why he’s so sincere and pauses for a moment.

 

“Thinking back… when someone’s ankle is cut off like that… it’s supposed to bleed out, right?”

 

“Mmm. Right.”

 

Yi Ho turned his attention back to Hae-Joo’s question and asked, “You mean there wasn’t any blood?”

 

“Not that there wasn’t… it was just a little wet on the floor… but Uncle Jige told me about the massacre in Sogok Village and the surrounding villages eight years ago, and even then… there was very little blood left on each body found.”

 

Yi Ho looked at Hae-Joo’s face, which was tinged with a faint fear.

 

“Boss, what if this painting has already appeared somewhere? Maybe it’s just my imagination, but why do I see similarities between what happened eight years ago and what’s happening in Gyeongseong now… The disappearance of blood… It’s not a common occurrence, is it?”

 

“It’s certainly not impossible.”

 

Yi Ho finally confirmed Hae-Joo’s speculation bitterly.

 

Hae-Joo’s face grew even darker.

 

“That painting… If it’s the snake in the painting, why is it doing this? Why is it drinking blood…?”

 

“Because it’s a yokai that feeds on blood.”

 

Yi Ho said and Hae-Joo looked at him in disbelief.

 

“Yokai? There are no Yokai in the world. That’s an old story, a story that only children read.”

 

Yi Ho paused for a moment at Hae-Joo’s obvious reaction, then smiled.

 

“Yes. It’s definitely getting old.”

 

Again and again, the land was turned upside down, and powerful Yokai were swept away by various wars, diseases, and fashions.

 

There was nothing that could be done to prevent them from becoming a thing of the past, a thing that shouldn’t exist.

 

‘What am I then? I’m not a human, and I’m not a youkai.’

 

Hearing Haiju’s denial that there was such a thing as a demon, she felt an inexplicable sense of desolation.

 

“By the way, it’s a full moon tonight.”

 

Yi Ho was dazed for a moment, but Hae-Joo’s words made him look up at the sky.

 

It was dusk.

 

The sun was on one side of the sky and the moon cast its shadow on the other.

 

Yi Ho looked down at the shadows at his feet.

 

Five tails twitched as weakly as the moon’s shadow.

 

“What shall we do for dinner?”

 

“Let’s just stay at the inn. I’m a little tired.”

 

As Yi Ho spoke, Hae-Joo thrust her face in front of him as if to examine his complexion.

 

“Do you think you’ll be okay if you rest?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Yi Ho lowered his eyelids.

 

Maybe he shouldn’t go out tonight.

 

And he’d have to think about where to start digging once they got back to Gyeongseong.

 

Yi Ho suddenly looked at Hae-Joo, who was walking diligently beside him.

 

Hae-Joo had asked him many times about the Guishan Dao, about the snake inside.

 

But each time, he’d put off answering, saying she’d know when she found the painting.

 

At the time, he thought it was just a nuisance, that she wouldn’t believe him if he told her anyway.

 

But when the time came to admit it, he realized it was just an excuse.

 

In the Guishan Dao, “Man Insa” is a bloodthirsty snake demon.

 

He must consume the blood of 10,000 people to create a perfect human blood stone.

 

If this woman knows that he needs the blood of ten thousand people, she can get him the blood of ten thousand people…

 

If she knows that he needs it to prolong his torturous life…

 

What would she think if she knew all this…?

 

Yi Ho suddenly felt a tight choking sensation in his throat.

 

* * *

 

Gyeongseong, Governor Saito’s private residence.

 

The wounds from the boils took time to heal, but apart from the trauma, Mao’s condition was almost the same as it had been before she fell ill.

 

Her face, neck, arms, legs, and even under her clothes were almost completely covered with the medicine, limiting her mobility, but Mao didn’t mind.

 

“[A week ago, I can’t believe I’ve been sick for so long, why was I so sick, and who did I send to Song Yue yesterday, why hasn’t he come back yet?]”

 

Mao lay down on the bed and asked her nanny, a middle-aged woman in her thirties.

 

“[Is it so hard to ask if Mr. Ban Yi Ho is at home, and why didn’t he think to visit me when I was sick? It’s annoying, how long do I have to wait?]”

 

Since Mao woke up, she had only been asking about things related to Ban Yi Ho.

 

Where he lives, what he usually does, if he comes to see her, what happened to that girl, his fiancée, and so on.

 

“[The rumor that he’s engaged to that girl has spread like wildfire, so I have to get him a gift as well. A break-up gift. If that rumor spreads like wildfire, this will also spread like wildfire, right?]”

 

After hearing that Yi Ho had gone to her fiancé’s hometown with her fiancé, Mao looked at the staff as if it were dead, then suddenly smiled as bright as a flower.