As True as a Dream Chapter 90

Before he could take more than a few breaths, Yi Ho was at the morgue attached to the police station.

 

Entering the morgue without sound or form, Yi Ho quickly avoided the eyes of the patrolling police officers, moving only to the blind spots, and soon found himself in the dreary, chilly basement.

 

There, surrounding the body of Mrs. Na lying on an autopsy table, stood two officers and an autopsy doctor.

 

“[The cause of death is these six stab wounds to the abdomen. She was robbed?]”

 

“[Yes. All the gold and money on the scene was gone, and the store was in shambles].”

 

“[Really? But…]”

 

The autopsy doctor scratched his head, as if something was wrong, and looked at the body again.

 

Yi Ho’s body flew off and hung like a bat from the ceiling.

 

The officer who came down the stairs stood at the entrance to the basement and called out to the autopsy doctor, “[Doctor]”.

 

“[Two people have just died from torture, please come and take a look.]”

 

“[But I have to do this autopsy soon….]”

 

“[It’ll only take a minute, it’s what the Ministry of Alert ordered.]”

 

“[I see.]”

 

At the officer’s words, the autopsy doctor and the officer placed a white cloth over Mrs. Na’s body and left the basement.

 

Yi Ho looked down at them, but when he heard no sound, he slipped off his seat and approached the autopsy table where the body lay.

 

He wanted to examine the bodies before they returned.

 

Being naked for the autopsy gave him a clear view of the body’s condition.

 

“Six abdominal stab wounds… dagger?”

Lee Ho muttered as he tried to gauge the size and depth of the stab wounds on the corpse’s abdomen.

 

He was thinking the same thing as Hae-Joo.

 

Mrs. Na had guessed the reason for Hae-Joo’s visit was “Guishan Dao”, and when the kidnapping failed, she went to visit her “high connections” and returned with a pale face.

 

She died less than a day later.

 

So Yi Ho needed to know exactly how Mrs. Na died.

 

‘Was she really robbed or was she silenced by her “high connections”?’

 

If she had been silenced, it was likely that the “high connections” were people with “Guishan Dao”.

 

Fortunately, it took him three years to recite the Chinese calendar, and he had seen countless people die at his hands, and he had lived so many years that he knew how to judge the condition of a corpse.

 

Yi Ho examined the wounds.

 

Two on the side of her waist, three under her ribs, and one diagonally across her navel.

 

The stab wounds were everywhere.

 

Maybe she’d just been stabbed by sight.

 

As he examined the stab wounds in unison, his eyes suddenly lit up.

 

The six wounds had something in common.

 

They were all stabbed from the bottom up.

 

This meant that either the weapon was broken and stabbed upwards, or the culprit was very short.

 

At most, it would be about the height of Mrs. Na’s waist.

 

Yi Ho looked at the wound with sharp eyes, all the blood dried up, then turned the corpse on its side to examine its back and legs.

 

His eyebrows raised again.

 

No marks on the body.

 

When a person dies, the circulation stops and the blood rushes to low places and settles.

 

Red-purple spots appear on the skin.

 

However, this corpse had strangely few of them.

 

This means that the body doesn’t have enough blood to accumulate in low places.

 

“Is the blood… gone again?”

 

Yi Ho bound the corpse’s wrists and ankles.

 

The hardness of their bones indicated that they had been dead for at least eight to ten hours.

 

He remembered the view of the noodle shop he’d seen through the windows and doors earlier.

 

A stab wound like that should have spilled blood everywhere, but there was very little.

 

The corner of Yi Ho’s mouth suddenly twitched as he thought.

 

It was clear that Mrs. Na knew where Guishan Dao was.

 

This was no robbery.

 

The culprit must be the Man Insa.

 

Then who was this “high connection” who would have used the Man Insa to murder Mrs. Na?

 

Just then, he heard a crash at the top of the basement entrance stairs.

 

Yi Ho immediately draped a white cloth over the body and climbed up to the ceiling beams.

 

“[His Excellency the Governor is going on a tour of the provinces starting tomorrow, so he’ll leave this evening or tomorrow morning at the earliest, and I’ll have to report this incident two weeks later?]”

 

“[Then why does the governor’s office require me to report every significant event?]”

 

“[Well, His Excellency has only been in office for a few months, so it’s a critical time, and they’re worried about incidents that could cause public unrest.]”

 

“[It’s funny. All the reporters have been trying to report on the incident, but they’ve been blocked.]”

 

“[The Western ghosts and superstitions are all fabricated by the top.]”

 

“[You also said that the culprit of the body found in the shanty town was just a random person, and that we should cover it up quickly. Is that also an order from the governor’s office?]”

 

“[Yes. Between you and me. Watch your mouth when you go outside.]”

 

Yi Ho, who had been listening to the conversation below, frowned.

 

Governor Saito told them to report every single incident of importance?

 

And when the reporters tried to do so, he stopped them?

 

A small chuckle escaped Yi Ho’s lips.

 

Suddenly, his mind flashed back to Hae-Seo being burned to death in the middle of nowhere.

 

He suspected that shamans and demons were responsible for her death.

 

He had ruled out the possibility that a bloodthirsty creature would have harmed her for the sake of humans.

 

Now he realizes that he may have been too quick to judge.

 

Governor Saito has so far covered up the series of blood disappearances by blaming them on Western ghosts and superstitions.

 

And there is only one reason for this.

 

He had to protect the “monster” that feeds on human blood.

 

And the monster was ten to ten and ten to one.

 

The Guishan Dao he was looking for was with Governor Saito.

 

***

 

Meanwhile, Hae-Joo wandered around the rest of the shops on the main street, inquiring more about Mrs. Na’s noodle shop.

 

But all she could hear was the same.

 

They hadn’t heard anything suspicious last night or this morning, but the missing gold and money suggested a robbery.

 

She also asked what Mrs. Na was like in general, but everyone in the neighborhood remembered her as “a beautiful noodle shop owner with a calm and cool personality.”

 

Like Hae-Joo, Mrs. Na hid her double face from everyone around her.

 

Yi Ho asked Master Hongo to check out Mrs. Na’s friends, but she wasn’t willing to take the risk.

 

She tried her best, but to no avail.

 

Sighing and turning away, she glanced at the crowd gathered in front of the noodle shop, even though it had been quite a while, and raised an eyebrow.

 

A familiar figure rolled his eyes in curiosity.

 

“Eun-sil?”

 

Hae-Joo turned back to the soup kitchen crowd and tapped Eun-sil’s shoulder as she paced back and forth, shaking her tousled hair.

 

“Sister?”

 

Eun-sil, who had been looking around for something, saw her and her eyes widened.

 

“You got back from Gongju, when?”

 

“Just a few days ago. How are you here?”

 

“I am… I came to buy some gumboots for the children in my house, but there were a lot of people here… I heard someone died?”

 

Hae-Joo tugged at Eun-sil’s curious arm and stepped aside, stepping out of the way in front of the noodle restaurant.

 

Meanwhile, Eun-sil was busy trying to clear her own doubts by lowering her voice.

 

“Could it be again? A western ghost attack? What do you think?”

 

“Do you really think so?”

 

“What kind of madman would take all that human blood otherwise?”

 

Hae-Joo laughed at the absurdity of it all.

 

Then she told Eun-sil what she had heard from the neighbors.

 

“Huh? Really? A robber?”

 

“Yes. That’s why you should be careful, especially when you work the night shift at the factory. Is it night again tonight?”

 

Hae-Joo asked, looking at Eun-sil who was looking at the noodle restaurant with a confused face.

 

“Yes. I have to leave soon and work until sunrise. I’m really tired.”

 

Eun-sil suddenly sighed heavily and narrowed her eyes at the painful words.

 

“Sis, I get so depressed sometimes. Is my life just going to go round and round like this and then end?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“It’s just… sometimes I feel sad that I’m so nothing.”

 

Dusk slowly fell over Eun-sil’s head as she smiled bitterly.

 

“What are you talking about, why are you nothing? You’re a precious little sister to me, a treasured daughter to your mother, and heaven to the boys in your house.”

 

Lively, good-natured, simple Eun-sil looked into Hae-Joo’s dark eyes, felt the weight of her life on her shoulders, and spoke earnestly.

 

Then Eun-sil, who had been looking at her from afar, laughed out loud.

 

“Oh, was I really that great?”

 

“Yes. So don’t think of yourself as nothing. Nobody is nothing in this world.”