Same Bed, Different Dreams
“…Do you even know what you’ve been doing?”
It was not Choi Hana’s usual soft, pleasant voice. The dignity of one who guided tens of thousands of the dead into the underworld, layered over a young girl’s tone, made for something deeply unsettling.
“Ugh…”
Park Su-hwan felt a crawling discomfort and wanted nothing more than to cover his ears. But under Bari Gongju’s piercing glare, he didn’t dare.
“Answer me.”
The temperature in the room plummeted. With every breath, faint white mist began to leave his lips.
“I—I know.”
From this moment on, I have to stay sharp and answer carefully. One wrong slip of the tongue and…
I’ll be dragged by the hair straight down to the underworld.
“Then why did you do it? What kind of nerve made you dare to disrupt the harmony of heaven and earth?!”
“I-I’m sorry!”
“Ha! If you truly meant to repent, you should have burned the ledger or thrown it away! How dare you lie to my face!”
Boom!
Bari Gongju’s voice thundered through the room, shaking fruit and offerings from the spirit altar so they crashed ignominiously to the floor.
“I simply—I simply couldn’t bear to watch with open eyes!”
Park Su-hwan rushed to speak.
“Couldn’t bear to watch?”
“That’s right! I am only a human swayed by private feelings. That is why I could not turn away from the terrible futures of people about to meet with great calamity right before my eyes—”
“Nonsense!”
“Ugh!”
An earsplitting roar exploded around him.
“That detestable little tongue of yours wriggles like a snake!”
Su-hwan swallowed a scream and hastily clapped his hands over his ears, but it was useless. Bari Gongju’s voice was ringing from deep inside his skull.
“No! It’s the truth! That’s why I saved the delivery driver who was about to be stabbed, the doctor who was nearly hit by a car, the firefighter who would have died in the flames trying to save a child—”
Crash!
A toy car slammed into the wall and cut his words short.
“But the water is already spilled. What use is more talk? So speak properly at once! How did you come to possess an object of Myeong-gye?!”
Huh?
In that instant, Park Su-hwan caught a subtle dissonance. Her questioning did not feel like the condemnation of a criminal.
Rather… yes. It felt closer to curiosity. Perfect. He had his conclusion.
If I play this right, I won’t get dragged to the underworld. No—I definitely won’t.
He was a man who, while playing fraudulent shaman, had always been excellent at reading the room. If she had truly meant to punish him for upsetting the celestial order, she would have done so long ago.
Yet Bari Gongju had not summoned him the moment he saved Old Man Choi.
Flat on the floor with his forehead pressed to the boards, Park Su-hwan allowed himself a quiet, triumphant smile.
You dug into my past and still couldn’t find the reason, so you came looking. Didn’t you, my dear princess?
—From the Art of Wrapping Shit in Gold, rule number 14. Or was it 16? Anyway: to completely control your opponent, become the angler Jiang Taigong who waits for the fish to bite.—
“If that is the reason, then I believe the princess already knows it better than I.”
He cast the bait—to find out exactly how much she knew. Only then could he choose where to lie down safely.
“…Ha. What did you say?”
Su-hwan lifted his head just enough to glance at her. Confusion was plain on the face that looked so familiar yet wore such an unfamiliar expression—she had not expected him to push back without flinching.
The vessel she currently occupied was Choi Hana. Reading a strange emotion across that well-known face was hardly difficult…
And that was Bari Gongju’s clear mistake. She had underestimated Park Su-hwan.
“Exactly as I said. Are you not the one born cradling the radiance of the full moon, the one who left footprints of mercy all the way beyond the East Sea to the farthest reaches of the underworld?”
“….”
“They say a human’s shallow tricks can deceive even ghosts and outwit the reapers… but before the princess who holds the very root of life and death, what more could I possibly hide?”
Bari Gongju could find no reply. His question—You already know everything, don’t you?—left her nowhere to stand.
But she did not know. She had learned nothing at all about Park Su-hwan.
According to underworld reports, no reaper had lost a ledger. Then whose ledger was the one this man held?
Wondering if he might be someone whose cycle of reincarnation had tangled, she had combed through every record of Park Su-hwan—and found not a single irregularity.
When he pressed her with You already know, so why ask me?, she could not interrogate him further. Yet admitting she did not know would only diminish her dignity.
“Very well. So that is how it is.”
She had crossed the distant threshold of the underworld time and again, leaving her precious disciple alone, all because of this man.
And all she had gained was deep misunderstanding and resentment in her disciple’s heart. Bari Gongju forced down the sigh that rose in her throat.
“That this lowly creature came to hold the ledger is simply the ordained order and fate, is it not?”
Having swiftly decided she knew nothing, Park Su-hwan no longer had any reason to hold back.
“…?”
Choi Hana—Bari Gongju’s—lips twisted. The idea of a mere human speaking of order and fate was laughable.
“…Order, you say.”
Su-hwan could tell easily enough that his words had displeased her. But that was exactly what he had intended.
“How dare a creature like you even utter that word!”
Got her. She took the bait.
“Then are you saying the laws of the underworld are wrong?”
Park Su-hwan tilted his head slightly, the picture of genuine confusion.
“That which you pride yourselves on as the eternal, unchanging order has fallen into a human’s hands. Does that mean the laws of the underworld are so light that they cannot even explain the ledger now resting in my palm?”
“…Grrk.”
The sound of Bari Gongju grinding her teeth filled the room.
“Insolent little—”
At that single word, every toy and object in the room began to tremble violently. Warning klaxons blared inside Park Su-hwan’s skull.
“How dare you disrupt the celestial order and still stand so proud!”
Boom!
Crash…!
Toys ricocheted off the walls in every direction, and a crushing weight of hundreds of pounds pressed down on his entire body.
“Ghhh…!”
I have to stop this before I’m flattened to death. Burst capillaries turned the whites of Choi Hana’s eyes red.
Park Su-hwan squeezed his eyes shut and shouted as loudly as he could.
“If you continue, the vessel itself may break!”
The pressure crushing his body and the shaking of the room both vanished as if they had never been.
It—it worked.
Even a spirit as terrifying and exalted as she was… apparently wanted to avoid a situation where her disciple’s body shattered and she could no longer receive offerings.
In effect, Park Su-hwan had presented her with two paths.
“…Detestable creature. Utterly detestable.”
His tongue was sickeningly vile. Instead of crawling and begging for forgiveness, he was lifting his head in defiance. It was nauseating.
“Grrrnd…”
She clenched her jaw hard.
To deny his logic would be to tear down the authority of the underworld with her own hands. To accept it would mean acknowledging that the ledger in his possession was a Mandate of Heaven bestowed by a being higher than herself.
Looking at how boldly he carries himself… could it truly be the will of Cheon-jon? But why?
Nothing was going as she wished. The very act of summoning him to resolve her questions had only tangled matters further.
She wanted nothing more than to rush to Baekokgyeong at once and verify the authenticity of this strange Mandate of Heaven.
But the heavens of late had sealed their gates tight, granting audience to no one and sinking into deep silence.
If it were up to me I’d throw him to the demons of Samdocheon this instant…
Yet if there was even the slightest chance this was Cheon-jon’s will, even she could not move rashly. A spirit charged with upholding order could not commit the folly of severing a Mandate of Heaven with her own hands.
“….”
From the way she muttered while rolling her eyes, Park Su-hwan could guess one more thing.
He still did not know the details, but one fact was certain: she was extremely reluctant to drag him down to the underworld.
Which meant…
There was only one answer. She was watching the face of someone far higher than herself. Whoever you are, thank you very much.
Park Su-hwan drove the final stake home with a deep bow.
“So there is no need to overthink it, Princess.”
Dying and falling into hell was already a fixed sequence of events.
He no longer cared about the safety of any afterlife. If so, he would rather cling to this ledger with both hands and enjoy the life he had right now to the fullest.
“Simply watch over me from the side.”
The ledger is one thing I can never let anyone take.
“Utterly shameless.”
Bari Gongju glared at Park Su-hwan through Choi Hana’s clear eyes.
For the time being I will keep my silence and continue investigating his true nature. And the moment I find anything strange, I will cast him straight into hell.
I will tear him into the finest shreds and grind him to dust.
Park Su-hwan had cleverly woven a board and slipped free. Bari Gongju sharpened her blade.
It was a perfect case of same bed, different dreams.
“Huh? Why is the shrine…?”
Choi Hana stared at the wrecked shrine in confusion. Focus returned to her eyes, and the voice she hated hearing had become her own again.
She remembered nothing of what had happened.
Of course she didn’t. The moment a deity descended, the owner of the body was no longer Choi Hana.
“I didn’t do this.”
Park Su-hwan raised both hands.
“Your princess did it. Don’t try to pin it on me.”
The conversation with Bari Gongju had felt like well over an hour. In reality, less than fifteen minutes had passed.
In a way, that’s impressive. She trashed the place and drained every drop of my energy in that short time.
“That can’t be…”
“It’s true. Let’s clean up quick.”
So I can finally go home.
Park Su-hwan wanted nothing more than to get home, collapse, and sleep. Today felt more exhausting than any day he could remember. He called down to Old Man Choi.
The old man came racing up the stairs and froze the instant he crossed the shrine’s threshold.
“W-what in the world…?!”
Faced with the total chaos of the shrine, Choi Young-gam was speechless.
“You didn’t hear anything from downstairs?”
He shook his head.
“Didn’t hear a thing. What on earth happened in here?!”
Must be another of Bari Gongju’s powers. All this racket and he heard nothing.
In the end, everything that had taken place inside the shrine became a secret known only to Bari Gongju and Park Su-hwan.
“It’s a secret.”
“A secret?”
It wasn’t a bad thing. Park Su-hwan had fully intended to bury this incident deep anyway.
“Yeah. She told me to keep my mouth shut.”
“The spirit said that?”
“Our princess?”
The two of them asked at the same time.
Though they nodded in acceptance, their faces were full of the desire to know the full story.
But a spirit’s command was law a shaman could not defy. Unable to press any further, they simply began cleaning the shrine.