A New Entry in the Ledger
“I-is that really true?”
“It's true! That's why every work site is completely shut down right now. The higher-ups are pouring in one after another. Ha...”
Han Seung-ju could not easily collect himself at the news his colleague relayed. Just the day before yesterday, hadn't he been standing face-to-face talking with that very team leader? Of course their parting had not been amicable, but hearing of a death notice was another matter entirely.
This can't be...
“You're saying he did it alone? What about the people working with him? And the live-line truck?”
“Have you ever seen that team leader follow the rules? He was rushing the job with no one else around, going crazy by himself, and that's how the accident happened. I figured something like this would happen someday. Fucking hell.”
“...”
“You were the one who fought him to the end, remember? You said if he didn't change the gear there'd be an accident. Or at least replace the belt.”
“...!”
Han Seung-ju flinched hard, as if struck by lightning.
That was right. Come to think of it, there had been a shaman who had predicted this exact situation with perfect accuracy. That a belt would be the cause, and that it would lead to a major accident.
“This is insane...”
“There was a reason that bastard foamed at the mouth whenever equipment came up. No need to feel sorry for him. He reaped what he sowed.”
His colleague, misreading Seung-ju's reaction, pressed on.
“What do you mean...?”
Even before, Seung-ju had often voiced complaints to the team leader about the gear. But after hearing the shaman's brutal warning, the intensity had only grown. That was why the man had fired him on the spot, saying he didn't want to hear another word.
“Why... why?”
“Apparently the higher-ups had been paying out proper money and issuing warnings all along. Inspect the gear properly, fully equip for the work, that sort of thing. But the dead team leader had been skimming it all.”
“Huh...”
He had simply thought the man was a reckless bastard. He never imagined there was a secret like this.
No—more than that, the idea that the people above had known nothing about it felt a little hard to believe. Seung-ju carefully asked his colleague about it.
“From what I heard, he faked the receipts and pretended to buy new stuff? Honestly. On inspection days from above, he'd slap on some gear for show and skate by. Ruthless son of a bitch.”
The colleague continued.
“On top of that, he probably never thought an accident would actually blow up over something like this. The money demon dragged him straight to hell. Serves him right.”
“Safety blindness on top of everything...”
“Stupid bastard. He dug his own grave. Everyone's just saying they're glad it wasn't them. Ah. Me too.”
Because of the man's usual vicious behavior, not a single person offered condolences for his horrific death. They only felt relief that they themselves could have died instead.
“Seung-ju. Getting fired was honestly a million-to-one stroke of luck. Heaven helped you. If it hadn't been the team leader, it would have been you.”
His colleague's final words rang in his ears like tinnitus.
“According to the original schedule, that site was supposed to be yours.”
“...”
That was when it hit him. Another thing the shaman had said right before they parted rose to the surface of his mind.
Just because the team leader didn't listen to your warning, Mr. Han Seung-ju, please don't take it too hard.
Just how far had that shaman seen?
That, too, was the team leader's fate.
Han Seung-ju trembled, goosebumps rising for an entirely different reason than before.
“Good.”
Park Su-hwan's gaze locked onto the ledger. There, Han Seung-ju's entry had newly appeared.
“So he listened after all. How convenient.”
When someone dodged their fixed fate, their destiny would write itself onto what had been blank paper. Before he understood this simple rule, he had thought he would die of frustration.
Because he could only confirm life and death once the people he had warned actually came to the shrine.
He had told Han Seung-ju where the shrine was, so the man would come walking in soon enough.
If he didn't show up after all this, he wasn't even human. Su-hwan had grabbed people by the hair and dragged them over when they were about to cross the Samdocheon, hadn't he?
If you're grateful, you should come running right now. Arms full of gifts! Damn right.
“Hoo...”
Park Su-hwan nodded and let out a long breath. Thinking of Han Seung-ju naturally brought back the Samchasa he had run into that day.
Even now he could still feel the chill that had washed over him when the Samchasa drew right up to his side.
I really was out of my mind back then.
It wouldn't have been an exaggeration to say his guts had spilled clean out of his belly.
Those Samchasa, eyes wide and ready to seize him—and right in front of them he had pretended to be on the phone with a friend just so he could eavesdrop on their conversation.
Even now, Park Su-hwan had no idea what possessed him to pull a stunt like that. Still, thanks to it he had harvested a great deal of information from them.
First of all...
The Samchasa still had not identified the ledger thief in the slightest. Even after more than a month.
But they had caught on to where the culprit was operating. Because only the people in the neighborhood where Park Su-hwan stayed had their life-lines changing.
The moment he heard that, his heart had truly plummeted. He had never once considered that angle until then.
If he had simply fled the instant he spotted the Samchasa, he never would have learned this precious information. Then he would have sat there wide-eyed while their net closed in, never knowing a thing.
How, in that moment, had he thought to eavesdrop and dig for intel? And while pretending to talk on the phone with a friend, no less.
Damn. I really am something else.
Park Su-hwan did not forget to praise himself.
In that case... if I want to throw their investigation into chaos, I need to look at the ledger somewhere else.
The problem was that this was not something he could do by sheer will. The ledger only revealed itself at random among the people whose eyes he met.
Which meant the only method left was to roam around diligently. Like a man with the wanderer's star planted firmly on him, no less.
“I'll get lucky and hit something eventually.”
And that was not the end of it. Park Su-hwan looked one move further ahead.
The Samchasa had said they would comb through the earth deities—that is, the tutelary land spirits—like they were hunting lice.
So his plan was to leave them thrashing around in the wrong places for a while, and only then start scurrying about the neighborhood.
If the ledger's energy suddenly flared up in some completely unexpected spot, the Samchasa would fall into total chaos, wouldn't they?
There had been another harvest from eavesdropping on their talk.
Namely, that the shamanic remedy he always carried in his lucky pouch had produced some kind of effect after all.
“It wasn't pure wasted effort.”
After meeting the Samchasa, Park Su-hwan had checked the pouch on a hunch.
The salt and red beans that had been pure white, and the solid Byeokjomok, had all been burned black. A thin thread of smoke had even been rising faintly from the remains.
Exactly what effect the remedy had on the Samchasa remained unknown.
But that question was not an immediate obstacle.
Whatever form it took, it had worked on the Samchasa, so he planned to keep wearing the pouch from now on.
Park Su-hwan's gaze drifted naturally to the statue of Okhwang Sangje. The real problem was...
“Something happened in Baekokgyeong. That's why Yeomra is too busy to open his eyes.”
That. Of all the things the Samchasa had left behind, it was the most cryptic.
Later research told him Baekokgyeong was the place where the Heavenly Venerable—Okhwang Sangje—resided. Something happening there could also be read as some kind of calamity befalling Okhwang Sangje himself.
“Haa...”
The claim that only people of the Myeong-gye could see the ledger still made no sense either.
Faced with a continuous string of mysteries that refused to clear up, his head began to throb.
On top of that: Bari Gongju, Ganglim Doryeong, names out of old legends, the Samchasa, Baekokgyeong, and now even Okhwang Sangje.
Yes. To Park Su-hwan, who had never believed in gods of any kind, all of this still felt like words from a distant world.
“Ugh. This damn heat.”
Park Su-hwan kept fanning himself with his hand, panting hard. With every breath the scorching air poured in, and he half-worried his lungs might cook right through.
“Record-breaking heat wave, they said...”
Today he had fully intended not to take a single step outside the shrine. But for some reason a sudden urge to tidy the jumbled ritual tools had seized him, he had overdone it, and ended up with a huge tear in his hanbok.
Ha... not a single thing goes right.
He should have just left it dirty the way he always did. Of course disaster struck the moment a person tried something they never usually did.
If he had simply stayed put, he would never have needed to go to a hanbok shop...
Park Su-hwan muttered under his breath, face gloomy.
He desperately missed that grimy, shabby shrine. There wasn't even a common air conditioner, but being underground it stayed fairly cool. So, same as every other year, he had been scraping by the summer with a single electric fan.
“Please wait a moment. The crosswalk signal will change to green shortly.”
As he stopped in front of the crosswalk, a dry automated announcement floated out. Park Su-hwan stepped under the nearby sunshade and waited for the light.
“Grandma, we'll be arriving at the hospital you mentioned soon.”
A young-looking police officer caught Park Su-hwan's eye. He was chatting quietly behind a wheelchair carrying an elderly woman.
“That's right. Aigoo... I thought I was going to die from the effort. Thank you for helping.”
“It's my job. Nothing to it. If you're a police officer, this is the kind of thing you do. Please don't worry about it.”
That was when it happened. As the officer straightened up while talking, still meeting the grandmother's eyes, his gaze collided cleanly with Park Su-hwan's—
—Shrrrrrrrrrk!!!
Before he could even resist, Park Su-hwan was yanked straight into the world of the ledger.
“She's my girlfriend! I said she's my girlfriend!! Take your hands off her right now!!”
“Hic... sob. O-oppa... please just let me go...”
“No way! You're mine!”
And there he witnessed the officer locked in a vicious standoff with someone holding a knife.