A Feast of Gratitude
“Here.”
The landlady set a piece of perfectly cooked beef into Park Su-hwan’s bowl.
“Thank you.”
Su-hwan snatched it up at once and popped it into his mouth.
Mmm…
The moment he bit down, rich, savory juices burst free and flooded his mouth. How long had it been since he’d last tasted meat? And this wasn’t even pork—it was beef.
Su-hwan trembled with pure delight.
“That good, huh?”
Kang Dong-hyun asked with a quiet snort of laughter.
“Yes. It’s really delicious.”
“Eat plenty. Tell me if you want anything else. Oh—should I order the cheese egg soufflé?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He simply waved the server over and added the dish to their order.
Su-hwan dipped his head in quick gratitude.
Truth be told… he’d been eyeing that soufflé for a while already.
“My wife says she’s really grateful. She wants to meet you sometime, so we’ll come together later. She’s in the hospital right now.”
“Is she unwell?”
“No, nothing like that. Her due date’s right around the corner, so we figured it was safer to go in early. Easier on my nerves, too.”
Right. Su-hwan vaguely recalled hearing that Dong-hyun’s wife was in her final month of pregnancy.
“I hope she has a safe delivery… I’m a little worried the whole ordeal might have frightened her.”
Dong-hyun transferred another slice of well-done beef onto Su-hwan’s plate. This time Su-hwan dipped it lightly in salt before eating.
“Mmm… mm-hmm.”
It melts on the tongue.
“She was a bit startled, but luckily… thanks to our benefactor, we dodged real disaster. I don’t think there’ll be any major problems. That crazy bastard. Just thinking about him still pisses me off.”
“B-benefactor? That’s a little embarrassing.”
The flattering word made a corner of Su-hwan’s chest itch. Not that he disliked hearing it.
“You are a benefactor. I’ve been saying so the whole time—why get shy about it now?”
The landlady chimed in with a sly smile.
“I was a little out of it back then. What happened to him, by the way?”
Su-hwan hastily changed the subject. Dong-hyun picked it up.
“That bastard? Sitting in a police station right now. He’ll stay in detention all the way through trial. Attempted murder.”
“Good. He won’t have an easy road to the afterlife either. He’ll face King Yeomra’s stern judgment.”
“I hope they just tear him to shreds in the fires of hell. Tch.”
Dong-hyun ground his teeth and shook his head.
“I’m sure that’s exactly what will happen. Um… there’s one thing I’m curious about. May I ask?”
“Sure. What is it?”
Su-hwan was genuinely curious. While his consciousness had been trapped inside that strange black space with the ledger, what exactly had his physical body been doing in the real world?
What the hell happened… that when I finished looking at Kim Jun-young’s future I was crawling on the floor?
Dong-hyun hesitated, as if the memory itself were awkward.
“Please be honest. I don’t remember much from then.”
“You really don’t remember?”
“No.”
“At first I just thought you were standing there in a daze. Then suddenly your eyes rolled back until only the whites showed.”
Dong-hyun swallowed dryly and continued. He’d already seen it once, yet the image still hit hard.
“After that you started shaking like a leaf, muttering some unintelligible stuff at empty air… and then you just collapsed.”
So that was why Kim Jun-young had suspected epilepsy at the time.
“If you don’t remember any of it, a real spirit must have entered and left. Wow…”
Huh. In a way it’s exactly like spirit possession, just like the landlady said.
“Have you always had that strong a spiritual connection, young man? If I’d known, I would’ve come for a reading ages ago.”
“Well…”
He could never, under any circumstances, admit that it had all started the day he picked up the ledger a grim reaper had dropped.
Even now Su-hwan wore a small pouch at his waist stuffed with salt and red beans, just to throw the reapers off his trail.
“It hasn’t been long. I’ve been offering sincere devotion to our General, and it seems he finally recognized my efforts. It’s all thanks to our General.”
So he sold the god’s name. A lie of this caliber was nothing to him. Besides, they had no way of verifying the truth.
“Really? My goodness… that General of yours is something else. If he’d noticed you sooner, you wouldn’t have had to struggle so hard all these years.”
She knew better than anyone what kind of life Su-hwan had lived. Her pity wasn’t empty.
She knew full well how fiercely he had survived alone after losing his parents as a child.
“I’m just glad things are turning around now. When I get home I should offer another proper ritual of thanks.”
Su-hwan softened his eyes into a wistful expression. Thick sympathy immediately filled both their gazes.
For a man who had spent his entire life as a con artist, this level of acting was easier than breathing.
The precious beef was about to burn. Su-hwan hastily pointed and grabbed the tongs.
“Ah—ah… the meat’s going to burn. I’ll grill it.”
And so they stuffed themselves with beef until they could barely move. By the time the meal was winding down, the landlady and Dong-hyun suddenly began exchanging glances.
“Hurry up!”
The landlady jabbed Dong-hyun in the ribs with her elbow. Only then did he pull an envelope from his pocket.
“Here. I’d like you to take this.”
“What is it?”
“Money. Not a huge amount—about three hundred. Just… thanks. You saved my life. I can’t call it even with a single meal of beef.”
The unexpected sum left Su-hwan momentarily speechless.
“I’ve… already received far more than I deserve.”
The landlady had already forgiven every overdue rent payment and even waived the months still to come.
On top of that she had loaded him with expensive fruit, and now he’d been treated to this costly beef. Money on top of all that felt… a little much, even for someone as shameless as Park Su-hwan.
“Just take it. Compared to a life, it’s nothing. I’m giving it so I can sleep better, so take it. Now.”
Dong-hyun forced the envelope into Su-hwan’s refusing hands.
Walking home with an unexpected wad of cash and a belly full of beef, Su-hwan mentioned he had somewhere to stop and headed alone toward a fruit shop.
“Hello. Do you have Korean melons and grapes? Ah—peaches too, please.”
“Of course we do. Just a moment!”
The melons and grapes were gifts for the landlady and her husband. The peaches were offerings he would present to the General as a show of devotion.
Mansindang
An old shop crammed with every kind of shamanic tool, thick with stale dust and a strange, lingering incense.
Young shaman Park Su-hwan had come calling.
“It’s been a while.”
“Well, look who’s still breathing.”
The old man busily flicking a duster straightened his bent back.
“Aigoo, old man. Is that any way to greet someone?”
The words were practically a curse. Yet Su-hwan only snorted as if used to it and answered lightly.
Choi Young-gam had run Mansindang for more than thirty years. In a way, that alone was impressive.
He had somehow kept this fly-ridden, unremarkable tool shop alive for all that time.
“Figured you’d finally dropped dead from divine punishment.”
Divine punishment.
Originally the word meant a fine paid for breaking rules. In shamanism, however, it meant something entirely different—
the retribution a god visited upon a medium who defied the divine will or incurred impurity.
But Su-hwan let the old man’s words slide right past his ears.
You only get that kind of punishment if you actually serve a real god.
Exactly. For a fraudulent shaman like him, the concept never even applied.
“I haven’t done anything wrong, so why would I get punished?”
Choi Young-gam turned and looked at him as if he couldn’t believe his ears.
He had known for a long time that Su-hwan was a fake medium with not a shred of real spiritual power.
“What kind of shaman buys used tools? In all my years I’ve never seen anyone do that.”
He was right. Tools meant for serving the gods were sacred; using someone else’s was strictly taboo.
“I was broke—what else was I supposed to do? I ended up buying new ones anyway, didn’t I?”
Choi Young-gam shook his head and disappeared deeper into the shop. Su-hwan followed.
“Yeah. You whined so much I practically gave them away.”
“Just think of it as saving a poor soul. You’ll have a comfortable afterlife. I’ll even pray for you.”
“I don’t need your prayers. I’ll be lucky if I don’t fall straight into hell. Anyway—what brings you here all of a sudden?”
“I need a few things.”
“You?”
The old man’s eyes were thick with suspicion that the fake shaman was about to cause some new disaster.
“You’re not planning to hex or curse anyone, are you?”
“Do I look like I have the talent for that? You know better than anyone I don’t.”
“Hmm… true enough.”
“…”
Su-hwan hadn’t expected him to agree so readily. He made a faintly wounded face. Seeing it, Choi Young-gam spoke again.
“So what do you need?”
“Peach wood and Byeokjomok. Also coarse salt and dark-colored red beans.”
“What the hell are you trying to pull?”
Suspicion flared again. Salt and red beans were one thing, but peach wood and lightning-struck jujube wood weren’t items you found just anywhere.
“You know what earth disturbance is?”
Having anticipated the old man’s doubts, Su-hwan smoothly launched into the excuse he’d prepared.
“Of course I know. You think I’d run this place and not know that?”
“Someone came in recently after digging up a gravesite for reburial and getting hit hard by the disturbance. There wasn’t anything I could do, so I sent them away… but ever since then I’ve been feeling a cold energy in my shrine and strange things keep happening.”
“Oh-ho. And you can tell earth disturbance when you see it?”
The suspicion in Choi Young-gam’s eyes began to fade.
“Old man. I am a shaman, you know.”
“Aren’t you special. Got the money?”
“No. Saving a poor soul—”
“Get out.”
Even as he snapped, Choi Young-gam started moving to gather the items Su-hwan had named.
He dragged an old stepladder from a corner and began rummaging through the high shelves.
“You’re not going to palm off something rotten, right? This time I need the real, genuine article—not used goods.”
If he was going to shake the reapers hunting the ledger, he had no choice.
“You little bastard. You just said with your own mouth that you bought new stuff last time. Anyone listening would think you always buy secondhand.”
In the end Choi Young-gam’s temper boiled over and a curse spilled out.
That was when it happened.
“Grandpa? Is someone here?”
A young girl in a school uniform appeared, coming down the stairs.
Choi Young-gam’s only granddaughter—Choi Hana. The moment Su-hwan’s eyes met hers—
“…!”
The ledger appeared before him.
Shrrrrrrrk!!!
Before he could even resist, he was dragged into the black space.