077. The Tiger's Song [4]

"Roaaar!"

The possessed man began to run wild, bellowing like a tiger gone mad. He smashed whatever objects he could reach and bit and tore at the people trying to restrain him.

"Aaaagh!"

"What the hell is wrong with him!?"

At the rampaging man, the shaman shouted a rebuke. "You wretch! Do you have any idea where you are, acting up like this!"

At her shout, the madman whirled and lunged straight at her.

"Kkeuheuheung!"

"None of that keuheung nonsense."

"Ugeok!"

I darted in front of her, caught the charging man by the throat, and slammed him into the floor. For a moment his body shuddered at the shock that ran up his spine—but only for a moment.

"Keuheung!"

Whether it was the evil spirit—no, the Chang-gwi—possessing him, he bore the blow with superhuman toughness and roared again.

"I'm trying to save you, so quit squirming."

Exorcising the Chang-gwi attached to the man would have ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠been simple. I could have just let my Daoist Spiritual Power flow into him, and that would have been the end of it. But it was still too early. Holding the man down with one hand, I pulled a talisman from my coat.

The moment I pressed the talisman to the man's face, his whole body shook violently, and then he let out a shriek.

-Kyaaaaaaaaaagh!

Not a man's voice, not a woman's, not even a tiger's—a grotesque scream. And with that scream, the evil spirit clinging to him was sucked into the talisman.

"You Chang-gwi are mine now!"

Traditionally, a Chang-gwi splits into the Gulgak, the Iol, and the Yukhon—each said to dwell in a tiger's armpit, cheekbone, and jaw. Of the three, the Gulgak, which lives in the armpit, is said to lure humans by mimicking their spouses. So the thing I'd just sealed was probably a Gulgak. Having bound the first Chang-gwi, I turned to the shaman and the onlookers, who were staring at me slack-jawed.

"What are you all gawking at? Somebody treat the wounded."

Fortunately, none of the people bitten by the possessed man had been seriously hurt. After sending the injured—possessed man included—off to the hospital, we sat down across from the shaman.

"First, let me begin by thanking you for your help."

The middle-aged shaman bowed her head politely. Fraudulent credentials aside, she had stepped forward without hesitation against a man running wild, and her manners were impeccable—she didn't seem like a bad person.

"It was really nothing."

"My name is Lee Seon-ja, ninth-generation owner of this Hofungdang."

"Ninth generation? That's impressive."

South Korea, with its turbulent modern history, has almost no businesses over a hundred years old—let alone a shrine, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠rather than a restaurant.

Passed down through generations like that... so she's from a hereditary shaman line, not a spirit-possession line?

Not that it mattered much—even hereditary, without spiritual power she couldn't borrow the strength of the gods.

"I'm Kim the exorcist. This should have been a request made in advance, but would filming be all right?"

"Filming?"

"Yes. I'm doing a live broadcast."

"A live broadcast? Ah, you mean internet streaming. Are you on air right now?"

For a woman her age, Lee Seon-ja was surprisingly sharp about these things.

"That's fine. You're my benefactor, after all—there's no reason to refuse."

"Thank you."

And with that, I had my permission to film.

"First... could I hear the story of the man who was possessed by that 'Chang-gwi' just now?"

"Of course. Though where exactly should I begin..."

The man's name was Park Sudal. A thirty-eight-year-old who had lost his wife and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was raising their daughter alone as a single father. The trouble began one day when he heard his dead wife's voice.

-Sudal, honey.

"······."

The voice of a wife he'd believed he would never hear again.

-Sudal, honey.

At first he dismissed it as an auditory hallucination—impossible, he thought—and ignored it. But...

-Sudal, can't you hear my voice?

In the end, he couldn't turn his back on the voice of the woman he loved.

-Honey?

"Sudal, you can hear me!"

From that day on, Park Sudal would hear his wife's voice from time to time. It was a happy time—because it let him tell her how much their daughter had grown in her absence.

"Dasom's pretty, isn't she? She looks just like you. I'm worried about how many boys she'll make cry when she grows up."

-Really? Our son is just so, so beautiful.

"······Son?"

-Yes, our daughter.

The voice-only wife sometimes spoke unnaturally. But Park Sudal ignored the wrongness of it. Love had blinded him.

And then, one night—

"Aaaaah! Dad, why are you doing this!? Please stop—!"

Waking from his sleep, Park Sudal found himself standing at the front door, his young daughter clinging to his leg, sobbing.

"...Wh-what? What is this...?"

He soothed his crying daughter and asked her what had happened.

"You—you suddenly got up out of bed and tried to leave. I asked where you were going, and you said you were going to Bukhansan. You said you had to go see Mom..."

Only then did Park Sudal feel that something was terribly wrong. This wasn't simple sleepwalking. And the thing he'd believed was his wife's soul...

"Aaaargh!!! Shut up, shut up, shut up!!!"

He desperately tried to shake off his wife's voice—or rather, the voice of whatever it was mimicking his wife—but it was useless. Because by then, the urge to go to Bukhansan had already taken firm root in his heart.

This can't go on! If I go to Bukhansan, it's all over!

Unable to die and leave his little daughter an orphan, Park Sudal ran everywhere searching for someone who could help him. And at the end of that search, he found Hofungdang and Lee Seon-ja. But at first, Lee Seon-ja refused his plea. Understandably so—

"As you've probably already noticed, Doctor Kim, unlike my mother and ancestors, I'm an ordinary person with no power whatsoever. Hofungdang has been closed, in truth, since my generation began. But..."

It was Sudal's desperate plea—not for his own life, but because he couldn't bear to leave his little girl an orphan—that moved Lee Seon-ja's heart. Using the connections of the generations before her, she gathered people and prepared a gut ritual out of compassion. She had no spiritual power, but perhaps it might help in some small way. Of course, the results were anything but good.

After hearing the full story, I laid out the real reason we had come.

"...You may have already guessed, but we came here to exorcise the Bukhansan Maneating Tiger that's become famous in Seoul. You've carried this shrine in Oi-dong for nine generations—is there anything at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠all you might know?"

"Then you've come to exactly the right place. As you say, our family has lived in Oi-dong for generations—and more importantly, the deity our family has served is none other than the Mountain God of Bukhansan."

"The Mountain God?"

"Yes. In the tenth year of King Sunjo's reign, the year of Giyu—1810—the Mountain God took his seat on Bukhansan, a divine beast who has watched over the people and guarded the order of the mountain ever since. Which is precisely why this puzzles me: as far as I know, of all the tiger lore and legends of Bukhansan, not one involves a maneating tiger."

"Hmm..."

"Of course, if you dig through the historical record, there must have been maneating tigers living on Bukhansan in the past. But for one of them to suddenly appear as a monster now feels deeply unnatural..."

I thought for a moment, then changed the question.

"Would it be possible to see the deity's vessel?"

A hereditary shaman ought to possess a sacred object that housed her god. Forget I Ji-seon—the Mountain God himself might know something.

"That is... there isn't one."

"There isn't?"

"No. The vessel the Mountain God originally dwelt in was the guardian tree of Oi-dong. But it was cut down during the village's redevelopment..."

"Ah, man..."

So even a hereditary line nine generations deep is helpless against the wave of modernization? Bitter, that.

"Then what became of the Mountain God?"

"······."

Lee Seon-ja fell silent.

Did she lose her spiritual power because she lost the vessel, or lose the vessel because she'd lost her power and could no longer create a new one?

Either way, it didn't matter right now.

"Then... could you at least tell me what kind of god the Bukhansan Mountain God is? It might turn out to be a clue for exorcising the maneating tiger."

"That much I can tell you freely."

Nothing in Lee Seon-ja's description of the Bukhansan Mountain God was especially remarkable. He was close to an ordinary general-deity—one who drove out evil spirits and brought blessings. The only oddity was that, despite being a tiger, he possessed the divine authority to bring rain, for some reason?

"Hmm..."

Going by Lee Seon-ja's account alone, the Bukhansan Mountain God was far removed from a maneating tiger. Then a strange sense of unease flickered through me.

There's something oddly familiar about this woman, isn't there?

But no matter how I turned it over, I couldn't figure out why.

"Oh... now that I think of it."

In the middle of her Mountain God lecture, Lee Seon-ja's eyes went wide, as if something had just surfaced in her memory.

"What is it?"

"It's unrelated to the Mountain God but... a few days before the maneating tiger stories started circulating, I had a strange dream."

"A strange dream?"

"Yes... as I said, I have no talent for the spiritual whatsoever. But that day was different. When I fell asleep, I dreamed something far too vivid and too strange to be written off as nothing."

"What kind of dream?"

"I dreamed I was watching, from behind, a man wearing a tiger mask climbing Bukhansan."

Out of curiosity, Lee Seon-ja said, she had followed the tiger mask through her dream. The masked man ascended the mountain at a speed no human could believe, as if flying, and then entered a tiny hermitage that Lee Seon-ja—who had lived in Oi-dong her whole life—had never once seen. The moment she followed him in, the tiger mask looked back over its shoulder—and the instant their eyes met, she said, she woke up.

"It could just be a meaningless dream... but it came right before the maneating tiger stories broke, so I couldn't help wondering if it might be connected in some way to the tiger you're hunting, Doctor Kim..."

"A tiger mask..."

The first thing that came to mind was the Jeong-myung-gyo cultists I'd fought at Lostco. They had each worn masks of the rabbit, the dog, the rooster, and the pig from the twelve zodiac animals. And the tiger, too, was one of the twelve.

No way...

I set aside the possibility that had surfaced in the back of my mind and bowed my head to Lee Seon-ja.

"Thank you for telling me. I think it will be a great help for the exorcism."

"Thank you."

"Thanks."

"Think nothing of it."

After the round of thanks, Yu Minseo let out a small sigh of disappointment.

"Hmm... I guess that means we have to go find that shrine from the dream? We're still awfully short on clues..."

"No need."

"What?"

"Because we've already caught two of the maneating tiger's minions—the Chang-gwi."

"What? Two of them?"

Leaving a bewildered Minseo behind, I turned to Lee Seon-ja.

"Could I borrow the courtyard out front for a moment?"

"Huh? Oh—yes, by all means, take all the time you need."

With her permission, I went out to the yard and arranged the leftover ritual food and instruments into a formation. This was a Soul-Locking Formation—a barrier meant, exactly as the name promised, to trap souls. Once the formation was set, I burned the talisman that had been sealing the evil spirit.

Whooshhh!

The talisman burned away, and the evil spirit—the Chang-gwi—trapped inside slipped free.

-Kieeeeeeek!

The moment it escaped, the Chang-gwi tried to bolt, but the formation blocked its way.

"Lonely all by yourself? Don't worry, I'll bring you a friend soon. Wang Lingguan."

-Grrrrrrrrr!

"You already know the location, don't you? Go fetch."

-Kuheoooong!

With a roar, Wang Lingguan kicked off the ground and shot away. And before long, another Chang-gwi dressed in traditional Korean garb was being dragged back in his fist.

-Yiyeonyouthoroughbastardyouthinkyourdadisaneasymarkahighschoolerwhosebrainsstillhaven'tfinishedcookingwhatwouldheknowaboutmoneyDadI'mstillinmytwentiesIcouldsucceedinbusinessasyouplease!

"Throw it into the formation."

-Kueng!

Wang Lingguan hurled the second Chang-gwi into the barrier.

"Wh-what's going on? Why is the Chang-gwi...?"

"Simple. The tip we received in the first place was itself the work of a Chang-gwi."

"What!?"

The Chang-gwi that had possessed Park Sudal was, true to its Gulgak nature, mimicking a spouse's voice—his wife's—to lure him in. And the thing that had sent us the tip was the Iol. Dwelling in the tiger's cheekbone, its role was to disarm the snares and traps laid for the tiger. Which meant...

"...Its job was to eliminate anything that posed a threat to the tiger."

"Right. And in this case, that threat was us."

Though this time, calling in the danger so it could be eliminated had backfired spectacularly.

"How on earth did you figure that out?"

Momo asked, staring at the second Chang-gwi in fascination. It was true—the Gulgak that had possessed Park Sudal and the Iol that had sent the tip both delivered flawless imitations. But...

"If you listen closely, there are moments when the story stops adding up."

The Chang-gwi possessing Park Sudal had confused its own daughter's gender, flip-flopping between "my son" and "my daughter." And the evil spirit Wang Lingguan had dragged back, while perfectly playing the father, had claimed to be in his twenties. The former muddled its gender; the latter its age.

And recently, I had already seen writing that didn't add up in exactly this way.

It was the Bukhansan maneating tiger tip we'd received just recently. The very next paragraph after claiming to be a high school student, the writer says they met their friends at university. At first I'd written it off as a simple typo—but after seeing the Chang-gwi attached to the man, I changed my mind. So I sharpened my spiritual senses as far as they would go and scanned our surroundings, and sure enough, there it was.

I spotted a Chang-gwi trailing after us, slinking along from a distance.

The story itself was probably real.

The problem was that it had been submitted by the Chang-gwi that had killed B.

Well then—the situation briefing ends here.

Now it was time to extract some information.

"Momo."

"Yes~!"

Momo handed over the supply tube she'd been carrying, and I drew out a leather whip.

CRACK!

"Mm. Nice sound."

And with that, I brought the whip down hard on the Iol playing the grieving father.

"How dare you remind me of the nightmare that is loan co-signing!"

CRACK!

-Kieeeeeeek!

The Iol writhed on the ground in agony under the lash. Its partner—the Gulgak whose face had drained chalk-white at the sight—got the whip in quick succession too.

"And what are you supposed to be!?"

CRACK!

-Kueeeeeeeek!

Ordinarily, a Chang-gwi is a front-line lackey—possessing people and hauling them off as food for the tiger. But once in a while, why not the reverse? A Chang-gwi that possesses a tiger and drags it to the exorcist—a fresh twist on an old formula.

Clichés exist to be subverted like this.

For that, the cooperation of the Chang-gwi gathered here was absolutely essential. But my Daoist Spiritual Power was far too strong to "persuade" them with. So I had prepared these persuasion tools separately.

Usin — the Ox-Privy Whip.

Yes. A whip made from an ox's penis. Cattle are creatures already brimming with yang energy, and this whip was made from the very epicenter of that yang. Even without any ritual processing, its effect was guaranteed—much like how Lee Seon-ja's power-less gut ritual had still, faintly, affected the Chang-gwi. But even with the effect, the whip would only bring the Chang-gwi pain; it was nowhere near enough to exorcise them.

CRACK! CRACK!

-KieeeeeeekDaddy'ssorrypleasestophittingme!

-Dasom'sfatherthisisn'twhoyouare!

"Look at the grit on these bastards! I'm not stopping until you quit the impersonations!"

CRACK! CRACK!

-We'resorrywe'resorrywe'resorry!

-SpareusSpareusSpareus!

"No backbone at all! Giving up the act this easily—honestly, I'm disappointed!"

CRACK! CRACK!

And so, after thoroughly tenderizing the Chang-gwi with the ox-privy whip for a good long while, I addressed the battered pair.

"Which one's scarier—the tiger, or me?"

Hey, hey. I won't hit you anymore, so be honest.