The Curse Has Returned
Even if Mother had slipped off to the island shade to slit throats, the thump-thump-thump-thump of someone pounding furiously on the main gate since the crack of dawn would have dragged anyone from the deepest sleep. Still, once the noise crossed the villa’s wide garden and passed through the paper doors, it shouldn’t have been loud enough to disturb an ordinary person. Cheong’s body, however, was far from ordinary. The real reason she hadn’t snapped awake at once was a kind of unconscious indifference. After all, with hearing that transcended human limits, she would never get a single moment of rest if she woke at every little sound.
But when that gate-rattling din was joined by a voice desperately wailing “Fairy! Civil Engineering Fairy!” the situation changed. People are naturally more sensitive to someone calling their name, even while asleep. Cheong opened her eyes inside Gyeon Po-hui’s embrace.
Pale dawn light filtered through the paper door. Irritation surged through her at once. Just who the hell was hammering on the gate at this ungodly hour? Yet the softness against her fingertips eased her temper a little. After all, she had fallen asleep last night without washing, simply mauling those breasts like dough, so both hands had already burrowed deep beneath Hui-mae’s jeogori.
Hmm. Breasts really never get old.
Still sprawled on the bed, Cheong continued to knead and squeeze, her half-awake mind utterly content. She went further, stroking the velvety skin of the belly and pinching the side, savoring that tender flesh—
Thump-thump-thump-thump. Fairy! Please!
The pounding continued. Cheong finally let out an annoyed groan and sat up.
“Mmm… Hui-mae? You’re already up…?”
“Ah. Did I wake you? Go back to sleep. Why are you getting up?”
“No, it’s fine. Someone’s calling outside, isn’t it?”
“Sounds like it. Stay in bed. I’ll go see.”
“No. Let’s go together.”
She had lain down fully dressed the night before. Her hair was probably a mess, but that was exactly why hats had been invented. (They hadn’t.) She flipped her face veil down, yawned so wide her jaw nearly cracked, and opened the gate.
Even in the dim early-morning haze, quite a crowd had already gathered. But their expressions—
Cheong felt sleep flee her in an instant.
“Fairy, the curse! The curse has returned!”
“You said you drove it away!”
“My husband, Fairy— we have to hold his funeral, but we’re afraid the curse might cling to him. Please, drive away the impurity, won’t you?”
Everyone spoke at once, each with their own plea. Some cried out in shock, some in resentment, some in desperate begging, clinging to her.
Cheong’s face froze over like ice.
---
Constables held back the murmuring spectators, forming a human wall around the scene. Cheong slipped through them without a sound. Even to the constables, a shaman known for her efficacy was both revered and feared. No one tried to stop her; they only watched nervously. She blended in as naturally as if she belonged to the magistrate’s own office.
Bodies wrapped in straw mats lay in a long row across the marketplace. The damage was apparently too severe to show openly. Seven corpses. Then another stretcher pushed through the crowd, making eight. As the stretcher swayed, an arm slipped out and rolled across the ground. The scar on the back of the hand looked familiar.
Cheong carefully lifted the mat covering the face. Jang Mok-su, Mr. Lee. She didn’t know his full name, but they had known each other well enough to joke and laugh together. Of course, a master carpenter like him usually grew rich through all sorts of petty tricks—skipping steps in the first form, inflating costs in the second, hiring invisible laborers that existed only on paper in the third, and so on. By the standards of the Central Plains, such graft was practically a merchant’s basic virtue; anyone who didn’t do it was considered a fool.
Besides, while he cheated customers, he divided the skimmed money fairly among the workers and treated them well, earning respect for looking after his laborers. Mr. Lee had lived past a hundred, so perhaps it was simply old age? But no. Cheong was angry. Furious, in fact.
Which sons of bitches did this?
Salwolmun. Those Salwolmun bastards had decided to stop pretending, had they? She should have released the poison earlier. She had hesitated, and now this. She should have killed them all from the start.
Flames flared in Cheong’s eyes—flames burning in a color unknown to the Central Plains.
In that instant, a scene flashed before her.
Lantern light blurred, the world swaying gently—the vision of a drunkard. Suddenly, strangers pretending to support him, slinging arms around his shoulders. Before he could ask who they were, a sharp blade jabbed into his side, demanding silence. His mind cleared, vision sharpening for a moment. He was dragged into a deserted back alley. Stab, slash, cut. In a world slowly fading to black, voices cackled. “Hurry up and finish so we can go for a drink.” Then darkness.
Cheong staggered.
“Hui-mae? Are you all right?”
Gyeon Po-hui rushed over and grabbed her arm. Sweat had gathered at Cheong’s chin and now dripped down, plop, plop. What the hell was this? Had playing shaman for a while turned her into a real one? Possession? Psychic powers? Past-life vision? And who was showing her this? Was it Mr. Lee? Or was it that damn status window again? Why show it to me specifically?
No. Of course. The reason was obvious.
Cheong’s lips stretched into a wide grin.
She didn’t know what kind of trick this was, but fine. All right. This time she liked it. She would gladly play along.
Her head turned sharply this way and that. In every story she had read, the culprit always showed up at the scene, didn’t they? Either to admire their own work or to check nervously whether something had gone wrong.
Then she spotted a face that was unfamiliar yet somehow familiar.
Cheong casually linked arms with Gyeon Po-hui and began walking as if they were simply heading home. Then, at the perfect moment—grab. She seized the man by the collar and hurled him skyward with all her strength.
“Uwaaak!”
The man screamed as he crash-landed among the constables, right beside the corpses. At the same time, a heavy whoosh tore through the air. The hammerhead slammed into his ankle with a crunch. Bricks that had paved the marketplace exploded upward.
Sudden chaos sent the spectators shrieking. Cheong ignored them, grabbed the now-crippled man by the collar again, raised her straightened hand high, and—slap!
“Aaaagh! Ack, ack, ack!”
The man had been screaming from the pain and terror of his missing ankle, but the screams began to break off in ragged bursts. Slap! Slap! Slap! Slap! In the now-silent marketplace, only the sound of Cheong’s right hand repeatedly striking the man’s right cheek rang out loudly. Blood already poured from his ear; the ear itself had burst. Bloody tears streamed from his eyes. Protecting them with mere eyelids was impossible against Cheong’s monstrous strength.
At some point Gyeon Po-hui had seized both the man’s arms and pinned them forward. He struggled, but Gyeon Po-hui was now a proper expert on the verge of the Harmonious Realm, moreover a great protector who had learned the divine techniques of the Divine Cult. A mere warrior had no hope of breaking free.
“Stop, ack, please, ack, stop. Ack.”
Yet the hand slapping his face did not stop. Only when one side of the man’s face had swollen blue did Cheong yank him forward. Gyeon Po-hui, who had grown oddly quick at reading Cheong’s intentions, released her grip at once. The man flopped like a rag doll and collapsed—right on top of Carpenter Lee’s corpse.
A cold voice followed.
“Why did you kill him?”
“What… what are you talking about?”
“I asked why you killed him.”
Cheong grabbed a fistful of the man’s hair and dragged the mat aside, shoving Carpenter Lee’s face right up to his. The man recoiled in terror.
“Hiiik.”
“Why? You killed him yourself—why act so surprised? You were cackling with glee while you stabbed him, but now the corpse scares you?”
The spectators gasped or let out shaky breaths.
“What… what are you—”
“Still not enough, huh? Hui-mae?”
“Yep!”
Gyeon Po-hui answered cheerfully and pinned the man again. Cheong raised her hand once more.
“Wait! Wait, please! I’ll talk!”
“Too late. First, ten slaps.”
“Waaaait!”
Slap, slap, slap, slap. The rhythmic sound of flesh being beaten rang out. Gradually it grew wetter—smack, splat—as the man’s cheek split open and blood poured down.
After exactly ten strikes, Cheong asked again.
“Why did you kill him?”
“Orders… I received orders, ack!”
“Speak louder.”
“I received orders!”
“From whom?”
“Brother Osori, ack!”
Splat! The man’s head whipped around. His eyes filled with a look of unjust grievance. Cheong answered in a flat voice.
“You think I know who that is just because you say it? You want to keep talking like only you understand?”
“Gwigapdae! The captain of Gwigapdae, ack!”
“What the hell is Gwigapdae? Speak properly.”
“It was Captain Osori of the Gwigapdae, the combat unit of the Gwangju Seonbang!”
Gasps rippled through the spectators once more. Ignoring them, Cheong slapped him again.
“You call trash like that ‘brother’?”
“No! That Osori bastard ordered it!”
“Why?”
“That’s…”
Cheong’s hand rose into the air again. The man shouted desperately.
“He said if more workers died, the Jin family would halt construction!”
“Who else did you kill? Name them.”
The man immediately began spitting out names at Cheong’s prompting. Of course she had no idea who they were, but quite a few people here would.
“Hui-mae, break both his arms and let him go.”
“Okay!”
Gyeon Po-hui snapped both the man’s upper arms like dry twigs. With one foot already gone, even after she released him he could only twitch and writhe on the ground, unable to stand.
“Let’s go. No—Hui-mae, it might be dangerous. Why don’t you wait at the shrine? Or at the Jin residence?”
“No. You’re going to fight, right? I’m going with you, Hui-mae.”
Gyeon Po-hui stated her intention clearly. Cheong opened her mouth, then decided that no matter what she said, it would be useless.
“If it gets dangerous, run. If they catch you, I’ll be in even more trouble.”
“Mm. Mm.”
Though her face was hidden by the veil, Hui-mae was probably beaming brightly. Cheong walked silently out of the marketplace as if her business there was finished. The spectators parted in fear of even brushing against her. Cheong strode through them with her usual quick steps.
“Ughhh…”
The man was still crawling across the ground. His crushed ankle looked like kneaded rice cake, and with both arms broken, even a strong-willed person would find moving difficult. Around him, people began to gather, their knees blocking the slowly brightening morning sunlight and casting shadows over him. They were the families, friends, and neighbors of the victims he had boasted about killing.
“S-save…”
The man’s voice trailed off. Every hand gripped bricks—bricks torn from the road by Cheong’s hammer—clenched so tightly that veins stood out.
“Constable! Constable, sir! Help! Over here!”
But no answer came. After all, the constables had not blocked the way, so they would not have come this far. And then came the obvious conclusion—the cycle of revenge.
---
Surprisingly, the front of the Gwangju Seonbang was clean. Cheong tilted her head. She had expected at least one rat to scurry back to its nest after seeing her crush that trash and report in. Or were they underestimating her that much?
Dragging her hammer behind her, Cheong approached the main gate of the Gwangju Seonbang. The two gate guards standing left and right gripped their weapons and sucked in a sharp breath.
“Halt!”
Two men inhaled, yet only one voice rang out. It was not because their timing was perfect. The hammerhead drew a wide arc and shattered their forearms. Elbows slammed into their own torsos, snapping every rib. The jagged ribs pierced their lungs, punching holes. And once that happened, a person could no longer make a sound.