The Pig Yokai's Demise and Kongji's Silent Sorrow
With the yokai dead, Kongji, having sensed my intent through her desperate signals, allowed me to end her with a single arrow.
'That must have been an overwhelming shock for the fourteen-year-old Kongji.'
Even an adult like me found it difficult to watch the grotesque yokai pierced through the face by an arrow and slain.
That was probably why Kongji collapsed unconscious into my arms the moment we met.
"Kongji, my lady... has she fallen asleep?"
I lifted her gently and headed home.
How desperately had she been running that she hadn't even noticed she was missing one of her flower shoes?
Kongji, who had endured so much hardship, felt remarkably admirable to me.
It was like gazing at an older sister I was a few years older than, but in my past life and this one, I had never had a real sister... yet the feeling was there.
Anyway, I carried Kongji to the house, laid her down in the bedroom, and then headed to the magistrate's office.
The magistrate's office was in total chaos.
"Aigoo, what is this!"
The women huddled together in terror, while the men looked pale and were whispering around the yokai.
"A moment, if you please."
"W-who are you, sir...?"
"The owner of that arrow. I wish to examine the creature's form. Might you step aside?"
At my polite request, the villagers hurried to clear a path.
The yokai's true identity before me was... a massive golden pig.
The golden-haired pig yokai had disguised herself as Patji and orchestrated everything.
'A golden-haired pig yokai... not a fox, at least.'
Still, she was just as troublesome as any fox yokai.
After all, I hadn't realized she was a yokai right away either.
Yokai possessed different abilities depending on their appearance or origin, and this one seemed exceptionally strong with the added talent for shapeshifting.
I moved closer to examine the creature's condition.
Just in case it was only feigning death, I listened for a heartbeat... nothing.
Of course, that alone wasn't enough to confirm its death.
Thrust!
"Aigoo!"
Yokai are cunning and may feign death while holding their own lives in their hands. To end it, it must be done completely.
After driving my sword through its head and heart once more, I informed the villagers of the truth from the past.
Most credited it to Kongji rather than myself.
After all, unlike me, who would soon be leaving, Kongji was destined to live here for a long time.
"Thanks to Kongji's quick insight and plea for help, this yokai has been slain."
Kongji...?
Now that I think about it... why did we ignore Patji's daughter for so long...?
It was all the yokai's fault. Still, it would be wise to seek the lady's forgiveness separately. Considering the mental trauma she endured...
That... makes sense.
Thanks to you, sir, and Kongji, we can live!
Long live! Long live!!
Perhaps because they had been hypnotized unknowingly and saved, the villagers were visibly overjoyed.
But there was one person whose expression remained dark.
Kongji's stepmother.
"...Madam, may I speak with you?"
"...Yes, scholar."
I led her toward the house where Kongji slept.
On the way, I remained silent for a long time.
I simply gazed at the setting sun beyond the horizon.
The longer I did so, the more displeased her expression became.
Soon, she wept and apologized to me.
"I'm sorry... sir."
"Why are you apologizing to me?"
"Because I abused my daughter who came from my womb. Before apologizing to my daughter, I wanted to apologize first to you, sir, who rescued and understood her."
"...Where is Patji, that daughter?"
"I never had a child. Yet I was filled with longing for a child even before marrying Choi."
Yokai dig deep into human hearts.
That was how she could have taken the form of Patji, the daughter of a mother who longed so desperately for a child.
In other words, in this world, the Congji Patji tale was essentially without Patji.
It was a little shocking.
I had assumed she was either dead or suffering somewhere.
She was a completely fictional character who had never even been born.
'In that case, the tragic ending might not even be possible.'
Exactly the kind of horrific ending where Patji was turned into salted fish paste and eaten by the stepmother...
For a folktale, that ending was far too gruesome.
'Of course, it isn't impossible yet...'
Replacing her directly with the yokai's corpse.
But unlike the original, there was no real need to do so, so I wouldn't worry about it.
More pressing was my concern over the stepmother's fate.
"Do you consider Kongji your family?"
At my words, the stepmother flinched and dropped to her knees.
Before I could say anything further, she wept and spoke.
"I gave birth to that child with my own heart. Even when I remarried into the Choi family, Kongji was there, so I chose to marry him. I wanted a child, and I believed a young one needed a mother."
"...I see."
"But... I was clumsy with expressing emotions. Even when the child approached awkwardly, I responded stiffly. I should never have done that..."
"And that was the gap the yokai exploited to separate you."
Initially, the yokai probably hadn't been able to disrupt the stepmother's mind so thoroughly.
Perhaps she even sensed the subtle tension in Kongji's and the stepmother's relationship.
After all, the longer their bond grew, the greater the chance the hypnosis over the stepmother and Choi would be lifted.
If the mother's longing for a child was fulfilled, the yokai's tactics using that desire would inevitably fail.
Yet the stepmother had failed to express love beyond expectations, leaving a gap in her relationship with Kongji.
The yokai had slipped into that gap and gradually driven them apart.
"But it could also be an excuse you used to justify yourself."
"I will be leaving."
"...What?"
"Once Patji's daughter has inherited all the family's property and authority... I will vanish from her side."
Vanishing to avoid suspicion that I had remarried for the family's wealth...?
If her desire for a child had been genuine, this was nearly an extreme measure.
Leaving Kongji, the child she had wanted so much, behind.
When she finished speaking, I could no longer doubt her sincerity.
To be precise, I had no right to do so.
"Do not speak further."
"But...!"
"It is Kongji who decides this matter, not me. When she awakens, the two of you may speak."
"...Understood."
After that conversation, we remained silent until we reached the house.
The stepmother went straight to her room, while I entered the one where Kongji lay.
Fortunately, Kongji slept with a peaceful expression.
"Moreover... hmm, quite the shock."
Patji's absence was shocking enough, but the stepmother's sincerity was subtly so as well.
With both gone, the main villains of the original tale had effectively disappeared.
'Patji was nonexistent from the start, and the stepmother would become just another victim of the yokai's schemes.'
For some reason, I couldn't help but feel that the stepmother I had observed over the past week... did not truly torment Kongji.
She resembled nothing more than a doll mechanically repeating the words of abuse.
I gazed at the sleeping Kongji.
A child who appeared no older than fourteen.
I had no idea how much suffering she had endured.
'We succeeded in capturing the yokai... but I might need to stay a little longer to assist in various ways.'
If the stepmother left to repent her crimes, it would be as if an adult to help her completely vanished.
So... I felt I should ensure the two could talk freely.
'But yesterday, why did the yokai say such words to Kongji?'
Last night, before the yokai entered my room, I had sensed Kongji heading toward her own.
Thinking something was wrong, I had tried to stop her, but she muttered something and rushed straight to my room.
It wasn't perfect, but what I overheard was this.
-Damn brat. You flying in the arrogant sky. It won't be long before I eat you. If the scholar's liver is so fine, then yours should be fine too.
Flying in the arrogant sky?
Why would she say that?
And hearing it, the yokai clearly intended to eat Kongji.
Yet to eat her, she said it would first require stealing the scholar's liver, as if some condition was necessary.
'...Now that I think about it, the ones who helped Kongji weren't only animals.'
At the magistrate's banquet, the stepmother and Patji made Kongji perform two tasks.
Spinning thread and pounding rice to make the outer skin.
In the original tale, a sparrow helped with the latter.
So, who helped with spinning the thread?
"...A seonnyeo."
It wasn't just any seonnyeo.
In most tales, it was simply a seonnyeo, but in some cases...
"...or the case where Kongji's deceased mother was reborn as a seonnyeo."
If it had been twisted like that from the beginning, that Kongji's mother had always been a seonnyeo?
Then I could understand the "flying in the arrogant sky" part.
And I could also understand why the yokai, an insignificant creature of the earth, would need subtly difficult conditions to seek the blood of a seonnyeo, an existence of the sky.
"Seonnyeo, seonnyeo... my head is starting to ache."
Who would have thought that the Congji Patji I thought was merely a tale of a girl being tormented was actually intertwined with yokai and the heavens?
"Ugh..."
My thoughts reached that far.
It was because Kongji slowly opened her eyes and awoke.
Yes. There was no need to think about anything else right now.
Right now... the top priority was caring for Kongji, the greatest victim.
"Are you awake? Kongji, my lady."