Treasure Map — 7
An A child?
I caught sight of a small spirit scurrying away into a corner to escape the beam of my flashlight.
It was no bigger than half the size of an adult, but the grudge it carried was every bit as ferocious as Lady Wolyeong's.
Why on earth would it be hiding in a place like this?
[Oooh! What a splendid grudge. So precious, so beautiful.]
Abe was singing praises of the grudge the child harbored.
Japanese shamans believed grudges to be a wellspring of immense spiritual power.
A grudge, they held, could unleash calamity—or become a guardian deity.
Which was why a spirit bearing such a powerful grudge made them covet it at first sight.
One could command it, release it, or play with it as one pleased.
"Get back."
I shoved Abe aside and approached the child.
I had seen this child before. Not with my own eyes, exactly—it had been a fleeting glimpse as I ferried the earthbound spirits off to the afterlife.
"It's you, isn't it. Heejin's friend."
Heejin was the daughter of the couple who ran the shoe shop. When I'd gone up to the rooftop to save Seo Jinwoo, she had given me a glass marble.
And the child standing before me now had been sitting right beside Heejin on the tour bus.
I hadn't seen the child since then, so I'd assumed it had already gone to the afterlife.
[Grrrrr!]
The child crouched low, fixed me with bloodshot crimson eyes, and growled like a beast.
White fangs flashed. It had all but crossed the line from vengeful ghost into evil spirit.
Goat horns were beginning to sprout from its head.
"I won't hurt you. You don't have to be scared."
I spoke softly, trying to soothe the child.
"Mister isn't a bad person."
[Grrr!]
"Heejin, the puppy, everyone in the village—they've all gone to the afterlife. Why did you stay behind here all alone?"
[Grrrrr, woof woof!]
The horns growing from both sides of its head lengthened along with its fangs, and the child kept morphing into something monstrous.
Fur spread across its whole body, and a tail took shape.
It was no longer a form anyone could call human. It was a monster, pure and simple.
I wasn't the least bit afraid—my heart was simply breaking. How deep must the wounds run in a small, fragile child for it to transform into something so hideous?
"I'm sorry, sweetheart... I'll make sure the whole world learns the truth about what your mom and dad suffered. So please... don't hide in this dark place anym—"
[Woof!]
The child, now a full-fledged evil spirit, lunged at me.
I dodged swiftly, fist half-raised before I stopped myself.
Yes, evil spirits must be dealt with, but...
I wanted to comfort this child. If I destroyed its spirit here and now, I knew the regret would stay lodged in my chest forever.
"Please—I don't want to ruin you. For Heejin's sake too, your friend..."
In a flash, the glass marble Heejin had given me came to mind. I'd been carrying it in my pocket.
I reached into my trouser pocket, and there it was beneath my fingers.
"Remember this? It's Heejin's. You two used to play with it, didn't you?"
I lowered myself slowly and rolled the marble toward the child.
The glass marble trundled across the dust-covered floor and came to rest at the evil spirit's feet.
[Grrrrr!]
The evil spirit raised a leg as if to smash the marble to pieces.
At that very instant, the beam of my flashlight caught the glass marble, and it flared with a brilliant sparkle. The evil spirit froze mid-motion.
[Grrrrrr.]
The evil spirit stared blankly at the marble—and then, wobbling, tears began to spill from both its eyes.
Those tears worked a miracle.
The child, which had transformed into a beast reeking of rotting flesh, slowly returned to its original form.
A small, skinny boy with a shy, wary face.
"Thank goodness."
I approached slowly and laid my hand on the child's head—and the moment I did...
"Yongsoo!"
The tour bus was closing its front door, about to pull away, when the boy leapt off it.
"Oh my goodness, Yongsoo! Good heavens, that rascal! He cried all night about leaving his puppy behind all by himself. Driver, please stop the bus!"
"Stop it now? We're already running way behind."
"There, there, Yongsoo's mom. Let the boy play with his puppy. It's not like the restaurant's going to run out of food."
The boy's mother, flustered, flung the window open.
"Yongsoo! Set the table and eat your dinner! Mommy will be right back!"
Yongsoo gave a playful grin and waved at the bus as it dwindled into the distance.
Right away, he romped around the yard with his puppy, then held the glass marble up to the sun.
"Wow, so pretty."
Just then—BANG!—an explosion rent the air from the direction of the tunnel.
Yongsoo stared blankly toward the tunnel for a moment, then began to run.
"Uh, Mom? Ah... Dad! Mommy!"
Mid-run, tears surged up and swallowed him, and he tumbled onto the asphalt.
Time and space shifted.
Yongsoo stood dazed in a funeral hall.
Men in suits filed in and murmured among themselves, but the boy's eyes were fixed on the memorial portrait.
"Grab that kid!"
"The boy's getting away!"
The scene shifted once more—this time to the Pyeongcheong orphanage.
Yongsoo's face was swollen from beatings as he scrambled over the wall and ran.
He slipped, rolled, crashed to the ground—and still he did not stop.
Running without rest, he finally arrived in front of the Chinese restaurant in Ugok 5-ri.
The puppy lay dead of starvation, still tethered to its rope. Flies swarmed black over the carcass.
"Hkk! Huu-hkk!"
Yongsoo wailed, shooing at the flies, sobbing his heart out.
Then he saw two black vans racing toward the village.
He slipped down into the basement and hid.
Men climbed out of the vehicles and began combing the village.
Men searching every corner of the hamlet, the ominous chanting of a shaman's incantations.
As they burned talismans and raised a barrier, Yongsoo sat huddled against the basement wall.
Tears streamed glittering down the child's cheeks. They might as well have been tears of blood.
"Please, somebody help. God, anyone, please... save my mom and dad."
The child prayed, and prayed, and prayed, pouring everything he had into it.
"Yongsoo."
Having read the child's memories, I was stricken with sorrow and pain.
I gathered the child into my arms and offered him my truest condolences.
"Mister will pay back everything that was done to you. If Joo Changnam and the construction company CEO haven't crossed over to the afterlife yet, I will hunt down their souls and destroy them in the most agonizing way possible."
Yongsoo lifted his eyes and looked up at me.
His face was so clear and gentle now that the monstrous transformation from moments before might never have happened at all.
[Where did Heejin go?]
The glass marble was clasped in Yongsoo's hand.
"She went to sleep with her mom and dad. It's time for you to go to sleep too, Yongsoo."
[Did Nureongi go to sleep too?]
"Yes, he did."
Yongsoo sank down where he stood and murmured softly.
[I'm the only one left behind again.]
"No, you're not. Mister will... send you to where Heejin and Nureongi and your parents are. I promise."
I lifted the child into my arms.
"And one more thing—I swear I will avenge you on those bastards."
[Pinky promise.]
Yongsoo held out his little finger. I hooked mine around it, and then I opened the gate to the underworld.
Go now, little one. And rest easy. Goodbye, Yongsoo.
Dazzling light poured down as Yongsoo walked toward the afterlife.
And in that light, glinting off the basement floor, Yongsoo's bleached bones came into view.
After Yongsoo vanished into the radiance and the black darkness crept back in, I stepped back from his remains.
The statute of limitations on murder has been abolished, right?
Every villager had been recorded as killed in the traffic accident, but Yongsoo, by all accounts, remained on the books as a missing person.
But Yongsoo had died here—and all I had to do was arrange things so it looked like Joo Changnam and the construction company CEO were the ones who put him there.
Then the police would have to investigate a cold case.
And once the media caught wind, the whole affair would surface into daylight.
We had to rouse the fury of every citizen in the nation—make them all ask how such a thing could possibly have happened in South Korea.
Only then would the full truth of the case be dragged into the light.
And for that...
Should I call Moon Sung-il, the man with all the connections?
Even if I did unearth the gold hidden by the Japanese invaders, converting it into cash wouldn't be easy.
That's it. I'd go into business with Moon Sung-il, aiming to keep half the gold for myself.
I began photographing the basement—soon to be a murder scene—with my phone's camera.
And then.
"Abe, do you know where Joo Changnam is buried?"
[Joo Changnam's grave? He was cremated.]
"Then the villa or house he lived in? Surely something's still standing?"
"Why do you ask?"
"I want to leave that bastard's DNA here. Blood, hair, nails—something like that. Is there nothing left?"
[Joo Mandeok has his hair and nails. He used them to curse his own father.]
"So a devil really does beget a devil."
A few strands of Joo Changnam's hair in Joo Mandeok's keeping. Getting my hands on them didn't seem like it would be difficult at all.
"Number 1."
When I got home and stepped toward the sunroom, Number 1 shot straight up, every hair on end.
[Are you insane, Master?! You brought a Japanese shaman ghost home with you!]
Hadn't it only ever been sealed inside Yeon Chumo's longsword?
I found it utterly fascinating that Number 1 recognized a Japanese shaman on sight.
"How did you know? You two go way back or something?"
[Don't talk nonsense! If I'd run into something like that before, I'd have devoured it—do you think I'd have just let it walk?]
[What is this?! Why is an evil spirit here?!]
The moment Abe laid eyes on Number 1, he clasped both hands together, ready to chant a spell.
[Oh? Getting started already? Because I really will eat you this time.]
Number 1 slipped out of its vessel and swelled in size.
"Both of you, enough! I didn't bring a shaman home just to set you two at each other's throats."
[Then why did you bring it? I can't stand Japanese shamans, I tell you!]
Number 1 thrashed about in a fury.
As it turned out, Yeon Chumo's longsword had been exhibited at a museum in Hamgyeong Province.
The museum dated back to the Japanese colonial era, and back then a shaman had come and tried to erase him—burning talismans, the works.
Then the sword was sold off to China, shuffled through black markets there, and eventually made its way back to Korea.
So that's one of the routes North Korean artifacts trickle in through.
Half of Korea's cultural properties and relics were sitting in North Korea.
And from there, they flowed out into China.
The problem was that China insisted the lot of it belonged to them.
They'd dismiss Goguryeo, Balhae, and Joseon artifacts as the property of the ethnic Korean minority in China.
It was enough to make me bolt upright in my sleep, livid.
But for now, the enemy right in front of me came first.
I spoke to Number 1, which was swelling larger by the second, malice radiating off it in waves.
"I'll let you eat an evil spirit. Everything we catch this time can be your meal."
[Liar!]
"Yes—up until now I told you to feast all you wanted, then stopped you at the crucial moment."
[You cheated me. Dirty trick.]
"I was afraid you'd grow too powerful for me to handle. And honestly? These were people once—it just doesn't sit right with me to have them devoured by an evil spirit."
I was no King of the Underworld. What right did I have to judge a soul and annihilate it?
But this time was different.
"This time I won't stop you. Not ever."
I showed Number 1 photographs of Joo Changnam and the construction company CEO, alternating between them on my phone.
"The moment you meet these two souls, eat them. But first—look at this man's face."
I pulled up Joo Mandeok's photo on the screen and went on.
"Possess this man, and bring me the hair first."
Number 1 stared hard at Joo Mandeok's photo, then flicked its red tongue.
"Whose hair am I fetching?"
The bait had been taken.
Once Number 1 brought back Joo Changnam's hair, I'd scatter it in the Chinese restaurant basement and report it to the police.
And that report would be better coming from Moon Sung-il than from me.
I called Moon Sung-il.
"Teacher Moon, would you by any chance be interested in gold hidden by the Japanese invaders during the Imjin War?"
I was absolutely certain Moon Sung-il would swallow this hook, too.