My Land Is a Money Cushion – 4: Curse of the Red Moon

Far off the beaten path of the Achasan hiking trail stood Jo Eun-sun's private shrine.

She had named it a Seonghwangdang, and here she performed her gut rituals and burned her votive prayers. The district office had sent officials out time and again — fining her, tearing the shrine down — but it was all wasted effort. She would pay the paltry fines, and the shrine could simply be rebuilt.

Buraemsan and Suraksan each had a spot or two where potent energy had pooled, but the site Jo Eun-sun had marked out on Achasan rivaled Manisan on Ganghwa Island or Gyeryongsan in South Chungcheong Province. For hurling the flesh of a curse, the conditions were nothing short of perfect — the air was thick with gloom and turbid ghost aura, a phenomenon born of the stray spirits that had wandered in from the neighborhoods around Mangwol-dong, where the old cemetery lay.

"Well, well."

A white-haired woman stepped out of the shrine and lifted her gaze to the blood-red moon hanging in the sky. It was Jo Eun-sun. Skin that had once hung off her in melted folds was now taut and supple again, restored by the spiritual energy she drained from captured spirits. In her two eyes flickered a killing intent ground cold and razor-sharp.

"Today is an auspicious day."

A day for raising the blade. A day when every manner of fierce beast comes to roost. And on top of it all, a red moon had risen. Jo Eun-sun brushed the dust from the skirt of her freshly donned shaman robes, the corners of her mouth curling upward.

'So this is what they mean when they say even heaven is on your side, hmm?'

Kim Yunho would make an inexhaustible ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠wellspring for the Cheondo — the one hundred and nine thousand rounds of it. She had seen him open the Underworld Gate with her own eyes; there was no room for doubt. So she had decided. She would not kill him. She would leave him nothing but the flicker of his eyelids.

No matter that he was an only child — no aging parents could spend the rest of their lives changing a grown son's diapers. Once they committed him to a care facility, she would simply visit every day and draw out the Cheondo, one round after another.

'A hospital is nothing but a hive of ghosts. I could catch stray spirits and offer them up myself, if it came to that.'

There was just one complication: the fact that Kim Yunho possessed no small measure of spiritual power. She would have to fling a curse far deadlier than the one that had killed Abe — only then would he be too broken to strike back.

'Which means I must choose the offerings with care. Snare humans already festering with grudges and curses, and give them as human sacrifice.'

Jo Eun-sun spoke to the secretary nearest her.

"Bring those men here. The ones the police caught while they were tailing Kim Yunho."

"Yes, ma'am."

The moment the secretary withdrew, Jo Eun-sun began to hone her blade. Before she knew it, a mournful curse had found a melody and was slipping out between her lips.

Shaaak. Every time the steel met the whetstone, a whirl of killing intent coiled around her.

The blade began to gleam a faint blue. It was not the light of metal. It was the light of grudges, killing intent condensed into a single edge.

The stray spirits were sucked in one after another and ground to nothing between the blade and the stone.

Jo Eun-sun raised the blade and drank in the yin energy streaming from the red moon.

"Into this blade I shall seal the Three Souls and Seven Spirits."

Then she began to dance, slicing the empty air with every step.

Abe had stopped dead in the middle of the hiking trail and whispered into my ear.

'Yes. I felt it too.'

A killing intent, razor-cold, and a mournful energy saturated with resentment and curses were billowing over the ridge of the mountain.

'Abe — just as we can sense her energy, they'll soon catch wind of us on that side. Raise a barrier.'

[I shall seal both you and myself within it, Master.]

Abe chanted the incantation, and something like a membrane of glass came into being, wrapping itself around the two of us.

'Now then — let's keep moving. I'm rather eager to see what she's up to.'

[As you command, Master.]

That Abe had never once taught Jo Eun-sun how to raise or dispel a barrier had turned out to be a stroke of genius. And as we moved, the barrier moved with us.

"And this is what you call a photograph of Kim Yunho?"

Jo Eun-sun scowled at the pictures her men had brought back from Yunho's house. They were photos of an infant — she couldn't even be certain it was really him.

"Why didn't you bring something taken after he was grown, instead of baby pictures? A graduation photo, something like that."

"That was the only photograph in the house."

"And this sad little pair of underwear is all you found?"

She wrinkled her nose at the men's undergarment, visibly displeased. Whether it had actually belonged to Kim Yunho was questionable in its own right.

"His closet was completely empty, ma'am. It seems he took everything with him when he moved to the countryside."

Jo Eun-sun's face darkened. An infant's photo and a single pair of underwear. Could she really hurl an accurate curse at Kim Yunho with this?

'It will be fine. I know his exact time of birth.'

Kim Yunho's parents had lived in Gangdong-gu, and nowhere else, since their marriage. She had bribed a district office clerk and pulled his birth records. In those days, the family registry still existed, and the address of the hospital where a child was born had to be recorded on it. If he'd been born at Kyunghee University Hospital, the entry would read something like, "Hoegi-dong, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul..." and so on.

'I'm a seasoned hand at this sort of digging, so it wasn't any trouble at all.'

She had identified the hospital almost immediately, then bribed an employee in the billing office to learn the exact date and hour of his birth. And that was how Kim Yunho's saju — his four pillars of destiny — had come into her hands. A childhood photograph, the underwear, and a paper inscribed with his saju. Everything was in place.

'Even if the underwear turns out to be his father's, the photograph and the saju will carry the curse well enough.'

Now came the time to offer up the goods of a man who bore Kim Yunho a grudge.

"Bring him in."

"Yes, ma'am."

The men carried in two sacks. From within them tumbled a figure whose arms and legs were bound tight, a blindfold over his eyes.

"Mmph! Mmmph!"

"Hnnngh!"

Gagged as they were, the men drooled and groveled, begging for their lives. Jo Eun-sun's eyes remained utterly cold.

"Well now. If ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I'd done my job properly, you wouldn't be in this sorry state, would you."

"Hnn-hnngh."

As one of the men rolled his body toward her, a Rolex glinted on his wrist. He had clawed his way up to department head at Boram Loan through sheer ruthlessness, working himself to the bone — so diligently, in fact, that Jo Eun-sun had once gifted him that very Rolex. And then a single mistake had brought him to this. The mistake of tailing Kim Yunho and getting himself arrested.

Because of it, Boram Loan had hit the airwaves, and word was a punishing tax audit was coming down the pipeline. Thinking back, it had been idiotic. He had tailed the man in broad daylight, bold as brass. If he'd known how it would end, Jo Eun-sun would simply have killed Kim Yunho the moment she laid eyes on him.

"Hnngh-hnngh!"

The man wept tears and snot alike, begging as if to say: one more chance, just one. Jo Eun-sun kicked him.

"Because of you, this company is about to go under. No — it's Kim Yunho's fault. Curse him. Blame it all on him. That's an order."

She pressed the frost-cold edge of the blade against the man's face. Slik — the steel swept across his cheek.

"AAAAAAAARGH!"

Blood fountained from the path the razor edge had carved. Slik — this time Jo Eun-sun severed the leather strap binding the other man they'd brought along.

"You. Kill him. Do that, and I'll let you live."

"Wh-what? You want me to kill my own department head?"

"Can't bring yourself to do it? Then shall I tell the department head to kill you instead?"

The moment she made as if to press the blade into the Rolex man's hands, the other scrambled to his feet.

"N-no, ma'am! I'll kill him myself."

"Good."

Jo Eun-sun fetched the blade she had labored over only moments ago, chanting her incantations as she honed it against the stone.

"You will stab him ninety-nine times with this — and he does not die before then. If he breathes his last on the ninety-eighth, I will take you as the human sacrifice instead. Understood?"

"Y-yes! Understood, ma'am!"

Jo Eun-sun dripped candle wax onto the floor, tracing it into a perfect circle, and shoved the man — Rolex in one hand, knife in the other — inside it.

"The offering is ready. Shall we begin the gut, then?"

Incense that called to the dead was lit.

Deong-deoreoreoreo.

The Janggu Player began laying down the rhythm. Rich, oily food had been spread out to lure the stray spirits in, and Jo Eun-sun raised her ritual blade and began to dance.

While Jo Eun-sun danced and chanted, the henchman trapped inside the wax circle stabbed and slashed at the bound man.

"Uuugh! Hnnngh!"

The stench of blood filled the shrine. The incense burned down, its acrid smoke billowing up like fog.

Thud. Thud.

Jo Eun-sun drove her knife into the photograph of the infant.

She shredded the underwear she believed to be his, slashing at it again and again with the knife.

"Into this blade I shall seal the Three Souls and Seven Spirits."

Crack! Jo Eun-sun drove her blade into the neck of the henchman who had been stabbing the Rolex-wearing department head.

"Hnngh! Wh... why...?"

"Why?"

Jo Eun-sun curled her lips into a fish-belly sneer.

"Because a true living sacrifice needs fear and resentment as well."

She wrenched the blade free, and the man crumpled like a dried straw doll. Jo Eun-sun wheeled around and glared at the blood-splattered Rolex.

"And whose fault is all of this? Kim Yunho's! Hate him. He is the reason you're dying."

The very instant Jo Eun-sun raised her knife at the Rolex man—

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"POLICE!"

Camera flashes exploded out of nowhere, and dogs began barking. Jo Eun-sun's eyes rolled back so far they turned white, and both her hands shook uncontrollably.

"H-how did the police find this place? Why didn't I sense it coming?"

She whipped her head around. The rice was all but cooked — she could not stop now. Jo Eun-sun raked her own arm open, splattering blood, and chanted out Kim Yunho's date of birth. She set fire to the box holding his saju, burned the underwear and the photograph, and layered the curse upon the flame.

"Boss, you have to run!"

"Out of my way!"

Jo Eun-sun shoved the secretary aside. The woman crumpled under the force of it, and a candle toppled over. Fire began to crawl up the walls of the Seonghwangdang — and still Jo Eun-sun chanted the final words of the incantation.

At last, the moment her curse took flight—

FLASH! A searing light split the air, and thunder ripped across a cloudless sky.

KRAKA-BOOM! And the lightning bolt came plunging straight down on Jo Eun-sun inside the shrine.

"AAAAAAAAGH!"

The current seared her hair to ash; her fingernails and fingertips blistered and swelled grotesquely red.

And then — the space above the shrine's altar twisted and rippled, and the man sitting upon it revealed himself.

"K-Kim Yunho?"

There was Kim Yunho, seated on the very altar where, mere minutes ago, she had performed the rites to curse him. Were her eyes deceiving her? Or had the lightning strike scrambled her brain?

Before she could even stammer out a word—

"You'd best start by tasting the suffering of a man who borrowed from loan sharks to pay for his sick child."

Kim Yunho vaulted down from the altar and began flinging talismans. The paper came spinning through the air and slapped flat against Jo Eun-sun's chest.

That instant, scalding tears streaming down her face, Jo Eun-sun clawed at her own hair. She had never once carried a child in her belly, never once given birth — and yet the agony of losing a beloved child flooded through her, whole and undiluted.

"Now, the suffering of a man who built a business with his own two hands, only to have it torn away."

"Hnnnngh!"

She had worked her fingers to the bone, and still there was no livelihood left to sustain. The agony of a family man stripped of home and shop, cast out onto the street — and Jo Eun-sun snatched up the knife. She raked the blade across her own arms again and again, rolled shrieking on the floor, and still the pain would not fade.

"Next — a college student whose kidney was stolen."

"A woman reduced to working as a karaoke hostess."

The papers Yunho flung clung to her body like magnets, and Jo Eun-sun thrashed on the floor, biting through her own tongue.

"AAAAAAGH! AAAAAAGH! Just kill me — please, kill me!"

At that very same moment, Jeong Su-hwan, CEO of Seongdo Construction, was meeting with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his lawyers to prepare for the prosecutors' investigation when he suddenly clutched at his chest.

"Hngh—!"