Winter Preparations – 8
1-ho transformed into a wisp of black smoke and poured into Kim Yong-gu's body through his nose, mouth, and ears, then began assaulting his internal organs.
Kim Yong-gu's chest and belly heaved and jiggled uncontrollably. The evil spirit inside him was clearly kicking and punching away — as if it meant to tear his innards apart and snap his ribs one by one.
"UWAAAAAH! Agh, my belly! My chest! SOMEBODY SAVE MEEEEE!"
Tears and snot streaming down his face, Kim Yong-gu rolled around on the ground in agony.
"What on earth is going on here?"
Hearing Kim Yong-gu's screams, the village head and his wife — who had been walking toward the field to pull up cabbages and radishes — came rushing over in alarm.
If I just stand here staring, he'll get suspicious of me, won't he?
I hurried over to Kim Yong-gu and bent down, pretending to support him.
"How's it taste?"
At my words, it was as if someone had pressed his seizure button. Kim Yong-gu shot up his bloodshot eyes and hurled out a curse.
"What did you say, you son of a—! How dare you talk down to your elders! Agh, UWAAAAH!"
"Elder? Of what? You're nothing but a criminal."
"Criminal? Who're you calling a criminal! Ugh! AAAUUUGH!"
"You. Exactly you."
I stared at Kim Yong-gu, boring into him with my gaze.
"You struck Grandma Hwang Sun-ja with your motorcycle and dressed it up as a hit-and-run, then went around the empty house stealing the gold jewelry."
For the briefest of instants, Kim Yong-gu's pupils shrank to pinpoints. The terror he had buried so deep bared its naked face.
No wonder he was frightened — I knew every detail of a crime committed twelve years ago that he'd believed could never come to light.
It was you all along, wasn't it.
The guardian snake spirit must have been unbearably frustrated, to the point of swallowing this man's wallet and spitting it out before my very eyes.
"What nonsense are you spouting! Speak so a man can understand!"
But true to form for a wicked old man, Kim Yong-gu flatly refused to admit anything.
"Even beasts can understand human speech, and you can't manage even that, it seems. In that case, I have no choice but to treat you accordingly."
I gave a faint smirk, then issued a command to 1-ho.
Don't just inflict pain indiscriminately — alternate between hard and soft. Build his terror up to the absolute extreme.
[YEAH-HO! Now we're talking!]
Human suffering and fear seemed to be something of a delicacy for the evil spirit.
1-ho burst into cheers at the prospect of extracting every last drop of agony and dread from Kim Yong-gu. Turning into red smoke, he made Kim Yong-gu's face twist and contort like a monster's.
"UWAAAAAAAH!"
[Ah, this is great! So good! Master, we just can't let him die, right?]
Right. Keep him swinging between agony so bad the onlookers would go mad and jump out of their skin, then perfectly fine. Over and over.
If I made him hurt to death, he'd rush straight to the hospital for painkillers. And then his children would come fawning over him, wouldn't they?
I had no intention of letting an evil man enjoy his children's devotion.
The village elders who had lost the gold rings their children gave them as gifts.
They never even got to be comforted by their own children.
They must have suffered so, blaming themselves — for losing the rings, and for the heartache it caused their sons and daughters.
"UWAAAAAAAH!"
Kim Yong-gu clawed at his own chest, tearing into himself. His nails dug into the flesh, blood trickling down in streams.
Stop the attack.
[Already?]
Yes.
The moment 1-ho halted his assault at my command, Kim Yong-gu's grotesquely contorted expression eased.
"Ahhhh... p-please... save me. It hurts so much. Ahhhh."
"How is it now? You seem to be doing a bit better."
"You son of a bitch! First you ask me how it tastes, now what the hell is 'how is it now'? Are you out of your damn mind?"
"If you keep being abusive toward me, your symptoms will only get worse. Are you sure that's all right?"
"And who the hell are you to be able to hurt me—"
I let Kim Yong-gu's tirade wash past one ear and gave 1-ho the order.
Attack.
At once, a scream of excruciating pain burst from Kim Yong-gu's mouth.
"UWAAAAAAH! You bastard, what ARE you? What did you do to me to make me hurt like this? Did you slip me some kind of injection without me knowing? AAAAH!"
When Kim Yong-gu clenched his teeth and grabbed for my collar, the village head's wife came puffing over at a run and moved to intervene.
"Yong-gu, you old fool! What do you think you're doing to our young Yunho!"
"Aigo, AAAAAH!"
Kim Yong-gu was in no state to handle the village head at all.
1-ho wreaked such vicious havoc that the old man rolled head over heels through a field of neatly planted winter greens.
"Hey, you bastard! I'm dying! Call 119! Hurry!"
"What? 119?"
The village head gulped dryly, then turned to look at me and asked, "Young Yunho, what in the world is wrong with that old man?"
"That's what I'd like to know. He suddenly started raging at me and doing his Hollywood action routine — makes me wonder if he's angling to shake some money out of me."
"Shake money out of you?"
The village head's eyes narrowed. The man had acted so high-and-mighty back when he'd threatened to file a complaint over chicken manure being scattered on the fields — it seemed entirely plausible to him.
Just then—
Stop the attack.
[Aw, what a waste. It was going so well.]
The instant he was restored to normal, Kim Yong-gu suddenly sprang to his feet and strode toward me fast, glaring as if he meant to strike me.
"You little bastard! What Hollywood action nonsense? You're the one making me hurt, aren't you? I knew it had to be your doing— AAAGH!"
Thud. Kim Yong-gu toppled over backward as if he'd been charged down by a bull.
Mrs. Han Su-ja had come barreling in like a rhinoceros and rammed her shoulder into his side.
"Aigo, ow!"
"Oh my, Yong-gu halbae. Why did you fall down all by yourself?"
"What? This crazy woman plows into a man and then spouts that nonsense?"
At his words, Mrs. Han Su-ja snorted and thrust out her jaw.
"Do you have evidence?"
"Wh-what? What's that supposed to mean?"
"That's what your father said, remember? Demanding proof when he asked whether we'd seen anyone scattering chicken dung on the fields. He snuck in the dead of night, spread it, and ran off — then swore he had no idea who did it! It's infuriating!"
So that had happened, had it? What a genuine piece of work this man was.
The village head, apparently recalling his own run-in with Kim Yong-gu, rolled up his sleeves.
"I figured the dump truck loaded with chicken manure would've been caught on the national highway CCTV, so I went to the county roads department — and it was halbae's son who handled it. Told me I had some nerve playing village chief in a place with barely any residents. Like I was nobody."
The village population was so small, and so elderly, that Kim Yong-gu must have looked down on them all and acted as he pleased.
The memory of that humiliation made the village head tremble with fury.
"Whether ten people live in this village or a hundred, the chief of this village is me. I am the representative our residents elected. Got that?"
"So what do you want?"
"We're going to report you, Yong-gu halbae, for shoulder-charging our Women's Association president. Dear, are you all right?"
"I think I have a lump on my head."
"These people have all gone mad, every last one of... AAAAH! Aigo, ow! Hurry up and call 119, damn it!"
The village head and Mrs. Han Su-ja exchanged a glance, then shook their heads in perfect unison.
"We're not lackeys who jump when you bark. I've got cabbages to pull, so this is where I leave you."
"You've got fingers, don't you? If you want 119 called, do it yourself. I have cabbages to pull too."
Mrs. Han Su-ja took hold of my arm.
"That old coot's angling to sue us for assault, telling us to report him and all. So let's just go. Come on, quick now."
With so few people in the village, there'd been no one to witness her ramming Kim Yong-gu — and even if someone had seen it, apparently no one would come forward as a witness anyway.
Swallowing her resentment, Mrs. Han Su-ja recalled how the chicken manure had contaminated the groundwater, and how they'd only barely managed to get by pumping water up from the valley stream.
"What kind of demon is there, anyway, if it won't even take a human like that?"
"It'll take him soon enough."
I turned my head and gave 1-ho his orders.
The key is the ebb and flow. Kill him, then bring him back — over and over.
[Got it. I'll take good care of my possession body. Oh, and come pick me up within three days.]
Okay.
Just as I finished giving my instructions, my eyes met Kim Yong-gu's dead-on.
I mouthed the words silently.
Crime and punishment. So endure it.
Did he understand?
It didn't matter if he didn't. The punishment Kim Yong-gu had coming to him was still a long, long way from over.
"I don't go around teaching this to just anyone, so watch closely."
The village head began digging as he explained how to store cabbages and radishes through the winter.
"You pull up the cabbages and radishes and bury them in the ground like this — that way you can eat them all winter long, and when spring comes they're still fresh as the day you pulled them."
"If the ground freezes, won't the cabbages and radishes freeze too?"
"Haha, you lay plastic sheeting over the top. That insulates them just fine."
I watched the village head work for a while, then asked carefully, "Aren't you worried, though? Yong-gu halbae's sons are a police officer and a county official. One of them might come demanding to know exactly what happened to you."
"Haha. Back in the day, I'd have been too scared to work, pacing around wringing my hands. But these days, I've got young Yunho standing beside me, see."
"You mean... you feel safe because of me?"
When I stammered out the question, the village head drove his shovel down into the earth and answered, "Of course! You've got none other than the county governor himself looking out for you, don't you?"
"Ah!"
The county governor — the most powerful man in this rural county — had promised to help make my move to the countryside a success.
If he kept his word, then nobody in this area could ever give me trouble.
"And that's not all. Thanks to those dog tags and army uniform buttons you found, we excavated the remains of our soldiers who fell in the Korean War. Word is even American remains might turn up."
Mrs. Han Su-ja set down the pile of kimchi cabbages she'd been stacking to one side and chimed in.
"Our village has produced someone the military itself treasures — a truly precious talent."
"Listening to the two of you, I feel like I've actually become somebody."
When I scratched the back of my head, embarrassed, Mrs. Han Su-ja puffed out her chest and looked me square in the eye.
"Young Yunho, you haven't 'become' somebody — you already ARE!"
"That's right, that's right."
The village head and his wife both thrust up their thumbs. I gave an awkward chuckle and looked away.
My face is burning, but it feels good.
Just then, Grandpa Hosik came walking up from the direction of the valley and called out in a big voice.
"Are you digging up those cabbages and radishes, or planting them?"
"Both! We're splitting them between the ones for kimchi and the ones for storage."
"I'll throw in a few heads myself. In exchange, take this."
The basket Grandpa Hosik held out was brimming with marsh snails.
"Wow, aren't those marsh snails? I've seen them stuck dark against the rocks when I've been washing up in the stream."
"Well now, a Seoul boy who can even recognize marsh snails? Toss them into cabbage soup and they've got a pleasantly bitter, nutty flavor. I'll set some aside for you, so take them home."
"Yes, sir."
In the countryside, you never refuse what an elder offers you — instead, you were obliged to repay the kindness.
"I'll come by and see you after I finish up in the field. I've got some beef left over from what I bought in the township center. Make some bulgogi with it and enjoy."
"Aigo. So thanks to you, young Yunho, I get to eat beef tonight? Haha, I've hit the jackpot!"
"Oh come on. I've gotten far more than I've given. Thanks to the reishi mushrooms you gave me last time, I haven't caught a single cold, and I'm settling in here wonderfully."
"Haha, then I'll just have to give you more reishi, won't I? Eh?"
Grandpa Hosik had lost his eldest son and daughter before him, leaving no one to care for him in his old age.
His second son and the rest of his children were all struggling with poverty themselves, barely able to look after their own households, or so I'd heard.
And so he lived alone as a solitary elder. Some time ago, he'd told the village head that he wanted to sell his land.
He couldn't bear the thought that after he died, his children would fight over a scrap of dirt, they said.
So his plan was to sell the land while he was still alive and divide a little of the money among them, then support himself by digging reishi and gathering marsh snails.
The village head had once vented to me about it, sighing over Grandpa Hosik's request.
[How much longer does he think he'll live, he said — and all he asked was to pay off the loan he'd taken against the land at the agricultural cooperative and receive just thirty million won... but who on earth would buy a sloped field in a hollow like this?]
I will. I'll buy it.
I had already resolved to buy Grandpa Hosik's field.
He'd never used chemical fertilizer in his entire life — no wonder the smell of his soil was so wonderfully rich.
When I scooped up a handful of that soft earth, earthworms wriggled everywhere, and I could feel that the land was truly alive.
Above all, there was Grandpa Hosik's final wish — the last thing he wanted to do for his children.
I wanted to make that wish come true: to sell the land and leave them something, however small.
I'll pay Grandpa Hosik more than he asked and tell him to hold on to the money. All I need to do is plant soybeans on the land.
Grandpa Hosik's land sat a five-minute walk downhill from my house.
Past that land, a little farther toward the village center, lay Mak-sun Halmeoni's field.
If I buy all of it, the entire upper end of the village becomes mine.
I sketched out a map of the village's upper end in my head. Thank you for reading.