Windfall on the Side - 7
‘Huh? What?’
They say you have to snap the rod up the instant a char so much as taps your line — quick as a strike.
But there was nothing. Not a whisper of movement. Stillness, pure and absolute, while I sat there daydreaming with my line dangling into the ice hole.
"Whoa! Look at this, Mom!"
"Oh my, our Dasol caught a huge mountain char, sweetheart! Look at that!"
"I can't talk right now. I just reeled in a giant king char, I'm telling you."
Over on the far bank, the kid and one of the adults had both hooked fish at the same time.
"Yunho, that side seems to be where they're biting. Let's head over there."
The director was even more impatient than I was. He clearly wanted desperately to capture me reeling in a char on camera.
‘Let's see here.’
I lifted my head and scanned my surroundings, tracing the current of the river in my mind. The idea was simple: if I were a mountain char, where would I feel safest?
"Yeah, this spot's no good."
Earlier, in my eagerness to just start fishing, I'd set up near the entrance. But no matter how solidly the river was frozen over, you'd still feel the vibrations of people walking. Char weren't amoebas — there was no way they'd snap at bait somewhere buzzing with tremors.
They'd want a stretch where the current running beneath the ice was relatively slow — somewhere they could hold their position without being swept away while they fed.
Where would that be?
"There!"
The inner curve where the river bent and swirled. Sunlight reached it too, so the bait would gleam clearly. It looked like the perfect spot for a char to dart out and snatch at something shiny.
"That's the one for me."
"Oh, nice choice! If you stand there, the backdrop behind you is going to look fantastic on camera."
The director, already picturing the frame in his head, broke into a bright grin and strode ahead.
I was picking up my rod and plastic bucket to move when —
"Huh? Kim Yunho? Fancy seeing you here!"
Someone recognized me and called out. I turned to find Hwang Yu-hyeon — the farming-school 'Seonggol' — attaching bait to his line.
"Hello, Hwang Yu-hyeon. Catching many char?"
Today he was dressed like he could walk straight into a fishing tournament. He wasn't even using the rental poles provided at the entrance — he was carrying a professional-grade spinning reel setup, radiating the grand ambition of I'm going to strip this river of every single char it has.
And yet his bucket was completely empty.
‘Dressed like a pro, and hasn't caught a single one?’
Well, it happens. We were farming-school students, not fishermen.
"Guess they're not biting well, huh."
"Right? I just got here and only started fishing, so I really couldn't say."
Hwang Yu-hyeon spat out a lie he didn't even need to tell.
‘His mouth froze over, apparently.’
His cheeks had gone bright red. He looked like he'd been standing out on a rock-hard frozen river for three hours straight, suffering the whole time.
‘Too proud to admit defeat, huh.’
I'd always known he was the type to show off, so I just gave him an easy smile.
"Right, well — good luck out there. I'll go try my luck over there."
"Why there? You have to be in a spot like this to catch anything."
"Sorry?"
Where Hwang Yu-hyeon stood was in the shadow, out of the sun, where the current ran hard. Compared to other spots, the bait would barely be visible, and the wind cut through so fiercely it looked bitterly cold.
"It's just… well, I like that side better. The scenery's nicer, too."
"You're only chasing pretty views because you don't know anything. Come over here — this is the prime spot. I'd like to teach you the tricks of catching char."
"I appreciate the offer, but really, I'm fine."
I declined his suggestion with a polite smile. Either way, the film crew was with me — fishing here was my Pyeongcheong County PR ambassador duty. I gave a small bow of the head and headed for the spot I'd already picked out.
"Who was that guy?"
The director whispered, low enough that only I could hear.
"A classmate from farming school. Seems like his parents have some standing in Ugok 2-ri. Last time some of us visited, he was growing strawberries in two greenhouses as a hobby."
"Ah, so that explains it."
The director nodded with a knowing look, as if something had just clicked.
"What does?"
"The 'let me teach you the tricks' thing just now. Isn't it funny? Catching char is dead simple — you put on a fake lure and jiggle it. That's the whole game."
"Maybe he just wants to be friendly?"
There didn't seem to be any bad intent. He did have a tendency to show off a little, sure.
But the director said that was exactly the problem — that I needed to watch out.
"You're still an outsider here, Yunho — a Seoulite, too. And for people like him, and honestly me as well, that means one thing… if he can make you into his follower, it elevates his standing. You get me?"
"Making me a follower?"
"Exactly. Teach you this and that, put you to work like an underling — he figures filling you with a sense of his own superiority will feed his ego."
The people returning-to-the-landers really need to guard against aren't the ones who openly shun and ignore you.
With those, you know you'll never mix, so you keep your guard up and your heart closed — no harm done.
The director glanced sidelong at Hwang Yu-hyeon and went on.
"The type who acts like everything goes smoothly as long as you're on his good side — then calls you out to sit around at pointless functions, or keeps pestering you to buy things you don't actually need. That's who'll wear you down."
A chill ran down my spine at his words.
‘Ugh, I'd hate that.’
I hadn't moved to the countryside just to surrender my time to somebody else. Becoming a cornered sack of barley husks, forever currying favor with the neighbors? No thank you.
"Sounds like I'd better handle myself carefully, then. If I flatly claim I don't know anything, I'll probably just get brushed aside."
"Exactly. Just keep a sensible distance."
Wherever you went, it seemed human relationships were always the hardest part.
But still.
‘I negotiate with ghosts. What's a neighbor?’
I was chuckling to myself when it happened.
"Oh! Something's on my line!"
"So there is."
The moment my bait hit the water, there was an immediate strike. Through the taut line, I could feel the pulsing resistance of a char fighting for its life.
"Heave-ho!"
I hauled back on the rod, and an enormous mountain char popped right out of the ice hole.
"Whoa, so THIS is the feeling! What a rush!"
"Yunho, that one's got a gold ring on its tail! Whoa! That's got first prize written all over it!"
"You're right!"
"Wahaha! What are the odds! You've won the Golden Turtle, main-event winner! Congratulations, Yunho!"
At the director's commotion, people came crowding over.
"And here I thought there was no way anyone would actually win the Golden Turtle! I'm so jealous!"
"Congrats!"
"Isn't that the hero of Ugok 1-ri? That's him! The guy from TV!"
"Right! When you've got it, you've got it — anything you touch turns to gold. The Golden Turtle, of all things."
"Unbelievable. Genuinely."
The people around me showered me with congratulations over the first-prize catch, and the whole crowd's fighting spirit caught fire.
"Next one's mine! Second prize, here I come!"
"Keep it down, you'll scare all the char away."
"Ha! This isn't fishing anymore — it's war."
The group-tour crowd threw themselves into the hunt.
"I need to take this over to the festival organizers, right?"
"Hold on, Yunho! We didn't get the catch on video. Put it back in the water and let's stage the reel-in again."
"No way. What if it gets away?"
"It won't. I guarantee it."
"You're absolutely sure you guarantee it?"
I was bickering with the director when my eyes met Hwang Yu-hyeon's.
Huh?
His face had gone rigid as stone.
Beside him still sat his bucket — empty as ever, not a single fish to its name.
A little while later, I carried my catch over to the competition desk, where everyone congratulated me and handed me a voucher for the Golden Turtle. There would be a formal awards ceremony later, and I was told to come back then for photos.
I returned to my spot and went right back to fishing. No sooner had my line dropped into the ice hole than a char came thrashing up.
"Wahaha. That's five already!"
"At this rate you're going to fish the Pyeongcheong River dry."
"Can't have that, can I?"
I caught one last fish and called it a day — six in total, not counting the first-prize char with the gold ring.
I took them to the fresh-cooking booth and handed them over. The fried char was tender and nutty. The raw fish was similar to trout, with a slightly springier bite. The spicy stew carried that clean, delicate flavor unique to white-fleshed fish — absolutely delicious.
Three of the fish were cooked on the spot and devoured by the director and the staff. We agreed to split the remaining three evenly among us.
By the time the tasting event wrapped up and I was walking out of the festival grounds, I glanced back — Hwang Yu-hyeon was nowhere to be seen.
‘Did he just go home without catching a single one?’
"Oh, hello there. Welcome back."
The veterinarian at the animal hospital greeted me warmly. Apparently, in the entire history of the clinic, I was the first person to ever bring in three pregnant cats all at once.
Number 1 was the one who caused the accident, so why was my face turning red?
"Congratulations. All three are in perfect health. It looks like twelve kittens will be arriving soon."
"Twelve… you say?"
So this is what it feels like when the sky suddenly turns yellow. Just picturing twelve squirming little bodies made my head swim.
"Yes. Strangely enough, each mother has exactly four in her belly. As if it were all matched to a perfect fit. Ho ho ho."
"A perfect fit?"
If Number 1 were an ordinary cat, I'd have let that slide right past me.
The problem was that he wasn't. Number 1 was an evil spirit — what was his age again? Something like fourteen hundred years?
He'd lived all those long centuries as an evil spirit, then used a possessed body to cause this whole mess. Was it really just a fit of impulse?
‘There's got to be a reason behind it.’
After loading the three cats into the car, I pointed to the front seat and beckoned Number 1 over.
"Number 1. Come here for a minute."
"Whyyy?"
"Twelve kittens. That's no coincidence, is it? You meant for this to happen, didn't you?"
"Took you long enough to notice."
"Took me long enough?"
When I arched an eyebrow, Number 1 hopped lightly onto the passenger seat and stared straight at me.
"Remember what I told you before? That our village sits in the shape of the picture at Lee Ho-young's office."
"Yes, I remember."
When I'd checked the map after his remark, it really was shaped like a Haechi. To be precise, it looked as though the Haechi was gazing toward Mount Odae.
"And that has something to do with you having kittens?"
"Of course it does. You said it yourself, Master — the Haechi is a divine beast that wards off calamity."
"And?"
"And our village happens to be a place where ghostly energy pools."
The village chief before last — the one back in the New Village Movement days — had said that when strange things kept happening in the village, he'd summoned a shaman to perform a gut ritual. All it did was draw in even more wandering spirits, he'd lamented, turning the place into a village overrun with ghosts.
Then, after my spiritual vision opened, every ghost, stray spirit, and essence in the area flattened itself to the ground — to the point that nothing strange showed itself in the village anymore.
But Number 1 said it was too soon to relax. Like a cat that had sensed danger, his pupils blew wide open as he flicked his tongue rapidly.
"So I got to thinking. What if someone gathered ghosts inside a site shaped like a divine beast — a Haechi or whatever — and then sealed it off with a barrier? Wouldn't that be the trick?"
‘I've heard of a Trojan horse, but trapping ghosts inside a Haechi is a new one on me.’
And yet, theoretically, it held up. The most powerful magic of all, in the end, is a seal.
"If the barrier works, every kind of wicked thing would slip inside and be trapped there, unable to get out."
"And what does that have to do with you having twelve kittens?"
"Think about it — what if the barrier broke? They said there was a war here, right?"
The Battle of Ugok-ri had been ferocious. Mountain peaks had literally melted under the bombardment.
They said even the terrain had been reshaped by it.
"If the barrier shattered and the things inside spilled out — and the things that had wandered outside tried to crawl back in — wouldn't that be calamity itself?"
"I suppose so? Even a school of pale chub crowding into a small pond will kill off every aquatic plant inside it."
"That's why I need my other selves. They'll stand at the border and keep the bad things from getting in."
Number 1 narrowed his eyes at me, thin and sharp.
"Keeping you safe is how I keep myself alive, after all."
I had always wondered why it was only in Ugok-ri that I ever felt truly at peace.
Which meant I couldn't just wave off what Number 1 was saying.
"So your plan is to split your power among the twelve kittens about to be born — and have them guard me and the village. Is that about the size of it?"
A fourteen-hundred-year-old evil spirit, birthing twelve kittens to protect me. I honestly couldn't tell whether I ought to be grateful — or alarmed.