The Occult Boom Is Coming
The letters that had surfaced on the dark screen slowly faded away, and the sound of a bell came ringing from somewhere far off.
Tling— tling— tling….
At the foot of a mountain, an abandoned box came into view. The small, withered hand of a child scratched at it once more, creak.
Reporter Wi, staring at the screen, swallowed without realizing it.
And a moment later, the opening sequence came crashing in like a madman.
The wail of a flute and drops of blood, a hand scribbling talismans, the screaming voice of a bound man crying Mother! Mother! — and the mother who, without so much as a flicker, pretended not to hear as she stitched away at her sewing. Boom. A gong thundered, a golden rope rotted clean through, shadows rippling and swaying.
In the brief moment they sat dazed by that overwhelming dread, the tangle of ghost stories that had been crashing over one another vanished all at once.
-Hah… hah….
It was the Crown Prince's bedchamber, bathed in a faint blue glow. The prince, drenched head to toe in sweat, flung his eyes wide open and stared at the ceiling.
Everything was calm, as if all he had just witnessed had been a phantom.
-Your Highness. Did you cough?
A servant's voice drifted in from beyond the door.
Little by little, the reassurance that another human being was out there began to seep in.
Only then did the Crown Prince come back to himself. With hands trembling finely, he wiped his brow and answered.
-Yes. Bring me some water.
When he slid the window open, birdsong drifted in from outside. It was a peaceful hour before dawn.
Beneath the Crown Prince Yunhwi's window, bamboo leaves swayed in the wind.
At that same moment, the screen looked down upon a house built of wood stained a gloomy, blood-dark red.
The camera slipped fluidly through the front door. This was Seonghwi's gaze.
Creeeak—.
The old wooden door slid open on its own the instant Seonghwi arrived before the house.
Inside the gate hung a golden rope, rotted completely through. Any ordinary person would have found it unsettling, but Seonghwi walked straight ahead as if such things were beneath his notice.
From the outside it had looked like a modest little home, yet Seonghwi had to walk a surprisingly long way before he reached the threshold.
Kiiiik—.
Once again, the door opened without a hand ever touching it.
It was as though something not quite human were opening it for him.
"You have come."
The spacious room admitted not a single ray of sunlight. From somewhere beyond a folding screen came the voice of a woman thick with authority.
Before Yeomga, her face still hidden, Seonghwi seated himself with meticulous courtesy.
Somber music underscored the scene — the low, dragging sound of a geomungo, played as though a hand were pushing the strings slowly from end to end, each note straining as if the string might snap at any moment.
In the hair's-breadth space between those precarious notes, Seonghwi spoke.
"Things seem to be moving far more slowly than I expected."
He looked more than a little impatient, as though he wished some matter would hurry toward its conclusion.
"The greater the task, the longer and more painstaking the labor it demands…."
A soft laugh drifted out from beyond the folding screen.
Where Yeomga was perfectly composed, Seonghwi was all fretful urgency. Pressing his lips inward and biting down hard on them, he let out a sigh.
"I know that. What I mean is — what happens if we miss the 'moment' waiting like this?"
There was no doubt whatsoever that whatever the two of them were discussing was no good deed.
The instant Yeomga's still, silent face finally came into frame, every viewer understood it instinctively.
"…"
Silent, Yeomga was smiling — smiling so wide her mouth looked ready to split.
It was the grin of a hungry ghost, eyes bulging, gazing at Grand Prince Seonghwi beyond the screen as if she might devour him whole, drooling all the while.
Comments were flooding onto the live thread by the dozens every single second. The kindling that Strange Tales had been stacking, piece by careful piece, had finally caught fire.
Yeomga, who seemed hardly human at all, had commanded Grand Prince Seonghwi. Send your younger brother to Cheonmaekji, she had said.
"Where have you been?"
"You're up early. Let us share the morning meal — it has been a while. There is something I wish to say to you."
Yunhwi took his breakfast with his elder brother, Seonghwi. Perhaps because of the nightmare he'd had in the night, he picked listlessly at the beautifully laid table before him.
Seonghwi watched his younger brother with a look of studied concern.
"Have you something weighing on you of late? Your complexion is never good, but today it is worse than usual."
"Worries? Father is a wise ruler, and you will follow him and bring peace to this realm. I have nothing to worry about."
"You rascal. Nothing but pretty words."
The bond between the Crown Prince and the Grand Prince — the brother who would inherit the throne and the brother who had been passed over — was, on the surface, nothing but tranquil.
"It is you, brother, who will be the sage ruler to lead this nation. Now that your health has returned, I should soon return to my proper place."
As a child, the sickly Seonghwi had never been expected to survive, and even his investiture as Grand Prince had been carried out on his brother Yunhwi's behalf.
And yet Seonghwi, who had fought death every single day, had at last grown into a man.
"Does His Majesty truly see it so?"
When Seonghwi asked with a bitter smile, Yunhwi nodded gravely.
"Of course it is so. That is precisely why he commanded you to go out and look upon the people yourself."
"…Then why is it, I wonder, that you always seem to be hinting that I should know my place."
"Brother!"
Seonghwi bit down hard on his lip. The ache of the eldest son who would never be Crown Prince flickered, just for a heartbeat, across his face.
"If that is not the reason, then how could Father have sent me to a place so far from the palace?"
"He recognized a man of greater ability. He judged that my own talents were not sufficient to survey even the most distant villages."
"I cannot shake the feeling that perhaps His Majesty decided, long ago when I was a child, once and for all…."
"Do not speak so. You know full well I have no thought of ever taking that seat. That seat belongs to you, brother."
Seonghwi, smiling warmly, lifted a small porcelain cup and wet his lips.
For one fleeting instant, his eyes turned dark and predatory toward his younger brother.
Seonghwi, lips hidden behind the cup with only his eyes showing, sat somewhere just shy of a good elder brother.
"Then tell me…"
Seonghwi drew the cup away and spoke slowly.
"If I were to ask a favor of you, would you grant it gladly?"
"Of course. Naturally. Have you not suffered so much all on your own? Do not trouble yourself over it — tell me anything at all."
Yunhwi answered with a smile, his gentle eyes crinkling with affection. Seonghwi smiled back at his brother in turn.
"Good. Though I say it rather late — that place is so far away, so treacherous… the journey alone takes the better part of forever. Sitting out there in such a remote corner of the world, the people's lives are hard in every way imaginable."
He sighed and spoke of his concern for the people. Hearing his brother's words, Yunhwi, too, furrowed his brow for a moment.
He knew well that the farther one strayed from the capital, the harder it became to endure years of disaster and failed harvests.
"Brother. What would you have me do?"
"It is this…"
A hand traced with vivid blue veins closed around his brother's hand.
"Go to Cheonmaekji."
Kuguung—.
From somewhere far away came the sound of something collapsing, and Seonghwi's grip tightened.
"While you are away from the palace, I shall speak with His Majesty frankly and openly."
Kuguung. Kuguung. Kuguung….
A rumble, like an earthquake slowly drawing closer, shook everything beyond the screen.
"Go there in my stead, Yunhwi, and see for me that the people in my care are well — that they are well, you hear?"
"Ugh, damn it… I'm dying here."
Behind a Buddhist nun trudging along a deep mountain path, a woman dressed as a young man followed along, grumbling nonstop.
Where the nun carried herself with a quiet, refined air, Seoryeong chattered like a sparrow, griping at every step.
"Why do we keep moving house?! We barely just got to this one!"
Behind the nun with her simple bundle of belongings, Seoryeong panted and wheezed under a bundle wrapped in an enormous bolt of silk.
From inside the bundle, as though she owned every treasure in the world, a single hairpin tumbled out with a plop.
"My hairpin!"
Seoryeong snatched it up in a panic. The bundle on her back was so enormous that she staggered and toppled forward with a groan.
Even then, she never let go of the hairpin clutched tight in her fist.
"Do you have any idea how much I've sunk into that damn Clerk Kim?! Ugh… I dropped the big one…. Do you even know what this is worth?"
The nun gently helped the grumbling Seoryeong up off the ground. Seoryeong glared up at her and grabbed hold of Jeong-an for dear life.
"Jeong-an! Don't you dare ignore me! That's my bread and butter you're talking about!"
Only then did Jeong-an open her mouth.
"More useless talk."
"Useless?! Useless?! Even a ghost who died with a full belly looks better than one that didn't — don't you know that? I intend to die well fed, thank you very much."
"Anyone overhearing would think I starve you."
"Anyone overhearing would think you feed me like a king!"
She was irreverent to a fault. Toward Jeong-an, who was like a mother to her, Seoryeong did not concede so much as a single word, glaring up at her all the while.
"You eat quite well enough, if you ask me."
"It's nothing but weeds and grass every single day! I'm not a rabbit, and I'm not a squirrel either!"
Jeong-an looked at Seoryeong, wearing the expression of someone with an incorrigible child, straightened her wide-brimmed straw hat, and set off walking again.
"We must hurry, so save your breath and keep up. Be good, and I may take you to the market day fair."
"Forget the fair — at least tell me why! Why on earth are we going to some mountain valley in the middle of nowhere? Jeong-an! Jeong-aaaan—!"
"Did we not say there is someone I must meet?"
"Who? Nobody in this world knows you but me. You didn't have a single friend, and now suddenly there's someone to meet?"
Jeong-an gazed up at the sky as she answered.
"The heavens."
The birds in the mountains sang out brightly, chirping and chattering, as though in welcome of a guest who might soon arrive.
"You can stare at the sky from anywhere!"
Seoryeong, who had somehow crept up until she was practically clinging to Jeong-an's side, demanded. Jeong-an smiled faintly and chided her.
"Never mind hairpins — guard your restraint bracelet well. If it were ever to snap, it would be a grave matter indeed."
With Jeong-an's words, Seoryeong's wrist came into view. Alongside an aged wooden bead bracelet, a strip of white cloth embroidered with lotus flowers was bound tightly around it.
"The hairpin is gold, and that wretched restraint is nothing but plain wood!"
"I carved every last bead with my own two hands. Can its worth truly be compared against gold?"
"It can't be compared at all! Who on earth would buy this. Tacky, tacky, tacky."
Little by little, the figures of the two women walking the mountain path together grew smaller and smaller.
"Your Highness! There is no road!"
Deep in the night, Yunhwi's guards spoke up with expressions of open bewilderment.
Dead ends had come one after another without end.
As though someone were deliberately blocking their way, they found themselves circling the same ground again and again.
"…Enough to make a ghost weep, isn't it."
Yunhwi gave a dry little laugh. Something was deeply wrong.
It felt as though the uncanny things from his dreams had now stepped into the waking world to bar his path.
"Allow me to survey the surroundings, Your Highness."
At that, the man among his guards who appeared to be of the highest standing urged his horse half a step forward.
The royal inspector and Yunhwi's closest friend — Myeong-do.
The moment Yunhwi gave a short nod of permission, Myeong-do rode straight back up the mountain his men had already climbed.
The cry of the little cuckoo echoed through the empty dark like ringing in his ears.
Something was off. He could feel it in his bones. He realized now that his earlier judgment — that his men had simply lost their way on unfamiliar ground — had been wrong.
Yet Myeong-do urged his horse onward with perfect composure.
From inside his coat he drew out a small handkerchief, then tied it firmly to a nearby tree.
Wheeling his horse's reins, he rode a few paces ahead, then turned himself around and made for the very spot where he had just been.
"…"
The handkerchief he had tied there was gone.
With calm, level eyes, Myeong-do swept his gaze over the surroundings. Not the faintest hint of another person's presence.
The little cuckoo's cry was wrong. The distance was subtly off — now blaring loud as if right beside him, now fading to almost nothing.
Just as Myeong-do made his decision and tightened his grip on the reins—