The Special Detective Ghost
Gyeonggi Province’s Suzhou was a wealthy city, well developed in commerce, entertainment, and tourism.
Just as insects were bound to swarm around a jar of honey, Suzhou, amusingly enough, was also where beggars were the most active.
Then, one day, a strange rumor began to spread through Suzhou.
Beggars were disappearing.
Or rather, they were being killed off, though no one cared very much.
In Suzhou, where people were everywhere, the deaths of miserable beggars hardly even qualified as news.
Even when bodies were found along the nearby river, most were written off as deaths from illness and buried without mercy in the cold earth.
Then, at a point when no one could even guess how many beggars had already died, the matter finally blew up.
A first-rank disciple of the Beggars’ Sect was brutally murdered and found as a corpse.
The beggars of the Beggars’ Sect were not merely beggars who held out a bowl and begged for spare change.
They were martial artists who had learned martial arts as members of one of the Nine Great Sects.
Even if the victim had only just entered as a first-rank disciple, the honor of the Beggars’ Sect was on the line.
The Beggars’ Sect sent an elder in person and even requested cooperation from the Murim Alliance.
Thus, an investigative task force was formed, and only then did the full horror of the case come to light.
The number of murdered beggars confirmed so far was roughly seventy-four.
The strange thing was that there was always a single coin in each corpse’s pocket, and only their feet were unnaturally clean.
The grotesque case left the atmosphere in Suzhou grim and unsettled.
Before long, there were even ominous rumors that the legendary Devouring-Soul Water Ghost had been feeding on people.
The joint Beggars’ Sect and Murim Alliance task force threw all of their manpower and information-gathering capabilities into the investigation, and at last they caught the culprit.
And when the culprit’s identity was revealed, Suzhou stirred once more.
Because he was a revered martial artist and monk in the region.
A man named by the Buddhist name Wuyeon.
With his dantian destroyed, Wuyeon was dragged down into the Murim Alliance’s underground torture chamber.
In front of the Blood Questioner—the man everyone, righteous or wicked, feared to the point of trembling.
The deepest underground chamber in the Hall of Discipline.
The monk Wuyeon sat bound in place.
Even with his robes soaked through in blood, his expression remained rather composed.
"Cough."
He coughed up a mouthful of blood.
The Blood Questioner asked Wuyeon, who was bound hand and foot, in a low voice, "Why did you have to kill beggars of all people?"
The monk gave a hollow laugh.
"Heh. Aren’t they the ones with the lightest karma? They have nothing, so they must have no attachments either... cough..."
"And why strangle them to death?"
"The wind of hidden affliction. If you cut that off, the burdens of the world are cut off with it. Is that not the act of compassionate liberation?"
"Why wash the feet of the poor? That must have been troublesome."
"Because while they wandered the roads begging for scraps, I had to wash away the karma they’d accumulated so their bodies might travel onward clean."
"And why put coins in their pockets?"
"Isn’t fare needed for one who crosses a river?"
"Why go out of your way to lead them to a riverbank with a stone bridge?"
"There must be a road across the River of Three Crossings, or the deluded soul will not turn back."
"Hmm. So, in the end, all of that was for the victims’ sake?"
"Heh. You’re surprisingly reasonable. Those people were hell whether they lived or died. To let them suffer in life is the true killing, is it not? I merely wished to pull the poor wretches out of the karma of reincarnation. I am proud of this: ending one person’s suffering is greater merit than reciting sutras a thousand times."
His body was a mangled ruin, but Wuyeon still shouted his convictions with a blazing look in his eyes.
"Hmm, I see."
The Blood Questioner nodded, then casually picked up the Reverse Tendon Platform.
It was an instrument of torture that twisted the tendons backward.
"I expected as much, but I suppose you truly are out of your mind. From this point on, I’ll be purifying the demon that’s filled your head."
Monk Wuyeon gave a dry snort.
"Though this flesh may now belong to you, the mind has no true owner. By what means do you intend to break me?"
"I think this will be enough."
Clank—
The Blood Questioner lifted the Reverse Tendon Platform for him to see.
"Heh. Break bones and tear flesh all you want; if you can’t even stir up a single thread of confusion, then those things are nothing but an empty shell."
"We’ll see about that."
As though he had heard enough already, the Blood Questioner pressed Wuyeon’s speech seal.
The mouth that had been chattering nonstop shut at once, and the Blood Questioner rolled his neck before speaking.
"Buddhism says suffering is emptiness, doesn’t it? From now on, you’ll feel for yourself just how deep and vast that world of emptiness really is."
As soon as he finished, the Blood Questioner reached out and began striking Wuyeon’s acupuncture points.
In an instant, Wuyeon’s body jerked and his eyes flew wide open.
"Grrruuugh..."
A beastlike groan, thick with agony, leaked from deep in his throat.
As the secret techniques that made the Blood Questioner what he was unfolded one after another, the lips that had been reciting sutras parted, and something mixed with saliva and blood began to spill out between his teeth.
The composure in his eyes gradually began to give way to an incomprehensible terror.
The expression of a man who was realizing that something he had believed in had no value at all, and was collapsing because of it.
Watching the change in Wuyeon’s face closely, the Blood Questioner released the sealed acupuncture points. Then—
"Aaaagh!!!"
A scream ripped from his throat, drawn out so long it sounded as though his neck might tear apart.
Bloodshot tears poured down, and thick mucus streamed from the corner of his mouth.
Wuyeon’s jaw trembled like a drum struck by a mallet.
"I... I, I..."
He had forgotten even what he was supposed to say.
There was only the instinct to escape the pain.
That transformation had taken less than half a moment.
"Enough of the talk about karma and reincarnation. Are you prepared to tell the truth now? If you are, blink once."
Wuyeon blinked both eyes wildly, almost frantically.
The Blood Questioner clicked his tongue in disappointment.
He had thought a monk might endure a little longer, but to break this quickly...
Only then did Monk Wuyeon begin to speak of the real motive behind the crimes.
He panted for a long while before he could get anything out.
His jaw shook so badly he could hardly form words.
"No... no salvation. Nothing like that. Grrk."
Swallowing blood mixed with saliva, Wuyeon shook his head.
"I... I made all that up... I just couldn’t stand the sight of them."
His hoarse voice cracked harshly.
"Those things lying in the temple courtyard to beg for food... the ones reeking of liquor, leaning on the Buddha’s altar... the ones stealing the rice given as alms and trading it for booze... cough."
His eyes dropped to the floor.
"I spent my whole life starving while keeping the precepts! I lived that way without ever truly straightening my back, and yet... those bastards laughed at me. Those parasites living off others dared to—"
He ground out each word as though chewing on it.
"In Buddhism, feet are the tools that walk the six realms of rebirth and the symbol of everything one has done in a lifetime. Washing their feet was meant to make them cast off the karmic ties of life... It was nothing more than a tawdry means of easing my own guilt. The same goes for the money I put in their pockets. Cough."
As though he had finally given up on everything, he spilled the blackest truth he had hidden all along.
"There was no grand meaning. It was only that, as I acted on my killing intent, it became a pledge of greed. Nothing more, nothing less... huff, huff. So please. End it here."
That was how the full story of the case later known as the Suzhou Blood Monk Tragedy came to light.
The public parking lot behind Annam Station.
A single streetlamp flickered intermittently, its light drifting faintly across the windshield of a sedan.
It was late enough that, with the last train long gone, only the homeless and a few scattered stragglers remained.
"Annam Station east square is clear."
"Patrolling near Peace Park restroom."
Lee Joo-seok lowered the radio and yawned, rubbing both eyes.
"Damn, did somebody throw sand in my eyes? Why the hell are they so dry?"
With bleary eyes, Lee Joo-seok asked, "What day is it now?"
"It’s the fifth day."
"Still only that? Feels like it’s been two weeks."
With the engine off, his breath drifted out of his mouth in pale wisps before fading away.
"Aren’t those guys cold? How the hell do they manage to sleep here?"
Lee Joo-seok’s gaze drifted outside the window.
A man pulling a cardboard box over himself and lying down. Someone wrapped in a worn-out blanket. Small groups huddled together, lifting soju cups with bags of shrimp crackers between them.
All kinds of homeless people were getting through winter in their own way.
"This is hopeless. What exactly are we supposed to find here?"
A homeless man curled up beside the station exit stairs.
An old woman collecting scrap paper and disappearing down an alley with a handcart.
Even the food stall owner sipping fish-cake broth with a blank face.
If the culprit were mixed in somewhere here, how on earth were they supposed to tell?
Lee Joo-seok was beginning to think it would be easier to find a Mr. Kim in Seoul.
Then a commotion broke out in one corner of the square.
Some of the homeless had started fighting.
"Tsk, tsk. Another brawl. Damn, these people never quit."
Most of the homeless were already thoroughly drunk, and since they had nothing to lose, fights were part of everyday life.
Lee Joo-seok shook his head, then finally lost patience, started the car, and pressed the accelerator.
He figured he might as well circle the surrounding area and stave off the boredom.
"At this rate, we’re gonna freeze to death before we catch the bastard."
Still grumbling, Lee Joo-seok glanced over at Song Tan.
"You still haven’t changed your mind? About the culprit being a pastor or some monk or whatever?"
"Yes."
Song Tan nodded without hesitation.
At such baseless confidence, Lee Joo-seok let out a short laugh.
"I’m the type to trust my instincts more than paperwork too, you know? But no matter how I look at it, your deduction’s gone way too far."
The car stopped at a red light.
The crimson glow spilled into the interior and dyed half their faces.
"A murder happened near a river with a bridge on it. Fine, that’s a fact. But saying the feet were washed because of some religious meaning... that kind of leap can be dangerous."
When the light changed, the car started moving again.
As Lee Joo-seok slowly turned the wheel toward the alley behind the station, he kept talking.
"I’ve been there too, you know? Investigating by forcing everything to fit because your eyes are filled with something. But the scary thing is, once you start seeing it that way, everything starts to look that way. Suddenly everything seems to have meaning. And if you fall into that trap, it’ll really screw you over, you get me?"
"Senior, do you think my guess makes no sense?"
"Of course it makes no sense, damn it. Why would a pastor or a monk be messing around with homeless people at this hour? They’re workers too, you know? They’d want to wash their feet and go to bed fast, same as anybody else—"
That was when it happened.
The moment the car rounded the station building and entered the rear road.
Song Tan’s eyes flashed.
"Senior, could you pull over for a second?"
"Why?"
The car carrying the two men eased to a stop on the shoulder for a moment.
"Why are you acting up all of a sudden?"
Song Tan stared intently at something, then pointed outside the window.
Following his finger, Lee Joo-seok turned his gaze and couldn’t help blurting out in surprise.
"...Huh?"
Between the station building’s outer wall and the parking lot fence, in a blind spot unreachable by the CCTV, two people were sitting face-to-face on an old bench with a bottle of soju between them.
One was an elderly monk in thick robes; the other, at a glance, was clearly a homeless man.