Ghosts Die, and People Get Wrecked (2)
"...I feel like I’m going to die."
"Me too."
The Mount Hua disciples, with shadows sunk so deep beneath their eyes they seemed to reach all the way to their chins, let out a collective sigh as they looked at one another.
'How are we supposed to sleep? There’s a ghost showing up!'
'Even the wind makes my heart drop.'
They were trying their best not to think about it, but human hearts were not so easy to command.
By now, more than five people had already seen the ghost. There was no way they could stay calm.
"It really does look like a ghost."
Chung Myung still couldn't smooth out the grimace that had remained on his face all this time.
For days now, he had been spreading out his senses, trying to find any trace of the ghost, but for some reason, that thing refused to appear before him.
And that despite the fact that three more people had seen it since Cheong Bong had fainted foaming at the mouth.
"Unless it's a real ghost..."
They were seeing it with their own eyes. If Chung Myung still couldn't find it, how did that even make sense?
"...Hmm. What a mess."
Hyun Young, seated on a narrow daybed, heaved one frustrated sigh after another.
"The disciples are getting shaken."
"The ones in Hwayeong Gate?"
"Yes. Especially the new ones this time..."
"Tch."
At Wi Lip-san’s words, Hyun Young pinched at his temples as though nursing a splitting headache.
Who was most afraid of ghosts?
Children, of course.
Even adults found the idea of ghosts unsettling, so there was no way the children could remain calm after hearing such rumors.
"We’re trying to keep the rumor from spreading, but this is just..."
"As if you can catch that sort of thing by trying. There are only two things a person can’t catch with their hands: words and ghosts."
And right now, both of them were tormenting Hwayeong Gate at once.
No wonder Hyun Young felt like his insides were turning over.
Why did things never stay quiet for even a moment?
Then, suddenly—
Bang!
"Elder!"
Jo Gul burst through the door and came running over, his face bright with excitement.
"Elder, don’t worry! I found a solution!"
"Eh?"
At the unexpected words, Hyun Young shot to his feet.
"A solution? What did you do?"
"Hah! Who do you think I am, Elder? No one solves a problem better than me! I searched all over Xi'an and brought back the best exorcist I could find! That ghost bastard is finished now—"
"You damn idiot!"
Hyun Young swung the teacup he was holding and smashed it down onto Jo Gul's head.
"Kek!"
Jo Gul couldn't even finish screaming before he collapsed like a frog right there on the spot.
Watching him twitch, Hyun Young roared, "What temple on earth hears of a ghost and calls a shaman? It would make more sense to grab some passing scholar and ask him to teach you the Analects! Are you trying to start rumors? Send him back this instant!"
At some point, he still hadn't realized that his hand had started flying before his mouth did.
"Uuugh..."
Rubbing his head, Jo Gul muttered bitterly, "B-but we can’t solve it ourselves."
Hyun Young was briefly left speechless. He opened his mouth, then shut it again, then finally sighed.
Mount Hua had once possessed exorcism rites and talismanic arts.
Of course, since Mount Hua was largely secular in temperament, the branch that handled occult arts, the Left Path Hall, had always been too weak to amount to much compared to other Daoist sects.
Still, the traditions had existed once.
But after the Demonic Sect’s rise and Mount Hua’s desperate focus on survival, even cinnabar for mirrors and talisman paper had become impossible to find there.
"Tch. The restored manual didn't contain anything related to sorcery either..."
Hyun Young was racking his brains when someone abruptly cut off his thoughts with a bright voice.
"Why would we need that?"
"Huh?"
Chung Myung was clicking his tongue, shaking his head.
"What century do you think this is, anyway, for all that nonsense about ghosts and monsters?"
Chung Myung...
We are the nonsense about ghosts and monsters, you bastard.
How can you say that when you're the one who runs around with a sword and flies through the sky?
"No, seriously. If we're supposed to face down Demonic Sect bastards who come at us with their eyes rolled back, how can the disciples be afraid of ghosts? Ghosts? I’m more afraid of people by a hundred times."
"...You might be able to say that, but isn’t the problem that the disciples of Hwayeong Gate are scared? At this rate, the newly arrived—"
"Don’t even say something that chilling. This isn’t some market street! They can’t just come in and leave whenever they damn well please!"
Having already watched disciples enter the sect only to leave again more times than he cared to count, Chung Myung wanted no part of seeing that spectacle again.
"Then we’d better solve this quickly."
"Tch."
Chung Myung scratched his head hard.
Up to now, most of his problems had been solved with a solid fist and a steel nerve. But this one was literal proof that fists didn't work.
Watching the situation unfold, Jo Gul shouted proudly, "At this point, we should just!"
"Hm?"
"Move the hall!"
"... "
Everyone stared at Jo Gul with blank faces.
"...This place isn't even a month old yet."
"We need to think objectively. This was already a place that became abandoned because a ghost appeared, right? Do you think the people who lived here before just sat there with their hands folded? They probably used every trick they had. If they still couldn't solve it, how are we supposed to?"
"Hmm..."
"So rather than that, we should just ditch the hall quickly and buy a new one..."
At that moment, Yoon Jong smiled faintly and placed a hand on Jo Gul’s shoulder.
"Gul."
"Yes?"
"Stop acting like a rich man's son and shut your mouth before I twist it off."
There was a faint, simmering irritation in Yoon Jong's voice.
"Honestly, the sons of wealthy families!"
"You don't know the value of money! You don't know the value of money!"
"I'm going to—"
Under the avalanche of criticism, Jo Gul snapped his mouth shut like a clam.
"N-no, I just mean, in business, you have to throw away what’s gone bad quickly..."
"Gul."
"Yes!"
"Shut up."
"Yes, sir!"
Even Baek Cheon frowned, and Jo Gul straightened into a rigid military stance in an instant. It was certainly one way of quickly abandoning a bad idea.
Watching that, Chung Myung shook his head.
"Seriously, isn’t this all because someone kept wandering around alone? We told you to pair up, so why do you keep going off by yourself?"
"...You want us to drag a whole other person with us when we go to piss at dawn?"
"Nobody wakes up when you call them anyway."
"Fine, but what about Yu Sago?"
"Tch."
Chung Myung lost his words.
Yeah, this really won't do.
After a moment's thought, he narrowed his eyes. The longer they dragged this out, the more likely it was that the disciples they had worked so hard to gather would leave, or they'd be forced to resell the hall.
But if a ghost had appeared in a newly built hall and then another ghost showed up there again, who in their right mind would pay money for it?
The haunted hall that even Mount Hua’s Daoist disciples had fled from in defeat.
Chung Myung lifted his head as if coming to a decision.
"No choice."
"Hm?"
"If it’s really a ghost, then there’s no helping it, so I guess we’ll have to look into another hall."
"You’re abandoning this place?"
"Then what? You got a better idea?"
"Well, I mean..."
He stroked his chin with a thoroughly serious expression.
"Jo Gul sahyung isn't wrong. You have to cut off what needs cutting. If we stubbornly keep trying to hold on here and rumors start spreading that we can't even deal with one ghost, the trust we've barely regained could collapse. It's better to make up a decent excuse and pull out."
"And what excuse do we have?"
"Hmm... there are plenty of ways to spin it. Like saying we need a larger estate because we're taking on more disciples."
"Hmm. We could probably slip away without too much suspicion."
"Then the disciples’ silence will be important."
"Not too hard of a job, since even if the rumor spreads a bit, the people of Xi'an still trust Hwayeong Gate."
As the conversation reached that point, Jo Gul pouted.
"When I said it, everybody just cursed at me."
"Shut it."
"Your mouth! I'll—"
With the most wronged expression in the world, Jo Gul shuffled off to a corner and squatted down. Unfortunately, nobody paid him the slightest bit of attention.
"Anyway."
Chung Myung frowned and said, "For now, find us somewhere to sleep tonight."
"Starting tonight?"
"...Sahyung, sasuk, look at yourselves. I think we need to."
At that, everyone, with their shadows sunk all the way to their chins from lack of sleep thanks to the ghost, tiredly nodded.
But Hyun Young still seemed troubled by something.
"It won't be easy to find a manor big enough for all of you on such short notice."
"Ah, no, Elder. There are plenty of vacant places right now."
"Hm?"
Chung Myung grinned brightly.
"There are those estates owned by the Southern Edge branch families that packed up and left. They're sitting there empty with no one in them right now."
"They're not without owners; they've simply stepped away from—"
"Same thing."
Hyun Young nodded a little blankly for now.
And privately, he began seriously wondering whether there would ever come a day when he had to teach Chung Myung the basic common sense of the world.
"If we use an empty estate, what's the big issue? If anyone has a problem with it, they can come and argue."
"Right. Say it like that and nobody will come."
They had to survive too.
They had to survive.
For the moment, with lodging settled so cleanly, Chung Myung clicked his tongue in disappointment.
"In all my life, I've never once backed down in front of an enemy... and now I'm running because of a ghost."
"One step back for two steps forward."
"You're not going forward at all!"
Chung Myung barked the words and let out a long sigh.
"Whatever. Nothing can be done."
If there were an enemy in front of him and a sword in hand, he could do something about it one way or another. But right now, there was no enemy to see, and no assurance that even if he found one, the sword would do any good.
"We can't fight a ghost. Since it’s come to this, hurry up and move. People need their sleep!"
"...Seriously?"
"Why?"
"N-no."
Baek Cheon looked at Chung Myung with a puzzled expression.
"I thought you’d rant about how if someone can’t sleep because of a ghost, they must not be a Daoist at all."
"...I thought you'd say you'd smack me in the head and put me to sleep."
"I figured you'd make me train all day, saying I had too much energy because I couldn't sleep."
"... "
Chung Myung's face twitched violently as he spoke.
"Do you want me to do exactly that?"
"Ah, no!"
"We'll go look right now!"
As if on cue, everyone bolted in a flurry. Watching their retreating backs, Chung Myung let out another hollow sigh.
"Tch. Nothing goes my way."
"What can you do? This is something even manpower can't handle."
"Yes. For now... for now, we need to calm the newly admitted disciples first. This is Mount Hua, maybe, but Hwayeong Gate needs to be handled carefully."
Chung Myung clicked his tongue and looked toward the hall with a regretful expression.
And then—
Within the darkest shadow cast by the hall beneath the midair sun,
from a place not far away at all, an unidentified gaze quietly watched Chung Myung’s slumped shoulders.
Night fell once again without fail.
The hall at Hwayeong Gate, now emptied of all people, looked desolate beyond words. The cold wind made the doors creak and rattle with a grim, unsettling sound.
Not even the smallest animals dared linger in the hall after the Mount Hua disciples had all gone out.
Only moonlight gave the place a faint, pale glow.
How much time had passed?
Swish.
Something began to ripple within the blackness of the shadows.
At first the movement was faint, but then the milky blur grew larger, and soon a pale, hazy shape began drifting on the wind.
Shush.
The hazy figure standing in the middle of the estate trembled slightly. Then it began to move slowly toward the largest hall in the compound.
The shape stopped in front of the hall's tightly shut door.
Crack.
The heavy latch was cleanly cut away, and the door flew open. The pale shape drifted inside as though floating.
"... "
Rustle.
The ghost, now inside the hall, rippled twice as though thinking about something.
But only for a moment; then the shape seemed to shrink slightly, and the floorboards beneath it began to peel up.
"...Damn it."
A chilling voice slipped out, thin and faint.
As the wooden floor was torn away and the earth beneath it was exposed, the milk-white shimmer grew more violent. At the same time, the floor itself began to be gouged out with increasing force.
Slash! Slash!
Soil and gravel flew in an instant, piling up into a small mound in the center of the floor. The speed at which the ghost dug into the ground only grew faster.
And then, just as the ghost was furiously digging into the floor, it happened—
"I guess I'll live long enough to see everything."
At the sudden voice, the ghost's movements stopped dead.
Then, clearly thrown into confusion, it began to tremble.
"I've lived long enough to see a ghost digging in the dirt. What, are you digging your own grave to crawl back into it?"
The door to the hall, which had been shut, swung open wide, and Chung Myung strolled in with a crooked smile.
"... "
"What, is it really a ghost?"
"As if."
"Then what the hell is that?"
Next, Jo Gul and Yoon Jong slipped in through a large window, grinning as they blocked it off, while Baek Cheon sealed the other door.
The escape routes had been sealed in an instant...
"Hey, who's that?"
Chung Myung frowned and pointed at the side door at the very end.
Yu I-seol peeked out from behind it, only her eyes visible.
"...G-gh-ghost."
"Why aren't you covering it properly? Damn it!"
There had been the slightest bit of fumbling, but in the end Chung Myung had completely sealed every way out. Then he began walking leisurely toward the ghost.
Looking at the violently trembling figure, he let out a wicked grin.
"I don't know what you are..."
His eyes, curved with amusement, grew sharper and sharper.
"But if you're a ghost, you die, and if you're human, you're dead!"