Chapter 44
Chapter 44
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 44
Chapter Title: Trust No One But Your Shadow (2)
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“Trust no one but your shadow... How profound.”
“Those were the words Chinggis Khan heard from his mother and cherished like gold and jade for the rest of his life. Remember that. You too, Reporter Eun. Got it? And Reporter Eun, you're not a spy planted by Editor Kim, right? Right?”
Eun Na-rae responded to Byung-su's words and turned her gaze out the car window, watching the scenery speed by.
Everything was changing so quickly.
Dong-jin, noticing her deflated demeanor, kept his eyes fixed ahead and deliberately raised his voice to speak to Byung-su.
“Team Leader, I'll trust my shadow, and you, and Reporter Eun. Editor Kim too. We're all on the same team!”
Stubborn Dong-jin emphasized the words “same team,” and Byung-su chuckled, half-joking but dead serious.
“Same team? Hmm, in movies, the stubborn, righteous sidekick always dies. The one who talks about comrades and brothers-in-arms. 'I'll buy you some time—go on ahead!' and then they bite it. You've gotta play it smart and survive. Compromise a little.”
* * *
As they neared their destination, the time had passed 4 p.m.
“Took longer than I thought.”
Dong-jin parked at the convenience store at the village entrance, got out, and stretched as he spoke.
Na-rae, standing beside him, smiled and replied.
“Yeah. You must be tired from driving, Senior Park.”
Byung-su looked around, lit a cigarette, and took a drag.
The village landscape, now under development, felt strangely off.
In the distance, a well-paved main road was being connected to the village, with roadwork in progress.
But there were no workers or construction vehicles anywhere.
Only anti-construction banners hung everywhere, catching the eye.
The white fabric with blood-red letters was strikingly provocative.
[Don't Cut Down Ondong-ri's Guardian Deity, the Sacred Tree!]
“Hmm, looks like we found the right place. Good work, Reporter Park. Let's walk from here and check out the village. I'll call the tipster and let them know we've arrived.”
The Ondong-ri village head and youth association leader rushed over upon Byung-su's call and welcomed them excessively.
“Our village is hemmed in by low hills front and back, so it never developed. But now the city is paving a road to connect that big highway up ahead right to us.”
As the village head spoke first, the elderly youth leader picked up.
“Once that highway opens, it'll take less than twenty minutes to city hall. The air here's surprisingly good, so with better access, our village can really develop.”
“Oh, that's great news. Haha.”
“No spot this good for housing near Andong city. Land prices will definitely shoot up... But the ghost tree at the Kang family's place halted construction.”
Byung-su, listening to their explanation, pointed at the banner on the road and asked.
“That banner says it's a sacred tree—don't cut it down. But you call it a ghost tree, Youth Leader.”
“Sacred tree my ass! A tree that eats people? That's a haunted tree! The senile old folks with nothing better to do are spouting nonsense and opposing the construction.”
Na-rae calmed the village head, who was trembling with clenched fists, and asked.
“Village Head, have some of this drink and talk. But... the tree eats people?”
“That's right! Just this past month, several people have gotten hurt!”
He chugged the drink, then yelled again, spraying it from his mouth.
Quick on her feet, Na-rae dodged, while the sluggish Byung-su got splashed and brushed off his single suit jacket.
“Guess I need to buy another suit. Village Head, tell us about that part.”
“Reporters, aren't you going to see the tree?”
“We'll hear the story first. The tree isn't going anywhere. Besides, trees can't talk, so no interviews.”
* * *
The village head's story began.
So, after Mr. Kang died and his son In-mok took his mother to Seoul, the house stood empty.
There was a big scholar tree in the backyard...
People in the village had seen Mr. Kang bowing and praying to it every night while he was alive.
Many elders believed that's why his son became a prosecutor.
So they started visiting the empty house every night: Make my son’s business succeed. Help my grandchild get into college. Let my daughter-in-law bear a son. All sorts of prayers.
They prayed for everything under the sun.
Prayers varied: success for a son’s business, college for a grandchild, a son from the daughter-in-law.
They even brought rice cakes and meat like it was a shrine. Heh, ridiculous.
That's how it started.
* * *
When the village head mentioned Kang In-mok, Na-rae hesitated but seized the moment to ask.
“You said Prosecutor Kang In-mok just now?”
“Yeah, why? Know him?”
Na-rae didn't respond, so the village head continued.
* * *
The day In-mok passed the judicial exam.
The village even threw a party...
But once that brat became a prosecutor, he cut ties with the village, abandoned the house, and left.
The city contacted him because the road had to go through it.
He just took the compensation and didn't bother coming down—told them to do what they want.
With the owner pocketing compensation and giving the green light on the tree, we thought construction would go smoothly.
The city didn't care much; it was just a common scholar tree, maybe thirty years old.
Villagers were thrilled at the thought of the road opening up land values and development.
But when construction reached the point of cutting or moving the tree, the old folks opposed it fiercely.
Heh. There's a story behind it.
It's not just senility.
Yong-sik from our village went bust with his business in Seoul and ended up in prison.
His wife and kid came back here, but loan sharks followed and terrorized them.
It was bad... No one helped.
They were scared.
Look around.
No tough guys like loan sharks here.
The worst are paddy-field thugs who get rowdy on rice wine.
The whole village shunned Yong-sik's family to avoid trouble.
Even as Yong-sik's mother fought the loan sharks and begged for help, everyone turned away.
Yong-sik's family had no one to rely on in Seoul or here.
I should've helped...
With no one to turn to, Yong-sik's mother must've prayed to that tree every night for heavenly punishment on those loan sharks.
And they really dropped dead.
The loan sharks were heading back when their perfectly fine car exploded and burned them alive.
Everything resolved at once.
The people who'd ignored Yong-sik's family changed their tune.
After that, they called the tree divine, and the grannies wailed prayers every night—total chaos.
Damn it! Makes no sense.
A tree killing people.
Even if it did, praying for it to kill is insane.
No matter how desperate, that's not right.
But it left a bad taste—scary, even.
What if those grannies prayed for me to die? Paranoia set in.
I'd been strutting as village head, full of myself.
From then on, prayers-to-the-tree folks and non-prayers turned on each other.
Kyung-jun's mom actually fought with Grandma Young-ja over irrigation water, and that night, she woke up ranting nonsense, then wasted away and died.
She said the tree ghost came.
We thought superstitious Grandma Young-ja got worked up and sick on her own, but tree believers revered it more.
Fights broke out.
Now with the road construction threatening to cut the tree, pro-cut and anti-cut sides clashed.
Strictly speaking, construction didn't stop due to protests.
To make the road straight, they needed to cut or move it, so first they brought workers and a backhoe.
They tied ropes to keep it from falling and tried digging—but the tree hummed, and shovels wouldn't penetrate the ground.
They were careful not to damage roots.
No choice, so the site supervisor ordered the backhoe to dig.
The operator froze under stares, then slumped dead over the controls.
Heart attack, they said.
Anyway, he died.
We figured that was that.
Next day for tree-moving, the workers didn't show.
I asked the supervisor.
He called them: Some said the tree ghost visited at night, others dreamed it chased and tried to kill them.
All sorts of crazy talk—no one came.
Fed up, our village's Cheol-man grabbed an axe with the supervisor to chop it down.
As he swung...
Cheol-man heard voices: “Don't! Don't!”
He ignored them and struck—dark red sap sprayed his face.
Looked like blood.
The trunk base and surroundings had been blood-red for months; we ignored it.
Sap being red made me think the old folks fed it animal blood in their prayers.
Thinking it beast blood, shocked Cheol-man dropped the axe, collapsed, wiped his face—the sap in his eye burned like fire, he screamed.
Ended up blind.
I saw the whole thing. Everyone did.
Police dismissed it as just a tree, processed it as accident.
Construction halted.
People split: some mad that trying to cut the tree stopped work, others saying superstition caused this mess.
Still fighting to this day.
Funny—no one opposed construction at first.
Villagers used to get along great; now they're enemies.
Scared of who might harm whom.
If someone's out at night, they think they're praying the tree to kill someone. Sigh.
Can't even call this living.
Got a smoke?