Stay by Her Side
Jo Yeon-il had spent several months in the cult's den, and he knew quite a lot.
"Il-yeong? Lunatics, the lot of them. They throw away the names their own parents gave them, claiming they've offered their very existence to a tree. Pah! Tch!"
"Watch yourself around that baksu they call Baek-yeong. He's the head disciple of the shaman Hui-yeong, and he's got real strength in him — you can often catch the smell of blood on the man..."
"Hui-yeong's a con artist! All honeyed words, that one. I borrowed money from that witch just once, and look at me now — ruined by the interest!"
But even Jo Yeon-il spoke differently when it came to Cheon-yeong.
"That one truly possesses spiritual power. The fact that I'm even alive is all thanks to her."
He claimed Cheon-yeong had exorcised the vengeful spirits of his dead concubine and her child — which, to Yang Ho-gun's ears, sounded utterly absurd. Hadn't the man simply been having nightmares born of fear toward his wife and guilt over the concubine and her child? And once Cheon-yeong performed a ritual for him, he'd felt reassured enough that the nightmares stopped?
"Drove out vengeful spirits, he says..."
Still, Kang Geon-bok's tense expression was almost funny, and they had further use for Jo Yeon-il yet, so Yang Ho-gun let it pass without comment. With no idea how that choice would come back to haunt him...
"Aigoo, you faithless bastard."
Kang Geon-bok, unable to withstand Cheon-yeong's pressure, had fled on the spot. Yang Ho-gun, already subdued by Baek-yeong, was dragged away and thrown into an underground prison.
Fortunately, Hui-yeong and the rest of the cultists seemed to believe that Kang Geon-bok was the secret royal inspector and Yang Ho-gun merely his manservant. When Hui-yeong and Baek-yeong had smiled with vicious delight and moved to torture him, Yang Ho-gun had barely scraped by, tossing them a few scraps of false information. Now he sat considering his next move.
Baek-yeong looked about five-foot-eight. By his stride, we walked some two hundred paces, then down thirty-four steps. Not all that deep underground, and only one way out. I'm the only one they've caught, and there's no guard. If I'm going to escape, I'll have to use my trump card...
Yang Ho-gun was rummaging in his robes for something when he sensed a presence and dropped flat in an instant.
"Aigoo! Aigoooo! I don't know nothin', I swear!"
"Shh. Be quiet."
The voice was neither familiar nor entirely strange. Yang Ho-gun lifted his head a fraction. Standing before the cell was the Il-yeong who, on the day they had first arrived, had seemed closest to Cheon-yeong.
Jo Yeon-il had described the woman this way: of all the Il-yeong, the one most favored by Cheon-yeong. At times, her word carried even more weight than Baek-yeong's.
Yang Ho-gun launched straight into a desperate plea.
"Aigoo, miss! Miss! Please, spare me! I don't know a thing, I swear! He just said come chop some wood with him, so I went along, and that goddamn bastard...!"
"There's no need for a person of your standing to keep playing the commoner in front of me."
Il-yeong cut him off. Yang Ho-gun faltered for a moment, then doubled down on playing dumb.
"Standing? I got a stand, all right. You can pile the wood up real high on it."
"I hear you came from Hanyang."
"..."
Once she had said that, there was no point in hiding it any longer. Yang Ho-gun slowly raised his head and met Il-yeong's eyes.
"Did you hear that from the Sinnyeonim?"
"Cheon-yeong hides nothing from me."
There was no pride in the way she said it — only a calm, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
It was strange. Every other Il-yeong, Baek-yeong who served as their enforcer, even Hui-yeong who appeared to lead this cult — all of them addressed that child as Sinnyeonim. No matter how favored she was, for a mere rank-and-file Il-yeong to call her so familiarly?
Yang Ho-gun closed his mouth, wariness plain on his face. Il-yeong paid it no mind. She drew something from her robes and tossed it into the cell. A large, crude key landed at Yang Ho-gun's feet.
"This is..."
"The key to your cell. Once I've gone, wait a while, then run. The guard will be away for some time."
"You're helping me? Why?"
"Because you cannot defeat this lawless lot on your own. This is not merely a village of fanatics. There is someone far more dangerous behind Hui-yeong."
Il-yeong bent down to meet Yang Ho-gun's eyes. Into a gaze that had been nothing but cold, a desperate plea now entered.
Yang Ho-gun barely managed to clap a hand over a mouth that had nearly let out a shout.
"Do you mean that in earnest? Without evidence, the court won't mobilize troops on a whim. If this goes wrong, it could be my neck on the line."
At that, Il-yeong drew something else from her robes and tossed it into the cell. A small ledger.
"A record of the grain that countless nobles and commoners have offered to the spirit of the Dangsan Tree. Far too much for a small village like this to consume."
"So they've been stockpiling military provisions?"
"This alone may not be enough to prove treason. But it is more than enough grounds to investigate why they gathered such a quantity."
Having said all she needed to say, Il-yeong rose to leave the prison. Yang Ho-gun caught at her in haste.
"Wait! Why not come to Hanyang with me and testify? You must have noticed other suspicious things during your time here."
With those words alone, she left without looking back. Yang Ho-gun let out a hollow sigh and gathered up the key and the ledger.
A metal spike clinked as it slipped from his sleeve.
"Well... looks like I won't be needing my trump card after all."
He tucked the spike away again, worked the key in the lock as best he could, and slipped out of the cell. Then, with a physicality he had never once displayed, Yang Ho-gun vaulted the wall. Once he was clear of the tiled-roof compound and had reached the village outskirts in secret, he turned back to glare at the house.
"A strategic retreat — but I will return—"
At that instant, a figure burst from the undergrowth, clapped a hand over Yang Ho-gun's mouth, and brought him down.
Dragged along with his mouth still covered, Yang Ho-gun thrashed, mapping the position of his attacker's limbs and torso.
"Shh. Stay still."
Had the voice not been a familiar one, he would have drawn the spike and driven it into a vital point. Once he'd been hauled quietly into the brush, Yang Ho-gun shook off the hand covering his mouth and glared at the other man.
"...I'm glad you're unharmed."
Kang Geon-bok, who had abandoned Yang Ho-gun and fled, could not lift his head.
"Cut!"
Yang Ho-gun, who had survived alone after his own denunciation had torn his family apart, and Kang Geon-bok, who was in truth of common birth and still carried the pain of losing his family to bandits, shared their pasts with each other and became true comrades.
Director Hong Il-beom, who had poured an entire night into this scene, reviewed the footage and smiled with satisfaction.
They're getting better and better.
In the aftermath of the whole uproar, Bae Su-chan had recovered quickly. His expression had brightened, his condition had improved, and his chemistry with the other actors had grown remarkably strong. That last part was the result of the principal cast — Bae Su-chan included — closing ranks and pulling together as one. Thanks to that, the number of retakes had dropped sharply, and even the atmosphere on set had lifted.
I did well to listen to Su-a.
That sharp-witted child had said this to Hong Il-beom, who had been hesitating over whether to go after Bae Su-chan and Kim Jae-seok:
He had understood at once what Lee Su-a was getting at, and had acted on it immediately. And he had put a stop to the verbal abuse being poured onto the actor. He could not resolve everything between an agency and its talent, but at the very least, on this set, Kim Jae-seok would not be able to treat Bae Su-chan however he pleased.
"Okay! That's good. We'll wrap this scene here."
"Thank you for your hard work."
"Thank you!"
The scene had called for deep emotional acting, and Jo Yong-jin and Bae Su-chan both exhaled in relief. The making-of PD busily captured a two-shot of the pair.
Hong Il-beom, a faint smile on his face, spoke to Bae Su-chan.
"Su-chan, your acting has stabilized a great deal. It's excellent."
"Thank you, Director! Thanks to you, I was able to learn so much from Actor Su-a!"
Everyone was relieved to see Bae Su-chan as lively as he'd been at the table read, and now with a little more confidence besides.
The making-of PD approached Bae Su-chan with a question.
"Actor, would it be all right if I asked what that conversation with the director was about?"
"Ah, of course!"
The moment the making-of camera locked onto him, an excited Bae Su-chan launched into an eager account of everything that had happened to him — leaving out the part about collapsing, which could have caused problems.
"So I asked Actor Su-a. How do you act that well, I said."
"Actor Su-a is a child actress, isn't she? Your acting career is longer than hers, after all — wasn't it hard to ask a junior so much younger than you?"
At that question, a dangerous light entered Bae Su-chan's eyes. The making-of PD flinched.
I have a bad feeling I just stepped on a landmine...