The Heiress and the Malicious Spirit
“Please stand aside. This is an emergency patient.”
The medical staff bristled, but Lee Kang-to didn’t budge. It was the mother. Ever since the woman in her early thirties had stepped out of the ambulance, he had felt the presence of a vicious death-spirit.
And sure enough, there it was: sitting on the mother’s belly as she lay on the stretcher, pressing down on her heart. It meant to kill them both.
“No. If you operate now, they’ll both die.”
His voice was urgent, pleading—
“What are you doing? Drag him out.”
When the ER doctor shouted the order, security guards rushed in.
“Please, I’m begging you... If you operate now, the mother will die and the baby will die too.”
None of Kang-to’s pleas reached their ears. While he struggled, the elevator carrying the stretcher shut its doors.
“Hey, are you mentally ill? Move along, or I’ll call the police before you embarrass yourself.”
Just as the guards were dressing him down, the opposite elevator opened and Manager Jo stepped out.
“What’s going on?”
“This man has been grabbing an emergency stretcher and obstructing treatment...”
“Lee Kang-to, Dharma Master?”
Manager Jo looked at Kang-to.
“Hold on.”
Kang-to seized Manager Jo by the arm and dragged him aside.
“I’m sorry, but there’s a malicious spirit on the mother who just went into the operating room—one with the same feel as Chairman Jo’s restless ghost...”
“What?”
Manager Jo’s face went white against the wall.
“Lee Kang-to, Dharma Master?”
“We don’t normally interfere with just any wandering spirit. That, too, is Heaven’s will. But this restless ghost’s violence is similar to the one attached to Chairman Jo, so...”
“Then you’re saying the restless spirit that targeted my brother is now targeting the fetus and the mother?”
“I can’t say for certain. But the resemblance is unmistakable.”
“Lee Kang-to, Dharma Master?”
“I’m serious. The killing aura was surging all around it. At that level, it could subdue every minor spirit nearby—so if they open the mother up now, both mother and baby will die. Hospitals always have stray spirits lingering around; people have died here, after all, one after another.”
“......”
“Manager Jo.”
“Ah, seriously...”
Manager Jo pressed a hand to his forehead. This was the same possessed shaman who had predicted, with uncanny accuracy, the fate of his brother and grandfather. And yet he was still a shaman. Which meant Jo couldn’t exactly march into obstetrics and demand they believe him.
“Please. If you must operate, wait until after the day changes... The spirit’s power might weaken a little then.”
“Come with me.”
Cho Su-hyeok led the way. If it had been any other shaman, he would have called the police on the spot, but Kang-to was different. Besides, he wasn’t some trivial occult hustler begging for spirit money as though it were a matter of life and death. He couldn’t be ignored outright, so they headed toward the operating theater.
“Just a moment.”
After asking Kang-to’s leave, Manager Jo went into the OR and spoke with the PA nurse. A moment later he came back out.
“This is troublesome. That patient just now is none other than Chairwoman Gong Guk-hui’s only daughter from Seongsan Group.”
Seongsan Group?
If that was the one, they were an even bigger chaebol than Cheonjo Group.
“The chairwoman donates heavily to our hospital, and she’s on very good terms with the director, so I can’t simply say no.”
“Manager.”
“The attending physician is an obstetrics and gynecology specialist who was recently scouted from the United States. The first and second assistants are both senior residents, so there shouldn’t be any problem.”
“Manager, this isn’t a matter of the medical staff’s skill.”
“Dharma Master, I’m sorry, but this is the best hospital in Korea. So leave the surgery to our doctors and—”
Manager Jo was still speaking when an alarmed announcement suddenly rang out, as if something had gone terribly wrong.
“......?”
Manager Jo’s brow furrowed hard. Dr. Jeong Myeong-seok was a specialist in obstetric cardiac arrest.
This...
Maybe Kang-to had been right. Something really was going wrong.
“Damn it.”
Manager Jo headed back into the operating room. Again, the time he spent inside was short.
“Haa...”
His sigh came out before his explanation did. That alone told Kang-to the situation was bad.
“Manager?”
“The mother went into cardiac arrest during surgery. The emergency tests and data didn’t show anything unusual, but then, all of a sudden...”
“I told you, didn’t I? The restless spirit is pressing on the mother’s heart.”
“Dharma Master?”
“You think that’s superstition? That ghosts don’t exist? No matter how much you deny it, ghosts are real. They’re just invisible to most people.”
“But the situation is... there’s no way to persuade the medical staff inside the operating room.”
“But you can go in, can’t you?”
“Well...”
“Can’t you take me in for just a moment?”
“......”
“Manager.”
“If you were just a gallery observer, then yes.”
“A gallery?”
“The place from which the operation is observed. It overlooks the operating room.”
“Please take me there.”
“But, Lee Kang-to, Dharma Master—”
“Find me a seat where I asked. I’ll just stand there. To everyone else, that’s all it will look like.”
“Just what in the world...”
“Hurry. If we don’t drive out the restless spirit, the mother will die, and the fetus will die in the end too.”
“Fine. But once you’re inside, don’t do anything that makes you look like a shaman.”
“I swear it on my body deity.”
“Come with me.”
Manager Jo led the way.
“......?”
After borrowing a white coat and entering the gallery, Kang-to barely remembered to breathe.
The gallery held the mother’s family, including her mother and the hospital director. Since the director was there, several department heads had come as well. The hospital’s core medical staff had gathered, but the situation was still at its worst. More than ten people crowded around the operating table, and even so, there seemed to be no way to reverse the mother’s cardiac arrest.
“Head of Cardiology, Dr. Hwang Byeong-ju, is here.”
When the PA at the entrance called out, the doctors and nurses handling the emergency made room. The case was serious enough to warrant bringing in the head of cardiology.
“Any underlying conditions?”
Dr. Hwang asked as he steadied his breathing.
“No heart failure, no pulmonary embolism, no peripheral vascular disease, and no electrolyte abnormalities,” the first assistant replied.
“Tension pneumothorax?”
“No signs of that either.”
“Then is it shock?”
“I don’t know. The ECG, A-line, oxygen saturation, and ETCO2 all dropped at once, like they were falling off a cliff.”
“At the same time?”
“Yes. The carotid pulse vanished for more than ten seconds, the A-line waveform fell below 10 mmHg, and the oxygen saturation just kept crashing.”
“How could that happen?”
Dr. Hwang moved at once to take emergency measures. No underlying disease meant the patient had likely been healthy to begin with. And if she wasn’t constitutionally unusual, there was no way the ECG, A-line, oxygen saturation, and ETCO2 could all collapse at once.
“......”
Everyone held their breath, but Dr. Hwang’s efforts came to nothing. He couldn’t reverse the mother’s cardiac arrest.
“Doctor, the fetus is in danger too!”
The nurse watching the monitors and the anesthesiologist shouted at the same time. If the mother was in danger, so was the baby. At this rate, both of them might die on the operating table.
“......?”
Cho Su-hyeok fought down a shiver and turned back to Kang-to.
This really is...
His legs trembled so badly he felt he might collapse. Lee Kang-to, who could predict a person’s future like a divining rod finding water. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen it, and yet the uncanny power still made his head spin.
“Manager.”
Kang-to’s voice opened low and calm.
“Please buy me a little time. I only need a few minutes.”
“Understood.”
Manager Jo moved toward the gallery railing and drew the operating room’s attention away.
“Excuse me, Dr. Hwang. I’m Cho Su-hyeok from internal medicine.”
When Cho Su-hyeok spoke, the medical staff lifted their heads.
At that moment, Kang-to borrowed the sacred power of his body deity and attempted a divine descent. It was because of the stray spirits above the operating room. It felt as though every one of them had been gathered there. There were spirits with no arms, spirits with no internal organs, even child Taejagwi and old spirits more than a hundred years dead.
This was an operating room where everyone had lain in the hope of living. But the surgeons couldn’t save every life. In the end, some of those dead filled with resentment remained as stray spirits, and now countless of them had joined the restless spirit to press down on the mother’s throat and heart, and even on the fetus’s neck.
Kang-to’s spiritual power locked onto the center of them all: the restless spirit. Among the stray spirits, he identified the one whose killing aura cut most sharply.
May all things be achieved through divine power, and may an edict be given so that the stray spirits of this world feel its majesty—Eobong Gucheon Hyeonnyeo, command me speedily by sacred decree.
As Kang-to, filled with spiritual energy, intoned the incantation, two divine generals descended. They were Jeongyu Shinjang and Jeonghae Shinjang. The former would escort the stray spirits to the underworld; the latter would destroy them outright. Summoning both at once showed how urgent the situation was.
Listen well, you stray spirits.
Drawn by the body deity’s divine descent, Kang-to’s groan rang with high vibration and shot toward the operating table. The medical staff stole glances at him. A fierce chill had begun to coil around the table, and even the doctors could not remain indifferent to that feeling.
Uuuurgh...
The stray spirits shrieked like whistles, thrown into panic. And yet they still didn’t release the pressure on the mother, because the restless spirit behind them held firm.
Kang-to focused on that restless spirit. The old bitterness of a thousand years flooded the room with terror. As expected, it belonged to the same lineage he had felt around Chairman Jo.
Who are you?
Kang-to asked with the authority of the body deity.
Damned if I know. I’d finally gotten my chance, and of all things...
The spirit’s resentment returned like the ripple of a blade.
Step back. Otherwise, you’ll be destroyed by Jeonghae Shinjang’s spirit-extermination blade.
The ones who will be destroyed aren’t me, but that mother and fetus. They are nothing but the descendants of demons, so if you truly serve the will of the heavens, turn that blade on the mother instead.
The heavens do not cooperate with stray spirits.
As Kang-to surged with hot spiritual power, Jeonghae Shinjang flew toward the operating table.
Kieeeee!
With a scream that seemed to tear at the ears, the restless spirit curled up and fled. Then the stray spirits, who had been pressing down on mother and child in a pack, scattered one after another.
“Now.”
Kang-to gave Manager Jo the signal in a low voice.
“Could it have been a temporary cardiac arrest caused by psychological constriction from a nightmare? If that’s the case, I seem to recall reports saying the patient can gradually return to normal once some time has passed.”
Manager Jo delivered the closing line. In truth, it was a story he had cobbled together by mixing together his own experience with Chairman Jo’s.
Then—
“That’s right. Our Ji-yeon often has nightmares.”
Chairwoman Gong in the gallery provided backup.
And then—
“The ECG, A-line waveform, and oxygen saturation are recovering.”
The timing was perfect, and the anesthesiologist’s cry aligned with Manager Jo’s version of events.
“Good. She’s stabilizing. Resume surgery.”
The attending physician stepped back toward the mother.
Everyone was focused now, and among them Kang-to was the most absorbed of all, using the body deity’s power to check for any sign of renewed activity among the stray spirits.
The mother had become even more precarious because she had already been through a crisis. At times like this, even some random stray spirit’s tantrum could turn dangerous. The two divine generals beside Kang-to also kept their guard up.
How much time passed like that?
“The baby is coming out.”
The hospital director, who had been watching the monitors, finally spoke.
“The mother is fine, and the fetus has no problems either. It’s a princess.”
The PA nurse who received the baby cried out. At the same moment, the infant’s wail shook the operating room.
“Aaaah.”
The baby’s cry was the signal of birth. In the hospital, the moment the child cried was officially recorded as the time of birth.
Hoo.
Only then did Kang-to let out a breath. The divine generals, too, dissolved back into invisibility on that same exhalation of relief.
“Congratulations, Chairwoman.”
The director congratulated Gong Guk-hui, the mother.
“You’ve all worked so hard.”
Chairwoman Gong returned the courtesy. Then she went to Cho Su-hyeok and thanked him as well.
“You were the star of the day. Our Ji-yeon has nightmares often, you know. How did you prescribe something that fit her so perfectly...?”
“Well...”
“You’re the internal medicine chief?”
“Yes...”
“As soon as our Ji-yeon is discharged, I’m taking you out to dinner. Please make time for me.”
“Actually, the one who saved your daughter was not me, but this gentleman.”
Cho Su-hyeok pointed to Kang-to.
“You must be a resident? Doctor, you should come along too.”
After leaving those instructions, Chairwoman Gong immediately headed out of the gallery. She needed to see her daughter and her new granddaughter.
“Lee Kang-to, Dharma Master.”
Cho Su-hyeok called to him from the gallery entrance.
Kang-to’s gaze remained fixed on the operating room. The PA nurses were busy cleaning up. The operating table had been emptied, but the wrath of the restless spirit still lingered in the air like a stinging memory.
Chairman Cho Chul-woong and Chairwoman Gong Guk-hui’s daughter, Gil Ji-yeon.
People with no special connection to one another.
And yet why did such an overpowering sense of terrible familiarity overlap between them?
The tension in the operating room had been cleanly resolved, but Kang-to only grew more thoughtful.