A Tiger Drawn as a Dog
“Your spirit trace is rather strong.”
It happened just as he was stepping out into the hospital lobby. A cold, mocking voice drifted up from behind him.
Spirit trace.
Among shamans, it was a word for the faint spiritual current left by an ancestor who had been a shaman, or the sort of energy one felt when a great manshin or some other powerful presence hung over a bloodline.
When Kang-to turned around, he saw a man in his sixties. His eyes were sunken and hollow, and his clothes were out of the ordinary. He, too, had that spiritual trace about him.
“You’re a beopsa, aren’t you?”
The man asked with a smile as smooth as glazed roof tiles, the kind of smile people called Silla’s thousand-year smile—childlike, almost innocent, and therefore devastating in first impression.
“That’s right,” Kang-to said.
Beopsa was another word for a shaman priest. In other words, the man was asking whether he made his living in the shamanic world.
“You look like a novice, though.”
“That’s true as well.”
“And yet you’re eyeing Chairman Cho Chul-woong?”
The man’s smile faded just a little.
“What are you talking about?”
“Ah, right. I should introduce myself first. I’m Yeonggwang Beopsa.”
“......?”
“You’re a novice, so maybe you don’t know much yet, but among the wealthy housewives of Gangnam, I’m Surobuin. When it comes to kingmakers, I’m Yeonggwang Beopsa.”
“Pardon?”
“You know the president, don’t you? I was the one who blessed this president into office.”
“......”
Kang-to’s expression hardened slightly. It was because of Lady Gyeongsin’s advice.
There were different kinds of shamans, after all. Some treated the craft as a discipline and devoted themselves to delivering the gods’ oracles. Others spent their time mingling with tycoons and politicians, then wallowing in self-display. Lady Gyeongsin had been warning him about exactly this kind of man.
“What’s your dharma name?”
“Kang-to.”
“Kang-to the beopsa... and your body deity?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Just a warm question from a senior in the field. You can tell at a glance that you’re a novice. You came because you sensed ill fortune around Chairman Cho’s accident, didn’t you? Figured you’d try to land a big fish?”
“I wasn’t the one who came. I was invited.”
“Did you just say invited?”
The man’s expression shifted.
“Yes.”
“Then you’d been watching Chairman Cho’s fortunes already?”
“I met him once, just before the accident.”
“So tell me who your body deity is.”
“I was initiated by the Nine Heavens Maiden.”
“The, the Nine Heavens Maiden?”
“Yes.”
“Aha-ha!”
The man doubled over, clutching his stomach as he laughed. The sound was so loud that patients and families in the lobby all turned to look. Even then, he didn’t stop.
“Do you even know who that is?”
“Isn’t she a heavenly goddess of the nine heavens?”
“A single deity below the Buddha and above all others under heaven.”
“......”
“And you’re saying that’s your body deity?”
“Is that a problem?”
“Arrogant little brat. I can tell you’re a novice without a flock of patrons or a single devoted follower, but there’s a limit to how much you can bluff. What kind of vessel could possibly hold someone like her?”
“Did you drag me over here just to pick a fight?”
“Forget it. The point is, Chairman Cho is mine, so keep your hands off.”
“What exactly do you mean by that?”
“I’ve been laying the groundwork since the start of the year. I kept telling him that a watery calamity was heading his way this month, but he wouldn’t listen...”
“......”
“If he’d only listened to me the way our president does, he could have avoided the accident.”
Unlike his warm face, every word out of Yeonggwang Beopsa’s mouth was thick with self-praise. With a personality like that, he clearly had no true body deity, no genuine disciple’s character either.
Even the spiritual energy clinging to him felt the same—shallow, vulgar, and cheap, the sort of thing a low-grade shaman would exploit for personal gain.
“Impressive,” Kang-to said, matching his tone with deliberate ease.
“If you understand, then step aside. Before you get hurt badly for no reason.”
Instantly, the man straightened, all puffed up with authority.
“Hurt?”
“Didn’t I say so? The people who hang on my oracles are everywhere—presidents, powerful men, chaebol families. Someone like you, I could send packing with a single word.”
They’d barely met, and he was already threatening him?
Since the man was so absurdly full of himself, Kang-to decided to give him a gongsu of his own.
“You tried to draw a tiger and ended up drawing a dog instead.”
“What was that?”
Yeonggwang Beopsa asked again just as the elevator doors opened and Chairman Cho emerged, accompanied by his secretary.
“Chairman Cho Chul-woong, sir! I’m Yeonggwang Beopsa!”
The man rushed forward at once, smearing himself with flattery and bowing so deeply it was almost nauseating to watch.
But Chairman Cho didn’t even look at him. He passed right by and stopped in front of Kang-to instead.
“I heard you were the one who saved that mother and baby?”
“They just happened to come into view...”
“When I heard that, I came out to see you off. I’ll handle my discharge paperwork too while I’m at it.”
“You’re leaving?”
“I’ve got plenty to do with the oracle you gave me... and the company’s got its own mountain of work.”
Chairman Cho pointed toward the entrance, where a sedan was waiting.
“Please see him comfortably on his way.”
He gave the driver a sharp order, then treated Kang-to with every ounce of respect as he boarded the car. In that instant, Yeonggwang Beopsa’s face behind him twisted into a deep, ugly grimace.
The saying meant exactly what Kang-to had intended: he’d been told to draw a tiger, but he’d ended up sketching a dog instead. In other words, a shaman was supposed to keep the proper stance, not go roaming after the powerful and famous in search of status.
What does some young punk know? Yeonggwang Beopsa dismissed Kang-to’s pointed oracle with a sniff.
A short while later, Kang-to was at the scene of a brutal murder.
Ugh.
Even before he reached the site, a shudder ran through him. The same thing was there, too—the deep, abiding sorrow of a grudge that had lived for generations. He had felt it at the other case across the Han River as well. There, too, the resentment had burned with the same ancient intensity. Since the two were the same, it couldn’t be a coincidence.
Then...
Kang-to’s thoughts drifted to the submerged mine in Japan. When the entrance to that flooded mine had opened, spirits carrying a hundred years of resentment had poured out in a flood.
I was right to tell them to hurry the memorial rite.
His gaze settled on the murder scene. The texture was different, but the same old grievance lingered in the air. If it was the spirits who had sharpened their blades together for a hundred years in that flooded mine, then this kind of thing was possible.
The car rolled back onto the road. After a while, a giant news screen came into view. Lee Tae-seop was on it, attending the funeral of a former cabinet minister and offering condolences. Beside the screen stood a massive Cheonjo Group advertisement.
It was a baleful omen.
And it wasn’t only Chairman Cho who was under it.
His biological father had a bad fate hanging over him too. To be honest, Kang-to had no saintly desire to rescue the man out of filial duty or anything of the sort. He had intended to look him up sooner or later anyway. Since the opportunity had presented itself, he might as well pay his respects while he was at it.
“Could you turn the car around for me for a moment?”
After getting the driver’s permission, he changed direction. He was headed to Cheonjo Group headquarters.
“......?”
At the lobby reception desk, the female staff member didn’t remember Kang-to. But she did remember the Rolex watch.
“I’m here to pick up the Rolex I left in your care.”
“Pardon?”
The woman’s eyes widened. That day, Kang-to hadn’t taken the Rolex with him. Since Lee Tae-seop had been its original owner, Kang-to had no intention of accepting it even if it were handed back to him. That hadn’t changed. He was only answering because the receptionist had asked why he was there.
This time, getting in to see him was much easier. After a call to the secretary’s office, the receptionist came back down herself.
“This way, please.”
She gestured toward the chairman’s private elevator.
“Please wait a moment.”
She was like that in the waiting room too—far more deferential than before. And so, Kang-to met his biological father again.
“......”
As Kang-to entered, Lee Tae-seop, who had been reviewing documents, lifted his eyes sharply. There was no sign of pleasure in his face, naturally.
“I thought you were still on the island.”
That was how he opened, without a trace of warmth.
“Was I exiled to the island?”
“......”
“......”
“Sit down.”
“Thank you.”
Still, he offered the courtesy. Not because he was truly grateful.
“What brings you here?”
“I came because I’m feeling better.”
“Then you must have gotten what you wanted.”
“There should be something else left, shouldn’t there?”
Kang-to’s voice had a sharp edge to it too. If the chairman of Cheonjo Group was someone of staggering rank, then it would have been only natural for Kang-to to bow his head.
But that was when Kang-to had come here ignorant of everything. Back then, Cheonjo Group had stood high above him, and this chairman had been the one on top while Kang-to was... not even a subordinate, just a grain of sand.
Now things were different.
Kang-to’s body deity was none other than the supreme heavenly god herself. Even seated on Chilui Island, he could glimpse the shape of this chairman’s fate. Because of that, he didn’t feel the least bit intimidated by the pomp and authority of a chaebol chairman.
“I was planning to contact you soon about the family register entry.”
“You already did.”
“I did?”
“Your son came by.”
“Hyung-wook?”
“Are you really asking because you don’t know?”
“He said he was going on a yacht trip a while back. I suppose he stopped by while he was at it.”
“Shouldn’t it have been you who came, not your son?”
“Me?”
“I came up to Seoul because I have family there, and on the way back I saw the news. You were at the wake of a former minister, paying your respects.”
“I was.”
“What about my mother?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t care whether you came or not. But my mother would have been waiting. Judging by the fact that she never threw away the watch you gave her as a token, perhaps she waited for you her whole life.”
“......”
“Now there isn’t even a body left that can wait any longer. And yet the man my mother has been waiting for is still nowhere to be found.”
“You’re still young, so you wouldn’t understand, but that’s all long past. Your mother isn’t even alive anymore.”
“She didn’t come when she was alive, either.”
“Lee Kang-to.”
“I don’t believe ‘condolence visit’ or ‘paying respects’ are banned options.”
“Enough.”
“I’m sorry, but don’t issue orders to me. You’re not in any position to.”
“Ugh...”
A groan escaped Lee Tae-seop’s throat.
“The day your son’s yacht arrived, I made a mistake. I thought you were the one coming.”
“What do you mean?”
“I received a vision.”
“A vision?”
“I set up a shrine on the island. In my mother’s stead.”
“You became a shaman? At your age? And you’re a man?”
“For the chairman of a global company, you have a surprising number of prejudices. You mention a person’s job, yet you put gender and age ahead of it.”
“A shaman, huh... Fine, then let me ask you straight out. What exactly do you do?”
“I consult on human destiny.”
“Destiny consulting?”
A quick sneer flickered at the corner of Lee Tae-seop’s mouth.
“Companies do a lot of consulting too, don’t they?”
“You’re comparing a shaman’s fortune-reading to that? Consulting is buying know-how based on precise statistics, market research, and scientific analysis.”
“So, in the end, you just follow the consultant’s personal judgment, don’t you?”
“This is absurd.”
“Would you like me to consult on your destiny once?”
“Are you making fun of me right now?”
“Absolutely not. The divination fee will be quite steep, though.”
“Hah.”
“The Ten Evil Defeats.”
“What did you say?”
“Unfortunately, the omen of the Ten Evil Defeats has attached itself to you. You should avoid signing any major contracts or making large budget expenditures today.”
“Lee Kang-to.”
Lee Tae-seop slammed a hand on the table to get his attention.
“Your consultation fee is one percent of the amount scheduled for expenditure.”
Kang-to didn’t even blink.
Was this a kind of hatred? Or resentment? It was clearly the result of resentment and defiance piled on top of one another, too tangled to separate into anything neat.
“Your son doesn’t believe in fortune-telling,” Kang-to said.
“Isn’t that only natural? The world looks down on shamans and divination, so everyone treats them as negative omens.”
“So that means you’re dismissing my mother too?”
“What?”
“If that’s how it is, then it’s only right that you dismiss my existence as well. I’m the son born to a shaman mother, and I became a shaman too.”
“......”
“As her son, I couldn’t wait forever, so I stopped by while passing through. Ah, and when I say ‘son’ here, I mean my mother’s son. Not the biological son of my father.”
“It took a considerable amount of money to buy Chiluijae. On top of that, just deciding to register you in the family register was already me doing more than enough.”
“The family register entry hasn’t happened yet, and by your mother’s intent, Chiluijae was for me. So nothing has gone back to her.”
“What?”
“And visiting my mother isn’t exactly like buying Chiluijae, is it? It doesn’t cost money.”
“Lee Kang-to.”
“I mentioned earlier that you shouldn’t make any important contracts or expenditures today, but there’s actually one more thing. It concerns your wife. They say spouses grow alike, and bad luck seems to do the same. Next Monday, around lunchtime, the area outside the door is dangerous. You’d better not go out. It’s a deadly clash, so if you ignore me, your body will be hurt badly.”
“Stop talking nonsense.”
“Whether it’s nonsense or not, you’ll know soon enough. It seems you didn’t know your son had been to the island, so call him in and check my oracle for yourself.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your son didn’t believe my oracle either. But facts don’t cease to exist just because one side refuses them.”
“Lee Kang-to.”
“That’s all I have to say. To my biological father. But...”
Kang-to looked at Lee Tae-seop for a beat before adding the rest.
“In any case, you’ll end up paying respects to my mother. So when you do it, I’d appreciate it if you came down with a better attitude, paid your respects properly, and then followed through with the family register entry. That would be the right order, and the proper way of things.”
Having said his piece, Kang-to turned and walked out.
Thud.
The echo of the closing door lingered for a long time.
“What a conceited brat...”
Lee Tae-seop was just trying to settle his temper when Park Jun-hyung, the finance director, came in.
“Chairman, this is the approval request for the final balance payment on the German yacht company M&A deal.”
“Ah, today?”
“Fourteen point four million dollars. Shall I execute the transfer?”
“Do it.”
“Understood.”
Director Park opened the approval tablet. And just as his finger was about to press the final button—
“Director Park, wait a second. Something serious has happened.”
Lee Hyung-wook burst through the door.
“Something serious?”
The chairman and the finance director both looked up.
“What kind of serious?”
“It’s the yacht company M&A deal we were scheduled to close today. A report just came in that there’s been a massive wildfire near the company’s main production plant, and the whole place is in danger of being burned down.”
“Well, now, that’s fortunate. We were just about to approve the final payment, weren’t we?”
As Director Park let out a breath of relief, Kang-to’s oracle flashed through Lee Tae-seop’s mind like a blade of light.
The omen of the Ten Evil Defeats has attached itself to you. You should avoid signing any major contracts or making large budget expenditures today.
This M&A deal...
They had been about to acquire a profitable yacht company in Germany. Security had been layered on top of security, and not a single press release had been issued. Only a tiny handful of top executives within the company even knew about it. There was no way Kang-to could have known.
And yet...
What?
A chill shot through Lee Tae-seop, a blade of cold electricity running the length of his body.