The Lighthouse Shrine Opens
Lighthouse Shrine.
A warm wind had begun to blow.
Thank you.
He sent his thanks to his mother’s Chiluijae and to the lighthouse.
Thank you.
He had no intention of forgetting his gratitude to the body spirit, either.
Kang-to was still human. Which was why he could not be entirely certain that opening a shrine on Chilui Island, far out in the West Sea, would succeed. He had simply believed in his mother’s foresight.
Thanks to that, he had protected Chiluijae and, beyond that, stopped the reckless development of Chilui Island. Tearing down the island’s natural treasure of Chiluijae and building a golf course there would not have been development. It would have been destruction. Something like that could never be allowed.
Of course, he knew some of the islanders resented him for it. But Chilui Island was meant to remain an island, plain and simple. That was a conviction Kang-to would have held even if he had not been an environmentalist.
Originally, he had planned to take Sol-bi out to the mudflats and play with her. They could have caught razor clams, dug for Manila clams... and if luck was on their side, they might even have picked up an octopus. He had been planning to make pasta with it and a clear yeonpotang stew.
He gently shelved the plan. Some of the visitors had come in yesterday, so there was no helping it.
Travel all the way out to a remote island just to have one fortune told?
Even that had not been an easy decision.
“Are you that happy?” Kang-to asked as Director Seo grinned from ear to ear.
“I’m thrilled. But what’s even better is the people who came all the way out here to see you, Bodhisattva.”
“Huh?”
“Our Kang-to beopsa’s oracle is so uncanny. Once they get a taste, they’ll be coming back as regulars.”
“Director, you too...”
“Should I start calling them in, one by one?”
“Go ahead.”
Kang-to went up to the lighthouse. He sat properly there and looked out at the sea. Strictly speaking, these were not his first clients. But they were undoubtedly his true first visitors, since they had made the trip here on purpose to have their fortunes read.
“The shrine is so nice. Just walking in makes my chest feel clear.”
The speaker was Choi Yun-jae, a businessman in his early sixties.
He had not been seen down at the pier. He must have been standing a good distance away then. Since he had come such a long way, Kang-to decided to make things easier for him and opened his spiritual vision. A fate battery rose in a panorama from the center of the man’s forehead.
[Health Fortune ▮▮▮▮▯]
[Wealth Fortune ▮▮▮▯▯]
[Family Fortune ▮▮▮▮▯]
[Career Fortune ▮▮▮▮▯]
[People Fortune ▮▮▮▯▯]
-Merit Vault ▮▯/▮▯/▮▯
“......”
When the spiritual vision opened, the fate battery lit up. He had had a rough childhood. At first, his health had been poor, and he had gotten no help from his parents’ fortune, either. Still, as the hard years passed, one path after another had opened up, and now he lived with little to envy.
Especially his wealth fortune. It had become explosive. Just recently, it seemed that a large sum had come in.
The reason he had come to Kang-to was a family misfortune.
“I can see an ominous sign on your mother’s side.”
“......?”
The businessman, who had been about to voice his concern, went blank. Before he could even get the words out, a dead-on oracle had already come down.
“How...?”
“There are things called spiritual vision and ibora. When the mind of a divine disciple is straight, one can see and hear a guest’s troubles.”
“Ah...”
“What sort of ominous sign is it?”
“Well... since moving into the new house, she keeps having terrible nightmares.”
“Nightmares?”
“I bought a detached house in Apgujeong on a fire-sale deal this fall. After my father passed, my mother said she didn’t want apartment life anymore, so I looked around. It was a bit old, but well maintained, and she liked it. So she moved in, and said she loved it.”
“......”
“Then after a few days... she said she had nightmares the moment she closed her eyes. She had a severe case of COVID, and at one point even needed an artificial heart-lung machine. She was older and had lost a lot of strength, so I figured she was weak from exhaustion and had some medicinal tonic made for her.”
“......”
“At first she said she felt a little better, but then it started again...”
“......”
“So my wife and I talked it over and decided to move in with her. The house was big, so it wasn’t a problem for us to come in too. But that only lasted a little while before the nightmares came back...”
“What did you feel, sir?”
“Honestly, maybe because of my mother, I’ve been feeling a bit creeped out myself. So my wife went to a shaman’s place, had a spirit-clearing rite done, and brought back a talisman.”
“Do you have the talisman with you?”
“She told us to stick it on the front door and the windows, and each of us was supposed to carry one...”
The businessman took out the talisman and laid it out. As expected, it was a printed talisman. It was not likely to have much effect.
“Just a moment.”
Kang-to entered possession.
Jjararararang.
When he rang the Chilseokgu, the waves of energy spread through the air like a panorama. Before long, the body spirit had descended.
“There are two households living under one roof.”
Kang-to’s oracle came out. The sound was echo-like, and that gave it both sanctity and authority.
“What?”
“One house, two households.”
“It’s my mother and my wife and me, so of course that makes two households...”
“That’s not it.”
When Kang-to’s voice cracked like thunder, the businessman drew back with a start.
“You’re sleeping with the dead and the living alike.”
“Pardon?”
“Your body is full of the scent of the dead, which means you are sharing a house with the dead.”
Zararang.
The madly vibrating spirit bell fell silent. At the same moment, Kang-to’s energy snapped back into place like lightning finding its mark.
“Then there’s a dead person in that house?”
“Where in the house does it feel the most unnerving?”
“The living room. Sometimes it feels like a ghost is about to jump out. When I turn to look, there’s nobody there...”
“Peel off the wallpaper in the living room. There’s a dead person inside.”
“That can’t be right. My mother had it newly papered when she moved in...”
“Peel it off.”
Kang-to’s oracle did not change.
“......”
“If you don’t like it, then keep living like that.”
“N-no, of course not.”
The businessman took out his phone.
“Honey, it’s me. Yes, yes... the famous beopsa is here, and I’m having my fortune told...”
He half-turned to face the sea as he spoke into the phone. Then he relayed Kang-to’s oracle to his wife.
“He says we should peel off the living room wallpaper. Says there’s probably a dead person inside.”
The words crossed over to his wife, but she did not seem inclined to believe them easily.
“Hey, wasn’t it you who said he was amazing? We came all the way here anyway... Just peel it off. What does re-papering cost, anyway?”
The businessman pressed the oracle harder. Then, at that very moment,
“Ah!”
A scream burst from the phone.
“What? What is it?”
The businessman asked.
“The wall... inside the wall...”
“Oh, dear God.”
This time even his mother’s shriek followed.
“What do you mean? Is there really a corpse in there?”
“A photo... there’s a picture of some old man stuck to the wall... It feels like he’s glaring at us.”
“What?”
“It looks like a portrait, but it’s old. Maybe when they repapered it, they didn’t take it off and just papered over it.”
“......?”
The businessman turned to look at Kang-to. His eyes had already gone completely unfocused, and he nearly collapsed from the dizziness. A moment later he came to his senses again.
“Beopsa, what happened?”
“You seem to have bought a house with a history.”
“Hold on.”
The businessman called again. When the call ended, he trembled slightly at the shoulders. He seemed to have found the cause.
“Did the cause-and-effect show up?” Kang-to asked.
“It was the real estate agent who introduced the fire-sale listing. He says the old woman who lived there hanged herself in the living room.”
“Is that so?”
“It was a married couple who got along well, but the husband died in a traffic accident, so the grandmother was left alone. They were so close that when the grandfather died, the grandmother fell ill too, and then exactly one month later she followed him...”
“Anything else?”
“When I mentioned the wallpaper, he confessed everything. The wallpaper and flooring, the cleaning too, were handled by people that agent recommended. The wallpaper installer came, but the old man’s picture on the wall wouldn’t come off cleanly. So they just pasted new wallpaper over it.”
“That house was probably the one the old man had made his own.”
“That’s what they say.”
“Though he died in an unfortunate accident, he must have loved that house dearly and been reluctant to leave it behind, so he stayed in this world and threw a fit over it. The spirit’s energy is filling the house, which is why your family felt so unnerved.”
“What should we do?”
“Take out the sales contract and offer a glass of liquor with sincerity. It’ll probably let go. I’ll give you one of my talismans, so when you get back to Seoul, burn it with him in the yard. Make sure there’s nothing left. Then it won’t appear again.”
“Understood. We’ll do that.”
The businessman stood up. He had been shocked, but his face looked lighter now.
“He’s coming out.”
As the businessman descended from the lighthouse, every gaze converged on him.
“How is it? Is he really that good?”
“Say something.”
The questions came flying all at once.
The sharpest of the sharp.
A possessed oracle.
The rumor that had drawn them all the way out to the island.
But since they had not experienced it themselves, they wanted confirmation.
“The oracle was direct and dead-on. That’s the real thing.”
The businessman answered with an emphatic thumbs-up.
“You said the house felt ominous?” a woman asked. Since they had introduced themselves before their turn, they now knew each other’s names.
“It was a nightmare. Whenever I went into the bathroom or the living room, I’d get chills for no reason... Sometimes my spine would go cold and I’d keep looking over my shoulder.”
“Can you tell us what treatment he gave you? You don’t have to say, right?”
“Why not? After hearing my story, he went into resonance and immediately said there was a dead person on the wall.”
“What?”
Everyone flinched at the businessman’s words.
“He told us to call home and check, and sure enough there was a portrait of the former owner, an old man, stuck inside the wallpaper. After the grandfather died, the grandmother had been left alone and must have kept the portrait up out of longing. But the wallpaper installers couldn’t get it off cleanly, so they just papered over it. According to the beopsa, the old man had put a lot of care into that house while he was alive, and after dying in an untimely accident he was left with lingering attachment, so he was causing trouble for the new owners... He said things would be fine once we burned the removed portrait.”
“Good heavens.”
“There really was an old owner’s picture on the wall?”
“Look.”
The businessman showed them the photo. It was the one his wife had sent.
“Oh my.”
The women’s faces went pale.
It was a black-and-white memorial portrait. The passage of time had stained it and made it even more grotesque, giving the impression of staring at some underworld yaksha.
“He’s really a sharp one. A real sharp one.”
The women spoke in unison. Just like that, the atmosphere on site shot upward. It was still only secondhand experience, but it had come from someone who had gone in with them and received the oracle. His credibility had to rise dramatically.
The second visitor was the same.
The woman in her thirties came down from the lighthouse with a broad smile.
“See? Sharp, right?” the next visitor asked.
“You came to the right place. I’ve gone to plenty of shamans who were supposed to be amazing, but there’s never been a sharp one like this. Before I could even tell him my story, he gave me a fortune reading like he was possessed... I really did faint and wake up again.”
“Wow.”
The mood began to heat up. At the same time, everyone waiting their turn was suddenly full of hope.
“Mr. Hong, please go in next.”
Director Seo approached and pointed out the order.
“Hmph.”
The noblewoman, Hong Young-ja, who had been standing apart, began to walk forward with regal composure. She wore designer sunglasses, carried a heavy designer shoulder bag, and even her accessories were designer, so luxury seemed to spill off her with every step.
“That woman even made her secretary handle the check-in...”
“She’s got some nerve. Seriously, does anyone here not ride in a Benz?”
Two women who had hit it off already murmured to each other. The Benz was the car Hong Young-ja had arrived in. The man who had come as her secretary was driving.
The noblewoman glared at the women from the foot of the stairs, and when the two of them pretended not to notice, she started up the lighthouse steps.
“......?”
The moment she entered the lighthouse shrine, Kang-to’s senses reacted first.
“Not one, but two. You’re carrying in a pair of ghosts.”
“What?”
At Kang-to’s oracle, Hong Young-ja stopped walking.
“A pair of ghosts. That’s your son’s doing, isn’t it?”
When the oracle struck again, Hong Young-ja, now white as paper, lowered her head.
“Please, save my son.”
She pushed her shoulder bag forward. Packed inside it were stacks of 50,000 won bills.