The Final Two Minutes
“Could there be a problem?”
Secretary Park murmured under his breath.
“I’m not sure.”
Minister Kim was cautious. So were Producer Kwon Ha-eun and Ailey. They trusted Kang-to. His gongsu had said as much, and so had his record.
He was the man who had recovered the bones of British soldiers from the barren fields of Paju without even a marker to guide him. That was why they waited patiently for Kang-to now.
But this time was different. For the seventh time already, he threw everything he had into attuning himself to the spirit he was seeking, and still nothing came of it.
“Ah.”
At last, his legs gave out beneath him.
“Beopsa-nim.”
Producer Kwon hurried to support Kang-to.
“What’s wrong?”
The Chinese observers, who had been watching from behind, asked.
“Nothing. He just felt dizzy for a moment.”
Secretary Park stepped in to smooth things over. By then, Kang-to had also collected himself and forced himself back to his feet.
“Beopsa-nim?”
Ailey could not take her eyes off him. This was the Kang-to who had once led a formidable BBC documentary team. No matter how she looked at him, his face was nothing like it had been then.
“Beopsa-nim Kang-to?”
Concern touched Kim Ki-wook’s face as well.
“Just a moment.”
Kang-to drew in a slow breath and steadied his own.
He reached back into the documents Secretary Park had shown him. Yun Bong-gil. His remains, too, had not returned home in time. When they were finally unearthed, they had been found at a garbage incinerator. Japan had deliberately chosen a disgraceful place to bury Yun, and later the site had even been used to burn trash. They had insulted the dead man’s spirit itself.
Kwantung Governor-General's Office Report
[The remains were buried locally in Lushun.]
Execution Report
[Buried in the cemetery of Lushun Prison at 1:00 p.m.]
The first was the report the Kwantung Governor-General’s Office had sent to Japan, while the second had been written by Ahn’s interpreter. If Yun Bong-gil’s case was anything to go by, then some underhanded trick like a spirit-suppressing geomantic barrier might have been involved.
Spirit-suppressing geomancy was terrifying.
People liked to dismiss it in the name of science and the twenty-first century, but cases like that existed all over the world. Korea had one of its own in Ahn’s case.
It was the statue of Ahn Jung-geun erected on Namsan in Seoul. In the past, that had been the site of Keijo Shrine, where the Japanese Governor-General of Chōsen once offered rites to a Japanese god. They had planted Ahn’s statue there.
The statue looked down on the Japanese Residency-General, built in a straight line below it—the very place where Itō Hirobumi had taken office as Resident-General. With Ahn’s statue standing above it, the whole arrangement felt like a rebuke aimed straight at imperial Japan.
He changed his strategy. He would search the cemetery first. The job had become harder, but he had no intention of giving up.
He began with the Lushun Prison cemetery site, where an apartment complex had already gone up.
The clear ring of the Chilseokgu led the way.
Hoo.
As he raised the strength of his attunement, spirits began to appear. There were only a few of them, because the ground had been torn open when the apartments were built.
He widened the scope of his search. He didn’t have much time, and there was no helping it—without being able to identify the exact spot, he had to scan broader and broader ground.
It wasn’t easy.
This wasn’t even his first attempt at recovering Ahn’s remains. North Korea had joined the effort, too. In 1986, a massive excavation team had investigated and failed. In 2008, North and South Korea had carried out a joint search. The result had been the same: failure.
More than forty years had passed since the large-scale excavation. Even by old standards, that was four complete changes of the land itself. They couldn’t afford to delay any longer.
He moved forward, stripping away each section of ground one by one. Minister Kim, Secretary Park, Producer Kwon, and the others followed behind Kang-to in silence, barely daring to breathe.
“What on earth...”
When they paused to catch their breath, the Chinese observers’ sarcasm began to spill out.
“What are we even supposed to make of this...”
“Exactly. Isn’t that BBC documentary just a complete fabrication? To me, he looks like nothing more than some fake shaman...”
“Fake shaman is too generous, isn’t it? All he does is shake a bell.”
Secretary Park handled the Chinese translation. He didn’t convey every word, but the meaning was clear enough even without it.
Kang-to ignored it.
In the end, this was the kind of thing that would be proven by results alone.
Lunchtime came and went. Whether he wanted to or not, he had to eat—mainly because of the Chinese observers. Any unilateral move that excluded them would void the permit.
Kang-to went hungry.
“If I eat, my mind won’t stay clear.”
He brushed it off, but it was a lie. He wasn’t in any state to think about food.
He entered the second phase of the search. This was the area the Chinese had excavated on their own. What he found there were only spirits drifting apart like mist.
I want to go home.
The voices of the Russian spirits were like people thrashing in the water. Time had worn them down so badly they could barely make a sound at all. If not for Kang-to’s attunement—or the tutelary spirit of the Supreme Heavenly Deity within him—no one would have been able to hear those pleas.
The Chilseokgu kept ringing without pause. The stray spirits recoiled at the sound and fled. Here and there, he caught sight of bones left without an owner, but he passed them by. He was sorry, but now was not the time to linger over every scattered fragment of the dead.
Time did not wait for Kang-to.
The sun began to sink. Because he had failed to find Ahn’s spirit, the search had turned into one where he had to inspect everything. Naturally, far more time than expected was being consumed.
“That’s enough, Korean shaman. Let’s call it here.”
The Chinese observer who had been yawning all day finally let his patience run out.
“You still have time left under the permit.”
Kang-to’s answer came through Secretary Park.
He looked toward the west, where the sunset bled red across the sky, and thought of spirits.
People with a straight heart and unshakable conviction were not easily swayed by petty ghosts. Their will was so strong that it scattered even a ghost’s spiritual tide. Was that why someone like Ahn Jung-geun could not be seen, even as a spirit?
No.
He decided not to search for the reason.
There was an old saying that a body burdened with resentment would not rot. Could the longing of a man who had wanted to be buried in a liberated homeland change, even after billions upon billions of kalpas?
He thought of Admiral Yi Sun-sin’s famous words. Ahn’s resolve to save the nation was no different. If that was so, then Kang-to believed his own desperate sincerity could reach him.
For the third search, he swept through the Wonbo Mountain area. Because it was close to a hill, the number of spirits increased. They looked no different from the figures he had seen at the prison museum. Whenever Kang-to approached, they scattered; whenever he pulled away, they faded back into weak, indistinct forms.
“Damn it...”
The Chinese observers’ irritation was becoming obvious. Darkness had long since fallen.
To them, Kang-to looked as if he were merely wandering around. He wasn’t using some advanced laser to inspect the ground, and he wasn’t fixating on any one spot like a geomancer would. Walk, stop. Walk, stop. With every step he took, their annoyance only deepened.
“The time we’re aiming for is eleven at night.”
Kang-to laid out the plan. China had granted them two days. There was no clause saying the excavation had to stop once night fell. And when it reached 11 p.m., the hour of midnight, the world of spirits would grow stronger. If he was lucky, he might even catch sight of the faintest soul-flame.
9 p.m.
He entered the final site, the Lushun Prison cemetery in Dongsanpa. According to Secretary Park’s information, this was the most likely place.
But that was only an estimate.
During the 2008 joint excavation, the Wonbo Mountain area they had just passed had been considered the most promising location. When that failed, China had even pointed to the neighboring area and carried out an independent excavation there. In other words, the supposed probability of a burial site meant nothing at all.
What Kang-to was counting on were the places they had already searched. There had been no sign of Ahn’s spirit there—not even a trace, not even the faintest reaction. Absence meant he was somewhere else. That was where Kang-to pinned his hopes.
The Chilseokgu’s ringing cut through the darkness. Kang-to followed where it led. It was still early spring, and that made the ground easier to push through than it would have been in summer.
“......?”
Rustle.
Kang-to stopped where he had stepped on a branch. It was the very place he had just passed. For one fleeting instant, like a visual floater drifting across the eye, something seemed to shimmer there.
A soul-flame?
He raised his attunement higher.
“......”
Then he immediately looked away. It was nothing more than a scrap of foil blown in from somewhere.
“You can’t go in there.”
At the boundary of the gentle rise marked off by stakes, the Chinese observers blocked his path.
“This is slated for apartment development. So that’s as far as you go.”
“......”
Their expressions were hard, and he accepted the warning for what it was. One thing Chinese authorities disliked was backlash from local residents. They seemed to be keeping the complaints in mind, too.
Midnight.
The hour was finally drawing near.
Hoo.
Minister Kim also sat down on a rock and pressed a hand to his forehead.
In the end...
The higher the expectation, the greater the disappointment. Now there were only about thirty minutes left. They hadn’t even found the coordinates, let alone the remains themselves, and success was slipping farther away by the minute.
“What would you like to do?”
Secretary Park asked Kang-to.
“Are you all right?”
“As for us, well...”
“Beopsa-nim Kang-to.”
Ailey came over and took his hand. It was her way of telling him he had worked hard. They had all come here with high hopes, but even they had begun to see the situation in a bleak light. There were thirty minutes left, but that was no comfort at all.
Still, they did not blame Kang-to. That only made his chest ache more. When he looked up into the disappointed sky, he saw the Big Dipper shining there.
At the sight of those stars, Chiluijae came back to him.
Chiluijae was the symbol of his mother. And once that thought connected, it felt as if his mother were looking at him from above.
“Just a moment.”
Kang-to started up the hill.
“Hey.”
The Chinese observers shouted at him.
“It isn’t midnight yet.”
Kang-to’s words were relayed through Secretary Park.
“Tsk.”
Ignoring their scoffs, he kept climbing toward the summit.
It wasn’t a high hill.
At Chiluijae there were seven hills. Whenever he stood on them, it felt as if the earth, the water, and the wind all belonged to Kang-to. From the top of this hill, he wanted to look back over the four places they had already searched. He wanted to show his mother—watching over him now as a star—that he had not given up until the very end.
This was Chinese land.
Which way was Korea?
He opened the map on his phone and found the direction Korea lay in. Brush and small trees blocked his view, so he moved to a nearby rock.
Korea.
It was as he raised his attunement toward that direction that he suddenly felt the air turn cold behind him.
“......?”
When Kang-to turned on instinct, he caught his breath. Something was there on top of the rock. It felt almost like a vacuum, and yet the shape of a spirit was unmistakable.
Hooop.
He drew up every trace of his body spirit’s attunement. Yin and yang pulsed together. When he matched their currents with painstaking precision, his whole body began to boil as if a chemical reaction were happening at the level of molecules.
And then...
Whoosh.
A wave of blue crashed through Kang-to’s eyes.
The object slowly began to take shape along the wind...
Jjarrang...
Even the Chilseokgu seemed to hold its breath before it. At last, the thing formed fully into one distinct shape...
Oh, God.
Kang-to staggered back a step. His jaw trembled so hard he could not speak. That dignity, that upright, unyielding longing...
Ahhh...
A groan ran through his entire body. At long last, he had found the spirit of Ahn Jung-geun, the one he had yearned for so desperately.
The spirit was gazing at the distant heavens with a reverence and solemnity beyond measure. Kang-to did not interfere. Ahn Jung-geun was looking toward the place he had dreamed of even in his sleep—the direction of his liberated homeland, the Republic of Korea.
Ah.
Only then did Kang-to understand. He had not found the spirit in Ahn Jung-geun’s portrait because Ahn, even in death, could not forget his country. His soul had come out to a place where it could at least see it. He had done so from the very day he became a spirit.
How long had he stood there like that?
“Beopsa-nim Kang-to.”
Secretary Park called to him.
“We have to go down now.”
Midnight.
The permitted time was right at their doorstep.
Kang-to bowed respectfully to the spirit. At that, the spirit looked once more toward the homeland it longed for, then began to move with a soft, flowing grace.
“Beopsa-nim?”
Secretary Park’s voice no longer reached him. Kang-to’s gaze was fixed only on the spirit leading the way ahead. Through the brush and over nameless wild grass, the spirit brought him to the place he had passed a little earlier—the place where the silver foil had lain.
The boundary marked for development. To the east of Dongsanpa, it was a gentle slope with patches of weathered soil exposed here and there.
The spirit stopped on that patch of weathered earth.
-Have you come at last?
-You’re a little late.
The wind whispered in Kang-to’s ear in place of the spirit.
“Hey. Let’s go down now. If you don’t, I’ll call public security and have you forced out.”
The Chinese observer tried to threaten him, but Kang-to did not stop his hand from parting the loose soil. Every motion carried the weight of reverence and solemnity.
“Hey.”
When the observer, unable to stand it any longer, grabbed Kang-to by the collar, Kang-to’s voice cracked like thunder.
“Step back. This is where Ahn Jung-geun’s remains are buried.”
“Beopsa-nim Kang-to?”
Secretary Park and Minister Kim, along with the others, were so overwhelmed by the words that they could not move.
And then...
Under the brilliant moonlight, the remains of Ahn Jung-geun finally came into view. It was 11:58 p.m., China time—exactly two minutes before the permitted time ran out.