The Second Guest Arrives
“Kang-to...”
The village chief’s face went bone-white.
Out at sea, the waters had already turned to chaos. Coast Guard rescue vessels were racing across the waves, joined by nearby fishing boats and even a helicopter, all of them converging on the search area.
“He’s dead...?”
“......”
“Kang-to.”
“Are you asking me?”
“Yeah...”
“You still don’t believe me, do you?”
“Kang-to.”
“Still, it was a precious life, so I gave him the final warning. If he didn’t forget that, he’ll live.”
“Holy...”
“May I pass now?”
“Y-Yeah. Go on.”
The startled village chief stepped aside and made room.
“What was that? What did Kang-to just say?”
The village chief was besieged by questions from Chief Choi, the women’s association head, and the others.
“Well...”
“For heaven’s sake, why are you dragging this out? Spit it out before someone dies of suspense. Did Kang-to give another reading or something?”
“......”
“Manager Kim.”
“He said if they went now, they’d die... told us to stop them from going... but then that helicopter...”
“......?”
The pupils of Chief Choi and the women’s association head shuddered as if struck by an earthquake.
“Wait, so Kang-to predicted the helicopter would crash?”
Yunji’s mother asked.
“What, do you need to see it to believe it?”
The village chief collapsed onto the ground, all strength leaving him. It wasn’t just the shock of Kang-to’s oracle. If this was true, then the island’s development was finished.
“Holy...”
The village chief’s sigh seemed to sink without end.
“Why does the mood feel so weird all of a sudden?”
As Gwang-gyu came out to the pier to board the ferry, he looked around and asked.
“What’s weird?” Kang-to asked, feigning ignorance.
“Everybody’s looking at you differently.”
“No way. Hurry up and get on.”
“Yeah. Anyway, make it big. Everyone likes to go on about shamans and superstition, but I believe in your skill.”
“Thanks for doing such a good job on the construction.”
“Like you said, if a lot of people find hope in that place, that’s good for me too.”
Gwang-gyu’s construction vehicle rolled into the ferry.
The last ferry came in later than scheduled because of the helicopter crash. Whenever there was a major accident, there were always more inspections than usual.
“I’m off.”
Gwang-gyu waved from the second deck. Kang-to waved back. Gwang-gyu had drawn exactly the picture Kang-to wanted, and with only a little extra for materials and labor, so Kang-to was even more grateful.
The mood on the island had definitely changed.
As Kang-to walked by, everyone took a step back. Even those who had once mocked shamanism did the same. They had been skeptical about Hong-seo’s father, but then his body had floated to the surface, and when a helicopter the size of a monster truck had gone down, the force of those gazes had changed. The fact that the people spreading the story were the village chief and Chief Choi only made it worse.
Those two were the island’s power brokers.
Because it was an island, the village chief’s authority was a given, and Chief Choi—who was bursting with elite smugness because his only daughter had joined the prestigious Seongsan Group—carried plenty of weight too.
“Beopsa Kang-to.”
Hong-seo’s grandmother came over with Old Lady Yeong-sil from the jujube tree house.
“I heard you predicted the helicopter crash?”
Word had already spread.
“Yes.”
“Goodness, you’re really amazing.”
“I should have saved them... I couldn’t do that.”
“What are you talking about? They said Kang-to Beopsa warned them, but they wouldn’t listen and went anyway.”
“......”
“Still, that’s incredible. With such a gifted shaman standing watch over us, all the troubles hanging over this island will be swept away.”
Old Lady Hong-seo’s face shone with trust. That trust passed right into Gwang-gyu’s phone.
“Insane.”
“What is?”
“The helicopter. I heard everything the islanders were saying on the ferry.”
“......”
“To get something like that right, you’re seriously amazing. Maybe I should start calling you a top-shot Beopsa?”
“Among friends... just call me Kang-to.”
“They’re broadcasting the news, and they left you completely out. Want me to tip off the station?”
“No, there’s no need.”
“Ah, humility too. You really have it all.”
“Be careful on the way in.”
“Got it. Keep fighting the good fight.”
After Kang-to hung up, he turned on the broadcast. An emergency news bulletin was airing.
Chairman Cho had survived.
Then it was certain—he had used Kang-to’s warning.
A little of the tension left Kang-to’s chest. The point of an oracle was not whether it was perfectly accurate, but whether it saved a life.
Besides, this wasn’t punishment for his own past life or his own wrongdoing, but the karma of his ancestors’ sins. No matter how deep the grudge, it was hard to close his eyes to a descendant being forced to pay for the crimes of people long dead.
A brush with death.
It was the shortest road to changing a person.
If Chairman Cho—who, like his ancestors, knew nothing of accumulating merit—could have the embers of kindness lit inside him by this massive disaster, Kang-to would have nothing more to ask for.
“Daddy.”
Two days later, as a second ferry came in, thunder seemed to crack across the deck. Kang-to, who had been doing spiritual cultivation inside the lighthouse shrine, came out. His daughter’s voice carried about as much force as a general of Taeeul. That was why it pierced the sea breeze and reached Kang-to’s ears.
“Daddy.”
When Kang-to came down to the pier, Sol-bi was hopping around like a deer that had been startled by a bludgeon. Manager Seo was beside her. It looked as though she had seen her younger brother’s funeral through to the end.
“Daddy.”
As soon as the ferry was ready for passengers to disembark, Sol-bi shot out first.
“Be careful,” Manager Seo warned, but it was already too late. Her heart had outrun her body, and her ankle caught on the structure of the causeway.
Thud.
The sound of her fall was loud, but it didn’t slow Sol-bi down in the slightest. She sprang back up with all the energy in the world and ended up in Kang-to’s arms.
“I told you to be careful.”
“I wanted to see Daddy faster.”
Sol-bi burrowed deeper into his embrace.
“Are your knees okay?”
“They don’t hurt at all.”
She said that, but she wasn’t okay. Her thin stockings had torn, and blood was seeping through them.
“I’m sorry. I should’ve held onto her, but she’s so fast.”
Manager Seo, who had come up behind her, wore a troubled look. But that was just how adults looked at things. Sol-bi had already moved on to the next thing on her mind—the island boys and girls.
“Hong-seo oppa, Tae-hee unni.”
Sol-bi was like a tiny warrior who refused to fall, no matter how much it looked like she might. In the end, she grabbed onto the older boys and girls, all of them one or two years older than her, and bounced around with them as a group.
“She called me from the ferry. Said she was coming in and told us to come out and meet her.” Manager Seo laughed.
“What about the funeral?”
“Like Kang-to said, it got a little complicated. Her brother’s resident registration had already been canceled, and the house he’d been living in had its own mess of problems—lease loans and all sorts of minor debts, one after another.”
“......”
“Thank you. If we’d only gone there expecting it to take a day or two, it would have been hard.”
“I just told you what I could see.”
“After settling a life of over forty years, there was only about a million won left. I donated it to a nursing home under my brother’s name and told them to send him somewhere good, because from the look of how he’d lived, it didn’t seem like he’d ever done a single kind thing.”
“You did well.”
Kang-to smiled. Merit-making seemed to be the source of strength for Manager Seo, who had never been blessed with good luck from birth. It appeared to have been put to excellent use even at her brother’s funeral.
“How’s the shrine?”
“While you were on the mainland, I called in a friend who does interiors and had it finished. Want to see?”
Kang-to pointed toward the lighthouse.
“Oh my.”
Manager Seo opened the door to the maintenance room and gasped. The room, which had once been little more than a storage closet crammed with junk, had undergone a complete transformation. Black and white now stood in sharp contrast like the geometry of heaven, and even without flashy shaman paintings or paper flower decorations, the place felt sacred all on its own.
“This is the main shrine room, and I’m planning to use the lighthouse as a place for training and divination. Shall we look at the lighthouse too?” Kang-to said, pointing upward.
The lighthouse had been given new clothes too. It had been painted white. The muted matte finish didn’t draw the eye, but there was no doubt it looked fresh.
“Good heavens.”
As Manager Seo climbed to the third floor, she lost her composure. The overall feeling was no different from the main shrine room, but the view had changed. In addition to the window where the lantern had once sat, Kang-to had cut windows facing toward Chiluijae, so now they could see in all directions at once.
“It felt so cramped before, but now my chest feels wide open on its own.”
“Right?”
“It’s nice, but...”
Manager Seo’s brow wrinkled slightly. Kang-to understood. She had seen countless shrines—his mother’s, of course, and many on the mainland as well. But this one felt very different from those.
“You were thinking it would be better to hang the sacred portraits of Nine Heavens Maiden and the Grand Supreme Elderly Lord in this space, weren’t you?” Kang-to hit the mark exactly.
“Yes. They’re not the kind of deities just any shaman gets to receive.”
“Do you know what? Gods from the heavens above level 5,000 don’t go around boasting about themselves. The ones who want people to advertise that they’re gods are the lower-tier ones below 5,000.”
“......”
“Nine Heavens Maiden is the same. She transcends everything, so she doesn’t care about formality.”
“That may be true, but... I still worry she might take offense and refuse to descend.”
“I already checked the descent while you were away, Manager Seo.”
“Manager?”
“Didn’t I say I’d call you that?”
“Ah, right...”
“You remember Hong-seo’s father, don’t you? The one who jumped because of debt...”
“Of course. I even dropped a hint to Hong-seo’s mother before I left, thinking that if our Kang-to Beopsa found the body, the islanders would start seeing things differently...”
“I found that body for you.”
“Really?”
“Want me to confirm one more thing?”
“There’s more?”
“Did you hear about the helicopter crash on the Gyecheong Island side?”
“At the funeral, I heard bits and pieces... it sounded like several people died, but I only caught the news in passing because of the funeral.”
“That helicopter belonged to the chairman of the company handling our island development plan. He was on his way back after touring the island, right?”
“Then that too?”
Manager Seo’s instincts sharpened. She focused so hard her pupils seemed to tremble.
“That’s right. If he’d boarded at that time, he was fated to die at the hands of a vengeful spirit... I warned him, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“Oh, sacred goddess...”
Manager Seo sat down hard. The force of Kang-to’s spiritual power had knocked the strength out of her legs.
“Now you can rest easy and close your eyes. Our Kang-to Beopsa really is properly descended from Nine Heavens Maiden.”
With her hands pressed together, tears welled in Manager Seo’s eyes. She had once served Kang-to’s mother as if she were a half-goddess, and some of that old devotion still lived on in her heart.
“I also fixed up the old house a bit. For Sol-bi’s sake, too.”
“Oh, that’s good. Really good.”
“Now that you’re here, Manager Seo, I’ll put up the signboard and officially open the shrine.”
“Thank you. For letting me work somewhere with such a high-ranking deity as Nine Heavens Maiden.”
As she spoke, Kang-to took up a prayer posture. Manager Seo followed him with practiced ease.
Shamanism.
In modern times, it had become something of an unwanted child.
Advice from philosophers or ascetics was revered, but advice from shamans was treated as taboo. Especially by the upper classes. Using shamanism for themselves while drawing a neat line in front of the public had become standard hypocrisy. It was even worse in this generation than in the grandmothers’ day.
Kang-to’s mother had many wealthy clients. But not one of them had ever confessed in the open that they received help from shamanism.
Kang-to knew that atmosphere all too well. He had no intention of caring. Even in a hospital, medical records were protected. Shamanism was the sickness of fate, so its secrecy was only natural. Let them curse it behind his back, let them belittle it if they wanted to.
He was simply a shamanic disciple walking the path of conveying a god’s will.
“Take the day off today and help me with the shrine work starting tomorrow.”
“Take a day off...? Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for this day? Where are you going?”
“I think we have a visitor coming.”
“A visitor? The ferry already came in, though.”
“The ferry isn’t the only way to get to the island.”
Kang-to stepped out of the lighthouse.
“Huh?”
Manager Seo tilted her head. Visitors came in by ferry. But that ferry had already sailed. Which meant there was no one left who could be coming.
On the path leading to Chiluijae and the lighthouse, Kang-to had erected a signboard.
Way to Beopsa Kang-to’s Lighthouse Shrine
It had been made separately by Gwang-gyu. Kang-to had done it himself rather than leave it to Manager Seo. A shamanic disciple shouldn’t spare even this kind of labor.
“Daddy.”
Sol-bi, who had been splashing around in the mudflats with Hong-seo, Tae-hee, and Yunji, waved.
“The seawater’s cold, so don’t get your clothes soaked, okay?”
“Okay.”
Sol-bi answered. She was not shy around strangers. In fact, she was so friendly that she embraced not only children her age but older boys and girls too. It was a relief. What was even more of a relief was that she didn’t have a shamanic affliction. Just as her mother had once hoped, Kang-to did not want Sol-bi to suffer from the sickness of spirit possession.
Coming out onto the pier, he looked toward Gyecheong Island.
At the end of that gaze, a luxurious yacht came into view. It rounded Gyecheong Island and drew closer to Chilui Island. A man stood on the yacht’s deck. Green sunglasses. A flashy flower-patterned shirt. This man, who was said to be a yacht enthusiast just like his father, was Lee Hyung-wook.
The events in Seoul flashed through Kang-to’s mind.
“Listen.”
It had been a hospital room where his shamanic illness was at its worst. When his head had briefly become calm, this man had walked in.
“I don’t know what your angle is, but I allowed your entry into the family registry, so keep your mouth shut and live quietly. Jae-hee and I don’t want a younger brother like you. Needless to say, neither does our mother.”
With a face full of class-based arrogance, the man had hurled a warning straight into Kang-to’s face. Lee Hyung-wook, eldest son of Chairman Lee Tae-seop, had made his entrance then.
His biological father.
So, his biological brother(?) was coming.
Did he come ahead of time to keep an eye on what I’m doing?
It was a slight disappointment that it wasn’t his father. Still, he was a guest who had come all the way to this remote island.
And since this was his home turf, with the supreme deity being served here, there was no reason to avoid him. As the host, Kang-to waited for Lee Hyung-wook to disembark.