The Face of the Buddha

"Hah... hah..."

His breath came so hard it felt as though his chest would split open. His feet dragged, and the inside of his mouth had gone dry as a desert. How many mountains had he crossed by now? How many roads?

He whipped around without the slightest warning, forcing the ragged air through his nose. All that met his eyes was a streetlight far in the distance and the moths swarming its glow — no people anywhere.

Click. He drew out his phone and pulled up the map to confirm he was still headed the right way.

Northeast. The bearing's right.

He had tried to move in as straight a line as possible. But he was also doing his best to avoid other people, and again and again that had forced him into detours he never intended to take.

Woof, woof, woof, woof! A dog was barking somewhere off in the distance, as if to taunt him — Not so easy, is it? Kang Hyeong-seok rubbed his parched lips, glanced back toward the sound, then slipped his body into the darkness beyond the streetlight's reach.

Footsteps. A moment later, two men walked shoulder to shoulder, expressionless, straight past the spot where he had been standing. One looked to be at least sixty, the other around forty, and both had utterly ordinary faces.

But he had seen it, plain as day. The bulge in the pocket.

Woof-woof-woof-woof-woof! The dog barked at the pair for a long while, as though it had caught something ominous on the air. Eyes closed, easing his exhaustion, Kang Hyeong-seok waited until every last trace of them had faded away.

Is this truly right? Must I go this far for the sake of people? Those men have nothing to be proud of, either — they move at the heretics' bidding and carry blades in their pockets. Is destroying what those cultists believe ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in and serve worth it, for the sake of men like that?

Kang Hyeong-seok tipped his head back toward the moon hanging high amid the drifting clouds and moved his lips. No answer came, of course. Only a chill wind drifted up, as if to console him.

"Hoooah—!" With a click of his tongue at the bitterness of it all, he looked at the vending machine standing before a supermarket some distance away. Then he looked one more time in the direction the two men had vanished, fished his wallet out of his bag, walked up to the machine, and bought five cans of a drink advertising its protein content.

Click. Sipping the thick, syrupy drink, he set off toward the northeast.

A canned drink that cost about a dollar a can, consoling a human being. It soothed a throat cracked raw with thirst and put strength back into a body running short on blood sugar.

Clunk. He rammed the emptied can deep into the recycling bin, then studied the map again with eyes and mind grown cooler than before. Pushing a breath out through his teeth, he let only his gaze move.

That mountain, is it...

A mountain ridge drowned in darkness. And beneath it, a strange energy lay coiled. On the map it was a mountain with nothing marked on it but a lone temple — and it was where the object of the cult's faith would be waiting.

Setting his steps toward it, Kang Hyeong-seok quietly began to recite the sacred scripture.

Ring-ring, ring-ring. Listening to the shaman's bells stowed in his bag chime softly, he kept walking.

"Yaaawn."

Shin Jeong-ah let the yawn stretch out long and slow, then dug out her lighter and cigarettes one after the other. This was the front courtyard of Lee Geum-kyeong's shrine hall. It was the dead of night, and perhaps because the place was unfamiliar, sleep simply would not come.

Click-click — fwash! Just as she swept her bobbed hair back from her face and was about to touch the flame to her cigarette—

"And what do you think you're doing?"

"Gahk—!"

"Shh!"

Cheong-geum, come up from behind her, hurriedly signaled for quiet and frowned.

"Ah — ha-ha. S-sorry." Shin Jeong-ah gave the younger woman an embarrassed smile and closed her hand around the cigarette. "No, it's just... I couldn't sleep."

"Was your meal not enough?"

"...Excuse me?"

Cheong-geum took Shin Jeong-ah by the arm and guided her a little farther from the shrine hall before asking again. "You are still awake at this hour. Was your meal not enough?"

"Uh... no."

Cheong-geum gestured at the cigarette, as if to say it was all right to smoke now. Shin Jeong-ah gave her a small nod, set the cigarette between her lips, and lit it — though her face was anything but calm.

"The meal was fine. I just can't seem to sleep."

"Is the bedding the problem, then?"

"Sorry?"

"Do you need a softer blanket?"

Shin Jeong-ah held Cheong-geum's gaze for a moment, then smiled with an odd look on her face. She had only met Cheong-geum for the first time yesterday. But after all the wandering she'd done around the shrine grounds, she'd already been through these exchanges, like something out of a Zen koan, more than a few times.

"I think it must be my heart that's uneasy."

"And yet your bed is comfortable, and your meal was fine?"

Shin Jeong-ah drew deeply on the cigarette and shook her head, her eyes heavy-lidded. "It's just — I feel like I'm the only one who's at ease."

"Hm?"

"Manager Kang. With his personality, he has a tendency to drive himself into the ground. I'm not sure he'll be all right."

Somehow Cheong-geum felt as if she understood, and she curled the corners of her mouth upward without a sound. "He is. That is exactly the kind of man he is."

"Huh? Wait — you know him?"

"He has done this before. In the small hours he came to me, borrowed weapons no less, and went off to lay someone's grudge to rest."

It was the memory of resolving the vengeful ghost that had dwelt in the warehouse. Shin Jeong-ah nodded with a soft ah, and Cheong-geum exhaled through her nose, her brow knitting.

"He is no common man. One look is enough to understand how such a great god came to call him."

"...Him? Really?"

"He is a remarkable one, our Young Master."

Cheong-geum had envied Kang Hyeong-seok once — if only briefly. A mudang who did not have to live a life bound fast to the gods; a being like a dream, like some impossible privilege. But watching the Kang Hyeong-seok of today, she honestly felt ashamed for ever having thought that way.

"The Teacher says the same of him. That he is a remarkable child. That after death, he will become a god."

"A god? Manager Kang?"

"Great mudang sometimes become gods, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠according to the deeds they performed in life."

Just as Lee Geum-kyeong one day likely would, so too would Kang Hyeong-seok. He would become a god presiding over a wide land, honored and prayed to by many a mudang. Heaven remembers every drop of sweat and every measure of toil he sheds. It will never allow them to come to nothing.

"I know the heart that worries for him. But do not worry yourself to the point of ruining your health."

"Oh no — ha-ha — it's not ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that bad."

"And yet you lie awake at this hour?"

Caught off guard, Shin Jeong-ah opened her mouth to protest, then simply moved her poor, blameless cigarette to her lips instead.

"If that is how it is, then join us in prayer at dawn."

"Sorry — prayer?"

"The Teacher has given her leave for you to take part."

Lee Geum-kyeong had seemed to know all along that things would come to this. While wide-eyed Shin Jeong-ah could not manage a single word, Cheong-geum turned her head toward the cuckoo shrieking away noisily in the dark and went on. "And please refrain from smoking for the time being. The cleaner you keep your body and mind, the better."

"Uh... yes."

"The Teacher spoke of you as well. She says there is something she wishes to ask of you, Miss Jeong-ah — something that means more than worry."

While Shin Jeong-ah stood staring blankly at her, Cheong-geum took out her phone, checked the hour, and turned away. "The night air is cold. Come inside now."

Shin Jeong-ah answered in a daze — "Ah... yes." — then looked down at the cigarette in her hand, stubbed out the flame, and followed Cheong-geum with the butt still clutched in her fingers.

What is this? This feeling...

She had the premonition that before long she would be swept up in something she knew nothing about. But then another thought surged up out of nowhere. Come to think of it, she was not the only one awake tonight — she had realized that much watching Cheong-geum's back.

Crack! The branch under his foot broke with a sound like snapping bone.

The sky was shifting hue as though about to break into day — the hour when the morning star gleams vivid as a final flame. Kang Hyeong-seok had reached the mountain he had set out for.

Crunch, crunch. Not a place people came often; the fallen leaves lay heaped so deep that they swallowed his ankles at every step. Panting hard all the while, he pressed on up the mountain.

Ring-ring, ring-ring. The shaman's bells stowed in his bag chimed low and clear, cleansing the energy around him. And the higher he climbed, the faster the bells rang out.

Closing in. On the thing those bastards believed in and worshipped.

Shaaaaaa—! The cold wind of earliest morning came gusting through, thrashing the branches, and the sound of it was ominous. A place no one of the mountains should ever set foot in. A place where the mountain god and the divine spirits warned all approachers away. A place where treacherous, turbid energy swirled in a raging maelstrom.

Crunch, crunch. And Kang Hyeong-seok was walking straight into it. Then he glanced back over his shoulder — and the building he had found suspicious was watching him. Moving in a straight line, it was not so great a distance.

So this really is the place after all. He ground his teeth and drove himself up the slope with renewed strength.

With a burst of wingbeats — caw, caaaw! — a huge black crow startled into the air, and his gaze, following it as naturally as breathing, found a temple. It would be the temple marked on the map. Kang Hyeong-seok stared at the distant ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠building for a long moment, then set off toward it.

Riiing-ring-ring! The sound of the bells was growing. The shaman's bells rang once for every step he took, as though sounding a fierce warning. Even so, he pressed on toward the temple, caring little whether he crossed paths with anyone.

An abandoned temple. No human presence to be felt anywhere; beneath the eaves hung a great cobweb, and in it sat a palm-sized joro spider.

Riiing-ring-ring!

A murderous aura — and a baleful one. The energy he had felt from the very foot of the mountain had grown stronger, and the bells were ringing louder still.

Riiing-ring-ring!

...The object of faith.

Ring!

Kang Hyeong-seok stopped before the temple and reached out toward the door, shut fast. Creak. The aged paper doors slid apart to either side, and the air pooled stagnant within lunged at him like a demon.

And what met his eyes was—

A Buddha.

A Buddha statue wearing a gentle gaze and a faint smile. An old statue, both hands raised before its chest — the left palm turned inward, the right palm outward, thumbs and index fingers joined — hands folded in the dharmachakra mudra, the seal of the Turning of the Wheel of the Law.

Ring. The shaman's bells chimed, as if to announce that he had arrived.

And at that moment, meeting the statue's gaze, Kang Hyeong-seok's eyes turned inward as well, delving into memory. The statue he had seen in his dream. That figure — impossible to say whether it was a self-mummified sokushinbutsu or a living Buddha sealed away inside — and upon its face, Shin Jeong-ah's.

Gazing at the statue's face, Kang Hyeong-seok understood that he had drawn one great stride closer to the revelation.