The Bell's Silence
(You're saying we're better off not signing with them?)
At the highway rest stop, Kang Hyeong-seok carried on his phone call with Kwak Young-ho.
"Yes, sir. I checked the place out myself — no staff anywhere, the machinery all shut down. Something was off about it."
(It's not even a holiday, though?)
"They claimed it was because of meetings, but there was plenty that didn't add up."
(Haaah. Like what, specifically?)
Irritation had seeped into Kwak Young-ho's voice. So they'd nearly been swindled, had they? That was plainly what he believed — and there was no way Hyeong-seok could tell him what he'd actually seen: wandering spirits tangled together like knotted thread.
"The warehouse crammed full of materials was one thing, and they'd laid their account books wide open from the very start. It felt calculated."
(And you said there were no employees?)
"Yes. But no one seemed to be on vacation either, and the whole place just felt wrong."
Which was why this was all he could say.
(Hah! No wonder it seemed like a windfall just rolling up to our doorstep.)
"Having seen it with my own eyes, I'd say they're not people we can trust."
(Got it. Thank goodness I sent you and Section Chief Shin over there.)
That was a relief. Kwak Young-ho had taken every word at face value, without a flicker of doubt.
"What's he saying?" Right across the table, Shin Jeong-ah mouthed the words around a mouthful of butter-grilled baby potatoes.
Hyeong-seok signaled her to keep it down and turned his attention back to the call.
"They may well come knocking again, though. Just in case, could you pass the word to Sales Team 2 that they should steer clear of that place entirely?"
(Oh! Right, right, of course.)
It never hurt to be careful. Sales Team 2, already feeling the pinch of their quotas, might just leap at the chance to sign with the place. The possibility needed to be snuffed out in advance — and for that, he needed Kwak Young-ho's help.
(I'll hammer it home to Team 2's manager myself. Don't you worry about a thing.)
"Thank you, sir."
Apparently his worry had shown through in his voice.
(It's fine, nothing to fuss over. Remember how Sales Team 2 botched that job and we had to step in and clean up the mess? Their manager's been floundering around us ever since.)
"Ah — the wallpaper factory business?"
(Yep, that one.)
Buyong — the woman who'd been bound into a ghost wedding. Helping her had been what settled that contract trouble in the first place.
"Whew. Thank you, really."
(So, did you two get something to eat?)
Hyeong-seok glanced once at Shin Jeong-ah, who was plowing industriously through her baby potatoes, and answered.
"We were going to just grab something here at the rest stop."
(Aigoo! Get yourselves something decent.)
"No, we're all right."
(Don't forget to bring back the receipts. And you'll be back around three, give or take?)
"That's about when we expect to arrive. Was there something you needed?"
(No, nothing at all.)
Hyeong-seok considered for a moment, then shifted his gaze to Shin Jeong-ah. There was a saying that even a dog deserved to eat undisturbed — but he kept prodding her with his eyes all the same, until her brow had cinched into a scowl of pure displeasure.
"Then we'll try juggling our schedule on our end. If we can work in another client visit, we'll do that."
(You will? Even better! You're all the way out there as it is.)
"Understood. I'll call you again later, then."
(Got it! Fighting!)
Beep. Hyeong-seok set the phone down on the table and rubbed his face.
"What did he say?"
"He says we're not doing business with that place. And that he'll have a firm word with Sales Team 2 as well."
Sales Team 3 handled direct-purchase imports anyway, so they were out of the picture. As far as Daejeong Mulsan was concerned, then, the matter was settled.
What wouldn't sit easy was that the strange place could always take its business somewhere else.
Shin Jeong-ah wordlessly held out the baby potato she'd been eating — and in the same smooth motion slid the stone-grilled squid sitting beside Hyeong-seok over to her side of the table.
"Chief Kang."
"Yes?"
"If it's really gnawing at you, want to check it out?"
"Meaning what, exactly?"
Poking at the crumbs of the stone-grilled squid with her wooden skewer, Shin Jeong-ah smiled faintly.
"I told you I'd contacted the place I used to work at, remember?"
"I do."
He couldn't even begin to guess what she was driving at.
"I'll get in touch with them and secure a sample. That should tell us for sure, don't you think?"
For a moment, words failed him. One way to look at it, the whole affair had been nipped in the bud before it could swell — he could have let it go at that and counted himself lucky.
And yet here was Shin Jeong-ah, reading the doubt written across his face and choosing to meet it.
"Thank you, Chief."
"It's nothing difficult. If seeing it for yourself puts your mind at ease, that's what matters."
Then, as if she might as well strip the bones clean while she was at it, Shin Jeong-ah pulled out her phone. She glanced at her wristwatch, typed out a message, and hit send.
"Done. I told them that place is shady, so no signing anything unless it's truly unavoidable — and, just to be safe, to secure a sample and nothing more."
Hyeong-seok smiled, the expression equal parts apology and gratitude.
"Honestly, if it weren't for you, Chief, I'd be tying myself in knots right now."
"Oh, knock it off! Between coworkers who know every last one of each other's messes, you think I'd leave this much uncovered?"
Shin Jeong-ah laughed, then picked her wooden skewer back up.
Butter-grilled baby potatoes. Stone-grilled squid. Salty, throat-catching food, every bit of it.
"Um, Chief Kang?"
"Yes?"
"Can I get just one Coke...?"
Hyeong-seok held her dead-serious gaze for a beat, then let his breath burst out in a laugh and went off to fetch the drinks.
That night.
After visiting one more client with Shin Jeong-ah, he had come home and begun with a scalding-hot shower.
Psshh! Psshh!
Afterward he sprinkled salt across his body — the ghastly sight from earlier that day was not one he could shake off at will.
Just what are they, really?
There was intent behind it all. That much was certain. Twenty years. Twenty whole years that factory had been turning out burial shrouds and funerary urns. If some purpose was at work, it meant they had been pursuing something for all of those twenty long years. And yet the owner had looked nothing like a mudang, or any manner of shaman at all.
He knew of exactly one case that fit.
Kim Ki-ok.
The man who had murdered his own mother and kept her soul as a siksin, a bound servant spirit fed on offerings. The man who had moved to raise an altar at an Onmyoji's command.
"...Tsk."
Catching the hair bristling along his forearms, he shook the water and the salt from his skin, brow knotted. Then he used the showerhead to herd the salt scattered over the floor down the drain, pulled his clothes back on, and stepped out.
Clack. He picked up his phone, mulled it over for a moment, and opened the livestreaming app.
Yoon-sang wasn't broadcasting — so he dialed him straight away.
Brrring...
(Yes, Hyung-nim!)
Yoon-sang answered frighteningly fast, his voice booming down the line.
"What the—? How'd you pick up that fast?"
(It's your call, Hyung-nim. How could I make you wait?)
Was his voice... echoing? Apparently he'd answered from the bathroom, phone in hand.
"Ah, sorry. Something came up on my end — can I call you back in five minutes?"
(Huh? Ah — yes! Of course!)
Catching on that Hyeong-seok was giving him time to sort himself out, Yoon-sang hung up in a fluster, and Hyeong-seok whiled away the five minutes making his coffee as weak as it would go.
Brrring.
(Yes! Hyung-nim!)
No echo this time.
(What is it? You actually called me first!)
The voice was swollen to bursting with hope — but regrettably, this was not about a collab stream or heading out on a haunt together.
"Sorry, but I've got something to ask. Have you got a minute?"
(For you? Anytime, Hyung-nim!)
He had every license to be a little deflated, yet Yoon-sang sounded as chipper as ever.
"Back during the Rokurokubi business, it seemed like you knew your way around this sort of thing too. So I wanted to ask you one thing."
(Huh? Is something going on?)
"I'm not certain yet. That's why I'm asking."
Hyeong-seok took a sip of his weak, warm coffee, then went on.
"I visited a certain factory recently. Suspicious in any number of ways."
(A factory?)
"They make burial shrouds and funerary urns. And their warehouse was packed full of wandering spirits."
The sight of it had been too dreadful for words. Hyeong-seok rubbed at the corners of his eyes, still trying to scrub the memory loose.
"Hearing all this — does anything come to mind?"
Nothing ventured, nothing gained. He'd tossed the question out in exactly that spirit.
But the reply came back without a beat of hesitation.
(Isn't that hitobashira?)
"...What?"
"Hold on. Hold on..."
A sacrifice? Of people? Twenty years of sorcery worked upon the dead?
"Are you sure?"
(I do horror storytimes and creepy-topic features on my streams now and then, you know. Hitobashira is, at its root, the practice of offering up a human being as a sacrifice before raising a building. The word itself literally means 'human pillar.')
A curse nearly made it past his teeth. Then again — a coffin going into the earth was as long as any pillar, and an urn enshrined in a columbarium did give off the feel of a little building.
"And what's it for? What do they do it for?"
(It's a form of human offering, so... either to secure one's own peace and safety, or performed before something gets put up?)
(Buildings, usually, by all accounts.)
The rest of Yoon-sang's words seemed to drift in from somewhere very far away.
(Hyung-nim...?)
"It's nothing. Thanks — that helped."
Leaving Yoon-sang's bewildered voice behind, Hyeong-seok ended the call. Then, phone left on the table, he pressed a hand to his brow; it scalded hot, as though fever had taken hold.
Damn it. What is this, really?
On the surface, all that had happened was that he'd tripped over one strange client. But they had long since passed the point where that line would hold. If Yoon-sang had it right, sorcery was now threaded through the whole affair.
It felt like being flung without warning onto a board so vast he couldn't fathom where to lay a hand first — Hyeong-seok felt like a man adrift on a boundless open sea.
"...I need your help."
If ever there was an hour to lean on his Momjusin, it was now. Hyeong-seok's gaze went to the backpack propped beside the shoe cabinet. His sacred implements lay within.
"A dangerous one is doing what should not be done. Show me the road I must walk."
The backpack sat as still as a Buddha statue in its shrine hall, and Hyeong-seok spoke on.
"What I did not know, I now know. What must I do?"
No answer came from the bag — nor from the Mudang Bang-ul sleeping inside it, nor from the Sinjangkal. Even so, Hyeong-seok held his gaze steady and pressed on.
"Must I stop them...?"
The instant the low murmur slipped from his mouth—
Ching! The sacred bells rang.
Hyeong-seok's molars clenched; slowly, with effort, he pried them apart.
"Must I stand against them?"
Nothing. And so Hyeong-seok deliberated harder, thought it through to the very end, and offered his next question.
"Is what I must stand against a single foe?"
Ching! The bells rang out once more.
That meant yes.
Hyeong-seok swallowed a mouthful of nothing and asked again, his voice far lower than before.
"Is it human?"
The bell did not ring.
However long he waited.