Returning home in a drenched state, her mother stopped in her tracks in the kitchen. What trouble has she caused now? Her mother shook her head, full of disappointment, and said nothing more.

            That night, she had a nightmare. Her dead brother wasn’t scattering flowers and laughing with her. Instead, he watched her with bloody, hollow eyes, moving his mouth.

            It’s your fault that I’m dead.

            It was a burdensome nightmare.

            ── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✦ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──

            He recalled Beodeul’s indignant departure, slipping his gaze downwards. The water on his palm was faintly mixed with black.

            “….”

            He tasted the black liquid, wondering if it was the water spirits’ poison, but it wasn’t. After gazing at it for a while, he changed direction, still completely expressionless, as if the face of someone who had just escaped death couldn’t be believed.

            Young Master Ki. That’s what people called him. ‘He’ was living up to that name.

            “Who goes there?”

            When he suddenly entered the shrine in the dark of night, the young monk was startled and asked.

            “The service is over for today.”

            As the fearful young monk stepped back from the sudden intrusion, Young Master Ki twisted his lips and bowed slightly.

            “You know, don’t you?”

            “You, at the Lantern Festival that time, that…”

            “Beodeul must have seen something, right? It couldn’t have been just because of me that she fainted, could it?”

            “Get, get away! Don’t come any closer! Hi, hic…!”

            As black energy rippled behind the man, the baby bodhisattva was on the verge of fainting. The cornered child opened her mouth wide to cry, but being grabbed by the scruff came first.

            “Maybe I’ll carve out your insane tongue first.”

            “Wait, wait! What do you want? Just tell me, and I’ll listen, so let go and talk!”

            From the moment the man exuded a dark, ominous aura, the baby bodhisattva realised that surrender was the only answer. The malevolent energy he was spreading in all directions was more than what a mere evil spirit could handle.

            The spirit hiding within the child gasped for breath, waiting for the chance to abandon the body and escape.

            “Confess what you saw in Beodeul.”

            “A, ancestral spirit! I saw that the child was possessed by an ancestral spirit!”

            “Ancestral spirit.”

            The man, who had been muttering lowly, leisurely straightened his bent back. The moonlight painted on his fine face exuded an eerie energy rather than beauty. His eyes darkened in an instant.

            As soon as he released the baby bodhisattva’s nape, the spirit abandoned the body and fled. The child, long since bereft of her flesh, turned into a cold corpse as soon as the spirit departed.

            A tranquil gaze swept over the peacefully closed eyes of the child’s corpse. The man shook off the drops of blood on his fingernail and left the shrine without a second thought.

            ── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✦ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──

            “Beodeul, go outside and have a look! Yunhu is looking for you.”

            “Yes…”

            For a while, the young master did not come to see her. The evil spirit that had caused the accident had also disappeared, perhaps hiding somewhere to heal its broken wrist. Beodeul trimmed her growing interest in the young master each time it sprouted. She needed to keep busier. Hard work meant fewer idle thoughts.

            When she called Yunhu early to go pick herbs, he eagerly jumped out to join her. If not for the familiar face she saw upon stepping out of the gate, Beodeul might have continued to believe the riverbank incident was just a dream.

            “Beodeul.”

            The sun was overhead. Yunhu followed her with a stern face, lumbering behind.

            “Look, since a while ago, behind us…”

            “I know. Leave it be. Don’t even look.”

            She frowned deeply and drove the point home to Yunhu.

            The owner of the footsteps trailing them was the young master. He should have been at the schoolhouse instead of openly tracking us since broad daylight. Yunhu, now caught between her and the young master, sweated profusely. Only the sound of his parched throat could be heard in the silence.

            “Beodeul, I’ll help you.”

            Her voice, clear as a song, faded in and out.

            “Are we going to gather herbs?”

            “…”

            “Or to set traps?”

            Despite her consistent ignoring, the young master persisted. Beodeul finally turned around in frustration. The summer sun seemed to scorch with an intense gaze as the young master loitered around her.

            “Go that way.”

            She sent the restless Yunhu, twitching like a dog in need of a toilet, to the left at a fork in the road. He looked at her worriedly, then hurried off, saying, “Then I’ll see you in an hour.” As soon as he disappeared, Beodeul glared at the young master.