As True as a Dream

When Yangbu once brought this painting home, she was so frightened by its darkness that she became very ill.

 

When she recovered, she told her father that she no longer needed to be afraid of the painting because she had hidden it.

 “How strange. I wonder why it scared me so much then. 

Now that I’m older, I just feel uncomfortable.

 

After rolling the ruler back up in the red cloth and tucking it into each of the trees, she stood and thought for a moment.

 

Her father had said something just before he died.

 

He’d told her not to let any trace of him leave this camp.

 

The fakes in here were his hobby, not something he was trying to sell like he had done in Gyeongseong.

 

He was worried that one of them might slip out and cause her unnecessary trouble.

 “Father, this is not your forgery, so I’ll use it. Your daughter owes you a lot.” 

After taking the wooden square and putting it in the bag, Hae-Joo sat for a while.

 

Then her eyes wandered to the west room.

 

It was the workshop where she and her father often spent time.

 

Unfortunately, she had only been able to acquire a fraction of Yangbu’s genius for blacksmithing, painting, and craftsmanship, all of which she had learned and mastered in this room.

 

After gazing longingly at the western room for a moment, she rose from her seat, carrying a wooden prism with a Guishan Dao.

 

Out of her own selfishness, she had emptied the storeroom of one item.

 

Fortunately, it was a painting.

 

She could fill it up again.

 

In the western room, Hae-Joo sat at the table with her back stretched out.

 

She took out a bottle of muksu, which her father had used sparingly because it was expensive, and poured it generously onto the inkstone.

 

She spread her ruler on one side of the large table and picked up a brush.

 

The brush was awkward in her hand, as she had only been making jewelry for almost a year, but it was only for a moment.

 

Hae-Joo pursed her lips and focused her attention on the canvas.

 

She didn’t stop until dusk fell, the moon rose, and the darkness deepened.

 

*** 

 

Deep into the night.

 

As the thatched huts of Hae-Joo, the last to remain lit, went dark, the remote hamlet fell into a deadly silence.

 

With the moon obscured by clouds, a black shadow appeared silently in the thatched doorway.

 

It was Yi Ho, who had left Song Yue to go for a walk.

 

He went to the shed in the thatched backyard first.

 

It was pitch-black inside, but he had no trouble seeing.

 

The fox blood coursing through his veins helped him see.

 

Faint golden irises scanned his surroundings.

 

The warehouse was a jumble of crates of various sizes and miscellaneous items such as farming tools, sieves, and dried straw.

 

Yi Ho opened a few nearby crates and took out the contents.

 

Yi Ho twitched one corner of his mouth in fascination.

 “Would you look at that…” 

Inside the crates were various paintings, artifacts, and white porcelain, carefully wrapped in straw and cloth.

 

If just one of them were taken out, the entire Joseon land would be noisy.

 

Especially for the humans who have become obsessed with collecting these relics.

 

That is, assuming they are real artifacts.

 

Unfortunately, several of the items he identified were fakes.

 

Very elaborate, very convincing counterfeits.

 “…One year in Gyeongseong. Born a princess of Chungcheong-do… a noble blood. Really?”

Yi Ho returned the items to their places and muttered to himself.

 

He thought the woman was too simple.

 

Yi Ho turned and went straight to the west room where Hae-Joo had kept the fire burning late into the night.

 

He opened the door and found a large table with brushes of various sizes, ink, and natural pigments such as stone and bongchae, as well as hobun (powdered whitened shells) for coloring.

 

In the middle of the table was a drawing pressed against a paperweight.

 

Yi Ho walked over to the table and looked at the drawing.

 “Guishan Dao…” 

A tortoise-headed mountain floating in the middle of the doomed East Sea, with a black snake winding beneath it.

 

Not only that.

 

Yi Ho’s eyes sharpened as he studied the painting.

 

Beneath the snake was a large pool of water, and the water flowing from the pool touched the sea on one side and the mountain’s mouth on the other.

 

And the mouth of the mountain was crudely scrawled with countless lines of black ink.

 

Yi Ho turned and looked in the direction of the eastern chamber where Hae-Joo slept.

 

The woman he had dismissed as a shameless, cunning trickster was suddenly very interesting.

 

A warehouse full of counterfeits.

 

And the Guishan Dao on the table, which she must have drawn herself before falling asleep.

 

I’d never seen a Guishan Dao, but I was convinced that Hae-Joo’s painting was an exact replica of it.

 

The reason for his conviction was the unusually dark black pool under the snake.

 

If that pool had a color, it would be sticky, fishy black blood.

 

Hundreds of years ago, it’s just an old story, but in the distant past, the Guisha Dao was considered an ominous scourge.

 

Most of the people who possessed it died.

 

This was because of the black snake in the painting called Maninsa.

 

This snake feeds on human blood.

 

When it eats ten thousand people, the blood in its body condenses into small black stones.

 

This black stone is called the Ten Thousand Blood Stones, and this is what he is looking for.

 

Because that stone is a panacea, a cure-all.

 

He gets weaker and weaker, and he pins his hopes for recovery on that stone.

 

But the last time it showed up at a cancer auction eight years ago, he couldn’t find a trace of it.

 

So, grasping at straws, he spreads rumors in Jingsheng for a large sum of money.

 

He thinks he’s beginning to get the picture.

 

She could never paint such a picture.

 

The ferocity of the snake and the horror of the pool of blood were palpable, even to his stomach.

 

Yi Ho lowered his eyelids and stared at the painting for a moment.

 

Then the corners of his mouth curved into a satisfied smile.

 

When he offered her a reward of ten thousand yuan if she could bring him the Guishan Dao, she raised her eyebrows and said she would go back to her hometown.

 

He followed her, curious as to her intentions.

 

He followed her, half suspecting that she really did know about the Guishan Dao, and half convinced that this was just another scam.

 

Both. But what he found surprised him.

 

This woman had clearly seen the painting in person.

 

And she’s trying to trick him.

 

Yi Ho’s long, seductive eyes narrowed.

 “You really… can’t do this or that. Be gentle.” 

If she pulls another trick, he won’t let her get away with it this time.

 

He turned to leave the room, heading out into the courtyard, but stopped and looked back.

 “Don’t come… Don’t come after me… Ugh…! Don’t come…!” 

It was a very small voice, but it was clear to his ears.

 

The constant grunting and mumbling made him think she was having a nightmare.

 

For some reason, he remembered that day, the face that had looked so distraught, as if it had seen a ghost.

 

Then, when she met him again as the owner of Song Yue Pavilion, he remembered how she lowered her posture as if to humiliate him.

 

The way she held his legs and slumped down, she didn’t know how ugly she was.

 

And today, surrounded by the villagers, her simple, modest smile, without calculation or ulterior motives, was unfamiliar, as if she was a different person altogether.

 

Yi Ho glanced back at the shed in the backyard and the western room where the painting had been placed.

 

How could he have such complicated thoughts about someone?

 “Who the hell are you?” 

It had been a long time.

 

It had been a long time since he’d thought about someone with such a complex.

 

Where did such a visceral and unpredictable being come from?

 

It was both uncomfortable and amusing.

 

As he continued to think, Yi Ho suddenly felt a sickening sensation in the back of his throat and pressed his fist lightly against the corner of his mouth.

 *Cough, cough* 

When he removed his fist, he saw that it was covered in red blood.

 

A thin smile appeared under Yi Ho’s eyes.

 

The ugly malice that had been directed at him so long ago suddenly flashed through his mind.

 

-You monster! Get lost! You should never have been born! Die!

 

-This is a catastrophe! We’ll all die because of him! Why doesn’t Mr. Servan’s family kill this monster?

 

-Eat this dog shit! You’re not worthy of this dog shit! Do you like it? Want to eat my piss? Giggle!

 

-You asshole! Shovel the snow before I gouge your eyeballs out! You’re neither tooth nor flesh, you hybrid monster!

 

‘I can’t die. Even if I don’t know what to do with my life, I won’t die. No matter what I do, I will survive. I did not choose what I was born as, but I will choose when and where I die.’

 “No… no, please, my teeth! How will I eat if they take out all my teeth and I starve to death?” 

Yi Ho licked the blood from the corner of his mouth with his tongue and raised an eyebrow at the screams from inside the room.

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