Chapter 125

Holanghee looked back and forth between the room in front of them and the opposite end of the passage, speaking as if the situation were absurd.

“What is this? Copy and paste?”

Father scanned the room with her eyes. The perfectly square room had a window but no door. There was only the passage leading to the other side.

“There’s no way out…”

As she muttered blankly, Holanghee looked around the room a moment later and was equally surprised.

“You’re right…?”

Father turned around to check the room on the other side of the passage.

“I guess we have to leave through the opposite room.”

“That’s unnecessarily tedious.”

“Yeah. Let’s search this room first, then head out.”

“Okay.”

The two began searching every nook and cranny of the room. They soon discovered one difference from the room across the way. In one corner sat a small box-like object. It was a small chest used to store combs and hairpins.

When they opened it, there was no comb; instead, they found a piece of paper rolled up and tied with a red silk ribbon. Father and Holanghee shared a brief glance. Then, they carefully untied the ribbon and unfurled the paper.

[Prick the ring finger to draw blood.]

“Prick the… ring finger to draw blood?”

As Father read the text written on the paper with a puzzled face, Holanghee tilted her head and asked.

“What’s a ring finger?”

“I don’t know. Is it a type of paper?”

Father didn’t know either. While she paced her thoughts, repeating the cryptic phrase as if chewing on the words, she felt something strange about the paper. She examined both sides and rubbed it between her fingers. The paper buckled and split into two layers.

“It’s two sheets?”

The two pieces of paper had been stuck together as if they were one. Father peeled off the top layer and looked at the sheet underneath.

[鬼]

“Isn’t this the character for ‘Ghost’?”

The Chinese character for ghost was written on the bottom sheet. They had gained a new clue, but they had no idea what it meant. After staring vacantly at the two pieces of paper, the pair gave up on deciphering the clue and decided to leave the room.

Turning away without lingering, the two ran into an unexpected obstacle as they tried to enter the passage.

“Huh?”

“What is this?”

The entrance to the passage was blocked as if by an invisible wall. Thoroughly flustered, they pounded on the unseen barrier and tried to push through, but it wouldn’t budge.

Looking toward the unreachable room on the other side in disbelief, they turned to each other and whispered.

“Are we trapped…?”

They couldn’t understand the situation at all. The two shouted and caused a commotion, trying their best to get out, but they couldn’t escape the room.

“What the hell is this…?”

Father eventually sat down on the floor, looking exhausted. Holanghee, perhaps because her legs were aching, crouched in front of the passage while staring at the other side.

“It seems like someone has to do something from the outside for us to get out.”

“And who is that ‘someone’ supposed to be?”

“…The Sweeties, I guess.”

Father let out a deep sigh. Since the others wouldn’t know they were trapped, it meant there was no telling when they would be able to leave.

“Man…”

Father took off her shoes and tossed them into a corner, seemingly intent on resting properly. Resigned to their fate, Holanghee followed suit, throwing her shoes aside and sprawling out on the floor.

The floor was nice and warm, and a sense of lethargy began to set in. Fatigue washed over them late, and they started craving something sweet to eat. While smacking their lips at the thought of a snack, the two suddenly turned their heads in unison.

There sat a dining table beautifully laid out with traditional snacks.

‘So that’s why this was set up?’

Without a word, both of them approached the table and began picking at the snacks. They tasted better than expected. While munching on a ginger cookie, Holanghee asked tentatively as if something had just occurred to her.

“The woman in that painting in the passage… she’s the bride, right?”

At Holanghee’s question, Father looked up while crunching on candy.

“Huh? Probably? She was the only one wearing wedding clothes at the end.”

“Then was the person lying dead in front of her the man from the scroll?”

“Most likely…?”

“Did the guy die before they could get married?”

“Hmm….”

“Do you think that Seojodae and the Juyeong we found are his belongings?”

At the mention of “belongings,” Father stopped chewing. Her face shifted as if she’d just had a realization.

“Is that why he attacked us like he was out for blood?”

“…Logically speaking, shouldn’t we give them back?”

“Then how are we supposed to clear the stage?”

“We don’t even know if those items are a clear condition yet.”

“Well… anyway, there must be a reason we were able to pick them up.”

“I guess, but still…”

“What’s the point of overthinking it? We can’t even get out of here right now.”

Father waved her hand dismissively, then crawled onto the mattress, rested her head on a long pillow, and flopped down. She patted the spot next to her, signaling the staring Holanghee to lie down as well.

Holanghee looked at Father with judging eyes, but soon resigned herself to the situation and took a spot beside her. Once she lay down, the mattress felt so plush that she felt like she might actually drift off.

Blaine, walking through the dark interior relying on a single lantern, stopped in his tracks at a familiar structure appearing before him. An arched entrance led to a corridor decorated with ink-and-wash landscape paintings.

“…….”

Blaine held the lantern forward to inspect the corridor. There was nothing particularly unusual about it, but he felt a strange reluctance to enter. He looked around with a grimace. There were plenty of other paths he could take without going through this hallway. However, since the “corridor” was a path nonetheless, he felt he needed to check what was on the other side.

“Might as well get the worst over with first…”

Blaine let out a long sigh, glanced back at the path he had come from, and stepped into the corridor.

Though it was a path he had experienced before, the rows of ink-and-wash landscapes on both sides created the illusion of walking under a cloudy sky. The lantern light flickered orange, but the painted scenery remained a cold grey.

He walked in silence for a long time, relying only on the lantern light, when he noticed something in the landscape painting moving. Blaine stopped and stared intently at the image.

A woman was walking in the middle of a dense mountain range rendered in spreading ink strokes.

“?”

With a puzzled look, Blaine reached out and brushed his hand over the painting of the woman. He felt the slightly rough texture of the paper. It was definitely a painting on paper, yet the woman within it continued to walk.

As if possessed, Blaine moved ahead of the woman’s pace to look further into the painting. There was nothing special—just an endless stretch of mountains.

The woman passed the stationary Blaine and continued walking ahead. Blaine hurriedly followed her; the woman moved inside the painting while Blaine walked in the corridor outside, their paces perfectly synced.

After walking like that for a while, the woman suddenly turned and disappeared into the mountains. Flustered, Blaine shone his lantern and searched the painting, but the woman who had entered the mountains was nowhere to be seen. She had vanished as if she had reached her destination.

Staring blankly at the painting, Blaine got the feeling that the woman had been guiding him. He looked up and examined the wall where the ink painting was displayed, then placed his hands on it and pushed with all his might.

With a sound like grinding stone, the wall slid open, revealing a small gap. It was a space just barely wide enough for one person to squeeze through.

Even when he shone his lantern, he couldn’t see what was inside. Blaine hesitated and took a couple of steps back. He bit his lower lip as if contemplating, then glanced around his surroundings one more time.

He clung to the pathetic hope that someone might find him, or that he might luckily run into the others wandering nearby, but the pitch-black darkness lining both sides offered nothing in return.

“Sigh.”

Blaine let out a long sigh, his eyebrows drooping. Then, leading with his lantern, he squeezed his body through the gap in the wall.

Once inside, the interior was surprisingly bright. Floor lanterns were placed throughout the room, even though it had looked like an empty void of blackness from the outside.

In the center of the modest space stood a three-tiered table, and upon it lay nothing but a single bamboo scroll. Blaine approached the table, set down his lantern, and picked up the scroll to unfurl it.

There was a wicked thug in a village.
One day, the thug got into a fight with a local youth, and after a bout of fisticuffs, the thug vomited blood and died.
When the incident became known to the village, the official announced he would investigate the next day and told the thug’s wife to preserve her husband’s body. The wife placed the corpse in the yard.
The family of the youth, who had suddenly become a murderer, was plunged into sorrow. At that moment, a wandering old man who was being cared for at the youth’s house stepped forward, claiming he could help.
The old man took the youth to the thug’s house. The thug’s corpse lay in the yard, unguarded.
The old man pricked the corpse’s left ring finger. After writing the character “Ghost” on the dead man’s forehead with the resulting blood and chanting an incantation, the corpse bolted upright, looked around, and walked into the house.
When the thug’s wife, who was sleeping inside, saw her dead husband enter, she screamed in terror. The old man grabbed the youth, who had collapsed in shock, and hurriedly fled the yard.
When the head of the house later asked for the details, the old man explained that he had used a technique called ‘The Rite of the Living Ghost’—a spell where one uses a corpse’s blood to write “Ghost” on its forehead to briefly bring it back to life and control it.
Of course, since it is only a temporary revival, the person does not truly come back to life as they were before.

“The Rite of the Living Ghost?”

Muttering with a furrowed brow, Blaine thought of the dead man who had been in the funeral bier room. A spell that restores the dead to life, albeit temporarily. He didn’t know why, but he felt that the bride wanted to bring that man back.