1440 - Chapter 3

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Episode 3
Yeon Hyung had always resented that I stood a full head taller than he did. So when I bowed deeply, exposing the crown of my head, he stared at it for a long moment. Then he let out a snort of amusement and, satisfied, opened the door to the Separate Building and walked out.
Creak.
……
A door that could only be opened with a key from either side. Various tools for sealing.
I tried to clear my head, thinking of the nameless curse vessel trapped in this place.
From this moment on, I could not afford to drop my guard for a single instant. I had to execute everything I had planned flawlessly.
To possess it wholly, there were many things I—the second son and illegitimate child of this household—had to accomplish. Every detail had to be perfect, with no slip whatsoever.
So I kept swearing this to myself as I followed after Yeon Hyung, who strutted about in his still-disheveled clothes, and stepped into the Main Building.
Unlike the dimness of the Separate Building, the lights inside the Main Building blazed so brightly that my eyes stung.
3
The ancestral home of the Baek Family, practitioners of curse magic, located in Hongcheon County, Gangwon Province.
The vast mansion was built hidden deep within the ridges of Odaesan, famous for the Dragon God’s Rope, as if tucking itself away.
This was to safely contain the family’s spiritual power. Moreover, they believed it was the only way to demonstrate the dignity of a long-established hereditary shaman lineage in this region. In other words, to appear “respectable.”
The Baek Family, said to have existed since the Three Kingdoms period. For over thirteen hundred years, they had taken root in this region as a hereditary shaman family, overseeing all the village rituals and devotional offerings to the spirits.
A hereditary shaman, unlike a spirit-possessed shaman, is a shaman who does not undergo spirit possession. They receive no god into themselves, but instead follow the ritual ceremonies passed down through the family like secret teachings. When one offers devotion to the spirits in that manner, the spirits promise the village prosperity and peace in return.
Though the starting point differs from the commonly known shamans—that is, spirit-possessed shamans—there was no difference in being priests of the spirits who made offerings of devotion and conveyed the spirits’ responses to the faithful.
The Baek Family began that way too. They were sincere priests who performed ceremonies for the heavenly spirits, earthly spirits, and ancestral spirits, and prayed for the peace of the village.
Since the Baek Family were not spirit-possessed shamans, they could not rise to the position of Great Shaman. Yet the sheer magical power that family possessed was so formidable that they ascended to positions of national importance in matters of state.
But even great power grows corrupt when left to stagnate. Moreover, as time passed and the late Joseon period arrived, shamanism became increasingly vulgar. The name itself changed from shamanism to folk shamanism.
But the heads of the Baek Family could not abandon their glorious past. They became increasingly obsessed with power itself through magic. And that obsession grew ever more coarse and mundane through the final years of Joseon and the Japanese occupation.
They brought in the curse magic of yin-yang masters, and ultimately became nothing more than charlatans peddling slander, attaching themselves to those in power and obsessing over earning money.
Yet the curses they cast held real power and took effect, making their sin worse than mere fraud.
From that point on, the price of harming others’ lives and futures accumulated, gradually expanding the great mansion, and in equal measure consuming the merit the Baek Family had built up.
In the first place, the Baek Family’s great renown as hereditary shamans was entirely due to “that man” in the Separate Building.
A Senangnamu Tree that grew to towering size in a single moment in the ordinary courtyard of the Baek Family shrine. And beneath that tree, a mysterious being with eyes closed as if sleeping soundly.
Because that being possessed a mysterious power of unknown origin, efficacy was added to the Baek Family’s prayers. Thanks to him, they were able to establish themselves as a great shamanic family of the nation.
Yet now they were treating him like a curse vessel to lighten the karma that had accumulated in his own body, defiling him in the process.
“So. You’ve grown quite a lot while I wasn’t looking.”
Yeon Su stopped his thoughts at the other’s words.
Baek In-eum, the 49th head of the Baek Family, sat before him and watched. As Yeon Su looked at his father, he bowed in greeting with that same smile he had shown Yeon Hyung.
“Yes, Father. It’s been five years since we last met.”
Yeon Su had left home the moment he turned twenty to receive a spirit possession. A hereditary shaman shrine could not perform the ritual for a spirit-possessed shaman. For the first time in five years seeing his family, not a single one of them showed genuine joy at his return.
Yeon Hyung openly pouted, and Yang Mi-ju, Baek In-eum’s first wife, did not even look at Yeon Su. Baek In-eum himself wore a smile while scrutinizing Yeon Su’s expression.
‘Is he truly back for certain? I thought I might have to drag him back by force, but he’s walked in on his own… I suppose I should be relieved. And yet…’
That questionable gaze sharpened in an instant. Certainly, his bearing was incomparable to that spineless Yeon Hyung. Even a rotting family had its family head, it seemed.
Yeon Su made his face as harmless as he possibly could.
At that moment, Yeon Hyung’s wife came out with the servants carrying refreshments and, reading nothing of the tension, began speaking warmly.
“At last I meet you, young master. I was a bit disappointed we couldn’t meet even at your wedding.”
She spoke of disappointment, but there was no malice in it. Yeon Su thought anew what a waste it was that such a woman was Yeon Hyung’s wife. The man’s roots ran too foul for an innocent woman to bear.
Just moments ago, he’d assaulted a noble guest under the pretense of curse cleansing in the Separate Building. How could his sister-in-law sit there smiling like this while knowing all of it? Yet thinking on it, perhaps she was not quite as gentle as all that.
In any case, I had now entered a space where I could afford no carelessness. Everyone present was weighing Yeon Su’s motives for returning in their own distinct way. I could not afford to be suspected here.
“Yes. At that time, I was preparing for my coming-of-age ritual, so I could not attend. I apologize for disappointing you, sister-in-law.”
A handsome young man with pale, fair skin and clear eyes offered a deliberate apology in a voice almost saccharine. Yeon Hyung’s wife could say nothing more to Yeon Su and retreated with her cheeks flushed slightly. Then she took her place behind her husband.
Baek In-eum sat on an ornate silk cushion with the refreshment table between them. Beside him was his eldest son, Yeon Hyung.
As if they’d learned only foul customs from somewhere, Yang Mi-ju, Baek In-eum’s wife, and Yeon Hyung’s wife knelt on small cushions placed behind their husbands.
This must be a remnant of the Japanese occupation era, when this karma began. The thought was bitter.
“I apologize for not greeting you properly and for wandering all this time.”
At Yeon Su’s greeting, his true intentions concealed, Baek In-eum smiled faintly and picked up the cup before him.
“Yes. Yet you never failed to remember your father’s birthday. Thanks to your prayers, I have passed each year in safety.”
“I am grateful that you say so, Father.”
Yeon Su slowly lifted the teacup, following his father’s lead. Only after Baek In-eum took his first sip did he bring the cup’s rim to his lips, then set it down.
The face with downcast eyes was truly beautiful, but the hands holding the cup and the body sitting in formal position appeared strikingly composed.
“But what about that white hair?”
Baek In-eum gestured at Yeon Su’s hair with his chin and asked. Yeon Su brushed his half-grayed hair back lightly with his hand and smiled.
“It became this way after I received the coming-of-age ritual. There is nothing else amiss, or so I’ve been told. Please do not worry.”
Yeon Su had collapsed from exhaustion after completing the ritual that lasted three days. When he awoke in the hospital, a week had passed, and his hair had turned like this. White strands were mixed among his black hair.
It was a pure white with no hint of yellow, and the amount and pattern were not unbecoming—it looked more like he had deliberately lightened part of his hair for effect than like premature graying or actual white hair.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————