1440 - Chapter 45

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 45
“Two years have passed now. Twenty-two is early twenties, but twenty-four is mid-twenties.”
“Anyway, you really know how to talk your way through things. Thanks for coming. I was in a real bind.”
Detective Kang, greeting Yeon-su warmly with an arm around his shoulder, lowered his voice as if concealing what came next.
Yeon-su glanced discreetly at the Police Station building, then followed naturally as Detective Kang led the way out.
The two of them got into Detective Kang’s car. He’d asked why I parked outside the building, but Detective Kang had done the same.
The car was surprisingly clean for a detective who staked out places as routinely as most people ate. Though “clean for a detective” was a relative thing.
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Yeon-su settled into the narrow passenger seat, quietly pushing aside discarded milk cartons and bread bags from under his feet into a corner.
As he folded his long legs into the space and fastened the seatbelt, Detective Kang caught sight of his cramped posture and let out an amused chuckle.
“Sorry the car’s cramped.”
Detective Kang spoke with practiced ease, starting the engine without bothering to set the navigation. He drove quietly, turning the steering wheel left and right without any particular destination in mind.
Yeon-su waited quietly for Detective Kang to speak, then tapped the dashcam lightly—a signal asking if it was safe to talk here.
Detective Kang let out a soft laugh at Yeon-su’s perceptiveness and opened his mouth.
“Yeah. I checked my car myself this morning. It’s clean.”
“So what’s the matter? If you’re worried about bugging devices, it must be serious.”
“Yeah. It is.”
The car turned right onto a main road. Detective Kang continued as he gripped the wheel.
“Lately my team members have been getting threatened, or getting hurt in sudden accidents. We only have six people on the team, and all six of them are going through hell. But if it was just someone coming to beat them up or run them over, I’d just arrest them and lock them away. That’s not the problem here.”
Detective Kang trailed off and shot Yeon-su a sidelong glance.
Detective Kang already knew that this man Yeon-su, who looked young for his years, had been a Shaman for several years now, having undergone Spirit Possession.
Could he trust him with this? He’d had strange experiences alongside this young man before, but that didn’t mean Detective Kang had given much thought to superstitions in his daily life. Beyond that, it felt awkward opening up about his troubles to this young man with such an age difference. It wasn’t a lack of trust so much as discomfort.
“Suddenly someone in the family gets seriously ill, or some kid who’s never seen anything strange before gets pinned down by sleep paralysis every night and collapses from lack of sleep. Or they get possessed like someone’s put a spell on them and get hit by traffic while jaywalking, and most recently…”
Detective Kang trailed off bitterly, closing his mouth.
Yeon-su looked behind his back as if he understood without being told. There had been an elderly woman in the car from the very beginning.
An elderly woman in white linen hanbok sat quietly in the back seat, her eyes filled with longing. Her gaze would not leave Detective Kang’s gaunt cheek.
“May she rest in peace. Why didn’t you contact me?”
“…We handled it quietly, within the family.”
Detective Kang was struck anew by how Yeon-su had noticed his bereavement without him saying a word.
The car pulled into the Public Parking Lot and stopped. Detective Kang put it in Park and finally let out a long, heavy sigh.
In the silence of the parked car, only the hum of the heater could be heard. Yeon-su waited for Detective Kang to gather himself, then asked.
“May I ask what circumstances led to her passing?”
“Yeah. She just suddenly had a heart attack. Her heart had always been healthy before.”
Yeon-su glanced at the back seat through the rearview mirror again.
As soon as the elderly woman realized Yeon-su had seen her, she opened her mouth as if desperate to say something. But her mouth was filled with a black mist, and she couldn’t produce a sound. The old woman opened and closed her mouth several times, then beat her chest in frustration and wept.
……
Yeon-su reached out gently. The man in the passenger seat suddenly extended his arm toward the back seat, which confused Detective Kang, but instead of explaining, Yeon-su touched the old woman’s lips.
Her mouth opened again, and the black mist tried to flow out but was sucked back in. The old woman gagged as if her tongue was being pulled back.
Yeon-su’s hand made contact with the black thing, and he grasped a single thread and pulled it out. The black mist became black thread, coiling around Yeon-su’s fingers.
He pulled it out slowly, and it unraveled to a certain point before breaking off abruptly. He wasn’t able to remove all of it, but he managed to read the imprint of its nature.
Yeon-su pressed and smoothed the black thread coiled around his fingertips, then let out a helpless laugh. Detective Kang’s eyebrows twitched.
“What?”
“Oh, sorry. I’m not laughing because it’s funny. I’m laughing because it’s absurd. Sigh… Detective.”
“Huh?”
“Who are you investigating these days?”
At Yeon-su’s question, Detective Kang pulled out a cigarette and stopped mid-motion, staring at him intently. After studying Yeon-su’s clear eyes for a long moment, Detective Kang chewed the filter and asked back.
“Does that matter?”
Yeon-su simply stared at him. Finally, Detective Kang spoke.
“Representative Yi Gyeong-jin of the Conservative Party.”
“Mm.”
Upon hearing the name, Yeon-su immediately understood what was happening. He exhaled slowly, closed his eyes, then tilted his head back and spoke to Detective Kang.
“Representative Yi Gyeong-jin. He’s a client of the Baek House. One of the major patrons.”
“…That house of yours that does curses and all that?”
“It’s not my house.”
Detective Kang shrugged at Yeon-su’s correction. Then he went ahead and lit his cigarette. Yeon-su’s eyes rolled as he caught the acrid smell spreading through the car.
“They must have taken on work without my knowing. I thought I was handling all the recent requests myself.”
The so-called major patrons that Representative Yi Gyeong-jin belonged to had been clients of In-eum and Yeon-hyeong even before Yeon-su joined the Baek House. So there was no need for them to involve Yeon-su or take on requests through him to perform a curse.
But for Yeon-su, who wanted to handle every curse ritual in the household, this was an unwelcome situation. Moreover, he was angry that they had harmed someone he knew. The latter was completely unexpected, adding bewilderment to his frustration.
“So is all of this happening because of that curse offering or curse or whatever it is?”
Detective Kang, who had been thinking for a moment, asked as if he still found it hard to believe. That was the natural reaction of someone unfamiliar with shamanism.
“Spirit offerings come in different grades. For a family of the Baek House’s standing……, these things do happen.”
At Yeon-su’s explanation, Detective Kang—a man who generally dismissed shamanic matters as superstition—let out a hollow laugh despite himself. By that logic, his own grandmother’s death from a curse brought on by the case he was investigating now was no different.
“That’s—you’re saying that now?”
Detective Kang grabbed Yeon-su by the collar. He knew even as he did it that his anger wasn’t fair. But he couldn’t hold it back.
His grandmother, who had always been so proud of her grandson the police officer, had collapsed one morning without warning and passed without leaving a single word—and the reason was nothing more than this spirit offering, this curse?
Rage climbed from his chest to the crown of his head. A human life. And they wielded it like a tool for coercion, as if it were nothing. What kind of monster thought that way? What gave anyone the right? And not even the accused—but their family.
He wondered if they were even human at all. No human being could do such a thing.
Yet there was nowhere to lodge a protest. He couldn’t run at them crying foul, couldn’t hold the law’s measure up to their actions.
Because Yeon-su knew the weight of that grief and rage with nowhere to go, he didn’t push back or fuel the anger further—he simply waited for Detective Kang to steady himself.
After a moment, Detective Kang’s trembling fist loosened its grip on the collar. He pressed the cigarette he’d been holding into a portable ashtray, then rubbed his rough jaw with the back of his hand.
“I’m sorry. ……I called you because I thought this wasn’t something ordinary, but hearing it from your mouth, I don’t want to believe it.”
“Yes.”
“My grandmother’s death—you’re saying it’s my fault.”

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