1440 - Chapter 52

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

Episode 52
“One last time.”
“Young master!”
And with that, she hurled it high into the water.
Splash!
A heavy sound rang out—far too heavy for a mere rice bowl dropping into water. Yeonsu blinked in confusion, then gasped as murky water clouded her vision. She jerked her head back. Air escaped from her mouth in a trail of bubbles, rising through the dark.
It was not a rice bowl that had fallen into the water. It was her. Baek Yeonsu.
“……!”
Panicking, she flailed her arms, but a hand seized hers gently from behind. When Yeonsu spun around, she found herself face to face with a woman whose skin had gone deathly pale, and who was smiling.
Even in the still, stagnant water of the Reservoir where no current flowed, a woman standing so impossibly upright could be nothing but human—nothing human at all.
“You’ve come again.”
The woman smiled softly, her voice honeyed and low. Her hands gripped Yeonsu’s tightly, and then her palms cradled the girl’s cheeks.
From hair that drifted black as seaweed came those hands. The backs of them were studded with scales that caught what little light filtered down, and they felt slick against Yeonsu’s skin as they caressed her face.
The touch was tender—would have been, had it not been so dreadfully cold, like touching dead fish stored in ice.
The woman’s face, pocked with verdigris, smiled at her with such heartbreaking yearning.
“Why have you come again? Did you miss me?”
Yeonsu could not answer. Her breath was drowning. Her body would not obey her will to pull away.
Her chest burned from within as though it were being consumed. The talisman she had tucked there was burning now, radiating heat. She tried desperately to reach for her waistband, but both her hands had gone rigid, as if locked in stone.
Susalgui’s strength was immense—so much so that even Yeonsu’s superior power, which exceeded that of most men, could not break free.
“I missed you too.”
The words were whispered like a secret, so sweetly that Yeonsu’s breath came faster, her mind growing hazy. Her body was beginning to accept this suffocation as something almost pleasurable.
The woman’s voice had taken on an odd, unsettling quality. Her eyes, filled with the depths of blackness, gazed upon Yeonsu with tenderness—then slowly closed. Long lashes came to rest against that pallid face.
And then came the cold touch of lips.
Yeonsu’s vision went white.
⋮
―Do not suffer.
Along with a voice that resonated like a still pond in her mind, Yeonsu’s eyes snapped open. The clang of a kkwaenggwari struck her ears—loud, urgent, demanding.
When her eyes opened, she found herself stretched out flat in the middle of a gut ceremony. She must have lost consciousness. As the kkwaenggwari rang out one final time, all the musicians fell silent. Every eye turned toward her.
“Baek Yeonsu……!”
Her mother, who had been leading the Garigung ritual, stared down at her with alarm and concern.
Yeonsu waved a small hand to signal she was fine, then pushed herself to her feet. Her body swayed; she steadied it. The instruments resumed their cacophony. Her mother’s five-colored shaman robes swayed at the edge of vision, heavy and deliberate with each movement.
In her blurred sight, four characters blazed with sudden clarity.
Yeonsu recognized it at once, from all her previous experiences: this was the name of a god.
“Gwanseong Jeggun!”
“A shin-myeong has arrived!”
Calling out the god’s name, Yeonsu began jumping in place, and her mother’s voice joined hers in affirmation.
50
Yeonsu leapt like someone possessed, rattling the bells. And she seized the Crescent Blade, beginning the Sword Dance.
Though she had trained the movements, this dance now flowed not from her own will. The truth was, Yeonsu had no strength left in her body. This Garigung had been ongoing for three days.
Because the gods kept descending, the ritual could not end. One of the musicians had muttered that he’d never seen a Garigung with so many deities descending—Yeonsu had caught fragments of it herself.
Her body felt like a transparent glass sphere. Perforated with countless holes, through which anything could pass.
Within that body, an infinite procession of shin-myeong arrived and departed, again and again.
She was at her limit now. Unable to drink even a sip of water, unable to do anything but stand atop the Blade of Swords, her vision swam. Yet she could not surrender, could not stop.
This was a promise made long ago.
She had sworn: release me until I turn twenty, and I will do as you wish. They had honored that bargain, kept her well, shielded her from harm, and lavished her with divine protection. Now it was her turn to honor the covenant.
She rode the Blade of Swords, climbed onto a basket of floating Paper Money Offerings, received the final Descent, and made an offering of devotion. Only then did the ritual end.
Yeonsu’s body, which had thrashed about like something alive just moments before, went limp like a puppet with its strings cut. Not a finger could move. But she felt it—a new Divine Power circulating through her veins.
So this is what it feels like to house a god within your body.
Yeonsu smiled. There would be no more suffering now.
―Do not suffer.
She would never hear those worried words again.
His hands, pale and gentle. Now everything else had blurred away except those hands, and she longed for him desperately. She wanted to ask if he was well, if he was safe—and this time, she wanted to be the one who worried for him, who held him close.
Yeonsu let her eyes fall shut as though fading into sleep. When she opened them again, she was sitting in the Prayer House her mother had prepared.
She was twenty-four now, dressed in white ceremonial robes. In that cramped Prayer House with its low ceiling and drafty gaps, she knelt before the Sun and Moon Star Deity Painting, offering her devotions.
Though the building was shabby, the Sun and Moon Star Deity Painting on the wall and the offerings arranged on the altar were all meticulously maintained. Even the Paper Money Offerings had been folded by hand. Every corner bore the touch of her mother and Yeonsu.
Among all the gods, she prayed to the Sun and Moon Star Deity because today was the day she would ascend the mountain.
On days of Mountain Prayer Practice, one must descend during the Chuk Hour or the Ja Hour—times so dark that the four directions cannot be seen.
If a student’s teacher offers prayers earnestly before the descent, she will not be led astray by illusions. Yeonsu was gathering her resolve, offering prayers that today’s journey would pass safely, when—
The sliding door of the Prayer House creaked open.
“Hey! Hey, you crazy Baek Yeonsu! You’re going up the mountain again today? What, is your dream to drop dead on that mountain?!”
Deokwoo, Yeonsu’s spiritual sibling, entered the Prayer House and let out an exasperated sigh.
Yeonsu let the nagging she’d heard a thousand times before slip past her ears, returning to her prayer gesture. But Deokwoo refused to let Yeonsu dismiss her so easily.
Deokwoo grabbed Yeonsu’s shoulder and turned her around. Only when they faced each other did Deokwoo’s expression crumple with genuine worry.
“I’m asking because I really want to know. How many times a week do you go hiking?”
“……Three times? Sometimes five, I think.”
When Yeonsu answered readily, Deokwoo simply collapsed to the ground in front of her.
“And what do you do with the rest of your time?”
“…….”
“Why won’t you answer? Should I spell it out for you? You’re always chasing after other shamanic rituals, working as a supporting mudang instead of leading the ceremonies.”
Deokwoo beat her own chest, insisting that Yeonsu didn’t just help with supporting rituals—she also took on all manner of odd jobs: folding paper money offerings, twisting rope, making ritual arrangements, and more.
“Look, are you that desperate for money? Taking on menial work for pocket change, attending rituals you don’t even need to, then listening to people gossip that you’re money-mad! And on top of it all, you go to Mountain Prayer Practice every single day! Where else can you find an apprentice shaman who performs rituals two or three times a week?!”
“That’s me.”
At Yeonsu’s blunt answer, Deokwoo clicked her tongue in frustration.
“That’s not funny……! You’re going to kill yourself doing this.”
Only then did Yeonsu release the prayer gesture she’d been holding all this while. And, unsure what to do in the face of her spiritual sibling’s burning concern, she gently patted Deokwoo’s knee.
“I won’t collapse. I’m in better health than anyone right now. You know that.”
“……It looks that way on the surface.”
Because Yeonsu was tall and her body was lean and muscular, no one but her mother and Deokwoo worried about her health.
But Deokwoo knew the truth. Beyond the activities Yeonsu showed the world, she prayed every day until dawn, sleeping only two or three hours in fitful bursts.

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