1440 - Chapter 65

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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 65
An ambulance pulling up to the front gate of Baekga would have meant immediate dismissal, but that was the least of her concerns. She’d face a hefty penalty for breach of the confidentiality agreement, but that too seemed trivial. Compared to losing her child, such things were nothing.
She truly couldn’t move a single toe. Yet move she must. Blood trickled down between her legs. Tears flowed alongside it.
—Sob… gasp…
My baby. Just hold on a little longer, just a little more. Mommy will be strong too. I won’t let you go, just a little more…
—A cry, a moan, whimper…
As she twisted and wept, cold, long fingers pressed through the arms wrapped tight around her belly.
—…!
Hyewon’s head snapped up in startlement.
Before her stood that man from the outbuilding, hastily straightening his clothes, his face drawn with exhaustion. When Hyewon looked up at him, he met her gaze as if to offer reassurance, then knelt before her.
She found herself unable to refuse when a stranger’s hands touched her body. She was a spiritual medium—one sensitive enough to discern the touch of divine power, however faintly that gift burned within her.
Before her eyes, warm black light began to pour forth from the man’s hands.
Finding no resistance, the man drew closer. Slowly, he spread his long fingers wide, striving to envelop her entire belly.
Though his hands were cold, the energy they emitted was warm. The tight, twisting cramps deep within her abdomen gradually began to ease. The blood flowing between her legs slowed, then stopped.
After a long time cradling Hyewon’s belly that way, the man’s face drenched in cold sweat, he finally withdrew his hands. Meeting her now-steadied gaze, he pointed with a finger toward the outbuilding’s exit.
Hyewon needed not hear his voice to understand what he meant.
‘Leave this house. Go as far as you can.’
—…!
Hyewon gathered herself as best she could and made her way through the narrow corridor of the outbuilding with unsteady steps. She crossed the main house, passed the servants’ quarters, then traversed the wide courtyard at length until she reached the gate.
That gate had always terrified her. But on that day, as she opened it and stepped through, no vengeful spirit clung to her.
—…?
Puzzled though she was, there was no time to hesitate. Safely separated from the vengeful spirits that had so eagerly stalked her for possession, Hyewon made her way to the hospital.
And that child was born safely, grew into a healthy son who served in the military.
Because she was not a strong spiritual medium, as time passed her spiritual sight dimmed and closed, leaving her an oddly unremarkable vessel incapable of receiving Divine Descent. But this proved fortunate—she could work comfortably at an ordinary job, unbound to Baekga.
Yet after her son was grown enough, Hyewon returned to Baekga. And she applied to work in the outbuilding again.
Finding applicants for such a post so scarce, it was remarkably easy for Hyewon to take full responsibility for the outbuilding.
“From that point on, I thought there might always be something I could help with.”
Her hands—now creased and weathered from a lifetime of housework—clasped together with longing. Before her lay the talismans and protective talismans that Yeonsu had left, arranged in their intricate sequence.
The divine power woven into those objects fanned Hyewon’s small spiritual energy into a vast barrier.
That barrier, more solid than anything, wrapped itself around the outbuilding, holding fast and allowing no one to enter.
The man—or rather, Onseol—had stepped out of the room and now sat in the narrow corridor, watching from behind the middle-aged woman who prayed with all her remaining strength.
He had met her when she was young, yet she had already aged so much. But Onseol remained as he had been then, not a single hair changed.
The realization that he was not the only one remembering that encounter from decades past made Onseol’s heart stir strangely.
He had sensed the trouble beginning to afflict Baekga several days earlier. He felt the barrier that enclosed this house starting to fray.
It was karma. The karma visited upon those who, from the late Joseon era until now, had pursued only selfish gain while defying the teachings of the divine. The barrier that should have stood firm lost its function; the seal protecting what lay within crumbled bit by bit.
At this rate, it would not hold much longer. Onseol sensed that trouble would soon descend upon Baekga, where vengeful spirits waited eagerly for any crack to slip through.
Troubled, Onseol had hinted at this to Yeonsu, but he had not taken it seriously. He only smiled ambiguously and asked back, “Is that so?”
For Onseol, this was no trivial matter. Yeonsu shared half his blood with Baekga. If the barrier fell, those vengeful spirits eyeing Baekga would surely descend all at once upon Inym, Yeonhyung, and Yeonsu alike.
And Onseol’s prediction was exact. Now, as the barrier and protective talismans—which had barely held back the vengeful spirits with their fading power—shattered completely under the harsh onslaught of those ruffians, every member of the Baek family was under attack.
Moreover, all those who had profited greatly from Baekga’s curse—their families and associates, even those with no blood tie to the house—came under assault as well.
Yeonsu was in danger. Following the scent of blood, the vengeful spirits and curses would certainly track him down.
It cannot be.
Because he could not bear to see Yeonsu endangered, Onseol had not revealed his true name. He feared that hearing it might awaken forgotten memories, might cause Yeonsu to remember something better left buried. So he pretended not to remember it himself.
Onseol had done everything to keep Yeonsu from recovering his memory. He wanted so desperately to protect him this way—to carry Yeonsu through his twenty-fourth winter and into his twenty-fifth spring.
The man, Onseol. Once the third brother of Chilseong. He who had been called by the name Nokjon Sunggun.
He drew up the last of his depleted power.
Whether because the barrier had crumbled or because something had shifted in this outbuilding itself, the voices of prayers and offerings seeking him came through more clearly than usual.
Prayer granted strength to the divine. And Chilseong remained one of the most frequently sought Heavenly Deities among the common people. As the prayers grew clearer, Onseol summoned every shred of power he could muster.
The power he had guarded in that form, compressed beneath seals and ground down by the centuries, barely clinging to life at the base of his being.
He could not lose him again this way.
Twenty-four years old. That threshold he could never cross, that life that faded each time—this time he would not let it slip away.
***
The Chilseong brothers.
The deities of the Big Dipper, more commonly called the Chilseong Deities, were comprised of seven brothers.
The third among them, Nokjon Sunggun, primarily oversaw the welfare of humankind and maintained the balance between life and death.
He was a most diligent deity. Among his six brothers, he was particularly fond of labor and lent his ear to the voices of mortals. Rather than enjoying the celestial realm, which humans called the heavens, he scarcely rested, ceaselessly watching over the earth beneath the sky.
Among the countless duties Nokjon Sunggun bore, there was one task he particularly cherished: placing each newly conceived life into the Cycle of Circulation.
To send a new life into the human world, the final step required setting the span of its years. For this purpose, once a year, Nokjon Sunggun and Namdu Sunggun would meet and play a game of baduk.
Through their baduk match, whichever deity won would inscribe his chosen number into the Yeommajang—King Yama’s ledger recording the birth hour and karmic debts of all beings—thereby fixing the new life’s span.
Every seventh day of the seventh month, the two deities would meet at a place called Tanggok, a hillside resting place of the sun beyond the eastern sea.
Beneath a tree called the Busang Tree, which resembled a great mulberry, two deities had a place prepared where they could sit and wager at baduk.
Nokjon arrived a little later than the appointed hour today—an uncommon occurrence for one bound by such steadfast virtue, yet on this day he could not help it.

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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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