Chapter 31

Mu-yeong pushed open the front doors of the shamanic academy. The bright, pristine interior looked surprisingly similar to the lobby of any typical tutoring center.

Stepping across the light-gray floor tiles, he saw a reception desk straight ahead. To the left sat a black faux-leather sofa and a low coffee table, above which hung a green felt bulletin board. The board was densely packed with printed curricula and course schedules.

Framed displays adorned the remaining wall: an oversized painting of sunflowers and a group photograph of students all dressed in hanbok. Beside a water dispenser in the corner sat neat stacks of promotional flyers and booklets. Mu-yeong glanced down at one of the flyers.

[Special Offer: 30% Discount for 3 Months Advance Payment!]

Anyone glancing at this would think it was a gym membership flyer. The booklet sitting beside it outlined various types of shamanic rituals and their procedures. Picking up a copy, Mu-yeong walked over to the desk.

“Hello. Is the director in right now?” Mu-yeong asked as he approached the front desk.

“Ah, she’s currently teaching a third-period class upstairs. Would you like me to assist you with a consultation?”

The man behind the counter asked, flinching in surprise before quickly offering a polished smile. Mu-yeong shook his head.

“No, thank you. I’ll wait until her class is over.”

Mu-yeong withdrew cash from the ATM and passed the time flipping through the booklet. Once the lesson concluded, the crowd from the classroom poured down into the lobby in a rush. Their ages varied widely, from students in school uniforms to elders with silver hair, most wearing thoroughly satisfied expressions.

After renewing his request at the front desk, Mu-yeong was finally ushered into a consultation room. Soon, a woman in her mid-to-late fifties with beads of sweat on her forehead stepped inside. Her face matched the portrait on the outdoor banner—the shaman who served as the academy’s director.

With sharply defined, angular eyebrows giving her a fierce impression, the shaman wore a modern brown hanbok. Perhaps from the sheer fervor of her teaching, her traditional chignon was slightly damp with sweat and coming undone, yet her lips were impeccably lined and filled in with dark-brown lipstick. With every step she took, the shaman’s bells in her hand chimed crisply.

“Hello, Director.”

Mu-yeong rose from his seat with a polite bow. Glancing casually around the room, the director suddenly whipped her head in his direction. Her pupils seemed to roll in their sockets before flashing with an eerie gleam.

“You’re spirit-touched,” the shaman declared, squinting at him.

“What does that mean?” Mu-yeong asked, blinking in mild confusion.

“You’ve got spiritual energy in you,” she rasped, leaning in. “I reckon you already know it yourself—you’ve got the exact destiny to become a shaman.”

It was truly impressive how she knew that without even being able to meet his eyes. Mu-yeong smiled faintly as he sat back down.

“I didn’t come here to become a shaman, though.”

The director clicked her tongue sharply. “Tsk! If you don’t accept the calling, a string of funerals will strike your family! Don’t you dare take my words lightly!”

The director bristled, scowling fiercely across the desk.

“Just because I run an academy doesn’t mean I can’t read spiritual fortunes! My patron spirit is a celestial fairy who has cultivated the Dao to the utmost. Your mother doesn’t sleep well at night, does she? And your father has a bad back, doesn’t he?”

Instead of answering, Mu-yeong offered a quiet smile and clicked on a pen-shaped voice recorder.

Tapping the recorder on the desk, Mu-yeong inquired, “Do you know of a spiritual master named Baek Woon-dang? She was an elder who lived around here before she passed away.”

The shaman’s arm holding the bells dropped limp to her side. A look of sheer exasperation crossed her face, and she shook her head vigorously.

“If you aren’t here for a consultation, get out!” The shaman waved her hands in disgust. “Where did something as filthy as you crawl out from to muddy the spiritual energies here?”

“I’ll pay the consultation fee,” Mu-yeong offered calmly.

Mu-yeong pulled an envelope of cash from his backpack and slid it across the desk.

“If you answer my questions candidly, I’ll pay three months of tuition in advance on my way out. You don’t even have to give me the discount.”

Poised to snap back with another scolding, the shaman clamped her mouth shut. Creeping forward inch by inch, she snatched the cash envelope from the table.

Opening the envelope, her eyes darted inside with the dazzling speed of a banknote counter. Once she finished the tally, she shoved the envelope deep into her trouser pocket and sank heavily into her chair.

“What is it that you’re so dying to know?” she asked, folding her arms.

Her tone remained curt, but the door to her mouth had swung wide open. Mu-yeong smiled warmly at her.

“Just tell me whatever you know.”

The shaman shook her head with a dry scoff. “Good grief, Baek Woon-dang of all people.”

Sighing, she set her bells on the desk. Her gaze drifted into empty air as she combed through her memories.

“That master was famous, no doubt about it,” the shaman began, her tone softening with reluctant respect. “You see, the spiritual energies here in Mangcheon are extraordinarily potent. In the old days, people ranked it second only to Mount Gyeryong, and after that area got redeveloped in the eighties, shamans flocked here in droves.”

Mu-yeong leaned forward slightly. “Did Master Baek Woon-dang settle down here back then as well?”

“No. The master wasn’t some wandering drifter; she was a true fixture of the land. Following her spiritual godmother, she received the mountain god of Mount Yeongno and lived here all her life, even earning the title of Manshin. Nothing escaped her foresight—politicians and chaebol magnates alike came seeking her counsel. But…”

Lowering her voice, the director trailed off. She toyed with the bells in her hand, a reluctant shadow crossing her face.

“A few years before she passed away… there was talk that her spiritual edge had dulled.”

“Why was that?” Mu-yeong asked, tilting his head.

“She was severely injured on the straw cutter blade during a ritual,” the woman muttered, grimacing at the memory. “All sorts of rumors sprouted over that. Some said she shot a curse and got hit by the backlash, others that she suffered retribution for leaking heavenly secrets… Aish, speaking carelessly like this is just piling up sins of the tongue for myself.”

Even as she lightly slapped her own lips, she didn’t stop talking.

“Anyway, after that, she became a complete recluse. Then she brought in some young girl. For a master who rarely ever took disciples, doing that out of the blue stirred up plenty of talk. Keeping a child with no relatives out of school, beating her calves bloody with a cane while working her to the bone—people wondered if, just maybe…”

Mu-yeong held his breath. “Maybe what?”

The shaman glanced left and right as if wary of an unseen onlooker. Letting out a faint, pained whimper, she lowered her voice even further.

“They whispered that she was raising the girl to use in some sinister, forbidden occult ritual,” the shaman whispered, leaning across the table. “But in the end, the master died in a fire. That made everyone certain she had defied the gods’ will, attempted something abhorrent, and received divine retribution. That’s why everybody kept their mouths shut tight.”

Mu-yeong recalled his grandmother’s gait, the slight limp in one of her legs. On the day she had come to take him away, she had dragged that leg as she walked. Swallowing hard, he asked, “If you say ‘leaking heavenly secrets,’ what kind of thing does that mean?”

“Well, say for example you foresee the exact month and day someone is going to die,” she replied. “Even if the spirits reveal that to you, you must never speak of it out loud.”

On the day she died, his grandmother had confessed that even though she foresaw the fragile lifeline of his mother and father, she had been powerless to change anything. Could that have been the heavenly secret she was accused of leaking? Had she gone out of her way to contact the daughter from whom she was all but estranged, desperate to warn her?

If that was true, then despite failing once, she had held on to Mu-yeong until the very end. It might not be the truth, yet somehow, it felt right.

During the years they lived together, his grandmother had been a woman of absolute devotion to the spirits. Every morning before dawn, she rose to replace the fresh well water in the shrine with her own hands. She abstained from greasy food, fishy odors, and gamey meats. Every time she entered or left the house, she bowed with deep reverence, and from eleven at night until one in the morning, she climbed the mountain to pray.

Yet the very first thing she offered at the start of every prayer was a plea for the well-being of her only grandchild. From the day he had secretly trailed her to the prayer site and heard those words, Mu-yeong had found it impossible to hate her, no matter how severely she whipped his calves.

Mu-yeong focused on her gaze. “You mentioned Master Baek Woon-dang rarely took disciples. That means she did have some. Do you know who they are?”

“Of course I know their names,” the director huffed, tossing her head back. “It’s just that those folks don’t bother dealing with me… No, rather, it’s that I don’t bother dealing with them.” It wasn’t hard to guess what their relationship was like. “Could you at least write down their names here?” Mu-yeong asked politely.

Rather than prick at her bruised pride, Mu-yeong tore off a sticky note printed with the academy’s name and handed it over. After a moment’s hesitation, the shaman jotted down a list of names, never forgetting to cover her own tracks.

“I didn’t say a single word to you. Understand?”

Mu-yeong took the note and gave a polite nod. “Understood. Is there anything else you know?”

“Not that I’ve got much more to tell, mind you…”

The shaman let her words trail off. Reaching into his backpack, Seo Mu-yeong pulled out another envelope of cash. This one was even thicker and heftier than the last. As her gaze locked onto the envelope, Mu-yeong held it securely in both hands.

“Trivial details are fine,” Mu-yeong said. “Anything about who she was close with, or whether she had family.” Darting her eyes back to the brass bells, the shaman replied, “When all’s said and done, every single one of her disciples ended up on the outs with her. One harbored venom inside until he went off the rails; another woman stormed off in exasperation because the old woman insisted on living in dirt-poor squalor; and the rest grew resentful and kept their distance when she didn’t offer a word of explanation after slicing herself on the fodder chopper blades. As for children, she had one daughter, but… ties with that daughter were cut early on, too.”

“When all’s said and done, every single one of her disciples ended up on the outs with her. One harbored venom inside until he went off the rails; another woman stormed off in exasperation because the old woman insisted on living in dirt-poor squalor; and the rest grew resentful and kept their distance when she didn’t offer a word of explanation after slicing herself on the fodder chopper blades. As for children, she had one daughter, but… ties with that daughter were cut early on, too.”

“Why?” Mu-yeong asked.

“Why do you think? After making it all the way to college, when the spirit sickness hits, who in their right mind would just say, ‘Yes, I will become a shaman as the spirits command’? It’s only human nature to scream, weep, and wail that you could’ve lived a normal life if not for your own mother.”

A fleeting shadow of bitterness crossed the shaman’s face.

Come to think of it, his mother had never once taken off the crucifix necklace around her neck. She hummed church hymns even while washing dishes at home, and she practically spent her entire Sundays at church.

Above all, his mother had never spoken of his grandmother. Not once.

Mu-yeong watched the shaman quietly. He had suspected it ever since she said all manner of politicians and chaebol magnates had ‘come’ to his grandmother rather than ‘gone’ to her, but the woman truly knew an awful lot.

“You were one of her disciples too, weren’t you?” he noted.

“Me?” the shaman scoffed.

Fluttering the cash envelope gently, Mu-yeong countered with an easy smile, “Are you not?”

Mu-yeong gently fluttered the cash envelope. Even people who couldn’t bring themselves to look him in the eye sharpened their focus immensely under two conditions, and the first of those was right here: money. Fiddling with her brass bells, the shaman let out a heavy sigh.