Chapter 01
One summer afternoon, heavy rain poured down.
In the middle of a cold wall hung a large black funeral portrait. White flowers surrounded the photo of the deceased. The dead man in the picture wore a peaceful smile, but the funeral flowers around him gave off a strangely dark and gloomy feeling.
In that place filled with white chrysanthemums and black ribbons, the scent of the flowers mixed with thick incense smoke and spread bitterly through the air.
Soon, a man wearing a police uniform entered the funeral hall. He gave a salute toward the memorial portrait, then looked at the chief mourner with a face twisted by tears.
There stood a young boy, only around nine years old.
[The Late Kang Hyung-woo]
The only blood relative left behind by homicide detective Kang Hyung-woo, and the eldest grandson who would continue the Jinju Kang family line.
“Hae-an. Please pull yourself together, kid.”
Hae from “sea,” and An from “peace.”
It was a name given by his father, wishing for him to live peacefully like a calm ocean.
Hae-an watched with his own eyes as the harsh and difficult life of his strong father was swept away meaninglessly like a giant wave.
“Who… killed him?”
“Hm?”
“…My dad. Who killed him, uncle?”
Hae-an tightly grabbed the two-striped mourning armband wrapped around his left arm. His father, who had always seemed as solid as a mountain, had been the child’s guiding light and only place of comfort. The young boy simply could not accept his father’s sudden death.
“That is something this uncle will explain later—”
“When is later?”
“……”
“When will you tell me? After I become an adult? Then will I finally understand why I became a monster who killed my parents?”
As Hae-an shouted in anger, the mourners who had been whispering about the dead man’s death all fell silent.
“My sick mom died giving birth to me, and my dad died trying to raise me. If it weren’t for me, Mom wouldn’t have died, and Dad wouldn’t have gone to those dangerous crime scenes…! Hic…”
“No. That’s not true.”
Woo Gwan-su, the dead Kang Hyung-woo’s closest friend and only partner, desperately tried to hide the terrible truth.
“Your father’s last wish… was for me to take responsibility for you.”
Woo Gwan-su tightly hugged the crying Hae-an. Then, with tears pouring down as if his heart were breaking apart, he added,
“From now on, I am your father, Hae-an.”
Hae-an nodded with difficulty and reached toward the platform holding his father’s belongings. Holding tightly onto a clock pendant containing a faded family photo, the child gritted his teeth and made a promise.
‘I’ll become a police officer like Dad. And I’ll definitely uncover the truth behind his unfair death.’
Meanwhile, there was a woman silently watching all of this from afar.
She pressed the heel of her expensive black designer shoes against the marble floor and slowly curled up her bright red lips.
“I wondered where you were hiding like a rat.”
Unlike the flow of time in the human world, the time surrounding her seemed completely still.
“I finally found you.”
The woman, wearing a neat yet elegant black dress with matching lace gloves, crossed her arms and stared at one spot.
“Mujangseung.”
Her reddish eyes were fixed exactly on nine-year-old Hae-an’s young face.
“The reincarnation of my damned ex-husband.”
Nine hundred and seventy-nine years.
Neither alive nor dead, she had endured for an incredibly long time. And now, all of her sorrow and resentment slowly began to move once more.
Twenty years later.
A long line stretched endlessly in front of a traditional Korean house surrounded by stone walls.
All of them had come from all over the country to meet one woman. Each person waited desperately for their turn.
“Number 77. Come in.”
Someone pointed at the wooden number tag and tilted his head. He was a handsome young man dressed in a black suit. The mother and son followed the young man with glowing blue eyes.
“If he has already become this stiff, what will happen now?”
The man walking ahead on the wooden floor turned his head. The desperate look in the mother’s eyes contrasted sharply with the lifeless face of her son. Looking at the mother tightly holding her son’s hand, the man smiled meaningfully.
“You are about to witness the deep history of the heavenly world with your own eyes, so try not to be too shocked.”
With that, he opened the sliding paper door.
The mother and son blankly stared at the luxurious inner room of the shrine, decorated beautifully enough to show the grand elegance of the traditional house.
Then suddenly, the sharp voice of a woman hiding her face behind a white folding fan rang out.
“Do you not understand that while time is endless, human life is limited?”
“Pardon…?”
“If you’re just going to stand there mindlessly, I’ll throw you out of my shrine immediately.”
At the irritated voice of the shaman, the mother quickly pulled her son over and sat in front of the fortune-telling table.
Only then did the shaman lower her folding fan and reveal her face. The middle-aged woman looked very surprised. The shaman looked far younger and prettier than expected, and instead of wearing traditional clothes, she was dressed comfortably in homewear.
“Even at a glance, your family is overflowing with wealth. Your storage rooms must never have run out of grain. Thanks to that, your descendants probably inherited prosperous lives for generations.”
The bored-looking shaman rested her chin on her hand and picked up a Chilsoe Bell, one of the divine tools. The clear ringing sound echoed through the room.
But the moment the bell rang, the shaman suddenly stopped shaking it and let out a dry laugh.
“Huh. Well, look at this.”
The shaman glared at the mother and son with eyes far more terrifying than before. After briefly looking at her son’s stiff face, the woman clasped her hands together and knelt down.
“Shaman, my son is getting married soon. Our future in-laws strongly insisted that we receive the wedding date from you personally, so we spent a large amount of money to buy this appointment slot.”
“You dare trade my business card for extra money?”
The shaman widened her large eyes sharply in disbelief.
“My future in-laws kept rushing us because they said there wasn’t enough time… I’m sorry.”
Well, looking at the situation, this was obviously another political marriage between wealthy families.
And this mother and son clearly stood on the weaker side of a collapsing marriage.
However, the biggest problem was something else entirely.
Because—
“You foolish woman. Your son is already dead, so how exactly do you plan to make this marriage happen?”
The son who was about to get married was no longer alive.
“Oh my goodness! What are you saying?”
“I mean exactly what I said. Your son is dead.”
“No! My son is standing right here alive! Shaman, what are you—!”
Terrified, the woman grabbed her son’s shoulders and shook him violently.
“Young-min! Kim Young-min! Why haven’t you spoken since earlier? I told you not to lose your mind!”
“……”
“I think it’s time for your medicine again. Right, first take the medicine Mom brought—”
At that moment, the shaman suddenly struck the son’s arm with her folding fan and stood up.
“You unborn ghost who never even saw the light of this world… you sure are bold.”
A strange divine power burst from the reddish eyes of the shaman.
“You know very well who I am, don’t you?”
Faced with the overwhelming power of a god, the woman’s body stiffened, and her hands and feet trembled violently. Beside her, the son who had been staring blankly into space slowly lowered his head.
“…Exactly thirty-five years ago.”
The spirit of a woman hiding inside the dead son’s body spoke with a chilling voice.
“Simply because I was a girl… my cruel parents tore me apart and killed me before I was even born.”
The woman was horrified by the shocking words coming from her son’s mouth. Soon, she felt unbearable pain, as though her insides were being ripped apart.
This was the punishment given by a god to humans who had killed their own blood.
“I hoped they would regret it someday. I hoped they would repent and beg in tears. But they never even intended to prepare memorial rites for me.”
The son let out a creepy giggle before suddenly lifting his head and screaming.
“The owner of this body born after crushing my life complains every day that living as his parents’ puppet is miserable and keeps deciding to die!”
Veins bulged on the son’s neck as he suddenly stood up.
“I wanted to live more than anyone else. Then why shouldn’t I take over the body of my own blood relative?”
It was not true love, but obsession and control.
The continuous abuse from his parents had pushed the son beyond his limits. His spirit and body were completely exhausted by depression.
And so, the resentful spirit of his older sister, who had become an evil ghost full of hatred, eventually killed her weak younger brother’s soul and took over his living body.
“That nonsense is no longer worth hearing.”
The shaman picked up the Chilsoe Bell and the three-colored half-moon fan, raising her sharp eyes.
The way she had died was certainly tragic and unfair. But the moment she harmed a living human life, she became an unforgivable evil spirit.
“The harsh words of this world shall become kind words in the afterlife.”
The shaman waved her fan over the son’s face as he foamed at the mouth and collapsed backward.
“Please pass the judgment of the Ten Kings, and in your next life, meet proper parents.”
Black smoke rose from the remains of the evil spirit bursting out from the son’s heart. The blue-eyed man who had silently watched everything raised a blue goblin flame in his palm.
“My pitiful descendant. Disappear with honor.”
The moment the cold shaman finished speaking, the man’s goblin fire shot forward and burned away the remains of the evil spirit.
Seeing this impossible scene, the horrified woman screamed.
“Aaaah! W-Who… who are you people?!”
They looked human, but they were not human.
They were the final judges standing between life and death.
“Me? A goblin.”
Pointing at himself, the man introduced himself as the goblin Haetae, Lee Deok-jae, who guided foolish humans onto the right path.
“Ah, I guess my introduction is late too.”
The shaman crossed her arms and curled up the corners of her red lips.
A soul that lived while dead, and a body that was dead while alive.
Behind the disguise of a shaman, she had served the Jade Emperor for a thousand years.
Her true identity was—
“I am Princess Bari from the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty.”
A twenty-first century shaman, Kim Bari.
“You woman who deserves heavenly punishment instead of being called a parent.”
She was the seventh princess of King Ogu and Lady Gildae, the wife of the gatekeeper of hell, Mujangseung, and the heavenly goddess Baridegi.
A perfectly healthy young man had suddenly died while receiving a fortune reading.
After the National Forensic Service determined the cause of death to be acute myocardial infarction, the case was handed over to the police. Since the case had to be closed according to legal procedures, Bari visited the local police station as a witness.
Lieutenant Kang Hae-an, the detective in charge, flipped through the case file with his usual expressionless face.
‘It’s this woman again.’
Reading the annoyance in Hae-an’s eyes, Bari smirked and crossed her arms arrogantly.
“Honey, have you been well?”
Ignoring Hae-an’s cold attitude, Bari continued speaking freely.
“Ah, don’t tell me you forgot already? You used to be my husband.”
Bari lowered her luxury sunglasses slightly and raised her pretty eyebrows teasingly.
Ignoring her shameless question, Hae-an answered in a lifeless tone.
“I’m still not your husband, I’ve been doing fine in my own way, and my family registry remains completely clean and unmarried.”
Kim Bari claimed they had been married in their past life.
Kang Hae-an did not believe in past lives at all.
And so, the tense battle between the two began.
