Chapter 07
“What exactly is going on here?”
Confused, Gang Hae-an kept repeating himself as he followed behind Kim Bari. She went down to the first floor and, instead of answering, took out the most expensive-looking wine from a wine fridge.
Sitting in the mansion’s dining room, Bari looked at Hae-an carelessly and gestured lightly.
She meant: stop making a fuss and sit next to her quickly since he already understood the situation was absurd.
“Do you know how to drink hangover soup alcohol?”
“Forget that. Just explain what’s going on.”
Ignoring his words, Bari calmly poured red wine into two glasses. She slid one glass toward Hae-an, then reached somewhere and pulled a box of matches from the edge of the table.
Lost in thought for a moment, she opened the box and poured all the matches onto the table.
“To explain why you’re in my house, I first need to explain your current condition. And to explain why your mental state is twisted, I need to start from my testimony.”
She looked at Hae-an and took a sip of wine.
“To be exact, the one who broke into my house last night wasn’t you—it was something else.”
“You asked for an explanation, and now you’re talking nonsense again?”
“What can I do? As long as you don’t believe me, everything I say will sound like nonsense.”
Frustrated, Bari grabbed Hae-an by the shoulders and made him sit down, then picked up a match.
Hae-an stared at her hand as if drawn to it.
“Possession.”
Bari stopped stacking matches and looked at him.
“It means your spiritual gate has finally opened.”
A spiritual gate—does she mean the gate where ghosts come and go?
It still sounded unbelievable, but strangely, he couldn’t refute it. He wasn’t weak with alcohol, but there was no way he would have blacked out and randomly broken into Kim Bari’s house without even knowing the address.
Still, Hae-an couldn’t accept this reality.
“Possession? You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes. Because it’s true.”
“So what, are you telling me to perform an exorcism now?”
“Of course not. The being who used your body yesterday isn’t someone affected by cheap rituals like that.”
Bari’s face showed a bitter, long-held resentment.
“Since we’re talking about that old man…”
She paused while stacking matches, choosing her words carefully.
“The life Heaven designed for Gang Hae-an was originally meant to be nothing but destruction. You know it best yourself. You lost your mother right after birth, and in your ninth year, your father—the last protection you had—was also taken away. So what do you think Heaven would take from a child who lost everything?”
Hae-an almost got angry, thinking she had investigated him, but then he stopped.
What she said next struck his heart hard.
“Your life.”
“….”
“You know it. You survived a miracle when you were nineteen.”
Only Hae-an and his adoptive father Woo Gwan-su could have known that incident.
“How many disasters do you think a life like yours, cursed from birth, would go through?”
Bari frowned and drank the rest of her wine.
“I already said it—I never intended to let you live. But…”
She placed the last match on top of the stack and looked at him.
“Even the most solid hatred collapses when faced with unexpected reality.”
She pulled out one match from the bottom of the stack.
The whole tower collapsed instantly.
“The husband I killed in my past life, Mu Jang-seung, seemed to have been reborn as a decent human in this life.”
She tapped the table lightly and smiled.
“So I decided to let you live.”
“….”
“I blocked all misfortunes that should have come to you—illness, despair, death, everything.”
Hae-an realized it. His life and death were being spoken of as if she controlled them.
He looked at her coldly.
“And you expect me to believe that without proof?”
“It’s normal that you don’t believe it. You have no memories of the past. But not anymore.”
Suddenly, Bari grabbed his wrist and pulled him up as he tried to turn away.
“I’ve brought back your ability.”
She added while raising her eyebrows meaningfully.
“You’ll realize it in time. Soon you’ll remember everything yourself—past life, present life, and even your unconscious memories.”
A chill ran down Hae-an’s spine at her confident smile.
“If I can keep Gang Hae-an tied to the place of my husband, I’ll do anything.”
Hae-an responded firmly.
“So you’re saying you’ll keep someone who despises you by force because of your delusions?”
“….”
“No matter how insane you are, there’s no woman like that in this world.”
Angry, he gulped down the wine in front of him.
As soon as he put the glass down, Bari smiled bitterly and reached out.
“She’s right here.”
She wiped the wine from his lips with her finger and pointed at herself.
“Right in front of you.”
From that moment, Gang Hae-an’s peaceful life was swept away like a wave caused by Kim Bari.
A few days later
After that strange incident, Bari had said as Hae-an left the house:
From now on, even if he didn’t want to see or hear something, he would be forced to.
He ignored it completely.
But he never expected it.
The ability that disappeared 20 years ago, when he was nine years old, had returned.
[Wow, look at his eyes filling with tears. He finally realized it, right?]
Hae-an hadn’t slept properly for days. He kept having the same nightmare over and over, to the point where he could recite it. A woman crying and screaming, but her face was blurred like fog.
[Poor thing… like a baby bird who lost its parents.]
He walked into the kitchen and drank cold water straight from the bottle to calm himself.
[Hey, even if your mouth is crooked, speak properly. It’s not your parents—it’s your wife!]
These were beings that had always followed him since childhood—talking, complaining, sometimes revealing hatred, sometimes trying to drag children into danger.
Hae-an turned his sharp gaze.
The ghosts panicked when they realized he could see them again.
“…I can see you again.”
These were the same spirits that had been with him from birth until age nine, then disappeared into the background like air.
“What do you mean, wife?”
He had been silent toward them for 20 years, so the ghosts were shocked.
[No, we just—]
“Answer my question.”
His voice was calm, but tears fell from his eyes without him realizing.
He was crying without even knowing it.
[See? You’re not crying because of us.]
“Then why am I crying?”
[Because it’s not really you… it’s more like possession.]
At that word, Hae-an remembered what Bari had said.
Spiritual gate opening. Possession.
“So I’m possessed by a ghost?”
[From what we see… not exactly wrong.]
Hae-an laughed in disbelief.
Someone had taken over his body without permission. On top of that, Kim Bari’s nonsense, and now ghosts too.
Everything was collapsing into chaos.
[Gang Hae-an, we know what dream you’re having. But we can’t tell you. If we do, the one above will get very angry.]
The ghosts pointed upward, trembling.
“I had a dream like that… and I actually felt happy.”
His voice lowered.
“In that dream… I felt like I had a perfect life.”
It was an old Joseon-era life. A woman he loved, children he had with her—everything was vivid and warm.
[Then go find “that person’s” temple as soon as possible.]
He already knew who they meant.
Kim Bari.
