Chapter 2
- The Ghost Woman
"A ghost woman? What on earth are you talking about?"
"Oh, I saw it with my own eyes. And it wasn't just me! Everyone in the village saw it. What else could it be but a ghost woman, appearing with her hair down and wearing strange clothes?"
"Shut your mouth! You must have been seeing things."
Even as Hong Eon-guk scolded him, he hurriedly tied his gat strings and prepared to go outside.
The villager still looked uneasy.
"Isn't this a sign of some great misfortune? You should inform the governor as soon as possible..."
"Enough! The old saying goes, 'Do not discuss strange forces, disorders, or spirits.' If that reaches the governor's ears, do you know you'll all be in trouble?"
Hong Eon-guk rebuked him and, as soon as he was dressed, he strode out the gate, his robes billowing.
He had said it was nothing, but he felt he had to see it for himself.
The villager trailed after him, muttering like a drenched chicken.
"Sir, I have a bad feeling about this. Either we'll have a famine this year, or a fishing boat will capsize, or something terrible will happen."
Half-listening, Hong Eon-guk leaped onto the horse waiting in front of the government building and said to the government slave beside him.
"Deok-chul, go to the office right now and tell the officer of the day to gather the soldiers."
"Yes? Why do you suddenly need soldiers at this hour..."
"A stranger has been swept away by the water. If they're just a castaway from a ship, that's one thing, but what if they're remnants of pirates or Japanese raiders?"
"Yes... Yes, sir! I understand!"
Hearing the words "pirates" and "Japanese raiders," the government slave called Deok-chul seemed alarmed and hurried away.
The villager's eyes widened as well.
"Something's definitely going to happen."
"You! If you spread empty rumors, you'll be the first to be punished, so be warned."
Hong Eon-guk gave him a stern warning, then grabbed the reins with a "Hyah!"
The horse from the Gyeonggi garrison, used for dispatching messages, disappeared into the distance with a burst of energetic hoofbeats.
"Um... Excuse me. You understand me, right? Hello?"
Ji-young, soaked to the bone, slowly made her way onto the land.
Each time she did, the villagers murmured and stepped back.
It wasn't so much that they were afraid of Ji-young's appearance, but more like they were wary of an animal they had never seen before.
"You speak Korean, right...? Where is this? Say something."
Ji-young faintly heard the people's voices.
She couldn't hear them clearly, but they seemed to be speaking a language she could understand.
An old-fashioned way of speaking, like something out of a historical drama.
"Are they filming a drama? Or a movie? Whatever it is, it feels incredibly real. In so many ways."
Ji-young tried to smile reassuringly as she slowly approached them, trying not to provoke them.
But the people still seemed wary.
Just then,
"Stop!"
A sudden, thunderous voice rang out.
As soon as they heard it, the people in their plain clothes all prostrated themselves on the ground.
Ji-young was left standing there, bewildered.
She soon understood why the villagers had prostrated themselves.
A dozen or so soldiers in black uniforms, carrying spears, rushed in and began to surround Ji-young.
Behind them, a man on horseback, wearing a wide-brimmed gat, spoke in a commanding voice.
"I am Hong Eon-guk, a secretary from the Gyeonggi garrison. I ask you, stranger, to explain in detail how you came to be washed up on this shore."
Hong Eon-guk remained on his horse, looking down at Ji-young with a sharp gaze.
The soldiers with their spears also looked wary.
"Ah, well, you see, I don't really know either, but I think I was in a car accident... in France... on the highway to the airport..."
Trying to explain so suddenly, Ji-young's words came out jumbled.
The villagers on the ground, the soldiers with their spears, and the man on horseback all looked puzzled.
It seemed that none of them understood Ji-young's words properly.
"A strange way of speaking. I've never heard such a dialect. First, tell me where you come from."
Hong Eon-guk asked again, still suspicious.
Ji-young felt she had to ease their wariness.
To do that, she had to answer their questions quickly.
"I'm Korean. A citizen of the Republic of Korea."
"The Republic of Korea. I don't recall such a place..."
"...Perhaps it's a small country somewhere in the southern barbarians. I've heard there are many small island nations south of the Ryukyu Kingdom."
The officer of the day, wearing a military hat, approached Hong Eon-guk and whispered his shallow knowledge.
Eon-guk nodded as if it made sense.
"In any case, it seems we can communicate. I'll ask again. From this Republic of Korea where you lived, how did you come to this land of Joseon? Tell me the truth."
Ji-young had a mountain of questions she wanted to ask, but since they kept asking her questions, she didn't know what to say.
It seemed she had to convey only the most basic information for them to understand.
"Um... well, you see... I was in a traffic accident, you know? Cars crashing into each other... and I think I was swept away here unexpectedly..."
Ji-young was trying to answer as simply as possible, gesturing with her hands and feet, when suddenly one of the people who had been prostrating themselves shouted.
"It's a ghost woman! With that strange appearance, she speaks our language so well in that bewitching way! I've lived for decades, but I've never seen anything so bizarre!"
As if they had been waiting for those words, one by one, the people began to voice their inner thoughts.
"It's a ghost woman! It's an ominous sign!"
"We're already burdened with taxes, and if we have another famine this year, we'll all starve to death!"
"We don't know what terrible thing will happen!"
"We should throw her back into the water! The spirits are angry!"
The commotion spread again among the people.
The commotion seemed to be based on a fear of something.
What were these people so afraid of?
Just as Ji-young was panicking at the sudden outcry,
"Silence!"
Hong Eon-guk shouted. At the same time, the officer of the day next to him drew his sword from his waist.
- Swish
The chilling sound of metal echoed, and the commotion subsided as if cold water had been poured on it.
People of the dynastic era, with obedience to the ruling class ingrained in their bodies.
But it was clear that they were only temporarily intimidated by the power of the sword, and that the outcry would erupt again in some way, at some time.
"If we leave things as they are, I don't know what will happen. We can't deal with a stranger without a proper interrogation. Take this person to the office."
"Yes, sir. What are you doing? Tie her up with ropes."
As soon as the order was given, the soldiers rushed at Ji-young and bound her with ropes.
Something was definitely wrong.
Ji-young thought so as she sat locked in a prison that resembled a barn, filled with piles of straw.
This was wrong in a big way.
She had definitely been driving along the outer road in Paris, heading for the airport.
Then came the severe headache, that's all she could remember.
And the place where she opened her eyes was here.
How she got here from France was a mystery, but an even bigger question was swirling in Ji-young's mind.
'Is this really the Joseon era?'
At first, she thought it might be a movie or drama set.
She even suspected that these people were all thoroughly trained actors.
But after coming to this place called the Gyeonggi garrison, she had to give up on that idea.
Because she hadn't seen a single modern building on the way here.
She couldn't see cars or motorcycles either.
Only peddlers driving ox carts or donkeys were occasionally visible.
'Have I really come to the Joseon era?'
She asked herself repeatedly, but no matter how hard it was to believe, she had no choice but to believe what she saw before her eyes.
When she asked the soldiers what year it was, the only answer she got was that this year was the year of Gapja.
In the Joseon era, ordinary people used the 60-year cycle to mark the years, so it was unreasonable to expect a more detailed answer.
She had no choice but to guess that it was one of the many Gapja years in the past.
But there was something more important than knowing what year it was.
'Is there a way to go back to the time I was in?'
She had heard the news that her father was in critical condition and was hurrying back to Korea when she came to this unexpected place.
She had to find a way to go back as soon as possible.
As she thought that, Ji-young suddenly saw the moon hanging beyond the wooden bars.
For some reason, its appearance seemed to give her a little courage.
Because that moon, at least, would be shining brightly in the same way, no matter where or when.
'Tomorrow will probably be a long day.'
Hong Eon-guk, the secretary of the Gyeonggi garrison, looked at the moon in the night sky and felt uneasy.
It was because he had to receive the guests who were scheduled to visit tomorrow.
Hong Gwi-dal, the governor of Gyeonggi whom Eon-guk was assisting, was a highly respected senior official in the court and also Hong Eon-guk's own father.
Eon-guk himself, as the governor's son, had to take charge of receiving the guests to be at ease.
But it was clear that the position would be a thorny one.
'The people who will visit here tomorrow are corrupt officials with a notorious reputation. Moreover, they are the power brokers who can bring down even flying birds...'
Deep wrinkles formed on Hong Eon-guk's brow.
It was a well-known fact that his unnecessarily upright and stubborn father had many enemies.
The reason he didn't want to escalate the commotion near Mapo Ferry in the early evening was all because of that.
'If rumors spread that a ghost woman came out of the water, I don't know what kind of slander I might face on the pretext of failing to manage the public sentiment.'
For now, he had locked the stranger in prison and firmly silenced the people, so he could only hope that no problems would arise.
"So, Father? What did the stranger's clothes look like?"
A clear, young voice brought Hong Eon-guk's mind back to reality.
Before him sat a pretty girl with her hair neatly braided.
His thirteen-year-old daughter.
The curious child always asked Hong Eon-guk about the world with sparkling eyes.
"I've never seen such a strange sight. A woman wearing a strange jacket, tight-fitting pants, and with her curly hair down, so it's no wonder the people mistook her for a ghost woman."
"That's amazing. Where did she come from?"
"Well, she said a place called the Republic of Korea... From what I hear, it seems to be an island nation somewhere in the south."
She was an innocent daughter he wouldn't trade for the world, but the more he looked at her, the greater Hong Eon-guk's anxiety grew.
The people who would visit here tomorrow were the so-called "Im family," Im Sa-hong, the Vice Minister of Public Works, and his son, Im Soong-jae, the Royal Secretary.
The worst corrupt officials, called the most treacherous of traitors.
It was said that there were more than a few families who had been ruined by them.
'It must be uneventful...'
Hong Eon-guk's face grew increasingly stern as he looked at his daughter's innocent face.
※ Author's Note
Hong Eon-guk (1475-1540)
The son of Hong Gwi-dal, the governor of Gyeonggi, in the original history, he was exiled for refusing to send his daughter to become a concubine of Yeonsangun. This incident is the beginning of the "Gapja Massacre."
