Chapter 35
“Slurp. This place makes good jjajangmyeon .”
“Slurp. I think so too.”
“It would be perfect with a glass of jukyeopcheong , but I have to hold back since it’s still working hours.”
Jukyeopcheong and goliangju are naturally associated with Chinese food. Every time I watch a Chinese martial arts movie, I’ve always been curious about the combination of noodles, dumplings, and jukyeopcheong that the waiter brings.
But since I value work-life balance, I have a personal rule of never drinking during work hours （except for business occasions）. It’s best to enjoy a good drink after finishing all your work.
Guys who drink without finishing their work are either just bums or rich enough to afford it.
‘Coincidentally, I’m neither.’
What can I do about my fate, only able to order a large set of jjajangmyeon and tangsuyuk for a new employee?
But wait, I suddenly felt annoyed by the fact that there were no complimentary fried dumplings even though I ordered a large （40,000 won worth） of tangsuyuk , not even a small or medium.
If women have separate stomachs for meals and desserts, men have separate stomachs for tangsuyuk and fried dumplings, which everyone already knows.
As I was about to call the chef, I made eye contact with a head peeking out from the counter.
Soaked hair dripping with water, empty eye sockets, a nose and lips that were unrecognizable as if something had ripped them off. Pale skin was swollen and taut, as if it would burst at any moment.
‘A susalgui?’
A susalgui , known to be one of the most vicious types of ghosts, was peeking its head out from behind the counter, so I slowly chewed and swallowed the tangsuyuk .
“Hey, you. Haven’t you heard a lot that you have weak gi since you were young?”
“Slurp. Huh? How did you know? That’s why my family elders introduced me to many famous shamans and sorcerers. I had a ton of weird prayer beads and talismans to carry around until I graduated high school.”
“What happened to them?”
“I’m an a*ult now, so I threw them all away because I was embarrassed to carry around such cumbersome things.”
I looked back at S Man, who answered nonchalantly.
It’s not even surprising that the reason this guy is premature with the S Pen is because his yang gi has been so weak since birth.
But listening to him, if this guy’s constitution is what I think it is, it makes sense that ghosts with particularly strong yin gi would cling to him. Yang gi soaked in yin gi . Isn’t it unique, like putting chili sauce on top of tangsuyuk ?
Any ghost would have thought at least once, ‘I wonder what this man is like in bed?’
Since he spent his entire life soaked in yin gi , his yang gi couldn’t properly sprout, resulting in soft, white skin like a woman’s and a handsome appearance, but becoming premature with the S Pen.
And it seems like I just found the root cause of that yin gi .
Suddenly, I remembered the talisman money envelope I ripped earlier and realized my mistake belatedly. It wasn’t meant to curse me, but rather a plea to look favorably upon him while giving me payment.
In the first place, the talisman money envelope itself was used to block off evil energy, so it would only be helpful to me, not harmful in any way.
I didn’t even know that and thought I got hit with a curse, so I ripped it to shreds. I’m such a moron.
‘So that’s why they were so protective of him since he was a child.’
S Man, who is not just any eomchina , was actually thoroughly protected from external evil forces by his family elders and grew up like a flower in a greenhouse.
And the flower boy, not knowing his place, jumped out of the greenhouse and got caught by an evil spirit last time, unfortunately.
And now, something that’s been lingering for quite a while was hanging around S Man.
“Since we’re bored, why don’t we have a self-introduction time? You go first. Did anything strange happen to you when you were young?”
“Um… Every holiday, my family elders gather at our ancestral home in the mountains of Gangwon-do. I remember experiencing something strange when I was seven or eight years old, following the adults to the ancestral home.”
“That’s a promising intro. I’m already intrigued.”
As I crunched on some pickled radish and gestured with my chin for him to continue, S Man began to reminisce about the past with a melancholic look in his eyes.
“It was… probably winter, I think. I don’t remember the exact date, but I’m sure it snowed a lot back then. Anyway, on that day, when we rented a snowplow for a few days to clear the mountain road and gathered in one place, I went outside because there were too many adults. It was suffocating, and I didn’t even understand what they were talking about.”
“Adults are always like that. They don’t consider kids at all. I also had my toy taken away by my cousin because of my grandfather.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Anyway, since it was midday, I was bored, so I made a snowman near the house… and went out to the big lake near the ancestral home. The lake was completely frozen, so even as a child, I could run and play freely without any problems. So I was even more excited to play.”
“Typical cliche. At least it’s not metafiction.”
S Man picked up a piece of tangsuyuk with his obviously refined chopstick skills and put it in his mouth.
“Hmm, so… that lake was a huge playground for me. I could take a fertilizer bag from the ancestral home’s shed and use it as a sled, and there were various things to do like throwing big rocks to break the ice. Oh, and I should mention that my parents were very strict, so they didn’t buy me a smartphone back then.”
“That’s a common story. I didn’t have a smartphone at that age either.”
Because my parents went missing before I even turned eight and celebrated Christmas.
“So you played on the frozen lake whenever you had time, came home to eat when you were hungry, and went back out to play. It was a pretty fulfilling time for a few days in the boring countryside. Then, the day before returning to our home, I met a girl I had never seen before at the lake. She was wearing thin clothes even though it was cold, so I shared my coat with her and we played together.”
“The story is already reaching its climax in the rising action.”
I see why you’re premature.
“I had fun playing with her and we promised to meet again the next day, but I completely forgot that we were going back to Seoul early the next morning. In the end, I came back to Seoul without meeting her……”
“And then?”
“From here on, it’s not my memory, but what I heard from my parents. I don’t remember much after that either. According to my parents, I used to fill the bathtub with water every night and play frantically in it.”
“Like the Ugly Duckling?”
“Like the Ugly Duckling.”
S Man took a sip of cold water, as if his throat was dry, and continued speaking.
“It was a mess after that, they say. Since I couldn’t control myself whenever I saw water, my parents called for famous shamans and sorcerers. They said that I wasn’t possessed, but something with a very strong yin gi was lingering around me, and they provided me with countermeasures. I regained my memories around the time I was in the second grade of elementary school.”
“You went through all that and still thought about throwing away the talismans and prayer beads you carried around?”
“Because I’m an a*ult now. I believed that the moment I become an a*ult, I should graduate from everything from my childhood. And I actually felt relieved after graduating.”
If the result of that was the prelude to the reappearance of something that’s been clinging to him for nearly 20 years, would this guy believe it?
If I told him that what he experienced was just a prologue, he probably wouldn’t even be able to go to the bathroom alone at night. So, instead of telling him the truth, I finished eating the jjajangmyeon .
“Well, it’s good to see you’re manly. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t mean it in a weird way.”
“It’s okay. I hear that a lot from people around me.”
“But just because you look like an a*ult on the outside doesn’t mean your insides suddenly become an a*ult. Do you really think you’re an a*ult?”
“To be honest… I think I’m an a*ult enough since I can take care of myself.”
I had to save you last time because you couldn’t take care of yourself.
Brrrrrrrrr!
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━Sender: 444-4444-4444
I clicked my tongue, holding my smartphone that had vibrated so much it had drained its battery.
The phone, which had heated up in an instant, was as hot as a military-grade hand warmer.
“A true a*ult is someone who completely severs ties with childhood grudges, painful memories, and strange phenomena. It seems to me that you still have some unfinished business?”
“Hmm, then what should I do? Should I also get an exorcism……?”
“Why would you get an exorcism when you’re not even possessed? You just need to cut off the messed-up connections. Did you bring your car?”
“Yes, I did. I prefer something manly to the impractical foreign car my parents bought me, so I bought a pickup truck with my own money.”
“That’s good. Grab your keys and stuff. If you want to work under me, you need to clean up your messy past and annoying relationships, right?”
“Ah, is that because of the guys in movies who cling to every little detail of their past when dealing with exorcists?”
“Yeah. Those stubborn bastards even bring up stories of wetting their pants as kids and enjoy public humiliation play. To avoid getting caught up in that, you have no choice but to cut ties completely.”
We got up, leaving behind the empty dishes, and passed by the guy who was dripping water at the counter, heading towards the public parking lot.
We got into the manly pickup truck （expensive） and set the navigation to XX Village in the mountains of Gangwon-do.
“Wake me up when we hit a rest stop on the highway.”
“What are you going to do at the rest stop?”
“Uh. I’m going to buy some delimanjoo .”
Who goes on a domestic trip without eating delimanjoo at a rest stop?
I glanced at the susalgui hanging onto the rear wheel of the car through the side mirror and quietly closed my eyes.
