The world is sometimes malicious for no reason.
This was the child’s first realization.
He hadn’t eaten anything for two days already. He went from house to house begging for food, but all he got was a cold attitude.
The last place the child visited was an old thatched house. It was a place where an old woman who was known for being kind lived alone in the village. “Leftover rice would be fine, please,” the child begged, and the old woman went into the kitchen without saying a word. He waited for the old woman with a glimmer of hope, but the old woman came out with a large basin instead of a rice bowl. The child, covered in dirty water, was beaten all over with a broomstick.
“You prick! Who brought you in here to carry dongti, aren’t you going to get the hell out of here?”
The child didn’t know anything. He didn’t know his name, he didn’t know his parents’ faces, and he didn’t know why people hated him. All he knew was that what he saw with his own eyes was invisible to others. People pointed fingers at the boy, calling him a “cursed child” and a “monster born from a ghost’s seed.” Everyone firmly believed that the child would bring spirits with him. As much as they hated the child, the child hated them.
The child ran to the mountain behind the village. There were scratches all over his small, skinny body. After climbing the ridge for a while, he saw a large old tree. Under the old tree, the small village could be overlooked at a glance. The child, left alone, crouched down and shuddered. A cool breeze blew through the damp rags intermittently.
The child was always alone, and he was never cold. It was always only spirits that break the silence without permission.
‘Humans are afraid of you.’
‘You’re on our side.’
‘Why aren’t you answering? Hm? Hm? Hm?’
“Shut up.”
The child muttered as he buried his head between his knees.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
‘Qts vb sbe atlcx tewjcr tjaf sbe?’
‘Qf xcbk kts.’
‘Tbe wjs cba yf tewjc.’
“Vtea eq. Vjs bcf wbgf kbgv, jcv P klii afjg sbe ilwy ogbw ilwy.”
Ktf mtliv kjr rfglber.
‘…’
‘…’
‘…’
Ktf mtjaafglcu revvfcis rabqqfv. Pa kjr delfa lc atf wbecajlcr, jcv fnfc atf ugjrrtbqqfgr kfgf kjamtlcu atf mtliv klat yjafv ygfjat. ‘Ybt bbt’, tf tfjgv jc bki mgs lc atf vlrajcmf. Pa ofia ilxf tjiiemlcjalbcr. Ktf mtliv kgjqqfv tlr jgwr jgbecv tlr rtbeivfgr. Lewjc bg rqlgla, tf vlvc’a kjca ab rff jcs bo atfw. Lf kbeiv gjatfg cba rff jcsatlcu ja jii.
“Would it be better if I gouged out my eyes?”
The child murmured like a sigh.
“Hm? Of course not.”
The child was silent for a moment at the voice that was unmistakably heard, then replied.
“I said I wouldn’t let you go if you spoke to me one more time.”
“Goodness, you’ve got a misunderstanding.”
The child who had buried his face between his knees raised his head. Standing in front of him was a tall man in a long black robe. Was it not a spirit? The child glared at the man with wary eyes. His face was obscured by the stranger standing with his back to the moonlight.
“You don’t have to be so afraid. I am a human like you.”
The man shrugged his shoulders.
“It looks like you are a gwijae (鬼才).”
“… Gwijae?”
“Yes. That’s what we call each other. Ah, the ‘we’ here refers to people who can see. Like you, and like me.”
The child wordlessly wiggled his cold, calloused toes. He seemed to be zoning out, but the child was listening to the man. It had been a long time since he had properly spoken to a human.
“What do you think ‘gwijae’ means?”
The child who was hesitant for a while at the question out of the blue opened his mouth.
“A talent… that allows you to see spirits…”
It was a very small voice. The child looked into his man’s eyes. The man’s face was not visible in the darkness, but he could see that he was smiling. “Did you learn to read?” The man asked in a friendly voice. The child just shook his head without speaking.
“That makes sense. Originally, gwijae is used to mean an extraordinary talent like spirits… If you interpret it literally, it could also mean what you said. Seeing as you gave a plausible answer for a greenhorn person, you must be a clever kid.”
The man smiled and whispered.
“However, the ‘gwijae’ we are talking about uses a different Chinese character. Because of that, the meaning is slightly different. We don’t use the character for ‘spirit’, we use the character for ‘noble’.”
The man stopped talking and bent his back. The crouching man stretched out his hand to him, and the child withdrew in surprise. But the man gently stroked his child’s head with a gentle hand.
“Gwijae (貴才) means a noble person who has precious talents.”
After his words, the man carefully looked at his child as if looking into a well. The child did not escape the man’s gaze. His eyes were straight and clear. After a while, he stood up and began to take off the black long robe he was wearing. The hem fluttered in the cool breeze.
He put his black long robe over his child’s shoulder, and held out his large hand.
“Noble child, will you come with me?”
‘Ooooh’, the owl cried in the distance again.
It wasn’t a hallucination.
T/n: This novel borrows elements from supernatural folk beliefs in Goryeo, Joseon dynasties of ancient Korea, which was heavily influenced by China, so there are a lot of Chinese-origin words. I’ll try to fully translate words that have English equivalents, but the rest will be left in romanization.
Thank you for Chapter 0. Hahahahaha! 🤣❤️🤣❤️🤣
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