The Formless Shadow, Folklore of the Doppelganger Yokai (7)

The 4th Year of King Gyeongjong’s Reign (1724, Gapjin Year)

Gyeongjong Sujeong Sillok Volume 5, Leap 4th Month of the 4th Year, 27th Day

• • Proceeding to the Morning Court

 

• • Bestowing a Posthumous Name

 

• • Daejung Suchon Im Bang Petitions the King Regarding the Doppelganger Yokai from the Cheonyelok

The literary scholar Daejung Suchon Im Bang, who compiled the folklore collection Cheonyelok (天倪錄) about yokai passed down through folklore, petitioned:

“Most of the yokai recorded in the Cheonyelok have been exterminated by Martial Artists and the Taoist Society’s Spell Masters. However, one extremely wicked yokai still remains.

The King then asked, “What is the name of this yokai?”

Im Bang replied, “The Doppelganger Yokai, Your Majesty. This yokai indiscriminately devours the citizens of the capital city, taking on the appearance of those it has devoured. Its voice, appearance, and personality become shockingly similar to its victims, making it extremely difficult to distinguish. This is truly a great national calamity. I earnestly petition for Your Majesty to summon the Taoist Society’s Spell Masters and Martial Artists to exterminate this yokai.”

The King then said, “If its appearance, voice, and personality cannot be discerned, how can this yokai be distinguished?”

Im Bang petitioned, “We must treat all suspicious citizens as guilty of a grave crime. That is the only way to exterminate the Doppelganger Yokai.”

However, the King did not permit this, as he could not punish innocent citizens.

---

Male or female?

A buck or a doe?

Did it have arms?

Did it walk on two legs or four?

Did it even have a physical form?

That yokai was a formless shadow,

A back alley of history that did not exist.

---

Long, long ago in the distant past,

There was a yokai that could take on the form of those it devoured –

The Doppelganger Yokai.

In the spring month of March,

A formless shadow roamed the human world aimlessly. Though not human, its lack of form meant the villagers could not perceive it.

The famished formless shadow visited an inn, asking the innkeeper for food.

It was an odd occurrence –

No human figure in sight, only a young woman’s voice coming from thin air. The innkeeper, frightened, flung alcohol into the air while shouting:

“Begone, begone, evil spirit!”

Being formless, the alcohol missed the shadow.

The formless shadow then realized it could not eat scraps nor lick spilled alcohol off the floor in its current state.

In the spring month of April,

The formless shadow left the human world for the secluded forest.

Still hungry, yet unable to consume anything.

It could speak to humans, but its formless state prevented conversation.

The formless shadow realized it needed a new ‘form’.

Scanning its surroundings, it noticed a weasel hunting mice.

The formless shadow tried to take the weasel’s form, but

Being formless, it could not.

On a summer afternoon in June,

With the sun high overhead,

The formless shadow found an ancient book lying before it –

The Taejashingi (太者神記).

Though wishing to read it, the formless shadow lacked a form

To turn its pages.

So the formless shadow waited endlessly for the wind to turn the pages,

Finally reading the entire book after a year.

This was in June of the 15th year of King Jungjong’s reign.

In the summer month of July,

After fully comprehending the truth from the Taejashingi, the formless shadow could finally take on other beings’ forms –

The result of delving into the truth,

The sweet reward bestowed by the Taejashingi.

First, the formless shadow took the weasel form it had marked a year prior.

It could no longer be called a formless shadow.

In the summer month of July,

Kim Jong-muk, a low-ranking official in a remote county, did not slack on reading even late into the night.

For ‘knowledge is power’, and studying Confucian philosophy was the due duty of an official.

Under the blue moonlight, feeling peckish from his reading, he woke his soundly sleeping wife to bring him food.

Without a word, his wife brought out food.

Around 10 minutes later,

His wife brought more food.

Having already eaten the previous serving, Kim Jong-muk scolded his wife:

“Wife, are you trying to make your husband burst from overeating?”

His wife tilted her head in puzzlement and replied:

“Husband, what do you mean? I merely brought you food as you asked…”

“Did I not ask you to bring food just 10 minutes ago?”

“Husband, it’s late. Why don’t you stop reading for today and get some sleep?”

Though perplexed by his wife’s words, as they seemed plausible,

Kim Jong-muk closed his book and lay beside his wife.

Still feeling uneasy, he lifted the blanket to find,

To his dismay, it was stained with sticky blood.

‘Did she regurgitate something? Not even wearing a menstrual pad… what a troublesome woman.’

Though Kim Jong-muk shook his head, he deeply loved his wife,

So he endured the discomfort and tried to sleep.

The next day,

His wife was found decapitated in the kitchen.

Having slept covered in his wife’s blood, Kim Jong-muk was arrested under suspicion of murdering her.

Protesting his innocence, he was executed by hanging.

In the winter month of November,

Unlike other yokai, the Doppelganger Yokai lived among humans by impersonating them. It overheard a rumor:

That a benevolent king had emerged, created the native Korean script,

And begun exterminating all the wicked yokai plaguing the nation.

Citizens cheered in gratitude to the king, but

The Doppelganger Yokai, having lost even its cherished book, was gripped by dread.

Perhaps due to living too closely among humans,

It was exceptionally intelligent for a yokai.

Through the truth gleaned from the Taejashingi, it soon realized how to conceal its yogi,

Enabling it to evade pursuit by Martial Artists and Spell Masters.

Having survived the human yokai hunts,

While awaiting the day of its eventual ascension,

The Doppelganger Yokai began hiding like a dead rat,

Changing forms indiscriminately between humans and animals.

---

“Kkhuluk… kkhuluk.”

The Martial Artist Geum Sung collapsed, coughing up blood.

A large hole gaped in his abdomen – an unmistakably fatal wound.

Were he an ordinary person, he would have perished long ago.

“Huhhk, huhhk, huhhk…”

His vision grew increasingly dim,

A sign that his life force was fading.

However, he could not die such an ignoble death.

He had to convey information about that yokai to someone before dying.

Upon hurriedly arriving where the yokai appeared after receiving the director’s radio call, the entire Jangsan Yokai Extermination Office’s forces were already dead meat.

Miraculously, only the director still clung to life.

Including the other two Martial Artists, they rushed to treat the director.

That’s when it happened.

The director,

No, that thing impersonating the director, waved its arm.

In an instant, the Martial Artist Park Na-rae’s neck was severed.

The director then tore out a chunk of the Martial Artist Lee Jung-hyuk’s neck with its jaws.

Unable to react as their assailant wore their trusted director’s form.

Before long, Geum Sung too was impaled through the abdomen by that thing in the director’s guise,

Which then mocked his crumpled form, changing into Park Na-rae’s appearance.

After that, it was sheer hell.

The tardily arriving Taoist Society Spell Master Myeong Jung was devoured alive without resistance by that yokai disguised as Park Na-rae.

The soldiers suffered the same fate.

Dammit.

Its speed was not what evaded the tracking network.

It was not even a tiger yokai.

The identity of this unidentified yokai was:

A doppelganger-type yokai that could take the form of anything it devoured.

His vision grew dimmer and dimmer.

That doppelganger yokai had vanished without a trace.

A yokai that could not only take human form but conceal its yogi as well.

This was… not just a calamity for Busan, but a national disaster-level yokai.

Geum Sung wanted to convey the information he knew to the nation somehow, but

Unfortunately, the flame of his life was about to be snuffed out.

He slowly closed his eyes.

“Can we save him?”

“This will… require using yogi. If anything goes wrong, you’ll take full responsibility…”

“…Wh… Why…”

Was it his imagination?

That the final sight before his imminent death

Was a breathtakingly beautiful woman in the form of a fox.