Ch.200200 – Rewarding Good and Punishing Evil 1

# 200 – Encouraging Good and Punishing Evil # 1

After I disappeared by making a wish, my friends went through various experiences. Even after hearing their explanations, these events were difficult to understand.

The important thing was that Pastor Cheon Aesu would certainly try to stab Yu Dahui in the chest with a knife to return this chaotic world to normal.

“We need to take him down.”

I recalled the image of the middle-aged man who had been seized by many ghosts and transformed into something like a ball. Numerous spirits surrounded him.

“It’s a horrifying sight.”

When I saw Pastor Cheon Aesu wandering near Yeong-gwang Church again, I could understand what that cluster of spirits was.

—Bastard.

—Rot in hell.

The souls clinging to Pastor Cheon Aesu hated and despised him.

Some were strangling his neck or grabbing his wrists and legs, hanging on desperately. You could call them vengeful spirits. I speculated about why they harbored such resentment toward Pastor Cheon Aesu. Among various hypotheses, I settled on the most plausible one.

‘Were they murdered?’

I suspected these were people murdered by Pastor Cheon Aesu who had returned to this world as the boundary between life and death blurred. They had come back with hatred for Cheon who killed them and now clung to him.

Why would Cheon Aesu kill people?

Perhaps for reasons similar to why he wanted to kill Dahui.

To return everything to normal.

Swarming—

There were many vengeful spirits.

At a glance, there were easily more than ten.

“Pa…Pastor. Are you alright?”

“What’s wrong?”

I could see some followers approaching Cheon Aesu and speaking to him.

The followers seemed somewhat frightened seeing Cheon surrounded by vengeful spirits and transformed into a strange form, but Pastor Cheon seemed completely unaware of his condition.

In my opinion, Cheon Aesu was someone who “couldn’t see.”

He seemed unable to see ghosts, spirits, or this chaotic world.

I returned to the secret base.

What could we do to take down this potential criminal who might kill Yu Dahui? I wanted to consult with Jeongseok, but he was completely exhausted.

“I can’t think of anything anymore.”

“What should we do?”

I pondered for a long time.

First, wouldn’t it be good to secure weapons? Let’s go to Dahui’s mansion. I remembered there were firearms there. So I hurried toward the mansion.

“Ugh, what the hell is this?”

Dahui’s mansion had transformed into an even stranger place than I remembered. The spacious mansion was filled with spirits, like a hotel opened for free to refugees.

“Ma’am! Dahui!”

I searched for Mrs. Danvers and Dahui. I thought they would be somewhere in this mansion, but I couldn’t see them.

They must have gone somewhere.

Instead, the Chairman was there.

The elderly Chairman Cheon Daegon was sitting in his study talking with someone who, upon closer inspection, looked exactly like him.

His twin brother, I see.

“Who’s there?”

The Chairman asked sharply, apparently noticing me watching from outside the window. Since I’d been spotted, I entered the study hoping to seek his cooperation.

In the study were a man who appeared to be the Chairman’s twin brother and a very young-looking woman. Something about the woman felt nostalgic.

The Chairman asked his twin brother:

“Does this child have your blood flowing through him? They say this child has a constitution that doesn’t suffer from allergies or catch colds like you. Unlike me. Could this child actually be your flesh and blood?”

“……”

The Chairman revealed his private suspicions to his twin brother. He seemed trapped in a hell where he had to constantly doubt his wife and brother.

But the dead did not answer the Chairman’s question.

They just stood there blankly.

“Say something! We’ve finally been able to meet again like this!”

Chairman Cheon Daegon finally broke down.

It seemed that even one of Korea’s wealthiest men couldn’t maintain his sanity in this broken world.

I thought that I was the only one who could answer what the Chairman was curious about.

Am I the Chairman’s grandson?

I had pondered that question countless times myself and had reached a conclusion of sorts.

“Chairman, I’m not your grandson. I’m not Cheon Yeongwon. I’m Ha Yeongwon. That’s what I believe. I’m the son of Ha Chaeyeon and Cheon Boseong.”

I am Ha Yeongwon, a poor high school student.

I was Yang Juhui’s errand boy and Jeongseok’s top laner. I was an ordinary human. Timid, mistake-prone, falling in love easily and getting discouraged just as easily.

Yet I was someone who looked forward to tomorrow as I fell asleep.

“So Chairman, give me a gun! Your granddaughter Dahui is in danger! That crazy pastor bastard might try to kill Dahui with a knife to return everything back to normal! Give me a gun!”

I preferred something that could fire rapidly. To be honest, I wanted to launch a missile at Pastor Cheon Aesu, who had transformed into something like a legion of demons from the Bible as vengeful spirits clustered around him.

“…Dahui is my granddaughter?”

However, Chairman Cheon Daegon frowned as if hearing this for the first time.

“That child who doesn’t share a drop of blood with me?”

“Why does that matter now! In an age when people raise dogs and cats like their own children! You’re too old-fashioned, Chairman! These days, whether blood is connected or not doesn’t matter!”

What matters is the heart.

We live in an age where even biological children and parents can become strangers if we think of them as such. It might seem bleak, but the opposite was also possible, which could be seen as heartwarming.

If I consider someone family, they become family.

Family.

I could think about that meaning more deeply than anyone. After all, I was a son created from the wish of a woman who wanted to be with family.

“If we stay like this, Dahui will die again!”

“I…”

I could see Chairman Daegon’s gaze becoming unfocused.

I knew that Cheon Daegon had raised Dahui solely to make this sea of eternity overflow.

I also knew he wanted to meet his wife and brother again by creating a world where death and life were confused.

But even if he raised Dahui with such a purpose, couldn’t he have felt even a grain of affection during the process? Did he really think of her only as a tool?

Cheon Daegon looked at the paper crane on his desk.

“Inna folded this crane for me. Inna really loved paper folding. Although I wasn’t good at showing affection, that child really followed me like a father.”

Swish—

Cheon Daegon now looked at the paper Tyrannosaurus next to the crane.

“Dahui folded this Tyrannosaurus for me. I liked dinosaurs. Actually, I wanted to become a paleontologist rather than this wealthy man. She folded this dinosaur knowing that.”

It’s difficult to change an old person’s thinking. The years they’ve lived protect their hearts like the rough, hard bark of an ancient tree.

But sometimes that bark could be peeled away when tapped with something soft and warm like family love. Cheon Daegon finally seemed to realize something, letting out a single exclamation: “Ah…”

“I already had plenty of family. Family is time. Just as the Little Prince’s rose and sheep became precious to him because of the time he invested in them. The time you invest becomes family.”

“Time?”

“Yes! Time is family!”

I wasn’t sure what he meant. Maybe I had agitated him too much and he’d gone senile. While I was slightly worried, Cheon Daegon opened a drawer and handed me something.

It looked like a thick book.

“This will be more effective against that bastard Cheon Aesu than a gun. Long ago, my ancestors acquired a book imported from the far western lands. It was a blueprint for creating a clock that doesn’t exist in this world.”

The book was quite thick.

When I opened it, I saw crooked Korean writing.

“This is that blueprint. It says that both fake and real change depending on the direction of belief.”

# # #

When I went out to the garden, I found Dahui, whom I had been searching for earlier, making something in the yard.

I wondered if she was building some kind of giant toad house, but Dahui explained first.

“It’s a grave. This is my mom’s grave. And this is my dad’s grave.”

Next to Dahui as she spoke were the ghosts of her mother Yu Inna and father Kang Bada. Suddenly, I became curious. The two graves made sense, but what was the small grave Dahui had just made?

“Whose grave is that?”

“My younger sibling’s grave.”

Swish—

Dahui carefully placed what looked like a paper Tyrannosaurus she had folded on what she called “my sibling’s grave.”

Dahui’s expression seemed steadfast, but then it crumpled like a child’s, and she burst into tears.

“I did something bad…!”

Dahui had the trait of “Elegance.” She possessed a trait that maintained elegant dignity no matter what she did, but the sadness overwhelming her now seemed to transcend that trait.

Seeing Dahui crying with a furrowed face and runny nose, I offered her my embrace.

“It’s okay. We can meet again. If this all ends well.”

“Really?”

“Yes!”

“Hic! Suddenly crying gave me hiccups.”

Pat pat pat—

I patted Dahui’s back to calm her down. Dahui continued sobbing for a long time after that, apparently devastated by losing her sibling. I thought about Dahui’s sibling whom I had never met.

The name was Nayu.

Was it Nayu, derived from Nayuta, meaning a long time?

If they resembled Dahui, they must have been a very cute girl.

“We’ll be able to meet again. Because I have this!”

Swish—

I showed Dahui the “Blueprint” I received from the Chairman.

According to what was written in this blueprint, it might be possible to fix this mess. Just as I was thinking I wanted to show the contents of this blueprint to everyone, Mr. Kang Bada blocked my path.

Click.

Then he took out a cold metal object from his inner pocket and handed it to me.

It was a gun.

A gun that smelled of gunpowder. It showed signs of use, as if it had already been fired several times. I alternately looked at the bloodstain flowing from Mr. Kang Bada’s chest and the gun.

“No way…”

Could Mr. Kang Bada have been killed with this gun? Such an unsettling thought crossed my mind, but thinking it would be good to secure a weapon, I accepted the gun.