🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 20
The Day the Crows Cried
On the day a flock of pitch-black crows cried unusually dolefully, as if doused in black ink.
“I heard the old lady cherished her son so much—always ‘my son, my son.’ In the end, he’s marrying a woman he met at a downtown teahouse?”
“Don’t even get me started. I heard she doesn’t even have parents!”
“My goodness, why marry a woman with no family background or status?”
A chubby woman wearing heavy red lipstick looked around before gathering the surrounding people closer.
“She’s already carrying a baby in her belly—a shotgun marriage!”
Caw— Caw—
Amid the boisterous chorus of crows, while the women exchanged malicious gossip with ruined expressions, one woman listened with a serious look. She pulled up the black cardigan draped over her stretched-out maroon sweater, tilted her head, and looked up at the sky.
“Anyway, why are the crows crying like this? Is it going to rain?”
Just as the villagers’ whispering grew louder and noisier, the main door of an ancient traditional house—striking at first glance—swung open violently.
Matching the grandeur of the tiled roof with its sharp, upturned edges, the older woman stepping out of the house radiated a formidable presence in her stride.
Dressed in a finely tailored navy hanbok, her hair was tied down immaculately without a single stray strand.
“Thank you all for coming.”
After stepping up onto the wooden porch, Jeong-hye—who would one day become Mi-so’s grandmother—bowed her waist low with a minimum of courtesy, though her face remained stiff with obvious displeasure.
Caw— Caw—
At that moment, the returning flock of crows cried out again as if protesting against Jeong-hye.
“Damn it… how unlucky… tch.”
Looking up at the sky, she saw dark storm clouds gathering. Clicking her tongue and glaring upward, she looked even more disgruntled.
Then, Jeong-hye’s sharp gaze landed on a delicate face with fair skin, causing the young woman to flinch and lower her eyes.
Though she looked lovely in a pink jacket that suited her well, her slender shoulders trembled as if she were terrified of something.
Yet, her unusually fair and long hands—placed firmly over her stomach as if reassuring the child that everything was alright—remained steadfast without a single tremor.
Caw— Caw—
“Groom and bride, bow to each other—”
And so, the woman with the unusually white, delicate hands became a daughter-in-law of the Jeong family. Before half a year had even passed, her once-soft hands turned red and swollen, with skin peeling off in patches, by the time she held Mi-so in her arms.
“I told you never to come out of the room when guests are over!”
The nickel-silver bucket kicked by Jeong-hye rolled loudly into the middle of the yard, making a thunderous racket.
Because of that, baby Mi-so, who had been sound asleep strapped to her mother’s back, woke up startled and burst into tears.
Sitting by the faucet in the yard washing the bucket, the mother stood up with a distressed expression.
“Mother, I-I’m sorry… The baby kept crying, I think she was hungry…”
“Did I ask for anything grand from you? Just live like a dead mouse, as if you don’t even exist! What sin did I commit in my past life to be tormented like this!”
“Mother… sob.”
In the end, as her tears broke out again today, another thick, blue vein bulged on Jeong-hye’s temple.
Sensing the anxiety, Mi-so’s crying grew a notch louder.
“What did you two do so well to cry like a pair!”
Faced with their tears, what flowed from her cold eyes was sheer malice.
The person who grabbed the hand raised alongside her piercingly sharp voice was the father—the mother’s husband from his younger days and Jeong-hye’s son—who had been watching the scene from the wooden porch.
“Mother! Please, stop it already!”
The edge of the father’s voice trembled. Whether it was regret over a marriage born of a mistake, rage toward his mother, or perhaps love, it was impossible to tell.
“What? Are you taking her side now? How do you think I raised you! What humiliations did I endure to raise you!”
“That’s just it! Mother, you’re just taking your anger out on her for no reason! ‘Suffer just as much as I suffered’—that’s what this is! Right now!!”
“You… are you finished talking? If only you had brought home a decent daughter-in-law! If only you!! IF ONLY YOU!!!”
Jeong-hye’s screams echoed over the wall and through the edges of the village.
Holding onto Jeong-hye’s flailing arms as she thrashed in resentment, the father applied more strength to restrain and calm her down.
“PLEASE!! Watching this from the side is driving me crazy too!!!”
Amid the loud shouting and physical struggle between them, the mother tried to intervene with her swollen, blistered hands not knowing what to do, while Mi-so wept as if she were about to pass out—a heartbreaking scene unfolded for everyone.
The Jeong family’s shouting was nothing new, but the villagers gathered one by one in front of the wall and began whispering among themselves, unable to refrain from coming out to watch this time as well. It was right at that moment.
“Can’t you both stop this at once!”
Denying the passing of time to some extent despite the modern era, an elderly man in a neat gray hanbok, wearing a traditional horsehair hat over his tied topknot, raised his majestic voice as his snow-white beard trembled.
“Father…”
The atmosphere froze instantly. The father let go of Jeong-hye’s arms and looked at his father, Mi-so’s grandfather.
As if maintaining his dignity as the patriarch of the house, he glared silently with a fierce look; subdued, Jeong-hye flinched and quickly excused herself.
“You two, go inside immediately! Grown adults causing a disgrace in front of the whole neighborhood, what do you think you’re doing!”
The elder’s deep, raspy voice echoed across the yard.
Unable to resist the blowing wind, the piles of fallen autumn leaves collided with one another, making dry rustling sounds.
Looking at his father with eyes full of resentment, the father bowed his head as if striking an impenetrable wall and went inside the house.
“Father, I’m so sorry because of me…”
Soothing the continuously wailing Mi-so, the mother—who was the last to move—blushed with her still-youthful face and bowed her head toward the grandfather.
Beneath the grandfather’s lowered eyelids, the corners of his thick mouth drooped in disdain as he looked down at her.
“Here, take this.”
Something hidden inside the broad sleeve of the grandfather’s hanbok rustled and revealed itself.
“Father…”
What the mother received with her reddened eyes and swollen, blistered hands was a small comfort attached to a pair of crumpled red rubber gloves.
Caw— Caw—
“Oh dear—oh dear! Leaving like this, what am I supposed to do!”
That day, along with an unusually early heavy snowfall, Jeong-hye’s wailing lamentations covered the entire village.
“Father… sob…”
After finishing his bow to his father, who didn’t even smile in his funeral portrait, the father couldn’t bring himself to stand up and lay prostrate, weeping tears.
Watching him, Jeong-hye, the other family members, and the villagers gathered in the yard could only bow their heads and sob quietly.
To accommodate the crowds gathered at the house of mourning, the sliding doors of the living room connecting to the porch were kept wide open so people could view the memorial altar. Mi-so, who was now barely old enough to sit up on her own, sat side by side next to the open door with her mother.
Chime—
Sitting blankly beside her mother who was bowing her head in tears, a chiming wind chime sound reached Mi-so’s ears.
Lifting her head to look at the ceiling, she saw a small wind chime strung with sparkling, pebble-shaped transparent pendants, swaying aimlessly in the soft spring breeze.
“Mom, M-Mom.”
Mi-so babbled clumsily using her tiny mouth—uttering the only word she could say—and stood up, grabbing her mother’s hand to see the wind chime.
When the soft touch reached her hand, the mother finally turned around and met eyes with Mi-so, who had stood up and was smiling while pointing at the ceiling with one hand.
Mi-so’s smile (mi-so) had that kind of meaning.
Like the forsythia blossoms bursting open with the arrival of spring, it was a smile that made one look forward to an unseen future.
Slap—
“Is this funny to you?”
The heavy impact left her vision dazed for a moment. The mother barely managed to steady her staggering body, and when her blurred vision returned, she finally realized that Jeong-hye had slapped her across the cheek.
“You were just smirking at me, weren’t you! Crows were crying so unluckily on the day you married in, and now, in less than a year, you’ve gone and killed the elder of this house! Are you happy now!?”
“What do you mean by that, Mother… I was just, Mi-so was…”
“You can’t even bear a son, and with just one girl you’re always ‘Mi-so, Mi-so!’ Both of you, get out!! Get out of my house!!!”
Jeong-hye’s flushing face turned pale white, and soon her eyes rolled back as she collapsed.
Startled people rushed to support her and move her to the main house. While the mother stood there dazed and staring blankly, the father approached her.
“Honey… she wasn’t laughing, Mi-so… Mi-so stood up for the first time…”
“I know. Our Mi-so…”
The father scanned the baby from head to toe with a soft gaze.
His eyes caressed her fair, soft skin and her hair that swayed smoothly like a flowing river.
“She has a smile that makes anyone watching smile along with her.”
And so, the two forced smiles while desperately hiding their welling tears.
If they were together—no, as long as they could protect Mi-so.
However, their misfortune was far more relentless than they had anticipated.
“Our Mi-so had another bad dream.”
Starting from when Mi-so turned 5 years old, she began suffering from nightmares of unknown origin.
Her mother patted her small back while peeling away Mi-so’s hair, which was stuck to her forehead with sweat born of fear.
Whenever her mother’s rough skin touched her cheek, Mi-so was able to calm down quickly.
“Mi-so, look. Mom will flip your pillow and pray for the bad spirits to go away.”
Whenever her mother flipped the pillow, a truly peaceful feeling washed over her.
Yet perhaps what was even more terrifying wasn’t the nightmares tormenting her all night, but the reality waiting for her in the morning.
“Grandmother… I’m scared.”
Jeong-hye’s persecution grew harsher by the day. As the mother endured day after day without a break from tears until she had no more tears left to shed, the growing distance from the father—who found it unbearable to be stuck in the middle—became clearly felt.
And the mother eventually disappeared when Mi-so turned 6 years old.
The day her mother left, with her white dress fluttering as brightly white as her pale skin, was in April, when the peach blossoms in the yard were in full bloom.
“I’m not going back. Don’t come looking for me either, Grandmother. Never again.”
“Mi-so, your mother isn’t coming back.”
“I know.”
“So I’m telling you to stop doing something so foolish.”
As if frustrated by Mi-so’s nonchalant response, Jeong-hye raised her lower lip and spoke with a trembling chin.
“But because Mom liked superstitions just like you, Grandmother… she will definitely visit the Superstition Research Institute here.”
“That is…”
“You said you wouldn’t believe in things like superstitions anymore after losing your husband, daughter-in-law, and even your son because of them. But in the end, you’re doing this because of a shaman’s words claiming I will die too, aren’t you? I’m going to believe in superstitions as well.”
Mi-so tilted up her slender chin and the violet-like corners of her lips as she smiled and spoke.
“Mom will definitely come to find me.”
Mi-so’s smile had that kind of meaning.
It was a smile that left no choice but to look forward to an unknown future.
