THWCS 26

Chapter 26

At Unjeong’s words, Isin averted his gaze.
That issue was precisely why he had been unable to move.
Still, he could guess it. Eight or nine times out of ten, Yeongwon would have the same kind of tattoo as well.

“Did you look into the curse?” Isin asked Unjeong.

“Do you think the elders of the Geom clan would know something we don’t? There are only a few rumors going around.”

“Tell me.”

“The Curse of the Dream Maze. This thing is truly vile. As you know, if a person has to die, it’s best to die cleanly. But this curse drains a person dry and kills them slowly.”

Unjeong flicked open the fan tucked at his waist and waved it, clicking his tongue in pity.

“Put yourself in their shoes. There’s no easier way to understand someone than that. Think back—ten years ago, that day.”

The gentle smile on Unjeong’s face, like a warm spring breeze, vanished in an instant, replaced by a solemn expression.
He looked like a completely different person.

“I dream of what we went through that day—every single day. Dreaming doesn’t change anything. Every day I stand in that moment again, despairing, suffering, writhing in pain. I know exactly what’s going to happen, yet I can’t stop it or avoid it. I just go through it again, exactly the same. It’s enough to drive you mad.”

As Unjeong continued, a bleak sorrow welled up in his eyes.
His voice sank heavy with the weight of his emotions.

“Do you want to experience it again? That day. If you don’t lift this Curse of the Dream Maze, you’ll be trapped in hell once more.”

“…Don’t you think I deserve it?”

“Isin.”

“I deserve whatever happens. A wraith like me—don’t I?”

The words were self-mocking, but the moment Isin spoke them, a savage killing intent flared so fiercely that even Unjeong, a ghost himself, felt a chill run through him.

“Isin, you’re already living in hell.”

As he spoke, Unjeong’s gaze flicked briefly to Isin’s left leg.
In two days, it would be the full moon.

Ten years ago, after Isin became the head of the Geom clan, a leg ailment began to plague him unfailingly every full moon.
It felt as if insects were gnawing at his bones, as if someone were smashing his leg with tools, or sometimes as if someone were slicing it thinly, like filleting fish, with a knife.

For that one night, Isin would lock himself in his room at Yeongyeong Hall and swallow the pain without making a sound.

Ten years.
Not a single full moon missed.

More than once, Unjeong had seen Isin leaning against the open door of the guest hall at dawn, after the attack had finally passed, and felt his eyes sting.
Isin would be drenched in cold sweat, even his outer robes soaked through, all his vitality spent from enduring the pain. The usual air of arrogance and pride was nowhere to be seen—only desolation remained.

At times, his leg would give out and he would stagger.

To Unjeong, seeing Isin like that was profoundly unfamiliar.

When Unjeong was still alive, he and Isin were from the same hometown. Unjeong, too, had been born and raised in Gamut Village and had watched Isin grow up until the day he left the village for good.

The Isin he knew had been strong and healthy from childhood, never prone to illness, cheerful and righteous. As a boy, he had caught the eye of a reclusive master living on Jiak Mountain and had been acknowledged as a once-in-a-generation martial prodigy, studying both civil and martial arts under him.

The Isin Unjeong remembered was the boy who, even after falling from a tree while gathering bird eggs and bleeding profusely, would laugh and say it would heal if you just spit on it.

But the calamity that struck Gamut Village ten years ago changed Isin—and it changed Unjeong as well.

“Aaaah! Father! Father…! Father, no! Father! Hngh…!”

Once again, beneath the roof came a sorrowful wail—both familiar and strange.

Unjeong pulled himself out of his memories and looked at Isin.

“I’ll take revenge… I’ll take revenge on them all! My father was innocent…! Aaaah! My head…!”

Another voice, so full of resentment it hurt just to hear, rose from below.

What could she have gone through, for such a gentle, well-mannered young woman to cry out in such a harrowing way?

“Unjeong, is that all you heard about the curse?”

“Huh?”

Unjeong, who had been momentarily distracted by the sounds below, straightened at Isin’s voice.

“There’s also this rumor. That tattoo—it’s close to the heart. A person’s essence begins there. So the curse was engraved there on purpose. To drain the victim to death.”

“…So the tattoo appeared because of the curse?”

“That’s what a hermit cultivating the Dao on Songjuk Peak of Mount Jeokbyeok said. The tattoo is in such a secret place that it isn’t widely known, but apparently, the Curse of the Dream Maze stops only when a wedding date is written into the marriage register, and the tattoo disappears completely once the wedding ceremony is held.”

The more Unjeong spoke, the worse Isin’s expression became.

So the damned tattoo that had suddenly appeared on his chest was a shackle.
A shackle that marked the day of his death.

“Mother… Mother…! What on earth happened? Hngh…! Why did it turn out like this? Ah…!”

There was a dull thud from below, as if something had slammed into the wall. It sounded like something had fallen beneath the bed during Yeongwon’s struggle.

“What did we do wrong… my head… the pole… Father! Hngh…!”

Head? A pole?

Perhaps exhausted from crying, Yeongwon’s voice grew noticeably weaker.

Isin narrowed his eyes.

He knew that Ha Sunyang had died, but he hadn’t known he’d been beheaded, his head hung on a pole.

How had that happened?

Isin wasn’t the type to take much interest in others, but his memories of Ha Sunyang were quite clear. He was learned, keenly aware of advances and retreats, and for a man walking the merchant’s path, painfully honest.

And such a man had been executed?

Someone who could have lived perfectly well even without Zhao Yuan’s pedantic rules?

Judging by Yeongwon’s dream, it hadn’t been an ordinary injustice either.

Isin had originally come to ask Yeongwon whether the jade-token-pattern tattoo had appeared on her as well, but instead, he had learned something he hadn’t wanted to know.

Lowering his gaze, Isin sensed Yeongwon still writhing in pain beneath the roof. She had stopped talking in her sleep and now cried silently, as if her heart were being torn apart.

—

My daughter’s name is Ha Yeongwon. If one day my child faces hardship and comes seeking you, head of the Geom clan, please protect her.

—

Ten years ago.

After becoming the head of the Geom clan and accomplishing what he had long desired, Isin immediately rushed to Hanseong and vaulted over the wall of Ha Sunyang’s residence, the chief agent of the Daesang Merchant Guild.

He burst into Sunyang’s study, where the man was working late into the night, and demanded that the engagement arrangement he had inherited along with the clan headship be annulled.

At first, Sunyang stared at him in shock, eyes wide. After a moment, he regained his calm.

Looking back now, Isin didn’t know what Sunyang had been thinking when he saw him.

The fifteen-year-old boy was dressed head to toe in pitch-black night clothes, holding a sword in one hand—a sword clearly stained with dried blood.

Whether he was frightened by the sight, or whether he simply understood that a forced match would never be sweet, Sunyang accepted after a brief silence.

In truth, Isin hadn’t expected Sunyang to give up the position of Geom clan’s fiancée so easily.

Nor had he expected him to ask Isin to protect his daughter.

—

Please marry me. I need to live.

—

Isin recalled Yeongwon, who just a few hours earlier had begged him to marry her, then lashed out in anger.

“…Damn it.”

Isin leapt down from the roof and stopped in front of the guest hall window.
After a brief hesitation, he raised his hand and cracked the window open, peering inside.

Beyond the dimly glowing lantern, he saw Yeongwon, drenched in cold sweat and writhing in pain.

“What are you doing? Since when did you have a hobby of peeking at sleeping women?”

“Shut up.”

Frowning, Isin closed the window again and spoke to Unjeong beside him.

“Send five ghost slaves to Hanseong. Find out what happened to the Ha family.”

Unjeong raised an eyebrow at Isin’s words.
It had been a full ten years since Isin had voluntarily shown interest in anyone.

“You…”

“What?”

As Unjeong’s lips twitched, itching to speak, Isin shot him a blade-sharp glare.