Chapter 029. Twins of Light and Darkness (4)
Cheongyeon fell through an endless stretch of darkness.
She gathered her inner energy and tried to leap upward again, but the force dragging her down was much stronger than the power lifting her up.
At this rate, she might plunge all the way into the deepest part of the underground.
Just as the thought crossed her mind, something like a huge net caught Cheongyeon's body.
The ropes swayed violently beneath her.
When Cheongyeon tried to push herself up, the sticky strands wrapped around her body. She tried to tear them away by force, only for both of her hands to stick to them as well.
Before she knew it, she was completely bound.
"Is this... a spiderweb?"
Cheongyeon realized that she had become a moth trapped in a spiderweb.
The more she struggled, the more the sticky strands wrapped themselves around her body.
The people trapped on the webs across from her were in the same situation.
Their painful groans echoed hollowly along the cave walls.
"I only needed the red flower..."
Their bodies were wrapped in white strands like hard cocoons, and little by little, they stopped speaking.
Seeing their consciousness gradually fading, Cheongyeon shouted.
"Hey! Can you hear me? Stay awake!"
But a moment later, Cheongyeon saw something that made her fall silent.
Her face turned pale.
A faint light entered through the opening in the rocky mountain where they had fallen.
As the light spread into the cave, the horrifying scene that had been hidden in the shadows finally came into view.
Spiderwebs stretched out in every direction with no visible end.
Only then did Cheongyeon realize that this entire rocky mountain was one enormous spider nest.
Countless people were caught in the webs around her.
Some were still breathing.
Others had already become stiff, dried corpses.
[They all lost their footing and fell into the cave. No one ever heard what happened to them afterward.]
Cheongyeon remembered what the old man had told her in the shadow of the rocky wall.
Perhaps because the web had shaken several times when Cheongyeon became trapped, the spiders sensed movement.
They slowly crawled toward them along the strands.
The spiders pierced the cocooned people with sharp stingers, paralyzing their entire bodies before sucking out their nutrients.
They also spun thread from the lower parts of their bodies, connecting empty spaces with even more webs.
A chill ran down Cheongyeon's spine.
There was no telling whose turn would be next.
Fortunately, another movement came from the opposite side of the web.
The spiders immediately turned around and disappeared back into the darkness.
A long silence followed.
Cheongyeon had no idea whether it was day or night, or how much time had passed.
Darkness and damp air surrounded her.
Ever since coming to Pasa, she had not been able to rest peacefully even for a single day.
She was exhausted and hungry.
"How am I supposed to get out of here?"
Cheongyeon sighed as she muttered to herself.
No useful way of escaping came to mind.
She focused on the blue light of her necklace, hoping to use her mystical arts, but nothing happened.
It seemed some kind of spell had been placed on the spiderweb, suppressing all of her abilities.
Cheongyeon gave a bitter smile.
She had walked straight into a trap and turned herself into food for spiders.
Jumping down the cliff of the rocky mountain had been reckless and careless, no matter how she looked at it.
Would she still be able to reach the Buddhist holy site, the final destination where she was supposed to meet Manu, in time?
No.
Before worrying about that, would she even make it out of here alive?
She could no longer predict what would happen next.
Maybe it really had been too much.
Maybe traveling to Pasa alone, determined to obtain the Hae family's seal, had been beyond her ability after all.
The face of Seongha came to mind.
He would be waiting for her at Beopsindang without knowing what had happened.
She missed the peaceful times when they had sat together in the courtyard behind the temple office, drinking tea and talking.
She even missed his graceful smile, gentle as moonlight...
"You don't even know who you are or what your true power is. Am I right?"
Cheongyeon looked down toward the cave floor when she suddenly heard the voice of a young child.
A boy stood between the tangled spiderwebs, staring up at her.
He looked to be around ten years old.
He had fair skin, a small and delicate nose and lips, and thick eyelashes that made his face unusually pretty.
Unlike the crimson clothes commonly worn by nobles of the Hae family, the boy wore dazzling golden clothes.
Cheongyeon asked,
"A young master of the Hae family?"
"Half right and half wrong. I suppose you could say that's my identity on the surface."
The boy's answer was vague and suspicious.
Come to think of it, the idea of a noble child wandering alone through such a terrifying cave without even a single servant was ridiculous.
Besides, after seeing countless dead souls on the Road of Ghosts last night, Cheongyeon was finding it difficult to clearly separate dreams from reality.
"You're not a ghost too, are you? If you're not, why would you appear in such a dangerous place?"
"My name is Nam Geumdo. I heard people saying that the Heavenly Maiden of Beopsindang had fallen into the rocky mountain cave, so I came here to meet you."
The boy named Nam Geumdo spoke casually, as though he had known Cheongyeon for a very long time.
Cheongyeon, on the other hand, was hanging helplessly in the air with her entire body tied in webbing.
The situation was uncomfortable and even somewhat humiliating.
She hoped the boy could at least tell her how to escape the cave.
"Then could you first help me get out of this annoying spiderweb? You don't seem unfamiliar with this place."
Nam Geumdo smiled softly.
"Unfortunately, you were caught in the Web of Karma because of your own karma. You'll have to free yourself."
He rejected Cheongyeon's request without the slightest hesitation.
His cheerful smile only made it more irritating.
Giving up on expecting help from him, Cheongyeon asked,
"Then why did you come to see me?"
Nam Geumdo looked straight at her.
"Because you're my one and only twin."
He smiled.
"The twins of light and darkness."
Cheongyeon had no idea what the child was talking about.
So she answered him in the gentle tone one might use to reason with a young child.
"Sorry, but today's the first time we've ever met."
"..."
"And just look at us. There's a big difference in our ages, and we don't look anything alike."
"The physical body is nothing more than an outer appearance given to us."
Nam Geumdo's manner was nothing like that of a normal child.
Realizing that something about him was unusual, Cheongyeon's expression became serious.
"Every existence is born with a counterpart. It's been that way since the world was first created. If there is heaven, there is earth. If there is good, there is evil."
Who was she?
Where had she come from?
Why did she exist?
Cheongyeon had always wondered about her own origins.
