Chapter 17: The Girl of the Demonic Spear (1)
It was deep into the night, long past midnight and nearing two in the morning.
“Grrrgh……”
Blood continued to flow down the back of the Lustful Ghost.
The wound inflicted by Inhwang refused to heal because of the energy of the Black Spirit. Even for an evil ghost, recovering from such an injury was difficult.
After barely managing to escape from Inhwang, the Lustful Ghost had hidden inside a small, single-story building on the outskirts of the city.
It looked as though a terrible fire had struck the place long ago. Only the outer shell remained, making it closer to a ruin than a proper building.
At the entrance, a dirty and badly scorched signboard hung precariously.
It was covered in thick dust, but the faint words “Jaaewon” could still be seen on its surface.
“Keeeh… Captain Yoon… as expected… you were… here.”
At some point, the convenience store clerk had appeared in front of the Lustful Ghost, standing there with both hands and shoulders hanging loosely.
He was still holding the Chinese-style butcher knife that gave off a cold blue glow.
“Grrr… Vice Minister Kim… you bastard……”
The Lustful Ghost spoke to the Starving Ghost in a voice that sounded as though phlegm was boiling in his throat.
Suddenly, the Starving Ghost’s appearance from his previous life was faintly projected above the convenience store clerk’s head.
It was the face of a middle-aged man wearing black-rimmed glasses, with a goatee hanging from his chin.
Behind the thick glasses, his eyes were narrow like those of a snake, carrying a sinister gleam.
There was also a hole in his forehead that looked like a bullet wound.
—Captain Yoon, it’s difficult to talk while possessing human bodies. How about we communicate through our spirits instead?
As soon as the Starving Ghost finished speaking, the faint face of a man also appeared above the Lustful Ghost’s head.
He was a man in his thirties with a short crew cut and a sharply defined face.
Half of that face had been horribly distorted by burns.
—Vice Minister Kim, you filthy, greedy bastard! Even after dying and falling into hell, I was relieved that I didn’t have to see your face! And now you appear in front of me? You must really want to die by my hand!
Captain Yoon, the Lustful Ghost, shouted while glaring at Vice Minister Kim as if he wanted to kill him on the spot.
—Hehehe. Calm down, Captain Yoon. You and I are both already dead. Is there really any need to get so worked up over things from our past lives?
Vice Minister Kim mocked Captain Yoon with a grotesque smile.
—I also ran into the Inhwang Envoy today while escaping. On the way, I happened to see you hanging around some woman’s house. That woman… she looked like the reincarnation of Sister Cecilia. So? How is she? Is she doing well?
Captain Yoon said nothing.
He only glared at Vice Minister Kim with murderous eyes.
Their relationship truly was one born from a terrible fate.
During the Korean War, everyone had believed victory was already secured thanks to the help of the United States and the allied forces.
However, when North Korea joined hands with China and began advancing south again, government officials in Seoul hurriedly prepared to evacuate.
At the time, Captain Yoon was an officer in the Capital Defense Unit.
He had been assigned to escort the Vice Minister of Finance and his party during the evacuation.
That Vice Minister of Finance was none other than the current Starving Ghost, Vice Minister Kim.
The evacuation began smoothly.
But the moment they left Seoul, remnants of the North Korean forces still hiding in the south launched a sudden ambush.
Captain Yoon’s unit was completely wiped out before they could even properly fight back.
There were only two survivors.
Captain Yoon and Vice Minister Kim.
Both were injured and fled without knowing where they were going.
Eventually, they stumbled upon this place.
Jaaewon.
Inside Jaaewon were fifteen orphans who had lost their parents to the war, as well as a single nun who cared for them.
Believing they had finally reached safety, the two men lost consciousness.
The nun and the children carefully treated their wounds.
—She truly was a wonderful woman. And she was beautiful, too……
—Don’t speak about her with that filthy mouth of yours……
As Captain Yoon’s anger rose, the body of the Lustful Ghost reacted to his emotions and raised its sickle.
—What’s wrong, Captain Yoon? You were the one who forced yourself on Sister Cecilia, the woman you claimed to love. You couldn’t control your filthy and ugly desire, so you defiled a woman who was as pure as an angel, didn’t you?
—You bastard… you saw it?
—Of course I did. You took the orphans hostage and threatened her so she couldn’t resist, didn’t you? Captain Yoon, that wasn’t love. You were only satisfying your own desires. That’s exactly why you became a Lustful Ghost. Kkulkulkul.
Vice Minister Kim looked as though he might die from laughter.
Even the convenience store clerk’s body he possessed was clutching its stomach.
Once again, Captain Yoon gave no response.
Captain Yoon had fallen in love with the beautiful Sister Cecilia, who had cared for him while he was injured.
However, she was a member of the clergy.
She had responsibilities toward the orphans and refused to accept his feelings.
The more she rejected him, the stronger his obsession became.
Eventually, Captain Yoon became consumed by the desire to possess her.
He took the orphans hostage and forced himself on her.
—You know what’s even funnier? That woman always looked so pure, but even while you were forcing yourself on her, she seemed to enjoy it. Maybe she actually liked you. Perhaps that’s why she couldn’t reach the Peach Blossom Paradise and was instead reincarnated as a human. What do you think of my theory? Kkukkuk.
—You’re not even human.
—You and I are both evil ghosts. Should you really be saying something like that?
Captain Yoon’s eyes darkened.
—Then why did you lock us up and burn us to death?
One day, Vice Minister Kim had secretly stolen Captain Yoon’s gun.
With that stolen gun, he locked Captain Yoon, Sister Cecilia, and the orphans in the basement of Jaaewon.
Then he set the building on fire and burned them to death.
—Kkulkulkul. You still don’t know? I killed you because you deserved to die!
Vice Minister Kim suddenly shouted.
He had once been the Vice Minister of Finance.
Because of that position, he understood the movement of money extremely well.
He was also incredibly greedy.
He loved money so much that even if someone mentioned it while he was sleeping, he would probably wake up and start calculating profits.
During the chaos of the war, he secretly took government bonds that had been stored by the government and carried them with him during the evacuation.
The bonds might have been worthless scraps of paper during the war, but he believed that after the war ended, they would turn into an enormous fortune.
He filled an entire bag with them.
Even when the North Korean attack nearly killed him, he never let go of that bag.
Even after arriving at Jaaewon, he hid the bag in a secret corner where no one would find it.
But one day, the orphans discovered the bag while playing.
It was late January.
The weather was bitterly cold.
Because of the war, Jaaewon had no firewood for the stove.
The children were delighted when they found the papers in the bag.
They burned them to keep themselves warm.
When Vice Minister Kim discovered what they had done, he became furious.
To him, it was as though they had burned away his treasure.
