About Two Years and Nine Months Later
High in the mountains near Jangto Limit, nestled between mist-cloaked ridges where Golpo Gaya met Samul Gaya, stood a small hermitage carved from stone and silence.
It was here, drawn by rumor more than reason, that Gami Jin and her family arrived.
The story they had heard was absurd—impossible, even. A mountain spirit, they said, had descended to Jangto Limit in the form of a young swordsman. While the spirit slept for a year, the pup he had raised slipped down the mountain and transformed into a wolf demon. She killed the sheriff's wife and nearly the sheriff himself. But then, with a blinding stroke of golden steel, the spirit reappeared and struck her down. It was said the blade he wielded gleamed like sunlight cast into gold.
At that, Gami had risen without hesitation.
"A golden sword," she whispered—and her family needed no further convincing.
When they reached Jangto, they found only fragments. No one agreed on the tale's details, but all of them—traders, farmers, soldiers—spoke of the same figure: the monk Suryun, who lived in the hermitage above the ridge.
So they went to him.
When they arrived and introduced themselves as family of Goi, Suryun's eyes softened. He welcomed them inside, and as tea steeped between them, he began to recount what had truly happened that night in the sheriff's quarters.
They listened quietly, though gasps escaped them now and then.
When he pointed to the very shrine they sat within, explaining that this was once the sacred ground where he had tried to summon his sister's soul, Sui Woo leaned forward in surprise.
"You performed the forbidden rite here? You suspected she was murdered?"
Suryun nodded gravely. "Yes. It was wrong of me… but I was certain. My only sister did not die by accident. Amitabha."
Sui continued, "And during the ritual, you were attacked by assassins…"
Suryun finished the sentence for him. "But Goi happened to be passing through. The ritual had failed, and my sister's soul was wandering. He saw her. He listened."
Zeali Woo shook his head slowly. "A two-hundred-year-old wolf monster… who fell in love with a human? That's hard to believe."
Suryun gave a faint smile. "They say wolves are creatures of unyielding devotion, don't they? In the end, she confessed everything before she died."
He sipped his tea, then went on.
"She was once a spirit of these mountains. But one day, she encountered a powerful being—a man-shaped thing, ancient and dark. He demanded that she serve him. She refused."
"Why?" Dui asked, bluntly.
Suryun chuckled. "She said… he was ugly."
Laughter broke the tension in the room.
"She fled. He followed. In time, he found her sheltering in an old outpost. So he cursed the ground and set it ablaze. Soldiers heard the cries, and that drew them near. In desperation, she took the form of a woman… and called for help."
Gami, quiet until then, said softly, "It was Jingon, wasn't it? The one who saved her."
"Yes," Suryun said. "My friend. I doubted him, at first… but he was only ever foolish, not cruel."
"Then… the demon's actions were out of love?" Sui asked, uncertain.
Suryun nodded once.
"But how can anyone do something so terrible, just because they love someone?" Dui asked, turning to Gami.
She reached over and stroked his hair. "My dear Dui… is love something that frightens you?"
He gave a small, reluctant nod.
Gami smiled, then patted his back gently. "What that demon felt wasn't love, not really. Wanting to possess someone… that's just greed. Not love."
Suryun closed his eyes, a heaviness lifting from his chest. "Amitabha… Princess, your words brought light to this fool's heart."
He bowed deeply. She returned the gesture with grace.
Then Dui piped up again. "So… how did you meet Goi, Sis-in-law?"
The question came so suddenly that Gami blinked. Her expression softened—unusually unguarded. Her mind had already returned to the moment.
"Five years ago," she murmured. "On my return from a trade mission with Korea, we were ambushed by Malgal soldiers. I thought I would die."
She raised her hand as if brushing against a distant face.
"But then he came. Goi."
Dui's eyes sparkled. "He really is the coolest."
Gami smiled—but there was something else in her gaze now. A flicker of fire beneath the memory.
"That day, I made up my mind. I'd have him. In this life and the next."
Suryun gave a quiet smile, then struck his wooden gong once, chanting gently.
"Amitabha…" he whispered, his prayer half for her, and half for the love she still held close.
A prayer that her heart, unlike the wolf's, might hold not possession, but loving.
After spending a gentle stretch of the afternoon sharing stories and laughter, Gami and her family finally began their descent down the mountain path. Their voices, once bright and clear, softened with distance, until only Dui's laughter lingered—like a bell's echo slipping into the trees.
Suryun stood at the threshold of the hermitage, watching the trail grow quiet.
Then, with slow steps, he returned inside.
He sat down at his small wooden table. There, placed with care atop a small tray, lay a wooden tablet bound with silk thread.
He picked it up.
It was a poem—from Gami. Written for Sarin.
To the gentle soul, small and bright—
a creature of grace.
Though fate dealt cruelly with you,
you lived with nothing but love,
and reverence.
Had I only met you once in life...
More luminous than any bodhisattva,
more radiant than the maidens of heaven,
was your heart.
May we meet someday—
if not here,
then in Amitabha's realm beyond.
As the final line faded into the silence, Suryun lowered the slip.
And then, without warning, he wept. Not with ceremony. Not in stillness.
But in great, heaving sobs that rose from somewhere long buried.
It had been years since he had cried this way.
"So this is how it is…"
"Worldly ties... they are not easily severed."
"Perhaps... they are not meant to be."
And from that day on, whenever the mountain winds brushed past the hermitage walls, Suryun would sometimes lift his head and smile, as if some invisible thread still hummed through the pines—
not of sorrow,
but of love remembered,
and never truly gone.