SJ | Chapter 1.5

In a panic, Jihee grabbed the wooden pillow and swung it at the captain’s head. As he collapsed with a groan, Jihee quickly pulled down his rolled-up top. Blood flowed from the unconscious captain’s head.

“What, what do I do? Oh no. I think he’s dead.”

Jihee, who was crying and stomping his feet, thought he should report it to the police immediately but hesitated. The captain was more important on Gyoindo than the governor, and he had killed such a person. But there was no choice. The captain had tried to do something strange.

“What do I do?”

After crying for a while, the thought of escaping the island suddenly came to him. He realized that his grandmother had told him to leave the island, knowing something like this would happen. But he hadn’t understood and had returned to the island, becoming a murderer.

Jihee took out the backpack from the closet and slung it over his shoulder. As he hurried to escape, the captain, who had regained consciousness, grabbed the backpack. Falling hard on his backside, his whole body ached as if he had been beaten. He felt relieved that the captain was alive, but he was terrified that he was trying to harm him.

“How dare you swing a pillow at your husband!”

The captain’s large, hard hand slapped Jihee’s cheek. His vision turned white, stars burst, and a strange ringing filled his ears.

“Uncle, please save me. I’m scared, please save me.”

Jihee clasped his hands together and begged. He didn’t understand why the captain, who had taken good care of him since childhood, was doing this, but he felt betrayed by someone he trusted.

“Stay still. If you just have a kid, I’ll buy you a house and give you a boat.”

Telling him to have a child when he’s a man. He must be completely crazy. He wondered if the captain was drunk, but there was no alcohol smell in the dirty breath the captain exhaled close to his face. Jihee reached for the wooden pillow again, but before he could, the captain grabbed his wrist painfully, like a snake biting.

“Haa, haa. Jihee.”

“No, Uncle! Go away!”

Jihee turned his head to avoid the captain’s face trying to press his lips against his. The angry captain slapped Jihee’s cheek again. He almost lost consciousness, but suddenly the captain’s neck was sliced, and a flood of blood poured out, making Jihee scream at the top of his lungs.

“Aaaah!”

Jihee, horrified, pushed away the headless corpse and ran. The man who had saved him from drowning, looking fierce like a general guarding a goddess in a six-panel folding screen, stood there holding a sword. Was he really a goblin?

The man’s face, beautiful yet cruel, flicked the blood off the sword with a graceful swing. Despite his fair face, his lips, twisted in a sardonic smile, uttered incomprehensible words.

“A beastly guy. How can an uncle try to assault his nephew?”

He was a mainlander. That’s why he didn’t understand the term ‘Uncle,’ used for both men and women on Gyoindo. Jihee, covered in blood, trembled and looked up at the man with the sword.

The man clicked his tongue at ‘his thing,’ trembling like a mouse seeing a tiger. As soon as their eyes met, Jihee fainted.

“Take care of it.”

“Yes, Executive Director.”

The man turned and left the main room. The subordinates carried Jihee on their shoulders, doused the thatched house with kerosene, and set it on fire.

⛩ ⛩ ⛩

A week before Jang Taebeom went to Gyoindo to abduct Shin Jihee, Geumgang Construction Chairman Jang Taeshin, who was on his deathbed, gathered his children and grandchildren. Instead of dying peacefully, he suddenly said this:

“If anyone brings me a live mermaid, I’ll pass on my entire company to them.”

“…Mermaid? Father, what are you talking about?”

Taebeom’s father couldn’t bring himself to say ‘nonsense’ and asked again.

“A mermaid! Why are you pretending not to understand? It’s been 15 years since I ate one. The effects of mermaid meat diminish over time, so I plan to catch one alive, have it breed, and raise it.”

Taeshin smacked his lips as if recalling a delicious meal. Taebeom thought that old people should just die. But unlike Taebeom, Baek Yongho, the illegitimate child born to his father’s mistress, saw this as an opportunity and flashed his sly snake eyes.

Baek Yongho, who hadn’t even inherited the Jang surname, was a discarded piece who wouldn’t inherit anything from Geumgang Construction. But according to Chairman Jang, if he brought back a ‘mermaid,’ Geumgang Construction would be his.

Of course, no one present believed mermaids existed.

“Then, I will read Chairman Jang Taeshin’s will.”

Two inflexible lawyers took the old man’s words and wrote them into a document, then read the will in front of the family.

“This is the will of Geumgang Construction Chairman Jang Taeshin. Anyone who brings back a live mermaid will inherit Geumgang Construction. That’s all. Chairman, please sign.”

Taeshin, with his liver-spotted hand trembling, signed and stamped the will. The two lawyers also signed and stamped it as witnesses and sealed the will in an envelope. After the lawyers left, the family exited Chairman Jang’s room.

As soon as the door closed, Taebeom’s father cursed.

“The crazy old man is doing all sorts of nonsense because he doesn’t want to pass on the company. I should have killed him earlier.”

“Honey, there are many ears listening.”

“What can they do if they hear?”

His father didn’t treat the servants as people, so he snapped at his wife who tried to stop him and left. Taebeom didn’t care about the will, thinking it would be invalidated by a lawsuit claiming it was the ramblings of a senile old man.

But Baek Yongho, for whom Chairman Jang’s nonsense was the only lifeline, was different. The informant assigned to him reported strange words on the night the family heard the will.

-Executive Director, Baek Yongho did something strange at the main house.

“What? What did he do?”

-Well, I don’t know what kind of nonsense this is, but he hired young women, claiming to shoot a movie, and performed a séance. But the actress really got possessed by Chunhyang and said the last mermaid lives on the southernmost island of our country.

Ha, it was absurd. Were they all going crazy, talking about ghosts and mermaids? He wondered what Chunhyang was but ended the call, saying he understood. Then Taebeom dealt with a traitor brought to the logistics warehouse at Yeosu Port.

When his subordinates took the body in a drum to dispose of it on a yacht, he impulsively joined them, not believing the nonsense about mermaids. It was unlike him to act without reason. Once on the yacht, he came to his senses and felt uneasy, lighting a cigar.

While smoking on the deck, they unexpectedly encountered a party on a passenger ship. Their yacht veered further out to sea to avoid the ship. They didn’t know how far they had gone from the port, but a long time had passed, and nothing was visible around them.

Cheolmin told Sanggu, who was steering.

“We’ve come far enough. Stop the boat.”

Taebeom, momentarily removing the cigar from his lips, exhaled a long plume of gray smoke.

“Go a bit further.”

“Yes, Executive Director.”

Sanggu continued to steer, careful not to upset the uneasy Executive Director. But at some point, a thick fog, like a train heading to Mujin, spread out, obscuring everything. The surroundings were pitch black, hidden by the dense sea fog and the moonlight.

The yacht, which had been moving smoothly, suddenly hit something with a ‘thud.’ Unable to see, they had struck a reef. Taebeom, leaning on the deck, lost his balance and fell into the sea. As he plunged into the cold, dark sea, he thought he was going to die.

Though he was a good swimmer, it felt like someone was pulling his ankle, preventing him from reaching the surface. Having just drowned a person, he wondered if a vengeful ghost was trying to kill him, a foolish thought at the time.

He saw something beautiful swimming toward him. Even in the darkness, the figure appeared strikingly white, making him wonder if it was the mermaid the senile old man had been raving about. The being that saved him and brought him to shore performed CPR on him.

As its hips touched his pants, they slightly bulged. It should have smelled only of the salty sea, but its skin, wet and sticky, emitted a soft, sweet scent. He wanted to open his eyes and see what it looked like, but his eyelids felt as heavy as if they were weighed down.

Thinking he was dead, it pressed its lips to his and breathed life into him. Though a brief kiss, it was dizzyingly blissful and sweet. Overcoming his poor condition, he opened his eyes to see its appearance. It was a human with two legs.

Yet, it was so beautiful that he suddenly wanted to possess it. Despite looking like a drenched white mouse, its figure, revealed by wet clothes, seemed born to ride him with its soft curves and slender waist.

But he was slightly confused about whether this was lust or hunger. He didn’t have a cannibalistic tendency, but seeing it made a deep hunger rise within him.

Its forehead, visible through the parted, salty hair, looked like a mound of freshly cooked rice, its large eyes like sparkling grapes, and its peach-colored cheeks seemed ready to burst with juice if bitten. There was nothing about it that didn’t make his mouth water.

Taebeom, a realist who didn’t believe in unscientific things, quickly concluded that this craving was ‘lust.’

Perhaps there was another senile old man, as a grandmother appeared from nowhere, scolding the white mouse to throw him back into the sea. The white mouse placed him on a reef, threw stones to signal the yacht, and left.

Fully conscious, Taebeom licked the inside of his mouth where the white mouse had breathed, savoring even a hint of its sweetness. A burning sensation swept through his body as if his blood was boiling.

He had a crazy thought about how delicious it would be to chew it up, bones and all. He was surprised by the impulsive and dangerous desire within him, wanting the first person he encountered so badly.

Returning to Yeosu on the rescue boat, Taebeom cleaned his body soaked in seawater and changed into a suit. He planned to go to Gyoindo immediately to abduct his white mouse, but received a call from the informant assigned to Baek Yongho.

-Executive Director, the Chairman has taken action himself.

“What do you mean? Explain properly so I can understand.”

-Baek Yongho found out through a séance that the last mermaid is on Gyoindo, and he reported this to the Chairman. The Chairman decided to go see the mermaid himself.

“Ha, how many people are playing along with that crazy talk? Got it. Just keep an eye on it.”

Ending the call, Taebeom roughly ran his hand through his hair. Whether they went to the island or the U.S., a non-existent mermaid wouldn’t suddenly appear, so Baek Yongho wouldn’t get Geumgang Construction. He delayed his trip to Gyoindo to avoid encountering them by going at a different time.