The Ninth Call
The tranquil scent of aged paper and lamp oil filled Scholar Yi-han’s meticulously organized study, a solitary bastion against the biting Joseon night.
E.g. ：I found my husband’s secret apartment key, then walked in on him with MY best friend.
- 1、The Ninth Call
- 2、The Unbidden Guest
- 3、A Scholar’s Denial
- 4、The Shadow of Truth
- 5、The Ninth Transgression
He hunched over a heavy, leather-bound ledger, its pages brittle with the passage of centuries.
His fingers, stained faintly with ink, traced a particularly faded character, his brow furrowed in intense concentration.
For nearly a year, he had immersed himself in his family’s ancient archives, driven by an unyielding scholarly ambition.
He aspired to compile a definitive, academically rigorous history of the Yi clan, a legacy he was determined to restore to its former, esteemed intellectual glory.
More pressing, however, was his secondary, private objective: to systematically dismantle and debunk the tenacious, provincial superstitions that had stubbornly clung to his family’s sprawling ancestral lands for generations.
Whispers of a "guardian spirit," a powerful nine-tailed fox, and an "ancient pact" forged in blood and sacrifice, were, to Yi-han, nothing more than fanciful peasant tales.
He saw them as mere folklore, concocted by fearful villagers and misguided ancestors to deter trespassers or to justify peculiar land management.
He, a man of Enlightenment principles and rigorous logic, found such narratives to be tiresome, embarrassing distractions from genuine historical and agricultural inquiry.
His grand plan involved publishing a comprehensive treatise that would scientifically expose these myths, clearing the path for the long-overdue development of the old, underutilized family estate.
His eyes, weary but resolute, fell upon a particularly enigmatic passage penned in the shaky, familiar hand of his disgraced great-grandfather.
It spoke ominously of a “binding vow,” a “solemn duty,” and a chilling reference to “nine transgressions” that would invoke a terrible reckoning.
He scoffed softly, a dismissive sound that was barely audible in the quiet room, convinced it was merely metaphorical prose designed to instill a quaint, if ultimately baseless, caution in younger generations.
A sudden, almost imperceptible shift in the ambient lamplight caught his attention, pulling him from his intense study.
He slowly lifted his head, his gaze drawn to the finely crafted paper sliding door that separated his private study from the outer hanok hall.
There, on the translucent screen, a distinct shadow, far too sharp and defined for the soft glow of the oil lamp, flickered into stark existence.
It was undeniably the precise silhouette of a woman, slender and impossibly still, her form elongated and unnerving.
The Unbidden Guest
Yi-han’s carefully cultivated academic composure faltered instantly, replaced by a sudden, icy prickle of profound unease.
His mind, usually so quick to rationalization, struggled to process the unexpected vision.
He was utterly alone in the sprawling hanok residence, deep in the darkest hours of the night.
Who, in heaven’s name, could possibly be standing at his door, casting such an unnatural shadow?
Before he could even voice a single, bewildered question, the paper door slid open with a soft, deliberate whisper of wood against wood.
Framed perfectly in the doorway, bathed in the soft, golden light of the inner room, stood a woman whose presence immediately commanded every atom of the quiet space.
She was clad in a deep, rich crimson hanbok, its silk fabric shimmering with an almost liquid quality in the lamplight, perfectly draped over her elegant form.
Her long, jet-black hair cascaded like a waterfall over her shoulders, framing a face of such ethereal, timeless beauty that it seemed carved from myth itself.
Yet, it was her eyes, dark and impossibly knowing, that held his gaze captive.
They seemed to possess the accumulated wisdom and sorrow of countless centuries, fixed upon Yi-han with an unwavering intensity that stole his very breath.
A profound, chilling shiver raced down his spine, a primal wave of fear that his logic-bound mind could neither categorize nor dismiss.
“You called me,” she stated, her voice a low, melodious hum that resonated not just in the silent room, but deep within his very bones.
A Scholar’s Denial
Yi-han instinctively recoiled, pushing his wooden chair back a barely perceptible fraction of an inch, his heart now thudding an erratic rhythm against his ribs.
His mind, desperately clinging to rationality, raced furiously, sifting through every conceivable explanation.
Had a sleepy servant mistaken his quiet reading for a summons for tea or a late-night request?
Had a distressed villager, lost and afraid, somehow stumbled upon his secluded private residence?
No, he concluded, her bearing was far too deliberate, her composure too serene, her gaze too piercingly self-possessed for any mundane explanation.
He shook his head slowly, a forced air of scholarly skepticism returning to his voice, though his hands trembled imperceptibly beneath the table.
“I have called no one,” he asserted, his voice gaining a manufactured firmness that belied his inner turmoil.
“Madam, you must be gravely mistaken.”
A faint, almost imperceptible, knowing smile touched the woman’s full lips, a subtle, unsettling curve that sent another cold jolt of unease straight through him.
It was not a smile of amusement, nor of malice, but rather one of profound, ancient understanding, almost pity.
“You seek to unravel the very threads that bind your venerable lineage to this sacred land,” she observed softly, her dark eyes drifting pointedly towards the open ancestral ledger on his table.
“You seek, with your meticulous reason, to dismantle the ancient pact that has safeguarded and sustained your ancestors for countless generations.”
Yi-han felt a cold, suffocating dread begin to bloom rapidly in the pit of his chest, spreading like an insidious poison.
How, in the name of all that was rational, could she possibly know the precise nature of his private, deeply guarded studies?
No living soul outside of himself had even glimpsed these carefully sequestered family records.
His grand-grandfather's ominous words suddenly echoed with terrifying clarity in his mind.
The Shadow of Truth
He could only stare at her, utterly speechless, his carefully constructed academic fortress crumbling, brick by painstaking brick, around him.
“Who… who exactly are you?” he managed at last, his voice a barely audible whisper, raw with a dawning, terrible understanding.
