Honbul: Flame of the Soul

That day, Master Yeohye wore a modernized set of ramie traditional robes, her white hair pinned neatly up. Hands clasped behind her back, she wandered leisurely through Hwamun Market as she always did.

After slowly browsing the stalls, she eventually made her way to the enormous zelkova tree at the edge of the market.

That was her usual place.

Her favorite pastime was sitting beneath the pavilion in the shade, smoking cigarettes and playing janggi alone. Sometimes she would spend the entire day playing by herself, and eventually someone would wander over and naturally join the game. If she happened to like the person well enough, she would casually toss out a remark or two.

“Don’t go near water this summer.”

“Go visit your mother’s grave.”

“Watch out for cars for the next three months.”

Sometimes the other player would be one of the local residents.

“How pitiful. You died after finally having a child.”

“Your descendants are doing fine, so why linger around?”

“You’re starving because nobody even offered you food at the ancestral rites.”

And sometimes, the one sitting across from her was a passing ghost.

Every now and then, Master Yeohye also spread out a mat and opened a tiny stall. She sold wild greens gathered while praying in the mountains or vegetables grown in her own garden, setting baskets of them out for passersby.

“Excuse me, elder, how much are these jujubes?”

That day, she was selling jujubes picked from the tree behind her house. While smoking and absently studying the janggi board, Master Yeohye lifted her eyes toward the customer.

A young man with a backpack had stopped in front of the mat and was examining the piled-up fruit.

“Ten thousand won a bundle.”

She answered lazily, hugging one knee against her chest.

“Hmm. Ten thousand?”

Tilting his head, the young man smiled playfully.

“Isn’t that a little expensive?”

Master Yeohye, who had been staring down at the janggi board, slowly raised her gaze.

“Some of these are bruised, and a lot of them have worms. Can’t you cut me a little deal?”

The young man smiled warmly once their eyes met.

“...”

Master Yeohye stared at him for a moment before looking back down at the board.

“Then don’t buy them.”

Her blunt, indifferent answer made the young man laugh under his breath.

Seemingly unconcerned with him, the Master returned to her game. After a while, the young man crouched down until he was level with her.

“Elder, why are you playing janggi by yourself?”

Janggi was an old strategy game modeled after the war between Chu and Han. Two people alternated between offense and defense, moving pieces like cannons, chariots, and soldiers according to fixed rules in order to capture the opponent’s king.

A game built around war naturally required an opponent.

Yet Master Yeohye was playing alone, acting as both ally and enemy.

“When I play as Chu, I can’t see it. But when I play as Han, I can.”

The Master slipped a long, thin cigarette between her lips as she answered.

“What I couldn’t see from one side becomes ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) visible from the other. So my thoughts keep changing.”

Flick.

A flame bloomed at the cigarette tip.

“Sometimes I decide one side ought to win, but then I feel bad for the losing side and deliberately let them turn things around. Going back and forth like that, you lose track of time. It’s surprisingly entertaining.”

She leaned back and exhaled a slow stream of smoke with a quiet laugh.

“No matter which side wins, I’m still the winner in the end. But somehow, the heart always starts favoring one side over the other.”

Her eyes curved faintly.

“Human beings are creatures that inevitably lean somewhere.”

The young man quietly studied the janggi board.

“That’s true,” he murmured.

“So in the end, you’re fighting yourself.”

After squatting there silently for a while, he suddenly spoke again.

“Then how about this, elder?”

Master Yeohye, who had been gazing absently toward the distant mountains while smoking, turned to him. The moment their eyes met, the young man grinned and scrunched his nose mischievously.

“Why don’t you play a game with me? If I win, lower the price of the jujubes.”

It was a bold suggestion, but not an unpleasant one.

Master Yeohye slowly smiled.

Business had been slow all day, and she had been growing bored.

“Do you even know how to play?”

“I played a few times with my grandfather when I was little.”

So the game began.

The young man sat cross-legged across from her inside the pavilion. Master Yeohye gathered the scattered pieces and reset the board. She took the Han side, while the young man chose Chu.

“Pick one,” she said generously. “The cannon or the chariot.”

They were the strongest pieces in janggi. Offering to remove one was a handicap reserved for opponents with a large skill gap, like giving a beginner extra stones in go.

“Aah... that’d make things boring.”

The young man lifted a brow and shook his head.

“I’m fine.”

The match started.

A cool breeze drifted through the open pavilion, rustling the zelkova leaves overhead. Wooden pieces clicked crisply against the board as they moved back and forth.

The two played in silence.

At some point, Master Yeohye shifted posture. She lowered the leg she had been hugging and straightened her bent back, mirroring the young man’s cross-legged position.

“So what business does an official in ceremonial robes have with an old hag like me?”

She asked the question casually while looking down at the board.

“...”

Yoon Taehee’s hand paused halfway through moving a piece.

“I thought it was strange this morning. My body felt heavy, and the gods wouldn’t answer me.”

Clack.

A janggi piece struck the board.

“So why has a grim official who hunts spirits come all the way out here?”

“An official in ceremonial robes...” 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

Yoon Taehee smiled softly.

Just as he had investigated Master Yeohye, she had seen through his identity long ago.

Master Yeohye moved her piece over one of his with a dull knock, taking the first point.

Even after losing a piece, Yoon Taehee’s expression did not change.

“Master, you know a lot of influential people, don’t you?”

Without taking his eyes off the board, he spoke quietly.

“Could you introduce a few of them to me?”

“What exactly do you mean by that?”

Clack.

This time, Yoon Taehee captured one of her pieces, evening the exchange.

“Pass some of the chaff over to me.”

Shamans who served the gods lived bound by restrictions. If they defied the will of the gods or committed improper acts, the spirits they served could punish them or turn away from them entirely. Since they lived as servants of divine beings, they could never escape that influence.

A proper shaman therefore learned what they could and could not touch.

Master Yeohye was no exception.

As someone walking the path of a disciple, she firmly refused requests she had no right to accept.

“So why not hand the filthy jobs over to me instead?”

Unlike shamans, Naja served no gods.

Which meant they were far freer.

“It’s trash you were going to throw away anyway.”

Yoon Taehee smiled lazily.

“I’ll recycle it nicely for you.”

“And what exactly are you planning to do by collecting trash?”

Master Yeohye asked absentmindedly as she lit another cigarette.

“I’m trying to make a killing.”

“A killing? In what?”

Yoon Taehee grinned.

“Money.”

In truth, Yoon Taehee had little interest in money.

But before Master Yeohye, he deliberately played the role of a greedy miser obsessed with profit. He wanted her to see him as nothing more than a pathetic Naja secretly taking side jobs behind the Office’s back. Revealing Byeoksadan’s true purpose would have been idiotic.

“I’m good at sniffing out money. I’ve got talent for business.”

His fingers lightly rolled a janggi piece.

“If you pass those discarded requests to me, I’ll squeeze whatever cash I can out of them.”

Master Yeohye flicked ash from her cigarette, silently telling him to continue.

“I’ll make sure your cut is generous too,” Yoon Taehee added with a sly smile. “As much as you want.”

A faint smile tugged at Master Yeohye’s lips.

“When there’s a black serpent coiled in your belly, you can hardly call that living.”

The abrupt, seemingly unrelated remark made Yoon Taehee pause and lift his eyes.

“Listen.”

Smoke drifted from her lips.

“One thing I’ve learned in life...”

Her gaze settled squarely on him.

“The people truly blinded by money are never the ones running around saying they love money.”

Yoon Taehee met her eyes calmly.

“So?”

Master Yeohye studied him quietly.

“Is money really the reason?”