Notes.

Very quickly, I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading this story (I just saw the stats and I really wasn't expecting that number of views, even less the countries diversity !), thank you for your interest, thank you a thousand time. I know it's a very long, very slow, sometimes (often) boring story, and each view makes me want to cry of happiness. I hope you will like this new chapter, and I wish you a very happy reading !


CHAPTER L


"All the happiness in the world is in the unexpected."

(Jean d'Ormesson, french writer)


a. The biotic community's silence

After dinner, Mago joined him in his attempt to contact the dead, and they settled down on their respective yos after having eaten and put away their kitchen equipment, not without having cleaned it carefully beforehand. Mago had taken care of it : she had gone to the mountain river that flowed less than ten minutes away from the house, and rinsed their bowls and the cast iron pot with clear water.

Woon had offered to accompany her in case a patrol would show up, but she had said that she thought she could sow them in case of need (you know I'm used to it, now, she reminded him, referring to her previous encounters with the army, during her wandering on Joseon's territory, which she had told him about in details during their trip to China), and eventually neutralize them if they were few in number, relying on the skills she had acquired during her training and with Woon's lessons. He was more doubtful about her chances of victory, but he didn't insist, and urged her to hurry, as night was beginning to fall and darkness was about to engulf the surrounding forest.

The living claimed that the shadows were favorable to the Gwishin, but in fact they were just as confused as them at night, and while their vision was indeed better, it failed to mask the sound of their footsteps as they tried to escape the brigades, and barely compensated for the torches carried by the latter in order to make their way through the woods more safely. In the dark, everyone was reduced to the same point of confusion and scission where fears mingled with reason and suddenly became justifiable, legitimate, real.

Mago returned safe and sound less than half an hour later, with their bowls and pot scrupulously washed, their surfaces still studded with round, translucent drops of water, giving them an extraordinary appearance made of crystalline reflections. The enchantment ended, however, relatively abruptly when the girl began to wipe them impetuously with a cloth she carried in her cloth bag, which had gradually been informally designated, as they were making their way along the roads of Qing and accumulating outdoor lunches, to serve the important function of drying their utensils for later use.

In the summer, the heavy, rising and persistent heat, which made the evaporation stage considerably faster, had allowed them to regularly skip this ritual, but the passage to the cold season, freezing rain, frost, had made it essential to keep their equipment in good condition. Mago, after wiping them, put them away, being careful to place the bowls one inside the other, to save space. The embers of the fire she had lit earlier were still hot, and Woon could see their copper iridescence from inside the house, where he had retired after the meal to wait for his student.

Sitting on their two beds, facing each other, holding hands, they had plunged into the collective consciousness at the same time, hoping to increase their chances of making contact if they mixed their calls and searches. Initially reluctant, as she had expressed to their hosts in Sokcho, Ran Gyeong-Ja and Goh Dae-Seong, Mago had finally considered that an alliance of their two minds could be of interest at the end of their second week in China, after realizing that her individual attempts to communicate with their peers were most often unsuccessful.

She had suggested the idea to Woon one evening, as they were spending the night in a cramped room within the protective walls of a somewhat shabby but welcoming inn in northwestern Manchuria, where they had been served without the slightest indiscreet question, and whose address had been given to them by people they had met on the way, who knew the area well.

- Perhaps they will hear us better if we arrive together, Mago had considered, after having finished her meat platter with her usual fervor, in other words much too quickly not to appear comical. It was the case when I was merging my consciousness with the other gwishins in Joseon, we were told that we were making more noise.

Woon, who had never experimented the combination of minds, had complied with the girl's instructions, reversing the roles they had held until then as master and student, although the latter were limited to learning martial arts, and not necessarily to other areas. Despite the discipline her status imposed on her and which she diligently respected, Mago remained stubborn and independent, and liked nothing more than to decide freely whenever she had the opportunity.

She was delighted as soon as she could teach Woon on one subject or another, even when she had little to pass on, or more generally when he gave her complete confidence in the road to follow or the places to reach. In the context of the gathering of their consciences, she had shown herself to be almost as serious as Woon during his training sessions, and had taken the time to explain to him the procedure to follow while describing to him the possible impressions and sensations he could get from the connection. It's all about not stepping on each other's toes, she had affirmed, and it's absolutely necessary that you try to keep your thoughts on a leash, otherwise you risk seeing them scattered and I could have access to them too easily.

Their first sessions had been awkward, mainly because Woon wasn't used to it, and despite his attempts to compartmentalize his reflections every time he and Mago began to group their two minds, there had been certain, powerful, insurgent ones, which had escaped his vigilance and reached his student's perception. At first, after having informed him, she hadn't wanted to expose to him the thoughts she had discerned through the collective consciousness, but as Woon had expressed his will to be informed, she had, not without hesitation, revealed their nature.

Most of them concerned Dong Soo, from near or far, after his resurrection or before, during their youth or as an adult, and Woon had been more baffled by the lack of astonishment he had felt at this confirmation than by the confirmation itself. A few, too, focused on particular memories of Heuksa Chorong. The rest, finally, related to deep, secret anxieties that he had never mentioned, and which Mago, by the caress of her conscience, had been able to fully appreciate. He recognized, while appreciating it, that she had been particularly respectful in her descriptions, choosing to shorten them and to synthesize their contents as much as possible in order to make it less unpleasant for him, and the feeling of intrusion less pronounced. To alleviate the problem, she had decided to warn Woon whenever she felt thoughts that were not hers coming her way.

The association between two gwishins' consciousnesses required physical contact, the degree and type of which did not matter. It could be a touch of the shoulders like a cheek-to-cheek embrace, the only condition being that their dead, pale skins had to touch each other in some way. In sessions with other people, Mago had often stood in a circle with them, holding their hands, while their minds met and wandered together in the transcendence of the collective consciousness, just as a group of several individuals would walk down a street among other passers-by, and animate with their conversations the incomprehensible and abstract buzz of voices and opinions already reigning all around.

During their very first test, Mago had sat down next to him, seemed to be thinking intensely, and then decreed after a short prevarication that the simplest thing was for them to hold hands to ensure that their two consciences were connected. For a moment, Woon had felt an ancient, surly discomfort that had sprung from the depths of his naturally reserved temperament, little inclined to touch others spontaneously, even when the latter were known and friendly. At the training camps, in particular, it was his comrades who had initiated almost all contact with him, while he stood aside, letting them do so without encouraging them.

Paradoxically, Dong Soo had touched him very little compared to the other boys during the eight years they had spent in the mountains, no doubt because he had understood him better, grasped him better than their companions, or because he was more attentive, and yet he had been the only one whom Woon had sometimes desired the contact with passionate yearning, while persuading himself it was a whim, a passing fancy, a temporary weakness probably coming from the fact that Dong Soo was the only boy in the training camp, perhaps unconsciously, who was careful not to invade his personal space (adore me).

He had nevertheless put aside his apprehensions, which were still lingering, but whose presence couldn't help solving the difficulties he and Mago were encountering in establishing liaisons with the other gwishins, and had accepted the hand that the girl had extended to him at the beginning of their first session. Since then, the discomfort he had initially experienced had greatly diminished, and no longer did he feel any truly disturbing uneasiness when Mago's hand slipped into his own to group their two consciences.

In the house of his childhood, with his eyes closed, Woon let his mind take off with the ease of habit, and gradually integrate himself into the flow of sensations and thoughts of their peers, accompanied by Mago's own. He felt her, clinging to him in a way that could hardly be described, a little as if she had been on his back, arms tied around his neck, legs around his waist, close, contained by necessity, but moving with him, on the same rhythm.

It was as if they were advancing side by side on a path, sometimes brushing against each other, perceiving the presence of the other, and in the dark space of the consciousness, Mago's blurred contours gave him the sign that he was beginning to project his thoughts a little too strongly. He concentrated, did his best to lock them up, and followed Mago as she started transmitting her echoes, joining his calls to hers (need help need help need help need help are in Joseon need help to enter Hanyang).

In the early days, because of their still wavering control of the consciousness, they had sent more images and impressions to express their requests than complete sentences, but since their trip to China, their mastery having improved, they felt more comfortable with formulating verbal requests, and were able to send words or constructed ideas clearly through those of others.

They tried to establish communication for much of the night, sometimes pausing to rest for a moment, as the consciousness continued to greedily absorb the inexplicable energy that had allowed their bodies to rise and their minds to function again. They were on their third dive, and were beginning to lose hope in the face of a void of response, or worse, outright refusals (I can't help you we can't help you we'd love to but we're stuck every man for himself it's too dangerous now) and a tide of painful impressions, stronger than all the others, which discouraged them, and testified to the truthfulness of the statements made by both the living and the dead regarding the interrogations, the fire test, and more generally the torture of the Gwishins.

Mago had hypothesized that the silence of the consciousness was a direct consequence of the new tracking methods deployed by the government. Maybe they are forcing the Gwishins to find each other through the consciousness, she had postulated, maybe they are hunting us like this now, turning us against each other. Woon hadn't entirely agreed with her theory, but as they were confronted with the silence of the dead, or their pain, he leaned more and more in her favor.

During their third immersion, the girl, exasperated by the silence of the others, or their concealment, gathered her strength and concentration to catapult a cry of distress as far as she could into the consciousness, which Woon carried and reverberated as much as he was able to (HANYANG ENTRY HELP).

Emerging faintly from the dark depths of the common gwishins' mind, like a spiritual resurrection, a voice answered them.


b. Collision domain

The answer came from an old Gwishin who had strictly refused to give his name, claiming that the mental network of the dead had become less secure lately, and that he thought it best to remain anonymous until they met in person. He suggested to Mago and Yeo Woon to apply a similar procedure, and to reveal their identities only in case of absolute necessity.

When Mago had sought to know more and understand the reasons for his reserve, digging into the assumptions she had made about the hunt of the gwishins by the living via the collective consciousness, their interlocutor had seemed to disappear completely, and it was their combined, alarmed calls that had revealed his presence again. I won't say anything, he had stated, until we are in front of each other. Around his echo, the silence was absolute, and the distance from the others very clearly palpable, to the point that Mago had once again felt abandoned by those she had so loved to call her "people", and who now seemed to be unanimously turning a deaf ear to her pleas, at least on the territory of Joseon's kingdom.

In Qing, the responses had been more frequent and enthusiastic, carried by conditions of freedom and security that had never existed in their native land, with the exception perhaps of the first few weeks that had marked the very first wave of resurrection, although these had also been tinged with a colossal anguish that had been too opposed to the joy of the living in seeing their missing loved ones again to allow it to last forever.

The Gwishin had confirmed that he could help them to get inside Hanyang without them having to go through the fire test and interrogation. However, he hadn't specified what his solution consisted in, and had demanded that Mago and his master get geographically closer to his own position, whose coordinates he hadn't given in adequacy with the general precaution he had been showing since the beginning of their exchange.

The conversation had lasted less than ten minutes, partly because the old man had greatly shortened his answers, tending towards monosyllabism, which had reminded Mago of her dead companion's own tendencies. He had given them instructions on how to reach the city of Suwon, while pointing out that he didn't live there, but that the city was one of these landmarks like any other, visible enough to be involved in a meeting of this kind.

Unlike the capital, Suwon had no defensive device as high as the stone walls of Hanyang, although rumors from the royal palace sometimes mentioned a desire of King Jeongjo to give it more visibility, by moving there the court and the institutions of monarchical power. When Mago had wanted to give the man one of their distinctive signs so that he could locate them more easily, he immediately stopped her and ordered them to wait until the very last moment, indicating that he would contact them again once he would be near the city.

While checking their bags before leaving the hanok in which they had spent the night, and as the day was just starting to rise, leading Mago to conclude that myosi had barely begun, she had asked Yeo Woon about the solution that their new acquaintance was going to propose to them, and presented some ideas of her own.

- He's perhaps a painter, and he's going to draw us a sufficiently plausible burn mark on our hand so that the soldiers at the entrance of the city will believe that we have already passed the test and let us go through.

- I don't think so, her master had remarked while sealing Danggeum, who was chewing her fodder with an impassivity probably still drowsy. There are too many visible differences between the painting of a burn and a real scar for the soldiers to be confused.

- But if the painter is very gifted, Mago objected. You don't think it could work ?

They went past the fence surrounding the house, and started walking. Mago expected Yeo Woon to take one last look at the house of his childhood, but his dead eyes remained focused in front of him, and not once did he turn around to contemplate it. She knew nothing more about the place other than the minimal, all-encompassing information he had been willing to give her, and yet she would have liked to hear the story behind the rotting walls, the aged wood of the terrace, the faded furniture.

Probably not one of the cheerful kind, she couldn't help but think as she was watching her master stop at times in his movements to take a look around the house, as if he was looking out for the presence of someone else potentially threatening, given the hostility with which he glanced at the environment around him. The idea had imposed itself on Mago, and like most of those that came to her mind, she couldn't get away from it, and therefore let it take root in her, inventing a past for her master, scenes of life. She was nevertheless sorry to realize that her first conclusion resulted in imaginary paintings of a rare sadness, and in her affection for her companion, she almost hoped to be wrong.

Looking at their maps before leaving, they had calculated that there were just under fifteen miles between the uninhabited house and the town of Suwon. They had eaten a quick breakfast of barely reheated meat, then set off without Mago even taking the time to clean their equipment. You'll do it later, Yeo Woon had told her, it doesn't matter.

He was right indeed, but Mago had her habits, or rather her rituals, and was always a little distraught about having to abandon them in an emergency. As they made their way through the trees of the forest, she continued to propose axioms about the old gwishin and his method of getting through the Hanyang checkpoints. She hypothesized that he could also be a calligrapher, and write false identity documents to allow them to enter and thus validate their living status.

- And the fire test ? her master, who was walking behind her, reminded her.

She found both depressing and irritating the fact that his arguments were so strictly unassailable. When she pointed it out to him, he smiled, lowering his head to the earthy ground, and she even had the impression that he was holding back a laugh. Without being monumentally expansive, he was nevertheless more at ease with her than he had been since their first meeting in the clearing, and obviously allowed himself to react more spontaneously in her presence, in a less uptight manner, which helped to make him more accessible and agreeable.

They had to return to the road leading to the main gates of Hanyang, and cross it to continue to Suwon. It was Mago who asked to take a small, harmless break at the place where they had stopped the day before, bewildered and disturbed by the discovery of the status control barracks and by the multitude of soldiers guarding the access to the interior of the capital.

They emerged from the woods as a particularly shy and wintery sun was rising in the sky, and stopped at their previous position, although they moved a little closer to the main road where peasants were already crowding in to bring in their crops, artisans from outlying villages with their wares in small carts, women accompanied by their children, and herders with their livestock in small herds. It was already crowded, all the more so since the doors had just opened after closing at night. They both watched them from a distance, gigantic and forbidden, then Yeo Woon began to resume their journey, and pulled on the mare's bridle to cross the road and follow the direction of Suwon.

Halfway through their crossing, one of the bags they had tied to Danggeum's saddle suddenly spilled all its contents onto the ground, in a totally unexpected and hazardous, noisy manner. One of its straps had indeed broken without them noticing it, and a few hours later, Mago would wonder if there hadn't been some kind of external intervention, one of those signs of the existence of potentially superior and omnipotent entities, which had certain plans and projects that mortals couldn't avoid.

She believed in it only moderately, but had thought about it instinctively, as the events that this rupture had triggered had been unexpected and extraordinary. Following the crash, Yeo Woon had frozen, and looked behind, seeing the extent of the damage without looking exasperated, an expression that was most often inscribed on the faces of individuals confronted with these uncomfortable situations. Mago, who walked against the mare's side, immediately set about picking up their belongings as quickly as she could, while her master transposed certain objects between the remaining bags to make room.

As she was standing up, a little annoyed by this unexpected event that suddenly exposed them to the sight of everyone, and also vaguely embarrassed by this sudden pillorying which she would have gladly avoided, she had spotted, a few meters away from them, someone who was visibly looking at them with far too much attention not to appear indiscreet.

The silhouette was very close to the doors, and by slightly squinting her eyes, Mago distinguished a girl who must have been about her age (in terms of physical appearance), with a face with rounded cheeks and bright eyes, with black hair tied in a slightly awkward bun. She was watching them with an increasingly intense expression of surprise and panic, and Mago, finding the thing disturbing, reported it to her master.

- Someone is looking at us, she whispered to him as she approached to put away a bowl in an undamaged bag. The girl by the doors, with the bun and the blue tunic.

Yeo Woon glanced at her in turn. At the same time, the girl started to move, and suddenly ran in their direction without any valid or logical reason, at such a speed that Mago thought she would stumble and break one of her legs. Fearing that she had been identified as a Gwishin, she grabbed her companion's arm to force him to react and was about to jump on Danggeum's back, in case the kid alerted the soldiers posted in front of the gates. It did not happen, however.

The girl, reaching them, started waving her arms and exclaiming, "Hey ! Hey ! Please don't go, wait for me, don't go !". She looked so desperate, without having called for any military reinforcements, that Mago and her master exchanged a perplexed look, without moving, accepting her to join them, giving her the benefit of the doubt.

The girl finally interrupted her crazy run in front of them, panting, gasping like an ox, bending in half as a result of the effort she had just made. Neither Mago nor Yeo Woon said a word, preferring to wait and see what she wanted from them. Straightening up with pain, her face expressing great suffering related to her ride towards them, she laid wide open eyes on them, strangely full of hope.

- You... she articulated painfully, you are... you are Yeo Woon ?

She only looked at Mago's companion, but the girl had been too used to being ignored to be offended. The latter, if he was caught off guard by this question that came out of nowhere, didn't show it, and simply nodded his head to confirm his identity. The girl then sighed in triumph, bent over again, probably because she had a stitch, and pointed at both of them with an imperious index finger.

- Stay here ! she exclaimed. Don't go... just don't go ! Stay there. I'm coming back with...with a friend.

- What friend ? Mago immediately became suspicious.

- Baek...Baek Dong Soo, the girl dropped, and without giving Mago time to reply anything, she stormed off, at the same frenzied pace with which she had come to them.

Mago raised her head towards her companion, not knowing how to react, looking for advice from him.

However, she didn't make the slightest remark, because she saw then, inscribed on the features of his face, such an expression of astonishment and hope that she didn't dare to disturb him with her questions. She had never seen him show emotion so visibly, and she thought, as they stepped to the side and waited for the girl's return, of the name she had uttered, of certain reverberations that she had perceived in Yeo Woon's consciousness by accident, and of the (letter he had written before leaving Sokcho).

It's him, she concluded by looking at him, mute and frozen, inexplicably twisting his fingers in a way he had never done before, it's his friend, it's Baek Dong Soo.