Notes.

No so important new flash, but don't be surprised, I'll be using from now on the english speech marks. In french, we stick to the dash for dialogs and I never thought to change it for the english version, until now. If I'm writing in english, I think it will be best if I used the correct punctuation (and I'm honestly very sorry to not have done this earlier). I'm fixing all the chapters of the gwishins the same way !

CHAPTER LVI

" As the night time bleeds into the day
Tomorrow spills across the sky
And the sun's a harsh reminder why
We are feeling barely human"

(Bastille ft. Seeb, british artists, "Grip")

a. Déjà vu

Usually, the nights Seung-Min spent at the barracks were all the same, and followed a strict order of specific steps which included entering the room where his bed was located, removing his equipment, his uniform, sometimes going to wash his face if his bedtime had been preceded by a night patrol, putting on his night clothes (if he felt able to do so, as sometimes he was too exhausted to move even a muscle more, and collapsed on his bunk without further ado), unfold the mattress that had been assigned to him, then lie down on it and close his eyes on the reminiscences of the gwishins executed or captured a few hours before, on the phantasmagorical inferno of torches and bodies, on the cries, the (black) tears, and the increasingly exacerbated impression that something was wrong, without being able to clearly identify the origin of the problem or even define it clearly.

An impression wasn't initially made to be described in clear but limited terms, none of which could account for their thaumaturgic, subjective and impalpable dimension. As soon as adjectives tried to paint a sensation, to retrace its contours and prominences, that sensation would then lose its chimerical status and, by extension, all its power. Seung-Min, who had sometimes conversed with scholars during the banquets at the Spring House, when they were kind enough not to attach any importance to the allegedly restricted quality of his mind or to his rank, had heard one of them say that an impression could never be transcribed as it presented itself and rose into the misty depths of human judgment.

To seek to explain a sensation in detail is to risk losing it, or worse, to diminish it, he had declared in a peaceful and somewhat pompous tone, where all condescension was nonetheless excluded. He had then added, with a delicately melancholic air, that there were things that couldn't be explained, and that most of these things had to do with feelings and perceptions, the depth and complexity of which were necessarily inaccessible to language.

When he reached the gate of the Baek house, after having slept among the courtesans, in the company of the one who had served him frequently, but whose name he couldn't remember, and whose manners had reminded him too much of Min-Su to make him linger on her true identity, he reflected on the scholar's observation about perceptions, and found it to be entirely consistent with what he felt when he saw Lady Baek appearing at the same time, whom he had met a few times before at the barracks, when she came to visit her husband.

She was known to be active, and everything in her attitude, her gestures, betrayed a desire for movement, an impulse in one direction or another, a need for animation, a determination, however tempered and made infinitely more graceful by quiet and polite manners. Most people stopped at this last appreciation, and while many judged Captain Baek's wife to be naturally gentle and serene, not inclined to the outbursts of anger and nervousness that a number of soldiers blamed on their own wives while failing to acknowledge that they had some of their own, Seung-Min and several of his colleagues belonging to the anti-Gwishin brigade led by Baek Dong Soo had noticed behavior and reactions from his wife that strongly opposed the idea that she was as quiet as the surface of the water lily pond that constituted the gardens of the Spring House.

Underneath it, the carp were moving vivaciously, the stems of the plants were agitated, and it was certainly the same for Lady Baek. When she would come to the barracks, usually bringing food or news to her husband, she would take the opportunity to address a kind word to them, to ask how they were doing, and while she was said to be disliked by the companions of the bureaucrats, she had gained a tender popularity with the military who worked with her husband.

She greeted him kindly, with an elegant, languid nod, and brought him in, politely asking him if he had been able to enjoy his leave. She had the advantage of a former gisaeng not to be shocked or irritated when a man confessed to her that he had been with her sisters, and her past profession had given her an air of sustained attention and almost latent seduction that languorously modulated the features of her face every time she listened to someone else's story or account.

She was less beautiful than the courtesan with whom Seung-Min had spent the night, but she was nevertheless reputed to be one of the prettiest military wives, and the seriousness that an experience of a different kind from that of other traditional gisaengs, and of a longer duration, gave her a more subtle and streamlined charm to her ways. She led him to the doors of the large central hanok.

He had already seen the Baek home, and had even spent an evening there, during which Captain Baek had invited his soldiers to come and relax after a particularly arduous excursion, where they had been confronted with a group of gwishin children, the oldest of whom couldn't have been more than fifteen years old. Because of their inability to grow, the government had decided that it would be better to eliminate the younger dead rather than bring them into the Gwishin army.

The older dead were kept for menial tasks. Women, who weren't accepted as soldiers, were most often executed when they lacked valuable knowledge or skills such as medicine or herbology. Although all soldiers complied with the rule, Seung-Min recalled reading a genuine distress in the eyes of his colleagues that evening, a thousand questions and awful doubts that his own eyes had reflected back (they're like us children they're children dead children but children).

On the table of the maru, the large central summer room, the couple's son was practicing his painting on large white sheets while on the other side of the table stood a girl of his age and a very dignified looking old man, dressed in a beautiful dark purple hanbok, who was showing the girl a specific line on the page of a book she was reading. The girl's eyes were wrinkled by concentration and reflection, and with her hands clasped together and her elbows resting on the table, she didn't say a word.

Although he had never met her, Seung-Min had already seen the Baek heir during the evening he had spent with the other soldiers at their home, and the child had seemed very shy and a little strange to him, because he had said absolutely nothing to anyone, hadn't shown any interest in weapons or in the functions of the soldiers, unlike many boys his age.

He also had a disturbing stillness in his eyes, which had made him feel uncomfortable and relieved when the boy had returned to his room. Seeing him sitting quietly and working, and having bowed slightly to the old man without disturbing more than that the lesson he was presumably giving, his mother came immediately to take a look at his work, and gently mocked him when she noticed that his fingertips were stained with black ink.

"My husband must certainly be in his study," she remarked. "Wait here for a moment, I'll see."

She walked away, removing her ayam and fur-lined coat as she passed, the fabric of her chima gently brushing the bright wooden floor. Night was already falling, mercilessly in these winter times, and Seung-Min had put on the regulation uniform stuffed with a cotton padding that kept the soldiers from freezing during night patrols.

Under his hat, his cap protected his ears, but he felt them burning with cold, which was quite a paradox and regularly led his thoughts astray trying to extract the logic from it. He stood silently, distractedly watching the children who were lucky enough to engage in intellectual rather than manual labor. He remembered that, as a younger child, he had hated to be kept in such a position, and had expressed a preference for outdoor activities, where he was free to frolic as he pleased.

Lady Baek returned from her husband's study, along with the latter, who waved his hand with a quick smile to greet Seung-Min and was answered in the same way. Behind them, still in the hallway leading to the other rooms of the house, he saw two foreign figures (so they are receiving), who seemed hesitant to go any further.

As Baek Dong Soo turned his head and realized it as he walked to one of the cabinets to retrieve his jeonrip, he addressed them in a relaxed tone :

"It's nothing. It's just Seung-Min."

"Thank you, Captain," he replied in a deliberately caustic tone, and to convince the others of his innocence. "Always happy to know that I'm 'nothing'."

The first silhouette emerged from the door frame, and it was a young girl who must have been the same age as Baek's son and his little workmate. Unlike the latter, however, she didn't wear a skirt, but pants tightened at the ankles, of gray color, and a jacket also adjusted at the sleeves. Seung-Min bowed his head to greet her and saw her imitating his gesture, but he found her however distrustful, almost hostile eyes.

He could have overlooked the second individual equally, and simply noted that he had the same distant gaze, had he not recognized in his features, in his hollow cheeks, in his long black and curly hair, in the pallor of his face, all the attributes of the man he had once met at the Spring House, as he was strolling through the gardens with Min-Su (you were taught wrong then).

The latter had told him, at the time, that he didn't know Captain Baek, and Seung-Min didn't manage to hide his stupefaction when he saw him in his house, even though nothing at first would have led him to believe so. From the expression on the man's face, he realized that he had been identified as well, and the man nodded his head to greet him.

"Seung-Min is one of my brigade men," Baek Dong Soo said out loud, tying the ribbons of his ceremonial hat, under which he also wore a cap sewn with fur. "And one of my former students. He's quite good. Do you want something to drink or eat before we leave, Seung-Min?"

"Don't trouble yourself for me," he protested, tearing himself away from questions about the presence of the man from the Spring House at the Baek residence, his identity, and his ties to the family.

"As you want. You wanted to talk to me about something in private, I believe?"

He came closer while making this remark, and opened the doors of the room so that he could put on his shoes. The two kids at the table hadn't interrupted their activity, and Lady Baek was chatting quietly with her guests, including the man, who had crossed his arms in front of his chest and was slowly nodding his head.

"Yes," he confessed. "It's about the gwageo examination."

"Ah ! So you've considered the idea of becoming a brigade chief yourself, then?"

They had discussed the issue during their previous patrol, the end of which had marked the beginning of their leave. Although the conversation had been general and involved all the soldiers and their captain, Seung-Min had been careful to retain information from him regarding the requirements for promotion to a higher rank, and eventually yangban status.

However, he had been embarrassed to ask their leader for more details in front of the rest of his comrades, not all of whom had the opportunity to take the examinations, and from whom he feared possible disapproval or judgment. He had asked Baek Dong Soo for a more private discussion without telling him what the specific subject would be, to which Baek Dong Soo had replied that they would be able to speak more freely on their way to the barracks together during their next round.

They had agreed on the date and time, and Seung-Min confirmed his interest in the opportunity to his captain, who gave him a radiant smile.

"I'll explain everything to you," he promised, tapping him on the shoulder. "There will be plenty of time to get to the barracks, and if we run out of it, you can always come back here."

"Yes, captain."

"I'm going," he said to those who were inside the hanok. "I'll see you all tomorrow."

Seung-Min watched his eyes linger for a moment on the man from the Spring House, and as he dragged him outside, he took the opportunity to try to learn more, driven by curiosity and astonishment.

"Captain?"

"What?"

"The man you were receiving," he said cautiously. "The one with the long black hair. Do you know him well?"

"An old friend of mine," he answered, with a dry brevity. "He came to visit me with his student. Why?"

"No, I...," Seung-Min hesitated, then decided that the revelation had nothing dangerous about it. "I ran into him once. A few years ago, at the Spring House. I was just wondering."

"Really?"

The house was shrinking behind them, keeping its inhabitants warm in its belly, and Baek Dong Soo's gaze had suddenly become piercing, insistent, similar to that of his son, while his tone had taken a harder, but also more unfriendly inflection. Seung-Min remembered the coat, the snow, and the (scar he had a scar).

He just nodded his head, and in spite of the persistence of his internal questions, of a lugubrious impression that he had felt the first time he had seen him, pale in the light of the winter day, and which came back to him, caressed him like the skirt of a gisaeng, he didn't say anything any more thereafter on that topic.

b. Hestia's hearth

Yun-Seo spent the whole hour after her husband's departure and prior to dinner sitting next to her son, sorting her papers and writing her letters, while he was covering the sheets of paper that Dong Soo frequently brought back from a small store in town, a few meters away from the barracks, and by which he often made a short for Yoo-Jin's artistic needs.

Opposite them, young Iseul had finished with the sciences and her second lesson, which was to last as long as the first, involved learning the national musical repertoire, how it worked and the instruments it was composed of, whether it was aristocratic music or more simply the accompaniment of rituals or folk dances. Iseul's teacher was a colleague of one of Yoo-Jin's professors, through whom Yun-Seo had been able to obtain his name, and he had extensive knowledge in the fields of music, national literature, ancient and occult philosophies, and natural sciences. He was also relatively well versed in economic and naval matters, although he had pointed out to her one day, after Iseul's teaching, that the two disciplines were not part of his greatest passions.

He was a demanding man, but once he took off his teacher's coat, he knew how to show kindness and understanding. Yangban since his earliest youth, and it was no small thing to say, as he was soon to celebrate his sixty-seventh birthday, his education in a cloistered environment hadn't prevented him from detaching himself from the preconceived ideas of his own class to appreciate instructing the children of the most deprived.

"They are more difficult, and less disciplined than the offspring of noble families," he had observed one evening as they were drinking, all seated at the table, Iseul with them before returning to her parents' home. "But there is, in my opinion, much merit in managing to arouse their curiosity, their interest in one subject or another, and to push them to develop this natural desire to learn in order to lead them towards study and seriousness."

Sometimes, when he met one of Yoo-Jin's tutors, he would stay a little while to chat with them, and Yun-Seo or Dong Soo, when they could, both liked to join in their discussions over a snack, as they often received valuable information about how the government and its recent positions were perceived in the literate world, and how its excesses were so far from being acceptable to everyone.

My father came back from the dead, the teacher had confided, and his voice had been softer, more distant, like that of a very young boy, during the second resurrection. Although it was known already at that time that the gwishin were flesh eaters, and the fear of their appearance and eating habits was widespread, the ardor of these two dispositions was nevertheless put to the test the moment the door of a living opened on a family member or a close relative who had disappeared.

Yun-Seo had seen two scenarios over the years and the stories she had heard. In the first case, without saying that all animosity towards the dead vanished, it was drowned for those confronted with a return under a wave of relief and exultation whose force often cancelled out any other feeling, and pushed them to welcome their missing relatives or friends into their homes, and to keep them safe, as far as possible, unless a catastrophe linked to the fearsome appetite of the resurrected occurred.

Iseul's professor had been one of those, and had accommodated his father for more than a year, feeding him so well, and with meat, that he hadn't had the slightest danger to deplore until the arrival of the soldiers, probably warned by a frightened servant. On the other side of the continuum, the sight of formerly beloved gwishins was so shocking and frightening to the living that they either succumbed to violence or became mired in madness, unable to understand the how and why, unable to accept reality, and to continue to live with it.

On the sheet unfolded in front of her son, and although she was focused on her mail, she saw the familiar black lines, shapes, ideas. Yoo-Jin's favorite subject of study was animals, especially fantastic creatures such as dragons or phoenixes, and Yun-Seo had seen him several times posted in front of one of their screens or one of their tapestries, his eyes religiously dissecting the images of felines, birds, fish, that more experienced artists had painted on these surfaces, in order to be able to later reproduce them himself.

His line certainly still lacked a little of this distinction peculiar to the regular users of the brush, but he had made remarkable progress since his first sketches, initiated at the age of eight under the impulse of a glimpse of his father, himself leaning on his work table, then sketching the outlines of the bodies of two fighters on a booklet he had been filling out since long before his marriage to Yun-Seo, and which consisted almost entirely of drawings of confrontations and duels, with more care given to the representation of the weapons used and postures than to the faces and the environment surrounding the adversaries.

When she had married him, she was far from imagining the existence of such a taste for drawing in him, but she suspected that his early penchant for drink and his military status, which had long been the only emblems of her husband when she was still a gisaeng, had probably misled her in her judgment, leading her to believe that he was interested in nothing else in particular.

However, as the months had gone by after their union, and as she had become more intimate with him, she had often seen him like this, isolated at a table, his booklet open on a blank page, a very fine brush in hand, materializing silhouettes, arms outstretched, swords raised, about to meet. He let her see and even asked her opinion on certain works, accepting her suggestions for improvement when she made them, and smiling at the compliments she addressed to him.

Although without any biological link, he and Yoo-Jin shared this affection for drawing, for pictorial composition, which was almost a form of language between them. Yoo-Jin was a child of few words, but he could spend long hours close to Dong Soo, either patiently and scrupulously watching the way he did his work, or representing something on paper himself, and when they were like this, both their backs would lean forward in one movement, gently rounded, and Yun-Seo would feel the urge to put a hand on each of them, and in turn enter into the delightful picture they formed.

Both of them also dedicated illustrations to each other, with obvious pleasure, most of them silent. It was quite likely that one of the works his son was preparing tonight would join the pile reserved for his adoptive father. Iseul had had a few, too, mostly after his lessons with the Baek family, during which Yoo-Jin immersed himself in his paintings with a dedication that had been praised by both his tutors and his little companion.

After Iseul's second class, followed by her and her teacher's departure, the cook, who had returned for dinner, brought the food while Yeo Woon and his young student returned from Dong Soo's room, where they had retired to let the children work in peace. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that Bo-Young was welcoming the renewal of their presence with some puzzlement, but she made no comment and her gaze didn't linger on the guests, unlike that of the young soldier, Seung-Min, who had come to pick up her husband to go to the barracks.

She had clearly seen the insistence with which he had observed Yeo Woon and had been concerned about it, as she had not been able to determine whether his attitude had been motivated by the simple surprise of seeing a stranger in his superior's house, or by more obscure reasons. Once the cook returned home, and having told the girl, visibly puzzled by her comings and goings, that they could not yet afford permanent help at home, she turned to Yeo Woon.

"Forgive my indiscretion, but I couldn't help but notice that the soldier who came to visit us earlier was looking at you with great attention. I'm asking you this question only to soothe my mind, but could he possibly be one of your acquaintances?"

At these words, she noted that Mago was pricking up her ears, and Yun-Seo wondered what the young girl knew about her master, what she had learned from him, and how far her knowledge of this subject went. From her visit to the Spring House, she had learned that Yeo Woon wasn't comfortable with confessions and conversations in general, but his student had obviously spent some time with him, and it was possible that she knew as much about him as Yun-Seo knew about Dong Soo.

"I met him by chance during one of my first outings outside the Spring House," he confirmed to her in a voice that revealed no alterations likely to have implied a more complex truth. "He was showing a key to one of your sisters, and I advised him to do things differently."

"I see, as with your student."

The latter openly expressed her disagreement.

"He doesn't give me advice. He gives me orders, it's not the same thing."

Yun-Seo was amused by her alertness and the exaggerated affliction brought on by her observation, before Yeo Woon, ignoring Mago, added :

"He was the one who told me about Dong Soo."

The dinner ended with patbingsu cups, which Yoo-Jin was very fond of, and Yun-Seo had prepared green tea herself to accompany the dessert and warm their palates. During the first clandestine meetings of members of the Hanyang network of Yeogogoedam that she and her husband had attended, they had heard theories, reported by several of them who had hidden gwishins on a regular basis, that hot water was one of the means by which they could regain some warmth.

Later on, during the passage of some of the dead among them, brought discreetly by their protectors in order to give them the benefit of information and friendly addresses, the principal concerned had confirmed the phenomenon, pledging that they had been able to experience a sensation of heat by taking a hot bath, or by bathing in hot springs. They feared fire and it was the only thing that really contributed to their destruction, but hot water did nothing to them. These assumptions were reinforced in the summer of 1780.

A second wave of Dead Winter had occurred, hitting the gwishins captured and imprisoned by the army, as well as those taken in by the living and preserved by them. It had been surprising, but not so unexpected given that the living were already accustomed to resurrections, and the automatic association they had made between frequent rebirths and any phenomenon more or less related to them.

This time, better prepared than in the first episode, the focus had been on preserving the captive or protected dead, and many members of the network had asserted in meetings that, while human heat was undoubtedly the most effective option, hot baths could play the role of an alternative in cases where they were forced to go away, providing the gwishins with enough heat to keep them active and conscious, as long as the water temperature was kept at a constant level.

She wondered, while observing them, how Yeo Woon and his student had experienced the second Dead Winter. She suspected that they wouldn't have been in front of her if they hadn't been able to find a solution to solve the problem, but she was curious to know what method they had used, as she remembered the first wave and the repeated absences of her husband, then devoted to bring his warmth to the dead of the Spring House.

Enjoying a comfortable silence, only broken by the greedy spoonfuls of her son and Mago, who was devouring the dessert as fervently as he was, she spoke up.

"Within a week and a half, we are organizing a meeting with the other members of the Yeogogoedam who live in Hanyang. Would you like to attend ? We receive Gwishins very frequently, and this will most likely be an opportunity for you to meet others. It won't necessarily be very long, or even very far, since it has to take place only four blocks from here."

Yeo Woon's student was enthusiastic about the prospect, her lips smeared with red beans, and Yeo Woon showed no explicit disagreement, which Yun-Seo interpreted as approval.

They stayed together for a few more moments, during which she inquired about their journey to the Qing and what they had seen there, but without going into details for fear of being indiscreet, and then they finally parted at the second hour of haesi, each returning to her quarters, the two gwishins to Dong Soo's room, Yoo-Jin to his, and she to her own quarters, after kissing her son and wishing her guests a good night.

She had a dream that night, one that had been coming back quite often over the past four years, of a huge bathtub from which steam was escaping, and which contained a flaming, scarlet blood with a surface as smooth as that of a jewel. Her husband and Yeo Woon bathed in it, their naked bodies immersed up to the waist, their skin dripping from crimson rivers, tenderly embraced, cheek against cheek, and when they found her, or rather spotted her, like a little field mouse hiding in its burrow, they always looked at her with a dark, too black, evil eye, with a frightening serenity.