Hi,

A week from this new year is already gone. Could you believe it? I hope you achieved everything you wanted in 2021. Good luck in 2022.

"What may a dead man be busy with?" Aera asked exhausted after waiting for longer she'd expected to.

"Paperwork and…maybe…he has a passion for something. She, for instance, liked to eat." Chan-sung said calmly.

"She liked to eat. How? Wasn't she…?"

"Dead? Not exactly. She was somewhere in between. She could eat and be seen by people. She would…not get old or die and she couldn't run away from that place. The hotel would follow her everywhere." Chan-sung explained to her.

"It sounds…nice, I guess. Being young and immortal." She muttered.

"I think it's horrible…to watch everyone you love die and you be left alone." Aera didn't answer his remark. What could she have said to him?

Mr. Lee finally arrived, putting an end to their conversation. He was a very charming man and he was aware of the effect he had on other people. A confident smile danced on his red lips as he approached the two visitors.

"Welcome, my lady." He uttered in a soft voice while he took her fine hand in his and elegantly leaned over it while his deep dark eyes never left hers. If she hadn't been dead she was sure her heart would have gone crazy. Ticking like a damaged old clock. She sensed his strong masculine perfume, a mixture of herbs that awaken each of her senses. And his kiss on her hand. She felt her knees trembling and kind of panicked.

"Hello, Mr. Lee. It's nice to finally meet you!" Chun-sung started. He had a bad feeling about him. The two men measured each other, both dressed in dark suits. Chun-sung had changed a lot since Man-wol had left. He wasn't the young innocent man anymore. A part of him still preserved a bit of the childish sweetness that had made Man-wol fall in love with him, but another part had matured, got stronger and wiser even a bit cunning.

"And you are…" Mr. Lee addressed him, visibly disturbed by his interference.

"Someone who cares for her." He challenged Mr. Lee. "It's fake. You feel nothing for her." Mr. Lee smiled at his remark.

"There's no need to be jealous…" He kept his charming smile on his face.

"I'm Chan-sung. I worked as a manager at the former hotel. For Miss Jang." He presented himself. "She is a ghost I met after I'd left the hotel. She needs help."

"Of course. She will have here everything she desires." Mr. Lee promises. "What about you? What do you want?"

"I was…curious about the new hotel. About you. And I want to make sure she leaves safely this world."

"I've told you I don't want to leave." She cried. "Can I stay here?" She asked Mr. Lee.

"Of course, my lady. Stay as long you want. Forever if this is your wish."

"She needs to find peace not to be deceived and trapped by your honeyed flattery. This is the purpose of your hotel. To help spirits find peace." Chun-sung reminded him.

"Do you want to see the hotel? " Mr. Lee asked her softly, ignoring Chun-sung's remarks. He didn't care about the purpose of the hotel. He knew that he wouldn't leave anyway so it was stupid to bother with such things.

"We'd love to. " Chan-sung replayed, signaling that Aera wasn't alone.

The hotel was quite magical. Aera was amazed by everything she saw inside, from the classy hotel rooms to the luxurious dining rooms, to the breath-taking view from up the top of the hotel. She had never got the chance to see something so luxurious in her life. Her parents had never earned enough money to stay in an expensive hotel and even if they'd had, there wasn't anything in the entire world to rival Blue Moon. Because it was created by magic.

She gazed at every tiny light that sparkled in the hall ran happily on the hot sand on the beach. She'd never seen the sea so blue and calm. Her enthusiasm grew as she watched the sun rose from the water, the sky a huge canvas splashed with hundreds of tones of red.

Chun-sung didn't seem impressed. Without Man-wol nothing seemed the same. He'd had been scared, amazed, and eventually completely in love while she was there with him. It hadn't been perfect. Not at all. Every moment had been a new battle. A new challenge. Sometimes he lost. Sometimes he won. Yet as scary and freaking dangerous it had been, he would do it again.

"Hotel del Luna was way better" He exclaimed bored, demolishing some of Mr. Lee's confidence. There was no way Mr. Lee would know how the former hotel looked like. And it wasn't a lie. Even an ordinary hotel would have looked better for Chan-sung if he had been with Man-wol.

"And you think you can do it better than me, do you?" Mr. Lee snapped. He was furious, but at the same time, he realized Chan-sung could prove useful for him. Mr. Lee had heard a lot of stories about the former hotel and he was sick of always being compared with what the former owner managed to achieve. And there was only a way he could achieve his dream: gain the trust of the former manager and convince him to work for him.

"I'm sure I can." Chan-sung bragged a bit. "I've helped a lot of spirits at the time. The garden used to be so beautiful."

"The garden?" Aera asked surprised. " Is it a garden here? I want to see it."

"Yes, for every spirit who crosses the bridge a flower will bloom in the garden. Ma Go will come and pick the flowers and give supplies for the hotel in return. So the hotel could grow bigger and more sophisticated."

"Prove it." Mr. Lee provoked Chan-sung. "Prove you can do my job better." He continued. "Make more flowers grew. Work for me."

"I'm not interested." He answered indifferently.

"Haven't you said you want to help Aera find peace? I'm not against her crossing the bridge…if she is willing to, of course. Her happiness is very important to me." Mr. Lee declared in a smooth voice. "But she preferred to stay here. Should I force her? I can't do something like that to a spirit. Work for me. Help her find peace. Help all the spirits find peace." Mr. Lee hardly managed to hide his content upon imagining how rich he was going to become if Chan-sung was as good as he pretend. He realized it had been a mistake not to give importance to Chan-sung when he'd first seen him. He had been too arrogant. Mr. Lee hated he had to admit it. He hated the fact he couldn't be sure Chan-sung was as good a manager as he'd declared. But he didn't have anything better to do with his time and he had so many years in front of him. In front of him and his hotel.

"How much are you willing to pay me?" Chan-sung answered after a while. Mr. Lee laughed.

"So, you like money, don't you? Let's see what you can do, Mr. Goo."