His hand movements were subtle.
At a glance, they appeared harmless enough, drawing one’s attention casually, but upon focusing, they would suddenly transform into the foam of waves, mocking the onlooker. Then, the foam would revert to hands, and as one lost themselves in awe, their gaze and attention would fixate, gradually sharpening the perception of the hand’s form.
And simply by observing this quietly, one would inadvertently become entranced.
This was also the classic tactic used by water ghosts to lure and drown people.
“But what subtlety. Not only do they travel in groups, but their methods are exceedingly clever. They’re quite well-practiced.”
However, Jinseong reacted with delight to this sight, unpacking his luggage.
What he pulled out was a jar slightly larger than the palm of his hand.
He said it was highly durable, acquired from the Imari pottery village in Saga Prefecture.
The jar was densely filled with what looked like ash mixed with a sticky substance. Its odd fishy and foul stench filled the air. Here and there, white maggots poked their heads out from within the contents.
The jar’s lid was sealed with a yellow talisman, upon which a pattern was drawn in a mixture of red and black ink. The pattern looked somewhere between an eerie piece of art and a child’s nonsensical doodle.
Jinseong carefully tied long strings around each of the twenty jars and then sent them all floating into the air, tossing them past the wire mesh beyond. As if they had wings, the jars glided far away, and with the grace of arrows, they fell to the ground one after another.
Splash—Bang.
Splash—Bang.
The jars sank beneath the water, kicking up sprays of foam as they descended.
Watching this quietly, Jinseong took out a bundle of white silk from his luggage.
The lustrous white silk felt as though it would dissolve the fingers upon touch, and lifting it gently was akin to raising the air itself, weightless.
At the end of this luxurious silk was a brown lump wrapped in silk that resembled—but was slightly different from—Korean fermented soybean blocks.
It was a Japanese miso, specifically the rice-based komemiso.
There were a total of five bundles of silk.
Jinseong levitated these silk bundles just like the jars and tossed them over the metal fence.
Ignoring the fence’s spikes entirely, the floating silk draped over it like an elegant curtain, cascading gracefully down beneath the bridge.
Splash—Bang.
Soon, five splashing sounds echoed as the komemiso sank into the sea.
Clink—Splash!
Whoosh!
And as the komemiso hit the water, the water ghosts became frenzied.
Like throwing meat into a piranha-infested river or splashing blood in a shark-infested zone, the water ghosts writhed and splashed wildly, creating chaos. The force was so powerful that water droplets even reached Jinseong’s location.
Splash—Bang.
As if the hand gestures towards Jinseong before were a fabrication, the water ghosts now surrounded the jars and silk bundles, completely ignoring him. Engrossed in devouring these objects, the ghosts left Jinseong alone to watch their frenzy from the bridge with ease.
And after some time passed…
The movements of the water ghosts began to die down.
Splash—Bang.
Whomp!
The splashes were still audible, but far less frequent than before, the Splash-Bang sounds becoming intermittent. Jinseong, sensing the moment was right, rose to his feet, pulled out an incense stick and lit it.
Whoosh—Whoosh—Whoosh.
Unlike a regular incense stick, this one erupted with a violent hissing noise like fireworks upon ignition, belching out an immense amount of smoke. The smoke, tinged with a faint red hue, writhed like a living thing, meandering around Jinseong and dispersing in bursts toward the metal fence, as if pushed by his hand.
Like an unseen wall blocking its path, the smoke spread outwards but eventually found gaps, punching holes into the air like Swiss cheese.
‘As expected, there’s a flaw in the barrier.’
A barrier is a wall.
A wall signifies a boundary, and a boundary signifies separation.
Had the barrier been properly constructed, it would have prevented the deaths caused by the water ghosts, and it would not have alerted the ghosts to Jinseong’s presence, prompting their attempts to enthrall.
Each year, despite the many suicides on the bridge—possibly encouraged by its reputation—there was undeniably a role played by the flaws within the barrier itself.
‘It seems this was poorly done due to lack of funding.’
But that was understandable.
It wasn’t that the Japanese Onmyoji and monks had failed to properly create the barrier—it was likely a budget problem that forced them to rush the job.
Magic is expensive.
Especially when attempting to block a powerful, unending swarm of water ghosts across such a massive area like this entire bridge. Even in its own domain, it would have been a considerable burden. Within their meager budget, they did their best to create the optimal barrier, supplementing it with wire fences.
‘Let’s check. Ah, right here.’
Jinseong carefully surveyed the barrier until he found a large hole on the upper part of the metal fence.
Splash—Bang!
Splash—Bang!
Jinseong’s hand moved again through the air.
With the same Splash-Bang noises as before, the jars and silk bundles he had thrown earlier floated out of the water. They hovered briefly in the sky and then gracefully descended through the hole in the wire fence, neatly stacking themselves in front of Jinseong.
Click-click.
Click-click.
Click-click-click-click-click.
Click-click-click-click-click.
The jars stacked in front of Jinseong jiggled violently as though filled with fish. Despite the vigor of their movement, the jars stood firm without tipping over or collapsing.
Bang!
Bang!
Whatever was inside the jar seemed to have realized escape was impossible by shaking and now attempted to flee through the hole atop the jar.
However, the talisman affixed to the top, though merely paper, acted as if it were a steel cover, deflecting the attempts without tearing or breaking, maintaining the jar’s seal.
The interesting part was the evolution of the pattern drawn on the talisman. What had been an artistic design was now a complex seal written in seal script, with only the red cinnabar remaining, forming the ancient character for “seal” (封).
Jinseong quietly watched the struggles within the jar before lifting the silk.
Despite being soaked, it looked much the same as before. Once Jinseong untied the silk, however, the komemiso chunk fell to the ground with a plonk, revealing strands of multi-colored hair poking through the sticky brown lump. Jinseong carefully pulled out all the hair, levitating it in the air to shake off the water, then gently blew on it.
The strands floated like paper airplanes, finding their way and settling in different jars. Some contained long black straight hair; others held short dyed blond locks, others still featured white hair.
With the hairs matched to their owners, Jinseong pulled out a doll from his luggage.
A small three-quarter scale figurine, called a Nendoroid in Japan, barely palm-sized.
Jinseong placed the Nendoroids carefully atop each jar, pouring rooster blood over them and began chanting an invocation.
It wasn’t structured like a proper sentence, wasn’t intelligible as a single word, wasn’t really human speech either but more akin to animal cries or screams. Yet the invocation continuously spiraled around the jars, growing sharper, more refined, and eventually culminating in a high-frequency wail.
When this deafening, high-pitched tone reached its peak and seemingly dissipated downward with a heavy resonance, Jinseong clutched the air, removing all the talismans at once.
Whoosh!
At the same moment the talismans were removed, the Nendoroids dropped into the jars like humans plunging into the sea. The trapped water ghosts surged forward, releasing a strong fishy stench as they attacked the dolls. At the same time, the hair entwined around the dolls disappeared as if melting into them.
The dolls then wriggled around for some time as they integrated with the ghosts. The chicken blood coating the dolls also began to fade, as if being licked clean by an unseen force, until they looked as pristine as new.
With that, Jinseong finally moved, levitating the dolls and placing them inside his bag.
Twenty water ghost spirits.
“Perfect! Excellent!”
Jinseong stroked his bag, which had now become a den of water ghosts, smiling contentedly.
*
Time passed, and the day to visit the villa arrived.
“Next Shinto priest, I have come to escort you.”
