One of the exterior sets lay deep in the mountains of a rural district.
It was a place the heroine, So Yejin, visited to calm her energy and call back her body’s memories.
Having entered a tentative romance with the male lead, Yejin had decided she must fix the mistake that put her soul into the wrong body.
[ I told you, what matters is not that shell. What I want is you, no one else. ]
[ That is exactly why. ]
[ What? ]
[ Why will you not understand me? I do not dislike you, no, I like you. But first I have to know who I am. I will not give you an incomplete love. ]
[ So Yejin. ]
[ I have to find the reason. This is not my body. I am the one inside, yet I have no memories, and even this body is not mine. Nothing that makes up “me” is here. How can I ask you to love me? ]
[ I told you it is fine. I said I am fine. ]
[ I am not fine. Like this, it feels like another woman is touching you and loving you. ]
For a new reason Yejin determines to discover who she is.
The hint came from the shaman she first visited.
[ You must soothe the grudge the body’s original owner carried. Then your memories will return. That grudge is tangled around your soul and hurt it. Put everything back in order. Then the reaper will overlook you, and you can live. That is the way. ]
To Yeonwoo, it sounded like pure quackery, but in any case, this is why the heroine has come down to this country mountain.
No matter that it is fiction, he thought, the shaman premise is a mess.
She has to enter water again, at dawn, sink into an untouched spring and bathe in moonlight.
He had suspected nonsense ever since the waterfall scene appeared.
A single dip in a pond would recall the body’s memories and block a reaper.
Well, it is a drama, so he let it go.
That is how they ended up after sunset, entering the dark woods and setting up near a small pond.
The location was strange.
[We came because of that jerk, but the atmosphere is nice. How do they find places like this, hmhmm.] Dong-jaryeong hummed, and Yeonwoo agreed.
“Seriously, of all spots, why pick a place like this.”
Though it was late spring, a chill clung to the air.
Lights kept blinking off and on.
Mic lines filled with static.
Crew jumped for no reason and looked around.
Various devices misbehaved as well.
“A real haunted spot, haunted.”
With such gloom, it was no wonder nothing went smoothly.
“At least the network building is better. That place is a gathering of wraiths and grudges, but this is a den of every stray ghost. Feels more like a haunted house show than a drama shoot.”
Three ghosts clung to the lights, two to the mic, two to the camera, all crowding to watch something interesting.
Inside the pond, the shaman had prescribed to “purify body and mind”, lurked even more ghosts.
[There is a drowned ghost in a place like this. Wow. How did she wander into these mountains and drown in a pond, not the sea or a valley stream but this pond?
Sadly, not one of them carried any lifespan, not a single one among so many.
If the yin energy was strong enough to jam electronics, they could at least pay him in lifespan, he grumbled.
[Maybe because they are country spirits, they are simple. They do not seem intent on harming anyone. If one tried to ruin our actor’s shoot I would have dealt with it.]
The tiny hamster boasted, without the slightest dignity.
“Honestly, the grim reaper was meant to appear in this scene, watch, then leave for impact. That guy…”
“Nothing to be done. With Writer Min’s skill, she can handle it without him. Script is already revised.”
“I know, but it is still a waste. He could not deliver lines so we cut them; he could not emote so we had him keep a blank reaper face. At least he would look decent on camera, and he could not bear even that and flew the coop. Infuriating.”
“Shake it off before it ruins the shoot.”
“Still, Director, does this place not feel odd? Maybe it is just me.”
Director Heo and Writer Min looked uneasy, as if they felt the same rift as the crew.
“Probably nerves. If the gear is roughly ready let us shoot and finish. I do not want to stay here long.”
However restless the atmosphere, filming had to continue.
Thanks to Lee Deokchun, the schedule was already tight.
“Is Min Yerin ready?”
“Yes, Director, she is on standby.”
“Before we lose more time, start.”
Yerin soon appeared.
“You know you have to go in there. Think you can handle it?”
“Of course.”
As innocent, quirky So Yejin, she showed none of her usual cool hauteur.
“Dive as in the script. It is not deep, crew checked it. It’s hard to redo takes, so try to nail it first time.”
“Do not worry.”
She smiled brightly and nodded.
“Right. Twenty seconds, then surface, do not forget.”
“Scene thirty-seven dash one, roll.”
With the clap she stepped toward the pond.
“So I just have to get in? Uu, scary. But for me and Taehun, let’s go, So Yejin.”
After hesitating, she placed her shoes neatly by the edge.
“Hoo, hoo. Do I strip? It will be cold. What if someone sees? Oh, whatever.”
Still worrying, she suddenly plunged into the pond with a splash.
It perfectly showed the heroine’s spontaneous, lively nature.
Roughly ten seconds later she should burst out like a dolphin.
Then the male lead Kim Taehun would rush in, furious.
He would drape his coat over the shivering Yerin, a highlight the manager had praised.
But,
“Huh? Why isn’t she up?”
Ten seconds passed, then twenty.
The pond surface stayed calm.
“Did she miscount?”
“Maybe she wants to come up gasping for drama.”
“Maybe…”
Director Heo and Writer Min murmured, but their faces soon changed.
More than one minute had passed. (T/N: ⊙▂⊙)
“Something is wrong.”
The director motioned urgently to the assistant.
“Check, quickly.”
“Yes, sir.”
The crew stirred.
“Shine a light here, it’s too dark.”
“It’s shallow, why can’t we see?”
They flustered, then…
Thunk.
The lights died.
“Again, now of all times!”
“Bring another unit.”
“The generator truck is dead.”
“Any flashlights? Grab them.”
The pond was pitch black.
Though shallow, few had the courage to enter unseen water.
“Yerin, my Yerin, someone pull her out.”
Her manager ran about in panic.
“Hold on, fetch a flash—”
“She will die meanwhile.”
Phones flashed, but mountain darkness swallowed them.
“Something has been wrong all along. What is happening…”
A staffer’s dazed whisper drifted.
There is a golden time when rescuing a drowning person.
Most cannot last more than three minutes.
Time slipped and no one moved, because the situation felt too unreal.
A shallow pond, yet no trace of Yerin, and the lights out, all too neat, almost malicious.
Unease chilled everyone.
Even so, someone had to act.
A few crew members edged toward the water when,
“Stop.”
A clean face appeared in a phone’s glow.
Yeonwoo had shed his jacket and rolled his sleeves.
“If you go in now, you will drown as well.”
[Huh?]
The instant Yerin dived, Yeonwoo and Dong-jaryeong saw the same thing.
[That… looks like trouble.]
Yeonwoo silently agreed.
The drowned ghost in the water had lifted its head and smiled coldly.
Ghosts rarely smile, he had learned.
The dead find joy only in another’s suffering, from injury to death.
He remembered the vengeful spirit grinning when he saved that village child.
The same kind of scene now unfolded.
Splash!
Ye-rin vanished beneath the surface, and swollen, water-logged hands stretched for her.
Crackle.
Every light went out.
So, the spirits here were all in league.
He had been wrong to think mountain earthbound ghosts were innocent.
Ghosts were ghosts.
With so little amusement in the mountains, a living human offering herself was a delight.
To drag her down and drown her was mere sport.
“Yerin is not surfacing.”
“Get the generator running, the lights.”
Before that, she would die.
The creature below would never let her go.
No more thought was needed.
Yeonwoo strode to the rim.
[You will save her?]
“Of course. Otherwise, this drama cannot go on.”
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