Soo-hyun. Wake up. Soo-hyun. Baek Soo-hyun! When he opened his eyes, he saw his mother’s desperate face. Her swollen and distorted face differed greatly from her usual beautiful self. Above her head, enormous trees stood resembling monsters, swaying in the wind. As Soo-hyun managed to sit up, he realized he had been lying in a large pit.

“Are you okay? You’re okay, right?”

His mother’s voice trembled with tears. Soo-hyun nodded.

After his father’s sudden disappearance, strange men had come looking for him, demanding to know his whereabouts. His father had always been frequently absent from home. They claimed he had stolen something, but Soo-hyun had no idea what it was. His mother apparently didn’t know either.

But instead of leaving, they had brutally kicked Soo-hyun and his mother with their boots. His mother tried to shield Soo-hyun from the blows and received even more beatings. Even with her head split open and half her face smashed, she refused to let go of her son.

After passing out and regaining consciousness several times, Soo-hyun found himself in a completely unexpected place. Moreover, his hands and feet were tied behind his back, making it difficult to even sit properly. His mother anxiously scanned their surroundings while trying desperately to remove the tape binding Soo-hyun’s hands.

When her fingers proved inadequate, she began gnawing at the tape with her teeth. Blood flowed from her swollen lips, and tears leaked from her eyes. Stifling her sobs, she finally managed to tear through the tape with her teeth. Once Soo-hyun’s hands were free, she urged him:

“Untie your legs first, quickly.”

Soo-hyun did as she instructed and removed the tape wrapped tightly around his ankles. Then he untied his mother’s hands and feet. That’s it. We’re done now. But as his mother stood up to climb out of the pit, she let out a groan and collapsed to the side.

Soo-hyun belatedly noticed that the middle of her shin protruded in a strange, unnatural way. He tried to help his mother stand, but it wasn’t easy for a ten-year-old boy, smaller than his peers, to support an adult woman.

With a flutter, birds flew away, and the sound of a car approached from the distance. His mother’s face turned pale, and Soo-hyun, feeling desperate, tried to pull her up. Suddenly, his mother roughly pushed him away. Soo-hyun looked at her with a shocked and frightened expression.

“Go! Hurry!”

Her face appeared fierce in a way that was unlike her.

“Mom…”

His voice cracked with tears. His mother remained relentless. Dragging her injured leg, she crawled toward Soo-hyun and used all her strength to push him out of the pit. Soo-hyun struggled and tried to stop her.

“Let’s go together. Together, together!”

In response to his wailing, his mother slapped him across the face. His ears rang. She roughly grabbed his cheeks and said firmly:

“You go first. I’ll find you soon.”

Soo-hyun felt too frightened by his mother’s face to refuse any longer.

“Mom’s not going to die. So keep running. Even if you hear sounds, don’t look back.”

“Mom…”

“You know Aunt Misook’s phone number, right? If you see a payphone, call her immediately. Do you understand?”

Tears poured down his face. Aunt Misook was the only person his mother trusted and relied on. Let’s go together. As Soo-hyun shook his head, his mother held him tightly and stroked his hair. Then she staggered to her feet and pushed her son toward the edge of the pit. Her leg dragging along the ground looked grotesque.

“Go, hurry!”

Mom! He grabbed her arm and clung to her, but she pushed him out of the pit. When he tried to climb back in, she yelled at him with a terrifying face. What’s wrong with you! Are you not going to listen to your mother! Do you want to see your mother die!

The sound of the car grew closer. His mother removed Soo-hyun’s hands from her arm and began coaxing him.

“Go quickly, Soo-hyun. Go ahead, and I’ll find you.”

Soo-hyun swallowed his tears.

“You’re lying…”

His mother caressed his face while holding back her tears. On her fourth finger was the silver ring she had received from his father.

“You’re my brave boy, right? If you go now, Mom will survive too. Do you understand?”

Could that be true? Was she telling the truth? Well, his father might lie, but his mother had never lied to him. She would surely come to Aunt Misook’s house tomorrow. As he wiped away his tears but couldn’t bring himself to leave, his mother desperately gestured for him to go.

When he went to school, his mother always stood like that, seeing him off outside the gate. Soo-hyun kept walking away and looking back, then walking and looking back again. Just then, two distant headlights appeared. Soo-hyun slipped between the trees.

Now he could barely see his mother in the darkness. Should he run back and stay with her? As he hesitated, the car stopped, and men’s shouts could be heard. Find them! Catch them! Gripped by fear, Soo-hyun turned and started running. Tears streamed down his cheeks without pause.

But the forest showed no kindness to a small child. Running, rolling, falling, getting up, and running again—after repeating this cycle, he eventually misstepped and tumbled down into a ravine.

And when he opened his eyes, he saw…

“Are you awake?”

Soo-hyun couldn’t easily escape from his dream. As he tried to compose himself, his eyes reddened. After finally coming to his senses, he saw a young boy in front of him.

“Are you okay?”

Soo-hyun sat up in bed. He remembered meeting with Kim Chang-nam, and then some strangers appeared and beat him. Come to think of it, the back of his neck felt stiff. When he touched it, the pain made him curse.

Soo-hyun tried to get out of bed by pushing aside the blanket. But the strange room made him pause in bewilderment. The heavy blanket covering him resembled something from a historical drama, and not just the blanket—everything in the room seemed to transcend time with its antiquated appearance.

From the ink-painted folding screen to the incomprehensible Chinese characters hanging on the wall. Even the bedside lamp and windows were made of hanji paper. Could I have fallen into another world? Maybe I’ve been reincarnated as a prince or a young master from a noble family. Perhaps God has given me a gift after all my suffering.

But the boy standing before him clearly wore a school uniform, which felt somewhat disappointing.

“Who are you?”

The boy wore round gold-rimmed glasses, had a rather handsome face, and his skin appeared fair, likely due to his young age.

“I’m Kim Woo-jin. Nineteen. You’re Baek Soo-hyun, right? Twenty-eight.”

Soo-hyun’s face involuntarily hardened. Hearing his real name from a stranger sent chills down his spine. As he looked at the boy with suspicious eyes, the young man pulled something out from under the bed. Thinking it might be a knife, Soo-hyun took a defensive stance. But what the boy produced was a basket containing Soo-hyun’s clothes.

“They were dirty, so I was going to throw them away, but I kept them just in case.”

Soo-hyun pretended to check his clothes while feeling his pants pocket. The necklace remained there. So they hadn’t kidnapped him for that. Well, the treatment seemed too good to be called a kidnapping. They had knocked him out and brought him here, but they’d put him in a nice bed and even changed his clothes.

“Grandfather said to bring you when you wake up. He said he won’t hurt you, so don’t think about running away. If you do, he’ll really break your legs.”

He delivered these frightening words with such an innocent face. Before Soo-hyun could assess the situation, he followed the boy outside, where the sun shone brightly. How long had he been unconscious? Squinting at the brightness, he belatedly took in his surroundings and his jaw dropped. The large hanok appeared beautiful, comparable to a transported historical drama set. The wind blew right on cue, and the wind chimes hanging from the eaves tinkled.

“What is this place? A folk village?”

“It’s our house. Follow me.”

Woo-jin led the way, and Soo-hyun followed. People worked all around, bowing respectfully to the young Woo-jin. Woo-jin acted as if this was perfectly normal. Soo-hyun momentarily lost himself in this unfamiliar scene.

Just then, Woo-jin stopped. Hearing him call out “Grandfather,” Soo-hyun looked in that direction. An old man wearing a purple traditional casual hanbok held scissors in one hand, personally tending to a flower bed. He was short and had an ordinary appearance that one might see anywhere on the street. But looking closely at his face, Soo-hyun felt an undeniable aura of authority.

The old man’s gaze shifted from his grandson to Soo-hyun.

“You’re awake.”

Soo-hyun bowed in greeting. Hello.

“Are you Baek Gwang-mu’s son?”

Ah, damn it. This felt ominous. He had suspected something when the kid knew his name. Soo-hyun calmly shook his head.

“No, I’m not.”

The corner of the old man’s wrinkled mouth twitched upward. Look at this guy. Just like his father, lying without batting an eye. The old man chuckled and gestured for them to go inside. Soo-hyun considered his options. Should I run for it? But too many people surrounded them. The fact that they had brought him here meant they must have a reason. As he stood motionless, the old man looked back.

“Why are you standing there?”

“I don’t have any money. Whether you want my stomach or my neck, do as you please.”

“My, aren’t you impatient. Talking about money first when we’re looking for your father—I suppose that’s how you’ve been living all this time.”

Soo-hyun kept his mouth shut. He had only bad memories of people associated with his father. As the old man was about to say something more, a commotion erupted behind them. The old man clicked his tongue with an annoyed expression.

What could be happening? As Soo-hyun turned to look, he hesitated. Someone entered through the main gate, and their silhouette seemed familiar. No way. It couldn’t be. But as the figure drew closer, Soo-hyun became more certain.

“What brings you here after causing such a commotion?”

At the old man’s words, the man approached. He had white gauze taped to his eyelid. The face of the man who had removed the rabbit mask appeared even more clean-cut and distinctive than when Soo-hyun had seen him at night. His rolled-up sleeves still looked ready to burst from his muscular arms. Soo-hyun quickly turned his body at an angle. His heart pounded violently, threatening to jump out of his mouth. F*ck.

Why the hell is that bastard here…?