Episode 27
Actually, I used to have two Yeouiju.
‘Why did I fall in love with humans?’
I pondered, riding on the human’s back.
‘Why was this land so precious to me that I would sacrifice my last Yeouiju for it?’
I had given one to a friend who was grieving over his failed ascension, and I had cherished the other one.
‘Why… I don’t even understand why I’m doing this.’
It was the source of my power as a dragon, a precious gift I had received.
‘Gift? A gift?’
A sudden doubt surfaced.
‘Didn’t I earn it through cultivation and the prayers of humans, their rituals and offerings? But a gift?’
A heavy pain struck my head as the question arose.
***
My fondness for humans had always been a problem.
Perhaps it was because I had been watching too much television.
‘I should have never looked at that bewitching contraption.’
Flipping through the channels, I encountered dramas, comedies with clowns laughing and joking, and news programs reporting on events in the world.
The news always made me feel uneasy.
‘If I hadn’t known, I could have simply ignored it…’
It was filled with stories about fruit farmers and rice farmers struggling due to the unseasonal, prolonged rainfall.
And that wasn’t all. The recovery efforts for the houses damaged by the recent earthquake were also being hampered by the rain.
‘Technically, it’s not my fault, but I’m too deeply involved to simply ignore it…’
What should have been a brief tremor, a mere inconvenience during my ascension, had become a prolonged disaster.
‘Ugh…’
I turned off the television and collapsed onto the sofa. But the images I had seen wouldn’t leave my mind.
‘Why can’t I connect with the heavens?’
Was it simply because I had lost my powers?
‘Or am I too late?’
I tried to sense the faintest connection, but it was severed, as if cut off abruptly.
‘Has the gate to the heavens already closed, as my friend warned?’
“This land has lost its energy. Soon, humans will no longer seek to connect with heaven and earth, and the link between the two will be severed. So, ascend with me. Before it’s too late.”
‘Was the Dragon Gate always closed?’
I thought of my old friend, the large snake.
Humans, inhabiting the middle world between heaven and earth, had once bridged the gap between us.
‘Should I have ascended back then?’
But time had passed, and humans had forgotten us. We no longer appeared on their television screens.
But I couldn’t ignore their suffering. Their joys and sorrows, their anger and delight.
‘If I had been able to abandon my affection for humans, I would have ascended to the heavens and become a dragon long ago.’
Instead of wasting time granting their wishes while burrowing through the earth.
I spent every waking moment agonizing over how to stop the rain.
‘But how?’
The only solution I could think of, besides someone closing the hole in the heavens from above, was for me to ascend and close it myself.
‘No, there is one other way. But…’
There was one other option, but it was a last resort.
‘I only have one Yeouiju left.’
Who would willingly sacrifice a thousand years of cultivation?
‘What would happen to a dragon without a Yeouiju?’
“About the rain. I’m actually trying my best to stop it before I ascend. It wouldn’t be right for the creatures of this land to suffer because of my mistake.”
I had asked the human for help, but he didn’t seem to have any solutions either.
Meanwhile, the rain continued to fall.
‘I know it’s a drastic measure.’
“Sigh…”
‘But I can’t see any other way.’
The longer I hesitated, the worse the damage would become. It was time to make a decision.
‘This is so like me…’
That was why, clinging to the last shred of hope, I had dragged my heavy body up the mountain to perform the Yeongje. The human followed me, his face innocent and clueless.
Tinkle, tinkle.
He had no idea what was going through my mind.
The place where it all began, where I had attempted to ascend and created a hole in the sky.
If the heavens didn’t respond to my prayers there, I would force the hole closed.
‘Does this fool even understand my sacrifice?’
With my Yeouiju.
The orb that granted wishes. To a dragon, a Yeouiju was more precious than life itself.
Without it, would I still be a dragon? Or just a giant earthworm, as the human had called me? It was the Yeouiju that had allowed me to ascend in the first place.
But I couldn’t think of any other way to stop the rain. Except to sacrifice my Yeouiju.
I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel resentment.
‘If only he hadn’t witnessed my ascension.’
I had been tempted to kill him after my failed ascension.
‘Or even if he had, if only he had called me a dragon.’
But would killing him bring back my lost powers, the Yeouiju that had ascended to the heavens?
I hated revenge.
‘What’s the point? It wouldn’t bring me any satisfaction…’
“Sigh…”
I shook the bells humans used to summon me, but the heavens remained silent.
I mustered all my strength, lifted the Yeouiju into the sky, and collapsed onto the ground.
‘Another thousand years… ugh.’
Having lost my Yeouiju, all I could do was cultivate diligently until I created another one.
‘To think I lost my Yeouiju… It’s all so pointless.’
At least I wouldn’t have to start over as an earthworm.
“A thousand years of cultivation, all gone to waste…”
But I wouldn’t be able to do anything for at least a hundred years. I had no motivation.
“Oh, whatever.”
Consumed by despair and emptiness, I lay there, listless, when the human suddenly picked me up.
“Hanin! Hanin!”
He shook me.
I didn’t understand why he was doing this. Hadn’t he seen enough?
“Just leave me here. I’m going back to cultivate for another thousand years in this mud.”
“No. Get up. Please?”
He lifted me onto his back and started walking down the mountain.
“Hanin, you have more Yeouiju, right?”
He asked.
“You do, right?”
“You crazy human. Do you think Yeouiju just grow on trees? That was my only one.”
“…”
“And I worked very hard to create it… Where are you taking me?”
I did have another one, a long time ago…
I didn’t understand his actions at first.
***
Cultivating to become a dragon wasn’t complicated.
Oneness with water and nature, unity with all things.
Recognizing myself as part of nature, becoming one with the universe, that was the beginning of my cultivation.
All things are me, and I am all things. Every blade of grass, every worm, was part of my body. I would harm them only if necessary for survival, otherwise, I cherished and protected them as if they were my own flesh and blood.
After a thousand years of such cultivation, and after helping countless humans who sought my blessings, I had grown attached.
To this world, to humans.
But to ascend to the heavens, one had to detach from earthly attachments, while still feeling compassion for all living beings.
As I descended the mountain on the human’s back, I felt drained, my vision blurring, my body heavy and weak.
‘Uh… could it be…?’
A thought crossed my mind.
‘I thought I could cultivate until I regained my Yeouiju…’
Something was wrong.
‘Does losing a Yeouiju revert a dragon back to its origins?’
I had never experienced it before. I closed my eyes and tried to recall my beginnings.
‘Back to being an earthworm… squirming helplessly when stepped on?’
At my starting point, I was a mere earthworm, easily crushed by a human’s foot.
‘What becomes of a king without a crown, a dragon without a Yeouiju?’
I had never learned about the fate of a dragon that lost its orb.
‘I can’t breathe.’
I gasped for air.
‘My body is burning.’
The human’s wet back felt warm against my skin.
‘Can a dragon still be a dragon without a Yeouiju?’
My insides felt like a furnace, my bones melting, but my skin was cold and clammy, chills running down my spine. I clung to the human’s neck and back with all my strength.
I had sacrificed myself for the humans of this land, but they had forgotten me, they didn’t know me.
“Was it worth it?”
A voice echoed in my mind.
“Was it worth loving humans?”
It was a voice I now missed.
“Just hold on a little longer. Okay?”
Joon-wan’s voice drowned out the voice in my mind.