Wang Lei had always been particular about cleanliness. The idea of spending even one night in a place this filthy was unbearable. The dust, the stench, the stale air of a century-old house -- all of it made his temples throb. On top of that, ever since he had stepped onto this land, that strange heaviness in his chest hadn't gone away.
Whatever. Fine.
If he wanted to sleep here tonight, he had to clean it now.
The hanok was a single storey house which had three bedrooms, a kitchen, and a backyard. The entrance hall was smaller than the bedrooms, and the roof of the hall had a gigantic hole in it. Something that needed to be taken care of quickly.
He sighed and rolled up his sleeves.
The kitchen had a reed broom that was buried under cobwebs.
He used a little magic to blow away the dust, grabbed the broom, and started sweeping.
Within half an hour of sweeping he felt like he had moved mountains.
"This is insane," he groaned, letting himself slide against the wall he just finished cleaning.
"At this rate I'll be here till morning."
Then it hit him.
"....wait."
Master Wen had forbidden him to meddle into human affairs but never forbade him to use his powers for himself.
"Why the fuck am I doing this crap when I can just-"
He snapped his right fist forward and watched as all the cobwebs in the kitchen instantly rolled together into one giant ball.
Then he clapped his palms, green flames burst and burnt the entire thing till it disappeared.
It didn't even take a minute.
A little smirk emerged from his lips as he stood up.
Five minutes later, the entire hanok was spotless.
The once rotten house actually looke livable now.
Only thing left to do now was to fix the hole on the roof. Unfortunately, this couldn't be done using his powers. The hanok was surrounded by trees though, so nature it is.
Using his jade sword, he cut down a tree behind the hanok and shaped the wood in under two minutes, flat enough to cover the hole.
By then, dusk had already settled.
Soon, night would fall and it was time for the hunt.
.....
Wang Lei quietly laid down in the dark and stared into the newly fixed roof, his jade sword the only thing that was luminous enough to produce light. He thought about how he was familiar with the ways of the house, as if he had lived there before.
Did Master Wen deliberately decide to let him stay here because it was a part of his human life? He wouldn't know. Rather, he didn't want to know.
He had always felt uncomfortable about knowing what his past was like.
No- He was scared.
He tried hard to remember anything, just anything, about what his mortal life was like. But the more he thought about it, the more his head throbbed like a bunch of needles piercing his temples.
"Wang Lei.."
A whisper broke him from his thoughts. He didn't know where it came from but he definitely heard someone call out his name.
Who could it be? A Revenant? Right. This place reeked of them anyway.
But who would know his name and call out like that? The voice was definitely desperate, as if it wanted to grab his attention.
It was really time to go on a hunt.
Wang Lei grabbed his sword and stormed out. He walked around the woods in the dark, the moon was especially big today. He tired to use his super hearing so he could hear the voice again but to no avail.
However, he could smell the strong presence of a Revenant in a certain place.
Almost reflexively, he followed the smell.
He wandered around the forest for about an hour, following the scent in the air. Eventually, it led him to another hanok -- old, broken, half-rotting, sitting alone in the distance.
He could hear villagers a few miles away, so this place was probably abandoned too.
This hanok was smaller than the one he was staying in, but honestly the condition wasn't as terrible as his current house.
The strong scent came from inside the house. That means, he had to go in there to find out.
His thick brows creased. He didn't like this feeling at all. In his six hundred years of doing this job, he had never felt such an inauspicious, rotten presence from a Revenant before.
Without wasting another second, he grabbed the silver hilt of his jade sword and pushed open the wooden door with his palm.
There was nothing but darkness that oozed inside.
Gulping, he stepped one foot inside. As he stepped in, a series of stinging sensation ran inside him and travelled to his head. His head hurted so much he thought it would split open any second now. His throat began to dry to the point he felt like he had never tasted water.
Still, he did not move his foot back. Or say- he just couldn't. The pain on his head was so terrible that he wanted to cut of his own head right now, "Arghh.."
He then began to hear faint voices that he had no idea where he had heard.
A man's voice rang, "Wang Lei...run to Joseon. Don't...ever come back....Promise me."
Next was a voice whose gender could not be defined -- it was both like a man and a woman's, "Wang Lei, what do you think of this dress? "
A series of images flashed into his head -- a faceless image of a man in his forties whose hand was dripping with his own blood, a white lean figure who had tears on their face, a flock of white lillies that suddenly turned red due to blood splattered all over.
Next thing Wang Lei knew, he was already on his knees. He groaned so much in pain that he could not take it anymore.
Suddenly, he felt a gush of air that rushed behind him. Instinctively, he turned back and grabbed the neck of a dark figure that almost blended with air.
It was a Revenant. A strong one at that.
However, it did not have the same scent as he sensed before.
Wang Lei gripped the throat of it so tightly that if it were a living being, it could have snapped in half right now. The veins on his head and jaw were clearly visible now.
"Who-...What...is the force...driving this place?" He gritted his teeth in pain as he could barely speak.
"Remember...." a shrill voice came out of the Revenant that struggled to escape his grip.
"What...you...have been...waiting for..."
"Answer my question, dammit!" His strength tightened more, "I command you!" Wang Lei screamed. Before he knew it, his green eyes began to glow and palm that held the Revenant's neck was surrounded with green flames.
"ee...shuwong...hoo"
The next moment, the Revenant burst into green flame and vanished.
Wang Lei couldn't hold himself anymore. His vision shook, his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed backwards.
The moon was bright tonight -- cold, sharp, and merciless; the only source of light that proved he had fallen there.
His red cape spread over the ground, draping over his black-clad body like a streak of blood under moonlight.
....
While Wang Lei was laid unconcious, a series of memories he had forgotten came rushing to his mind. The old man he had seen in his strange vision was none other than his father.
He remembered now. His childhood.
Though he was born in Joseon, he never lived there. He had spent his entire childhood in the Qing Empire.*
Why?
Because his mother was one of the noble Qings. Certainly, their marriage was historically illegal. A Joseon man marrying a Qing woman was not acceptable at that time and yet, they were married. Maybe Joseon did not accept this relationship and his father decided to leave Joseon for good and lived in Qing with his wife.
Even though they led a harmonious life, it was for a very short time. When Wang Lei had turned four, some rebels accused his father for being a Joseon spy. What happened next was inevitable.
His mother died in the process for being called a traitor and they hunted his father for many days until his father had also given up.
"Wang Lei...you must go to Joseon. "
"But...I don't want to leave you, father.."
Young Lei's eyes brimmed with fear and confusion. His father knelt down, one arm pressed against his side to hide the blood from the child and gently caressed his son's soft black hair.
"Listen to me. Go to Joseon. Find a man named Hwang Ji-heon. Tell him my name. He will take you in and give you a job. He will give you a roof over your head."
"Then come with me!" the child sobbed, clinging to him tightly. His father's eyes blurred, tears spilling as he bit down on his lip.
"Father cannot go with you," he pushed the boy's hands away, voice breaking.
"You are my brave boy, aren't you?"
Young Lei nodded, cheeks flushed red with tears.
He was terrified.
"But… father-"
'Wang Lei!" his father shouted, "Do not let your mother's death be meaningless! You must live! Live for both of us!"
The little boy clenched his teeth and nodded harder through the tears.
"I won't let you down…"
"Go. Now!"
He ran as fast as he could with his little feet. Behind him men's voices erupted.
"There he is! Kill him!"
The last thing the child ever heard was the sound of flesh being torn apart.
He knew exactly what had happened.
He didn't dare look back.
He ran until his lungs burned, crying under the cold moon as if the sky itself was listening.
.....
Wang Lei's vision blurred as he slowly opened his eyes.
His head throbbed from last night, and that dream -- no, that memory -- still lingered like a dull ache in his chest. He groaned and tried to lift himself, turning his head left and right to figure out where he was.
As his sight finally focused, the figure in front of him sharpened.
A man was squatting beside him. He was thinner and leaner than Wang Lei.
He wore a simple white jeogori and white baji, the clothes of a common Joseon villager. His long hair was silky, black mixed with subtle brown shades -- tied to a high pony. His bangs were parted into two, falling to mid-length.
His eyes were like drops of coffee floating in cream, framed by lashes so long they brushed near his brows. His skin was pale, and his lips were naturally dark red, almost glossy. He was breathtaking -- so beautiful that his face seemed misplaced on a man.
The stranger simply stared at him in silence when Wang Lei noticed a white cloth tied around the man's milky neck.
The two eyes met. At first, Wang Lei was taken back by the beauty of this man. He was almost angelic and yet he felt like his heart knew this angel. Perhaps, it was the familiarity of this place that everything he had seen so far felt nostalgic to him.
"Uh.."
The man jumped back and immediately drew his silver sword, pointing exactly at Wang Lei's throat.
"Who are you?"
The man's voice was not very deep but he was definitely a man, no doubt.
"Who are you?" Wang Lei asked without answering the man.
"Don't you think you ought to answer me first? Considering you broke into my house and spent the night here without my permission?"
Hold on. What?
This house was definitely abandoned. Wang Lei was sure of it. What happened last night was no dream. He didn't want to come here. He was led here. However, what that man said was also true.
"I apologize," Wang Lei raised his arms, his shoulders flexing its muscles, "I thought it was an abandoned house."
The man let out a sigh as if in exhaustion and drew back his sword. "Fair enough for you to assume that."
"Where are you from?" The man ran his eyes all over Wang Lei, "Your clothes... don't look like you're from around. Are you from the West? But you look Asian."
How could have MeiLan forgotten this important point? Wang Lei had no clothes that a normal human wore here. Certainly, no human would sanely wear the type of attire that Wang Lei had worn, let alone his cape. What did he look like? A superhero or a madman?"
"I..uh..I'm..uhh-"
"Forget it," the man cut off, "I don't care." He walked towards the door and that's when Wang Lei realized that this man had pulled him inside when he fell unconcious.
"You should leave now."
Wang Lei glanced to his right -- his jade sword was still there. Of course it was. Normal humans couldn't see imperial weapons anyway.
He stood up, grabbed the sword out of habit, then paused as his eyes met those strange brown-mixed eyes again. The man didn't react. As far as he was concerned, Wang Lei had picked up nothing at all.
Wang Lei acted naturally and slid the invisible blade back into its sheath at his hip.
He headed toward the door then suddenly stopped.
"You're not a human, right?"