Ho Yuwon.
The director in this company who would know more accurately than anyone else about Jang Heowoon.
“You look like you have a lot you want to know.”
But the one smiling at me was someone I couldn’t trust.
In the corridor inside a Ghost Story, reduced to a gaunt ruin by fire and smoke, piled with corpses.
He asked me whether there was anything I wanted to ask him.
‘…Then.’
I can approach this another way.
I let smoke rise.
[Proposal: One-on-one question-and-answer ritual]
“Mm?”
[Condition: 2 participants]
[Questions and answers are exchanged in alternating order.]
[The participants must answer the other party’s questions truthfully.]
[If a question cannot be answered, the participant must verbally state, “Unable to answer,” and then receive the next question.]
[An answer may not be withheld for more than 96 seconds.]
[Ah, how interesting. To attach such specific conditions for no apparent reason. It has a faintly ritualistic structure….]
I did that on purpose.
Because this was something I was doing with a being that wasn’t human.
And….
‘This one definitely has things it wants to know from me too.’
If I made it a formal, ritualized exchange of questions like this, it wouldn’t be able to resist.
And.
[If the truth is intentionally concealed during the ritual, punishment will be administered.]
“…Haha! Are you copying me?”
Yes. Try experiencing what it’s like from the other side.
Ho Yuwon laughed a few times, then answered breezily.
“But I like it.”
Yet something flickering passed through his eyes.
“It’s fair, isn’t…