Flowers Are Bait Novel - Chapter 75

The long straw ropes and colorful flags draped over the Divine Tree captured her gaze. Every time the woman wielding a sword above her head jumped, her red hanbok skirt billowed.

Under the magnificent shade, the rhythmic clang of gongs and the dazzling movements of the shaman captivated the spectators. The ritual was in full swing.

This pine tree, over five hundred years old, was a massive tree with leaves larger than an adult man’s palm and a robust trunk. Even if a dozen people held hands and encircled the tree, it would be far from enough to embrace it.

“I don’t know why even county office people came to this ritual.”

Chooja shook her head, gesturing with her chin at a certain figure. Among the bustling residents, the men in suits stood out like protruding nails.

Gang-gae-gang-gae eut-gae-gae-gang, the sound of gongs continuously struck her ears when the director of Mi Hospital slowly walked towards them, fanning himself. Yiyeon slightly lifted her straw hat and politely asked about his well-being.

“Are you feeling a bit better?”

“Oh, the mudslide didn’t hit our side much. You’re the one who suffered, Director So. I was incredibly lucky. But… did your hospital also come to see the ritual?”

His gaze briefly swept over Chooja and Kwon Chaewoo. Kwon Chaewoo’s presence, who had accompanied her on the weekend, covered Yiyeon’s back like a shell, and that alone reassured her. Confidence naturally entered her voice.

“We just came to check it out before the evaluation, but we didn’t know it was a day for a ritual.”

“But you know—”

The middle-aged man wiped the sweat from his forehead and smiled. His already droopy eyes curved, forming surprisingly gentle crow’s feet. Just looking at his face, she had no idea what he was going to say.

“A few weeks ago, I had a drink with my staff, and they all said it felt unlucky to be pitted against Gamunbi. I just laughed it off then, but it seems it’s true. This divine tree is a real headache.”

He still had a good-natured face and merely fanned himself nonchalantly.

“Director So, did you perhaps displease someone higher up?”

“…Yes?”

“No, I mean. First, you climbed a 30-meter tree, then a landslide, and now a divine tree?”

The director of Mi Hospital chuckled innocently, his face gleaming as if he had just come from a sauna.

“Director So, think carefully. Treating the divine tree isn’t the right answer.”

“…Yes?”

Despite Yiyeon’s question, he only offered an enigmatic smile.

At that, she recalled the tournament details once more. The theme was clearly to heal the dying divine tree, and the qualification for surgery was given to the more skilled party through a treatment plan. But he said treating it wasn’t the right answer…?

“Is it because of the urban legend?”

The director merely shrugged at her carefully considered question.

“Well, I’m more afraid of money than ghosts.”

His words were incomprehensible. The shaman’s movements at the end were frantically intensifying.

Finally, the ritual ended, and even as the spectators began to return home one by one, Yiyeon couldn’t take her eyes off her compact binoculars. She moved around, checking the condition of the divine tree. As she did, she began to sketch the branches to be cut and the parts to be treated in her mind. However, as time passed, her expression hardened.

“No doubt, those worthless people will just try to hack at it with axes again!”

Just then, an old man with a bent back poked Yiyeon’s shoe with his walking stick.

“…Oh, hello, elder.”

Yiyeon, tensed by the old man’s sharpness, greeted him awkwardly.

“Seeing you loitering around with such a face, young lady, you must be a tree doctor or something.”

Despite his white hair, his voice and eyes were sharp.

“Humans can never fix gods. So, stop your useless acts and get lost!”

“Elder, this tree is seriously neglected. It needs surgery.”

However, as Yiyeon scratched behind her ear and retorted without much emotion, the old man’s face turned crimson.

“What?! Surgery?!”

At his raised voice, passersby glanced their way.

“No, absolutely not! Do you know what kind of tree this is?!”

“In my eyes, it looks like a severely ill patient.”

“You rascal—!”

At the old man’s scolding, Yiyeon flinched and covered her ear with one hand.

“It’s a grateful tree that saved the villagers. There’s a record that when war broke out long ago, a young tree, only ten years old, had a large drum tied to it, and they beat it with all their might. Everyone evacuated after hearing that sound, and this tree was the only one that survived in the village, which was engulfed in flames! It had to bear a drum larger than its own trunk and endure its vibrations, which is why its trunk grew bent in the middle like this!”

“Yes, I see it has severe herniated discs too.”

“What?!”

The old man, who had been full of sorrow as if about to shed tears, suddenly lost his temper. Yiyeon blinked her widened eyes and silently watched the huffing elder. A question arose in her mind.

“But for a precious pine tree, it has a lot of moss and grime. Have you ever swept it with a broom or wiped it with a wet cloth?”

The old man, who had been flushed red and green, suddenly paused.

“Th-that has nothing to do with it! Are you saying we should bathe the tree? Anyway, just try to lay a finger on that tree! We will never tolerate you cutting and deforming the divine tree to your liking!”

The old man tapped his cane as if venting his anger and walked away. Chooja, who approached belatedly, grumbled about the damn old man, but Yiyeon smiled faintly.

“I think I know.”

“What?”

“Um… where did Chaewoo go?”

Yiyeon stood on her tiptoes and looked around. The man who would stick to her like a barnacle, even when she subtly hinted for him to restrain himself outside, had vanished without a trace. Yiyeon bit her nails, feeling restless, when her eyes met those of the shaman who had just finished the ritual.

“…!”

Under the tree, which was strangely chilling due to the still unraveled straw ropes and flags. As she encountered eyes that seemed to live in a different season, goosebumps rose on her neck. She quickly averted her gaze, but an invisible arrowhead seemed to keep digging into the side of her face.

“Yiyeon, aren’t you hot?”

Just then, a large, rough hand gently wiped the sweat from her neck. Startled more by the intimate touch than the cold temperature, Yiyeon quickly turned around. A cool drink lightly touched her flushed cheek.

“You’ve been standing in the scorching sun for too long.”

Kwon Chaewoo, who said that, was himself sweating.

“I haven’t seen a supermarket nearby, did you run back and forth?”

Yiyeon stared blankly at the man who had appeared like a mirage, hurrying. The man silently curved his lips and coolly opened the can.

Yiyeon, receiving the drink, merely stroked the aluminum surface with her thumb. The man’s gaze, piercing like the sun, was unchanged today. It felt as if only Yiyeon herself was always anxious, and the feelings that poured out as soon as she opened her heart frightened her.

“Did something happen while I was gone?”

The man, who didn’t miss Yiyeon’s suddenly clouded expression, drew a thin line between his eyebrows.

“Oh, it’s nothing else…”

Yiyeon changed the subject, thinking it would be too childish to say it was because Kwon Chaewoo wasn’t visible.

“A famous model was brought in after a car accident.”

Kwon Chaewoo’s right eyebrow lifted and fell once at her absurd remark.

“We set her bones, stitched her wounds, and later even performed scar removal surgery, sending her back perfectly fine. But this patient kept gradually dying. Why do you think that happened?”

“There must have been another illness. A fundamental illness festering inside, not from the car accident.”

Yiyeon nodded vigorously, and the man gently held her face.

“But to heal completely, she would have to shave her head and cut off both arms from the shoulder.”

As she looked up at the tree with a troubled expression, answers came from both of them simultaneously.

“What can you do? Life comes first.”

“What’s wrong with losing two arms? I’d keep her even if it meant that.”

It was clearly a similar answer to Chooja’s, but the man’s side was somehow peculiar. Yiyeon, who had been half-mouthed, shook her head and collected her stunned thoughts.

“But this is a tree.”

Only then did Chooja seem to understand what Yiyeon was trying to say and looked at the tree with a serious expression.

“And it’s even a protected tree. It’s a village asset, and it has a touching story, so it was perfect. Once a tree is designated as protected, many people gather around it. But imagine if such a magnificent and grand tree suddenly became hideous. Would they really like that?”

Chooja shook her head, troubled, and Yiyeon lowered her voice even further. Fortunately, the cicadas, who had just begun to cry, veiled their conversation like a curtain.

“The hospital probably didn’t want to take all the blame. The period of neglect was so long that if they touched it wrong, it could die. They probably didn’t have the confidence to mutilate the tree while enduring that resentment.”

“…”

“So, there’s a high probability they just took the money and only focused on practical gains without touching its appearance. It’s very crudely fixed with nuts here and there.”

Yiyeon gulped down the drink she was holding, then rolled up her sleeves.

“The urban legends related to the divine tree, I think the tree doctors made them up.”

“What?!”

—To avoid responsibility for killing a five-hundred-year-old protected tree. Her voice also lowered.

“This is a staring contest between the county office, the villagers, the shaman, and the tree doctors.”

In reality, they didn’t care whether the divine tree lived or died. The residents prioritized a plausible appearance over the tree’s life, the doctors were afraid of responsibility, and the county office and shaman might have even shared the donations.

Yiyeon took a deep breath and crumpled her brow like paper.

“I’m going to… turn everything upside down.”