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Chapter 6: The Child in the Mirror
Seeing the thin-faced child in the mirror did not make him feel good.
Little Yeon Jeokha lost interest in the mirror and sat with his back to it, continuing to play.
After a while of playing alone, he began scratching his head.
Something felt odd.
He felt as if someone was watching him.
He had never felt that way before.
Instinctively, Yeon Jeokha glanced at the mirror behind him. There, his eyes met those of his reflection.
Feeling embarrassed, he raised his right hand and waved it vigorously.
Huh? What's this?
Something was wrong. The child in the mirror also raised his right hand.
If it were a normal mirror, it should be the left hand, right?
Suddenly, Yeon Jeokha felt a strange sensation. This hadn't happened before.
‘Why are the hands different?’
Suddenly, a chill ran down his spine.
He looked at the mirror again and saw a strange smile on the child's lips and eyes.
He wasn't smiling.
“Ahh!”
Yeon Jeokha screamed and fell backward.
From then on, the child in the mirror started laughing openly.
Yeon Jeokha screamed and banged on the door.
“A ghost! Aunt! Mom! Dad! Help!”
He was so scared that he even wet himself.
But despite his clear and desperate screams, no one came to help him.
“Please... help... please...”
His voice became as weak as the whisper of an ant.
He pounded on the door with his palm until he fell asleep.
Click.
The next morning, Yeon Jeokha woke up to the sound of food being passed through the small door.
Yesterday seemed like a dream.
Although he wanted to think it was a dream, he avoided looking at the mirror.
He was afraid to approach it.
However, in such a small warehouse, he couldn't avoid the mirror forever.
On the other hand, he was curious.
Was what I saw real?
If so, how did that child who looks like me get into the mirror?
What is the world inside the mirror like?
Is it smaller or bigger than the warehouse?
One day, when curiosity overcame his fear, Yeon Jeokha mustered up the courage and slowly approached the mirror.
Fortunately, the child had not appeared yet.
Though determined, when he stood in front of the mirror, Yeon Jeokha got scared. So before the child could appear, he quickly turned the mirror around.
On the back of the mirror was an image of a beautiful fairy standing on a cloud.
Before, he hadn't felt anything about it, but now it seemed like she was really flying.
He preferred the image of the fairy to that of the strange, thin child in the mirror.
Yeon Jeokha decided to leave the mirror turned around for a while.
But that resolve didn't last long.
Did three days pass?
The curiosity about what the child in the mirror was doing began to grow.
In the warehouse, the only moving beings were the rats, himself, and the child in the mirror.
When the curiosity became unbearable, Yeon Jeokha slowly turned the mirror around.
As soon as he did, the child's face appeared suddenly.
“Ah!”
Yeon Jeokha was so startled that he fell backward.
The child in the mirror covered his mouth and laughed.
“What... don't laugh...”
Yeon Jeokha murmured weakly.
The child, finding his reaction amusing, rolled on the floor clutching his belly with laughter.
Angry, Yeon Jeokha decided to ignore whatever the child did.
He began to hum and rummage through the clutter.
On a summer day so hot that sweat ran down his forehead, the child in the mirror suddenly jumped up.
Yeon Jeokha tried to ignore him, but couldn't help but glance sideways.
The child had picked up a short stick from the ground and was making strange movements.
‘Hmm?’
Those movements seemed familiar.
After thinking for a while, he remembered they were movements his father had taught his older brothers.
‘Was it the “Nine Heavens Swordsmanship”?’
The child in the mirror tirelessly practiced with the stick all day.
Yeon Jeokha, pretending to rummage through the clutter, watched the child's movements.
Winter returned.
No matter how strange something is, eventually one gets used to it. At some point, Yeon Jeokha stopped fearing the mirror.
He spent all day watching the child in the mirror.
He even imitated the child's movements with a stick.
He didn't do it to learn. It was simply too cold to stay still.
Following the child's movements, he felt a strange warmth in his body.
Thanks to that, he didn't feel the cold.
Sweating, Yeon Jeokha followed the child's movements with the stick.
Repeating the “Nine Heavens Swordsmanship” movements nine times took half a day.
The child in the mirror did the movements nine times in the morning and nine times in the afternoon.
With nothing better to do, Yeon Jeokha imitated him.
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At the end of the third winter, Yeon Jeokha could perform the “Nine Heavens Swordsmanship” movements just like the child.
The child in the mirror, who watched him sideways, stopped with an annoyed expression.
He seemed to say: “How dare you imitate me?”
Yeon Jeokha, full of fury, glared defiantly at the child in the mirror and thought: ‘So what? What are you going to do about it?’
The child in the mirror snorted and changed his movements. He began a completely different sequence from the "Nine Heavens Swordsmanship."
With a triumphant expression, he seemed to say: ‘I bet you can't follow this.’
Yeon Jeokha's face twisted in frustration.
Clearly, these movements were much more difficult than the "Nine Heavens Swordsmanship."
Watching closely, Yeon Jeokha tried to imitate the child’s movements.
However, soon his hands and feet began to tangle.
The child in the mirror shrugged and laughed.
Though his face turned red with embarrassment, Yeon Jeokha grit his teeth and continued moving.
Every time Yeon Jeokha started to get familiar with the new movements, the child in the mirror quickly changed to another sequence to frustrate him.
This new technique also had nine movements, just like the "Nine Heavens Swordsmanship."
Yeon Jeokha took two winters to be able to imitate the nine movements of the new technique.
By then, the child in the mirror had become a teenager.
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With the arrival of spring, the teenager in the mirror stopped using the stick.
Instead, he pulled out a book from a pile and began reading.
Yeon Jeokha searched and found the same book inside the warehouse.
Since the landscape of the mirror was identical to the inside of the warehouse, finding the book wasn't difficult.
The title of the book was "Xiaoxue" (小學).
It was the same book he had studied with his brothers until he turned six.
He lost it when he started studying the "Analects" with his older brothers, but it seems it had been here all along.
By habit, Yeon Jeokha imitated the teenager in the mirror.
The teenager read the "Xiaoxue" and then sat in a lotus position, breathing deeply.
Then he read the book again and touched various parts of his body.
Yeon Jeokha scratched his head, confused.
He had read the "Xiaoxue" several times, but had never seen anyone do it that way.
The teenager lightly tapped his head and laughed, then sat in a lotus position again.
This repeated for months.
Imitating the teenager, Yeon Jeokha eventually threw his "Xiaoxue" aside.
There was nothing in his book that explained that behavior.
One day, the teenager in the mirror simply sat with his eyes closed all day.
The "Xiaoxue" was in the same place where Yeon Jeokha had left it.
That confirmed that the mirror reflected the inside of the warehouse.
Except for what they did, the teenager in the mirror was exactly like him.
As strange as it was, after five years, Yeon Jeokha had come to accept it.
Sometimes he thought the child in the mirror might be just a product of his imagination.
Over time, that idea grew stronger.
Naturally, his fear and distrust of the child in the mirror began to diminish.
After all, who would be afraid of their own imagination?
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In summer, the teenager in the mirror went back to reading the "Xiaoxue" he had set aside.
He opened it halfway, checked something, and then closed his eyes.
He didn't move at all.
Yeon Jeokha squatted in front of the mirror and watched the teenager.
This must be an illusion created by my desire to be like Dad. He couldn't think otherwise.
Suddenly, he noticed the "Xiaoxue" open on the teenager's lap.
Even though he thought it was all an illusion, he couldn't understand the "Xiaoxue."
He had never seen his father admire a book that way.
What could be in that "Xiaoxue"?
Why did the teenager touch his body while nodding?
Yeon Jeokha wanted to see the "Xiaoxue" open on the teenager's lap.
He felt that if he got close enough, he could read the words.
Based on his experience, he knew the teenager would sit all day.
Cautiously, Yeon Jeokha approached.
And just as he was about to read the book, a hand came out of the mirror and grabbed his hair.
“Ah!”
Yeon Jeokha screamed with all his might.
To be caught by a ghost from the mirror!
The teenager in the mirror wasn't a product of his imagination.
The teenager pulled him into the mirror with tremendous force.
“Ah! Let go!”
Screaming, Yeon Jeokha struggled, but was ultimately pulled into the mirror.
Curiously, as he was absorbed, the teenager's body emerged from the mirror.
In the time it takes to take a breath, their positions had reversed.
“Ha ha ha!”
The teenager who had emerged from the mirror laughed and ran around the warehouse.
Yeon Jeokha frantically banged on the mirror.
Bang, bang, bang.
But the bronze mirror did not break.
Desperate, Yeon Jeokha looked around. It was the same warehouse he had seen through the mirror.
Incredibly, he was now inside the mirror.
Standing in the mirror world, he stared vacantly ahead.
The teenager, identical to him, smiled happily as he ate his beloved sweet bread.
“That... that's mine.”
Yeon Jeokha tried to speak bravely, but the teenager didn't even look at him.
“It's mine...”
The teenager, after finishing the bread, only rubbed his belly and continued smiling, without any worry on his face.