Chapter 113: When the Cicadas Cry (3)

During the first semester, I developed a rather unusual talent. It was the ability to easily explain to others what had happened to me.

"I'm telling you, everyone was vomiting blood and dying! Then when I looked out the window, the sun that had set in the west was rising again in the east!"

I explained in detail to everyone what I had just experienced. Even to myself, I sounded quite incoherent and excited, but I hoped my sincerity would somehow get through. 

Yang Juhee, who had been quietly listening to my story, scratched the back of her head.

"This guy, did you just doze off and dream? You even had your eyes closed when we were taking the picture. Were you sleeping?"

You don't believe me!

Of course, if I were in their shoes and someone suddenly said, "You all died and time rewound," I'd probably respond with, "Ah, so that's what you imagined."

But there was one thing I could assert with certainty.

"It really happened. Really. Sua, don't you remember? You were screaming and sitting on the blood-stained floor, crawling on all fours! Like a dog!"

"W-when did I ever do that!"

Kwon Sua flushed red and flared up. Her behavior of looking at others' reactions seemed like she had heard an embarrassing false accusation.

Even Kwon Sua, who had survived with me, couldn't remember the situation?

"This is enough to make ghosts weep."

I don't understand why this happened to us.

Just when I start to think maybe I really did dream it all alone, the vivid fragments of memory in my head thoroughly deny that fact.

I'm telling you, I saw it.

I clearly saw Yoo Dahee with her heart stopped, Yang Juhee dying with blood flowing from the holes in her face, and Jung-seok floating dead in the bathroom.

"Hey, Jung-seok. You believe me, don't you?"

"Ha Young-won, even though we've been through a lot, the idea of time actually rewinding... honestly, I'm skeptical if such a thing is possible. Isn't that beyond the level of ghosts and such?"

Jung-seok was analyzing the situation coolly as always. He thought for a while with his arms folded, then came to a conclusion.

"I think it's real. Ha Young-won has nothing to gain by telling such a lie. We all died as Young-won said. And there's no guarantee it won't happen again."

Everyone was startled by Jung-seok's words.

The idea that we might all die vomiting blood again as I described was both shocking and frightening.

Jung-seok said.

"Young-won, according to you, we collapsed vomiting blood during the bath after dinner, right? You and Sua were fine? Why were you two okay? I think there might be a clue here."

Come to think of it, when everyone was dying, Kwon Sua and I were fine.

Was some unknown 'disease' going around like an urban legend? As I was thinking this, Kwon Sua's eyes widened as if she had realized something.

"Could it be poison?"

"Poison?"

I asked. Then Kwon Sua added an explanation, trying to convince everyone with a very confident air.

"It could be lily of the valley poison! Remember, Mrs. Danvers gave me an antidote and said I'd be fine approaching or smelling the flowers for about a day? And Young-won has a natural resistance!"

"Oh? Ooh!"

Hearing this, it sounded very plausible. Soon, Yoo Dahee, a resident of this mansion, nodded.

"By lily of the valley, you mean those flowers blooming in the flowerbed behind the mansion, right? I've been told not to smell those flowers carelessly too. They say it was used as a suicide poison for women who lost their chastity."

It was a flower that looked like Vienna sausages cut into octopus shapes. It was a cute flower, but it contained a deadly poison.

"Why the fuck would they plant such a shitty flower in the flowerbed?"

As Yang Juhee frowned and got angry, Jung-seok seemed to have reached a conclusion after deep thought.

"Poisoning. Then I think we can narrow it down to the conclusion that we were all poisoned. The fact that we died in the bathroom is also noteworthy. Poison and bathing are closely related."

"Poison and bathing? Explain more in detail."

I asked Jung-seok for additional explanation. Jung-seok nodded and looked at everyone once.

"You've seen scenes in historical dramas where people drink poison, right? They spit blood and die right after drinking. That's mostly staged, and in reality, almost no one died immediately after drinking poison. It took time for the poison to activate in the body. Some people were fine for more than half a day, they say. So they would put people who drank poison in a heated sauna to activate the poison and kill them."

To think the scene of vomiting blood after drinking poison was actually false. That was something I'd never heard before.

"So to conclude, we were poisoned for some reason, and when we entered the bath, the poison was activated and we died - that's how we can look at it. And at the end of this conclusion, one question remains."

"A question? What is it! Don't keep us in suspense, just say it!"

I felt like I was going crazy with frustration. Yang Juhee also got angry at Jung-seok.

"Yeah! Explain it clearly!"

"You should be able to figure it out without me explaining after I've said this much. We died from poison. When do you think we all might have ingested the poison together?"

Jung-seok seemed to like the Socratic method of asking questions and making others find the answers themselves.

I vaguely guessed when we might have all ingested poison together.

"Dinner time?"

"Right. We must have eaten poison during dinner time. Then two more questions arise. Who poisoned us, and why? Why did they kill us?"

"Are you saying there's a culprit in this mansion?"

Yoo Dahee trembled.

As a resident of the mansion, the idea that there might be a culprit inside the mansion seemed quite frightening to her.

Of course, Jung-seok didn't seem to have any intention of sympathizing with such emotions. Instead, he revealed an even colder and more terrifying fact.

"It could be one of us."

***

At the suggestion that there could be a culprit among these five who poisoned everyone, everyone started eyeing each other suspiciously.

But I couldn't bring myself to think that there could really be a culprit among us. 

After all, why would we, who had been through so much hardship together, now try to poison and kill each other? Soon, Yang Juhee spoke up.

"Ha Young-won. If everything you said is true, there's one likely suspect. Someone who could be considered the most outsider, in a way. And someone who survived the poison."

As Yang Juhee glanced at Kwon Sua, Kwon Sua became greatly flustered.

"I-I'm innocent! I really didn't do anything! I'm nice! I'm a good person! I've never committed a crime in my life!"

Kwon Sua trembled almost like she was having a fit, asserting her innocence and blamelessness. Her attitude seemed very pure and felt like she was appealing with sincerity.

"She doesn't seem to be lying?"

I wanted to believe Kwon Sua. But Jung-seok coldly added.

"Idols are good at lying. How else do you think they make money in the entertainment industry where all sorts of people are involved? Kwon Sua even appeared in dramas and was praised as a skilled actor. It wouldn't be difficult for a genius idol to make a lie seem like the truth."

Jung-seok seemed to be able to stay cool even if the subject was a super popular idol, except when it came to Bong Ji-yeon. To be this stern even after hearing that heartfelt story.

"I'm really innocent!"

Kwon Sua started crying as if she was really wronged.

I didn't think those tears were acting. But if it was really acting, it would be acting skills that would make even ghosts weep, and that was chilling. Yang Juhee clenched her fist and asked.

"What should we do? Should I beat her up to make her spit out the truth?"

"Eek!"

Kwon Sua trembled like a deer facing a tiger when she looked at Yang Juhee. She must have remembered how Yang Juhee had beaten people to death in the corridor.

Yang Juhee was literally someone who could beat people to death.

"Young-won! It's not me! Tell them it's not me!"

Whoosh-

Kwon Sua now hid behind me, using me as a shield.

Squeeze-

The pressure on my back was really extraordinary. This was the embodiment of her will to prove her innocence.

"Come to think of it... Sua was with me the whole time during dinner. If someone put poison in the food, it would be best during the cooking process. She didn't even go near the kitchen."

Kwon Sua had an alibi that she 'didn't have time to put in poison'. Soon, Kwon Sua brightened up.

"Right? It's not me! If anything, Jung-seok is more likely to be the culprit! I heard he's good at studying. That means he's good at committing perfect crimes!"

"Me?"

Jung-seok raised an eyebrow.

"Why do you think I committed such a crime? I'm curious, so I'd like to hear your reasoning."

Kwon Sua, perhaps still holding a grudge against Jung-seok for suspecting her, started deducing.

"People often say women are jealous creatures, but I know how ugly men's jealousy can be too! Jung-seok is jealous of Young-won! I can tell!"

Jung-seok being jealous of me.

Why?

No, there's only one reason a man would be jealous of another man.

"...Because I'm too handsome?"

My perfect deduction. It must have hit the mark, because Jung-seok choked up.

"No. To be honest, it's true that I've envied Young-won. I often imagine 'if I had the status window─'. But that jealousy isn't enough to kill someone."

Jung-seok honestly admitted his envy towards me.

"Besides, didn't I die in the bathroom too? What kind of culprit kills everyone including themselves? It could happen, but Ha Young-won, is that the kind of person you think I am?"

"Actually, I didn't confirm exactly that you died. I just saw you floating in a blood-stained bath, so if you were acting, you could have done it..."

It really didn't seem like Jung-seok. The Jung-seok I knew wasn't someone who would do such a crazy thing.

I looked at everyone. And came to a conclusion.

"There's no culprit among us. That's what I think."

"Don't be too certain. Remember what we felt with the 'mirror ghost'? There could be a ghost mimicking us hiding among us."

"There are no ghosts among us."

Kwon Sua said confidently, folding her arms. Jung-seok asked.

"How can you be so sure?"

"Tsk tsk, aren't you underestimating me too much? I've worked my blood dry since childhood to distinguish between people and ghosts. I can easily tell ghosts and people apart."

"That's just intuition without evidence."

"My intuition is almost always accurate!"

"'Almost' is different from perfect."

Jung-seok and Kwon Sua started bickering.

Their awkward relationship seemed to have worsened considerably due to this incident. Does a captain need to pay attention to the likability and relationships between pirate crew members too?

"...Why did time go back?"

Yoo Dahee, who had been silent all this time, finally spoke up when the atmosphere was quite chaotic.

Some kind of magic in her gentle voice drew everyone's attention.

"It's strange, isn't it? Time going back. It's honestly unbelievable that such a thing happened in reality. How on earth did it happen?"

I was curious too. But if this was related to some ghost or urban legend...

"Hehehe, it feels like we're in a detective novel. Like Edgar Allan Poe. Or Conan Doyle. Or Agatha Christie."

Yoo Dahee laughed as if she found it amusing. It was quite extraordinary to laugh in this situation. She probably laughed because she didn't see that hellish scene where everyone died vomiting blood.

"A detective novel. ...A murder in a mansion, huh."

Now that I heard it, it did seem that way.

"Maybe we can earn a ton of points if we solve this case well. Let's find the culprit. And everyone skips dinner tonight. As much as possible, let's stick together!"