Three days later

The palace had become aware of itself, of the misery that echoed within the walls.

In the morning, sitting in front of the mirror, Ruyi was looking at her insipid face. The face, which now lacked freshness, radiance and most importantly smile. The smudged kohl of her eyes has left a dark hue beneath her gloomy eyes. She stared at her image for a minute thinking about there is no reason for her to dress up well as there is no one to adore her now. It made her happy to doll up for Jian, every day. But he is gone now and her reason to primp and preen too.

While recalling his last word she came to know that he wrote a letter for Ruyi. She started looking for that letter and pounced up at her jewellery boxes to find the letter. Finally found a piece of paper. She opened it with her shuddering hands.

To

My Love, Ruyi

Today I felt like writing something for you. As day by day my condition is worsening. Even right now I am seeing those dreadful spirits around me, staring at me with much hatred. I hate to admit it but I don't have much time, my end is near. I know you kept on asking God why? Why this is happening to us, but the answer is nowhere to be found. Because it's within us, Ruyi I suppose. I was fated to die this way. I am devastated that you have to suffer even though you have no faults in this mess. Sometimes I wish that, it would have been better if you had married someone else, because you deserve to feel every bit of happiness in life. Because of me you have been deprived of happiness, and now the load of this regret will be my companion till my last breath.

Apart from that I'll always be grateful to you for filling my short life with colours. You're like my sunshine which repels all the darkness away. You're the moon to my sky that lessens the inky blackness by scattering its bright and soft rays. Time and space have no meaning for my love for you, for it is boundless and eternal. After my quietus, those beautiful memories will chase you, haunt you or even torment you but you have to move on. Our love story might be short lived but it was beautiful, just like you. I might leave this world but I'll always be there with you in your heart, in your dreams.

Even in my absence I want you to dress up daily as you do now. I want you to dance in the rain, assuming that I'm the sky pouring rain. I want you to enjoy the snow fall and winter assuming me the cold breeze teasing your hair and gently touching your cheeks. I want you to see the blooming flowers in the summer time assuming me their aroma. I want you to watch the arrival of autumn assuming me the wind behind blowing the golden leaves breaking delicately off of tree branches and fluttering your feet making a mosaic in the ground. In these ways I'll be with you in every season. But most importantly my love, I want you to live your life, I want you to smile. It's going to be difficult for you but I know you can do it.

I'm not fortunate enough to see the beauty of life, seasons but you are, so don't waste that blessing of life by drowning in memories, sadness and grief. You'll have to live on behalf of me too, my love. I know life is unfair to us but we have to accept it.

Promise me Ruyi. You'll live your life to the fullest. You'll smile. You'll be happy.

Yours Jian.

Ruyi exploded in tears reading the letter, she held the letter close to her chest and said looking at her reflection in the mirror, "I'll live, Jian."

Meanwhile in the forest, Min-ho and Nyang went back to Lucian's Well to look for more bottles. But they were met with a very strange sight there. The Well that had always been crowded with the bottles, now had only one.

"That's strange. Only one bottle?" said Min-ho flabbergasted. He opened the bottle and read out the wish written on the paper.

"The wish is even weirder." Min-ho gave the paper to Nyang. Nyang too was puzzled reading the wish.

"The cursed Princess will die just like the Prince"

"It's sounding like a threat rather than a wish. How come anyone knows about Si-ri besides us?" said Min-ho

"It must be Mi-sook behind this note. It seems she learned about all these things we are doing to lift the curse. Now that shaman won't let us do this anymore. It must be her doings that has emptied this well. We need to look for other ways now." Nyang tensed. "It feels like we're living in the bottom half of an hourglass. We are running out of time."

They went to inform Si-ri and narrated the whole incident, how Mi-sook had spoiled their plan.

Si-ri let out a slow controlled breath and attempted to loosen her body movements. She rubbed her temple in worry.. Her eyes moved with the alertness that comes from heavy stress and her hands remained clenched by subconscious demand.

"We are left with only one option. You both need to search for people in distress in the town." Si-ri said.

"Don't worry, we'll find a way." Min-ho said, and walked out with Nyang to the town.

After reaching the village, they both planned to split ways to cover more area. Observing every conversation of people on the path they kept on searching for people in distress.But sadly they were nowhere to be found.

Exhausted from wandering here and there, Min-ho and Nyang lay down under a tree. The sun seemed to be no longer a summertime friend, it was an oppressive presence that sapped the energy out of them. They were desiccated from every pore, their water escaping to a cloudless blue sky. Even the birds stopped singing, no doubt afraid to open their beaks in the scorching heat.

Out of blues, a teenager boy started screaming in terror, breaching their invaluable moment of serenity. They both awoke puzzled of what was happening around them. They saw the boy horrifically pointing out his finger to the branch.

"The....there....the... Ghost is sitting there," the boy gestured and fainted in terror.

Min-ho and Nyang were not able to decode the boy's weird act. They looked at each other's faces in utter confusion. Meanwhile, the boy's parents came running and took him to their home. Min-ho and Nyang helped them.

Min-ho hesitantly asked "What's wrong with your son?"

The couple started stealing glances, cold sweat was visible on their faces as if they were hiding something.

Min-ho smelled something fishy from their reactions. So, he tried to comfort them so that they would speak out the truth. After some attempts he finally managed to convince them.

"My son had developed a weird obsession towards spiritual practice so that he would act as a mediator between the human world and the spirit world. We tried to explain to him that he was too young to practice these critical rituals and without a spiritual teacher he may land into trouble as these things are not for faint hearts. But he didn't pay heed to our warnings. He started his daily rituals and meditation to achieve his obsession."

"After practicing for quite a long period he started to see future events of people. Things were normal, until the disfigured, pale, horrific spirits started appearing to him. He stopped his meditation mid-way, as he struggled to concentrate, felt anxious, trapped in over-analysing his current situation, and felt mentally fogged up."

"With all this the episodes of vivid dreams or nightmares, scary accurate intuition, sensing brighter colour and sharper environment followed him. He started behaving in an inconsistent manner. He hardly goes out of the house as he is constantly afraid of seeing spirits roaming around him. People of the town labels him as a lunatic. Our lives have become hell, we cannot see our child living in such a way. " The father of the boy cried looking at his faint son. "We are poor people, we can't let people know about his condition. They can misinterpret him or even convict him of practicing shamanism to harm someone. I don't want to lose my only child. It's my humble request to you to not reveal this to anyone in the town."

The couple begged Min-ho and Nyang while sobbing for their son due to their destitution.

Min-ho and Nyang promised them that they wouldn't utter a single word about their son's condition and assured the poor couple that they will definitely come back to help them.

As they both were about to walk away, the boy woke up and said "one of you'll die for the sake of that prisoned girl and give a new life to her."

Silence crept into the room.

On the way, Min-ho's face flushed with a puzzled expression. His mind was surging with perplexity recalling what the boy said or foreseen.

Nyang could anticipate Min-ho's mental state but he opted not to betray the hidden secret to Min-ho for some more time. At the same time he was worried about Si-ri as Mi-sook had fled from the palace and knew their plan too.

Nyang and Min-ho told Si-ri the whole incident of the boy and his sufferings.

"Do you have any remedy for that? Can you treat that boy?" asked Nyang.

"I can treat him, I guess. I have read about astral awakening and activation in the book of the devil."

"If that boy is not treated immediately, he may undergo a lot more disastrous experiences. The bright lights coming from every person is called aura, every object on the earth emits an aura and this will become a hurdle for him to see faces; he'll only be seeing bright colours of people and not their faces. Without any spiritual teacher this type of activation or building connections to other worlds can harm the person. The novice performer of preternatural knowledge can get stuck between the never ending phenomena of phantom cognition. This will always be followed by sharp pains and almost constant headaches. Without having complete comprehension, aggravating and infuriating occult knowledge can lead the seeker to lose his sound mind or even send him to eternal sleep."

"So, what is the remedy to put an end to this tortured astral awakening?" asked Min-ho.

"Well, I need to read the Book of the Devil. The book would certainly have something about this case." Si-ri took the book and started to look for something related to the problem. After some time she came across the page on spiritual awakening.

When someone experiences spiritual awakening, he becomes aware of the energies that he is channelling or experiencing from within. His intuition becomes clear and at times this will lead to many more phenomena such as vivid dreams, clear messages, listening to voices, seeing things far away or remote viewing, knowing thoughts of others through telepathy, foreseeing any future events or knowing facts whenever he touches an object through psychometry. There are many powers that begin to develop in a receptive state through meditation or spontaneous awakening.

As every coin has two sides, spiritual or divine awakening has also some flaws that can be harmful and dangerous in some ways for newbies and inexperienced beginners can have when they don't understand how to properly work with their divine awakening and with this thing this blessing will turn into a curse.

Such as, you'll see things that you don't want to see as the door of the other side opens. You will see spirits around, some of them would haunt you or at worst try to communicate with you. As a result, people will think you're mad because being different in the eyes of people often equated to being crazy.

Apart from that, you will probably experience psychic distress within you. Anticipation of surroundings and flood of thoughts will result in mental exhaustion. Lost in the visions, the person will become detached from reality and paranoid.

If the seeker is afraid of these visions or powers and wants to close the awakening, it may be perhaps because of lack of guidance from spiritual teachers and higher perspective. If one keeps on with meditation and spiritual realization the higher consciousness will also be awakened to help realize truths and not just facts. This will show the seeker direction towards the solidarity of this universe and how our souls are connected as one spirit, one energy so one is certain that there is nothing to fear. This realization will give them powers over whatever they are seeing and experiencing so that they can handle it better and transform energy to something useful and positive through higher consciousness.

But if you really want to stop or close the awakening you can ignore the psychic ability and whenever you hear sounds or see visions, you can choose not to pay attention or listen to them. A good slumber can do wonders.

"A good slumber can do wonders" Si-ri repeated the last sentence. She rushed to her room and came back with a bottle in her hand with a smile.

"Here you go. This is a sleep potion. That boy must be facing difficulty in sleeping. This will help him to sleep well. A sound sleep is a cure to mental stress and anxiety. In this way he'll get rid of his problem, I suppose. But it will take some time. It will not work instantly. We only have three days left." Si-ri become distressed

"Don't worry, the boy will feel relieved within three days if not totally but partially. It would be a gust of fresh air to him and his parents. They will feel satisfied that the boy is healing slowly and steadily. All of this, will lead you to gain benediction from them." Min-ho comforted Si-ri.

Min-ho asked Nyang if he would come along with him. Nyang denied.

"Mi-sook must be looking for Si-ri like a mad. Therefore, it's not a good idea to leave Si-ri alone. So, I'll be here to protect Si-ri, meanwhile you go and give that potion to the boy." Nyang suggested to Min-ho

Before Min-ho's departure, Nyang gives him his dagger and a cloak to ensure Min-ho's safety in case Mi-sook attacks him.

Min-ho felt touched by Nyang's act and said "Thank you, for your concern brother. I'll make sure to accomplish this last hunt of benediction for Si-ri."

All three were smiling faintly looking at each other. Min-ho walked away after bidding goodbye to Si-ri. Si-ri ran outside and stood there until the image of Min-ho became blurry to her sight. Nyang had noticed the love between Min-ho and Si-ri.

Nyang couldn't control his curiosity and asked Si-ri about Min-ho.

For a moment, her eyes and her mouth froze wide open in surprise, and although she was staring straight at Nyang she appeared not to notice him at all.

She hesitantly managed to break her silence by saying, "Brother..... he is a nice boy."

"That is not an answer to my question, do you love him?" asked Nyang in a serious tone.

She was clammy and a glisten of cold sweat started to appear on her forehead. Her eyes were filled with fear as if someone was coming to deliver the fatal blow. Somehow she calmed her nerves and confessed, "Yes, We love each other," and closed her eyes.

Si-ri slowly opened her eyes to check the expression on Nyang's face. To her surprise he was looking calm as if he knew beforehand.

"Alright," said Nyang and went to collect some woods nearby.

Si-ri smiled, earlier she was a little anxious about her brother's reaction when he got to know about her love. But now she was relaxed.

Min-ho reached town and met with the boy and his parents. The boy was looking more pathetic and scared he was narrating his recent horrific experience.

"I was facing difficulty to sleep last night but somehow I closed my eyes. After sometime I felt a spooky chilled wave throughout my body and again I felt something chill near my ears as I opened my eyes and my heartbeat skipped a beat. It was the spirit of a little girl, one day I saw her near a tree but weirdly I didn't feel scared looking at her. I waved at her with a smile but her expression remained blank."

"That same girl was standing in front of me, she was stinking like a dead loaf of meat. I was so terrified to even utter a single word. She leaned towards my ears. I got dead scared at that moment. She whispered, 'don't wave at me again, they are watching you now'. She disappeared after that. I was shivering the whole night in fear." The boy started crying hysterically as if he knew nobody or nothing could cure him. He was looking hopeless.

Min-ho told him everything about his awakening. He shared with him the remedy to cure his problem as written in the book of the devil.

The boy and his parents became somewhat relieved after listening to Min-ho's words.

Min-ho handed over the potion for sound sleep to the boy. "This potion will help you to sleep well and at the same time, it will lower your anxiety and fear. You'll slowly get rid of your awakening. Never ever try to do it again because it's not a good thing to provoke. Sometimes it takes the form of disaster and makes our life a living hell. So, be careful."

"We'll always be grateful to you. You become our saviour. We'll pray to god for your wellbeing." The old couple became emotional.

"No. It's not me there is someone else who deserves your blessings. It's my request to you, please lit a candle with full faith and blessings for the person behind curing your son, the moment you see any changes in your son's condition. She really needs your blessings," Min-ho requested then made his way back to Si-ri.