Ghost Festival: The Blue Tiger

The thirteenth year of troubles had settled over the Goryeo kingdom like a shroud of winter that refused to lift. Mongol fires still burned bright in the distant passes, and in the mountain provinces where civilization grew thin, older hungers stirred. Here, where pine forests pressed close against village walls and ancient stones marked boundaries between the world of men and something far darker, the old stories were more than mere tales told to frighten children.

In Seolak village, nestled deep in the valley between two peaks that scraped the belly of heaven itself, the morning market buzzed with the familiar rhythm of survival. Steam rose from bowls of hot rice porridge, merchants hawked their meager winter goods, and the air filled with the comfortable sounds of bartering and gossip. Yet beneath the ordinary chatter, an undercurrent of unease rippled through the crowd like wind through wheat.

You push through the throng, your footsteps crunching on the frost-hardened ground as vendors call out their wares. The scent of roasting chestnuts mingles with the sharper smell of fear-sweat and unwashed bodies pressed too close together. At the blacksmith’s stall, old Park the hunter leans heavily against his walking stick, his weathered face grave as he speaks to a cluster of wide-eyed listeners.

“I tell you, it was no ordinary beast,” Park’s voice carries despite his attempt to keep it low. “Blue as midnight water, it was, with stripes like silver lightning. Eyes that burned gold even in daylight.” He shakes his grizzled head. “Bigger than any tiger has a right to be. And silent—Lord preserve us, silent as death itself.”

A young mother clutches her child closer. “You’re certain it was the one from the old songs?”

“What else could it be?” Park spits into the dirt. “Found tracks near Moon Bridge, I did. Paw prints the size of dinner bowls, but they just… stopped. Middle of the path, they stopped, like the beast just vanished into thin air.”

The crowd murmurs uneasily, hands moving unconsciously to touch protective charms and iron amulets. You notice how they cluster together, as if numbers alone could ward off the darkness that presses in from the forest’s edge.

Suddenly, the peace shatters like dropped pottery.

“Dead! He’s dead!” A young village boy—no more than ten winters old—comes tearing through the market square, his face white with terror and his voice cracking with panic. “Merchant Kim! Found him on the mountain path! Torn apart, he was! Nothing left but bones and bloody snow!”

The market erupts. Women scream and gather their children, men reach for tools that might serve as weapons, vendors abandon their stalls. The boy collapses to his knees in the center of the square, sobbing and gasping for air.

“Where?” Elder Park’s commanding voice cuts through the chaos. “Where did you find him, little one?”

“The… the old road to Hanyang,” he stammers. “My father sent me to check the snares, and I… I saw…” He retches, unable to continue.

An elderly woman—Grandmother Shim, the village mudang—pushes through the crowd with surprising strength for her bent frame. Her one good eye fixes on the boy with terrible knowing. “How long dead?”

“Fresh, honored grandmother. The… the blood was still warm.”

Shim’s face goes ashen. She turns to the crowd, her voice carrying the weight of ancient authority. “Three days,” she whispers, but somehow everyone hears. “Three days since the Hong girl married that traveling scholar. Three days since she went to live in his manor house beyond the forest.”

The crowd falls silent. You feel the weight of that silence, heavy with implication and growing dread.

“Min-jung’s been so happy,” someone whispers from the back. “Sending word through the traders that she’s settled well with her new husband. Living in a grand house, she says. Warm and safe through the winter.”

“Too safe,” mutters old Park. “Too far from here to check on her proper.”

Grandmother Shim’s clouded eye seems to look directly at you through the crowd. “The blue shadow walks again,” she says, her voice carrying like winter wind. “And when it walks, the innocent suffer. Mark my words—before the next full moon rises, more will die.”

The crowd begins to disperse, but slowly, reluctantly. Fear has settled over the market like morning frost, and you can see it in every face, hear it in every hushed conversation. Parents pull their children closer, young couples exchange worried glances, and the elderly mutter prayers to ward off evil.

You stand in the emptying square, the weight of unspoken questions pressing down like the gray winter sky. The forest looms at the village’s edge, dark and full of secrets. Somewhere beyond those twisted pines, if the stories are true, Min-jung tends her new home with a husband whose true nature may be more terrible than any mere man.

The wind picks up, carrying with it the faint scent of pine and something else—something that makes your skin crawl and your heart race without knowing why.

What draws you toward the darkness beyond the village walls? What calls you to step onto the path that leads into the deep woods, where ancient hungers wait with patience born of centuries?