Scrawled in Red

"Fine. Go on, then."

Geum Sa-ra flapped her hand in dry dismissal, all but issuing a formal decree of banishment. But Lee Jeong-han still had a manager's job to do.

"Um, shall I go ahead and tell them roughly when Actress Baek's next shooting schedule will be?"

"Tsk!"

Geum Sa-ra clicked her tongue and waved her hand again, irritably, as if to say this was hardly the moment for such questions.

Swallowing a sigh, Lee Jeong-han bowed his head and slipped out of the CEO's office.

"You didn't even bother to verify it properly!"

With only the two of them left in the office, Geum Sa-ra rounded on Baek Ga-yoon.

Baek Ga-yoon sat buried in thought, her face drained ashen.

Watching her daughter, Geum Sa-ra heaved a sigh and pressed on. "Right. It's not as if killing a person is an easy thing. I'm the one who believed, rock solid, that our delicate little daughter had killed someone with her bare hands — and I never thought to check any further."

My fault, my fault. Geum Sa-ra rattled it off like a submachine gun, then gave a single sharp clap of her hands!

"Isn't this better, honestly? It's as good as never having happened, sweetheart!"

Amid all the rejoicing, Baek Ga-yoon only sighed and shook her head slowly.

She's alive? Does that even make sense?You're telling me she got up on her own two feet and walked back onto set? She'd hardly been in any shape to stand in front of a camera.

"Anyway, get that temper of yours under control and finish the shoot! Aigoo! Honestly, my heart just about leapt out of my chest. Stay home for the rest of today and rest. Let the swelling from that wound go down, all right? Do you hear me?"

When Geum Sa-ra prodded her once more — did she understand or not — Baek Ga-yoon gave a perfunctory nod and rose from her seat.

For now, what she needed was a place where she could be alone.

Back home, Baek Ga-yoon went straight to the mirror and sat down in front of it.

"Hey. Do any of you know what the hell happened?"

She had said only that much. But in the mirror, black shadows writhed behind Baek Ga-yoon's reflection.

Those evil spirits might well know what was going on. Baek Ga-yoon had been striking deals with them since she was a child. Their numbers seemed to swell by the day, but they had never done her any real harm, so she had never paid them much mind.

Now the largest of the shadows rose and drifted closer.

Scritch, scritch-scritch—

The moment it came near, red writing bloomed across the mirror's surface, scrawled as if smeared on with lipstick.

A hollow laugh spilled out of her. So she really hadn't died — she was alive?

"How the hell?"

Baek Ga-yoon's face crumpled without mercy. The scratches Jung Ga-yoon had raked into her warped with the movement, and the flare of pain sent her irritation spiking.

Staring at the words surfacing on the glass, Baek Ga-yoon trembled from head to toe — then swept everything off the vanity in one violent motion.

Crash! Cosmetics, perfume bottles, and trinkets went clattering down in a deafening chorus.

"AAAGH!"

Not that Baek Ga-yoon cared about the noise or the wreckage — she was far too busy seething.

"A deal! She made a deal?"

Just as she herself had traded every filthy deed imaginable for her acting talent, Jung Ga-yoon had traded evil deeds for her life. It was beyond belief.

"Wasn't that supposed to be something only I could do?"

Baek Ga-yoon demanded it of the shadows in the mirror, as though pressing them for an answer. But no answer came.

"Ugh! This is unbearable!"

It was maddening, how she could never hold a proper conversation with those evil spirits. Raking her hair back with a rough hand, she sighed and thought it through.

Jung Ga-yoon was alive.

Which meant that the moment she set foot on set, she would have to face the girl. Not that she intended to let her get a word in — she would cut her off no matter what she said. Facing Jung Ga-yoon wasn't the awkward part, anyway.

The girl's very existence was the awkward part.

To Baek Ga-yoon, Jung Ga-yoon was a source of unease and a ticking time bomb. It had been a little impulsive, yes — but she had counted herself lucky to have killed her off this time.

Would a chance like that ever come again?

Hard to say. An opportunity to kill Jung Ga-yoon without a soul knowing was unlikely to present itself twice. If the girl had any brains at all, she wouldn't be caught alone anymore.

"Calm down. Stay calm."

Baek Ga-yoon breathed out long and slow, drew a deep breath in, and tried to smother the panic rising in her chest.

The fact that Geum Sa-ra's biological daughter was Jung Ga-yoon and not Baek Ga-yoon was a secret that would stay buried forever — so long as she herself never breathed a word of it.

"Right. No one knows."

She murmured it like an incantation. And yet, of the secret that no one knew, there was one person who did.

That was the problem. That she knew.

Didn't they say a thief's own feet go numb first? A guilty conscience has a way of giving itself away.

Her whole body was trembling. She crossed to the small safe tucked into the corner of the dressing room, pressed her thumb to the reader, and opened it.

Biiiip— clack.

The safe swung open, and from inside she drew out a single document envelope. It was the parentage test between Baek Ga-yoon and Geum Sa-ra.

Then she pulled out one more document — a strand of Jung Ga-yoon's hair, which she had secretly taken while filming The Terms of Inheritance. It was the parentage test between Jung Ga-yoon and Geum Sa-ra.

"Hah……. Fuck."

The curse hissed out of Baek Ga-yoon as her hands clenched. The thin pages crumpled miserably in her grip.

Meanwhile, the colossal evil spirit watching from behind Baek Ga-yoon clicked its tongue in disappointment — then began picking the small evil spirits off her body, one by one.

It had simply left them be all this time, since clearing them away took strength and was a tedious chore; it had never dreamed that Jung Ga-yoon would make off with one of them. Things had come to such a pass that it was all but envious of that single small spirit the girl had carried away.

For someone who had died once, accepting 'Evil' as the price of her life was, if anything, the easy part.

What's so easy about it, you ask?

Evil spirits had all been human to begin with. They had died for any number of reasons and lingered in the land of the living, carrying their grudges. And as they stayed in this world, watching the living, a desire blossomed inside them — to become human again.

To live again. To seize a human body, feel everything there was to feel, and live again.

Unable to resist that hunger, evil spirits latched onto humans and lived off them — lying in wait for a body to claim at every hour.

Communication with the living was no simple matter either. With Baek Ga-yoon, they had tried this method and that before finally settling on speaking through what showed in mirrors. But Jung Ga-yoon had died once — the tether between her body and her soul had gone slack, which meant an evil spirit could hold an actual conversation with her.

And better still, if it gorged itself on the 'Evil' Jung Ga-yoon kept supplying and grew its strength, it could take over its human host's body in no time at all.

Well, well. What a bitter, bitter loss. It, too, had been on the very brink of taking Baek Ga-yoon's body.

To claim the body of a living human, her soul first had to be broken. And murder was the most powerful way to shatter it.

The plan had been to claim Baek Ga-yoon's body through the killing of Jung Ga-yoon this time — and now the whole thing had gone up in smoke.

But the chance had not flown away entirely.

The evil spirit quietly gazed down at Baek Ga-yoon, who trembled with anxiety, the parentage results still clutched in her hand.

Another chance would come.

Production on The Terms of Inheritance churned along without a moment to breathe.

The final two episodes, eleven and twelve, were slated to air the coming weekend. And amid it all, Baek Ga-yoon had taken a day of rest on the grounds that her face was injured.

Every scene featuring only the other cast members had already been shot in her absence, which meant today she absolutely had to appear. As the lead, she carried a hefty share of screen time — if she dug in her heels and refused to film, production would be left utterly stranded. Call it the bind of a drama about to wrap, where they would have to coax and coddle her into shooting no matter what it took.

Today's location was the seminar hall of a certain luxury hotel. When Baek Ga-yoon appeared on set, Director Kang, the main director of The Terms of Inheritance, greeted her with a smile.

"Well, well, our leading lady. Is the face holding up?"

"No. The swelling hasn't gone down yet."

Even clipped short at the sentence's end by an actress young enough to be his own daughter, Director Kang cursed inwardly — and yet burst into a hearty laugh. She'd covered the wounds with makeup, but her skin was still uneven and bumpy.

"Heh heh heh. Don't you worry — I'll handle the editing myself and take special care. The technology these days is remarkable, you know."

Whether or not any such technology actually existed, his first job was to soothe her and keep her sweet. And sure enough, the moment he promised to take special care, the stiffness on Baek Ga-yoon's face was seen melting away in real time.

"I'll get ready and come right out."

Baek Ga-yoon answered primly and left the set proper for her dressing room. The route there was escorted like full VIP protocol: the stylist hurrying back with her wardrobe bowed her head and scrambled out of the way, while the manager who had run on ahead held the door open for her.

"Hello, sunbae-nim."

Just then, Jung Ga-yoon, stepping out of the dressing room across the hall, offered her greeting.

"……!"

Baek Ga-yoon's eyes blew wide as saucers, and she could not tear her gaze from Jung Ga-yoon. Jung Ga-yoon did not avert her eyes either; she met the stare head-on.

Holding Jung Ga-yoon in a silent glare, Baek Ga-yoon twitched the tip of her nose and muttered.

"Right. I wanted to see it with my own two eyes."

Baek Ga-yoon strode up and clamped one hand around Jung Ga-yoon's throat.

"Wh—what are you doing!?"

Minji shrieked in horror and tore Baek Ga-yoon away from Jung Ga-yoon.

"Aigoo……. Hey, Baek Ga-yoon!"

Lee Jeong-han hauled at Baek Ga-yoon's arm, his face a portrait of here-we-go-again. A staff member who had been darting here and there preparing the set caught sight of the scene and froze in place.

Even with Lee Jeong-han holding her back, Baek Ga-yoon only dragged the corner of her mouth upward and murmured.

"So you really are alive?"