Daldal: Main story

Chapter 148

His unconsciousness is a realm dominated by nightmares. Of course, he knows. The essence of nightmare is memories. Therefore, the scene he's witnessing now can be considered a fragment of memories lingering in his mind.

Chae Yoon-sa looked down at his mother's dead body without emotion.

Indeed, that's how she died. Holding the hair pin presented by her husband, she stared directly into her son's eyes, thrusting it into her own neck. Her will requested her body to be boiled in molten metal.

A truly futile and pathetic death.

Was his mother deserving of his pity? Not at all.

Chae Yoon-sa knew. She willingly plunged the hairpin into her neck with a sense of profound loneliness. She is a woman who has considered life to be suffering ever since the death of her Yokai lover. Both husband and son had long lost value in her eyes.

'Yoonsa, release your mother'

After she was taken home, she said those things whenever she saw her son.

Please release me.

Please let me go to the man I love.

Chae Yoon-sa found such a mother tiresome.

His father's actions, keeping his departed wife restrained and tormenting her by refusing to let her go even after her heart had departed, seemed pathetic to Chae Yoon-sa.

Shouldn't they just end it all? Even now, just as in his childhood, Chae Yoon-sa didn't understand the emotion called love. So, the situation just became nauseating, and he wanted to bring it to an end somehow.

That is why his mother was released.

It was not out of pity but simply because he wanted to end it. Even though he had a clear idea of the outcome.

His mother had only one wish - to be with her Yokai lover. She ran away when the Yokai was alive, but now that it was dead, it was evident she would willingly follow Yokai herself.

Chae Yeong anticipated this, and that's why he had imprisoned his wife.

Young Chae Yoon-sa did indeed release his mother twice-first to allow her to escape, and then again to urge her to turn themselves in. As a result, the rumors circulating about him being responsible for his mother's death held some truth.

As he gazed upon his deceased mother's body, what did young Chae Yoon-sa feel? Relief. That was all. There was no grief or remorse, only a profound sense of satisfaction in no longer being subjected to the torment inflicted by his foolish parents.

However, 20 years later, facing his mother's corpse once again in his subconscious, the emotions are slightly different. Now, he was curious about his mother's feelings. So, he asked.

Why was she so obsessed with the Yokai? Why did she choose to end her life this way? His mother, with the hairpin in her neck
chuckled and replied

-Because I loved him.

He asked again.

Did she genuinely feel that emotion?

-Yes

How can you be so sure?

-I felt it. It was a genuine feeling.

What if you were possessed by the Yokai? What if it was just a trick?

-Even if that's the case, it doesn't matter.

Don't you regret it?

-I don't