Byun Kang-swoi

Kang-soe and his wife Ong-nyeo set out to start a new life in a distant village, hoping to leave the past behind and build a future together. However, their tranquility is short-lived, as Kang-soe meets an untimely demise while chopping wood. The villagers are shocked by his sudden death, and Ong-nyeo is left to mourn the loss of her beloved husband. As she struggles to cope with the reality of her new solitary existence, Ong-nyeo comes up with a desperate plan to preserve some sense of normalcy in their lives. She announces to the village that she will marry any man who can successfully bury her husband, with the condition that he must not reveal that the deceased is already buried. This unusual stipulation sparks both fascination and trepidation among the villagers, with some viewing it as an opportunity to gain access to Ong-nyeo's affections and others dismissing it as a futile endeavor. With a determined glint in her eye, Ong-nyeo begins to receive suitors from the village, each convinced that he can complete the impossible task of burying her supposedly deceased husband. Despite Ong-nyeo's initial optimism, her suitors prove to be more of a nuisance than a prospect, with their attempts at burying Kang-soe ultimately ending in tragedy and death. The gruesome circumstances surrounding the demise of each suitor serve as a testament to the treacherous nature of the task, as they meet untimely ends in a variety of terrifying and often bizarre fashion. One suitor is consumed by a group of starving spirits, while another is devoured by a pack of vicious wolves. The bodies continue to pile up, leaving the village in an atmosphere of unease and morbid fascination. Ong-nyeo remains resolute in her determination, but as the days turn into weeks and the weeks into months, her despair grows. Her home, once a sanctuary of warmth and love, now resembles a charnel house, with the ever-increasing pile of bodies serving as a constant reminder of her inability to complete the simplest of tasks. As the village teeters on the brink of chaos, a sense of unease settles over the villagers, who begin to whisper among themselves about the supernatural forces that seem to be at work. It becomes clear that something otherworldly is at play in this isolated village, where life and death are inextricably linked and the lines between reality and the unknown are blurred. Just when all hope seems lost, a miracle occurs, and Kang-soe reappears before his wife, alive and well, as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. The villagers, stunned by this sudden turn of events, begin to ponder the true nature of Kang-soe's supposed death and the mysterious forces that have been at work in their village. As the story reaches its climax, Ong-nyeo is faced with a new reality, one in which she must now confront the truth about her husband's seemingly inexplicable return from the dead. The journey ahead will be fraught with complexities and contradictions, as Ong-nyeo navigates the tangled web of fate, love, and mortality that surrounds her and her husband.