CHAPTER 02
About the Miracle in the Red Dress {1}
A soft breeze gently brushed against Yoon-gyeol’s face. He heard the rustling sound of pages turning in the wind and suddenly sat up.
“Gasp!”
“You’re awake?”
Instead of the calm voice he heard before fainting, it was the deep voice of Secretary Kim. His tone was surprisingly calm, considering Yoon-gyeol had been attacked by a madwoman in the middle of the night.
“What about that nurse?”
“Sorry?”
“What about the woman in the red dress?”
“What are you talking about?”
As Secretary Kim looked at him in confusion, Yoon-gyeol realized the room was completely clean and normal.
“Did you have a dream or something?”
“A dream…?”
The room looked exactly the same as it had before he took his medicine. Everything was neat and in place, making the events of the previous night feel like a dream.
‘Can a dream feel this real?’
Everything had felt so vivid — too real to brush off as just a dream.
“Secretary Kim.”
“Yes?”
“Can we check the hallway CCTV in front of my room?”
Secretary Kim looked concerned at the sudden request and asked what was wrong, but Yoon-gyeol simply said he wanted to check something. Without asking more, Secretary Kim made a phone call and took him to the security team. Footage of the hallway from the night before appeared on the screen. There were guards standing on both sides of Yoon-gyeol’s room door. The footage played normally for a while, but then suddenly, static filled the screen with flashing gray lines.
“Huh? What’s going on?”
While the security officer panicked, the nurse’s silhouette faintly appeared between the static. Then, through the flickering screen, a pair of red high heels walked through the door into the room.
‘So it wasn’t a dream after all.’
“That’s strange. We didn’t get any error reports yesterday…”
As the officer mumbled in confusion, the screen turned black for a moment and then came back. He apologized, saying he would recheck the cameras and make sure everything was working.
“It’s alright. I saw what I needed.”
Just knowing it hadn’t been a dream was enough for Yoon-gyeol.
“What happened last night?”
“Secretary Kim.”
“Yes?”
“Can you get a list of all nurses who worked here from last night to this morning?”
“Understood.”
Without asking further, Secretary Kim later returned with a file of ID cards for the hospital staff. Yoon-gyeol looked through them one by one until he found her. Not long after he asked for confirmation, he got his answer:
The nurse had already submitted her resignation and disappeared the day before.
‘So it really wasn’t a dream…’
Yoon-gyeol remembered the red high heels he had seen in the video. If last night was real, then what happened during the car crash might also have been real. If it wasn’t a dream, he had only one question left:
‘Who is she?’
He remembered her deep, dark eyes. That woman, mysterious and dangerous, reminded him of a black cat with secrets. Curiosity began to rise inside him.
After being discharged from the hospital, Yoon-gyeol went straight home and reviewed all the documents Secretary Kim had given him while he was in the hospital.
Looking at the photos of the accident, he was reminded of how serious it had been. In the picture, a smashed-up Benz hung dangerously off the edge of a cliff. Then he checked the report about the driver.
He couldn’t forget the driver, Mr. Jung, who had been so happy just days before, saying his daughter had won first place in a music competition.
“Sigh…”
They had spent many years together.
“She already started preparing to study abroad right after the competition.”
With that one sentence, Secretary Kim made the meaning very clear. Yoon-gyeol pressed his fingers against his temples, thinking hard.
“The call from the villa can’t be traced. It was probably made with a burner phone.”
He had expected that.
In the five years since his adoptive parents had passed away, Yoon-gyeol had faced many problems — but never one that directly threatened his life.
“Check if any of the relatives recently ran into financial trouble. The way this was rushed shows that someone was under pressure and acted in a panic.”
Just as he finished speaking, Secretary Kim’s phone rang loudly. While Kim answered, Yoon-gyeol once again looked through the photos of the accident. There was no sign of the woman in the red dress.
“I think you’ll need to go to the villa on Geoje Island.”
Secretary Kim looked surprised as he hung up the phone.
“What happened?”
“We checked the villa again, just in case — and like you said, there was a hidden room.
And inside, one of your mother’s paintings was found.”
His mother had hated showing her painting process to anyone. She always worked in private, using different villas around the country. Some relatives, knowing this, had once tried to steal her artwork during the confusion of her funeral. Since then, Yoon-gyeol had personally gone to every villa and collected each painting himself.
“Let’s go.”
He stood up and began getting ready to leave.
‘So there really was a painting left behind.’
He had thought the call was just a trap to lure him out. But now, with an actual hidden painting found, he started to feel confused.
‘Does that mean the person behind this is someone very close…?’
Someone who knew the villa’s layout and the existence of the hidden room.
‘How long do I have to keep pretending not to know? Were you really alone at the villa?’
Suddenly, he remembered something his father had once said, half-asleep —It sounded like he was suspicious of his wife having an affair. But after that, they never fought again, so Yoon-gyeol had assumed it was just a misunderstanding.
‘No way…’
An unpleasant thought crept in and scratched at his mind. He tried to shake off the suspicion and glanced out the window. As he stared emotionlessly at the scenery outside, the car continued driving out of the city.
“We’ve arrived.”
The car drove for a long time before finally stopping in front of a villa on a hill, overlooking the wide blue sea. During the ride, Yoon-gyeol had been tense, thinking about the accident. Now, as he got out of the car, his face looked tired and worn out.
“This way, sir.”
The head of the security team came out right away and guided them inside. As soon as Yoon-gyeol entered the living room, memories of his parents came to mind. This villa had been one of the family’s favorites. The big windows showing the blue Geoje sea and the cheerful voices that once filled this place — all of it was gone now.
Yoon-gyeol avoided looking around too much and walked up the stairs. In his mother’s studio, a small hidden door behind a bookshelf was open.
“Here it is.”
The door was so small that even an average-sized woman would have to lower her head to get through. Since Yoon-gyeol was over 180 cm tall, he had to bend down halfway to enter. As he stepped through the small door and slowly looked up, he froze in place.
The painting style all around him — it was definitely his mother’s. There were easily 20 or 30 paintings, and every one of them had his mother’s signature, “Ahn I-ryeon,” in the corner.
“There really were paintings here. But…”
What shocked Yoon-gyeol wasn’t just the discovery of his mother’s hidden artworks.
“Who is she? They all show the same person.”
Secretary Kim, who had followed him in, spoke next. Yoon-gyeol was wondering the same thing. The woman in red.
Who was she?
Since the accident, that woman had been stuck in his head. Now, he saw her in every single one of the hidden paintings.
“Who are you… really…”
He mumbled to himself and, like someone in a trance, walked closer to the paintings. Even though her clothes and the backgrounds were different in each one, it was clearly the same woman. Her black eyes, her sharply curved eyes full of charm, her relaxed expression — it was definitely her.
“Phew…”
Yoon-gyeol pushed back the dark hair falling over his forehead and took a deep breath. He had goosebumps all over his body. He began checking the paintings more closely, focusing on the numbers written below his mother’s signature.
“Dates?”
His mother had always written the date on each painting after finishing it. At first, they seemed normal, but something caught his attention — the years written didn’t match what he expected.
“Secretary Kim.”
“Yes?”
“When did my mother start painting in this style again?”
“In 1999.”
“Then these dates don’t match.”
His mother had stopped painting for about three years before starting again in 1999. That meant all the paintings in front of him should be from 1999 or later. But the dates written on these paintings were from before that.
“Unless… she wrote the date when she started painting, not when she finished…” Yoon-gyeol went through the paintings until he found the one with the oldest date.
“July 12, 1998…”
“That day…”
“That’s the day I was adopted.”
Yoon-gyeol spoke without emotion, eyes locked on the painting.
“It was that day.”
Who could ever forget the day they were adopted? It was the day a boy, who had only ever received bits and pieces of affection, finally got a family to love him completely. He could still remember everything he saw that day clearly. He also remembered his father recording him with a camera again and again.
“Are those videos… here too?”
“Yes. The original tapes are at the main house, but Ma’am once ordered copies to be placed in each villa.”
Hearing this, Yoon-gyeol quickly left the room and went to the study where the video copies were kept. His heart pounded harder and faster.
Then he saw a tape labelled: 1998.7.12. Angel’s Arrival.
Tears welled up in his eyes. He held back the emotions rising in his throat and played the video. Seeing his family happy on the old tape made his nose sting. Then, behind his mother, who was hugging little Yoon-gyeol, someone appeared in the frame.
He paused the video and slowly played it back again and again. It was the same woman from the paintings — exactly the same.
From that moment on, Yoon-gyeol, as if in a daze, began checking every video that matched the dates written on the paintings. He watched the very last one and sat there, staring at the frozen screen like he was in shock.
“She was there… in every one.”
She looked exactly the same in every video — just like the woman he saw recently. He got chills from the back of his neck down to his whole body.
“Who are you… really?”
In 1998, he had been nine years old and grew older each year, but in the videos, the woman never changed.
The most recent date written on any of the paintings was April 7, 2016. After that, there were no more paintings. And there was a reason for that. Because exactly one week after the date on that last painting —Yoon-gyeol’s adoptive parents were murdered.
