The Face Genius Actor

Episode 140

The Red-Bearded Ghost was, as its name suggests, a ghost famous for its red beard.

It was usually depicted as a strong man, but it wasn’t an ordinary type of ghost.

This was because it appeared in the dreams of those who carelessly dug up graves to punish them.

Like with the Window Ghost, I added additional details to the Red-Bearded Ghost.

In “Toema Hwan Ya Dam”, the Red-Bearded Ghost wasn’t simply an evil spirit that appeared because a grave was dug up.

It was a ghost that appeared when someone else’s corpse was buried in place of a dug-up grave.

The act of murdering someone and disposing of the body in a bizarre way.

As the Red-Bearded Ghost originated from this act, it possessed a vicious nature and powerful strength.

It randomly killed one person per day, and surprisingly, those who lost their lives didn’t even leave behind corpses.

The moment they lost their lives, their bodies disappeared into the ground.

The early part of “Toema Hwan Ya Dam” Part 4 dealt with a detailed explanation of the Red-Bearded Ghost.

After that, Seo-hee joined Yeon and Wi-rang in pursuing the Red-Bearded Ghost.

Seo-hee had excellent tracking skills, so she was a great help in chasing the Red-Bearded Ghost.

Fundamentally, to defeat the Red-Bearded Ghost, they needed to find not only the ghost but also the person who dug up the grave, who could be considered its host.

Yeon could find evil spirits faster than anyone, but he was rather clumsy at tracking people.

In that sense, Seo-hee’s help was absolutely necessary.

* * *

Part 4, Scene 18.

Seo-hee, sweeping away fallen leaves and examining the ground, frowns and opens her mouth.

“This is strange. The more I track, the more human footprints I find.”

Seo-hee is right.

The footprints are gradually increasing.

The bigger problem is that the owners of the footprints are all different.

“Are there multiple hosts…?”

It’s the worst-case scenario imaginable.

If there are multiple hosts, it will inevitably be harder to defeat the Red-Bearded Ghost.

“Even if there are many, don’t we have no choice?”

Seo-hee asks me with a determined expression, and I think for a moment before nodding.

“That’s true. We have to eliminate the hosts anyway.”

As each day passes, more people will inevitably fall victim to the Red-Bearded Ghost.

Exorcising an evil spirit is different from killing a person, but in this situation, we have no choice.

Eliminating the hosts is the priority, no matter how many there are.

‘Seo-hee is right. I don’t like it, but we can’t show mercy in our actions.’

With that, Seo-hee and I start moving again.

The traces lead to a large city far from the cemetery.

And the trail ends at the entrance of the city.

There are too many footprints of other people entering and leaving the city at the entrance.

This makes further tracking impossible.

As Seo-hee and I are thinking we’re in trouble,

Someone appears before us.

“Here you are, you two.”

A familiar voice.

The person standing there is Yi-hyun.

* * *

That’s how Yi-hyun naturally joined the group, which was the content up to the middle of Part 4.

As it turned out, Yi-hyun was also pursuing the Red-Bearded Ghost.

“I heard that eleven people went missing in this city last night.”

“Eleven? Why? Over thirty graves were dug up.”

“What do you mean?”

At Yi-hyun’s question, Yeon explained what he had witnessed in the cemetery.

“Thirty-two graves were dug up, and if this is the work of the Red-Bearded Ghost, why are there only eleven missing persons?”

“Maybe the investigator got confused about the number of missing persons… or more graves were dug up overnight.”

“Ah.”

With Yi-hyun joining, we gained information, but unfortunately, it wasn’t practically helpful in tracking the Red-Bearded Ghost.

So Yeon, Wi-rang, Seo-hee, and Yi-hyun started tracking the Red-Bearded Ghost again.

But they couldn’t find any traces until sunset.

Eventually, the four gathered again to make a new plan.

“It’s pointless to keep chasing the Red-Bearded Ghost’s traces.”

Hearing Yeon’s words, Seo-hee was startled and raised her voice.

“Are you saying we should give up like this?”

Yeon silently stared at Seo-hee for a while, then took out his spirit compass and threw it into the air.

The spirit compass glowed white and flew off somewhere.

Yeon and Wi-rang ran towards it, shouting.

“Follow us! The Red-Bearded Ghost should be nearby!”

As Yeon confidently predicted, the Red-Bearded Ghost was trying to harm someone where the spirit compass had flown.

Seo-hee quickly shot an arrow to stop the Red-Bearded Ghost’s actions, and meanwhile, Wi-rang transformed into a wolf and bit into the ghost.

Watching this scene blankly, Yi-hyun asked Yeon a question.

“If you have this ability, why didn’t you use it earlier?”

“It’s an ability I can only use after sunset. Evil spirits’ power is faint during the day. I still can’t track the host now.”

After defeating the first Red-Bearded Ghost,

The four moved busily to exorcise more Red-Bearded Ghosts.

They had no time to rest because victims would inevitably occur if they didn’t move quickly.

That way, they managed to defeat a total of twenty-five Red-Bearded Ghosts before sunrise, but that was it.

They couldn’t catch the remaining seven Red-Bearded Ghosts.

And that many new missing persons appeared.

Even more shocking was the fact that the number of dug-up graves increased once again overnight.

* * *

The Red-Bearded Ghost episode continued until Part 5.

This was because it needed to be revealed that it was the city’s army that dug up the graves, and that there was a mastermind called the magistrate behind it.

So we continued filming quickly without rest until Part 5, where we defeat the magistrate.

From Part 3, Director Kang Han-sung and I divided into Team A and Team B to conduct the filming, which allowed us to speed up the process.

“Now that we’ve finished filming up to Part 5, shall we take a few days off?”

Director Kang Han-sung suggested, and I nodded.

“Everyone seems tired, so I think that would be good.”

Of course, having a rest period like this doesn’t mean everyone gets to rest.

Someone had to edit the filmed footage.

Currently, Director Kang Han-sung and I were taking turns editing, and we had finished up to Part 2.

It wasn’t a slow pace, but it couldn’t be called extremely fast either.

So Director Kang Han-sung and I had to edit even when others were resting.

“In this situation… what should we do about me being away?”

As I brought this up with an apologetic look, Director Kang Han-sung smiled and answered.

“It’s okay. Louis Vuitton has made you a good offer for once, so it can’t be helped. Besides, you’re only going to be away for a day.”

That was right.

I was planning to do another shoot during the break period.

This was because Louis Vuitton had unexpectedly appointed my brother and me as ambassadors.

‘I understand for my brother since he’s a world-famous model… but to think I’d become an ambassador like this too.’

It seemed that the global popularity of “Escape” and “Let’s Live Together, Princess” had a big impact.

Thinking about it, Jean-Drulot Meyère’s attitude had been unusual since “I’m Not a Villain” was invited to the Cannes Film Festival.

‘I think he said something then about looking forward to the future…’

Anyway, becoming a Louis Vuitton ambassador was quite exciting.

It meant more than just shooting an advertisement.

Knowing this, Director Kang Han-sung let me go despite the busy schedule.

“To think I’d end up directing a work featuring two Louis Vuitton ambassadors… I’m the one who’s surprised. Make sure to do well at the shoot and come back.”

With the director’s encouragement, a few days later, I moved to the ad shooting location with my brother.

Fortunately, this shoot was scheduled to take place domestically.

It was a relief, as flying to Paris in the midst of our busy schedule would have been burdensome.

-With all the ambassadors being Korean, we can’t suggest shooting in Paris. I’ll come there, so don’t worry.

Jean-Drulot Meyère said this with a slightly excited voice.

And I thought this was consideration for my brother and me.

But it wasn’t.

“What consideration… Jean-Drulot Meyère has been wanting to come to Korea for a while now.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. He kept asking if I could introduce him to good samgyeopsal places when he visits Korea later… It was almost annoying.”

“I heard he’s interested in K-content, but he even knows about samgyeopsal? By the way, why are you here?”

“To save on gas money.”

Indeed, my brother was currently in my car heading to the shooting location.

I naturally thought we’d meet separately at the location, but Yeo Kyung-chan drove the car to Yongin where my brother lives.

When I asked why I came here, Yeo Kyung-chan was startled and asked back.

“Huh? Wasn’t it already arranged with you, actor? I got a sudden call yesterday, so I thought it was…”

“Who called?”

“The CEO.”

As it turned out, CEO Jung Yoon-seok had apparently instructed to bring my brother and me together.

I could roughly guess why he did that.

“Brother. Be honest.”

“About what?”

“Are you going to sign with our company or not?”

“…Well.”

In fact, my brother’s contract with his agency had expired before he confirmed his appearance in “Toema Hwan Ya Dam”.

The agency naturally proposed a new contract, but from my brother’s perspective, it was difficult to accept.

This was because my brother’s previous agency was a model-specific agency.

For a model-specific agency, they had made bold moves like securing drama castings, but there were clear limitations.

It couldn’t help but pale in comparison to other actor-specific agencies.

From the start, the drama casting offer wasn’t even secured because the model agency did well.

After my brother expressed interest in acting on “New Quiz”, several production companies made offers first.

So from my brother’s perspective, there was no reason to continue his relationship with the previous agency.

Thus, my brother chose to part ways with his previous agency, and during this time, I made the offer for “Toema Hwan Ya Dam”.

Normally, we should have drawn up an appearance contract through a new agency, but my brother and I didn’t need to do that.

So we wrote the appearance contract face-to-face directly, and that’s how it’s been until now.

However, we couldn’t continue like this without an agency indefinitely.

From issues with future work appearances to clothing sponsorships, there were many tasks that could be handled more conveniently with an agency.

In the midst of this, CEO Jung Yoon-seok started showing interest in my brother.

That was the reason why my brother and I were traveling together in the car today.

‘CEO Jung Yoon-seok is probably trying to use his friendship with me to bring my brother in somehow?’

It was an obvious ploy.

But I didn’t view this behavior of CEO Jung Yoon-seok negatively.

It was something he could reasonably do from his position as CEO.

My brother was an attractive card from Festa Entertainment’s perspective.

And there was another reason I couldn’t blame CEO Jung Yoon-seok.

In fact, my brother was the one creating this atmosphere.

After appearing in “Toema Hwan Ya Dam”, my brother subtly acted as if he was part of Festa Entertainment.

He would casually approach while I was getting makeup from Song Jin-ah and ask for help too, things like that.

So from CEO Jung Yoon-seok’s perspective, he couldn’t help but be anxious.

‘Sigh… How did I end up with such a brother…’

I lamented inwardly before speaking to my brother.

“Why don’t you just clearly state your position now?”

“Position?”

“Yeah. Whether you’re going to sign with Festa Entertainment or not, say it clearly.”

Sensing the atmosphere was unusual, Yeo Kyung-chan and Song Jin-ah’s gazes turned to my brother.

My brother calmly received those gazes, thought about something for a moment, then answered.

“What do you think?”

“About what?”

“Would you like me to sign with your company?”

“Of course I would.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll sign.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I’ll contact the CEO during the week and sign the exclusive contract.”

“……”

My brother answered readily as if it was nothing.

It was almost ridiculous.

‘What’s this? This strange feeling like my brother is suddenly clinging to me lately?’

I stared blankly, but my brother turned his head to look out the window as if uninterested.

Meanwhile, the vehicle arrived at the shooting location.