Despite the power saw in her hand, she froze in terror. A pair of blue eyes glowed in the dark. Her feet were rooted to the spot by his bloodthirsty eyes. She was paralyzed as her eyes met with the man’s who was burying a person alive.

Her thoughts whirled around in her mind like a siren. Murderer…. That one word that she had only ever seen in news headlines shook her. Her body broke out in cold sweat and goosebumps. Her only wish had been a quiet and safe life. Was that too much to ask?

Today had been wholly normal and uneventful day. She had gone to the hospital, went through her overdue bills, inspected trees that had undergone treatment for their disease, and argued with a client who had not paid their treatment fee for over a month now.

It was an old habit for the tree doctor, So Lee-yeon, to go up to the mountains at night and inspect the neglected trees. Today had been a normal and casual day like any other. This mountain was a private property, but it wasn’t managed at all so the overgrown trees and bushes gave the illusion of ghosts and creatures.

Just like trees which are usually found in abandoned areas, the trees here suffered from malnutrition and neglect, so she took extra care of them. Always.

“Help! Please, help!” The one being buried shouted in a muffled voice. However, the screams were cut abruptly when the earth piled up on top of them, leaving only silence in the air.

The tall man wore a shiny, black, plastic raincoat. He dug up the soil and piled it onto the pit as though he was familiar with this. As though, he had done this many times before.

“Pl-please!” said the voice. An arm protruded from the fresh soil, desperately scratching the ground for a handhold. “I will t-tell you everything.”

Unlike the one struggling against their imminent death, the man hummed the notes of a tune, calmly. “Wrong!” he said, finally, “You should be begging me to kill you here.”

The silence stretched. “Help…”

“The show has just begun,” said the man and pushed the hand on the ground with his shoes and kicked on it repeatedly, smashing them.

“Ahh!!” screamed the one in the ground.

The man’s face was stony, but he kicked like a madman. The fingers seemed to be broken and bloody.

“Aaaa……!” The scream was muffled yet pitiful from below the ground.

“Don’t you know that the more you scream, the more excited I get?”

“Aaaaa!”

“I can’t stop doing this because a dumbass like you comes out once in a while.”

The man resembled the birch that is said to shine brightly even at night. His face was just as white and sleek. However, he didn’t appear to have the color or complexion of a living person at all. She could only look in horror at the man who was looking at his face reflected on the blade.

“Aaaaa, please!” The soil trembled as the cream and sobs sounded from within. A head was exposed but the man pressed down on it with his foot as though snuffing out a cigarette. With the hood of the raincoat covering half his face, she could only see his long lips.

When she saw the person trying to resist gradually weaken in their movement, and then stop completely, So Lee-yeon’s mind formed a semblance of the truth. It’s a murder scene!

The event unfolding in front of her eyes was so shocking and unbelievable. She gulped nervously. She felt very afraid, and her hands started to sweat. She hid her phone behind her back and tried to press 112. Relying solely on her intuition and feel, she fumbled around with her phone.

All her focus was on her fingers fumbling with the screen when she stepped on a branch. The cracking of the stray branch was a very insignificant sound in normal circumstances but in the dead of night, nothing was louder than the said sound.

The man who had ignored the dying screams suddenly stopped shoveling. He dropped the shovel, and So Lee-yeon’s gaze followed it. she couldn’t breathe. She only now realized the smell of blood emanating from the motionless man on the ground. She looked at the body closely and she realized that the white shirt was all dark, drenched with blood.

“What the fuck is this?” said a voice near her, “Isn’t it about time you ran for your life?” A gunshot was fired.

So Lee-yeon ran. The ground was muddy because of the rain. Her shoes sank and squelched in the damp. It was hard to run smoothly, but if she hesitated even a little, she would be caught and killed. Her heart was in her mouth and she ran. She gasped for breath but didn’t stop running.

The call finally connected.

“Hwayang Police Station,” said a voice.

“H-hello,” she stammered.

“Yes, please speak slowly.”

She burst into tears. She was so afraid. She fumbled with the words. “I s-saw somebody b-burying a body here. Please, come quick. I got caught. I a-am in danger.”

“What’s your name, ma’am?”

“So Lee-yeon. Please, I might die.”

“Please calm down, ma’am. Are you able to give me a location?”

“Y-yes. There are dozens of Japanese Oak trees here. You can also see an elm tree with a large hole. I just passed that now. Please!” she responded, as best as she could, trying to calm herself. Her breath was coming in rough gasps.

“Can you give me more information? Is there any sort of building or infrastructure nearby?”

Lee-yeon heaved a deep breath and pulled herself together. “Spruce Tree Hospital. The mountain right behind that.”

“We are coming. Ma’am, I don’t need to tell you that if this is a prank call, there will be consequences.”

“Please. Please come quick.”

She finally reached the road at the entrance to the trail towards the mountain. She tried to catch her breath. A wire thin as a thread wrapped around her neck and she was yanked back. She scratched her neck to get hold of the wire, but it was too thin and cut into her skin.

“Hey, you dropped this.”

Her hair stood on end. The sound of breathing near her ear was terrifying. One hand tightened the wire around her neck while the other placed something heavy in her hand. Before she lost consciousness, she swung it with all her might towards the man.

She felt the aftereffects of the heavy swing and heard something breaking as the saw collided with the man. She swung her tools twice more. The wire loosened around her neck. So Lee-yeon, petrified with fear, didn’t look back. The power saw belatedly roared to life. This was the first time she had met her secret patient, a vegetative man who had been lying in bed, unmoving, for two years.

“It has constipation.”

“What?” The principal opened his mouth, aghast. His face showed a mixture of disbelief and shock.

“What did you just…”

“It’s not defecating well.”

The principal looked even more taken aback, if that was even possible. How is that even possible? He wanted to say that aloud to this young woman, but his face turned red as she looked at the elementary kids wandering and running around with their backpacks.

Lee-yeon stroked the tree stem gently. She didn’t like him at all. She had had her fair share of such reactions before.

“Defecation is important. It’s a completely natural and regular thing. You know that, of course.”

The principal coughed as if he was annoyed. But he smirked as he covered his mouth, As expected, she is stupid and mad.

It cost tens and thousands of dollars to fix a few trees. He would rather cut them down than spend so much money on them. He contacted a shabby business run by this young woman instead of the big hospital in the city, just in case.

After re-injuring the treated tree, he was going to blame it on this absurd tree doctor. At least, that was his plan.

“This tree is one of the main trees in our school. It is the symbol of greenness. Will you be able to fix it for us?” The principal lowered his eyebrows and asked earnestly.

His plan was simple. He wanted to accuse her and get a refund for the damages done. Then he would cut the tree down anyway. At least it would benefit his school in that way.

“Consider it done,” came the honest answer. “The treatment process is not very difficult. To put it simply, it couldn’t defecate properly after eating so it had developed constipation. It couldn’t lay its roots properly.” Lee-yeon looked around the school field and frowned. “If trees don’t defecate well, they start dying from the top. Most of them seem to be already in that process here.”

“So, how will the treatment process go?” asked the principal, reluctantly. He stared at Lee-yeon from head to toe. Tattered trousers, soil in the nails and a strong smell of fertilizers. He felt that she was dirty. Her clear face was smudged with soil and her hair, tied down to the nape of her neck, looked like drooping seaweed. Filthy. This woman has no appeal. I have another tree dying right in front of me. In addition to that, her soft twinkling eyes looked dull and dry when facing people. She looked pale and skinny.

“Principal.”

“Yes, yes.” The principal answered overly politely as if he had been caught.

“All the soil here needs to be replaced by Masato soil.”

“All?”

“Yes. That’s the cause of this. The trees can’t defecate well because of the soil. By the way…” Her gaze sharpened. “You saved your money, didn’t you?”

Lee-yeon walked around the principal with a dubious face. “Did you bury something there?”

“What?”

“I heard the school was recently remodeled.” “Tiles?”

The principal’s shoulders flinched.

“Left-over cement?”

Cement?”





“Cement plastic bags are also possible…”

“Or all of the together…”

The principal wiped the sweat from his forehead and avoided her gaze. ‘How does she know that?’ To save the cost of waste disposal, the waste was instead buried in the ground. Nobody knew this but the scruffy tree doctor knew everything.

“When those materials meet water, they become as hard as a rock. They contaminate the soil. The roots cannot grow, and they rot. Once we dig the ground, we’ll find everything anyway. I’ll send you the estimate sheet by today.” Lee-yeon smiled innocently, wiping her sweat with the flower-patterned handkerchief that was tied around her neck. But her smile didn’t reach her cold and sharp eyes. “Of course, I will have to report this to the city hall first.”

The principal approached her in a hurry with a sullen expression on his face. “D-doctor, please listen to me…”

“You were happy to have saved your money, weren’t you?” She looked at him. “Now, payback double or triple the amount of fine. As I said, defecating is very important for plants as well as humans.”

Lee-yeon turned around in contentment. She sighed. She knew her only staff back at the hospital would nag at her for leaving this opportunity. She turned to the principal again. She hated playing politics, but the promotion and upgrade of her hospital was also important. It was the most important thing right now.

“I’m a doctor who loves her trees,” said she, “I am the best at saving the trees, but I am also good at weeding out harmful…things.” ‘Especially people like you’, she said inwardly. Dozens of trees were damaged by this stupid, selfish human’s greed and yet he talks about how the tree is the symbol for this school. These were the kind of people who destroyed forests to use leaves as their ashtrays.

“Please visit our Spruce Tree Hospital more often.” She forced herself to smile sweetly.

Lee-yeon is a tree doctor who runs a small tree hospital on an island located on Hwaido, Geunil-myeon, Hwayang City, close to Tongyeong to the west and Namhae to the south. Although it seems like an underdeveloped island, it is surprisingly the second largest island in Korea. It is a very beautiful and scenic tourist destination known for its sea, plants and rocks.

‘The old man looked at me very weirdly’… Lee-yeon’s job was like that. She had to carry tools such as ladders, knives, saws, scissors and so on. She had to climb trees and inspect it as part of her job. So, people looked at Lee-yeon as though she was a wild animal.

There were so many clients who called upon a ‘female’ doctor because they charged less otherwise, they would be out of business. The clients took advantage of the fact. Lee-yeon was already over thirty years old. She was used to that kind of treatment by now.

She was driving her scooter along the road overseeing the emerald sea when her phone rang. She plugged the earphones to her ears and took the call. “Hello?”

“Hey, director,” said a voice on the other end, “If you don’t come within five minutes, I will unlock the 2nd floor.”

The scooter, which was going straight, leaned to the side. Lee-yeon hurriedly straightened the scooter again and spoke in a hurry.

“Manager, wait!”

“I heard it clearly. There was a sound!”

“You must’ve heard it wrong. It’s an empty room so how can there be any sound?”

“Look, I am sure I heard something.”

Lee-yeon kept a calm mind but she sped up her scooter. The clear, usually calm scenery of Hwaido passed in a blur.

“I am sorry. I have already called the locksmith.”

“No!” she exclaimed. Eventually, her calm demeanor broke. She raked her mind to find a convincing reason to dissuade her manager, but she beat Lee-yeon to it.

“Stop your lies!” said the manager, “Stop telling me that you locked the room because water veins are growing. I am also tired of hearing that you are drying chilies and soyabeans in that room!”

“It’s—”

“Are you a bluebeard or something? Why do you keep forbidding me from opening that door? It doesn’t matter to me even if you have made a harem of men in that room!”

Lee-yeon's mouth opened wide. Gye Choo-ja, who turned sixty this year, was an arborist who helped Lee-yeon with tree treatment. She also helped manage the hospital. Spruce Tree Hospital was So Lee-yeon’s, who turned thirty-two this year. She was single so she would hardly have a harem of men in the said room.

Manager Gye always wanted to open the room on the second floor whenever Lee-yeon left Wangjin. And today, she found her moment. It was understandable that Gye Choo-ja was curious and upset from having things hidden from her. But managerthought Lee-yeon, ‘I really can’t show you the second floor!’ It had been two years since the room on the second floor was treated with secrecy and mystery. A peculiar plant was hidden there, which shouldn’t be discovered by others, no matter what.

* * *

‘Spruce Tree Hospital’ was engraved in a beautiful font on a wooden plank that hung precariously, dropped down as Lee-yeon rushed into the hospital. The house which was shabby was stained with ivory color. However, the second floor was colored in a more urban gray tone which looked odd when compared to the lower floors.

She passed the first floor which was commonly used simultaneously as an office and a home. She ran up the stairs in a hurry. “Manager!” she called.

“Damn it!” said Gye Choo-ja. The locksmith was already there, about to break the lock on the door. Lee-yeon stood there, panting.

“I’m so sick of this, for real.”

“I told you already,” panted Lee-yeon, “There is another owner here, so I am not allowed to go in either. That is why I am leaving it empty.” That was half true, half a lie.

“Really? You aren’t allowed to go in?” said Gye Choo-ja, folding her hands in front of her. “So, how did you dry chilies and soyabeans in there then?”

“That… um…”

“Let me just sniff the air inside this ‘empty’ room for once then.”

“The air might be moldy. There has been no ventilation.” Lee-yeon persuades her.

“Really? You don’t trust me, do you? Even if you hid gold and diamonds in there, I would never steal them.”

‘I wouldn’t mind even if you stole my gold and diamonds’, thought Lee-yeon. She smiled awkwardly at Gye Choo-ja and made a gesture to head back downstairs. “Curiosity killed the cats, Manager.”

“You are a liar! Why don’t you talk like that with your clients?”

“But, for real…”

Gye Choo-ja thought that the tree doctor had looked easy going in the beginning but as she continued her dealings with her clients who were mostly condescending men in their forties, especially civil engineers, architects and from agricultural industries, her distrust seemed to show no signs of improving.

“Director, I’m not giving up until I know the truth,” declared Gye Choo-ja sternly, as she retreated downstairs. Lee-yeon slumped to the floor. ‘This damned second floor…’ She closed her eyes, feeling tired.

***

The bed was surrounded with various machines. The machines beeped and were connected to the man lying on the bed. Those were the only things keeping him alive.

It was hard to tell the age of the man. With his eyes closed and his head slightly to the left, he seemed like any other person sounded asleep. This large body had gradually shrunk over the past two years. The skin on his arms and legs had thinned down. However, his wide, angular shoulders were the same as the night Lee-yeon saw him in the mountains.

Lee-yeon sat by the patient releasing a huge sigh. It had been two years since the incident but there were no improvements. She ran her hands through her face to get rid of the fatigue. Even though she was a doctor, she was a doctor for the trees not for humans. This man – even in a vegetative state- was still a man, not a tree.

That night still played in Lee-yeon’s mind like a movie.

‘Don’t you need to run away?’

When she swung her tool, her power saw, to protect herself the man did not move an inch that day. There were clearly bloodstains on the tip of the saw but that didn’t matter to him. He did not move.

Lee-yeon remembered thinking that she would breathe her last breath there. She had turned around one last time to look at her killer. The moment she turned around and met the eyes of the man. He had stopped. She saw him clenching his jaw tightly, as if in pain. And slowly but surely his heavy body fell to the ground with a thud.

It was evident that someone had struck him from behind with a stone, that now lay beside the body stained with blood. The attacker was the man who would have been buried alive if Lee-yeon had not been spotted. The attacker stood tall covered with dirt and blood. He staggered looking at the body he had just attacked and as he tried to open his eyes he collapsed and rolled down the hill.

Sitting in that room now Lee-yeon felt chills running down her spine thinking of how easily she could have died that night. Now in this room filled with nothing but machines and silence, she looked at the body lying on the bed.

“Kwon Chae-woo,” she quietly spoke. The name is still awkward on her tongue, “please don’t wake up” she continued. Pressing her temples, she took a deep breath. All she wanted was a quiet life ever since she ran away from home. For Lee-yeon an ordinary and boring life was a privilege what she yearned for.

“Please don’t wake up,” she whispered.

Lee-yeon buried her face in her hands because of the fatigue. At that moment, the man’s finger slightly moved.