{ Original Name: 귀야곡 | Publisher: Lezhin | Audience: NSFW }
I’m so mad at myself. I didn’t realize until today that I missed last week’s episode of The Ghost’s Nocturne. I remember even thinking last week that it felt like I was missing something for my blog. Silly me. Anyway, that just means you get two-fer today!
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Episode 38 summary
Jaeshin is in his human form meeting with a potential lover. I’m assuming that since the crown prince has been avoiding him, Jaeshin needs to get yang energy from somewhere else, so he has no other choice but to call someone else. He decides to call upon this gentleman after hearing about his reputation. They meet in the middle of the night at a pagoda, and when we finally get a look at the guy’s face, he actually looks very similar to Lee Nok. As Jaeshin talks more with this “humble musician,” images of the prince flash through his mind. Then, as he reaches for the gentleman’s face, he gets a good look at his lips. It’s quite similar to the prince’s yet different… definitely not the same. Suddenly, Jaeshin does a 180 and dismisses the guy, saying that he doesn’t do anything for Jaeshin. He stomps away angrily, and Jaeshin is alone again. Seems that he can’t get a certain someone out of his mind.
The next day is Gusikrye, the eclipse ceremony that the prince had been charged with the preparations for by the king. As Nok is escorted to Geunjeongjeon Hall, he passes a large tree and hanging above him is a creepy looking apparition. I’m talking Mieruko-chan-level of creepy. The ghost makes mention that “his smell” is almost gone, which I take to mean Jaeshin’s scent. It’s been a few days since the prince and Jaeshin were together, so Jaeshin’s scent that normally “protects” the prince is fading. Hence, why he’s seeing more and more ghosts lately. The prince tries his best not to react to the apparition. He can’t let anything go wrong today; the Gusikrye ceremony is just too important.
At the ceremony, the queen is looking like a deranged loon as she looks on excitedly at the eclipsed sun. While everyone else is praying for forgiveness and leniency (an eclipse was viewed as a bad omen and a particularly bad one for the king), this woman looks excited. Over where the king and the prince are, things seem to be going as planned… that is until Lee Nok hears a familiar voice call out to him. The voice of his mother.
Episode 39 summary
The prince is trying his damndest to keep his cool, but he can’t. As much as he tries to tell himself that there’s no way the apparition could be his mother, he can’t help but react. He starts to garner attention from the attendees around him because from their point of view, the prince is being odd again. He’s looking over his shoulder, looking terrified, at absolutely nothing. Trembling with tears rolling down his face, the prince is barely holding on when his mother’s apparition makes mention that he’s to blame that she’s dead. It’s too much. The prince bolts from his station as the king and everyone else is yelling for him to come back.
Poor Lee Nok. He’s so terrified.
Elsewhere, as our cute little Geumdong trots along a path, grumbling about the prince again, a shadow falls over the tiny pup. Suddenly, Jaeshin is transformed into his human form thanks to the eclipse. Knowing the celestial event only lasts for a certain amount of time, he immediately goes out in search for Lee Nok. After all, the prince has some explaining to do.
With the ghost of his mother continuing to pursue him, Lee Nok has been running full speed away from Geunjeongjeon Hall. He’s begging for someone, anyone to help him, and with his impeccable timing, Jaeshin appears. He grabs Nok by the arm to stop the frightened prince from going any further. Prepared to release his tirade on the crown prince for avoiding him, Jaeshin is instead caught by surprise as the prince pulls him by the collar and kisses him.
Discussion
In episode 37, when the queen was talking to her brother, I made mention of her unwrapping a trinket that belonged to the previous queen. Well, now we know why that little detail was made obvious to the reader. The queen used it to create some kind of curse to bring back the former queen to haunt the prince. No wonder she told her brother not to worry; she already had something planned. And it was quite a cruel prank too. The prince harbors a lot of guilt for his mother’s death and using that to gain an advantage over him is brutal.
But it makes me curious about what would have happened if the prince hadn’t been avoiding Jaeshin. He presumedly wouldn’t have seen the ghost in the tree or the apparition of his mother, so the queen’s cruel prank wouldn’t have worked… so maybe it’s a good thing it did? Because if it didn’t work as planned, she would know that something really is going on with the prince. There are already whispers since the crown prince has been seen with red marks (kiss marks) on his body, so he’s definitely up to something. She’d probably do something even more heinous to further degrade the relationship between the prince and his father. What Lee Nok did by running away from the ceremony is a big deal; it’s basically a direct insult to the king. So there’s definitely some kind of punishment coming. I just hope it isn’t too harsh because he definitely doesn’t deserve it.
We’re witnessing Jaeshin softening little by little, and I am all for it. He may not have any knowledge of how to win a human’s heart, but a human is certainly starting to win over his, even if he doesn’t realize himself. Because season one Jaeshin would have had no problems sleeping with the musician from episode 38, but it’s different now. He’s not the only one, of course. I mean, the whole reason the prince is avoiding Jaeshin is because he doesn’t understand the feelings that he has towards Jaeshin. Ah, slow burn romances. Gotta love ’em.
