The episode starts with the year 1991. Two rangers along with the president of the development of National Park Yang Geun-tak go to the Black Bridge Valley village to convince the villagers to demolish the village for cable cars. The rangers tell Geun-tak that they are only showing him the path and would stay neutral.
The Mayor of the village Kim Jae-gyeong is not very impressed with the idea and pushes Geun-tak away from the village. Furious Geun-tak says he will make them regret their choice and leaves.
That night son of the mayor sees a ghost light in the woods and we are shown a mysterious man opening the well of the village. The next day, villagers find out that someone threw a dead animal into the well. Mayor and the other villagers are convinced that it is Geun-tak doing. Our 2 rangers say that they can’t blame him until we have evidence and promises to protect the village. Now we are shown that one of the rangers is our Dae-Jin.
The year 2019. Yi-gang and Hyun-Jo show the illegal hiker’s live video to Dae-Jin and say they should search for him near the Black Bridge Valley village. Dae-Jin deny them as they were no missing reports and asks them to work on the Mountain Spirit Ritual and leave.
Yi-gang says illegal hikers might have staged it for views and also he has a phone so he would have called if in trouble and says she is 98 per cent sure that it is nothing. Hyun-Jo says she is also not confident leaving the 2 per cent.
Gu-Yeong who is studying and the team leader whose leg is not in good shape receive a message from Yi-gang that they should take care of the Mountain Spirit Ritual as she and Hyun-Jo are going to the Black Bridge Valley Village. Of course, the duo marched to the Black Bridge Valley Village.
Gu-Yeong and the team leader took the day off and does their own job. The team leader goes to Yi-gang’s grandma’s restaurant and sees Gu-Yeong there reading. Both starts complaining that the other is taking leaves more often.
Officer Eung and his partner take patrol in his car. They discover the illegal hiker lying alongside the road and run to save him. Thankfully, the illegal hiker is fine physically but maybe gone mad as he keeps saying that he saw ghost lights.
Hyun-Jo and Yi-gang reach the village. Yi-gang days it her first time as well as it is a dangerous place and had no reason to go there. She gives him a parchment saying that it is to protect themselves from the ghosts. Hyun-Jo says maybe Yi-gang doesn’t hate Hyun-Jo and cares about him. They then search for the hiker. They find his phone and starts searching in the direction but they get lost and circle the same place. When they realise that they are lost, they are faced with the ghosts lights. Yi-gang sees it and drags Hyun-Jo saying that it is dangerous. They both run but are unsuccessful to find their way back. They then run into a cave that has an old gate and lock it. And in this mess, Yi-gang loses her radio.
Hyun-jo asks what it was and Yi-gang says it is something which people calls ghost light. Hyun-jo asks if that is true and Yi-gang says of course not and says it is the moon bear which is 2m tall and weighs over 100 kg and someone must have triggered it as it is not harmful towards the humans unless they get into their way. They then try to radio the station with Hyun-jo’s radio but unfortunately his radio is dead. And they are trapped there as the bear is in no intention to leave.
Hyun-Jo says he didn’t know such caves existed in the mountain. Yi-gang says it must be one of the secret hideouts of the “patisons”.
Officer Eung reaches the granny’s restaurant and tells about the illegal hiker to Gu-Yeong and the team leader. Gu-Yeong calls the station and asks about Hyun-Jo and Yi-gang. Dae-Jin and Yang-sun are worried now that they are unable to reach the duo. Yang-sun says it is Yi-gang so they need not worry much about them. But Dae-Jin says that the village is an example of “mountains hallucinating people”.
Now we are flashed back to the year 1991. Villagers fetch water from the near stream as the well is contaminated. The wife of the Mayor goes to fetch water and on her way back she meets a mysterious man in black gloves and a black jacket.
Rangers come running to the village as the wife of the mayor goes running. All the rangers search for them and they are warned that they can get easily get lost in the village, even the safe path can lead to cliffs, our trails disappear and have high chances of hallucinating.
Dae-Jin searches a lot and especially near a tree that has lots of ribbons tied to them. After 2 days of the search, they find the woman with a weak pulse near the ribbon tree. Dae-Jin is shocked to know it and blames himself that he should have looked properly as the woman passes away.
Eventually, all the villagers to move out of the village. But the mayor refuses to leave and blames the cable car project for all the unfortunate things that happened. He and his son are the only people left in the village. Dae-Jin meets that son and the son says there are ghost lights in the village and he himself witnessed it. Dae-Jin and his partner then leave as they were unsuccessful to talk to the mayor to move out of the village as the National park has decided to demolish the village.
The year 2019. Dae-jin leaves to meet the illegal hiker while Yang-sun tries to reach the duo. Dae-jin and officer Eung overhears the illegal hiker who is anonymously reporting to the station that an old lady was there up in the mountain while he was hiking. Dae-jin and officer Eung get furious as he left the old lady up there selfishly.
In the mountain, Hyun-Jo discovers the old lady in the partisons cave. The duo tries to carry her down as she is in weak condition. They try to run from the bears but lose their way as before. They both slip and falls down but fortunately, Gu-Yeong and the team leader finds them. Now the bear is back so all of them runs back to the cave. Gu-Yeong asks what the hell that was and Yi-gang explains how they are trapped there. (But at least now they have radio!)
Gu-Yeong starts blaming Yi-gang and Hyun-Jo that because of them he is trapped there while he should be studying for his promotion exam. Yi-gang asks if that is why he takes leaves often. Gu-Yeong says soon he is going to meet Yang-sun’s mother and he should at least have the title of team leader. The team leader gets angry and says it is only the title and he had to work hard and now his leg is not very good that he may have to stop coming to the mountain.
Dae-jin radios them and learns the situation. He talks to Yi-gang and asks her to lead the team as she knows more about the mountain. She says she is not confident as she got lost the last time she tried. Dae-jin says he once lost in the mountain and it lead to a missing hiker’s death. He says he then pondered why that happened and realised that he should have looked for the human traces rather than the animal traces. He asks them to follow human traces and if they reach where they have been earlier then asks them to run in the opposite direction. He orders Yi-gang to take the lead and Hyun-Jo to carry the hiker and Gu-Yeong to follow him and the team leader to take the tail. He says they were 2 earlier but now they are 4 and asks them to trust each other. The team starts running as Dae-Jin ordered.
Dae-Jin remembers the year 1991. When the mayor hangs himself in a tree which makes his son an orphan. Dae-jin blames himself that if he had saved the woman he could have saved the village. His partner asks him if he is thinking about quitting the job and says it is what happens in the mountain and he will feel more guilty every time but the sympathy he has is what makes him a ranger.
The year 1998. Dea-Jin and the researcher curiously wait at the bottom. The researcher asks if they will make it and Dae-Jin says they will and they won’t make the mistakes he did. Just as he said, the team succeeds.
The illegal woman hiker whom the Rangers saved goes to a Buddha temple and prays for the mayor of the village. She goes there every year it seems.
On the day of the mountain spirit ritual, Gu-Yeong goes to meet Yang-sun and her mother. Her mother starts asking weird questions like his height. But Gu-Yeong tries to be genuine which makes him cute. At this point, an employee from the restaurant comes and gives Gu-Yeong a bouquet and says it is from the chief of the national park for the best ranger of the month and tells them that their food for today is also sponsored by the chief. This makes her mother very impressed and Gu-Yeong, Yang-sun play along. Yi-gang and Hyun-Jo stand outside the restaurant and Yi-gang says she knew that Gu-Yeong would not buy anything for the meet. (So it was our duo’s plan.. Nice!!)
Hyun-Jo accidentally drops the parchment Yi-gang gave earlier in the mountain. Yi-gang asks why he has it and asks him to throw it away. Hyun-Jo says it is his belonging now and he will keep it which is completely his wish. Yi-gang wonders why Hyun-Jo keeps getting cute with her.
At the festival, the researcher meets up with the duo and says it was the 35th moon bear in the village earlier and says they must have done something to the bear for it to react like that. She says they are good babies. Yi-gang says they almost died because of her cute babies. The researcher says they should thank the bears as it saved the illegal hiker as they would have never found the illegal hiker in the cave. Yi-gang says they saved the hiker and not the bears. They keep quarrelling and I found that cute.😸
The team leader’s wife visits him and nags him to go to the big hospital. She asks if he wants to die in the mountains. He says that would be good too. Then he asks her to stay in his residence and leaves for an emergency in the mountain.
One fine day, Hyun-Jo visits the partisons cave and is surprised to find Kim Sol there. Kim Sol asks what he is searching there and tells him that rangers took the lost articles. Hyun-Jo asks what Kim Sol is doing there. Kim Sol says that the cave used to be his hideout in his childhood. And says he is from the Black Bridge Village. He says what the man said in the video is wrong as the villagers moved because of the ghost lights. The ghost light always followed the unfortunate situations. Hyun-Jo says that bears eye also looks like that and he saw that. Kim Sol says there were no bears in the mountain at that time. He wishes luck for Hyun-Jo to find whatever he is searching for and leaves.
Kim Sol then goes out and wears a black pair of gloves before leaving. Hyun-Jo then looks for a pole he saw earlier which is nowhere to be found now. He then suddenly gets some visions where he sees a fall and the black-gloved man. And the episode ends here.
Is Kim Sol the son of the mayor? His first name explains it. I told you guys!! I had a suspension of this man from the last few episodes. If he is the son of the mayor then maybe he is taking avenge on the villagers who abandoned him and his father. Maybe he is killing ever another person who was responsible for the village demolition. Woahhhh… Can’t wait for the next episode! I have a feeling that winter is coming.. Let’s see. What are your thoughts guys?
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i didn’t expect this episode, this much good
Yeah and that thought that there are only 6 more episodes makes me sad😅
In the end of the episode the gloves weared man would be the killer I think soo, Maybe it could be wrong
Yup.. It could be the killer we are dying to know!!