For twenty-five years, he was at her side.

I don’t think the monkey guy OhGong disappeared from Jin SunMi’s life. On the contrary, he had always been protecting her without her knowing it.

1. Observe his character.

a. Because he ate free ice cream all the time, he repaid the ice cream guy with the teapot. Before he departed for the heavens, he wanted the ice cream guy to have a successful business, so he presented him with a teapot that would heat up the business and give him good fortune. This thoughtful gesture tells me that OhGong wasn’t a grabber or a taker. He would acknowledge his indebtedness and he would pay up.

b. Same with Mawang. He offered to put in a good word for Mawang when he got his promotion because it was Mawang who released him from the prison. If he’d do as much for Mawang, what more for the child SunMi, who actually released him and got punished for doing so. Especially when the child implored his protection?

c. Same with the teapot. As a powerful monster, he could have filched it and nobody would know any better. But he ordered the Cellphone CEO to pay up. And the Cellphone CEO didn’t regard his orders as underhanded or unscrupulous.

d. Also his demon-slaying services. He expected to be promoted because of his services rendered. His code of ethics demanded that his good deeds be recognized and rewarded. He protested furiously when his overlord wouldn’t promote him.

e. Then, look at what he told the bartender.

Bartender: You must have done something wrong to that kiddo.
OhGong: Yeah. But I don’t feel uneasy about the wrong thing I did at all. But she said she waited for me for 25 years. Desperately?

Hearing him, a viewer could understandably get this perception that he was heartless and unconscientious – which is contrary to how he treated other people like the ice cream guy and the Cellphone CEO. One possible explanation here is that he knew that he did wrong in stealing the memory of the SunMi but he redeemed himself by fulfilling the bargain anyway. You see, their deal was conditional: “If you call my name when you’re in trouble, in danger, or scared, I’ll appear and protect you.” However, nothing precluded him from appearing at her side whenever and wherever he wished to. He could have very well taken up the responsibility of protecting her in her hour of need, when she did not and could not call his name. HIS appearance wasn’t contingent upon HER summons. He could show up anytime he wanted.

2. The coincidences.

a. SunMi asked that ghost of a starving singer whether she’d seen a fairy (aka OhGong) around. She confessed to that ghost that her memory of the fairy was already becoming fuzzy and that she was beginning to wonder if she had only dreamed of the whole incident. A day or two after her confession, OhGong sauntered in front of her car at a crosswalk. Their meeting appeared incidental, but I think that was intentional. You see, if he truly wanted to pass by her incognito, he didn’t have to stop and taunt her by waving an invisible fan. He did the gesture cheekily knowing that it would jolt her memory, and that she would chase him.

And then when she lost him in the shopping mall, a spirit child showed up out of nowhere to lead her to him waiting at the bridge. To me, it seemed like he wanted to have that meeting with her after hearing her declaration that she could hardly remember him at all.

b. Mawang gave the starving ghost a second chance on his talent show so she could leave the human realm and join the afterlife. It’s plausible that OhGong had a hand in that, too. He could have been nearby listening to SunMi when she consoled the ghost and he prodded the ghost to audition on Mawang’s show after eating the cereal bar. The ghost told Mawang, “I think it was the right thing for me to do, coming back here after eating some of the cereal bar.” OhGong could have been the middleman because he knew Mawang runs a talent show on TV.

c. the demon in the groom dummy. I find it curious that OhGong appeared at the same house where SunMi was attacked by possessed boy. To me, his appearance was to exact revenge (i.e., he wanted to “beat up” the demon, not just get rid of it) for SunMi’s injury.

d. the accident-causing demon. When SunMi saw the demon on the car roof, she said, “there it is AGAIN,” implying that this wasn’t the first time she’d seen a demon like this. Interestingly enough, OhGong had also exorcised an accident-causing demon. He even destructed two overpass in the process of extermination. It wouldn’t surprise me if he had been on the scene, too, when SunMi first encountered the accident-causing demon.

e. SunMi’s assistant. OhGong was familiar with her right-hand man although it was their first time encountering each other. He tapped him casually, asking where was Jin SunMi, and the assistant was surprised.

f. the swarming demons. OhGong was already at SunMi’s home when the demons arrived after they tracked the scent of her lotus-blood to her home. How did he know where she lived? Unlike the demons and Mawang who could identify her lotus smell, he couldn’t seem to smell SunMi. Take the instance when he had to conjure up a butterfly to pick SunMi from the row of brides of the horny groom. It was the butterfly who located SunMi because he couldn’t pick her out of the line-up simply based on her fragrance.

3. The umbrella.

Is it really believable that for 25 years, SunMi had been able to hide from the demons with a bloodhound’s ability to sniff her scent — with just a flimsy umbrella as a protection? And that she didn’t bleed a single drop during those years?

I think OhGong had been successful in keeping SunMi protected. She could handle ordinary ghosts and spirits but he handled the fiercer demons. That was why the word didn’t spread until late that SamJang had returned to the human world. Just like he would beat up the groom doll and the attacker in the alley after she got bitten, he efficiently took care of the tougher demons she encountered. Plus, it didn’t look to me that he was a novice at guarding her house at night. He didn’t spare a glance at those dark spirits floating up in the sky when he blasted them with fireworks.

That’s why, for me, the umbrella hovering in the air above and behind her, while he manipulated it from afar, became a neat symbolism of their relationship. She probably didn’t know that for a long time, she had survived well “on her own” because he had been at her side all along without her suspecting it.