12 timestamped notes explaining the Korean cultural context in this episode — customs, idioms, food, honorifics, and history, at the moment each appears on screen. These notes discuss events across the whole episode. To see them revealed scene-by-scene as you watch, use the episode page to find an airing.
김신 addresses the king as 폐하 (pyeha), the highest honorific reserved for an emperor or reigning monarch — roughly 'Your Majesty.' In the Goryeo dynasty setting this single word carries enormous weight, marking the vast gap in rank between a general and his sovereign, which makes the bitterness of the reunion all the more charged.
The names 김선 (Kim Seon) and 왕여 (Wang Yeo) appear together as an inscription, linking the Grim Reaper's present identity to his Goryeo-era royal one. In Korean historical convention a king's personal name (휘, hwi) was considered sacred and almost never spoken aloud; seeing it written alongside a subject's name suggests an illicit, intimate connection — exactly the scandal the villain is weaponising.
써니 references a belief, woven into the show's mythology, that a soul passes through four lifetimes. This echoes Buddhist ideas of rebirth (윤회, yunhoe) common in Korean folk religion, but the drama gives it a specific dramatic shape: each life lets characters meet again, accumulate karma, and eventually settle unfinished bonds. It is why both she and 은탁talk about 'which life' they are in.
The sizzling sound marks someone frying 전 (jeon) — savory Korean pancakes made with vegetables, seafood, or meat coated in egg and flour batter. In Korea, frying jeon on a rainy day is such a strong cultural habit that the sound of rain is jokingly called 'jeon-frying weather' (전 부치는 날씨). The quiet domesticity of the sound contrasts sharply with the heavy emotional scene that just ended.
The drama's audit scene spells out its own rules: 저승사자 (Jeoseungsaja, Death Messengers) are souls who committed grave sins in life, served centuries of hell, and then chose to erase their own memories before taking up the role of escorting the dead. This is the show's creative riff on Korean folk belief in jeoseungsaja, who appear in traditional tales as bureaucratic officials of the underworld (저승, jeoseung) rather than cloaked skeletons.
탕약 (tangyak) is a traditional herbal medicine broth, prescribed and prepared by court physicians and served to the king daily. The scene reveals the king knows his decoction has been tampered with and commands more of it — intending to use the poisoned medicine to end his own life. The horror is compounded by the fact that 탕약 is supposed to be the ultimate symbol of royal care and longevity.
명부 (myeongbu) literally means 'the register of names' and in Korean underworld mythology it is the official ledger that records when and how every person will die. Here it functions like a bureaucratic death warrant: once a name appears in the 명부, the assigned 저승사자 must process that soul. The fact that 은탁's name has appeared with a date one week away is the episode's central crisis.
선황 (seonhwang) means 'the preceding emperor' — a deceased former ruler. When the dying general relays that the late king chose to protect 김신 by pretending to ignore him ('돌보지 않음으로 돌보았다'), he is describing a classic Confucian dilemma: a ruler who openly favoured a disgraced general's family would endanger them further, so silence was the only protection available. The message lands as both an apology and a final act of love.
써니kisses the 저승사자's phone screen as if completing a phone number with her lips, a playful romantic gesture — leaving a 립 (lip, lipstick print) as the final 'digit.' In Korean pop culture and variety shows, leaving a lipstick kiss on someone's phone or letter is a light, flirty way of signing off with affection. The joke lands bittersweet here because she is simultaneously saying goodbye.
Earlier in the series 은탁 and 김신 wrote a mock-contract saying that 을 (the weaker party, 은탁) must answer 갑's (the stronger party, 김신's) summons every year on the first snow. 첫눈 (cheotnun, first snow of the season) is already deeply romantic in Korean culture — confessing feelings on the first snow is a beloved drama and pop-song trope — so tying their reunion to it layers personal mythology onto a shared cultural emotion.
메밀꽃 (memilkkot, buckwheat blossom) are small white wildflowers strongly associated with the classic Korean short story 'When the Buckwheat Blooms' (메밀꽃 필 무렵, 1936) by Lee Hyo-seok — a melancholy tale of fleeting love and unrecognised bonds. Mentioning its flower language as '연인 (lovers)' in this field scene gently echoes that literary tradition: beautiful, brief, and tinged with longing.
김신's final words describe his life since meeting 은탁 as a 상 (sang), meaning a prize, reward, or gift. The word choice is precise: 상 implies something given from above, undeserved and unexpected — contrasting with 벌 (beol, punishment), which is how the immortal life of a goblin was framed earlier. His parting reframe turns 900 years of cursed existence into something that was ultimately worth it.