Sunbi suffers through first days of school, feeling even more isolated and rejected, not helped along by her snide stepsister, Mira. A boy, Taehoon, uses a special camera to take her picture, and discovers a strange aura that follows her, which, to Sunbi, is an evil smelling and foul spirit beast that refuses to leave her alone, and wants to encompass her. She struggles with a phalanx of these beasts, who were called from their world by innocent kids playing ghost, and is almost overtaken by them, save for a monk who beats them away with a peach blossom branch. He marks her forehead and tells her the key to their appearance, which is her own fear and hatred. A confrontation with her father isolates her even further, as she fights to hold on to her grandmother's talisman of bells and shield, and screams that she is not her mother. She realizes she must confront her truths in order to escape the hate and the beasts, and she goes in search of a kinder protector spirit, in the form of the Dokebi, on the spirit mountain behind the school. ( )