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Il-gwang says a wicked spirit has possessed Hyo-jin. Distraught about Hyo-jin's violent behavior and change in health, Jong-goo's mother-in-law seeks help from a shaman, Il-gwang. Jong-goo's family discovers the bloody body of a dead goat hanging in front of their front gate the next day, and Hyo-jin later stabs and seriously injures a neighbor when the family had gone to treat Jong-goo, leaving her alone. Infuriated, he smashes up the worship room, kills the guard dog, and orders the stranger to leave the village. Jong-goo returns to the stranger's house, but finds the evidence has been burned.
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Hyo-jin grows sick, with symptoms similar to those of the other infected. On the way back, Oh Seong-bok shows his partner a shoe that belongs to Jong-goo's daughter, Hyo-jin. The stranger's guard dog attacks them and stops when the stranger returns, so Jong-goo and his team leave. They investigate the stranger's house when he's out and find pictures of the murdered villagers and their belongings, as well as a worship room. They enlist the help of Oh Seong-bok's nephew, a Japanese-speaking deacon named Yang I-sam.
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Jong-goo has similar dreams about the stranger and decides to investigate with Oh Seong-bok. A local hunter tells them he saw the stranger with glowing red eyes, eating raw venison in the forest. Jong-goo steps outside to call Oh Seong-bok, and the woman vanishes, and he sees a very scary figure. At the crime scene, Jong-goo meets a mysterious young woman called Moo-myeong (“no name” in Korean), who tells him the Japanese man is a ghost and the culprit. They later discover the woman, infected, who was raped by the Japanese stranger and was spotted several times naked in different places, has murdered her family. One night at the police station, officers Oh Seong-bok and Jong-goo are discussing the Japanese stranger when a naked woman appears in the rain. After a Japanese man arrives at Gokseong, a small village in the mountains of South Korea, a mysterious infection breaks out and causes the villagers to become deranged and violently kill their families.
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