A stranger at the temple told my mom exactly who robbed us

Okay so I wasn't going to post this but I already told the backstory last year so here's the follow-up. The weird part.

Quick recap: my dad runs a subcontracting company under a big corporation. He and most of his staff work at the on-site office inside the main company building. The outside office, where paperwork comes and goes, is just one accounting lady working alone. My dad kept the company bankbooks in a locked desk drawer. MULTIPLE bankbooks. With the passwords written on the COVERS. So yeah, if you broke in and popped that drawer open, it was basically free money after that.

Someone stole 50 million won. (~$37,000 USD)

Police came, detectives investigated, they pulled bank footage. We were hoping to see a clear face on the CCTV. But this guy was bold. Like, unhinged bold. He didn't use the ATM. He walked up to a TELLER. In person. And the teller-side camera was too far away, too dark, too small. Completely useless. We never identified him.

Dad's business survived but losing that much cash just... hurt. My mom is a devout Buddhist and she was going to the temple basically every single day after it happened.

Then one day she came home looking like she'd seen a ghost. Literally white as a sheet.

She said: that morning at the temple, this well-dressed couple pulled up in a foreign luxury car. The temple near our house is actually pretty famous (a renowned monk named Seongcheol once served as head monk there) so wealthy visitors aren't unusual. But these two had a different kind of energy. The kind of rich that's just... obvious without trying.

It was a weekday morning so the temple was quiet. My mom ended up sitting on the wooden porch chatting with them. Turns out the husband was the eldest son and heir to a famous multi-generational restaurant family from Busan.

Here's where it gets weird.

This man had been chosen by a spirit. Like, he'd started involuntarily saying strangers' secrets out loud. Things he couldn't possibly know. He didn't want to become a shaman (무당) but refusing the calling means your body starts to break down from what's called 무병, spirit sickness. So he was going to temples trying to manage it.

(I actually studied folklore in college and this tracks. The belief is: once a spirit chooses you, it wants to speak through you. If you suppress it without doing the proper initiation ritual, the spirit energy gets stronger and you get sicker. Some people die from it. And weirdly, the power is supposedly STRONGEST right after initiation and weakens the more you commercialize it.)

So his wife was watching him like a hawk. Do NOT say anything to anyone. Don't feed the spirit.

But my mom could tell the guy was itching to speak. kept glancing at his wife nervously.

My mom got up to go to the bathroom. And then suddenly, from behind her, this man appears out of nowhere and goes:

"Money went missing from your home, didn't it?"

My mom stopped cold. Said yes. Asked who took it.

The man looked around frantically, making sure his wife couldn't hear, and said quickly:

"Don't look for the money. If the money hadn't gone missing, your husband would've been stabbed and killed. It was the female office worker. She stole it. She was born in the Year of the Dog."

And then he just. walked back to the porch. Like he'd stepped out for a cigarette.

My mom called my dad immediately. Asked for the age of the office lady who had quit the week before.

She was born in the Year of the Dog.

My mom dropped the case after that. If the money was what saved my dad's life, she wasn't going to chase it. So we never confirmed anything officially. We just... let it go.