'Tale of the Nine-Tailed' Episode 7: Imoogi gets a human form, Ji-ah manipulated to believe worst of Lee Yeon
'Tale of the Nine-Tailed' Episode 7 sets up Imoogi's entrance as an adult human and it is portrayed by Lee Tae-ri. This Imoogi is the reason why Lee Yeon had to part from his first love Ae Eum and this time too, the Imoogi might cause a huge loss for Lee Yeon and Ji-ah. In the beginning, we see Lee Yeon and Ji-ah arrive at the fortune teller's place after Lee Yeon comes up with a plan to track the whereabouts of the only man who knows anything about Ji-ah's parents. He ends up using a talisman to ensure that his half-brother Lee Rang himself would lead them to this man.
So he makes all the arrangements but then ends up getting caught in his brother's trap instead. His brother wants to acquire the tiger's eyebrow glasses that would let the wearer see their past lives or the past lives of people that they see through the glasses. He wants to use this to get Ji-ah to see her own past and find the truth about how Ae-eum had died. Just when Ji-ah and Lee Yeon had begun to get closer, Lee Rang's plans plays havoc with the very fragile relationship between the gumiho and the human.
The thing about Lee Yeon and Ae Eum is that he had to hurt his lover to ensure that the Imoogi could be attacked and killed. Ae Eum had also hoped for the same because at that time, the Imoogi had been ruling her father who was the king of the country at that time. So the two of them possibly worked together and it is also clear from the little bit that we saw in the flash from the past that when Lee Yeon said that he did not care about the "woman" while looking at her, he was speaking to Imoogi. He would not say that considering how he wouldn't want the Imoogi to know the place that Ae Eum holds in his life. It is this love that the two share which leads to him giving away his yeowu guseol to her when she is crossing the River Styx to ensure that she can be reborn and not be affected by her past.
This guseol had protected Ji-ah to a certain level and had even kept her hidden from the Imoogi which is being taken care of by a rich man. This man also turns out to be the president of the network that Ji-ah works at, and this man is also the one who happens to be the one that Ji-ah and Lee Yeon had wanted to track down because they believe that he had some information about the whereabouts of Ji-ah's parents. However, before the two of them could realize any of this, the glasses that Lee Rang sends Ji-ah to learn half-truths about her previous birth ends up drawing a line between her and Lee Yeon. She sees a scene of Lee Yeon striking Ae Eum who looks exactly like her down.
This one scene shocks Ji-ah and after Lee Yeon hears what Lee Rang had done most recently, he rushes over only to face Ji-ah and hear her wonder if he had used Ae Eum as a sacrifice in the past. The fact that a piece of the Imoogi is alive within her and the one thing that had kept her safe all this while was the guseol. With that gone, she is currently being influenced by her own emotions, that of the Imoogii which visits her in her dreams and Lee Rang who continually tries to make his brother Lee Yeon's life miserable. So what awaits Lee Yeon and Ji-ah now?
'Tale of the Nine-Tailed' will be aired on tvN on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 10.30 pm KST and can be streamed on Viki Global.