GMLS Ch 8

I waited for the 5th Prince to wet his throat and then asked.

“Your Highness, there is something I would like to ask.”

“What is it?”

“After overlooking your impudence until now, there seems to be no end to it. Do you truly wish to be punished?”

“If you do not wish to answer, I will not ask again.”

He paused. The empty teacup hit the table with a sharp, irritated thak. I remained silent. A long while later, he spoke as if sighing.

“It is Muryun (武掄).”

Although I had been refined by Yeo Yullyeong, I was originally a commoner, so I didn’t know how to offer beautiful and elegant praise like the 5th Prince. I spat out what I was thinking.

“It is the best name I have heard in my life.”

That year was the year I turned fifteen.

It was also the year the secret struggles among my grown brothers reached their peak. Once every ten days, there was a large-scale assassination attempt, and each time, countless vassals died. The Emperor condoned it all. The pride of being the most precious bloodline in this country had vanished. All that remained was contempt for his own blood.

One day, while I was struggling to survive day by day, on a night when not even a crescent moon had risen, a number of masked men attacked my bedchamber. My younger sister, who was still young, was beside me.

Urged on by the screams of the vassals and the faint smell of blood, I put my younger sister into a large mother-of-pearl chest that was in the room. The child was anxious, but she neither cried nor threw a tantrum. A child of the Imperial Palace, even at a young age. She quickly grasped the situation and accepted it.

I closed the lid of the mother-of-pearl chest and locked it with a padlock. I broke the key off in the lock. This was safer. I then grabbed my sword and rushed out.

My younger sister, like that, did not get to become an adult.

‘You’ll be back soon, won’t you?’

The child, who had always called him ‘Your Highness,’ now called him ‘brother,’ her voice trembling with tears. The young boy’s heart broke. The 5th Prince, whose mind had grown up too fast amidst the bloody court strife, bit his lip hard.

If you were going to make me grow up, you should have made my body grow too. Why did you leave my body so weak? The resentment towards an unclear target was short-lived.

His actions were swift. In the first place, he did not believe in intangible gods. It wasn’t because of a passive ideology that if there were a god, things couldn’t be this way. It was simply because he considered anything he couldn’t see with his own eyes or grasp with his own hands to be meaningless. Just like any other child of the Imperial Palace.

‘There is nothing to fear. If you just stay here for a little while, I will come and get you out soon. Don’t you trust this brother? I will drive out all those wicked people and return right away.’

‘I’ll be good and stay here. You have to come back soon, okay?’

Even with a tear-filled voice, the child spoke clearly.

‘You don’t even have to say it. I will be back like the wind.’

The moment he turned his body, flames shot up from behind him. A great fire demon that had engulfed the mother-of-pearl chest holding his sister was looking at the 5th Prince, flicking its wicked tongue.

A-ya. My Suyeon. The dazed call was swallowed by the flames. It was no use no matter how much he stretched out his trembling hand.

It should have devoured my hands instead. It should have burned my flesh and blood too. The flames cruelly devoured only his sister.

⊹ ࣪ 💮⊹₊

The 5th Prince, who had been leaning his back and the back of his head against the windowsill, suddenly opened his eyes. The liquor bottle that had slipped from his hand fell to the floor.

Just until the day before yesterday, the late-spring chill had been in full swing, but today, the sunlight and the day were particularly warm. He had meant to just close his eyes for a moment, but perhaps because of the alcohol, he had fallen asleep. And the nightmare had come without fail. It did not discriminate between day or night, or the type of sleep. The effort of falling into a light slumber was wasted.

The 5th Prince smiled bitterly.

“Your Highness.”

At the voice right beside him, the 5th Prince’s eyes moved slowly. His gaze turned towards the closed door.

“He is on leave for the entire day today, so he has returned to the Sangseoryeong’s estate.”

The man, Monghyul, answered, having read the 5th Prince’s mind. He was the son of a vassal his mother had brought from the Jihan Kingdom.

The day his mother and the vassals were arrested one after another on charges of colluding with the Jihan Kingdom. It wasn’t just the capital city that was turned upside down. The world of the 5th Prince, Muryun, was also turned upside down.

The secret organization made up of vassals naturally disbanded. The only one who survived was Monghyul, who had been in the Jihan Kingdom on a personal mission at the time.

The confined 5th Prince tried every means to save the lives of his vassals’ families. All those he smuggled out changed their identities and were sent to faraway places. Even he no longer had any way of knowing where or how they were living. He only held onto the vague hope that since he had given them most of the funds he had saved up, they were probably living well by now.

“Right. What happened with what I asked you to investigate?”

All that was left by Muryun’s side now was Monghyul. He silently held up a scroll with both hands.

The 5th Prince leaned languidly against the windowsill and read the report Monghyul had brought. What was written inside was not a bit different from what he knew. And most of it was something he already knew.

“…Coming of age? Then that tiny thing was fifteen?”

Of course, there were some unexpected errors.

The 5th Prince, having regained his composure, quickly scanned the contents. His gaze, which had flowed like water, stopped at the end of the report.

[Eldest brother implicated in the Daesung Express Agency murder case. Immediately after, eldest brother disappears with youngest brother. Presumed to have fled. The father, left alone, dies from retaliatory beating.]

The 5th Prince did not realize that his grip on the scroll had tightened.

“Should I investigate further?”

“No. That’s enough.”

The 5th Prince, who had handed the scroll to Monghyul, asked.

“What do you think of that fellow?”

“He is peculiar, but he doesn’t seem to have any other ulterior motives.”

“Even though he is the son of that Sangseoryeong?”

“Yes. If anyone has other thoughts, it would be the Sangseoryeong. It’s not just because of the contents of the investigation. Perhaps because of his humble origins, his thoughts and actions are intuitive, and he doesn’t seem to be skilled in intrigue or schemes.”

“Watch your words. Whatever his past was, he is now a Captain of the Guard of the junior 5th rank.”

The startled Monghyul bowed his head and saluted.

“I will keep that in mind.”

Chirp. 

A bird landed on a branch outside the window. The 5th Prince’s gaze turned outside. On the branch where the bird sat, magnolias were in full bloom.

It had already been three years since he had made this place his prince’s palace, but he had only just learned the day before yesterday that the large tree outside the window was a magnolia tree. It seemed he had been looking at the garden, but in reality, he had been looking at something else entirely.

In the northern prison where a cold air flowed year-round, the 5th Prince longed for the world outside the palace. He rode a horse, chasing the changing scenery of the seasons, looked at the star-flowing sky without a care in his heart, and dipped his feet in the sea, where the vast water was said to stretch endlessly.

These were all things his mother had wanted. He had repeated them for three years. Now, he couldn’t distinguish whether they were his mother’s long-cherished wish or his own.

“What will you do about the plan?”

Monghyul asked cautiously. According to the original plan, the 5th Prince should already be gone from here. The day of execution was the day before yesterday. It was also the day he had witnessed the Captain of the Guard hanging from a tree for the second time.

‘Tonight. I will finally leave this dreadful place.’

Feeling both excited and unsettled, he opened the window, and the Captain of the Guard’s face was right there. The 5th Prince froze in surprise.

On the other hand, the Captain of the Guard looked at the 5th Prince silently, and when he said nothing, he turned his body and climbed up the tree. Yes. It wasn’t even surprising anymore.

‘Are you picking Shin Yihwa again? My cough has already stopped.’

‘The magnolias are all in full bloom, so there are no more Shin Yihwa.’

‘Then why did you climb the tree?’

The Captain of the Guard did not answer. Instead, he stealthily climbed down the tree and tried to sneak away. It was audacious to the point of being impudent.

‘Where are you going? Did I not ask you a question?’

Unlike usual, the young Captain of the Guard couldn’t answer right away and mumbled his words. I cannot dare to show hesitation to a person of high rank, yet I cannot tell the truth either, so I am in quite a predicament. His unvoiced inner thoughts were easy to read.

‘Ahem. I told you to answer.’

‘…At first, I was going to use Shin Yihwa as an excuse, but after I climbed up, I saw that they were in full bloom and none were left.’

‘You were going to use Shin Yihwa as an excuse? So in the end, it wasn’t because of Shin Yihwa. Then why on earth did you climb the tree?’

The Captain of the Guard, who had mumbled again without answering right away, his neck turning bright red, threw out just one phrase and ran away.

‘Because I knew that if I waited there, Your Highness would open the window.’

The moment he heard that answer, the 5th Prince heard the sound of something creaking and moving within him. It was something that shouldn’t move, something that must not move.

The 5th Prince became a stone statue in his bewilderment. When he came to his senses, the sun had already set. The plan was naturally postponed to the next time.

Sighing, the 5th Prince thought Yihwa was like an animal testing the waters. An animal that you thought was far away, but when you came to your senses, it was ten steps behind you, and when you looked again, it was right at your feet. The thing that had been loitering outside the village entrance was now lying on its belly in the inner courtyard of the house.

“You must set a new date soon. If it gets any later, the plan itself might fall through.”

He was not unaware of what Monghyul was worried about. He even had a day in mind. But why couldn’t he bring himself to say it? Monghyul, looking frustrated, urged him again.

“You must leave at least before the Emperor dies. If he were to die, escape itself could become impossible.”