The Hour of the Rat
Around noon the following day, Ouyang Qiangang finished treating Princess Myeonghwa and watched over her until she had drifted off to sleep. The sight of the princess breathing so faintly, her face drained of all color, called to mind a lotus blossom buried in snow. He left the chamber without a sound.
The detached guest quarters the imperial palace had placed at his disposal stood tucked into a corner behind Myeonghwa Palace. To outward eyes it was a haven of quiet, but the heart of its sole occupant lay as heavy as the stillness before a storm. He stood at the window and looked down over the garden.
'The imprinting work is important too, but first I have to deal with the dark currents stirring inside the imperial family. Until that is done, Lady Sangguan's salt business will not advance a single step.'
He was still sorting through his plans when a cautious voice sounded from beyond the door.
"Young Master Hahu, I come from Jaseondang. His Highness the Crown Prince requests your presence."
The eunuch who opened the door and slipped inside was in his early forties, a man dispatched by the Crown Prince who gave his name as Chae Geum. Ouyang Qiangang answered him in an even tone.
"Lead the way."
The road to the Eastern Palace—the Crown Prince's residence, known as Jaseondang—was not far. But every step he took was like walking a road of thorns woven from countless watching eyes. The moment Ouyang Qiangang showed himself, the eunuchs and palace maids passing to and fro froze mid-stride and fell to whispering.
"That's him... that must be the Divine Doctor they speak of."
"The one who did that to Princess Sohwa... though they say His Majesty released him with his own hands......"
"Shh. Keep your voice down. They say he's to be received by His Highness the Crown Prince now, no less......"
"A young man like that is really the Life-and-Death Divine Doctor?"
Rage and contempt, curiosity and fear were churned together in their stares. Those gazes, thick with every emotion, pierced him from crown to heel like spears. But Ouyang Qiangang walked on in silence, his expression never so much as flickering, as though he had heard nothing at all.
Before long he arrived at Jaseondang. The hall, raised from the finest red sandalwood, was as stately as it was resplendent, yet the air carried a heavy scent of medicinal herbs laced with something bleak and sinister.
In the inner hall, the Crown Prince greeted him as though they were meeting for the first time and offered him the seat across from his own.
"So you are Hahu Gang, the one they call the Life-and-Death Divine Doctor?"
"I am, Your Highness."
"Younger than the rumors gave you credit for. I take it you've already heard of my condition?"
"Yes, Your Highness."
"Then there is no need for a long explanation. Will you take my pulse?"
"Leave it to me."
The instant Ouyang Qiangang's fingers settled on the Crown Prince's wrist, every sound in the hall died away. Countless eyes converged on the two men, determined to miss not one subtle shift in either expression.
Ouyang Qiangang closed his eyes and feigned absorption in the pulse. In truth, he was listening to the voice flowing through his mind.
Half an incense stick's time later, Ouyang Qiangang opened his eyes, his face grave. The Crown Prince asked in a low voice.
"...Can it truly be cured?"
His voice was composed, but Ouyang Qiangang could feel the deep agony coiled beneath it, and the weight of a hope fine as a spider's thread. At the weight this answer carried, he caught himself swallowing drily. The Crown Prince was staking his own life as bait, casting a do-or-die gambit at his enemies. Foreseeing the enormous ripples his reply would unleash, Ouyang Qiangang opened his mouth.
The moment the firm answer fell, the Crown Prince's shoulders sagged. The focus of his eyes wavered, sending out ripples like those of a lake struck by a hurled stone. The burden he had carried for decades vanished—and in the same breath a new burden pressed down upon his shoulders.
'So at last... I truly must stand against them.'
There was no hope in the smile that surfaced at the Crown Prince's lips—only the grim resolve of a warrior steeling himself for a final battle. As if a bell had tolled somewhere to herald the opening of an unseen war, the air in the hall turned sharp as a blade's edge. Before today was over, Ouyang Qiangang's answer would reach a great many ears.
The Crown Prince spoke.
"Can you treat Myeonghwa and me at the same time?"
"It can be done—but doing so would push back the date of Her Highness's full recovery."
The Crown Prince gazed out at the garden beyond the window for a moment before asking.
"Do you think... my life will be in danger before Myeonghwa's treatment is finished?"
"I can promise you that it will not."
"Then it is settled. I will speak to my royal father so that you may attend to my illness the moment Myeonghwa's treatment is done. Keep that in mind, and prepare yourself accordingly."
"Understood, Your Highness."
Ouyang Qiangang was on the point of stepping out of Jaseondang when the Crown Prince spoke quietly.
"Hahu Gang."
"Yes, Your Highness."
"Be careful."
Warning and worry were bound together in the Crown Prince's low voice. Ouyang Qiangang bowed deeply and left the hall.
On the walk back to the guest quarters, his thoughts grew tangled.
'They will have heard my answer by now. The enemies lurking in the shadows will begin to move in earnest. Whoever they are, there is no time left.'
"Doctor, will you truly be all right?"
Akasha's worried voice echoed through his mind.
'I'll be fine, Akasha. It was a fight I could never have avoided anyway.'
By the time he reached the guest quarters, a crimson sunset was sinking into the western sky—as if to herald the blood that was yet to be spilled.
A secret chamber steeped in darkness. In that gloom, where a single candle flame trembled, a figure wearing a ghost mask spoke with a masked man.
"Grand Commander—Hahu Gang has declared that he can cure the Crown Prince's illness."
Suppressed anxiety bled through the masked man's voice. The teacup in the Grand Commander's hand came to a halt.
"And the chance it is a lie?"
His robes hung full enough to hide every line of his frame, and his voice was hoarse and rasping; it was impossible to tell whether the speaker was man or woman.
The masked man answered.
"Judging by the pace of Princess Myeonghwa's recovery, the likelihood that it is no lie is high."
"The Emperor will have heard this news as well, no doubt?"
"Naturally. Several eunuchs and palace maids were watching."
"That little whelp... so in the end, he sets his foot even into our great enterprise." His voice was cold as ice, yet beneath it seethed a fury that seemed ready to burn everything to ash.
Silence held for a moment. The candle flame surged high once, then shrank back down.
Yeongju said, in a tone gone cold:
The masked man's shoulders shook violently.
"You mean the Crown Prince—not Hahu Gang?"
"That is so."
"Then I must ask the reason."
"Hahu Gang is a man on whom the Emperor and every minister in the court have fixed their gaze. On top of that, he has cultivated his martial arts to the Peak. Killing him without a trace will be no easy matter. The Crown Prince is another story."
The masked man spoke in a trembling voice.
"Grand Commander, the Crown Prince met with Hahu Gang only today. For him to die this very night... is that not too hasty?"
"Let it drag on day after day, and the moment Hahu Gang saves the Crown Prince, the tower we labored thirty years to build comes crashing down. Has Yeongju's work not already failed?"
At those words, the masked man could say nothing more; he pressed his forehead to the floor.
"But the backlash would be... difficult to bear."
"Backlash?" A shudder of madness threaded the Grand Commander's voice as he continued. "That would be so—if any evidence were ever found that the Crown Prince had been murdered."
"Ah......"
The Grand Commander went on.
"The God-Sealing Blood Bone Fragment lodged in the Crown Prince's heart is a seed of curse-sorcery that grows by devouring his vital energy. Tonight, once it is awakened with the blood of a sacrifice, he will lose every last trace of vitality in his sleep, his body will wither into a mummy, and death will take him. Not a single trace of murder will remain for anyone to find."
Madness glinted in the Grand Commander's eyes.
"Come tonight... the final stage of the thirty-year design begins at last."
He said this while looking out past the window.
"When the Hour of the Rat arrives—between eleven at night and one in the morning—the Crown Prince's vitality will be at its weakest. Begin the blood ritual then."
"As you command, Grand Commander."
The masked man spoke on, cautiously.
"Hahu Gang makes use of a technique called the Causality Reverse-Tracing Art. He will employ it to recreate the Crown Prince's death—and if he does, the true cause of death may well come to light."
Yeongju's gaze turned glacial.
"The blood ritual will not be performed in Jaseondang. So even if he recreates the death with his tracing art, all it will show him is a Crown Prince who died quietly in his sleep."
He went on, his voice edged with a sneer.
"By tomorrow morning, the Crown Prince will already be a corpse, and the shock of it will plunge the imperial house into utter chaos. And in the midst of all that turmoil, what could the likes of Hahu Gang—a mere physician—possibly do?"
The masked man bowed his head low and answered.
"I will prepare the blood ritual at once."
Yet even as he spoke, a sliver of unease was sprouting in the deepest corner of his heart.
'Ever since that unforeseen variable called Hahu Gang appeared, everything has begun to come apart at the seams. Can thirty years of meticulous planning truly be wound up this hastily...? And yet there is no defying the Grand Commander's orders......'
Cold sweat ran down his back. A bleak, seething bloodlust gathered at the corners of the Grand Commander's eyes.
"Handled well... we may even pin the Crown Prince's death on Hahu Gang as his own blunder. The last man the Crown Prince met before dying was that fellow, after all... make preparations for that as well."
"Yes."
The Grand Commander's voice turned terrible.
"Failure will not be tolerated."
"By your command!"
When the masked man had left the chamber, the Grand Commander, alone now, drew off his mask. A satisfied smile floated across the face the candlelight revealed.
"Hahu Gang... however extraordinary your healing arts may be, they cannot bring back a man who has already crossed the threshold of the Yellow Springs."
His gloomy voice, neither a man's nor a woman's, scattered into the darkness of the empty chamber.
Cold night air hung about the guest quarters. Ouyang Qiangang stood at the window, silently watching the vast silhouette of the imperial palace drowning in darkness.
"Doctor, what you said at Jaseondang today was the optimal play. You restricted the enemy's options and steered their response in the direction most favorable to us. However, as a consequence, the threat level against you personally has been raised to 'Critical'."
'I know. But to see who the real enemy is, there is ultimately no choice but to walk straight into the tiger's den.'
"Precisely. Passive defense leads only to isolation and death. Because of what you said, Doctor, our enemies now have no choice but to react as quickly as they possibly can."
Ouyang Qiangang's eyes gleamed cold.
'What I have done is fasten a shackle called a "time limit" around their necks. From this moment on, they must make their move somehow—before I cure the Crown Prince.'
"That very desperation will force them to show their tail."
'So it would seem. The real question is when their blades will turn—and toward whom.' He posed the question. 'Akasha, who will they strike at first: me, or the Crown Prince?'
"To predict the dark current's next target, I simulated two scenarios, calculating their success probabilities and the expected gains of each. To give you the conclusion first......"
Akasha's voice grew calmer still.
"The probability that they will move against the Crown Prince in the short term—and against you, Doctor, in the long term—is overwhelmingly high."