The Blood That Does Not Match
Just before dawn, Emperor Changsung made his way to Jaseondang with Eunuch Sang On at his side.
What struck him first was the thick smell of blood—and a killing intent that still had not fully dispersed.
The corpses in the courtyard before the hall had already been cleared away. But the bloodstains seeped into the seams of the blue flagstones, and the acrid stench lingering in the air bore silent, unvarnished witness to the carnage of the night before.
The Emperor said nothing.
As he gazed down at his sleeping son, his face was as blank as a mask. Yet within his eyes, a terrifying fury was coming to a boil.
He had seen it with his own two eyes: the son who would inherit his empire had been deceived, and left dying by inches, for over thirty years—inside the Emperor's own palace.
Sang On, standing at the Emperor's side, dared not lift his head. He had served the Emperor for decades, but never once had he witnessed anger so deep, so consuming.
With a low sigh, the Emperor quietly took the sleeping Crown Prince's hand in his own.
As soon as day broke, the grounds of Daejojeon Hall filled with officials who surged in like storm clouds.
The first to open fire were the Empress and the factions aligned with her. They clamored for Ouyang Qiangang's immediate execution, insisting that Hahu Gang had conspired with the assassins to murder the Crown Prince, and was now holding His Highness hostage through sorcery. They added the shameless lie that the blood altar beneath the Buddhist prayer hall was his doing as well.
Not to be outdone, Mo Cheol-gang, the Minister of War from the Second Prince's camp, stepped forward. Pretending to echo the Empress's claims, he twisted the blade with skillful subtlety.
"Entrusting the sacred body of the heir to a man of unknown identity—be he divine physician or mere sorcerer—was a rash judgment on His Highness the Crown Prince's part. This endangers the security of the empire itself. Hahu Gang must face a rigorous investigation, and so must His Highness the Crown Prince!"
Rising to meet him, Jo Mun-gyeong, the Left State Councillor of the Crown Prince's faction, fired back in rebuttal.
"How dare you utter such madness! Divine Doctor Hahu is the benefactor of the imperial house who saved Princess Myeonghwa, and at this very moment he wages a life-and-death struggle alongside His Highness to root out the traitors. If those who obstruct him are not the traitors' own kin, then what are they?"
Beneath the silence of the Emperor upon his throne, the three factions tore at one another's throats. They seemed utterly indifferent to the truth; all that unfolded was an ashen pandemonium of political calculation.
The Emperor sat upon the throne and listened to his ministers without a word.
One by one, the shouting officials fell silent. The Emperor's stillness pressed down upon their shoulders more heavily than any thunderous rebuke could have.
When the hall had grown quiet, the Emperor issued an order to Chief Eunuch Sang On in a tone of perfect indifference.
"Bring me the prisoner Hahu Gang from the dungeons. And summon the Empress to this place."
"Ghk!"
"Mm……."
At the Emperor's command, a chorus of stifled gasps broke out among the ministers. Summoning the Empress—mother of the nation—together with a criminal?
The air in the hall grew heavier still.
Before long, every eye turned to two figures walking toward the center of the hall.
Ouyang Qiangang, and the Empress.
The Empress arrived swathed in a crowd of eunuchs and palace maids; Ouyang Qiangang wore a wooden cangue around his neck, his limbs bound fast in iron chains.
Turning his neck this way and that against the crushing weight of the cangue, Ouyang Qiangang bit his tongue inwardly.
Twice in a matter of days I've had to wear this thing… Akasha, you know, I'm starting to think my mother was right about my luck being cursed.
[Sigh… Now is not the time for jokes, Doctor.]
The Emperor regarded Ouyang Qiangang in silence. His expression looked impassive, but a storm raged in his eyes.
After studying the man in silence for a long moment, the Emperor asked abruptly, "Is the Crown Prince's treatment finished?"
"It is, Your Majesty. He will regain consciousness in roughly two days, and within a month he will be as healthy as His Highness the Second Prince."
At that answer, Minister of War Mo Cheol-gang's eyes bulged and he shouted out.
"Absurdity! Your Majesty, this man dared to lay a blade upon the sacred body of His Highness the Crown Prince without Your Majesty's sanction—a crime of the gravest treason! Grant that his medicine may be wondrous; can that ever blot out his transgression against the law of the land? How can we trust the word of such a man and squander these precious hours!"
The Emperor turned his head toward Mo Cheol-gang. His voice was quiet, yet it carried a weight beyond words.
"I can wait. If only the Crown Prince may be made whole again, I would wait ten years. But tell me, Minister—why are you so impatient? Is there some other reason you cannot bear to wait for the Prince to wake?"
Mo Cheol-gang could not open his mouth. The Emperor's final question was a frost-edged blade aimed squarely at the very core of his supposed loyalty.
The Emperor shifted his gaze to Ouyang Qiangang and asked, "What exactly happened last night?"
It was the question he had been waiting for, so Ouyang Qiangang answered without delay.
He reported that there had been men lurking for decades in the shadow of the imperial family, who had been stealing away the Crown Prince's lifespan through vile sorcerous rites. And that the evidence lay in the two blood sacrifices performed beneath Jaseondang and Gyotaejeon.
But he never once breathed the fact that the Empress was the central figure of the conspiracy.
Instead, he bowed his head deeply toward the Emperor and said, "…Your Majesty, I dare not pass final judgment, but it is possible that Her Majesty the Empress, too, was another victim of their dark scheme. There may lie hidden within it a deeper plot of theirs still—one designed to slander the mother of the nation and drive a wedge between Your Majesty and the imperial house."
A smile so faint that no one noticed flickered across the Emperor's lips.
The implication woven into Ouyang Qiangang's words was anything but light.
Had he cried out in that hall, 'The culprit is the Empress!', the Emperor would have been saddled with the worst possible political burden: the duty of passing judgment on his own wife, the mother of the nation, as a traitor.
But Ouyang Qiangang had opened a line of retreat—the possibility that even the Empress herself might be a scapegoat.
By that single stroke, the Emperor gained his political justification: not as a husband judging his wife, but as a sovereign rescuing an Empress deceived by traitors and hunting down the mastermind who threatened the imperial house.
Moreover, had Ouyang Qiangang—a mere wandering physician with no roots or standing—attacked the mother of the nation directly, the essence of the affair could have twisted itself into the imperial insolence of a common healer rather than the crimes of the Empress.
By making the Emperor—not himself—the true protagonist of this battle, he had withdrawn to the rear and secured his own safety.
And last of all, it was a cunning trap laid for the Empress herself. It sealed off any chance for her to counterattack with cries of 'He is slandering me and seeking to monopolize state affairs!', and instead lured her into the delusion that there was still a way out.
That delusion would breed carelessness, and her carelessness would drive her into yet another reckless gambit to bury her own guilt.
The Emperor gave a small nod and looked toward the Empress.
She could feel her breath tightening—crushed between the weight of the Emperor's gaze and the noose of Ouyang Qiangang's words, which strangled her even as they pretended to defend her.
Beneath her sleeve, she seized her own finely trembling hand with her other hand, gripping hard, desperately feigning composure.
With a look of concern, the Emperor asked her, "Empress, have you heard? The Divine Doctor fears that you, too, may have been marked by the conspiracy. And yet—do you still believe we must punish the man who sought to save the Crown Prince?"
The Empress's fist clenched hard beneath her sleeve.
She knew, in her bones, that the board had turned completely against her.
Suppressing the fury and humiliation boiling up within her, the Empress spoke in a voice of utmost gentleness and grace.
"…If such is Your Majesty's will, then this humble consort can only obey. I pray only that the Divine Doctor may restore His Highness the Crown Prince to full health, and reveal the truth behind all this turmoil."
Thus the Empress consented to await the outcome of the Crown Prince's treatment.
The Emperor cast a frigid glance across the Left State Councillor, the Minister of War, and the Empress behind them, and declared,
And so the long morning at Daejojeon Hall passed.
Shedding the identity of a prisoner, Ouyang Qiangang returned to Myeonghwa Palace and attended to Princess Myeonghwa, who had regained her peace of mind.
Sitting up in her bed, she spoke in a low voice. "I was so… worried about you, my lord. But please—do not hate my father the Emperor, or my mother the Empress."
Ouyang Qiangang found himself at a loss for words.
Before the girl's innocent heart, begging him not to resent the mother who had tried to kill her own son, he felt an ache spread through the corner of his chest.
Perhaps this girl would be happier living her whole life never knowing the truth of this tragedy…
With a faint smile, Ouyang Qiangang answered, "I bear no hatred, Your Highness. I simply wish to build a world where people like you will never be hurt again."
Then he added, "In about two more days of treatment, Your Highness will be completely cured."
Princess Myeonghwa's face lit up like sunshine.
Having finished the day's treatment and returned to his quarters, Ouyang Qiangang stood at the window, recalling the clear eyes of Princess Myeonghwa.
If only to protect that girl's innocence, I have to cut this filthy darkness out of the palace by the root.
His gaze hardened into cold steel.
[Doctor, while compiling the imperial family's medical records into a database, I discovered a genetic discrepancy that cannot be explained statistically.]
Ouyang Qiangang frowned. What is that supposed to mean?
[The DNA of His Highness the Crown Prince and Princess Myeonghwa shows a 99.9% match with His Majesty the Emperor. However, the paternal DNA of His Highness the Second Prince shows no connection whatsoever to the Emperor.]
"What…?"
Ouyang Qiangang's face transformed.
Then the Empress was unfaithful…?
[That would appear to be the case. The Crown Prince and the Second Prince share the same mother—but not the same father.]
A bomb went off inside Ouyang Qiangang's head.
So that's… that's why the Empress was so desperate. Killing the Crown Prince and trying to put her own son on the throne—it wasn't ambition at all. It was the terror of having her secret exposed?
Before this horrifying truth, every fragment of every incident past clicked into place with a perfection so complete it raised gooseflesh.
"Ugh……."
A groan of anguish escaped Ouyang Qiangang's lips.
If the Second Prince knows this truth too… then his campaign to drag down the Crown Prince was never just about the line of succession. It was a desperate scramble to protect his own life and his mother's.
His voice trembling, he asked, The Second Prince… he's trying to take the throne because he knows he isn't the Emperor's true son?
[That possibility cannot be ruled out. If the truth ever comes to light, the Empress and her son will be as good as dead.]