An Answer Too Sad to Speak
The moment he saw the sleeping child, the fierce, broad-lined face of King Yama melted like wax in the sun.
"Oh, my precious little princess."
Even for King Yama, the fact that the child's body had changed made no particular difference. What dwelled inside it was unmistakably his one and only beloved daughter.
"To think Huiyo is sleeping this peacefully. No vomiting blood, no fever, not a single whimper of pain! Seeing her sleep so sweetly fills me with nothing but joy. Whatever body she wears, our daughter is still the most beautiful creature in all the world!"
The Jade Emperor watched her husband fawn shamelessly over their sleeping daughter for a while, then beckoned to Ansi.
"Ansi, you may go and rest now."
"Sniff, hic... Yes, Your Majesty the Supreme Deity..."
Ansi rose, wiping her nose with her sleeve. The Jade Emperor clicked her tongue.
"Stop crying and go wash up and change your clothes. You must look presentable when the Princess wakes. If you stay in such a state, it will only upset her."
"Kyak! I refuse! I'll go wash up right away!"
The young phoenix could not bear to wound her mistress's heart.
Once Ansi scurried out the door, the Jade Emperor asked King Yama quietly, "Did you deal with that messenger properly?"
"I did. I left him boiling in the Boiling Water Hell. A few hundred years of simmering ought to help him realize what he did wrong."
Unlike the Eight Great Hells that mortal humans entered, the Boiling Water Hell was a punishment reserved exclusively for the immortals of Heaven and the Underworld. And because it existed for celestials stronger than humans, its punishments were all the more severe.
The underworld messenger who had seized Huiyo by the collar had failed to recognize Princess Cheonmyeong not once, but twice.
Even granting that he had not known who she was, he had still threatened an innocent human child twice over. The absence of any remorse made his crime worse still.
It was more than enough to earn him a place in the Boiling Water Hell.
The Jade Emperor nodded. "Well done."
"Honestly, I wanted to tear him limb from limb."
"Still, one must abide by the law."
"...Between this business with Huiyo and everything else, I swear, the law is a wretched, wretched thing."
King Yama shoved out his lip in a sulk.
The moment he had found Princess Cheonmyeong in the lower realm, he had wanted to plummet straight down to her side.
It was the Jade Emperor who had held him back, lecturing him on the providence and law that governed all gods and spirits of heaven and earth.
He was no ordinary god — he was the Supreme Deity of the Netherworld. If he descended to the lower realm without some special rite or formal justification, no one could say what calamity might follow.
The mortal lower realm where humans lived and the celestial realm where immortals dwelled were not divided for nothing.
"Even if it chafes now, the line where, in the end, upholding the law serves you better than breaking it — that is what we call law, is it not? And within the bounds of the law, there is plenty you may still do."
"Of course, but... it still galls me that I cannot be at Huiyo's side."
Even at the Jade Emperor's soothing words, his discontent would not fade. He stole a glance at her face before venturing, "What if I were to obtain a human body somehow and go down to the lower realm myself...?"
"And if you go, what becomes of the Netherworld?"
"I could leave it to Gangnim, and... well. Wouldn't that work?"
"Don't talk nonsense. Besides, you would only be a hindrance to Huiyo."
"A hindrance! How on earth would I hinder our own daughter?"
"You saw it yourself, didn't you? How Huiyo, living as a human, learns this and that on her own and takes joy in doing things for herself."
"..."
"If we barge in uninvited, Huiyo will be disappointed. Let's simply cheer her on from above. We help when she asks for help — and only then."
"But Su-ryeo, didn't you yourself say that if you ever caught so much as a stone in our Huiyo's path, you would tear it out by the roots?"
"If it's a stone she might trip over, then of course I would. However, Hyun."
The Jade Emperor narrowed her eyes. "In all this time of watching over Huiyo, have you noticed nothing? Our princess has... learned a great deal more from us than we ever realized."
King Yama hesitated.
The only daughter in his mind's eye was endlessly kind, gentle, and fragile — he had simply assumed she would struggle terribly to live in a place as dirty and rough as the lower realm.
She had lived her whole life cherished and pampered as a supreme princess, and because of her ailing body she had never done anything for herself. He had believed it impossible for her to actively overcome a bad situation.
Yet against all expectation, Huiyo was navigating human life with ease. Without the slightest sign of hardship.
She actually looked... genuinely happy.
Still, the worry would not leave King Yama. Even if she managed well for now, who could say what the future held?
He could not bear to watch Huiyo struggle for even a single moment.
"...I'll admit, Huiyo seems to be adapting to life in the lower realm remarkably well. But looking at the circumstances she's in, complicated problems are piled up at every turn, and I don't know whether that child can solve them all..."
"And what if she cannot?"
The Jade Emperor smiled gently.
"If she solves them and lives happily, we rejoice and congratulate her. If she fails or struggles, then we simply step in as her parents. That's all."
"Ah."
"That 'Seruhwa' girl had quite a few enemies in her life, and those people had better pray she falls into Huiyo's hands. If you or I get involved, it won't end quickly or cleanly."
The Jade Emperor murmured this with a mild face, then added in a voice gone suddenly cold: "That Eodukseoni child is no exception. If ever it makes things hard for Huiyo..."
"Exactly! That's what I can't stand — the way it keeps fussing over our Huiyo like some lovesick fool! A wedding, of all things! How dare it speak of marriage with our princess!"
"It was startling, I admit. But Huiyo handled it well, didn't she? She avoided the union that would have bound her as the Blue-and-Red couple."
"And that's the only reason I'm holding my tongue. If a true marriage bond ever formed between them, I could not have borne it. Our princess is still practically a baby! If that thing dares to covet our child, then no matter how you try to stop me, Su-ryeo, I am going down to the lower realm that very instant! The law be hanged — I'll just..."
King Yama went red and then pale, his voice rising. The Jade Emperor smiled.
"In any case, for now, let us trust Huiyo and simply watch over her. Our daughter will manage just fine."
"...Huiyo. Is she truly happy, living in that body?"
"Don't you know the answer as well as I do, Hyun?"
The Jade Emperor wore a faint, bitter smile as she went on.
"Right now, Huiyo is tasting a healthy life for the very first time. You saw that face of hers, radiant with happiness, just as I did. It is a happiness that no power of ours could ever have given her."
"..."
"Even if we cannot be at her side... as long as Huiyo is that happy, we must let that be enough."
"...But Su-ryeo, if that's how it is, then this is the end."
"What do you mean, the end?"
"We will never — not ever again — be with Huiyo..."
King Yama pressed his teeth together hard, then went on in a drained voice.
"Until that human lifespan runs its course, Huiyo's body will not hold out, will it? When her true body dies, Huiyo will..."
"Yes. The burden of her divine power will pour not into her true body, but into that mortal one."
"And a body that isn't even of celestial bone will collapse within the hour. It really will be over. Everything."
If Huiyo's original body died, Huiyo's human life would end with it.
The illness her true body had been shouldering in her stead would pass to the human one — and that fragile mortal vessel could never endure such an overwhelming torrent of divine power.
In the end, Sangra Huiyo, who had lived cradled in their arms, would never return to them. Huiyo's lifespan would run out long before her runaway absence ever did.
The Jade Emperor knew it. King Yama knew it. And Princess Cheonmyeong herself knew it better than anyone.
The Jade Emperor gently smoothed the hair of her sleeping daughter, then spoke in a calm, even voice.
"Then we must work so that it never comes to that."
"We have worked, all this time. And still... things have only grown worse."
King Yama forced the words out with difficulty and squeezed his eyes shut. The Jade Emperor rose from her daughter's side and approached her husband.
"Hyun. Even this situation has one advantage."
"What advantage could it possibly have?"
"The moment when she truly, truly can hold on no longer."
Standing at his side, the Jade Emperor leaned her forehead against his broad chest. Her jade-green hair spilled down over it.
She whispered low.
"When that moment comes... we will sever Huiyo's Lifespan Cord ourselves. So that no more divine power can flow through."
"What in the world! Then Huiyo becomes a wandering soul on the spot! You would deliberately cut a Lifespan Cord we barely stitched back together? Even I could never rejoin it after that!"
"No, Hyun. Huiyo would not become a wandering soul at once. Think about what state she is in right now."
"What does her state matter! If the cord between body and soul is cut, a soul with nowhere to dwell naturally passes on to the underworld... ah."
The eyes of King Yama, mid-rebuttal, drifted to Huiyo on the sickbed.
His daughter's soul, dwelling within a human body.
At this very moment, Princess Cheonmyeong possessed one more vessel she could use, even if she lost her original flesh.
Reading his gaze, the Jade Emperor nodded, her face expressionless.
"That's right. Huiyo has another body."
"...But that body was meant to die. It only endures because a living spirit, Huiyo, possesses it. If Huiyo's soul becomes a wandering dead thing as well, it won't last long."
"True enough. Right now that body lives because the soul inside it — Huiyo — is alive. But if Huiyo... dies, then it becomes a dead soul in a dead body, and it would rot and crumble quickly. Even so."
The Jade Emperor drew a deep breath and continued quietly.
"From the moment that body begins to decay until it falls apart entirely, we would gain at least a few months — with luck, a year or two. And if we pour our strength into it, we might preserve it even longer."
"..."
"It is a last resort, nothing more. If the very end truly arrives, then to buy whatever time we still can..."
"And what meaning would that bought time have? Within it, could we really find a way to bring Huiyo back to life?"
Instead of answering, the Jade Emperor smiled faintly, dimly. Watching the moisture welling in her jade-bright eyes, King Yama guessed the answer she could not bring herself to speak.
It was an answer far too sad to say aloud.