The Study Pavilion Called Jaebang
Crown Prince Cheon Gyeol-woo quietly gazed up at his wife, who was looking down at him with wide, blinking eyes.
When the dragon had descended without warning, everyone had recoiled in shock and confusion — everyone except her.
He remembered how the dragon, which had been snarling so ferociously, had suddenly frozen stiff the moment it looked at him — no, to be precise, at something *behind* him.
He remembered it weeping, prostrating itself before him, begging. Bowing.
Cheon Gyeol-woo had a strong feeling that what the dragon had been looking at was not him at all. Those golden eyes, glowing like lantern fire, had been fixed the entire time on…
'On what was behind me… I believe it was my wife.'
At the time, the boy had assumed the dragon had come to pass judgment on him, and his head had been filled with nothing but the thought that he must not let his wife be caught up in his punishment.
But looking back after everything had turned on its head, something had clearly been off.
'Father and Mother said… that the Cloud Dragon blessed me. They rejoiced, saying that even my being burdened with something as dreadful as the Eodukseoni was all the will of Heaven and Earth, a trial ordained for me.'
And indeed, the royal family, the court ministers — everyone except the Waneon faction — and the common people were now in a festival mood, quite literally.
Contempt and awe are emotions separated by a single fine line. When people regard a strange and alien being as *grotesque*, they despise it as a monster; when they regard it as *extraordinary*, they revere it as a hero.
Despite his young age, the boy was coming to understand that boundary between contempt and awe — thanks, in no small part, to his own rather singular circumstances.
The commotion at the Unryong Festival had been precisely the kind of event that cleaves that line in two.
Observing people's reactions in the days that followed, the Crown Prince realized that his own *grotesqueness* had been transformed into *extraordinariness*.
Then what of his wife — the woman who had received a dragon's bow yet credited it all to her husband's merit, who might even have commanded the dragon herself? Was she *grotesque*, or *extraordinary*?
The moment his thoughts reached that point, the boy's muddled head became perfectly clear.
'My wife is the very person who turned this grotesque creature into something extraordinary. She saved Father and Mother, and she is the benefactor who saved me. There is nothing to deliberate.'
Seruhwa was not a grotesque being. She was a special, extraordinary person. Cheon Gyeol-woo's benefactor, his guardian of fortune, his wife.
Faced with that clear conclusion, questions about the girl's exact identity or the small mysteries surrounding her hardly mattered at all.
'She's special, so perhaps that's simply something she can do.'
If she is my wife, then surely commanding a dragon is within her power. Do people even realize how blessed a woman she is?
'The dragon must have recognized her preciousness itself and been utterly beside itself.'
The young groom, obedient to a fault yet surprisingly accurate in his deductions, accepted his own reasoning without protest and nodded to himself.
"Your Highness?"
"Yes, my lady."
When the Crown Prince answered with a bright, sunny smile, the Crown Princess flinched.
"What were you thinking about?"
"I was thinking that you are far too precious and extraordinary a person for the likes of me."
"…I'm sorry?"
Seruhwa shot back with a raised eyebrow, and to Cheon Gyeol-woo even that faintly scrunched look of incredulity seemed endlessly lovely and endearing.
'My wife.'
Whatever the circumstances of their marriage might have been, it was truly a blessing to be wed to a woman like her. The luck of a lifetime.
How could he express this feeling of his?
Just then, his eye caught the dish of yellow corvina that she had been eating with such evident delight.
The boy neatly and swiftly filleted the fish, then heaped the glistening golden flesh high onto the plate in front of his wife.
"Y-your Highness?"
"You must eat plenty and grow tall and strong."
"You need to grow tall too, Your Highness. We made a bet about measuring our heights, remember?"
Feigning a pout, Seruhwa picked up a piece of grilled beef and held it out to him.
"Here, try this one."
Cheon Gyeol-woo composed his face and thought.
She had worn her happiest expression whenever she ate the beef — was that why she was offering it to him? Because it was the thing she herself had found most delicious?
'How adorable….'
What was he supposed to do when his wife was this cute? And what if someone else coveted her, when she was this adorable?
The sprout of devotion, newly planted, had begun to grow thick and fast — though the boy remained entirely unaware of it.
"When you've lost your appetite, you should eat something delicious. So trust me and just try one bite — please?"
The chopsticks holding the beef crossed the table toward his plate. On impulse, the Crown Prince leaned forward and ate it straight from her hand.
"…!"
Seruhwa froze, startled.
Cheon Gyeol-woo closed his mouth and chewed. Honestly, having snatched it so boldly, he'd grown a little embarrassed and couldn't quite tell what it tasted like.
Still, he chewed, swallowed with perfect composure, and said evenly:
"It is indeed delicious."
"I told you it was delicious."
The tip of the girl's ear was faintly red as she replied, feigning nonchalance.
A warm, fluttery feeling spread through his chest.
'So this is what it's always like when I'm with my wife.'
The boy smiled, happy.
"Thank you, my lady."
* * *
After the Unryong Festival, turmoil swept through the palace.
First, the Left State Councilor was exposed as the mastermind behind the attempt on the Crown Princess's life and the arson at the East Palace, and he was sentenced to death by poison.
He had tried to kill both the Crown Prince and the Crown Princess — a crime tantamount to treason. The poisoned cup was only fitting.
Unlike his earlier desperate resistance, this time there was said to have been virtually no pushback against sentencing the Left State Councilor to death.
The dragon's descent, its thunderous denunciation, and the pouring out of filthy well water upon him counted for much; so too did the Chief State Councilor's decision to abandon his careful balancing act and see the secret ledgers through to their proof.
Once the Left State Councilor took the poison, his relatives and the entire Waneon faction were demoted, exiled, and punished to the last man. Those who had directly joined the conspiracy were beheaded or forced to drink the poison themselves.
Prince Waneon, in consideration of his young age and his standing as the reigning King's nephew, was spared the poison cup. Instead, he was placed under thorn-fence confinement on a remote island in the Southern Sea — a fence of thorns raised around the house of an exiled criminal, sealing him within.
While a purging wind blew through the palace, warmth, strangely, glowed within the East Palace.
P palace attendants formally entered Jamryongdang, and the departments connected to the Crown Prince — dormant for so long — were reorganized and revived.
The gates of the East Palace opened, and the Crown Prince and I received patients day after day in Sowangjeon, the main hall of the Eastern Palace.
People who, like the Queen during the Black Week, had fallen into an unbroken coma — or who, like the King, had been seized by madness.
It had long been decided to treat these victims with medicinal tea, but while the Waneon faction and the loyalists had fought one another, with the King still raving and the Crown Prince denounced as being of unsound mind as well, the atmosphere had been too chaotic for anyone to come forward for treatment.
'They were already victims to begin with, and with everything so unstable and hard to trust, it can't be helped that they stayed away.'
Then, when the King and Queen showed themselves fully recovered at the Unryong Festival, and the Crown Prince received a dragon's bow and shed the cursed stigma clinging to him completely, people finally began trickling into the palace one by one for treatment.
Each of them drank the medicinal tea I had brewed, received the Crown Prince's formal apology along with consolation gifts prepared by the royal family, and returned home.
Once a few patients were cured in this manner, everyone soon came flooding to Sowangjeon.
Beyond the medicinal tea, I also used salves and medicines brought out from the treasury to treat their minor wounds and ailments.
Partly to help lighten the Crown Prince's karmic burden, partly to cement my own standing as Crown Princess, and partly to break the ice and build connections.
'The patients were all high-ranking officials — or family members of such — well placed enough to attend the Queen's birthday banquet… so this kind of thing should help build the Crown Prince's power base at court.'
Thanks to steady effort all through the winter, I was able to treat every patient on the victims' roster before spring arrived.
'We decided to set out for the shrine once the weather warmed, so I've nearly finished cleaning up everything from the Black Week.'
And so winter passed, and the new year's spring drew rapidly near.
The fourteenth year of Seogwang, late February.
The Gyebang — the hall of the Crown Prince's Guard, dusty and cobwebbed for so long — and Chunbang, the hall of the Crown Prince's Tutorial Office, both filled to bursting with busy people.
Come March, the Crown Prince's Guard and the Tutorial Office would formally resume their operations.
And not only Jamryongdang's Gyebang and Chunbang — one of the halls at the front of Unyeondang had been cleaned out as well, and a new plaque was being hung above its doors.
Jaebang — the Hall of Talents.
A hall bearing a plaque written by the King himself.
'The gift I asked of the King…!'
Just as the Tutorial Office existed for the Crown Prince, Jaebang was an educational institution dedicated to me, the Crown Princess.
The Kingdom of Un had an education system for the Crown Prince that was meticulously established — but next to nothing for the Crown Princess. At best, the Queen or a knowledgeable court lady would summon her for occasional one-on-one instruction.
'That's nowhere near enough.'
Why else did I come to this world?
I wanted to try everything I wished to do, with a healthy body.
'I'm going to learn all of it, one thing after another!'
And so the gift I requested of the King was precisely this.
The authority to summon teachers from every field of study, using my position as Crown Princess, and learn whatever I wished to learn.
"You wish to study? Is that truly the gift you desire?"
"Yes, Your Majesty. I want to learn many things. Not just scholarship and the refined arts, but martial skills, and even the techniques of the Gwoeryeoknansin as well. I want to study widely, so that I can become an even finer person someday!"
"What a remarkable child you are… The Kingdom of Un is truly blessed. Very well — learn whatever you wish to learn, all of it. I shall support you with all my spare coffers!"
The King granted permission with a face that looked as though he could die of fondness for me, and even went so far as to name the hall himself and write its plaque with his own hand.
"Jaebang" — the hall where one hones one's talents to one's heart's content.
My own Crown Princess's Tutorial Office.
Unlike the Crown Prince's Tutorial Office, it had no rigid procedures or fixed appointed lecturers — the officials attached to the Tutorial Office who oversaw the Crown Prince's education — but in exchange, the curriculum could be composed as freely as I liked, and temporary lecturers could be called in whenever I pleased.