Three Kings (4)
On the way back to the pavilion, Sangseon could no longer hold his tongue.
"It sounded like an insult, Your Majesty."
"What did, pray tell?"
"The Ten Eunuchs. Of all things, out of nowhere — the Ten Eunuchs."
"The Ten Eunuchs were wicked men. Spoken of to others, it may well pass for an insult. But did they not seize tremendous power with the bodies of eunuchs? When eunuchs hear tales of them, it fills them with drive and stirs their ambition."
"No, that's not what I—"
Sangseon was just about to continue when Rembrary tilted his head with a soft "Hmm?" and came to an abrupt halt.
"What is the matter, Your Majesty?"
Sangseon stopped short and asked. Rembrary stood still, eyes narrowed to slits, glancing back and forth along the path.
At the sight, Sangseon's heart began to pound.
The truth was, the kings had deliberately tangled the paths midway, so that when they first met one consort, they would be sent off to visit a different one afterward. The paths themselves had been made to look nearly identical, all the better to disorient.
Yet here was Rembrary, scanning his surroundings as if he'd caught on to something, and it made Sangseon flinch for no good reason.
"Your Majesty? Why do you stop?"
Still, he asked with a sliver of hope — surely he couldn't have figured it out. Wasn't Woo Yeon-woo famous for being a bit of a fool? But Rembrary pointed it out flatly, and with unsettling precision.
"You have no sense of direction. We've taken the wrong path."
I didn't think he was a particularly sharp celebrity, but he certainly knows his way around a road, Sangseon thought, even as he insisted blindly.
"Not at all. In my humble opinion, this is the correct path."
"Your opinion is your own — and it is a mistaken one."
But when Sangseon stubbornly pressed that they must take the path he had chosen, Rembrary reluctantly followed.
Not because he yielded to the man's stubbornness, but because the sight of such obstinacy convinced him: the production team must have planned something from the start.
Thus they arrived at a pavilion that looked exactly like the one they had left.
Deer antlers hung from every corner of the roof, lending it an air of refinement. The table groaned under a feast fit to break its legs, and a consort in fine clothes sat alone, sleeves rolled up, drinking—
A man?
Rembrary stopped halfway up the pavilion steps.
Before he left, the consort had clearly been a woman. Now, returning to find her drinking alone, she was a man. Judging by the changed color of his clothes, this wasn't even meant to be the same person, as with the three kings.
When Rembrary bore down on him with an unblinking stare, the consort, who had been drinking alone, jolted upright in alarm.
The consort participant hadn't known the king he faced would switch midway either, so his face was equally astonished.
But he quickly remembered the premise — people cannot tell the three kings apart — and shrewdly played along.
"You stepped out on some urgent business. Why do you return so late? Your humble concubine has waited so long."
Rembrary asked, displeased.
"Where has Consort Suk gone, that you are the one waiting?"
"I am Consort Hui, Your Majesty."
"Where did Consort Suk go?"
"How dare you seek another consort while your humble concubine stands before you."
First they sent me off to the eunuchs' quarters on some flimsy pretext of putting in a good word, then guided me down a strange path. So this was the plan all along.
Rembrary glowered down at the table, displeased — wondering if the food had changed along with the person.
It had. But the food had actually increased in quantity.
Then it hardly mattered. The sight of the extra dishes softened Rembrary's mood, and he obligingly took the seat across from Consort Hui and picked up his chopsticks.
And delightfully, the very dish he and Consort Suk had wolfed down earlier — it had been so good — was sitting right there, untouched.
"This one is the best of the lot. Why weren't you eating it?"
Rembrary murmured with a contented smile and immediately set to work on it.
Some time passed like this, until Consort Hui — who hadn't so much as touched his food — suddenly spoke up in a weighty voice.
"You there, Your Majesty."
You there, Your Majesty?
"You sit before your spouse and do nothing but shovel food into your mouth? Is there to be no gazing into each other's eyes, no compliments, no sweet words of blessing — nothing of the sort?"
The words carried a distinctly combative edge.
Rembrary looked up, chopsticks still in his mouth, and Consort Hui wore a mischievous smile at the corner of his lips.
It was a completely different attitude from the one he'd shown before Shin Jo-woon, but Rembrary had no way of knowing that.
Rembrary simply concluded, this person takes his consort role very seriously, and offered whatever compliments came to mind.
"The tiger upon Consort Hui's nape looks most valiant indeed."
He wanted to get back to his food as quickly as possible.
But Consort Hui would not let it pass.
"That is no compliment to me. That is a compliment to the tiger."
"I daresay Consort Hui could fell that tiger with a single blow."
Having wrapped up his compliment, Rembrary turned back to his meal — but when Consort Hui continued to stare at him with an unmistakable look of dissatisfaction, he finally sighed, set down his chopsticks, and asked.
"What is it you wish me to say?"
At that, Consort Hui laced his fingers together, rested his chin upon them, and grinned slyly as he made his demand.
"On such a lovely atmospheric night as this, alone with a delicate, charming consort like me — surely you could offer something a little racy and explicit."
The pressure of it made Rembrary feel as though everything he'd just eaten would turn on his stomach.
In truth, Consort Hui was behaving this way entirely on purpose. The reason he'd come here in the first place was a bet with his friends.
He and his friends regularly teased Woo Yeon-woo at their drinking sessions, using him as the snack to go with the alcohol, and when he landed a spot on this variety show that paired celebrities with ordinary participants, they saw it as a golden opportunity.
So they had all applied together, with a pact: whoever got in would try to break Woo Yeon-woo's glib tongue in a war of words.
That was why Consort Hui was deliberately pushing Rembrary's buttons — within limits that wouldn't cause real trouble.
Though, to be fair, the Consort Hui participant hadn't expected "consort" to come up in his random job assignment either…
Be that as it may, when Rembrary only stared at him blankly, Consort Hui's expression turned triumphant.
Celebrity or not, a celebrity was a celebrity. With a public image to maintain, there was no way he'd say anything risqué easily. Consort Hui was certain of his victory.
And indeed, Rembrary was genuinely flustered in his own way. Consort Hui hadn't targeted it knowingly, but lines like these were precisely Rembrary's greatest weakness.
He had no interest in biological reproduction — and was forbidden from taking any — so talk of anything racy or explicit left him deeply awkward.
But right now he was not the High Priest. He was playing a king. Backing out here would be unbecoming of a king — at least by the standard Rembrary held himself to.
After much hesitation, Rembrary finally obliged with something explicit.
"To become the concubine of another man, in the body of a man — what a cruel fate yours is."
But this remark, which was as explicit as Rembrary could manage, was explicit without being the least bit racy.
Even so, the moment the words left his mouth, Rembrary worried — was that too unbecoming of a High Priest? It also struck him as rather one-sided, so he hastily added:
"I have misspoken. If you embrace him of your own will, then it is no cruel fate at all. You are… a pioneer of destiny."
When Rembrary thrust his thumb up in approval, Consort Hui — who had been staring with his mouth hanging open — frantically waved his hands.
"That is absolutely not it. I have a girlfriend."
"Then how am I to toy with one who did not come of his own will, either?"
With those words, Consort Hui found himself cornered.
If he admitted here that he'd become a man's concubine of his own volition, Rembrary would be flustered and flounder — but his friends would inevitably tease him mercilessly over this scene afterward.
He'd come here on a bet with his friends in the first place, so he couldn't very well ignore how they'd react.
At last, when Consort Hui stood there dithering, unable to advance or retreat, Rembrary smiled gently, picked up the dish he wanted least, and placed it before him.
"Eat this. It is quite delicious."
Then, suddenly, Rembrary recalled that upside-down-faced court lady he'd glimpsed while wandering the palace grounds, and looked around.
The deer antlers on the pavilion roof lit up the interior and the immediate surroundings, but beyond that, all was pitch dark. Not a single corded lamp had been installed anywhere on the set, so the paths at night were perilously dark as well.
Consort Hui would have to find his way back to the Consorts' Palace through that darkness later…
"Consort Hui."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"On your way back, should anyone ask you to show them the way — run, eyes fixed straight ahead."
"Pardon?"
Consort Hui, still sulking over his defeat in the war of words, stared at Rembrary in bewilderment.
Ghosts are weak, but they can latch onto you, which makes them dangerous. And that court lady looked exactly like a ghost…
Rembrary gazed gravely into empty air as he added:
"Do not answer them. Do not even look at them."
Meanwhile, at that very moment.
Shin Jo-woon, who had finished his meal fastest, was the first to return to his quarters.
He'd never had Rembrary's gluttonous appetite to begin with, and as a non-celebrity, he felt no greed for screen time either.
He'd accepted this variety show simply because he thought it might be a fun experience for the three of them.
But far from any fun experience, he couldn't even catch a glimpse of Jang Tae-ri or Woo Yeon-woo, and boredom set in fast. That was why he'd headed straight back to his quarters the moment he finished eating at his leisure.
Sangseon chafed at Shin Jo-woon's indifferent attitude, but there was no controlling his every move down to details like these, so he swallowed his complaints in silence.
"His Majesty retires for the night. All but the eunuchs on duty tonight are dismissed."
And so Shin Jo-woon's quarters grew quiet and still a little earlier than the others.
What Sangseon didn't know was that Shin Jo-woon had slipped under his blankets, feigning sleep, and was simply letting the hours pass.
Nor that yesterday, through an intermediary eunuch, he had already pinpointed the locations of both Rembrary and Jang Tae-ri.
After lying there a long while, Shin Jo-woon noticed the sounds outside gradually dying down, and deliberately rustled his blankets.
A few times he did this.
Then, the moment he made a slightly louder noise and confirmed there was no reaction from outside, Shin Jo-woon threw off his covers, slipped out, eased the window open, and slipped into the night.
Cameras were supposedly hidden here and there, so this scene might be caught later — but it didn't matter.
If it truly became a problem, the PD would edit it out. And if it was fit to broadcast, the PD would season it appropriately and air it.
Having escaped his quarters without incident, Shin Jo-woon made straight for Rembrary and Jang Tae-ri, setting off toward the nearest quarters.
He had no idea who was staying there, but either way, he intended to meet them both.
He'd been walking for some time when—
Someone called to him from behind in a small voice.
"Your Majesty? Your Majesty?"
The voice was small and faint, utterly without strength. It even sounded frightened.
A lost participant? Or a staff member? Shin Jo-woon stopped and turned his head.
There stood a court lady, her face wrapped in cloth, staring blankly.
"Were you calling me?"
When Shin Jo-woon asked, the court lady nodded hurriedly and said,
"Your Majesty. Where has everyone gone? I don't know where everyone has gone."
A participant, after all. Shin Jo-woon thought this calmly and pointed toward the court ladies' quarters he'd glimpsed in passing.
"That way should do it."
He had just finished speaking and turned to walk away when—
In the blink of an eye, the veiled court lady closed the distance, dropped her hand from her face, and seized Shin Jo-woon's arm.
"Your Majesty. Please take me with you. If I go alone, I might die again. Please take me with you."
Shin Jo-woon frowned, turned his head — and saw the court lady's face.
End of Chapter 125. Three Kings (4)