1. Neither Official nor Blade Shall Trespass

"Your Majesty, I beg you — retract it!"

The moment I opened my eyes, some old man was slamming his forehead into the floor. The crack of skull against stone was louder than I expected, and I flinched before I knew why — but the old man lifted his head again without the slightest sign of pain.

"The moment word goes out that the throne means to collect every blade, the martial artists of all under heaven will rise as one. I beg you, reconsider."

Behind him, the others prostrate on the floor raised their voices in unison.

"Reconsider, Your Majesty!"

My ears rang hollow. Not a minute ago — I was certain of it — I had been lying in bed reading a wuxia novel. I'd dozed off for a moment, closed my eyes and opened them again, and this was where that had gotten me.

I looked down at my hand first. I was gripping a jade seal with a dragon coiled around its handle, its weight hanging heavy on my wrist, and beneath the seal lay a document unrolled to its full length. Lines of dense classical script caught my eye.

And I could read it. I was reading an imperial edict in its original classical Chinese as easily as the morning paper.

What in the world...

My temples throbbed. The instant I tightened my grip on the seal, unfamiliar memories came flooding into my head.

A woman lay on a sickbed, smiling. There was no color in her lips. The wrist she had slipped out from under the covers looked slender enough to snap if I closed my hand around it — and yet she was the one who took my hand in hers.

"If Your Highness makes such a face, people will think I'm far sicker than I really am."

Yu-ran.

My dead wife. Shim Yu-ran, the Crown Princess who died without ever becoming Empress. At the name, my breath caught short in my throat.

Over the woman's face, another scene laid itself: Daoists barring the gate of the Qingcheng Sect; the feel of rain-soaked cloth clinging to my knees; the helpless face of Song Hyeon-jinin, sect leader of Qingcheng, looking down at me.

"If Your Highness the Crown Prince carries on so, it puts our sect in a difficult position as well."

I had been kneeling before him. I said I would pay any price. That they were welcome to count it a debt the imperial house owed them. That if they feared for the ground where the herb grew, they were welcome to dig it with their own hands. I clung and pleaded — and the answer never changed. The sacred grounds where the elders slumbered admitted not even the sect's own disciples without leave. His Highness must not seek to bend the law of the jianghu with the power of the throne. He must uphold the covenant of Guanmu Bulgapchim — that officialdom and the martial world shall never trespass upon one another.

A Crown Prince who still had a wife to save did not get up. I groveled there before him, begging and pleading, over and over, for the herb. In the end I got it — but how long I had lain face-down on that ground, I had no wish to remember.

Only two things stayed vivid. When I returned to the palace, the palace women burst into tears the moment they saw my face. And the feel of the herb pressed hard against my chest for every step I ran to her hall.

And—

"Your Majesty?"

At the sound of someone calling me, I lifted my head. A drop of water had fallen onto the back of my hand. I wiped my cheek with a bare hand, and my fingertips came away wet.

Damn it all.

I knew this situation. It was a scene from the early chapters of a wuxia novel — its name, unmistakably, All Under Heaven Martial Arts. A book I had read any number of times.

I had possessed the Emperor of a wuxia novel.

A politician who chooses the wrong hobby ends up thoroughly exhausted. Play a round of golf, and people ask who you played with; at a dinner party, the question becomes who was seated at your side. Grow close to a man with money and the rumors start; show your face too often where people gather, and whatever you said there always finds its way out.

Having become a two-term member of the National Assembly at thirty-eight, I was especially careful about such things. The party leader would clap me on the shoulder in front of everyone and call me the future of the party; the senior man smiling beside him would have his own people planted at my constituency event the following week. That was, on the whole, what it meant to have expectations placed on you — that just as many people were waiting for you to slip.

So I went looking for a hobby I could practice alone, and reached for novels. Reading wuxia behind a locked door required no companion: read until dawn and no aide had to call a driver for me; curse the characters out all I liked, and no recording of it ever made the rounds of party headquarters.

One of the books I devoured that way was All Under Heaven Martial Arts. The story of a young man named Wi Jin-woo, who gained a miraculous encounter, stepped out into the jianghu, rose into a master, was dragged through every calamity imaginable, and at last claimed the title of Unrivaled Under Heaven.

It was an old work, and it showed. The line between the orthodox and unorthodox sects was drawn in stark black and white, and half the fights ended with someone bellowing the name of his technique. Any old man who looked suspicious was, as a rule, a monstrous master, and the martial artists preached the mustiest of righteousness and chivalry — yet, unlike most books of that vintage, they mostly moved like real, three-dimensional people.

Of it all, I reread the chapters about the Emperor more times than any other. A Crown Prince, young and brilliant. The man who had knelt before the gates of the Qingcheng Sect to save his wife, and failed to save her in the end. The moment the Late Emperor died and he took the throne, he moved against the murim — and the Qingcheng Sect, the ones who had withheld his wife's herb until it was too late, he tried to tear out by the roots.

He sent imperial troops to burn the mountain gate and put every soul in the sect to the sword, hunted the fleeing disciples down and exterminated them ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to a man, and to kill the sect leader Song Hyeon-jinin he even dispatched Grand General Yu Cheong-ah, a master of the Transcendence Realm, with orders to bring back his head. When Song Hyeon-jinin's head was hung above the palace gates, even the unorthodox factions — who had despised Qingcheng — denounced the Emperor.

At first, I'd laughed out loud at that part. Martial artists who could barely go a week without trying to kill one another — since when was the fall of someone else's sect worth grieving over? Then I looked at the orders the Emperor had issued, and I understood. Surrender your weapons; present yourselves to the authorities and declare your martial arts and your lineage. The same decree scattered across the whole jianghu meant no one could treat it as another man's affair — it was as good as the Emperor declaring the entire murim his enemy.

In the end, orthodox and unorthodox joined hands. Masters who had been blood enemies all their lives scaled the palace walls side by side, and after countless of them died at the hands of the Imperial Guards and Yu Cheong-ah, the protagonist Wi Jin-woo at last stood face to face with the Emperor. The Emperor himself was no small fighter — he had reached the Peak Realm at a mere twenty years of age, and on raw talent alone he would have counted among the finest in the book. Even so, Wi Jin-woo's sword took his head in the end.

After that sword fell, the Emperor's name went unmentioned for some time. The next enemy took the stage, the jianghu went back to tearing itself apart, and the Blood Cult and the Demonic Cult set about turning the Central Plains into a wasteland. That part burned itself into my memory, the first time and every reread after. As a reader, I had thought him simply a good character wasted. Now that I had become the man himself, the back of my neck was cold.

"Your Majesty. Even if you must take this servant's head, I beg you — not this edict."

The old man prostrate before me had opened his mouth again. I looked at him. A minister who had sat in the court since the Late Emperor's day. He had taught state affairs to me as Crown Prince, and at Yu-ran's funeral he had come to me wearing a face that had aged years in the space of days.

The man I had been then had not welcomed that visit. He'd had no stomach for being told to master his grief and turn back to the duties of the throne's heir. Even now, the sight of the old man stirred a faint trace of that old irritation. I knew how cold Shim Yu-ran's hands had grown. I remembered, too, forbidding anyone to take away the incense burner, because I could not bear for the smell of medicine to fade from her hall after she was gone. And yet, at the same time, I could guess what was in the old man's heart as he spoke. He was staking his neck before an Emperor newly seated on the throne. A sovereign commands, and his subjects obey — but in the end, the ruler who means to reign long must preserve the dignity of the men beneath him.

"That will be enough."

The old man fell silent. I set the jade seal down beside the edict, and the eunuch standing at my side, his gaze trailed my hand. The old man looked from the seal to my face and back again; then, cautiously, he raised himself.

"...Your Majesty?"

"I accept your loyal counsel. I will not set my seal to this edict."

No one answered at once. I pressed a finger against the edge of the document. The paper was a touch crumpled — proof enough of how hard the owner of this body had been gripping it.

"I will say it again. The edict will not be promulgated."

"Boundless is Your Majesty's grace!"

The old man bowed his head once more, and from the ministers prostrate behind him came the sound of breath escaping in relief. Something in my gut twisted. Their relief was repulsive to me. My wife was dead, and I had knelt in the dirt before their mountain gate — and the moment I gave ground, these men were the ones rejoicing.

The impulse came to snatch up the seal all the same — to stamp it then and there, and order troops sent out to gut that mountain to its bedrock. Beneath the table, my fist closed, nails digging into my palm.

Do that, and I die.

I ground my teeth, then slowly loosened them. My wife's face in my memory refused to fade. But stamp that paper now, and I would be binding her enemies together into a single camp with my own hands. That much, I could not do.

"All of you, rise."

With a rustle of robes, the ministers got to their feet. The old man had knelt so long that he needed his neighbor's arm to steady himself. Only when he stood squarely did I ask:

"If we order them to surrender their arms, not only the orthodox sects — even the unorthodox, who can barely stomach Qingcheng — won't comply so meekly, will they?"

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

The Minister of War stepped forward.

"Indeed, Your Majesty. They are men who have never held the government's commands in high regard, and to reach now for the very weapons their livelihoods depend upon..."

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

He let the words trail off — an old habit of gauging the Emperor's expression. I had watched faces like that every day in my past life.

"You believe they would join hands with the orthodox sects?"

"The danger is great, Your Majesty."

"Even men who have spent their lives killing one another?"

The Minister of War hesitated a moment.

"They will reason, Your Majesty, that once the imperial army has been turned back, they can always go back to fighting each other."

I nodded. At least he understood the situation. I'd seen it constantly in politics, too: even men who spent the rest of the year trying to eat each other alive within the party would gather in one room the moment someone talked of seizing control of the nominations. Whoever had betrayed whom last month got shoved to the back of the line — first, you had to drag down the man holding the knife.

I looked down at the unrolled edict. How convenient it must have been for the sects that received this. No sect leader would even need to gather his disciples and talk them around. When the Emperor himself was moving to seize their swords and erase their sects, who was going to object?

"Your Majesty."

The old man who had remonstrated first spoke again. "I do not presume to ask you to forget Her Majesty the Empress. Only — Guanmu Bulgapchim is a custom that has held for generations, and to break it in haste..."

Empress. A name she had never once been able to claim in life — Yu-ran had died a Crown Princess, and nothing more. The old man must have regretted the words the moment they left his mouth; he lowered his head.

I turned his words over for a while. Guanmu Bulgapchim. In a wuxia novel it was the most basic convention there was — but seen from a politician's chair in my past life, or from the throne in this one, it was a proposition so rotten it defied belief.

This Central Plains belongs to the Emperor. Since when does Guanmu Bulgapchim make any sense?

But turn them all into enemies at once, and they would turn desperate in turn. If I wanted to see every last one of them on their knees, then for now, I had to endure. Slowly, I rolled up the paper.

"I was trying to lay hands on all of their affairs at once."

"Those who could not fathom Your Majesty's intent will, in time—"

"They have no need to understand me."

My voice had sharpened, and the old man closed his mouth. I took a breath to steady myself, then went on.

"Leave the edict where it lies. That will be all for today."

The ministers traded glances. On more than one face was the wish for a firmer promise. But having already wrung out of me a pledge that no seal would touch the paper, they could hardly press their Emperor further. The old man bowed first, and the rest followed. One by one they withdrew, and the doors closed.

I leaned back against the chair. Only then did my hands begin to shake. The eunuch beside me offered up a cup of tea.

"Drink, Your Majesty."

I took the cup, then set it back down. If I drank now, I would only spill it.

"Are there records detailing each sect's circumstances?"

"What manner of circumstances would Your Majesty...?"

"Grudges. Old scores between them. Disputes over land or trade would be better still."

The eunuch's face went puzzled. I added:

"And I should like to know who, within the Murim Alliance, refuses to listen to whom. Bring me whatever reports have reached the court to start."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

The eunuch turned to go, then stopped and looked back at the edict.

"What is to be done with that?"

I picked up the rolled paper and slid it deep into the writing desk.

"I will keep it myself. Withdraw for a time. Ah — and see that Grand Chancellor Jang Mun-hyeok is ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠summoned to the palace. I know he is confined to bed with illness, but I imagine he will be feeling better by now."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Watching the eunuch scurry out on quick little steps, I smiled quietly to myself.

"Guanmu Bulgapchim, is it."

I turned my eyes to the great map of the realm hanging on the wall, tracing one by one the positions of the capitals and government offices carved across it, then raised the teacup again and drank a slow mouthful.

"When all under heaven is mine?"