Daydream of an Ideal Family
“Ugh.”
Once Yu Gyeong had gone, Hyeok Gi-rin let out a long sigh and stretched out on the bed.
Still… it was fun.
They had traded stories for so long that neither of them noticed the hours slipping past. By the time they came back to themselves, midnight had already come and gone, and the two of them parted with lingering regret.
He had promised to visit every night from now on, so there would be plenty of time to catch up.
When she first heard that the education period at Gongcheong Hall was being deliberately extended, a twinge of guilt toward Ho Cheon-an had stirred in her chest—yet she still wanted to indulge this much selfishness.
Oppa is doing well…
Hyeok Gi-rin replayed their conversation in her mind. The factions that had once supported her had lost most of their influence in the central court, and Yu Gyeong—who had solidified the succession early—was steadily tightening his grip on the capital.
He had been a little too persistent about her romantic life, which made things awkward at times, but overall the talk had been enjoyable.
Yu Chan is already fourteen…
A nephew she had never once laid eyes on was already fourteen years old. The thought left her with a strange, fresh sense of wonder.
Lover. Courtship. Marriage. Childbirth. Raising children. In her current circumstances, those words felt almost impossible to pursue.
Martial artists were never especially strict about marriage. Their bodies stayed young for so long that age rarely mattered, and those who devoted themselves wholly to martial arts and never formed a household were not considered flawed for it.
Marrying past forty was simply accepted as ordinary.
Yet if she had lived a normal life as a member of the imperial family, she would already have been married and raising a household by now.
A household…
Hyeok Gi-rin loved children. The quiet wish to marry and have children of her own had always lived somewhere in her heart.
She gave a bitter little smile.
Oppa really is something else.
The circumstances surrounding her were extraordinarily complicated, and she still had no clear idea how to resolve any of them. Live as a princess, or live as a martial artist? For Hyeok Gi-rin, the question was tangled and heavy.
But marriage…
She pulled the blanket up and deliberately swept every practical worry from her mind. Instead of fretting over reality, she began to build an ideal household inside her head.
She invented a faceless, nameless husband…
And children—yes, three would be perfect. In her greedier moments she wanted five, but three felt just right.
The eldest would race energetically through the house and yard; the second would still be a clingy little one who refused to leave Mother’s side; and the third would still be a baby. Hyeok Gi-rin smiled softly as she pictured the scene.
Since it was only a daydream, why not go further? Her imagination branched and grew. Her nephew Yu Chan—whom she had never even met—was playing with her eldest, while her junior sister Yeo Il-ye stood beside her, trying hard to befriend the clingy second child.
And her imaginary husband… yes, he was sharing a cup of wine with Yu Gyeong and Master Cheongheo.
A truly pastoral, peaceful scene—the ideal she had always kept tucked away in a quiet corner of her heart.
Suddenly a baby’s cry rose. Hyeok Gi-rin looked down with a helpless expression at the second child clinging to her leg and called for her husband. He received a scolding from Master Cheongheo and Yu Gyeong, then hurried over to where the third child lay.
From a distance she watched her husband standing awkwardly beside junior sister Yeo Il-ye and smiled.
Trying to soothe the crying infant, the husband floundered until he snatched up a nearby toy—a little rattle. The jingle caught the baby’s attention and the crying quieted. The moment he sighed in relief, the baby started wailing again, so he frantically shook the rattle once more.
Once he got the hang of it, he smiled and kept shaking. The soft jingle stilled the tears for a moment; he shook it again and again—
—and then made the rattle vanish.
Jingle-jingle.
The rattle that had been between his fingers disappeared the instant those fingers twitched, only to pop out of his sleeve with another cheerful jingle. It vanished from his palm again, reappeared from his mouth, or dropped when he pretended to pull it from his ear.
Giggle!
The baby crowed with delight at the dazzling performance. The husband grinned and tossed the rattle into the air, then clapped his hands together and caught it.
Jingle-jingle!
The sound still rang from inside his closed palms—yet when he opened them with an exaggerated flourish, the rattle was nowhere to be seen!
Thump! Thump!
Hyeok Gi-rin kicked the blankets off and thrashed about, cutting the daydream short. Anyone could see that was him! What kind of “imaginary husband” was that supposed to be?!
“Is something the matter, my lady?!”
“N-no, nothing at all! I just tossed and turned for a moment!”
“Understood.”
Hyeok Gi-rin yanked the blanket over her almost certainly scarlet face and writhed quietly alone beneath it.
Meals in the Imperial Palace were delicious.
The dishes that arrived were overall light and clean in seasoning. In this world of Murim Cheonha, people tended to think that heavy cooking and liberal spices equaled high-class cuisine, yet true mastery of cooking required drawing out the pure flavor of fresh ingredients.
“Mmm.”
For the first time in ages I could taste real tenderness and umami in the meat. Livestock here existed mainly as a way to turn scraps into more food. You didn’t raise pigs for the sake of delicious pork; you fed them garbage and pork simply appeared as a byproduct.
Tasting meat that had actually been bred to be eaten made my tongue happy.
Living as a martial artist wasn’t all good. Your senses sharpened naturally—and that included the sense of taste. Either you ate food that reeked of every possible off-flavor, like pig-slop gruel, or you ate dishes so buried under spices that the spices themselves became the only flavor. After a lifetime of that abuse, my tongue finally felt like it had found happiness.
I nodded to myself while shoveling food in, finished with a sweet dessert and tea, then leaned back into a plush chair. It was pure paradise.
“Maybe I should learn cooking.”
The reason I had never picked up cooking skills was simple. Until I reached the Wanderer Inn, every day had been a fight for survival. After I arrived, living at the inn meant I never needed to cook for myself.
But now the conditions were finally right. With companions, traveling by carriage was more convenient, and a carriage meant I could haul proper cooking gear along. If we traveled by carriage we could handle meals without stopping at inns, which would raise our mobility.
Something to think about later.
Just as I finished sorting those thoughts, palace maids entered and announced the start of the day’s schedule.
In other words, history lessons and etiquette training had begun.
First came instruction on the audience process. An audience with the Emperor was an official state duty. Naturally it took place in a formal setting with ministers present; they explained the exact sequence, the posture and etiquette the visitor must observe, the points of caution, and even model answers to the Emperor’s questions.
“As an example, allow me to pose a question. What is the nature of Jade Dragon Hero Hyeok Gi-rin’s friendships?”
“…Pardon?”
An odd question suddenly appeared in the middle of everything. When I asked for clarification, the middle-aged palace maid’s eyebrow twitched.
“This is merely an example. You must never talk back to any question, and you must maintain composure. I will ask again. What is the nature of Jade Dragon Hero Hyeok Gi-rin’s friendships?”
What kind of dog-training is this? The Eastern Depot would already have a full report on Hyeok Gi-rin’s friendships for the Emperor. Why ask me?
Annoyance rose at the way they tossed out a fishing question and then scolded me, but I opened my mouth anyway.
“I have not known Hero Hyeok Gi-rin personally for very long, so I cannot speak with certainty, yet within her sect she is a respected senior disciple. Given her character, so long as someone is not wicked by nature, she would maintain amicable relations with nearly anyone, would she not?”
“I see.”
The audience drills continued all morning. From the palace maids radiated a fierce determination to drill the entire procedure into my body until even if I fell into a half-conscious panic from tension, the memorized ritual would still carry me through.
“Has any martial artist grown close to Hero Hyeok Gi-rin recently?”
Another strange question.
“If I had to name someone, it would be my companions and myself, would it not? We have been traveling together ever since the incidents in Sichuan.”
“And the gender of those companions?”
“They are women, but…?”
“Do not trail off.”
I swallowed the irritation that rose at the middle-aged maid’s flashing eyes. It was only the first day; they were probably just establishing dominance.
So the morning lessons continued, perfectly normal practice questions suddenly interrupted by bizarre ones, until the session finally ended.
“I would like to share a meal with Hero Hyeok Gi-rin.”
“At Gongcheong Hall, private life is the rule.”
“Even so, we are traveling companions. Sharing a meal should be fine, should it not? This is not a prison—I would at least like to see her face.”
“…Her face, you say.”
The maid repeated the words as if tasting them.
“Do you normally dine with Hero Hyeok Gi-rin often?”
“Pardon? What… is so strange about wanting to eat with a traveling companion?”
“Indeed… I see.”
The middle-aged maid nodded with unnecessary gravity.
“I shall inquire as to Hero Hyeok Gi-rin’s wishes.”
“…Yes. Please do.”
If half a day had taught me anything for certain, it was that the Imperial Palace and I were constitutionally incompatible.
Feeling thoroughly drained, I headed off to have lunch with Hyeok Gi-rin.
And once again, something was off about her.
“Hero Hyeok Gi-rin? What’s wrong?”
“N-nothing…? Nothing at all?”
Nothing, my foot. Normally this would have been the moment we traded light complaints and easy smiles, yet she had been burying her face in her rice bowl, sneaking glances at me, then squeezing her eyes shut.
“Last night was only a dream… only a dream… a delusion… a delusion…”
And she kept muttering under her breath.
“Did the palace attendants work you too hard this morning? You really don’t look well.”
The attendants suddenly glared daggers at me, but I just snorted and ignored them. Even a random passerby in Sichuan could glare harder than that.
“It isn’t that… it’s a personal matter.”
“…Well, if that’s the case, there’s nothing to be done. Still, you can take things a little easier, can’t you? What I mean is, we have plenty of time.”
“Plenty of time… yes. That’s true.”
Hyeok Gi-rin muttered things like “Yesterday was just a cursed moment” and “I feel so sorry toward Lady Heukmyo… what should I do…” yet at least she stopped looking like a cat staring at a fish with her face planted in the bowl.
“What do you mean, sorry toward Heukmyo?”
“Cough! Cough!”
Hyeok Gi-rin sprayed the food she had just put in her mouth. The palace attendants flew into a panic, clearing the table and dabbing at her front in a flurry of activity.
Only after they had thoroughly cleaned her up could I meet her eyes again.
“That is… yes! D-did you hear? The education period at Gongcheong Hall is going to be quite long! That’s why! That’s all it was! Because Lady Heukmyo will have to wait so long! There was absolutely no other meaning!”
“Ah… I see.”
I still had no idea what had put her in such a strange state, but watching the rigid palace maids wipe her down at the speed of a soaring bird made one thing clear: the attendants of Gongcheong Hall knew she was a princess.
The education period had been extended, had it?
Did a princess like Hyeok Gi-rin even need etiquette lessons? I wasn’t exactly stumbling through them either.
If the period had still been lengthened, it was probably because Hyeok Gi-rin needed to stay in the palace a little longer. Maybe she simply wanted to enjoy the imperial household a bit more, or maybe returning after so long had raised various issues.
And that was why she had been making those peculiar faces while worrying about my reaction.
“Hero Hyeok Gi-rin.”
“Yes, please speak.”
“What do you think our relationship is?”
Her body froze like a stone statue.
“W-what do you mean? R-relationship?!”
“I consider us rather close. Was I mistaken?”
Her face turned as red as a ripe persimmon. She squeezed her eyes shut, shook her head, steadied her breathing, clenched her fists, and trembled from head to toe before finally speaking in a mosquito-thin voice.
“I… I also… Wanderer Ho… close… close…”
“Yes. Exactly. I don’t know how we should define what we are, but I believe we know each other reasonably well by now.”
She swallowed hard. Her eyes, full of violent trembling, fixed on me. I gave her a little wink to ease the pressure.
“We can certainly call ourselves friends, can’t we? Haha. I don’t know how much help I’ll be, but I’m more than willing to listen to any worries you have, so feel free to speak your mind.”
“…Friends.”
She repeated the word in a strangely chilly tone. Ah… maybe she didn’t like the word “friends.”
“Ohoho. Yes. We could call ourselves friends. Now I finally understand the complaints Lady Heukmyo used to make.”
“Pardon?”
Hyeok Gi-rin rose from her seat.
“I have eaten well. Let us take our evening meal separately.”
She swept out of the room, leaving me blinking in place.
All that remained were the palace maids’ icy glares fixed on me.