Escape from the Imperial Palace - 1
I returned to Gungcheong Hall. The moment I stripped off the audience robes, I flew straight to Hyeok Gi-rin.
"What in the world is going on here?!"
"Well now. Someone will come along soon enough to explain, won't they? I myself am merely a martial artist of no particular standing—there's nothing I could possibly know."
Watching Hyeok Gi-rin smile so brightly as she deflected me, I felt a twinge of betrayal, though she wasn't wrong. Today I had confirmed that Emperor Yu Gyeong was Du-jak. And since I had made it glaringly obvious that I knew Du-jak's sister was Hyeok Gi-rin...
She must realize by now that I had seen through her identity.
Even when the truth is already out in the open, keeping up the denial still matters—but an explanation would have been nice.
Nursing that frustration, I sat drinking tea in the pavilion where I had once met Du-jak and Sama Hwi-gyeong. Before long, Sama Hwi-gyeong himself appeared.
"Lord Hwi-gyeong! What is the meaning of all this?!"
"Haha. I'll explain, so calm yourself a little."
Sama Hwi-gyeong dismissed the palace maids, poured the tea, and began speaking at an unhurried pace.
"First... yes, we should start here. Lord Du-jak bears a striking resemblance to His Majesty the Emperor, does he not? Even though he is of a collateral line, he is the very image of Emperor Yu Gyeong."
"...Yes. I was quite surprised myself."
"As you have already guessed, Great Hero Hyeok Gi-rin is a member of the imperial family. Needless to say, that is not the sort of thing one goes about announcing freely."
So that was the setup. Fine—I understood the premise. Du-jak was not the Emperor but a collateral relative, and Hyeok Gi-rin was likewise a collateral member of the imperial bloodline.
"And I myself am not merely a eunuch. I am one of the Eastern Depot agents assigned to protect Lord Du-jak under cover. In the course of that duty I came across a fair amount of information about you... and I must say, you are in quite a predicament."
"What do you mean by that?"
I still could not fully grasp Yu Gyeong and Hyeok Gi-rin's intentions. For now Sama Hwi-gyeong seemed ready to lay everything out, so I decided to listen.
"You became entangled with Young Hero Yeo Il-ye through enlightenment, did you not? Lately, word has been circulating quietly through the Murim that a new Profound Realm master has emerged from the Jeomchang Sect. And of all times, it happened while you were instructing the elders. On top of that, during a sparring match here in the Imperial Palace you triggered Great Hero Hyeok Gi-rin's enlightenment as well..."
"...That was—"
I tried to offer some half-hearted excuse, but Sama Hwi-gyeong simply nodded as if he already knew everything.
"Yes, pure rumor. The notion that someone could freely bestow enlightenment upon other martial artists... Haha. Your name may be Ho Cheon-an, but you are hardly some figure out of legend who can peer into the enlightenment of others."
I clicked my tongue. The denial was already at the level of pure embarrassment.
"In any case, thanks to this baseless rumor you are about to suffer considerable hardship. You had only just become an external advisor to the Embroidered Uniform Guard, and now you are about to be dismissed just as quickly... Allow me to apologize in advance."
"...Hm?"
Sama Hwi-gyeong made a show of glancing around, then leaned in close and spoke in a low voice.
"In truth, word of you has already reached the imperial household. Admiral Song Chang-sik of the Embroidered Uniform Guard and His Majesty the Emperor both seem to have placed certain expectations on your 'rumor.' However... how can results appear from an ability that does not exist? I mean no slight against you, but with your current realm and experience there is no way the Embroidered Uniform Guard's martial artists could make any dramatic leap forward..."
Yu Gyeong's intention was beginning to take shape.
"If this affair were to become known outside, the imperial family's dignity would suffer—I am already fretting over it... Ahh..."
From the matter of Yeo Il-ye onward, I had already become deeply entangled with enlightenment.
No matter how tightly the Jeomchang Sect tried to keep quiet, the birth of a Profound Realm master was not a rumor that could be buried. The very qi of Mount Sunam had convulsed during the process of enlightenment—there was no way that could be perfectly concealed.
Yet it was still an unverified rumor. Stories of mysterious figures who appear out of nowhere, bestow peerless techniques or miraculous elixirs or some profound martial koan, and then vanish again are countless throughout the Murim.
Even I, who possessed an entire enlightenment database, had heard them until my ears rang.
My own story was nothing more than one more piece of baseless gossip among them. But once the rumor that Elder Un-jong had ascended to the Profound Realm became linked with me, it would no longer be dismissed as mere idle talk.
So the imperial household, having heard the rumor first, would pretend to have recruited me and then stage a period of testing my abilities. Upon testing, it would turn out I possessed no such power after all.
Once my lack of ability was confirmed, they would immediately strip me of my position as external advisor to the Embroidered Uniform Guard—that was the plan, was it?
"Ah, and I only just heard this myself—Great Hero Hyeok Gi-rin has used her reward privilege to request use of the Imperial Palace's closed-door cultivation chamber. She intends to train in earnest with elixirs as well. By the time she emerges from seclusion she will no doubt have made explosive progress—almost as if she had attained enlightenment."
With that final remark, Yu Gyeong and Hyeok Gi-rin's intentions became crystal clear.
Hyeok Gi-rin's enlightenment would be papered over as the result of closed-door cultivation and elixirs.
Appointing me as external advisor to the Embroidered Uniform Guard was a preemptive move—to prove, before anyone else could step forward out of curiosity or a desire to test me, that the Imperial Palace itself had already verified I possessed no such ability.
A tale of imperial failure would make for quite a sensational piece of news, and its reach would be considerable.
It was more than enough to bury the truth that I could grant enlightenment.
"...Are you certain this is all right?"
"What can one do when His Majesty's will is firm?"
Yu Gyeong had prepared a rather large gift for me. Large enough that accepting it felt almost burdensome.
He was offering to diminish his own dignity in order to cover my rumor... For an emperor whose goal was to strengthen imperial authority, that was no small blow.
"And... it is not entirely a loss. It may be irreverent to say so, but a setback of this magnitude is something he can absorb. After all, he has gained a most reliable ally."
"Hm...?"
"Huhu. The eunuchs who will carry out the decisions made at the audience will be arriving shortly. I shall take my leave."
Sama Hwi-gyeong rose from his seat.
"Personally, I will not forget what you have done. You resolved His Majesty's long-cherished wish—privately, you are my benefactor as well."
"I don't know about that. I feel I've already been more than adequately compensated."
"Hahahaha. Well, if you insist on seeing it that way... Then. We shall meet again someday."
Was that meant as a final farewell?
Sama Hwi-gyeong clasped his fists in salute and spoke.
"Then. I look forward to the day we meet again, Great Hero Ho Cheon-an."
"...Yes. Someday."
I returned the salute. Sama Hwi-gyeong offered an unreadable smile and vanished without looking back.
In the end, who had that man really been? The true admiral of the Eastern Depot? "Sama Hwi-gyeong" was almost certainly an alias as well. Still, even for a cover identity, he would not have used the Sama surname if he did not actually belong to that clan.
If I asked Sama Yeom, would he tell me? Then again, I wasn't sure there was any real need.
Yes. I would leave it as a small pleasure for the next time I encountered Sama Hwi-gyeong.
Just as I finished organizing my thoughts, a palace maid appeared to announce that the eunuchs had arrived.
"Very well. Let us go."
I rose from my seat to put the final period on my life at Gungcheong Hall.
In Luoyang stands the Imperial Palace.
The Imperial Palace.
It can be broadly divided into three parts.
First, the Inner Court and the Outer Court.
The Inner Court is, quite literally, the living quarters of the imperial family. The Outer Court is where the conveniences of the imperial family and the important institutions are gathered.
Gungcheong Hall, as well as the great halls where the Emperor and his ministers conduct state affairs, all belong to the Outer Court.
If the Inner Court is the innermost sanctum—a private chamber reserved solely for the imperial bloodline, which even high ministers may not enter without special business and permission—then the Outer Court is more like a reception room, study, or office where the imperial family meets ministers and guests or handles official duties.
Ordinarily the area encompassing both the Inner and Outer Courts is what people mean when they speak of the "true" Imperial Palace, and in a sense that is correct. The spaces where the imperial family actually lives are those two courts.
But the official domain of the Imperial Palace is far larger.
The Officials' Quarter.
This is where the state institutions that keep the empire running are densely packed. The masters of the palace may be the imperial family, yet those who dwell within its walls are hardly limited to royalty. The Officials' Quarter is the portion of the palace set aside for the ministers.
Though one might call it the palace domain for the ministers, those "ministers" include the Embroidered Uniform Guard, the Eastern Depot, the great ministers, the central bureaucrats, the Imperial Army, and others whom ordinary officials can only look up to in awe. It is by no means a place to be taken lightly. No—it is not merely "not light"; it is an immensely formidable place.
A concentration of organs that process the affairs of state pouring in from across the realm and issue directives to every corner of the land—one could rightly call it the heart of the empire.
Both the Imperial Palace Treasury and the Imperial Palace Armory are located here, and the training grounds of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, where I would be serving under cover, also lie within the Officials' Quarter. I would likely take lodgings at the same inn where Heukmyo was staying and commute from there.
Clack. Clack.
Hyeok Gi-rin and I rode an imperial carriage from the Outer Court toward the Officials' Quarter. The time to reclaim the health pills and coin purse that had always rested against my chest, and the sword that had hung at my waist, was nearly upon us.
"I heard you will be entering closed-door cultivation. I hope that decision was not made because of me..."
Since attaining enlightenment, Hyeok Gi-rin had been unusually sparing with her words. It was not so much that her temperament had changed as... how to put it? She gave the impression of a mischievous child forcibly holding something back in order to pull off a prank.
Those pure-looking eyes and that clear, comforting smile remained the same, yet the way she simply smiled at me without saying much left me a little uneasy.
If this were the Hyeok Gi-rin I knew, she would have worn an apologetic expression and said she was sorry for having hidden that she was a princess all this time—that in truth she was a princess of the empire.
Then I would have leapt up in exaggerated shock and cried, "Your Highness the Princess! Please put this ignorant wretch to death for failing to recognize you!"
She would have looked flustered and at a complete loss, and I would have thrown myself into a full-body floor-sweeping performance, wailing in every direction, while inwardly cackling at the sight of her face turning bright red with embarrassment. But instead, this.
Most regrettable.
Growth, it seemed, was not always an unalloyed good.
"Huhu. Not at all. As Nangin Ho is well aware by now, there are certain matters within my family. This is a decision I made in order to resolve family problems I have long neglected. Having attained enlightenment, I can say I have bought myself time to set those affairs in order."
"Haha. Then that is a relief."
"Yes. It is all thanks to Nangin Ho."
Still, the way she smiled was the same as the Hyeok Gi-rin I had always known, so I felt reassured.
As if on cue, the carriage came to a stop at the gate of the Outer Court. My sword was once more fastened at my waist, the Qi Thread Bracelet returned to my arm, and the health pills and coin purse settled back against my chest.
The other items were one thing, but the coin purse truly was like a second heart. While I had been inside the palace I had felt as hollow as if half my liver had been removed; the moment I strapped it on again, it was as though I had stepped out of a dream and back into reality.
My breast pocket had grown quite crowded. A token granting access to the Imperial Palace Treasury. A token for the Imperial Palace Armory. Tokens allowing me to draw gold from various battlefields. And the plaque certifying me as an external advisor to the Embroidered Uniform Guard.
"When do you plan to enter seclusion?"
"In my heart I would like to begin at once... but we do have a prior engagement, do we not?"
A prior engagement. Yes—the promise we had made before entering the palace to tour Luoyang with Heukmyo.
Come to think of it, it had been quite a while since I last saw Heukmyo. I wondered whether she had managed to stay out of trouble.
"I wonder how Young Lady Heukmyo has been faring on her own."
"Mm... nothing much will have happened, I expect. Unless she has been stuffing herself with fried rice to her heart's content and rolling about until she put on a generous layer of fat."
"Huhuhuhu... A martial artist nearing the Super-Peak Realm is unlikely to put on weight so easily, yet somehow I feel I understand exactly what you mean."
Anticipating that a thoroughly bored Heukmyo would greet us with open arms, we arrived at the Yongsang Inn—only to be met not by a Heukmyo merely adjacent to the Super-Peak Realm.
"Welcome back!"
It was Heukmyo the Super-Peak master, her hands clearly coated in Sword Gang as she waved them vigorously in greeting.