Normalization of the Imperial Family (1)
"I have a question, Taewhangong."
"What is it?"
"One can deceive the world, but not family, wouldn't you agree?"
I gripped Moyong Seol's hand tightly as I asked.
"His Majesty has likely already consumed the Extreme Yang Pill, transforming into the ideal beauty he desired most."
"Hm."
Taewhangong gestured for me to continue.
"All the countermeasures you mentioned to me must already be planned out and in motion."
"Hm."
"A mere physician like me could only worry about so much, and you've surely prepared for every contingency. But I've heard the imperial palace is even more cutthroat than Murim."
"You have a point."
Taewhangong gave a wry smile and nodded.
"No matter how many heirs His Majesty has already sired as emperor, he can't evade the empress's eyes."
"......."
"A woman's intuition is a fearsome thing. Isn't that right, Lady Moyong?"
"Ah, yes!"
"To use a Murim analogy... if someone cast an illusion to disrupt your senses, Lady Moyong, could you pick out the real me from hundreds or thousands of identical fakes?"
"Of course."
Moyong Seol declared it without hesitation.
"No matter how meticulously crafted the illusions are, they can't perfectly replicate the real thing."
Her hand began gently caressing mine.
"I recognize you by your warmth, your touch, and so many little things. And of course, I'd never let those fakes touch me. I can tell if it's you just by looking."
"Just like her father."
"Pardon?"
"Let me share a little Murim secret. It's a bit absurd for a eunuch like me to tell it, but..."
Taewhangong chuckled as he lifted his cup.
"There was a man called Phantom Demon. One of the Magyo's Ten Demons... oh, not the current one. This one was far more vicious and sinister, a true master of illusions."
"......."
"His phantoms once nearly wiped out an entire generation of a sect's disciples. He disguised countless women as 'a certain woman,' and hundreds appeared with her exact face."
"Did the Sword Saint find her? That woman?"
She must have been Moyong Seol's mother.
"Indeed. He pinpointed the one and only real one. Amid the brainwashed horde swinging their swords mercilessly even at allies under the Phantom Demon's mind control arts, he identified her perfectly."
"How did he do it?"
"......Seeing you ask so brightly, I take it you've truly never heard the tale?"
"W-Well."
At Taewhangong's odd reaction, Moyong Seol started fidgeting and glancing around nervously.
"Father never spoke of Mother's past, and Mother never mentioned hers either..."
"I see. Well, it's not something to share lightly. ...But still."
Taewhangong eyed me suspiciously.
"Didn't you already know?"
"Pardon?"
"About the matriarch of the Moyong family, whom you would have called 'mother-in-law' had she lived."
"...I know how she passed to some extent, but not the details."
I really didn't.
"I only know for certain that my wife's beauty comes from her mother."
"Is that so. Then I suppose I must tell the tale myself. The Sword Saint sent you here without even mentioning something so crucial?"
Taewhangong let out a deep sigh.
"His Majesty had one older sister, an existence that officially never was."
"Officially...?"
"Yes. She was a martial prodigy born in the palace."
"...Ah."
The picture was starting to form.
"Back then, Magyo's shadow loomed over the palace, and the current emperor wasn't the absolute power he is now. I was just one more eunuch."
"......."
"The late emperor... the previous one... saw her potential and devised a plan. The boy as emperor, and his sister as the shadow guarding him."
"Did she have no life as a woman?"
"No. ...Are you truly that ignorant?"
Taewhangong looked like he'd slipped up, then clammed up.
"This is awkward."
"No need for awkwardness, Taewhangong."
The Sword Saint entered from outside.
"I meant to tell the story eventually, but planned to wait until things settled calmly with the imperial family."
"Father...?"
"Come in."
The Sword Saint bowed politely and stepped aside.
Then—
With a clatter! Taewhangong shot to his feet, Moyong Seol clutched me in shock, and both stared wide-eyed at the 'girl' who appeared behind the Sword Saint.
"D-Doctor! Th-That, that's...!"
"Greetings to His Majesty the Emperor."
I signaled Moyong Seol to stay calm and bowed as steadily as I could to the girl.
"Hm."
The peerless beauty rivaling the world's finest nodded curtly.
Her appearance was strikingly like Moyong Seol's—nay, like Moyong Seol's childhood self, but with perfect black hair instead of the white from her Blocked Meridian Syndrome.
"What do you think, Lady Moyong?"
The black-haired beauty—now the emperor himself as a girl—tapped her chest and grinned.
"Your—"
"Mother's childhood self?"
Moyong Seol bit her lower lip, her eyes welling up.
"That's..."
"What nonsense is this?"
"Pardon?"
"Not your mother—your aunt's younger self."
"......Pardon?"
?
"Sword Saint. You truly told them nothing?"
"...She wished it unspoken."
"Hah."
The emperor let out a disbelieving scoff at the Sword Saint.
"Misunderstandings or ignorance aside, I must set this straight. Lady Moyong."
"Y-Yes, Your Majesty!"
"What was your mother's name?"
"That's..."
"This is an imperial command."
"...Yes."
Moyong Seol glanced at the Sword Saint, gripped my hand hard, and spoke.
"...'Yi Seol.'"
In the jianghu, in Murim, there's one name you must never utter.
"Known to the world as the 'Sword Ghost,' a scourge of Murim."
Moyong Seol's mother. The martial scourge who passed Blocked Meridian Syndrome to her daughter, went mad watching her suffer, massacred over three figures, and in full insanity tried to kill her own child—only to meet her end at the hands of her husband, Sword Saint Moyong Cheon.
"Yes. Yi Seol."
The emperor smiled bitterly.
"But this is not Yi Seol—it's her twin sister, my other younger sibling."
"......Pardon?"
"Hah, utterly clueless kin."
The emperor shot the Sword Saint a fierce glare, then turned earnestly to Moyong Seol.
"Yi Seol wasn't a Murim wanderer—she was an imperial princess."
"......Ah."
"And between her and me, there was another princess who died young. We three siblings."
"......That."
"Now three sisters. Hahaha!"
"Your Majesty."
At the emperor's hearty laugh, Taewhangong approached gravely and knelt on one knee.
"A young lady shouldn't laugh so boisterously."
"Oh, right? Hm, my apologies."
"No need, Your Majesty. If that's the life you desire, then all the better."
Was it my imagination, or did Taewhangong seem a touch weepy? No. Let's think positively. He's loyally serving the emperor, who took this form to atone for that long-dead princess—Moyong Seol's aunt, not mother—by easing his guilt over her demise.
For now.
"So Your Majesty is my wife's... uncle?"
"Indeed, Physician Seok."
...One secret of Moyong Seol's bloodline revealed.
"Ah. Keep this absolutely secret. With what you've learned now... probably just enough to count on one hand, right? Sword Saint?"
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"So it seems. Me, Taewhangong, the Sword Saint, and you two physicians. A secret known to five."
Moyong Seol's mother was a princess.
"That's why I like Murim sometimes. Hide the past behind some obscure sect's mystique, and no one cares if it's true or not."
She hid her princess status and threw herself into Murim. There, she met the Sword Saint and kindled love.
"I thought you approached knowing it all. Guess not, Physician Seok."
"......Yes, Your Majesty."
"How disappointing. I thought you'd come as family, yet you treated me as emperor."
"...Well."
For now.
"Since you mentioned family, may I ask about the empress and your children...?"
"Ah. That should be fine."
The emperor beamed and waved it off.
"My sons would scramble for the throne the moment they think me dead anyway. No issue. There's only one crown prince, and the boys below him are under ten."
No worries about succession, then. The emperor hadn't become a beauty on a whim.
"The empress is the problem, but on that front, I seek your understanding, Physician Seok."
"My understanding...?"
"Yes. I can say I took the Extreme Yang Pill from you and became this way—or claim it was some other medicine, not that pill. Or say I borrowed 'martial arts.' You know, something like Reverse Youth Restoration or Rejuvenation."
"We could call it the Balanced Yin-Yang Five Elements Reversal Grand Method or similar. The empress knows little of Murim anyway."
Taewhangong bowed to the emperor.
"Shall we proceed that way, Your Majesty?"
"Hm. First, my nephew-in-law the physician's opinion."
Perhaps because she'd become a beauty, the emperor gazed at us with kindly eyes, ready to grant any wish.
"If need be, I can make the empress move for your sake."
"That."
I recalled the intel I'd gleaned as a Magyo sleeper agent.
"Isn't the empress your rival, Your Majesty?"
"Rivals, yes. But it's fine now. Look at me."
"That's..."
Because she's a girl now, and the emperor's seat is vacant—
"She likes women."
"No."
"Why so, Physician Seok?"
"......."
Is this really okay? Murim is.