Fire Rides the Wind
"Who are you?"
The voice drifted down from a tree branch where a handkerchief had been tied. Myeong-do lifted his head toward the source of the sound. The figure shadowed beneath the leaves stood silhouetted against the light.
As it slowly bent forward, light seeped across half of its face.
One half of those eyes held a fathomless darkness; the other half gleamed gold.
The gaze drove straight down at Myeong-do like a blade.
"Who are you, to be carrying Jeong-an's talisman?"
At those words, the stone at his feet coiled tight around Myeong-do's ankle. It was a stone risen from the earth, shaped exactly like a human hand.
Before he knew it, both his ankles were in its grip. It was a truly uncanny, wondrous thing.
Myeong-do realized it instinctively.
"So this one intends to force my mouth open, does it..."
It was the one who led all things along their natural course.
"I met a woman called Jeong-an half a month past."
Myeong-do looked up at the small figure above him. To the one peering down like a wildcat from its perch, he added his explanation. "She told me: if you wish to meet the one who leads all things along their course, come seek this place."
Though it stood on a twig thin as a reed, there was not the slightest waver or sway. A delicate body, yet seemingly without weight at all.
It was like a being that never truly set foot upon the earth.
"Now I understand... why Jeong-an bade me come here."
A smirk crept over the deceptively young face. The figure gave a small laugh, then asked again. "So? Why have you come?"
The stone binding his ankles began to creep slowly up his calf. The threat was unmistakable: speak properly, or suffer the consequences.
Myeong-do calmly declared his identity.
"I am Myeong-do, a royal inspector in the service of Crown Prince Yunhwi."
Crackle— crackle—. There came the sound of debris crumbling from the stone that held his leg. Seoryeong said, low and quiet:
"...Yes. It's you. The one Jeong-an sent."
Myeong-do-jeo-cheol — the bright road shall pierce through and shine until the very end.
Recalling the line from Jeong-an's testament that spoke her companion's name, Seoryeong slowly reached out her hand toward the handkerchief. The knot binding Myeong-do's talisman, tied fast and tight, came undone at the slightest pull — slipping loose as though it had never been tied at all.
As if it had never once been knotted. Seoryeong fiddled idly with the handkerchief, undone with a lightness that felt almost hollow.
"I do not yet fully understand what the natural order is. But thinking that a rebellion may come to pass, I set my feet upon this road for my lord's sake."
Clutching the scarlet silk, Seoryeong simply let her fingers fall open.
The handkerchief fluttered away on the wind, carried helplessly off into the distance, toward nowhere. Watching it leave her without destination, she called Jeong-an's testament to mind once more.
"Yeah..."
Sunset crept slowly across Seoryeong's haggard face. Even the light in that one shining eye dimmed and went out.
I will never listen to a word you say, Jeong-an.
With these eyes, turned to nothing but vengeance, I am going to Yeomga.
Whatever path it takes, I will see it through to the end and sink everything into endless darkness.
The natural order is what I decide.
And when it is finished, I will take my own life.
Absolutely.
No matter what happens, I will not go on living in a world without you.
"Then shall we go together..."
Seoryeong looked down at Myeong-do and spoke as though whispering. Her razor-edged voice was hollow, as if its inside had been scooped empty. Her face, half-swallowed by shadow, was sinister beyond measure.
"I — to accomplish eternal sleep. And you — to fail the rebellion."
Thud—.
With the sound of the earth itself caving in, Gimyodam Episode 2 came to an end.
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Click.
Do Gyeo-ul's eyes gleamed as Gimyodam Episode 2 began to play once more.
Scripts lay strewn in disarray all around her. On the scripts for Episodes 1 and 2, a post-it clung to every single scene in which Seoryeong appeared, and the passages marked in highlighter were too many to count.
"Ahaha... so that's why... this part is... mm."
Gyeo-ul's mind spun at full speed as she rewatched. This was the sensation she had wanted to feel from beginning to end — the moment of dissecting a character perfectly, of breathing fresh life into a fictional soul.
Thoughts spread outward like a spiderweb, all of them anchored to Yeo-reum at the center, without end. A fierce intuition thrummed through her: something was taking shape.
"Then shall we go together..."
Seoryeong, speaking as though letting loneliness slip through her fingers. On that one scene, Gyeo-ul anchored the character she intended to build.
"This will do it."
From the pile of scripts waiting on the side table in front of the television, she picked up the one she could realize closest to Gimyodam's Seoryeong.
"This one..."
A temperament that wielded pride like a weapon. Someone who seemed to smile brightly, yet whose story could only be woven from pain. And a certain lightness of carriage, born of a life lived free.
"I'll work out the details as things progress."
As she unfolded the synopsis marked Dohwaseon (Fuse), the corners of Gyeo-ul's mouth lifted. The edges of the pages were already worn to fraying.
Jang Hui-bin
"No flower stays red for ten days — that is what they say, is it not?"
At those words, Hui-bin merely smiled.
Fools, every one of them. If you set a flower alight and hurl it into the sky, what are ten days? It will burn hot, and crimson, from the first instant to the last.
The man who bent me in the name of love and set me high upon a perch — I resent him still, and I desire him still. And so Hui-bin chose: to burn, rather than to wither.
Flowers break in the wind, but fire rides the wind and spreads — through the inner court, through the royal council, and further still, through this very nation of Joseon.
Shall I not build a paradise for those who were blinded by a beautiful flower?
"Hang up! Hang up the phone! There's no time to take every single interview request call!"
"Aaaaagh! It's coming in by fax!"
This place, where the faxes and phone calls never stopped ringing, was the PR office of JC ENM. The moment Episode 2 of Gimyodam aired yesterday, the firepower had swelled beyond any comparison with Episode 1.
Riding the wave of word-of-mouth, Episode 2's ratings had climbed to 7.9%. A viewership nearly doubling overnight was a genuinely rare occurrence.
"Team Leader! Our Folk uploaded their Episode 2 review!"
"What's it say? Give me the short version!"
"Says it's freaking amazing!"
"They don't usually hype things up that hard over there, do they?"
Team Leader Hong pulled up the monitor. A review of considerable length had been posted.
The moment the first episode dropped, a drama set traditional-music nerds' hearts pounding: TVM's Gimyodam. Labeled a fusion sageuk, it failed to whip up any great expectations before broadcast — but the instant the lid came off, it had drawn out the savory depth of the fusion premise to its fullest.
Within a single day, the meme "reasons I've lost my mind over Gimyodam" was making the rounds online. So what could it possibly be, that it spread on such explosive word-of-mouth?
First: differentiation, achieved through visual beauty that preserved Eastern aesthetics intact.
Mise-en-scène that wielded graceful traditional architecture and classical color palettes to full effect. Diffused lamplight seeping through the slats of hanji doors. Landscapes unfurling across the screen like a scroll of Eastern painting.
Rookie Shin, standing at Team Leader Hong's side, read the review with the corners of his mouth curling upward. It was word for word what the communities and social media were saying about Gimyodam right now.
That particular section was already circulating as the meme "the director whom music nerds are shuddering and calling a learned pervert."
And above all, the closing confrontation between the two master actresses at the end of Episode 1 was a scene-stealing masterpiece. By having the characters chant incomprehensible Sino-Korean incantations like spells, it granted viewers a fear born of pure ignorance — and then, through Yeo-reum's Seoryeong, who couldn't understand a word of it, it drew out the audience's pity. An exceedingly clever arrangement of the frame.
That scene, too, was making the rounds as "the Gimyodam final scene that had viewers sobbing."
Alongside the catharsis of a perfectly satisfying payoff, it never lost sight of anticipation for what came next. A story of striking one swift, exhilarating blow against oppression and absurdity carried a social message that lifted it beyond a simple fusion sageuk — the true weight a period drama could bear.
And then, at the very end — this part had already become the single most famous scene in Gimyodam.
Click—. Team Leader Hong refreshed the TVM InTube drama channel. It had been less than twenty-four hours since Episode 2 aired.
Every uploaded clip had shot well past a hundred thousand views. The comments, too, were piling up at an extraordinary speed.
Everyone had gathered in a noisy, teeming crowd — from people lightly consuming it as a meme, to those debating its artistic merit, to those pouring their hearts into the characters.
And it didn't stop there. Reaction videos to Gimyodam were climbing the trending charts. The funniest segments were clipped out and passed around the internet, and on top of that, people so ablaze with fandom that they'd followed the drama talk out of the communities and all the way into the image galleries were multiplying several times over.
Two episodes — a pair of two-hour videos — were setting the entire nation abuzz.
📌 [The director has DEFINITELY made a deal with the devil — how are BOTH the ep 1 and ep 2 ending scenes masterpieces.jpg]
📌 [Dropped by to leave a scruffy baby-pup pic...gif]
📌 [The final scene's cinematography is genuinely insane — who on earth thinks to put a kid up a TREE, AAAAAAH]
"Rookie Shin. You can't hear that?"
Team Leader Hong asked, eyes fixed on the monitor that kept refreshing without pause.
"I'm sorry? Hear what?"
Team Leader Hong clenched his right hand into a fist and shouted.
"The sound of an overseas Gimyodam fan meeting being scheduled!"
The pulling power of the K-pop fans who had originally sought out Gimyodam to see Kwon Jun-hyeok was exceeding every projection. They had entered through Kwon Jun-hyeok's door, fallen head over heels for the distinctly Korean visual aesthetic, marveled at the gloriously unhinged plotting — and then been tripped flat by Seoryeong's acting.
The overseas popularity of Gimyodam was truly beginning.
"Kyaaaaa! The sound of money ringing!"
At that very moment, in a different office at JC ENM, Manager Ma was listening to a rather different sound.
That the ratings of Gimyodam — and, more than that, the trajectory of its ripple effects — were far from ordinary was something anyone passing by in the hallway could have confirmed with a single question, and nodded along to.
"Hoo... hoo... If this keeps up, the advertising rates for the early broadcast slots will rise, naturally... and we can arrange a special program on top of that... plus export deals with Taiwan and Hong Kong... Ahh... ahh..."
She could practically hear the coins clinking as they poured in. The colossal pleasure of leading the trend — of holding influence over the countless souls out there in this wide world — came pressing down on Manager Ma like a physical weight.
Everywhere she turned, it was Gimyodam.
Yesterday's episode of Top Class had pulled a 14%. But the battle between a well-made drama and an influential one was as obvious as fire in the dark.
A story of a palace maid rising to become a court physician. A story of falling in love with an alien from beyond the stars. A romance set in a constitutional-monarchy Korea. A story of loving a dear friend more than the boys who loved her. What did they all have in common?
"No one remembers the dramas that aired alongside them."
Excellent works, one and all, buried beneath the era-defining dramas of their time and forgotten by the public. Top Class, too, was destined to struggle on in the 10-percent range — that much was plain.
"Ahh... just how much are we going to make this time...?"
Influence becomes money. No one in the world knew that better than Manager Ma. She could already see the near future spread out before her.
Blu-ray production. Overseas exports and fan meetings. The flood of commercial film offers about to pour in for Yeo-reum.
And above all — the scripts that would come cascading toward Han Yeo-reum like a tidal wave now that Gimyodam Episode 2 had aired.
All that remained now was—
"Manager Ma! ALAB just sent over their branding materials!"
"Ooh— got it, taking a look."
Manager Ma, chin buried deep in her neck pillow, flashed a wide grin.
"Han Yeo-reum's personal influence. Not the character's."
Time rewinds, two months.
Ryu Risa. Dokgo Gyeol. Ma Su-yeon.
The industry's top three had gathered for one purpose: to make the public's affection truly converge upon Han Yeo-reum.