Preparing for the Garden Banquet
A noble lady of refined beauty was staring at me blankly in my shabby office.
When I just stood there dumbfounded with my mouth hanging open, Cheon Su-gong's face twisted as he snapped at me.
"Don't just stand there like an idiot—hurry up and show proper respect to Her Highness the Imperial Consort, you brat!"
He shoved the back of my head, muttering that my back was far too straight.
But even if he told me to show respect, I barely knew a thing about court etiquette. Figuring I should at least manage a rough bow, I was awkwardly starting to bend at the waist when—
"That will do, Cheon Su-gong."
A warm yet dignified voice stopped me cold.
"This is not the imperial palace, but your own space. Be at ease."
The Imperial Consort smiled a smile that put one at ease just by looking at it, and personally helped me straighten up.
Her hands were quite warm.
I straightened in a daze and found myself looking closely at her face.
Despite being well past thirty, her skin glowed with a jade-like luster, and her slightly drooping eyes and upturned mouth corners hinted at a kind disposition.
Her long hair was fixed with an elegant antique hairpin, baring her white nape and lending her a peculiar charm—a beautiful mature woman.
So this was the mother of the Third Princess and Third Prince, the one the Empress was said to envy so fiercely.
"Thank you... So, um, well..."
"Hehe. Just call me Imperial Consort Mama."
When I floundered over how to behave and what to call her, the Imperial Consort smiled kindly and spoke.
"Imperial Consort Mama...?"
"It's Mama, you lunatic."
Cheon Su-gong glared daggers and smacked the back of my head with a solid thwack.
He put so much feeling into it I half-expected his eyeballs to pop out.
"So, you saved our Yang-i's life, did you?"
Apparently finding the sight of me getting endlessly scolded by Cheon Su-gong amusing, the Imperial Consort Mama spoke to me without bothering to hide her smile.
"Yang-i?"
"I mean Ju Eoyang."
"By Ju Eoyang, you mean..."
I tilted my head at the unfamiliar name, while from the side Cheon Su-gong glared at me with a look that said he was about to lose his mind.
"...That is Princess Dohwa's personal name. You are neither family nor her husband, so it is not for you to speak it."
Since I was an outsider—neither subject nor anything of the sort—I was to address her by the title the Emperor had bestowed: Princess Dohwa.
Anyway, the imperial family sure had a lot of things to be careful about.
"My apologies, Your Highness. As you can see, this fellow is completely cut off from any sense of etiquette..."
Cheon Su-gong sought the Imperial Consort's understanding as if he had expected exactly this.
"It is fine, Cheon Su-gong. Rather, it is refreshing and quite entertaining."
The Imperial Consort said so with that smile still never leaving her face.
She really was a generous and bright person.
Her children were grown, so she must have been in her late thirties. But she didn't look it at all from the outside.
A woman with an embracing appearance and a mature air.
Without realizing it, she called to mind a mother I had never even seen.
"You... you're making a weird face."
"Ahem. A misunderstanding, sir."
I hurriedly wiped my expression clean.
But Cheon Su-gong's eyes narrowed more and more as if suspicion were rising.
"Anyway, what brings you here?"
I quickly changed the subject. When I asked why they had come to my office, the Imperial Consort finally got to the point.
"With autumn upon us, His Majesty has summoned all the imperial family to a garden banquet. Unpleasant incidents have been frequent in the palace of late, so it is likely meant to reaffirm our bonds of kinship."
Calling together those imperial relatives who were mortal enemies—who even tried to poison one another—into one place?
Even to someone like me who knew nothing of imperial affairs, this sounded pretty fishy.
I looked at Cheon Su-gong with an Is this for real? expression. He shook his head left and right with a look that said, You think it's for real?
It seemed only the naive Imperial Consort was taking the Emperor's words at face value.
"However, given the recent incident, and with Cheon Su-gong being so anxious by nature, I wish to hire you as bodyguard and food taster for my children. What do you say?"
It was a request to guard the Third Princess, Princess Dohwa, and the Third Prince—whose face I had never even seen and had only heard of until now.
Cheon Su-gong must have recommended me after taking note of my talent for sensing murderous intent like a ghost.
"Hmm."
Even when the troubleshooter business was going well, it caused problems.
There was a time I had worried about having no clients, and now even high-ranking imperial figures were coming to place requests.
I scratched my chin under the weight of it all and fell into thought.
If Hwang Geolgae found out, he'd definitely jump up and raise hell.
Of course, I could just not tell him.
Hadn't I decided after getting thoroughly beaten not long ago to just keep my mouth shut?
But separate from my master's outrage, the situation unfolding was definitely not ordinary.
"Your office—whose permission did you get to set up shop here?"
While I was deep in thought, Cheon Su-gong tapped the table in the middle of the office with his finger and tossed out an ominous opening.
"I pay legitimate taxes to the court and received permission..."
"Hmm. Is that so? Can you be certain?"
This was the imperial capital, where everything from the grass roots to the last handful of soil was said to belong to the Son of Heaven.
Buying land here was closer in meaning to an indefinite lease from the Emperor, with the weakness that the court could confiscate it anytime if they so chose.
Of course, setting that aside, everyone still set up businesses because it was where all the money, goods, and people of the Central Plains gathered.
"The land where you've settled is the imperial capital. You understand what that means, don't you?"
"...Yes, well, I know that much."
This uncle needed my help so badly he was even making subtle threats he wouldn't normally make.
Watching this, the Imperial Consort Mama decided she couldn't let it continue and spoke up in my defense.
"Cheon Su-gong, do not speak so threateningly. Are you not frightening the child?"
I'd grown so much that "man" fit better than "youth," but to a woman who had raised two children, I still looked young.
Cheon Su-gong had been trying hard to seal the deal, but when the Imperial Consort scolded him, he bowed his head in panic.
"Dan Mujin, was it? Just come, eat some delicious food, look around a bit, and leave. Nothing will happen."
She said that with all the imperial family gathering in one place, nothing would happen—that it was a simple job of just going and eating.
The scarier part was that from her bright eyes, she seemed largely sincere about it.
When I sent a look that said, Why is this lady like this?, Cheon Su-gong pressed his forehead and let out a deep sigh.
"Imperial Consort Mama, if I may make an improper request—may I speak with this friend alone for a moment?"
"...Very well. Do so."
The moment he got permission, Cheon Su-gong hooked an arm around my neck and dragged me to a corner.
Then he whispered in my ear.
"As you can see, she is far too helpless against the darkness of the palace. It would not be strange if she met a tragic end at any time under the Empress's spider-like claws."
"..."
Hard to argue with that.
Princess Dohwa was sharp and, even when caught up in a poisoning, never lost her center and steadily pushed through.
Why was her mother so defenseless?
"You brat, why do you think that is..."
"Ah—so that she herself could keep her sanity... That was it."
In a den of demons where they'd cut your nose off if you closed your eyes, with a mother like that, of course the children would grow up with sharp, decisive personalities.
This was a slightly tear-jerking story. I should look at Princess Dohwa in a new light.
"I'll be honest. I'd like to handle this with just the Eastern Depot without help from the likes of you, but suspicious movements have been detected of late, and now I need your help."
He had his pride as Eastern Depot, and having to call in a troubleshooter like me to protect high personages really didn't sit well with him.
But his desire to protect the Imperial Consort was greater, so he had come looking for me despite that, he confessed.
"She may not suit life in the palace, but she is a very good person. Do you mean to leave her to suffer calamity in a place like this?"
"..."
She truly seemed a person of rare benevolent character in this ruthless Central Plains.
For such a fine person to be swept up in the schemes of vicious ones and vanish meaninglessly would be a national loss.
Clink.
Cheon Su-gong pulled two gleaming yellow gold ingots from his robes.
Not small salt-gold pieces, but decent-sized ones about half a fist.
The weight in my palm and that lustrous color.
"An advance payment. If you successfully guard them, I'll give you even more than this."
In the Central Plains where trust was lacking, advances were usually paltry.
Yet he was handing over pure gold bars right away.
As expected, imperial folks were big spenders.
"Bodyguard and taster request, right? That's all I need to do?"
"...Yes. You will provide close protection for the Prince, the Princess, and Her Highness the Imperial Consort."
At Cheon Su-gong's words, I glanced at the Imperial Consort, who was looking out the window as if curious about our conversation but holding back.
Close protection for that noble personage, huh.
"Alright, let's do it."
I stuffed the yellow gold lumps into my robes so no one would steal them.
"You—your eyes just looked weird."
"...A misunderstanding."
Even when I shook my head no, Cheon Su-gong still looked suspicious.
Anyway, for someone from the Eastern Depot, he sure was full of suspicions.
"Then I'll prepare to enter the palace."
Having already stopped one poisoning, the later the other side realized my identity, the better.
I'd need Ilhong's help to change my identity again.
With this tendency of constantly getting mixed up in things, it looked like keeping my promise to Hwang Geolgae would be hard.
"I'll see you at the palace."
What can you give up and let go of for the sake of saving others?
A truly difficult question.
Hwang Geolgae took a swig from the gourd of cloudy rice wine, wanting to feel it a bit more easily.
As the alcohol hit and he got nicely buzzed, his mind finally felt clear.
Everyone said he lived in a fog, but he might actually have been the one living most clearly in this world.
"The Emei Sect, and Hyein Satae."
As fellow pillars of the Nine Great Sects, he had met her face a couple of times in the past.
She had been an excellent martial artist with true sage-like energy in every word she spoke.
"Said it was like looking at a fallen demon lord."
With logic full of obstinacy and self-righteousness that did not resonate at all, she had tried to take another's life.
Even after hearing it several times, he still could not accept the change in the Emei Sect Leader.
And at the center of that change, there had clearly been an ominous existence.
"Ilseong. Daoist Ilseong."
When she was seized by heart-demons before the terror of death and wailing like a child, that one had come down and taught her a mind method to control the moon's energy, they said.
As his realm rose and he cultivated the Dao, he was vaguely coming to understand that the beings beyond the heavens were not just one.
But the fact that there was a being beyond the heavens teaching the exact opposite of Ilwol was rather chilling.
"Curious. How curious."
Trying to corrupt a righteous female hero of the orthodox path into a demon who sucked up pure origin energy.
Meanwhile on this side, he had at least made the Heavenly Killing Star—who would drive the Central Plains into a bloodbath—into something resembling a human.
"And she was saved by the Seongun Simbeop."
That cheeky disciple of his had apparently revealed the true nature of the Seongun Simbeop, even shared part of the formula, and then poured star energy into her.
"Good grief."
A martial art he had taught in secret, telling him not to reveal it to anyone.
It was absurd, but since it stemmed from a good heart wanting to save a person, he could not scold him too severely.
So he had held back more than usual and hit the crown of his head less hard.
Yet the brat still made a huge fuss about dying of pain and dramatically flopped down.
"For a grown man to be so childish... tsk tsk."
Jumping and yapping at the slightest thing. Once you'd aged and become a man, you ought to have a heavy, solid quality like himself.
As he took a few more sips from the gourd with the moonlit nightscape as his side dish—
"Master, I'm here."
Unlike Dan Mujin, his other disciple who was truly diligent and obedient—Ilhong—had come for training.
"You're here. But where did that rascal go that you've come alone?"
He had told him to make sure to come with Ilhong today, if only to test that moon energy he claimed to have inside him.
"...The boss went to work."
From the way Ilhong was hem-hawing, he had gotten mixed up in another troublesome matter.
"Tsk. Where did he go this time?"
"...Well, about that..."
She fidgeted with her fingers, torn between the master who cared for her and her loyalty to the boss.
"Ilhong, this old man is the head of the Beggar Sect. If I truly wish to know, it's no trouble at all, so just tell me."
At that, Ilhong silently pointed toward the direction of the imperial palace.
"...To the palace? Don't tell me he went to the Princess's palace dressed as a eunuch again?"
At her master's question, Ilhong shook her head no.
"No, this time it's different..."
"Then where exactly?"
"This time he... went to the Imperial Consort's palace."
Ilhong said she was just on her way back from making a human-skin mask for him.
"Primordial Heavenly Lord..."
Just how far was he planning to get mixed up?
Could he really announce to the world that this walking disaster was his disciple?
For some reason, Hwang Geolgae felt the world spinning before his eyes.