Tales of Beijing
A late-autumn chill brushed the palace windows with a soft hiss.
Caught off guard by the early cold snap, court officials shivered and huddled, but the Third Princess’s palace stayed warm. Concerned for her attendants, Princess Dohwa had ordered firewood distributed with a generous hand, and the rooms glowed with a comfortable heat.
Crack. Snap.
In the inner chamber, a brazier burned steadily, casting its warmth through the room while the fragrance of tea leaves said to have come from the Western Regions drifted gently through the air.
The leaves carried a faint reddish hue; once sweetened with honey, a subtle fruitiness rose from them—an offering from the Eunseong Merchant Group.
Princess Dohwa pushed up her silk sleeve a little and tipped her cup deeper. The soft, lingering aroma rolling over her tongue let her forget, for a moment, the taut tension that filled the Imperial Palace.
She had been savoring that leisurely cup when Cheon Su-gong arrived with a proposal that left a distinctly sour look on her face.
“So, Cheon Su-gong… what you are proposing is that I….”
She pointed past the doorway, where a middle-aged man lay flat on his face in an awkward, groveling posture, and continued.
Yang Gunjwa, Director of the Court of Censors—once a man who had stood at the very heart of power—now looked so wretched it was hard to believe the stories.
“You would have me take a man with that sort of peculiar taste as a confidant?”
Her voice was gentle, yet the discomfort in it was plain. The thought of keeping such a beast-loving creature under her command clearly did not sit well with her; her delicate brow drew tight.
Cheon Su-gong cleared his throat and pressed his case again.
“I am not asking Your Highness to place him in any great office. Merely to keep him as a useful hand—for emergencies.”
“…….”
His tone was calm, but cold calculation ran through every word. He stepped closer and continued in a murmur.
“The Court of Censors is an imperial inspection body that makes even high officials tremble. Handled properly, it is a sharp blade that can cut an opposing faction down in a single stroke.”
And his intention, he explained, was to place the hilt of that blade in the Princess’s hand.
“Command them, and they become a card with which to pressure the Empress’s faction later. Yang Gunjwa may be repulsive, but once we hold his weakness, he will make a loyal dog.”
“…….”
With the palace so unsettled, taking such a blade into her keeping would indeed become a card against the Empress’s people. Yet Princess Dohwa still watched Yang Gunjwa with lingering hesitation in her eyes.
“You ask me to overlook the punishment of a man who abducted an innocent courtesan….”
“That is politics, Your Highness.”
Cheon Su-gong’s answer was firm. To protect one’s subordinates and one’s faction, one sometimes had to weigh profit and loss above ethics.
And of all the Imperial Noble Consort’s household, the woman before him was the one with whom political conversation still made sense. The Third Prince was far too gentle for the game of power, and the Imperial Noble Consort herself—though she enjoyed the Son of Heaven’s favor—never even thought of wielding that favor as force of her own. Of course, that very innocence was precisely why she held the Emperor’s affection: a paradoxical structure, but a structure all the same.
“And as for punishment, Your Highness… he has already received one, though not by design.”
Fiddling with her teacup in thought, Princess Dohwa looked up at Yang Gunjwa as if to ask what that meant.
Yang Gunjwa’s face, when he lifted it, was deathly pale. His complexion was dark, he was soaked in sweat, and both legs trembled with restless fear.
“Why does that man look so haggard?”
At her question, Cheon Su-gong let out a low, dry laugh.
“That would be because of that bastard Dan Mujin….”
“Dan Mujin?”
The cheeky troubleshooter with formidable skill. At the mention of his name, interest sparked in Princess Dohwa’s eyes.
“Right in front of me, he crushed one of that dog’s testicles.”
“……What?”
The sheer shock of it nearly made the teacup slip from her fingers. Immediate, merciless physical punishment—already delivered by that same troubleshooter.
“……Truly a man who never once considers the consequences.”
She spoke with a faintly dizzy look. Storming the imperial inspection organ for the sake of a single courtesan was something she simply could not comprehend. And to go so far as to lay hands on a Censor’s family jewels….
“Was this courtesan Ju Wolay someone precious to Dan Mujin?”
“……It did not seem so.”
Cheon Su-gong shook his head slowly. Their relationship had not appeared that deep.
“Then this may be the chance for it to become so.”
A man willing to charge straight into a killing ground for her sake was not common. For a courtesan, such a life-risking act could easily be thoroughly misunderstood.
“I myself nearly misunderstood him more than once….”
She had already had her life saved by him twice—once from poison, once from thunder-bombs. So she could not simply blame that incomprehensible zeal of his.
“……Pardon?”
Cheon Su-gong tilted his head, as if he had caught her muttering and had no idea what she meant. Princess Dohwa shook her head slowly, as if it were nothing, and steered the conversation elsewhere.
“Very well. From what I hear, a certain measure of punishment has already been dealt.”
“Yes. I threatened that if anything went wrong I would send that troubleshooter to crush the remaining one, and now he obeys quite obediently.”
“……Heh.”
The absurdity kept coming; she forgot a princess’s dignity for a moment and let out a small laugh.
“Then, Cheon Su-gong, I will accept your proposal.”
Grateful that his counsel had been taken, Cheon Su-gong bowed his head deeply once.
Just as that matter seemed ready to close—before she could even lift her teacup again—he brought forward another item of business.
“There is one more matter I must report, Your Highness.”
This one appeared more serious; his voice had grown heavier. After a glance around them, he stepped closer still and whispered the news with a grave face.
“Word has come from the agent we planted among the Second Prince’s faction.”
After the failed poisoning, she had cautiously approved the Eastern Depot director’s suggestion that they place a spy. It seemed the agent had only just begun to act.
“Recently the Second Prince sent men to Tibet and made contact with a certain force.”
“……What force?”
Princess Dohwa’s eyes narrowed.
“According to the agent, the facial features and bearing of the person who approached them closely resemble the Blood Cult’s Right Blood Method.”
She drew a sharp breath, disbelief plain on her face.
“The Blood Cult? That cannot be….”
She denied it first. Surely someone had simply misidentified the man; she could not easily believe a connection between the imperial bloodline and the Blood Cult.
But when Cheon Su-gong insisted that the description matched the well-known traits of Blood Cult members almost exactly, a faint tremor entered her gaze.
“How could… would Elder Brother the Second Prince go that far…?”
The Blood Cult—branded not merely as enemies of the Murim but as enemies of all the Central Plains. Fanatics who worshipped the Blood Heaven God while the Son of Heaven still sat upon the throne. No matter how cornered the Empress’s household might be, they would never ally themselves with such madmen….
If a member of the imperial family had truly taken their hand, this was no longer a simple power struggle. It was an affair that could shake the very roots of the dynasty.
“This is intelligence from an agent who risked his life to infiltrate. Hope for the best, Your Highness—but prepare for the worst.”
Once again Cheon Su-gong’s voice was unyielding. Assume the worst and be ready for it.
“Nngh.”
Princess Dohwa felt a headache rising at the Empress’s attempt to overturn the board. Far from clarifying with each passing day, the palace situation felt as if it were being sucked deeper into a thick fog. Friend and foe, the enemy’s schemes, the Son of Heaven’s true intent—all of it only grew murkier.
If only she could charge in without thinking of the aftermath, the way a certain troubleshooter did.
Please let it not be so.
She prayed inwardly. Yet a coil of unease had already begun to settle in a corner of her heart. The soft light leaking from the brazier only cast long shadows across her darkened face.
The private annex at Cheonhwaru was a quiet personal space that Madam Okryeong had set aside for Ju Wolay.
It was a house-like place steeped in the soft scent of fruit and the everyday traces of a woman’s life. I scratched my cheek, unsure where I was supposed to sit, until Ju Wolay patted the bed—tap, tap—as if to say, here.
Of all places, the bed.
I tilted my head, wondering what she was up to, and carefully perched on the edge of the soft mattress. Ju Wolay sat down right beside me as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The rustle of silk somehow sounded louder than it should have.
“…….”
“…….”
An awkward silence settled over the room. Even Ju Wolay, after calling me here, only worked her lips, unsure where to begin.
She looked a little like a woman who had invited a male friend into her home for the first time. To think the most famous courtesan in Beijing—renowned for her silver tongue—would be this flustered….
I swallowed a short sigh. Counting my previous life, I was still the older one here, so I figured I ought to say something and tossed out whatever came to mind.
“So… you okay?”
A clumsy question with the subject left out. But it seemed to ease the awkwardness a little; her expression softened as she answered.
“Well… I’ve lived as a courtesan for quite some time, but being kidnapped by a pervert like that and dressed in animal skins is a first for me….”
Her tone said she had never imagined anything of the sort could happen. Fair enough—who in their right mind would ever go through an experience that bizarre?
It was all because of Neungjinsam, whose talent for drawing out a beast’s charm was far too sharp. Combine that with Ju Wolay’s beauty and the aggro had spread wide enough to summon every lunatic in the capital. Of course, I was partly to blame for arranging the introduction in the first place….
“Sorry. Dragging you into all this for nothing.”
Ju Wolay tilted her head as if she could not understand why I felt guilty.
“It isn’t your fault, Great Hero. I did profit from that beauty portrait affair, and besides, this commission was from the start….”
“A fake beast-ear story you made up?”
Her eyes went round with surprise.
“Eeh—you knew…?”
I nodded, and her face turned anxious in an instant.
“How on earth did you…?”
“Ilhong told me. She’s got a pretty wide network.”
The moment Ilhong’s name came up, Ju Wolay’s whole atmosphere shifted.
“That little tomcat of a boy, really….”
Interesting. Ilhong called Ju Wolay a fox spirit. The two of them seemed perfectly matched in that regard.
“……Ahem.”
With nothing more to say about the lie, she gave an embarrassed little cough. Looking back, though, even if it had started as a lie, it had become the truth in the end. The man had really existed, and his obsession had ended in an actual kidnapping.
“So… you came looking for me all the way into the depths of the palace even knowing it was a lie?”
In the sunlight filtering through the window, Ju Wolay’s face was colored with a strange mix of surprise and something like hope.
“Yeah. If I didn’t go, nobody else could.”
Her long lashes trembled faintly. Her lips had parted just a little without her noticing.
“Why… why would you go that far for me?”
A small tremor ran through her voice. Her hands clenched the white quilt tight. She told me that when she realized the pervert she had invented was real—and that he was a Censor of the Court—she had thought everything was over. No matter how popular she was, no one would be bold enough to storm a place like that just to save a single courtesan.
“But you really came, Great Hero. You smashed through the front gate of the Court of Censors just to save a mere courtesan.”
Slowly, Ju Wolay walked back through the memory. It must have been a hard experience to revisit, yet somehow the gloom had left her face entirely as she replayed it.
“Great Hero….”
Instead she smiled brightly and edged closer across the bed, one handspan at a time. A faint orchid fragrance brushed the tip of my nose while her foxlike, upturned eyes stared straight into mine.
“Could it be that you hold this Ju Wolay in your heart—not as a client, but as a woman?”
A confident smile bloomed at the corners of her mouth. It was the look of someone who could reach only one possible conclusion.