Imperial Palace Scandal
"Master, I want to get stronger."
Hwang Geolgae looked down at the disciple who had dropped to her knees before him, his eyes complicated.
No matter how mercilessly he drove her, she always came back the next day in tatters to train again—his other disciple, Ilhong.
Something must have happened recently; her resolve and obsession with growing stronger had sharpened another notch.
"Is this because of that brat Dan Mujin?"
Once, over drinks with the former leader of Haoman, Hwang Geolgae had heard the man brag about his daughter. He had a lovely girl named Honggeum, he said, gifted in both the Five Arts and martial talent, destined to make Haoman great. So stay sharp, Dragon Head, he had joked, boasting like a complete daughter-doting fool.
And now that rival-and-drinking-buddy's youngest daughter was here, clenching blistered fists, begging him to train her harder still.
She wanted, at any cost, to break through the wall of the Peak Realm.
At first Hwang Geolgae had thought it was pure revenge—against that bastard Heuk Jin-jo who had stripped her of everything.
"Yes. I feel like I'm holding the boss back."
"Heh. Honestly."
But the woman before him was no longer a revenge-blinded ghost. She was someone who had found a person too precious to lose.
A good thing, really. Hwang Geolgae had seen far too many martial artists swallowed whole by Jianghu grudges.
The only problem was that the one who had pulled her out of that pit of vengeance just happened to be that damned brat.
"You're not holding him back. And even if you were, you think that punk would care so much as a speck of eye gunk?"
That was Dan Mujin for you. Plenty of flaws—no respect for his elders, among other things—but one rare virtue: once he decided someone was his, he would stake his life for them.
He looked after his own. Cherished them.
"I'm... I'm the one who can't stand it..."
She fretted that the boss had nearly died for her more times than she could count, that she could not go on like this.
"I haven't even begun to repay what I owe him, and here I am just spinning my wheels..."
Dan Mujin had taken her in when she had lost family, status, everything, and had brought her this far.
She had sworn to repay him double, yet every day she felt him pulling further ahead—leaving her behind the way he had left her alone on that Shaanxi commission.
"Ilhong. You're already growing plenty fast."
With Dan Mujin he was always harsh, always rough. With Ilhong he could be almost gentle.
If Dan Mujin ever saw it, his eyes would roll back in pure outrage: Why am I the only one you treat like dirt?
"No. It's not enough. The boss who shared the same beggar days with me is already Transcendental Peak, and so is every other staff member at the office..."
"..."
Once you have seen a phoenix, crows no longer catch the eye. After running with monsters like the Heavenly Killing Star and the Purple Micro Star, Ilhong's standards had rocketed sky-high.
Hwang Geolgae itched to tell her those two had been born under stars, that they were never fair measuring sticks. Instead she was stuck between them, suffering alone.
"Your talent is more than enough, Ilhong."
Reaching First-class at her age was the kind of gift that would make even the great orthodox sects take notice. And she had done it from rock bottom after losing every scrap of clan support—which made it all the more remarkable.
"Still not enough, Master."
Her gaze fixed past him, on Dan Mujin, who was training hard to turn the enlightenment he had gained in Shaanxi into real martial skill.
"Damn it, why won't it work? It worked last time!"
He was swinging the Chamgu Sword Art, scratching his head in frustration whenever something refused to click.
Honestly, the kid was his disciple too, but watching another disciple cling to him this hard made something sour rise in Hwang Geolgae's gut.
"Ilhong. Do you really like a guy like that?"
The brat was muttering to himself nonstop, yelling weird nonsense as if arguing with thin air while he swung his sword.
"...It's not so much that I like him. I just... want to stay by his side."
The girl who had become a woman answered bashfully, fidgeting.
Having watched her grow up and trained her almost like his own, Hwang Geolgae could only sigh.
"Fine. Next training session I'm going to beat that punk half to death."
The child he had raised like a daughter was falling head over heels for some outside man, and something inside him was boiling over.
Which was why Dan Mujin kept getting hit more often without even knowing why.
"And Ilhong. You truly wish to grow stronger?"
His voice carried real weight now.
Ilhong caught it at once and nodded hard.
"There is one method."
She scrambled forward and seized both of his hands.
"Please tell me, Master. What is it?"
Hwang Geolgae gently pushed her away as if the closeness was too much, then continued.
"It will not be an easy path."
He warned her it would be harder than anything she had endured so far.
"I'm ready..."
If it came to it she would stake her life. Ilhong's will burned clear and absolute.
The imperial infirmary, where the suffering gathered, always carried a faintly gloomy air. The gloomiest chamber of all was the one where the dying Crown Prince received treatment.
Yet today, rare and strange, joy was surging through that room.
"Ah, my son... Ju U-gi."
The Empress parted the golden curtains and went to her boy. Her voice trembled without restraint, laying bare the storm inside her.
"You truly opened your eyes. You've woken..."
His body was still weak, but consciousness had returned; Ju U-gi's pupils tracked toward his mother.
Overwhelmed, Empress Ga Hwiryung threw herself into her firstborn's arms.
"Look, Ju Gachi. Your brother has woken. Shouldn't you be rejoicing? Why stand there staring like a fool?"
She scolded her second son for his lack of joy.
But Second Prince Ju Gachi could not bring himself to celebrate his brother's recovery so easily.
It was not merely that the man who could replace him had returned. The "awakened" Crown Prince looked utterly wrong.
His gaze was unreal, alien. Strange groans slipped between his irregular breaths. Now and then his fingers twitched as if seized by spasms.
Watching from a few paces away, Ju Gachi felt cold sweat bead on his forehead.
Is that really... my brother?
The eyes followed people. Expressions flickered across the face. Yet something subtle and fundamental was different from the brother he remembered.
"Well, Ju Gachi? Doesn't your brother's condition look truly fine?"
His instincts screamed warnings, but his mother was already possessed; none of it registered. She was simply ecstatic that the Crown Prince she adored more than her own eyes had opened them again to save her.
And Ju Gachi, long broken to her will, lacked the courage to shatter that hope.
"...Yes. Elder Brother's condition truly appears fine."
Skin that had been hideously peeled away had been restored—pale, but whole—by the Blood Sect's secret arts.
The man who had been destined to stand at the summit of the Central Plains, Crown Prince Ju U-gi, simply stared at his mother with empty eyes.
"Uh... ngh."
Strange sounds leaked from the Crown Prince in his mother's embrace. To her they were only proof that her son was trying to show he was alive.
"Yes. Your mother is right here."
Empress Ga Hwiryung stroked her son's brow.
Never having received such boundless maternal love himself, Ju Gachi took two more steps back and simply bit his lip.
"...Ugh."
"How hard you must have suffered. The day you fully come to your senses, we will kill every last wretch who has stood in our way."
A man named Wu Hyeolbeop watched the scene a moment longer, then quietly withdrew.
Having witnessed everything with his own eyes, the Second Prince closed his lids as if he had seen nothing at all.
A terrible calamity was clearly descending upon the imperial house, and he alone had noticed it.
Above all, he simply lacked the courage to set it right.
"Heaven and earth, divine spirits... look down upon us..."
And so Second Prince Ju Gachi turned for help to gods he did not even believe in.
Meanwhile the palace of the Imperial Noble Consort was in an uproar, rattled by the ominous rumors racing through every corridor.
They had been expanding their power under the assumption that the Crown Prince would never rise again. Now the fire was quite literally at their feet.
Within the factions of the Imperial Noble Consort, the Third Prince, and the Third Princess, frantic debate swirled over what must be done.
"We cannot simply sit and watch him recover! We must move first!"
"Move? Move how, exactly?!"
Retainers of the Imperial Noble Consort and Princess Dohwa had gathered in one place, scrambling for a plan.
"Make sure he never gets up!"
"What dangerous nonsense is that? Are you suggesting we put poison or a blade to the Son of Heaven's bloodline?"
"They already tried the same against Her Highness Princess Dohwa! Why shouldn't we?!"
"Heavens, man! You've completely lost your mind!"
Opinions refused to converge.
It was the kind of problem that simply had no clean answer.
While the retainers argued in endless parallel lines, the imperial family members and the Eastern Depot martial artists watched in silence.
"Cheon Su-gong, the situation is flowing in a truly strange direction."
Princess Dohwa murmured as if lamenting; the Eastern Depot's Cheon Su-gong bowed his head in shame.
"What should this princess do now?"
Even in a crisis she never lost her dignity the way those retainers had. A faint worry touched her beautiful face as she sought counsel on the path they should take.
"As I have said before, the Crown Prince's illness was not something the medicine of this Central Plains could ever reverse."
"Indeed. Yet he rose. In the end."
Talk of miracles and foreign treatments was already circulating, but Cheon Su-gong—who monitored the Empress's every move—knew that on that day, suspicious figures had entered the infirmary.
Figures reeking of blood.
They had tried to erase their traces, yet the Eastern Depot agents had still uncovered signs that some secret art or sorcery had been performed.
"We need only prove that they dared perform what we believe to be Blood Sect techniques upon the Son of Heaven's bloodline."
Do that, and they could reverse this suddenly disadvantageous board.
Cheon Su-gong's proposal was simple: drag their filthy tricks into the light of day for all to see.
There was just one problem.
"How, exactly, Cheon Su-gong?"
Princess Dohwa stroked her chin and asked for the method.
"We find it, Your Highness. By any means necessary."
He clenched both fists, vowing to solve it no matter the cost.
"Otherwise we're all going to be screwed."
He glanced in turn at the Imperial Noble Consort and Third Prince watching the heated debate with worried faces, then at Princess Dohwa with whom he was speaking, and delivered the line.
"What a peculiar expression. Where did you learn such a phrase, Cheon Su-gong?"
"From that brat."
The insolent kid he had been forced to work with more than a few times while cleaning up various messes.
"Ah. That does make sense."
Princess Dohwa accepted the answer without the slightest difficulty.