By the Lakeside
“So. That troubleshooter boy made it inside cleanly?”
In a sealed chamber with not even a single small window to the outside, Cheon Su-gong, Director of the Eastern Depot, demanded a report on the agent who had infiltrated the Embroidered Uniform Guard.
A young Eastern Depot operative named Wi Su, who had been feeding information through a planted mole inside the Guard, stepped forward with his report on Dan Mujin.
“He seems to have dug in without trouble, Director. Things went smoothly thanks to the Commander being away from his post.”
“Hmph… whether things truly went smoothly is another matter. We must not let our guard down.”
They had already been caught flat-footed once when the Crown Prince unexpectedly regained consciousness. Could this really be called smooth progress?
Cheon Su-gong felt a measure of personal responsibility for how events had unfolded.
“And when does the boy start moving?”
Even with the Deputy Commander vouching for his identity, Empress Ga Hwiryung was a woman who trusted no one easily and suspected everyone. Establishing himself properly and beginning work would take time. The problem was that, in the interim, the Crown Prince might go beyond merely opening his eyes and fully recover his wits enough to rise from bed.
“That’s where it got interesting. I expected it would take a while, but it seems he’s being thrown straight into the ‘treatment’ duty as an escort from day one.”
Whatever method he had used, he had managed to win Empress Ga Hwiryung’s complete favor on the very first day.
“That brat really is something else.”
Princess Dohwa and the Imperial Noble Consort had taken a liking to him almost immediately as well, hadn’t they?
His manners were insolent and he flitted about like a restless sparrow, yet somehow he possessed the uncanny talent of worming his way into the hearts of the high and mighty. In palace life, that was arguably the single most essential skill of all.
“Keep a close watch on him.”
This affair could decide the fate of the Imperial Noble Consort’s entire faction. Or it could go beyond a mere succession struggle and become a matter on which the destiny of the entire Central Plains hung in the balance.
“Director, if it’s that important, wouldn’t it be safer for our Eastern Depot to handle it ourselves?”
Wi Su had long been uncomfortable with the way an outsider troubleshooter kept being given such critical roles, and he voiced the thought.
“Impossible. Those people have our Eastern Depot personnel roster thoroughly mapped out—especially anyone with strong martial arts.”
Just as the Eastern Depot kept a hawk’s eye on every movement of the Embroidered Uniform Guard and every agent who vanished, the reverse was equally true. That was why they had been forced to call in an outsider: someone whose mouth was reasonably tight, whose martial skill was excellent, and who had already interfered with the Empress’s faction enough times that he was firmly in the same boat as Princess Dohwa’s side.
“Still, if we carefully select one of our own rising talents—”
“And the Embroidered Uniform Guard has a charming little custom: the moment they find someone even slightly suspicious, they check whether the man is a eunuch.”
That, too, was the product of more than a century of the two agencies snarling at each other and stabbing one another in the back.
“Ah…”
With a custom like that, infiltration by eunuchs of the Eastern Depot was indeed difficult.
“That said… I do rather want to make that boy one of ours.”
Cheon Su-gong, who was notoriously selective about people and rarely showed greed for talent, now openly voiced his desire while speaking of a certain someone.
“Would that even be possible?”
Wi Su shook his head, well aware of the troubleshooter’s notoriously uncooperative temperament.
“Who am I?”
“The man whose schemes reach heaven and earth—Tongcheon-dalji Cheon Su-gong, of course.”
It was shameless flattery, yet Cheon Su-gong did not bother to deny it. He simply smirked and thought of a certain someone who was no doubt suffering on the opposite side of this game.
“That’s right. Nothing is impossible for this body of mine.”
Even if that something was forcing a thunder-struck wild child into Eastern Depot robes.
Previously, that personality of his had made Cheon Su-gong hesitate to keep him near Princess Dohwa or the Imperial Noble Consort. But if the boy handled this matter properly as well…
“I may have to seriously consider keeping him close from now on.”
On the road toward a new Central Plains, and in the new world that would unfold after victory in the succession struggle.
Of course, that was a prospect that would make a certain outsider who valued his lower half dearly shudder in pure horror.
Deep in the night, the Imperial Palace lay sunk in profound silence.
Bright moonlight painted the palace halls in silver, yet a sinister darkness seemed to crawl through the air, chilling me to the bone.
“So it’s you. The Embroidered Uniform Guard who had the gall to defy Mother—the one whose liver grew outside his belly.”
I had changed into a black robe to conceal my affiliation and was heading toward the place where the “treatment” was being performed. Second Prince Ju Gachi, who had arrived first and been waiting, recognized my face and called out.
According to both Cheon Su-gong’s people and the Embroidered Uniform Guard’s Deputy Commander, the prince before me was a mama’s boy who could never disobey his mother’s word. Apparently the sight of me sticking my neck out and inviting him to cut it off had left quite an impression; he still remembered even my disguised face.
“Insolent brat. Mother seems to be in an unusually good mood this time and let it slide, but never do that again. Your head truly could roll.”
Back then I had made that bet hoping to leave a decent impression. The Second Prince was now informing me that a single misstep could have left my neck rolling across the floor.
Then all those threats about killing the Imperial Noble Consort and the Third Princess, or chopping my head off if I didn’t spill Black Uniform Guard secrets…
Those were things she said while in a very good mood…?
Then what state was she in when she was in a bad mood? And who, exactly, absorbed all that tyranny and emotion?
Hmph. Not a good mother, then.
The former Divine Maiden who had once fallen into madness and slaughtered countless people offered a brief evaluation of the Empress. The one absorbing all of it was almost certainly the Second Prince standing right in front of me.
“You will see suspicious men in black at the treatment site. You will see nothing, hear nothing. Treat them as if they do not exist.”
Apparently the identities of those black-clad men absolutely could not be revealed—even to me, whose identity the Deputy Commander had personally guaranteed. The Second Prince stressed the point carefully.
“You seem tight-lipped enough. Follow me.”
I had expected him to lead me to the medical quarters, but instead he took me wandering through the darkness of the palace. Even in this place vast as a small city, he sought out an abandoned sector and entered a ruined building within it. When he opened a small door set into the ground, a passage leading to a basement was revealed.
So this is where they’ve been conducting that suspicious treatment.
The moment we entered, a throng of black-clad figures filled my vision, reeking of blood and killing intent. They gave off the same feeling as the Blood Sect members I had encountered before.
As expected of the expected. I had now pinpointed the place where they hid and performed their bizarre secret arts. I also knew the timing. All that remained was to bring along an external force to witness it with me and launch a simultaneous raid.
Of course, that required me to slip out unnoticed without alerting them enough to change locations.
“How fares today’s treatment progress?”
The Second Prince questioned a man whose eyes glowed a vivid red between black robes and a face covering. I stuck close to the prince’s side, faithfully playing the part of bodyguard.
“His Highness’s condition has improved greatly. It seems our secret art is taking effect.”
“Hmm… that is fortunate, then.”
Even though his elder brother’s illness was improving, the Second Prince’s expression was complicated—half glad, half sorrowful—as if reminded of their mother’s favoritism.
The black-clad man emphasized once more that it was all thanks to their secret art, and asked that the Empress be reminded of this merit.
“At this rate of recovery, His Highness the Crown Prince may fully regain consciousness before spring arrives.”
Beyond mere blinking of the eyes—he might even become capable of conversation. The black-clad man stoked hope with the words.
“Ah… I shall convey that to Mother. She said that on the day he truly recovers his wits, she wishes to speak with him first of all.”
And that would also be the day the Second Prince was pushed even further to the back of the Empress’s heart. Knowing this, he answered with eyes that were less than pleased.
The black-clad man, fully aware of the situation, twitched his eyebrows in amusement when the prince wasn’t looking.
“Would you care to observe the healing process?”
Standing in a place thick with the stench of blood, the black-clad man seized the cloth covering the Crown Prince’s body and made the offer. The Second Prince, knowing how horrific the treatment method truly was, waved it off—but the black-clad man was already flinging the curtain wide open, insisting he take a look.
“Urgh…!”
The Crown Prince lay submerged in a pool of blood created from the lifeblood of the common people. This was the current state of the next candidate for Emperor of the Central Plains.
Grotesque as hell.
In my years as a troubleshooter I had seen plenty of corpses and every ugly sight imaginable, but the scene before me was something else entirely. Clotted scarlet blood covered the Crown Prince like a thick scab. The sight alone made bile rise in my throat.
And yet, within that reek of blood, the Crown Prince’s complexion had recovered and his expression was peaceful—as if free at last from the torment of disease. The uncanny presence dwelling within me, however, reacted with violent emotion at the sight.
You utter fool… that is no treatment.
Perhaps it was because she had lived as the Divine Maiden of the Demonic Cult; she seemed to recognize the Blood Sect’s secret art and its results at a glance.
Then what is it?
You idiot. That is jiangshi arts. And not just any—turning a living person into a jiangshi… a Living Jiangshi!
“…”
I had assumed they were performing some forbidden blood-art treatment. The reality was far worse.
In other words, these people were not trying to plant roots in the Central Plains by putting the Empress’s faction in their debt. Right in the heart of the Imperial Palace, under the very eyes of the entire Empress faction, they were boldly and insanely turning the Crown Prince into a jiangshi.
“These crazy bastards.”
Everything was for the sake of making the next Emperor their puppet. They had gone far beyond expanding influence—they meant to swallow the entire Central Plains whole.
“Urgh.”
At dawn, the moment I returned from the secret treatment site, I took a gulp of tea and nearly retched. Even with strongly scented leaves, the blood stench clinging to my nose refused to fade.
Was this the kind of reek I would smell every day if I went mad as the Heavenly Killing Star?
“You saw it, then.”
Jang Chun-sam, the Deputy Commander who had defected from the Empress’s faction to our side, took one look at me and guessed correctly.
“Plenty of rulers have sucked the lifeblood of the people, but that was always a metaphor. Never once has it been done so literally.”
He had seen it, learned the truth, and for that reason turned his heart and contacted Cheon Su-gong—then brought me in. So he said.
I turned my head and asked him in return.
“Then you already knew they were creating a Living Jiangshi?”
“…What?”
That part, at least, he had not known. Jang Chun-sam’s face went ashen in an instant and his eyes flew wide.
“You’re saying it wasn’t healing but jiangshi arts…? That is something neither I, nor Her Majesty the Empress, nor the Second Prince know anything about…”
His pupils trembled without pause. He seized my shoulders and demanded to know if the information was certain.
“But jiangshi arts are forbidden techniques performed on the dead, are they not? The Crown Prince still draws faint breath.”
“There is such a thing as a Living Jiangshi. A horrific curse that turns a living person into a jiangshi.”
“Heavens… those madmen truly…”
Yes. The Blood Sect was not the sort to simply grant whatever request someone brought them. They were not that mildly insane. I could vouch for it—I had clashed with them more times than I cared to count, for whatever cursed connection we shared.
From the very beginning, they had been hunting the Heavenly Killing Star like game—the very being everyone else wanted dead in order to avoid calamity—as a raw material. That alone told you their minds were not right.
“Deputy Commander. I’m going to get some air.”
I needed to walk anywhere at all, muttering to myself while I sorted my thoughts.
“You must not disappear suddenly. Right after seeing ‘that,’ the shadows will be watching you.”
“Yes, I know. I’m truly just getting some air.”
Undercover infiltration meant watching every single gesture; it was stifling as hell. So I asked if there was a decent place where I could clear my head as well.
“There’s a lake near the Empress’s Palace.”
“Thank you.”
No fish, but since it sat inside the Empress’s Palace grounds, it was said to be exquisitely landscaped. I offered my thanks and rose.
Get involved with the Imperial House and you won’t die a natural death.
Why was Hwang Geolgae’s advice flashing through my mind at this exact moment? Because he had always beaten it into me while thrashing me, I felt a petty reluctance to admit it.
“I’m just a troubleshooter, you know.”
Somehow I had gotten tangled up in Demonic Cult affairs when my sisters were in danger, and now I was tangled up with the Blood Sect because the Princess Dohwa I had known since childhood was in crisis.
“Once this job is over… I’m taking only small commissions for a while.”
When you come to the big pond you ought to catch the big cases. The dream I had cherished when I expanded and relocated the office would have to be shelved for the time being. It was a wish made while forgetting this damned fate of mine that always dragged me into bloody affairs.
“A quiet life as an ordinary citizen sounds good—just earn enough to loaf around, yeah?”
Resetting my life goals toward peaceful mediocrity, I walked toward the lakeside where a light mist clung.
But it seemed a visitor had arrived before me.
A middle-aged man in shabby clothes with a battered bamboo hat pulled low, looking as if he might be the gardener who tended this lake.
“You’re the newcomer who just arrived at the Empress’s Palace?”
He noticed my approach and asked without looking up, fishing rod still dangling over the water.
That voice… I felt I had heard it somewhere before.
“Yes, I’m new… but who are you, mister?”
The hat hid his face. Yet for someone belonging to the Empress’s Palace, his attire was far too ragged.
“Just a fisherman.”
The more we spoke, the stranger the feeling grew.
“But there are no fish in this lake. You know that, right?”
“I know.”
And yet he still dangled a rod over an empty lake.
“Don’t worry. What I’m fishing for is merely the years themselves.”
The unidentified middle-aged man offered that cryptic reply.