To the Empress's Palace
"What will Your Majesty do?"
Heok-ho, the Emperor's secret guard, carefully probed his master's intentions.
"About what, exactly?"
Emperor Hongrak asked, though he already knew full well what the man meant.
"We confirmed early on that suspicious individuals have been coming and going under the pretense of treating the Crown Prince."
"And?"
"You ordered us not to intervene, so we did not intervene."
They had merely noted the comings and goings, never digging into identities or motives.
But after hearing what that troubleshooter Dan Mujin had said moments earlier—that beings who were public enemies of both the Murim and the Central Plains had entered the Imperial Palace—it was possible to guess what Empress Ga Hwiryung had desperately taken into her hands.
"Your Majesty. If you give the order, I will obey."
Heok-ho pressed again for the Emperor's will, as a long-serving guard who could read him even when no command had yet been spoken.
Emperor Hongrak gazed out over the lake, its surface smooth as glass without a single ripple, and finally spoke.
"It seems the time has come to intervene."
"…On which side, Your Majesty?"
They were all his wife and his children. Contrary to the common belief that he favored Imperial Consort Ma, Emperor Hongrak held every one of them in his heart with a measure of fairness.
"As that troubleshooter said earlier—investigate how far the Empress has crossed the line. And if she has truly crossed it…"
In other words, if she had summoned public enemies of the Central Plains into the palace in order to cure the Crown Prince of the very illness that every renowned physician in the realm had declared incurable—
"Then I will have to take up the rod."
He had watched his wife waste away beside him, grieving the loss of their son, and had been willing to turn a blind eye to a point. That forbearance was over now.
And if he intervened, that bizarre "treatment" would stop as well. Which meant…
"My son, Ju U-gi."
Emperor Hongrak called the name of the Crown Prince he had once believed clever and upright enough to lead the future of the Central Plains, his expression complicated.
"It is time I let you go."
There is a saying: when parents die they are buried in the mountain, but when a child dies they are buried in the heart.
The natural order is for parents to die first and children after. Yet Heaven's cruelty spares not even the Son of Heaven born beneath an Emperor Star.
"Go and resolve the matter."
Emperor Hongrak waved a hand toward his most trustworthy shadow, his face still etched with grief.
"Yes. All shall be as Your Majesty wills."
A form shimmered, then vanished as though nothing had ever stood there at all.
Only the soft sound of a fishing rod stirring the sun-sparkled surface of a beautiful lake remained.
Several days later, at dawn.
The abandoned storehouse near the Empress's Palace reeked of damp timber and mold.
In that gloom I made a secret rendezvous with Cheon Su-gong, the man who had sent me here in the first place.
Not a single torch burned. Beneath moonlight and starlight, the head of the Eastern Depot's eyes glittered.
"How did it go?"
"Fortunately, the infiltration seems to have succeeded. Empress Ga Hwiryung's personality is pure hell, though. I broke out in cold sweats more than once."
Whether it was some personal management technique or just raw talent, she had a gift for yanking people around and scaring the living daylights out of them.
Thanks to her, I had to act ready to storm out and take Imperial Consort Ma's head on the spot.
"We already accounted for the Empress's foul temper. Nothing to be surprised about."
If Imperial Consort Ma's nature was too gentle and put her at a severe disadvantage in the succession race, the Empress was her polar opposite.
Without the Eastern Depot and Princess Dohwa working themselves to the bone all this time, that rivalry would never even have taken shape.
"So. Did you learn the location, the contact point, and the hour they operate?"
If I had, he intended to hit them at the right moment—exposing their crimes with third-party forces and plenty of numbers in tow.
"Of course I found out."
At that answer, Cheon Su-gong's eyes glittered even in the dark.
If this affair resolved cleanly, the Imperial Consort's faction would be free of the nightmare that the Crown Prince might rise again, and they would seize the upper hand once more.
"Good. The information didn't leak midway, did it?"
Security was everything for this operation, so he pressed me on secrecy as well.
No point gathering intel and raiding the place only to find they had already caught wind, fled, or destroyed the evidence—leaving us with nothing but air.
"Don't worry. I didn't tell a single—"
I was about to speak with full confidence when something flickered through my mind. I hesitated. Cheon Su-gong's face twisted at once.
"What the hell did you do?"
"I didn't do anything."
"This bastard needs a beating before he comes to his senses."
Important information, he snapped—spill it now, every detail of what happened, not a single lie.
"It was nothing. I just swapped a little small talk about how the world was going with some weird fisherman I ran into by the lake."
"What kind of small talk?"
"That the Empress is a real piece of work… that she keeps crossing every line she sees. Nothing important."
The first part was something even her own faction freely admitted. The second was hardly suspicious either—plenty of people already believed she had crossed lines more than once.
"You little— You manage a perfect infiltration and then can't keep your damn mouth shut? Trying to ruin the whole job?"
"Hold on. Nothing's ruined yet, okay?"
By the fisherman's own words, he was nothing more than a commoner. Who was he going to tell something this sensitive to, and who would even believe him?
"Hmph. It's exactly those little slips that bring down big plans. This is why I never should have used an outsider instead of Eastern Depot people…"
I had only been watching him fish and whining that the job was hard, yet Cheon Su-gong was already threatening that the whole affair might have gone spectacularly wrong.
Still… back then it had felt like something had possessed me, the words just spilling out on their own.
I hadn't leaked any critical information, but that face freckled with age spots kept lecturing me like he was delivering a full sermon.
Then, abruptly, something seemed to strike him. Cheon Su-gong froze mid-rant.
"Wait. A shabby-looking fisherman… by the lake near the Empress's Palace?"
What now? He seized my shoulders and demanded an answer, looking far more shocked than when he had merely thought I had said too much.
"Don't tell me it was that lake—the one with no fish?"
His eyes darted wildly as realization seemed to dawn.
"Yes. A beautifully tended lake with a light mist settling over it… that kind of place."
I had no idea why, but the anger directed at me seemed to have drained away. I wiped imaginary sweat from my chest in relief.
In its place, pure bewilderment and dread flooded across Cheon Su-gong's face.
"Wearing a bamboo hat? The kind who always goes alone…?"
"Wow, how did you know? Cheon Su-gong, you could make a living as a fortune-teller."
Maybe the guy was a famous fisherman after all. Outwardly he had looked like some jobless bum wasting time by himself while everyone else in the palace ran themselves ragged, muttering about "fishing for the years" or whatever.
"H-how could this…"
Then Cheon Su-gong's hands began to tremble. That was not a good sign.
Had I relaxed too soon? I scratched my cheek with an awkward smile.
"Earlier… you cursed the imperial family in front of that fisherman?"
I nodded as if to say, Why are you even asking?
"Yeah. They say even the king gets cursed when he's not around."
I laid out exactly what had happened, since he had ordered me to tell the truth from the start.
Apparently I should not have. Cheon Su-gong's face contorted into something even more grotesque than before.
"What curses… aimed at whom…?"
What had I said back then?
"After I cursed the Empress for having a rotten temper, I said the Son of Heaven seemed like he couldn't make up his mind either—that he was frustrating as hell."
From everything I had seen of how the palace ran, the biggest problem looked like the Emperor himself, so I had laid into him pretty hard.
"…"
Cheon Su-gong covered his face with one bony palm.
He scrubbed his face up and down like a dry wash, then leveled a glare full of pure fury at me.
"You insane bastard…!"
Thwack!
"Aaagh!"
There was so little killing intent that I never even had time to react to the back-smashing palm strike.
The internal energy behind that palm technique launched me into the air like a frog.
"What the—! Why all of a sudden?!"
"I would rather the information had leaked! What the hell did you do to His Majesty?!"
I was mid-yell, completely lost, when my face went blank.
What did he just say? What I had done… to His Majesty?
"Wait. Then that day-jobless-looking guy… was actually…?"
"I'm going mad! I should have sealed that disaster of a mouth of yours from the start!"
Slap!
Another palm raked across my back.
"Aah, shit!"
The only time I had ever seen the Emperor was from a distance at something like a garden banquet. How was I supposed to recognize someone hidden under a bamboo hat?
"This is unfair!"
"Then take the beating, you idiot!"
Unfair or not, if I didn't know then I still got hit. Listening to that absurd logic, I had to endure a while longer of my back being thoroughly thrashed.
Slaaap!
"Aaagh!"
The next day, under cover of night, we carefully made our way to the Consort's Palace and met with its mistress.
To depose the Emperor's principal wife, Imperial Consort Ma and an ordinary consort would need to join forces.
If Empress Ga Hwiryung wielded the Embroidered Uniform Guard like her personal blade, and Imperial Consort Ma treated the Eastern Depot as her own limbs, then Consort Yang—youngest among the Emperor's wives—commanded the greatest influence over the Imperial Guards thanks to her family.
Her father, her true backing, was a general of extremely high rank even within the court.
The Empress's slanders and interference had stolen much of that influence and kept her from fully controlling the military, yet in certain areas she remained a power in her own right.
So, to keep the other side from talking their way out of anything, we sought Consort Yang and proposed a joint strike on the Empress's weakness—bringing in forces beyond just the Eastern Depot.
"Is that… truly certain?"
Consort Yang asked us in return.
Even after barely surviving last time alongside our Imperial Consort, she still found it hard to believe that the Blood Sect had been brought into the palace.
That only proved how far the Empress had crossed every conceivable line to save her son.
"It is certain."
I met her eyes as I spoke.
Perhaps because I was the one who had saved her that day, my conviction—backed by the guarantees of Imperial Consort Ma and Cheon Su-gong—finally drew a nod from Consort Yang.
She agreed to lend us Imperial Guards in gleaming armor, all to eliminate the Empress who had once tried to blow her to pieces.
But she had a condition.
"I will accompany this raid myself."
At that demand, Cheon Su-gong and I locked eyes at the same instant.
What the hell is this, Cheon Su-gong?
A consort personally leading troops? And at a public scene where they would expose and denounce the Empress's taboo acts?
This was going to be a massive event that would turn the entire Imperial Palace upside down.
She probably wants to claim this affair as her own achievement.
The sound transmission brushed my ear.
In the succession race, Consort Yang's influence and presence had been rather faint.
That did not mean her ambition was completely zero—she clearly harbored ambitions of her own.
For now, removing the most dangerous Empress first is the right call.
Cheon Su-gong sent that message while looking at me.
He was right. Once the Empress fell, the rest became irrelevant.
It would be as good as clearing the stage for the Imperial Consort's faction to run unopposed.
"Very well. We accept."
And so we agreed to Consort Yang's participation.