The Evil Woman - 4
One month had passed since Moyong Sang-ah first received word of Kang Yunho.
She was alone in her private training hall, sword flashing through the air in relentless arcs.
“Young Mistress. It has already been a full month. Please, eat something now.”
The Changbong Captain had watched her training for some time. When the ferocity of her swings finally began to ebb, he spoke so that she would hear him clearly.
“I have no desire to.”
With that single reply she unleashed another barrage of killing strokes, as if her sworn mortal enemy stood before her.
“You have barely touched food for an entire month and done nothing but drill. You will destroy your body.”
Ever since that day, Moyong Sang-ah had hardly put a morsel to her lips; every waking hour was poured into martial practice.
“I already said I have no desire.”
Because of me he suffered even after death. How could I possibly swallow food?
Better to spend that time swinging a sword. When the moment came, she would cut down one more Demonic Cultist. And so the blade continued to dance.
The Changbong Captain watched his liege with a face full of helpless pity.
From the moment she learned of Kang Yunho’s fate, Moyong Sang-ah had driven herself like a horse under the endless lash, racing without pause.
The servants reported, worry etched into every feature, that she scarcely slept either.
Even the strongest steed, if denied food and rest while forced only to run toward its destination, will eventually collapse.
She herself showed no concern, yet anyone could see how gaunt she had become. No matter what the Changbong Captain said, she gave not the slightest sign of intending to rest.
There had to be a way to stop her.
Reluctantly, he decided upon an extreme measure.
“Tomorrow marks one full year since your wedding night. The late Young Master Kang Yunho would never wish to see you like this.”
“What does a Changbong Captain know of His Lordship…!”
The words struck Moyong Sang-ah like a blade. She halted mid-form and rounded on him.
“That night Young Master Kang Yunho had already taken a sleeping draught. No man who did not know he was about to die would have done such a thing. Which means that from the very moment the two of you left the Moyong estate, you must have spoken of something between you.”
“……”
Under his probing gaze she lowered her eyes.
“I cannot know what words passed between you that night. But if my guess is correct, Young Master Kang Yunho would never have wanted to witness the sight before me now.”
At first he had believed the scheme a brilliant success. His liege, Moyong Sang-ah, had turned Kang Yunho’s death into a tremendous stroke of fortune.
But what if it had never been a scheme? What if it had been one man’s sacrifice?
Kang Yunho’s escort had not fled in panic; they had waited for the Changbong Unit to give chase.
A man who had already lost everything had, at the last, given even the final remaining moments of his life for the sake of one woman. If a single pair’s blazing love had created this entire situation…
Then the reason his liege had changed so completely made perfect sense.
“There is no time to waste if I am to carry on His Lordship’s will.”
“Was Young Master Kang Yunho’s will for you to collapse from exhaustion? A man who sacrificed himself for the woman he loved would never have said such a thing.”
The Changbong Captain spoke with absolute conviction.
“……”
Moyong Sang-ah remembered the words her beloved had spoken that night.
— Live.
— Live, and reclaim the Moyong Clan. And when everything is finished, leave a single flower upon my grave.
Was she truly living now?
She looked quietly down at her own body. Far thinner than a month ago. A body that seemed less to be living than to be surviving solely in order to die.
With a body like this, could she truly uphold His Lordship’s will and place a flower upon his grave?
“……Changbong Captain. What progress has been made in locating His Lordship’s grave?”
“We have sent additional men into Joseon and are searching every possible lead for the person who retrieved the body. Good news will come, I am certain.”
She had to find his grave. In her present state she would collapse before she ever reached it.
“……I will take an evening meal today.”
“Truly? Then I shall have the servants prepare something delicious at once.”
“They say sudden rich food after long fasting only makes one ill. I will have porridge.”
“You give me your word?”
“Yes. I promise.”
I must not fall yet.
“Since the Young Mistress has given her word, I shall take my leave.”
Seeing the unshakable resolve in her eyes, the Changbong Captain finally withdrew from her private training hall.
The following night, close to midnight.
Moyong Sang-ah ordered the servants to prepare a banquet of every rare delicacy imaginable.
She normally ate little, so the servants were puzzled by the command for such abundance; yet the knowledge that she who had forsaken all grain would finally eat again filled them with quiet joy even at that late hour, and they worked with willing hands.
“I require no attendance while I dine. All of you, leave.”
At her order the servants who had set out the dishes withdrew completely.
Time slipped past midnight.
Once every sound of human presence had vanished, Moyong Sang-ah opened every window in the chamber. Though the calendar claimed spring had arrived, the night wind that entered was still sharp with cold.
From its hiding place she drew forth a single object and set it in the very center of the table laden with mountain and sea delicacies.
Writing was carved upon the object she had placed there.
Spirit Seat of the Illustrious Student, Lord of the Household
Kang Yunho
What she had brought out was the spirit tablet that a wife offers when performing the memorial rites for her deceased husband.
Tonight, past midnight, was the anniversary of the unforgettable night shared by Moyong Sang-ah and Kang Yunho—
and the first anniversary of Kang Yunho’s death.
She set an incense burner beside the tablet and lit the incense. The faint fragrance meant to honor the departed began to fill her chamber.
She poured wine into a cup for her husband, bowed deeply toward the tablet, and at last opened her mouth.
“I prepared food for you. Dishes one rarely tastes even in the Central Plains, every famous delicacy of the eight provinces of Joseon—I had them all prepared.”
The memorial table laid out for Kang Yunho groaned under dishes that many people would never taste in an entire lifetime.
No memorial table anywhere could have offered finer food. Anyone would have agreed.
Yet as she gazed upon that abundance she could manage only a desolate smile.
“I miss you so terribly… and yet I do not even know a single dish you liked.”
Among all these offerings, was there even one that His Lordship had favored while he lived? Would he look upon the table, find nothing of his preference, and feel disappointment?
Would he find any of this pleasing? Moyong Sang-ah could not be certain.
If anyone still lived who knew the foods he had loved, she would have asked—yet no such person remained in this world.
All because of her own sins.
“I am afraid, my lord.”
Before her husband’s spirit tablet, for the first time in a year, Moyong Sang-ah began to confess what lay inside her heart.
“My elder brother still grips power tightly. The Demonic Cult is expanding its influence inside the Moyong Clan. The old men of the Council of Elders do not even notice how the clan is rotting; they know only greed.”
A situation that permitted only despair upon despair.
Her sole remaining hope was what her husband had left behind. Yet the more she used those legacies, the more ruthless her deeds became, the more the pointing fingers multiplied.
“I do not fear the pointing fingers. If I can drive out the Demonic Cult, I will trample every one of them underfoot. I do not fear driving out the Demonic Cult either. As long as this body draws breath I will continue toward that goal. None of that frightens me. What truly terrifies me… what I fear most of all……”
She could no longer look upon the tablet; she bowed her head.
“I am afraid that in the afterlife I will not be able to meet you.”
A chivalrous hero murdered in injustice.
The evil woman who had killed him.
The evil woman’s sins were already deep, and they would grow deeper still.
Could a hero and an evil woman ever reach the same place?
“Even if my whole body is torn apart in hell, I would accept it. Even if I am burned alive, I would accept it.”
Her sins were so vast that the most agonizing seat in the underworld must already have been prepared for her.
If that was the place her sins required, she would go without hesitation.
Whatever punishment awaited, she did not care.
Only one thing.
If only one wish could be granted—
“I want to see your face just once more.”
Any torment would be fine.
If she must suffer eternal punishment, she would accept it gladly.
So—
“Even if you look at me with a face as cold as ice, even if you pour out your rage, even if you curse me—anything is fine. Please, just once… just once, let me see your face again.”
Tears began to spill from the eyes of Moyong Sang-ah, who had been weeping with her head bowed.
A longing so piercing it crushed her heart.
“I want to see your face. I want to hear your voice. I want to beg your… forgiveness.”
She did not mean that she expected to stand before him and receive forgiveness.
The sins she had committed were not the kind that could ever be forgiven.
An evil woman who had failed even to confess her crimes in the final moment when confession was still possible—how could she dare hope for forgiveness?
She simply wished that, if she must enter the most searing part of hell, the one who pronounced that judgment would be her lord.
“If I can see your face only once more, then whatever punishment you decree, I will receive it with a smile.”
Just as his final moment had been her, she wished her final moment to be him.
Moyong Sang-ah bowed once more toward her husband’s tablet, then rose to her feet.
Would he come to this place? Would the food please him? Had he learned the full truth in the afterlife and decided never to visit?
Even while preparing the tablet, even while setting out the food, even while bowing, Moyong Sang-ah was afraid.
— Whoosh…
From somewhere a warm spring breeze drifted into the room.
A gentle wind utterly unsuited to the chill of the night.
It began to circle the chamber slowly, then set the incense flame burning brighter and redder, as though announcing that someone had arrived.
“Could it be… is it you, my lord?”
She whispered in a trembling voice.
The dead visit their own memorial and partake of the food prepared by the living.
As if answering her call, the warm breeze made the incense flame flare a little higher, then gently enfolded Moyong Sang-ah in its warmth.
If His Lordship had truly come, she must not show weakness. She had to prove that she was living, not dying.
With a face ruined by tears she forced a difficult smile.
The warm breeze tenderly stroked her tear-streaked cheeks, then quietly vanished.
“My lord……”
Had it truly been him? She hoped it had been him.
If he had known every one of her sins and still come to this place, if he had caressed this cowardly woman and then departed—
then it meant he was waiting for her in the afterlife.
Moyong Sang-ah carefully drank the wine she had offered her husband.
The sharing of the sacrificial wine. Food visited by the dead carries a portion of that person’s energy and bestows blessing upon the living.
“Please wait for me, my lord.”
The strong liquor entered her empty stomach and burned its way through her veins.
A memorial rite is, in the end, an act by which the living, while honoring the dead, gain the strength to keep moving forward.
The warm breeze that had soothed her tears. The energy he had left behind, now flowing through her entire body.
She had found the courage to continue.
On a day after Moyong Sang-ah had once more begun to move forward—
“Young Mistress! Word has arrived from the Changbong Unit we dispatched. The Fifth Squad of the Changryong Unit has been almost entirely wiped out! Those survivors whose demonic arts were exposed took their own lives on the spot!”
The Changbong Captain reported with a face bright with triumph.
“Excellent.”
“They ask how the remaining men should be handled.”
“Persuade them or torture them until they confess everything they know, then kill them all.”
“They already refuse persuasion, and most have refused to open their mouths. I will order another attempt and then have them disposed of.”
The Changbong Captain finished his report and left Moyong Sang-ah’s office.
Once he was gone she looked down at her left hand.
On that hand rested a token that would allow her to remember her faraway husband forever.
“Now it truly begins.”
She had laid her foundation and at last managed to chip away, however slightly, at her elder brother’s power.
She did not know where the end of this path would lead, yet once she had started she would never stop.
“My lord. Watch over me until the very end.”
The evil woman gently caressed the ring on her ring finger, steeling her resolve.
