Amcheonmyeongjo
A man had ended an age of chaos, founded a nation, and become its emperor.
Many had aided him and risen as meritorious subjects. To keep those subjects from running wild after his death, he began to purge them.
The Forbidden City glittered with splendid treasures, yet whispers claimed that everyone who had once stood beside him was dying and vanishing. Through that palace walked an old merchant.
To the merchant the palace treasures were familiar things. Most of them he himself had presented to the emperor.
And so the rabbit dies and the hunting dog is cooked. Though he knew full well why the emperor had summoned him, he still set his steps toward the imperial audience hall.
He merely looked about the palace he had filled and let the memories rise. Behind the merchant a child followed in attendance.
From time to time the merchant glanced back. Despite the boy’s resolute face he trembled a little. The child was the merchant’s grandson.
In the days when the emperor still favored the merchant, the boy had treated the palace gardens as his playground. Remembering those times, the merchant had yielded to the child’s stubborn insistence that they go together no matter what—telling himself this would be the last time.
Yet the changed manner of the Imperial Guards had clearly cowed the boy. Still, every time the merchant looked back the child pretended nothing was wrong, and that was endearing.
Whenever the boy, with a child’s curiosity, stopped to stare at some palace ornament, the guards would sharply call him to order.
“I never expected you would bring your grandson into a situation like this.”
A black-clad Imperial Guard spoke to the merchant. The merchant answered only with a smile. The Imperial Guards were the emperor’s personal troops, hands and feet who would give their own lives for him.
If they were given even the slightest clue, this transaction would certainly fail. The merchant prayed in secret before the audience hall that his grandson’s story would hold.
“Go Danjun, Master of the Donghwa Merchant Group, presents himself before the throne.”
Leaving his grandson outside the hall, the merchant stepped before the emperor and prostrated himself. In the war that founded the nation the two men had been friends and trading partners.
From the first day of that war to the last, Danjun had supplied the army’s grain. For that reason the emperor had never once before forced him to kneel like a subject.
But Danjun knew the emperor too well. The man intended to erase the entire merchant group so that his own power would stand alone and absolute.
The emperor looked down for a long while upon the prostrate Danjun. As if the altered relationship pleased him, a smile touched his lips when he spoke.
“You helped me found this nation, yet you accepted neither stipend nor rank that I offered. Is that not the mark of a man who harbors two hearts?”
The emperor asked. The merchant shook his head and answered.
“I am but a merchant. I have come to this place to purchase the lives of my household from Your Majesty.”
“Have you not chosen the wrong trading partner? I am the emperor, master of all under heaven. Whatever you would offer in exchange for your life already belongs to my realm.”
The emperor spoke as though he had forgotten the past. Danjun answered to awaken that memory.
“A merchant steps forward to trade only when he has something to sell. This humble one has never once missed the place or the partner for a bargain. Has Your Majesty forgotten the scorched-earth tactics of the Demonic Cult?”
“How could I sit upon this throne if I had forgotten those days?”
The emperor continued, recalling the old days.
“Among our troops the living suffered for want of food and clothing, and those who died of plague could scarcely find ground in which to bury the corpses in haste. Had you not brought wagons laden with military grain, I…”
The emperor murmured, lost in reminiscence, and the merchant at last felt certain the emperor would enter the bargain.
“This humble one would sell Your Majesty that memory, and with it purchase the lives of my household.”
“Memory? I can look back upon those years of poverty only because I am now the supreme sovereign. I have no wish to return to that time. Therefore this bargain cannot be struck.”
“Your Majesty, emperor and master of all under heaven. A memory is something that once existed at one’s side yet is absent in the present; thus this memory is nowhere to be found beneath heaven.”
The emperor looked down upon the merchant who affirmed his own words. Though he knew the speech was aimed at a transaction, the phrase “master of all under heaven” secretly pleased him.
“Yet I know that Your Majesty, the supreme sovereign, desires this memory more than any other. Therefore I have searched every corner of the realm and brought it here.”
The doors of the audience hall opened, and a child entered carrying a small tray covered by a cloth.
The sudden opening of the doors startled the soldiers and eunuchs who guarded the hall, yet the child only beamed with an innocent smile and came to stand beside the merchant.
“…Your grandson? He resembles you greatly.”
“Yes. He is my grandson. And he is the seller in this transaction.”
The emperor was startled by the merchant’s words, yet showed nothing and asked,
“Ho, ho… There is no place for jests in the imperial audience hall.”
“You heard, even in the army camps of those days, that I dislike jests, did you not?”
“True, there was that… Looking at what rests upon the tray, is it something to eat? Can one eat a memory?”
“A m-memory dwells in all things under heaven, and Your Majesty’s f-foremost memory is said to rest in this object.”
“The seller cannot even properly describe the goods he offers?”
“It is my first transaction. I-I am nervous.”
The child’s face, once smiling, had gone rigid. Unlike Danjun, the boy looked easy to handle.
The emperor decided to tease him a little. Having already resolved to purge the merchant group, he thought a touch of amusement would do no harm.
“How old are you?”
“I-I will soon be eight.”
“You are young. How then can you sell me my old memories? Do you know how old I am?”
“I-I am sorry. I-I still cannot count well past twenty. I have heard that Your Majesty’s age is m-more than twenty.”
At the child’s words the emperor recalled the time he himself had been twenty. In the prime of youth he had resolved to topple the old nation and become emperor.
“A m-merchant is not a craftsman who makes goods. I was taught he is simply one who delivers goods to those who desire them. All of Your Majesty’s memories are held within this object.”
The emperor judged the child’s words correct. The boy carried the tray across the audience hall.
An Imperial Guard moved to bar him, but the emperor forbade it, and the child presented the tray directly. The emperor lifted the cloth and looked upon the tray.
“Th-this is… Can it be…”
The child walked out of the audience hall hand in hand with the merchant.
“Anyway, the deal succeeded, Grandfather.”
“Yes. That is fortunate.”
“Then you’ll acknowledge me as a merchant now, right?”
“…It is still early, but yes. I can no longer call you by your childhood name.”
Merchant and child fell silent and simply walked on.
Outside the palace a carriage waited for them. The merchant climbed in first, then turned and held out his hand to the boy.
“Well then, Jinmyung. What do you plan to do now that you are a merchant?”
The child took his grandfather’s hand and climbed aboard.
“The reason today’s deal left a p-profit is because of another contract. I-I intend to keep that contract.”
“What contract was that?”
“I-I promised to find a certain volume in the library of the Martial Alliance. In p-person.”
The merchant was startled, yet he put on a stern face and looked down at his grandson. Who would have made such a contract with this child…
Jinmyung’s serious eyes blocked the merchant’s questions. From that expression the merchant knew the boy would not reveal the other party to the bargain.
The Martial Alliance…
The emperor had called that place a trash heap.
A gathering of martial artists who refused to serve in the imperial army. They believed they had won their freedom, yet the merchant knew they stood in close relation to the shadows of the palace.
For that reason he did not wish to send Jinmyung there.
“Did they tell you the name of the volume?”
“The other party said n-not to speak it. Especially not to His Majesty the Emperor and…”
“To me?”
From those words the merchant could guess the trading partner. Half believing, half doubting, he asked,
“Hmm. Does the book contain the characters of the new nation? I worry you may have misread it.”
“Jinmyung is a merchant now. I do not misread the goods I trade.”
“Of course, of course. Yet this grandfather is also a merchant, and I do not wish to miss a costly bargain. I would rather find it myself and sell it to you at a high price.”
The merchant’s group ranked among the three greatest merchant houses of the new nation. Thus he believed he could scour the Central Plains and obtain the book more readily than the Martial Alliance.
Jinmyung furrowed his brow, pondered a long while, then answered.
“A-Amcheonmyeongjo, he said.”
The moment Jinmyung finished speaking, the expression the boy had worn settled upon the merchant’s face. And the merchant realized he had no choice but to send Jinmyung to the Martial Alliance.