Maybe it was because everything around me gleamed gold, but for a moment, I felt like the richest man in the world.
Sadly, reality was a long way from that.
Clank. Clank.
I might’ve been able to enjoy the feeling a little longer if not for those ominous metallic sounds.
But the Embroidered Uniform Guards surrounding Hong Jin and me as they marched along showed no sign of offering that kind of consideration.
To be fair, I’d be crazy to expect it.
A laugh slipped out before I could stop it. I felt a heated gaze from beside me. Hong Jin was staring at me in disbelief.
“What is it?”
“…You do know why I’m looking at you, right? I’m asking just in case.”
“Hmm. Because I suddenly laughed at a time like this?”
“Thank goodness. I thought Young Master Jin had completely lost his mind.”
“Don’t worry. I’m holding on to my sanity.”
It wasn’t as if I could stand there grinning like a lunatic with my life hanging by a thread.
When you’re backed up against a cliff, your mind actually grows calmer.
Everything else falls away, leaving only one word: survival.
Just like right now.
“I’ll take your word for it. I have no choice.”
Hong Jin muttered as if to himself, then slowly drew on his still-lit long-stemmed tobacco pipe.
The ember glowed red. He exhaled a plume of white smoke that drifted among the guards.
Smoking so boldly as he walked through the imperial palace, when his head might roll at any moment. I was privately impressed by Hong Jin’s nerve when I noticed his eyelashes trembling and his face growing languid.
Then the smoke’s distinctive scent reached me.
Now that I think about it, I always smell that when I’m near Hong Jin.
Normally, I’d thought nothing of it.
I wasn’t some anti-smoking spokesperson. There was nothing strange about Hong Jin smoking a pipe, and no reason for me to stop him.
I’d simply assumed he was making up for what he lacked as a man by filling himself with nicotine.
But even so, I’d occasionally felt a strange sense of déjà vu.
Something about the smell was familiar, and I had no trouble remembering when I’d felt that way before.
Right. Immediately after I returned from my audience with the Emperor. That very day.
An idea flashed through my mind.
I watched Hong Jin slowly exhale smoke, then spoke up.
“It seems to taste better than I expected. The smell didn’t appeal to me.”
“What are you talking about? Oh, this?”
I gave a quiet nod. Hong Jin lightly waved the pipe in his hand.
“I wouldn’t say it tastes good. It’s just… a habit. A very bad one.”
Of course smoking was bad for your health.
At least by modern standards.
But in this era, it wasn’t exactly frowned upon.
This world had no place in any history passed down to the twenty-first century, but it was remarkably similar in many ways. The names of its regions, the clothes and food, even people’s attitudes.
And by those standards, smoking wasn’t considered a bad habit. If anything, the powerful, who indulged in every sort of pleasure, encouraged it. Tobacco leaves were expensive, though, so it was a luxury most commoners could hardly afford.
But Hong Jin is one of those powerful people, and even he calls it a bad habit?
Something clicked.
There was more to this. Something I hadn’t figured out yet.
I held out my hand to Hong Jin.
“Can I try it?”
“Hmm? You want to smoke? This?”
“Yes. I thought I’d give it a try while I had the chance.”
Our eyes met for an instant. Hong Jin’s eyebrow twitched so slightly no one else could have noticed.
A sign that he’d understood exactly what I meant.
“How curious. The martial artists I know drink readily enough, but they rarely touch poppy.”
“Poppy…?”
“It’s the dried sap of the poppy. If you smoke it when your mind is troubled, sometimes it calms you down and makes you feel drowsy. It’s often used to relieve pain, but it’s highly addictive, so—”
Hong Jin’s voice faded to a distant echo.
Only one word floated through my mind.
Opium!
I might’ve treated school lessons as a chance to catch up on sleep, but at least a little basic knowledge had stuck.
Especially since my world history teacher had a booming voice so passionate it could chase away the sleep that had already claimed me.
“Hey! Jin Taekyung!”
“Hrk. Huh?”
“You punk. What did the teacher just say? Don’t roll your eyes around—tell me.”
“Uh, well…”
“Right. You don’t know. Of course you don’t. You’ve slept through the entire third period back there. Is this a hotel or a school?”
“Oh, I remember now.”
“What? You remember? Fine, let’s hear what kind of creative bullshit you heard in your dream. What was it?”
“Hey, Jin Taekyung.”
“…”
“No…?”
“No, that’s right. It is. But… you really are a nutcase. The Opium War! I was talking about the Opium War. I swear, you’re driving me crazy. Repeat after me. The Opium War!”
“What? The Youth Protection War?1”
“Youth Protection… Hey, class president! Kim Minjeong!”
“Yes?”
“Call the cops right now. I’m going to beat this punk and get arrested for assaulting a student.”
Fortunately, the police never came. After my teacher finished shouting at me, I was sentenced to copy out an entire section on the Opium War by hand.
That was how I’d managed to cram all sorts of trivial details into my thick skull—including the fact that the white-skinned island chinks had invaded the genuine mainland chinks.
And that opium came from a plant called the poppy.
So that’s useful now.
I silently thanked my world history teacher, who’d been more passionate than anyone.
Thanks to him, I’d just learned something new.
Opium. No, that distinctive scent of poppy… I’ve smelled it before. Stronger than Hong Jin’s.
Just a few days ago.
I’d definitely felt that déjà vu. And only now did I realize what I’d overlooked at the time.
Listen carefully. Don’t react.
Hong Jin kept walking as though nothing had happened. Barely moving my lips, I sent him a Sound Transmission.
If the Emperor smokes opium, why do you think he does it?
That day. That time. That moment.
The first person who’d stirred that sense of déjà vu was the man above all others—the one I’d met in Qianqing Palace.
“Hah.”
With a ragged exhale, the man suddenly opened his eyes.
Faint torchlight flickered beyond the darkness. Long lengths of thin, colorful silk hung around him.
Where am I…
There was no mistaking the place. It was his bedchamber and his fortress, where he’d spent most of the past decade or so.
He lay there for a while, soaked in cold sweat as he caught his breath. Then he spoke.
“Is anyone there?”
The dry sound of his voice had barely faded when—
Rustle.
A breeze from somewhere stirred the silk curtains. A thread of Sound Transmission slipped between them and reached his ear.
—At your command.
The man said nothing for a while. He ran a hand over his face.
The deep furrows, too pronounced for his age, showed the marks of fatigue.
Though some time had passed since he’d awoken, his heart still pounded fiercely.
“It seems the sun has already set.”
—It will soon be the hour of the Dog.2
“The hour of the Dog.2 And the grand banquet?”
—The appointed hour of the Goat3 has long since passed. The civil and military officials have all gathered.
“Then is he there, too?”
He.
Hardly enough to identify one person among the many gathered for the grand banquet. Yet the shadow in the darkness answered without hesitation.
—Yes.
“…Unexpected. Martial artists may rush headlong into danger, but this is absurdly reckless.”
The Emperor seemed to be speaking to himself, but he went on.
“Then again, someone had already foreseen it. His Master must have stayed, too.”
—He has also attended. However…
“Go on.”
—The other martial artists, apart from those two, have left the imperial palace.
“Left?”
—Yes. They appeared to be moving with some purpose, but we could not follow them any farther.
“You couldn’t follow them?”
The man frowned, but the shadow’s next words silenced him.
—Yes. ‘She’ personally intervened and stopped us.
“…I see.”
—If you command it, we can act at once.
“No. No.”
He shook his head and slowly rose from his bed.
The room was far too vast to be one person’s bedchamber. Clad in sleeping robes embroidered with golden thread, he stood before a large mirror.
Rustle. Thud.
The soft silk slid over his skin and fell to the floor.
An ordinary person would have shivered at the sudden chill. But the man stood firm as an iron tower.
As he had when he led a great army to crush the rebels.
As he had that day, more than a decade ago.
But for all his enduring spirit, the figure reflected in the mirror bore little resemblance to the man he’d once been.
I’ve aged. Beyond recognition.
He felt no regret.
The path he’d walked was one someone had to take.
He’d simply been the one chosen.
He’d put on a dragon robe so dazzling no one dared raise their head to look at him, and been granted the title Son of Heaven.
He had no regrets.
Only the path ahead remained. Just one step left to take.
“It’s time for me to leave Qianqing Palace.”
At his words, the darkness where the shadow had melted stirred, and Qianqing Palace, silent as a grave, sprang to life.
No. They had been ready from the beginning.
Ready to kill and to die at the Emperor’s command.
And on the roof of Qianqing Palace, its pulse throbbing like a volcano on the verge of eruption, a woman gazed up at the cloudy sky.
“Will it rain again today?”
So Gyo stroked the weapons hanging at either side of her waist.
She had them back after a long time. They were cold as ice, while the qi within them boiled hot as fire.
The Grand Banquet Hall was unbelievably vast and impossibly quiet. Countless officials, high and low, had gathered, yet not one of them spoke.
For that moment, they were all blind, unable to see, and mute, unable to speak.
Those who already knew what was happening quietly reflected on the lives they’d led up to then. Those who didn’t know were frozen in place by the suffocating presence that had swallowed the Grand Banquet Hall.
Who would speak first?
Who would be the first to… draw a sword?
As the same thought passed through every mind—
“There he is.”
A voice broke the silence.
“Five hours late. Are you kidding me?”
Jin Taekyung’s gaze pierced the darkness beyond the flickering torches.
More precisely, it pierced the enormous golden procession approaching from beyond, like a dragon.
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