Chapter 933

I followed Jeong Hogun, taking a careful look around as we went.

I’d expected some dramatic change, but the Imperial Palace looked much the same as it had on my first visit.

Palace attendants in neat uniforms hurried back and forth, while heavily armed Embroidered Uniform Guards stood watch at their posts like iron towers.

If anything had changed, it was me.

Swish.

When a group of palace attendants approaching from the other direction bowed deeply as they passed, I thought it was a coincidence.

Clank.

Even when the Embroidered Uniform Guards struck their armor and saluted, I didn’t think much of it. Jeong Hogun had considerable pull among the Guard, so it seemed only natural that they’d salute him.

“Guess being a Thousand Captain means you can throw your weight around, huh?”

Jeong Hogun’s reply to my joking remark was utterly calm.

“You’re less observant than you look.”

“Hm?”

“They aren’t paying their respects because I’m here.”

Only then did it hit me. Only then did I see it.

The people passing us were looking at me. The gratitude and respect in their eyes were meant for me alone.

“Uh…”

What was I supposed to say?

I was still at a loss for words when Jeong Hogun came to an abrupt halt.

No—not just him. Everyone who’d come with him stopped at the same time.

Step.

They moved as one, with a heavy ring of metal.

Jeong Hogun glanced at the plaque reading Qianqing Palace a dozen or so jang¹ ahead, then turned to me.

“I don’t know when we’ll see each other again, so I should say this now.”

The sharp eyes beneath his low-pulled helmet softened, curving like a crescent moon.

“It was an honor to fight alongside you, Blazing Flame Divine Dragon Jin Taekyung.”

“……!”

I stared at him, eyes wide.

Jeong Hogun had never bowed to anyone but the Emperor. Now his rigid back and neck inclined toward me as he offered a deeply respectful fist-and-palm salute.

“Until we meet again, I wish you good fortune in battle.”

“We wish you good fortune!”

Shing! Shing! Shing!

Dozens of Embroidered Uniform Guards echoed him and drew their swords, gripping them in reverse.

They stood in two neat rows on either side of the path to Qianqing Palace. I couldn’t help laughing.

“Come on, you’re making me blush.”

But I stopped laughing almost at once and returned their salute, bringing my hands together.

“We’ll meet again. We will.”

I meant it. That was enough.

No one knew when we’d meet again. I’d leave everything else until then. Every meeting and every bond came with a parting, after all.

Step. Step.

I walked slowly down the path Jeong Hogun and the guards had made for me.

Beneath the high eaves of Qianqing Palace, the twin armed guards were waiting. Thanks to a new scar, I could finally tell their faces apart.

As I climbed the stairs, they quietly stepped aside, as though there were no formalities to observe.

The enormous iron door they guarded stood wide open, unlike the last time I’d visited.

Qianqing Palace stood in the deepest part of the Imperial Palace.

And in the innermost chamber of Qianqing Palace, the Emperor was waiting for me.

“Oh, you’re here.”

His voice was gentler than before, warm with welcome. His eyes were smiling too.

But even faced with such a welcome from the Emperor—a man called Iron Blood for the countless purges and ruthless decisions he’d made since before taking the throne—I didn’t smile.

No. I couldn’t.

Why?

I hadn’t said it aloud, but my bewilderment must have shown. The Emperor watched me struggle for words, then gave a quiet laugh and spoke first.

“You seem rather taken aback. Understandable, I suppose, when the Son of Heaven looks like this.”

He tapped the bandages wrapped around his upper body. The faint smile on his lips made his sunken cheeks stand out even more.

“A piece of advice: at times like this, lower your head first.”

He was impossibly gaunt compared to just three days ago. I was still shaken, but I forced myself to reply calmly.

“Is there a reason for that?”

“Two. You can hide your expression, and you buy yourself a moment to think.”

“I see. I might as well try it.”

I lowered my head, then lifted it again less than ten seconds later.

“You’ve already seen my expression, so it’s too late to hide that. But the time to think does help.”

“May I ask what you thought about?”

“Why Your Majesty looks like this. What caused it.”

“A waste of thought. I simply overexerted myself in that battle.”

The Emperor smiled and waved a hand. The smile vanished when he heard my next words.

“So you’ve been smoking poppy again?”

“……!”

“I was slow to notice. The sight of you caught me off guard, and I didn’t pay attention to the smell.”

I drew a slow breath as I watched his face go rigid. The strong, peculiar scent that reached me was unmistakably the one I remembered.

“How long… have you known?”

His voice had dropped. I thought back to the first time I’d entered Qianqing Palace: the strangely familiar scent I’d noticed when I finally met the Emperor, and the moment someone who occasionally smoked poppy had helped me place it.

“I didn’t know at first.”

“I can’t imagine how you figured it out. It isn’t easy to obtain, and I’ve heard Murim practitioners avoid anything that harms the mind and spirit.”

“You heard right. Murim practitioners generally do.”

I added calmly, “But I hear eunuchs sometimes use it.”

“……Hong Jin, then.”

A wound, once inflicted, has a long shelf life.

Whether it’s psychological or physical, the mind and body remember. Old wounds can still ache decades later, even after the scars have faded. How much worse must it be for eunuchs, who’ve had their private parts cut off?

Hong Jin was no exception. When the pain came without warning and he couldn’t bear it, he turned to poppy. Thanks to him, I’d stumbled onto one of the Emperor’s secrets.

“How long have you been using it? And why?”

“I don’t see why you need to know.”

Before I could respond, the Emperor gave a bitter smile and pointed to his head.

“Besides, nothing I say will change much.”

“……No way.”

He seemed to have already given up. And that gesture had meaning, too.

I stared at him, eyes wide, as he parted his dry lips.

“That’s right. It’s what you’re thinking.”

“……!”

“The Blood Soul Gu. That cursed poison has reached my very marrow.”

My suspicion hardened into certainty, and a curse escaped me like a groan.

“Damn it.”

“Impertinent. Such vulgar language before the father of all the people? If Commander Baek were here, he’d have you dragged to prison at once.”

Someone else might have trembled and begged forgiveness. I only sighed at the Emperor, who was making a show of frowning.

“Is this really the time for jokes?”

“Have I ever told you I’m good at them?”

“This is the first I’ve heard of it. You’re so bad it gives me goose bumps.”

“That’s because you’re a dull fellow. Back when I was campaigning, I’d drink and laugh with my men every night. Those were good times.”

“I hate to say this to a critically ill man, but you were probably the only one having fun.”

“That can’t be. Every time I said something, they’d laugh until they doubled over.”

“……I see.”

I didn’t know who those men had been, but they must have worked hard to laugh along.

Not that it mattered right now.

I shook my head at the clueless division commander—no, Emperor—and asked what I most wanted to know.

“When did it start?”

“More than ten years ago. Just after the coup, to be exact.”

As though there was nothing left to hide, the Emperor continued calmly.

“A loyal servant I trusted did it. By the time I realized, it was too late.”

“Who among Your Majesty’s closest people knows?”

“Only two. Baek Yeon and So Gyo. Though perhaps I should call her the Bow Saint now.”

He looked at me and added, “And today, one more person has learned a truth that must never be known.”

I caught his meaning at once and clicked my tongue.

“Are you going to kill me to keep me quiet?”

“If I tried, would you let me?”

“Not a chance. I’m going to live until I’m so old I’m smearing shit on the walls.”

“Then I’m better off than you. As Emperor, I can’t make such a disgrace of myself.”

He gave a soft chuckle. Then, without warning, he coughed.

Cough.

His golden sleeve stained red. I looked around, my face hardening at the sudden spitting of blood, but the Emperor shook his head before I could move.

“Don’t bother.”

“Bother with what?”

“If you’re thinking of calling an imperial physician, don’t.”

“……”

“If they could cure this, I’d have done something about it long ago. Why do you think I hid it even from them?”

The Emperor gazed at his blood-soaked sleeve and murmured as if to himself.

“My father and mother. My three elder brothers. The senior members of the imperial family who worked so faithfully to uphold the ancestral shrines and the state… Not one was spared. None escaped death.”

He was right. No one had escaped the Blood Soul Gu’s grasp.

That was why his attempt to set everything right after the coup had failed. The late Emperor, the Empress, and several direct members of the imperial family, including the Crown Prince, had died one after another. The Fourth Prince who’d started the coup had been branded an unforgivable, unfilial son and a usurper.

“I have no regrets left. I took every elixir I could to stay alive and trained in martial arts at a bone-grinding pace to withstand the Blood Soul Gu’s poison. I held on like that for ten years.”

At last, I understood why he—the man who held the greatest territory in the world and commanded countless troops—had reached his current realm.

“After enduring a winter of more than ten years, spring has finally come. That’s enough for me.”

At that moment, a clear smile rested on the Emperor’s lips.