Chapter 1 ….
The Killing Flower
In the season when even the moonlight felt cold, a flesh-tearing swishing sound spread beneath the eaves of Haewolgak Pavilion.
Crack!
Each time the sound rang out, red lines were carved across the girl’s pale legs.
Crack!
Though her body trembled violently, the girl did not show the slightest sign of pain.
Whether it was fortunate or unfortunate, what broke first was not the girl’s leg but the switch. Yet the one delivering the blows showed no intention of mercy this time and replaced it with a new rod.
Watching from the side, the house matron could bear it no longer and stepped in.
“Oh heavens, sister! You’ll kill the child at this rate! Where is there to strike such a pretty girl?”
Despite the matron’s attempt to stop her, the woman swung the rod hard enough to make her towering wig tremble.
Crack!
“Do you know how many times this has been now?!”
The girl, who had kept her lips tightly sealed as if sewn shut, finally spoke.
“That is why I said I would not learn.”
“If an entertainer refuses to learn instruments, what use is she? You truly are frustrating beyond words.”
The girl felt just as frustrated. She had said she would not learn, yet her mother kept forcing her. Born and raised in the gisaeng house, she had once learned female performance arts without knowing better. But after realizing those “refined arts” existed merely for the pleasure of men, she refused to learn dance or instruments ever again.
Previously she had snapped the strings of the haegeum; now she had cut the strings of the gayageum—hence this uproar.
“Sister, that’s enough. The child says she doesn’t want to be a gisaeng—what can you do?”
“Not a gisaeng—an entertainer! If she just masters even one skill, she can live comfortably with proper respect. Why is she so stubborn?!”
“Gisaeng or entertainer—it’s all the same. Selling body and smiles to men. Rather than live like that—”
Smack.
The girl’s head snapped to the side.
“You have not only insulted this mother, but every entertainer in this house. Leave. You are no longer my daughter.”
“In weather cold enough to freeze someone, you’re throwing her out? That’s the same as telling her to die. Seolyeon, hurry and apologize properly, hm?”
“I said get out at once!”
Seolyeon glared at her mother with eyes full of resentment and ran out onto the veranda.
If you want me gone, who says I can’t leave.
She strode across the courtyard and flung the gate open—
—and locked eyes with a boy standing outside.
Had it not been for his clothing, one might not have recognized him as male; he was that beautiful. The boy stared at her while tightly holding the hand of an adult man who, at a glance, seemed to share many of his features.
The man crouched to the boy’s height and addressed her.
“You must be Sohyang’s daughter.”
But Seolyeon’s gaze was fixed solely on their clasped hands.
Her eyes brimmed with envy and jealousy.
She could not even remember her father’s face—let alone the feel of his hand. A sudden wave of sorrow welled up inside her.
When she merely glared at them with reddened eyes, the boy released his father’s hand and stepped forward.
“Are you mute? Your elder asked you something—why don’t you answer?”
Despite his father’s warning glance, the boy continued sharply,
“Judging by your lack of manners… I suppose that’s what comes of being a lowborn girl’s daughter?”
Seolyeon finally snapped and shoved the boy with all her strength.
“Ah!”
It was the phrase she hated most in the world.
Sohyang’s daughter.
A gisaeng’s daughter.
A baseborn girl’s daughter.
Both of them had just said it.
Leaving the fuming boy behind, Seolyeon ran without knowing where she was going.
Anywhere—so long as it wasn’t this wretched gisaeng house—she felt she could live.
Even if she became a beggar, she thought she would be fine… so long as it wasn’t here.
Never dreaming that a far greater trial awaited her.
* * *
Ten years later, the inevitable finally came.
“I refuse.”
“Seoryeon!”
The one most shocked was her master, Cheok Jun-gyeong.
To dare refuse National Duke Yi Ja-gyeom—the maternal grandfather of the current Goryeo king and the man who wielded absolute power for placing him on the throne.
Had she been an ordinary official, her head would already have rolled.
But to her, the proposal was more unbearable than death itself.
Marriage.
Yi Ja-gyeom, seated across from her, faltered briefly at her firm response but soon composed himself.
“A marriage is a great matter of human life. I did propose it rather suddenly. There is no need to rush—think it over slowly.”
“Please find someone else.”
Seoryeon cut him off cleanly, as if there were nothing more to hear.
Her blood boiled.
She had left the gisaeng house because she refused to live as a woman for men. She had resented her mother for trying to pass that life down to her.
“You must be the one. You must become my daughter, Yi Ja-gyeom’s daughter.”
Leaning forward, the duke emphasized again:
It had to be her.
The urgency in his tone was so intense it almost felt paternal, and it sent chills down her spine.
So this was your plan from the beginning…
She had only just managed to abandon the name Seolyeon, Sohyang’s daughter.
Now the name Yi Seoryeon threatened to bind her instead.
The day she fled the gisaeng house, the duke had saved her life. He took in the girl who had nearly frozen to death and adopted her. He even sent her to Beopcheonsa Temple when she declared she would become an assassin to find her birth father.
Unlike her mother, who only forced unwanted things on her, her adoptive father supported everything she wished to do.
His kindness had seemed as vast as the sea.
But to think such a scheme lay behind that generosity.
“I am not telling you to live as a woman for men. I only ask that you bear the child who will inherit the throne.”
“How is that any different from being a gisaeng?”
“He is royal blood—not some street vagabond’s child, but the king’s—”
Seoryeon cut him off.
“I have no interest in the king—or his grandfather.”
She might have preferred being a gisaeng.
She had heard plenty about the current king from the women who visited the temple. Not a day passed without gossip about his indulgence in drink and pleasure, constantly frequenting gisaeng houses despite having a queen.
And now she was to marry such a man. To bear his child.
Seeing her adoptive father would not back down easily, Seoryeon drew a dagger and placed it before her.
“Then kill me here instead. I will not resent you—even in the afterlife—for the kindness you showed me.”
“You resemble your mother greatly.”
“…!”
The resignation in her eyes shattered like a tidal wave.
Her teeth clenched.
From the day she resolved to become an assassin, she had deliberately avoided seeking her mother, fearing it might endanger her.
“I am an assassin. If you would rather order me to kill him—”
“That will not do. Not until you bear the royal heir.”
Unable to watch any longer, her master intervened.
“Your greed goes too far, Duke. Have you not already made your daughter the queen?”
Despite heavy opposition, Yi Ja-gyeom had already crowned his third daughter Hwayeon as queen. Yet less than a year later, he sought to install another daughter.
“I made a mistake with that child.”
The king treated Queen Hwayeon with excessive devotion—to the point he had not even shared her bed.
Without producing an heir, even the duke’s daughter was merely a shell. Court officials were already discussing bringing in a new royal consort.
Yi Ja-gyeom had no intention of sharing power with another family.
But this girl… was different.
The daughter of the famed gisaeng Sohyang. Even at ten, when she was pale and dying, she had shone. With such beauty, no man could easily pass her by.
He had waited for her to come of age.
And she had exceeded expectations.
Now—like a lotus shyly blooming—the timing was perfect.
“You said you wished to find your father, didn’t you?”
“……”
“Complete this task well, and I will find him for you.”
If the whip would not move her heart, he would use the carrot.
Seoryeon was clearly more shaken than when he had threatened her with her mother.
Though her father had vanished when she was five, she had always missed him. She endured brutal training believing that becoming an assassin would help her find him.
But his traces only grew fainter with time.
If this man could find her mother so easily, perhaps he truly could find her father.
Still—there was one thing she needed to confirm.
“…After I bear the child… may I kill him?”
“Seoryeon! Do you know what you are saying?!”
It was treason—regicide.
Yet despite her master’s horrified shout, she asked again firmly,
“…May I kill him?”
If this was what it took to protect the girl she once was, it was enough.
Yi Ja-gyeom pondered briefly before speaking.
“After you bear the royal heir, his fate will be yours to decide.”
At his permission, Seoryeon sheathed her dagger.
“I cannot allow this.”
“Master. This is a commission given to me.”
An assassin must not question a contract—that was what he had taught her.
“It’s a path to death! You cannot escape the royal palace guards alone!”
Her master shouted, face flushed red, but Seoryeon replied calmly,
“Am I not the duke’s daughter?”
Meaning: no one would dare suspect her.
Yi Ja-gyeom burst into satisfied laughter.
“Hahaha. I knew I judged you correctly. Didn’t I?”
In the end, she chose to become a sal flower.
Not a flower that sells smiles—
—but a flower that sells death.
