Chapter 41
“Wait—where did he say he’s going?”
“That’s so sudden, isn’t it?”
“…”
Hwang Hee and Byun Ha-yeon questioned him, but Lee Woon kept his lips tightly sealed.
Was he really a spy?
Lee Woon sighed inwardly.
“Of course, I can’t leave right away. I still have business with the herbal shop. But within a month or two, I’ll be gone.”
“Where to?” Lee Woon asked without meeting his eyes.
“Home,” the man answered.
I knew it. He was a foreigner after all.
Lee Woon smiled bitterly.
“And where is your hometown?” Hwang Hee asked.
“Seoul. Hanyang.”
“What? You mean you’re going to Hanyang?” Byun Ha-yeon repeated, surprised.
“Yes. I want to try doing business at the market in Hanyang. You have to swim in a big pond to make big money.”
“Hah! Ridiculous,” Hwang Hee chuckled.
“Ha.” Lee Woon let out a faint laugh as well.
“Come now, let’s have a drink,” Byun Ha-yeon said, raising his cup.
* * *
Evening, Nakta Mountain (Naksan).
Alongside Bugak, Inwang, and Namsan, Naksan was one of the four great mountains within the capital walls — once home to herds of cows that supplied milk to the royal palace.
A tall young man wearing a broad-brimmed bamboo hat climbed the slopes with brisk steps.
Two men with swords followed him at a respectful distance.
The young man paused, lifting the corner of his hat.
His face was handsome yet cold — the face of Choi Jaeseo, the man whose name was now whispered across the entire kingdom.
He looked westward, where the setting sun painted the sky in crimson fire.
As he gazed at the blazing glow, his mind slipped back to the memories of when he was eight.
The mansion of Choi Woo-young, the former governor of Pyeongyang and one of the wealthiest men in the land, was magnificent — nearly a palace.
Seven rooms and storehouses in the inner quarters, separate men’s and women’s wings, five detached buildings, a backyard pond with a pavilion, twelve inner gates, forty servant quarters — and more than a hundred servants and laborers.
That glorious mansion was now engulfed in flames.
Eight-year-old Choi Jaeseo knelt beside his mother, beneath his father’s feet. His father, sword drawn, stood tall before them.
In the courtyard, his father’s hired warriors and loyal servants were fighting desperately against soldiers of the Royal Guard and the Capital Police.
His father’s crime: defying heaven’s will — treason.
Execution by dismemberment — his limbs tied to horses.
Three generations annihilated — his clan, his wife’s family, and his in-laws.
Women and children enslaved.
Even distant relatives exiled.
Survival for a traitor’s family meant living worse than death.
The boy clenched his jaw, staring up at his father’s sharp sword.
Then his mother pleaded,
“My husband, my life is no matter. I’d rather die at your side than live as another’s slave.
But this child — our only son — you must not take his life. Even you have no right to that.”
“The child of a traitor is worth less than a beast,”
Choi Woo-young said, his voice heavy like water at the bottom of a dry well.
“Then we will hide his name. His bloodline will be forgotten,”
his wife insisted.
Her husband fell silent.
Outside, the noise swelled — the standoff had broken.
Soldiers were storming the estate.
“Can you abandon your parents and live under a false name as another person?”
his father asked.
The boy trembled but said nothing.
He feared death, he feared losing his parents — he feared becoming someone else.
Then his mother gripped his small hands tightly.
“You must live. Live, and one day avenge us.”
Choi Jaeseo met her eyes.
He feared everything — except vengeance.
To find those who framed his father — that was no longer frightening, but his destiny.
“…I will do it,” he said, clutching her hand.
“Good. In Gaeseong, there’s a village of butchers at Mount Cheonma. Find a man named Jae-man — he’ll help you.”
Choi Woo-young opened a chest and lifted a wooden panel beneath it, revealing a hidden passage — a tunnel leading to the back mountain.
“I always suspected this day might come,” he murmured.
The boy bowed deeply to his parents — then disappeared into the chest.
As he ran through the dark, muddy tunnel, tears of blood blurred his eyes.
The suffocating darkness around him felt like a shadow of the life ahead.
He reached the butcher village and lived as Jae-man’s son.
Years passed, and he uncovered the truth — those who destroyed his family were the current king and the ministers who supported him.
The king, once the second prince, had usurped the throne from his elder brother, the rightful heir.
Choi’s father had sided with the legitimate prince — and for that, he was branded a traitor.
Twenty years had passed since then.
Now, at the bend of the mountain path, a massive stone appeared — large enough for two men to pass through its crevice.
Choi Jaeseo was no longer the man in a bamboo hat.
He now wore a hawk-shaped mask and a white royal robe embroidered with five golden dragons.
A man waiting inside quickly stood and bowed deeply.
“I greet the Heavenly Leader, Agijangsu.”
Without a word, Choi Jaeseo passed by him and entered the stone cave.
Beyond it shone the faint light of a straw hut, and further still, a shrine where devoted followers chanted ceaselessly:
“Heaven gains, Earth gains, Man gains — the General of Heaven, Agijangsu.”
“Heaven reborn, Earth reborn, Man reborn — the Heavenly Emperor, Agijangsu.”
* * *
Ssshhh. Rain poured down.
At the palace, as always when it rained, Lee Woon slid open his door and gazed at the front courtyard of Hyeonmyeongjae.
In the rain stood an eight-year-old boy — lonely, like a stray dog.
Lee Woon stared at the child.
“Why are you standing in the rain?”
“Mother… went somewhere far away. They said… I’ll never see her again,”
the boy said, tears mixing with rain.
How pitiful… Lee Woon’s heart ached.
He reached out instinctively — but the boy vanished like mist.
As he looked down at his wet fingers, another memory came to him —
A rainy marketplace in Songpa, where a young woman sat beneath the eaves with a small white puppy in her arms.
She promised to become the little creature’s mother.
Her name was Jo Miyu.
The puppy — white as rice cake — was named Wooyu.
Lee Woon smiled faintly.
Didn’t she also say she had no mother?
Suddenly, he missed Miyu and Wooyu —
just knowing they existed somewhere in the world was a comfort.
“What are you thinking about so earnestly?”
The sudden voice startled him — it was Choi Kangja.
“Earnestly? What are you talking about?”
“It’s written all over your face — ‘I’m dying of longing.’”
“Nonsense.”
“Didn’t I tell you? In palace life, the only skill that grows is reading faces. Don’t even try to hide it.”
“Anyway, you came at the right time.”
“Ah, so it’s time for a drink, isn’t it? I already told the maids to bring the wine.”
Kangja grinned smugly.
“You’re wrong again. We’re going out.”
“In this rain?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“To Songpa, then?” he teased, eyes glinting.
“Wrong again. To the Pyeongsi Office.”
“The Pyeongsi Office?”
“Yes. It’s near Jongno Market, isn’t it?”
“In the Jungbu district, at Gyeonghaeng-bang. But what business do you have there, my lord?”
The Pyeongsi Office was the government bureau overseeing markets — regulating measures, prices, currency, and merchant activity, while protecting the monopolies of licensed market guilds by cracking down on illegal street vendors.
“Hah, you really are clueless. Remember the ruffian Jae-choon and his gang — the ones who wrecked the herbal shop? They were hired by one of the market’s drug merchants.”
That merchant’s name was Lee Chiseo, an old man over seventy — greedy and envious beyond measure.
“Wait… you mean the market men dared to lay hands on the woman the Grand Prince has his eye on—”
“What nonsense! Since when did I ‘claim’ anyone?” Lee Woon snapped.
“How can a man your size have the brains of a hungry chick?”
Kangja instantly fell silent like a scolded rock.
“I’ll prepare your rain cloak, my lord,”
he said at last.
* * *
Pyeongsi Office.
Most of the officials were out managing the markets. Only two remained inside — the 5th-rank Yeong (chief) and 6th-rank Jubu (assistant).
Suddenly, the main gate burst open.
A giant of a man entered — wearing an oiled raincoat and a wide hat. Even his wooden shoes were as big as boats.
The two men at the tea table froze mid-sip. The stranger’s presence made them instinctively lower their cups.
He wasn’t a familiar face — and that was rarely a good sign.
“Wh-who are you?”
“Wh-what brings you to the Pyeongsi Office?”
The giant glared at them, then turned toward the door, bowing deeply.
“My lord, the Grand Prince, please enter.”
At those words, both men leapt to their feet.
Their chairs toppled over behind them.
They trembled like trees in a storm as they watched the Grand Prince Lee Woon step inside.
He walked in calmly, unhurried.
The officials scrambled down from the porch, bowing deeply in the rain-flooded courtyard.
“We greet the Grand Prince!”
Their voices rang out in unison, trembling.
