Dark clouds gathered in the pitch-black night sky.

The wind was heavy with moisture.

It seemed like rain would start pouring down at any moment.

News of rain heralding spring.

Here and there, pale green leaves opened wide.

Yet the wind rustling through the door seals still carried the biting chill of winter.

The spines of those sitting in the room felt cool.

“You people, what are your identities?”

Lee Gyo Young asked, sitting up straight.

“That’s……”

Kwon Jwa Woo hurriedly tried to explain.

“I apologize. Given the situation, we ended up kidnapping the Gahap-in.”

“Call me Master Lee.”

“Ah, yes. Master Lee.”

“More importantly, are you saying I’ve been kidnapped right now?”

“That’s correct.”

“Ha ha.”

Lee Gyo Young let out a low, hollow laugh at Kwon Jwa Woo’s answer.

To think that he, renowned as one of Joseon’s top martial artists, had been kidnapped.

Unable to comprehend the situation, he asked Kwon Jwa Woo again.

“So you’re the kidnapper?”

“No.”

At that moment, Hong Woo Geon stepped in.

“I’m the kidnapper.”

“Then what about her?”

As if he’d been waiting, Hong Woo Geon answered instead.

“A traitor!”

“…!”

Weren’t we supposed to be accomplices?

Kwon Jwa Woo stared at Hong Woo Geon with reproachful eyes.

Hong Woo Geon met Kwon Jwa Woo’s gaze with unwavering eyes.

“……”

“……”

An awkward silence fell over the eighth Gahap-in’s quarters.

How long did that heavy silence last?

As Hong Woo Geon and Kwon Jwa Woo glared at each other like in a staring contest, Lee Gyo Young cut in between them.

“We can sort out who’s the kidnapper and who’s the traitor later. First, untie this.”

Lee Gyo Young shook his hands and feet, tightly bound with rope.

‘What should we do?’

Hong Woo Geon asked with his eyes.

Kwon Jwa Woo answered with her actions.

She fixed the ropes even more tightly with a cool expression.

“I’m sorry, but we can’t do that right now.”

“For what reason?”

As this was a completely unexpected situation,

Lee Gyo Young asked with a puzzled expression.

“Because you’ve learned my secret.”

“A secret… that Kwon Gahap-in is a woman… mmph!”

Before he could finish speaking, Kwon Jwa Woo gagged Lee Gyo Young.

With a speed faster than the wind.

Lee Gyo Young was momentarily dazed by that nimble action, while Hong Woo Geon shuddered, thinking ‘This is why women are scarier.’

“What are we going to do?”

The words Kwon Jwa Woo had spoken when first entering the room now came from Hong Woo Geon’s mouth.

“For now, we have to wait and see.”

Kwon Jwa Woo answered firmly.

“Wait and see?”

“We have no choice but to keep watching like this until we can make him our ally. There’s no other good option.”

“Our ally? Who’s ‘our’?”

At Hong Woo Geon’s question, Kwon Jwa Woo gestured to him and herself.

“You and me, aren’t we accomplices?”

“That’s true, but……”

Somehow not disliking the feeling,

Hong Woo Geon’s lips quivered before he closed his mouth.

Looking at Lee Gyo Young, bound hand and foot and gagged, the two fell into contemplation.

It was too risky to just release him like this.

So persuasion was the only way.

“There’s another option.”

At Hong Woo Geon’s words, Kwon Jwa Woo looked at him with expectant eyes.

“What is it?”

“We could rip out his tongue so he can’t say anything.”

A deflating sound escaped from Kwon Jwa Woo’s face.

I was foolish to have expectations for a moment.

“What if he writes it down?”

“Then we’d have to cut off both his hands too?”

“This guy……”

Kwon Jwa Woo turned her head away, as if there was nothing more to expect.

“I was joking.”

“It wasn’t funny at all.”

“Strange. Everyone usually laughs and says it’s a witty joke when I say things like that.”

“Being your subordinate must be an extreme job indeed.”

“……Where are you going?”

“I’m going to rest for a bit.”

“This is your quarters. If you want to rest, you should rest here.”

“Don’t you know the saying about men and women not sitting together after age seven? How can two grown adults spend the night in the same room? I’ll borrow your quarters for just one night.”

“Fine then.”

“Please keep an eye on Master Lee.”

“But… I’ve been curious about something.”

“Yes?”

“Why am I ‘you’ while he’s ‘Master Lee’?”

Kwon Jwa Woo crossed the room to the door without answering.

Just then, Hong Woo Geon’s voice followed her like a farewell.

“You did well.”

Kwon Jwa Woo fiddled with the doorknob without turning her head.

“You did the right thing gagging that guy. Don’t feel guilty for no reason.”

He spoke as if he could see right through her feelings.

Still, the remnants of guilt deep in her heart tormented her.

I bound an innocent person’s hands and feet and gagged him just to save myself.

How did my life come to this point?

As she regretted, Hong Woo Geon’s consolation flew to her ears again.

“This is the age of survival of the fittest. If you’re weak, you can’t survive. Even if you’re weak, you have to pretend to be strong.”

“But oppressing an innocent person is still wrong.”

“If you don’t oppress, you’ll be oppressed in this world. Don’t trust anyone. Not even me.”

“Isn’t it more comfortable to live trusting someone, rather than living in constant fear trusting no one?”

“You’ll die first that way.”

“If I die, it’s my death. Don’t worry about me.”

“How can I not worry? What kind of relationship do we have?”

Kwon Jwa Woo let go of the doorknob she’d been fiddling with and turned around.

“What kind of relationship do we have that you’re acting like this?”

“Well……”

Asked seriously, he found it difficult to answer.

“What am I to you that you’re making such a fuss?”

“Well, you are… You are……”

After hesitating for a moment, he continued.

“The Hwaseop-ja of Myeongnyebang. An essential existence for what I do.”

Hong Woo Geon looked at Kwon Jwa Woo with piercingly clear eyes.

For an instant, a bitter smile bloomed and faded on Kwon Jwa Woo’s lips.

Of course.

A relationship formed by meeting purpose and justification.

Wanting anything more would be greedy.

Kwon Jwa Woo swallowed the hot pillar of fire that had risen in her throat for a moment, and left her quarters to head for Hong Woo Geon’s, the sixth Gahap-in’s, quarters.

The wind was cool.

Her momentarily dazed mind cleared in an instant.

Thanks to that, she recalled one question she had forgotten.

Where had the Saheonbu’s 1836 log disappeared to?

[This is the timeline separator]

The king’s bedchamber was located in the most intimate and secure part of the main palace.

In the center room shaped like the Chinese character for well (丼), there was a twelve-panel folding screen painted with the sun, moon, and five peaks symbolizing royal authority, various furniture pieces crafted over years by many artisans, and plush bedding embroidered with gold thread by court ladies from the Royal Wardrobe Office.

The room was packed with items related to the king’s sleep, all according to palace etiquette, formalities, and laws.

But the king used none of it.

No, except for the sleeping robe worn to bed, nothing entered the king’s consideration.

The king did not lay his tired body in the gold-embroidered blankets.

Instead, he sat before a writing desk intricately engraved with dragon patterns, engrossed in reading something.

In the king’s silent bedchamber, only the sound of turning pages could be heard.

When would the king’s reading end?

Would he stay up all night like this again tonight?

Worry creased the faces of the watching palace attendants.

Unable to stand by any longer, Chief Eunuch Jang approached the king on his knees.

“Your Majesty……”

Absorbed in his reading, the king did not hear Chief Eunuch Jang’s call.

“Ahem, Your Majesty. It is Chief Eunuch Jang.”

Chief Eunuch Jang’s voice grew louder than before.

Only then did the king shift his gaze from the book to Chief Eunuch Jang.

What is it?

Though not spoken aloud, the meaning was clear in his eyes directed at Chief Eunuch Jang.

Chief Eunuch Jang pointed to the window, where it seemed rain might fall at any moment.

“The night has grown late, Your Majesty.”

“Has the time already come to that?”

“What book are you reading that makes you lose track of time so?”

At Chief Eunuch Jang’s question, the king closed the book to show its title.

“That’s……”

“The one you brought me last time, Chief Eunuch Jang.”

It was a book that had come along in the process of bringing Kwon Jwa Woo to the Western Palace.

“Is there something special about it?”

To Chief Eunuch Jang’s cautious question, the king shook his head.

“No.”

The king opened to the page dated December 8, 1836, when Kwon Jwa Woo’s father, Minister Kwon, was on duty.

−December 8, 1836. Cloudy from morning.

Chief Inspector Lee Jang Hyung, who had gone on reconnaissance to the northwestern region, returned. Lee Jang Hyung immediately went to report to the Minister of War.

−December 8, 1836. Rain began falling at noon.

A new recruit visited the Saheonbu office in the Personnel Department. He was the descendant of Park So-and-so from Sungnyebang, who had received the highest score in the recent military examination.

−December 8, 1836. At the start of the hour of the dog, the wind and rain grew fierce.

An order was issued to gather at Myeonwolru for the new recruit ceremony. Even those on duty were ordered to attend for a short while.

−December 8, 1836. At the hour of the rat. The rain stopped.

Returned to the office after the new recruit ceremony. Perhaps from eating too much food at the ceremony, my throat was parched. Many other officials were also looking for water. The servants were busy bringing drinking water.

The king closed the log with a thud.

There was nothing unusual in the log. It was merely a record of ordinary days.

“But why do you read and reread it?”

Chief Eunuch Jang asked, unable to contain his curiosity.

“Because it’s strange.”

“Didn’t you say there was nothing strange about it?”

“That’s what’s strange. This is the log from the night four people died. Yet there’s not a single sign of it. Don’t you find that odd?”

“That’s……”

“They didn’t conspire to commit suicide together on the same day and time. Nor did they drink poison. Yet four people died simultaneously from suffocation on the same day and time. Isn’t that truly strange?”

“That’s why there were rumors at the time that it was the work of ghosts.”

“Ghosts… ghosts……”

The king, who had been muttering softly, suddenly pointed to a passage in the log.

“Perhaps from eating too much food at the ceremony, my throat was parched. Many other officials were also looking for water. The servants were busy bringing drinking water.”

“Why is that……”

“Chief Eunuch Jang, do you know what food was served that day?”

“My apologies, but the food for the new recruit ceremony is the responsibility of those preparing the ceremony. I do not know that much.”

“Then we can just ask that person. Quickly, bring him here.”

As if his curiosity could only be satisfied by resolving it on the spot, the king ordered.

Chief Eunuch Jang bowed his head with a somewhat flustered expression.

“I beg your pardon, Your Majesty, but I hear the official who conducted the new recruit ceremony at that time suddenly fled during the investigation.”

“He fled?”

“With four people suddenly dying before his eyes, he must have been terrified.”

“Oh my, such a thing… Then is there truly no one who knows the details of this incident?”

“That is correct. But Your Majesty, why are you so fixated on this matter?”

[This is the timeline separator]

Hong Woo Geon stared intently at the sleeping Lee Gyo Young.

How things had come to this point was both understandable and incomprehensible.

He raised his hand to touch his own cheek.

Hong Woo Geon’s mind was filled with the image of Kwon Jwa Woo jumping from the bookshelf in the Saheonbu archive.

The moment she fell into his arms.

It was as if the Milky Way had suddenly poured into his embrace.

He had never felt like this before.

His body staggered from the woman who had recklessly leapt into a world that had been all about himself until then.

Was that why?

He fell to the floor while holding Kwon Jwa Woo.

He lacked the ability to withstand the massive Milky Way that had fallen into his arms in the form of her.

But the problem arose after falling.

His heart raced wildly.

With each small breath, gesture, and tiny foot movement from Kwon Jwa Woo, his mind went blank.

When he realized that the soft sensation on his cheek was none other than her lips, he felt dizzy, as if a string holding his heart in place had suddenly snapped.

The world he had known until now suddenly seemed different.

Though everything was in its place.

Only he felt unnatural, as if floating in empty space.

It was no one’s fault.

It was even less anyone’s wrongdoing.

Just the extremely natural order of nature.

The harmony of heaven and earth when yin and yang meet.

Hong Woo Geon had tasted the beginning of that tingling moment.

But even a man well-versed in all things of the world had not yet grasped the truth of the moment when affection begins to bud.

He still could not understand those emotions from that time, and it put him in an unpleasant mood.

Moreover, Hong Woo Geon truly could not understand why Lee Gyo Young, the naturally martial man before his eyes, kept irritating him.