Looking at such an Emperor, Sansan was regretting why he had been so afraid of this man all this time.
Others might hear this and criticize him as foolish, but for Sansan, death was more terrifying than anything else. Even if they laughed at him for being stupid, it couldn’t be helped.
He was afraid of being neglected and dying, afraid of starving to death, afraid of being kicked out of the house and dying.
You useless thing, just go outside and die. Whenever his father went out whoring, his mother blamed it all on Sansan. Because you’re lacking, because you’re a eunuch. With their only son being like this, what man wouldn’t go out whoring—she would explode in resentment and beat Sansan with a club.
It was painful and agonizing, but still he’d never thought he wanted to die. Death was too difficult a realm for Sansan to understand. That’s why it was frightening. No matter how lacking he was, Sansan wanted to live.
But after entering the palace, from some point on, he frequently felt like he was dead even while alive. And now, only when death approached before his eyes did death begin to not be frightening.
Perhaps that’s why the Emperor wasn’t frightening either. Then suddenly there was something he wanted to ask. It was a question that when he feared the Emperor, he hadn’t even dared to ask even though he’d wanted to.
“……Your Majesty.”
“Yes, San-ah. Tell me. Did you meet Wanui Han at Yeongnyeong Palace? What on earth did that woman give you?”
“Your Majesty, th-there’s something I really want to ask.”
Sansan spoke in a low voice that was almost completely severed. The Emperor, who frowned as if in pain, clenched his teeth until his jaw bulged, then forcibly held back his anger and opened his mouth.
“What is it?”
“Why did you do that to me?”
The Emperor was at a loss for words. At first it was because he didn’t understand what Sansan was saying, and a little later, even though he understood, he couldn’t understand. The Emperor grasped and rubbed Sansan’s ice-cold hand and asked.
“Are you asking why I favored you?”
“……”
“What on earth reason does an Emperor need to bestow favor?”
He was asking about the beating and rape, yet he called it favor. Sansan had nothing more to say.
“……Your Majesty, I’m in too much pain. I want to stop now.”
“I cannot permit it. San-ah, tell me who you received poison from. If I know what poison it is, I can cure it. Hmm? The Imperial Medical Bureau is where the most skilled people in this continent are gathered. So quickly……”
“……I just want to rest now.”
“Didn’t I say I won’t permit it! How can you make such weak sounds? You are my Noble Consort, so naturally you must enjoy a thousand years with me. San-ah, San-ah!”
Sansan, who had been listening to the Emperor’s roaring with one ear and letting it out the other, slowly closed his eyes again as if his strength had run out. The Emperor’s heart sank and he hurriedly brought his fingertips to Sansan’s nose.
Though faint, his breath hadn’t stopped. The moment he reflexively exhaled in relief, Sansan opened his mouth again.
“……I never wanted to be something like a Noble Consort.”
“……”
“I prayed to Heaven every single day for you to go to another hall.”
Though it was hard to even breathe, if he didn’t say it now, he felt he’d regret it even in death. Sansan laboriously gasped for breath and stubbornly added one more thing.
“I really, really hate you, Your Majesty.”
With those words, Sansan lost consciousness again. The Emperor, without letting go of the hand that drooped limply with strength drained, couldn’t take his eyes off Sansan who had closed his eyes as if dead. As time passed, the Emperor’s eyes sank dark as ink and deep as a swamp.
***
“Orabeoni, come here for a moment.”
It was not long after Sansan had become Wanui Jin. Sanwol quietly called Sansan, who had been killing time eating snacks in the rear hall’s tea room as usual, to her bedchamber.
For a concubine to bring an outside man into her bedchamber was actually something that didn’t make sense, but since the other party was a eunuch and that concubine’s own older brother, there were no palace people who found this particularly strange.
Sanwol seated Sansan on her bed, sent all the palace people out, then drew curtains around the bed. When the fluttering gauze silk surrounded the bed, a secret space was created just for Sanwol and Sansan alone.
“Always carry it on your person except when receiving bedding service.”
Sanwol secretly pressed a small brocade pouch into Sansan’s palm. Sansan’s eyes widened as he silently asked what this was.
“It’s for a situation of extreme emergency, an absolute emergency.”
Though it had been barely two years since entering the palace, Sanwol had already seen all sorts of things. That’s what it meant to survive as a concubine receiving the Emperor’s favor in the palace.
Over the past two years, she had received all kinds of slander from many people and also turned a blind eye to all kinds of slander. Through such a process, Sanwol had learned one clear lesson.
That suicide could sometimes be mercy.
“When it’s so painful that you think death would be better, this powder will help Orabeoni.”
On the off chance that she wasn’t there, or even if she was but in no position to help, if the day came when he was dragged to Sinmyeongsa, he must swallow this before receiving torture—Sanwol grasped Sansan’s two hands and repeatedly urged him.
“It’s fly agaric mushroom powder. I have some too. It’s a poisonous mushroom, so it’ll be painful when you eat it. At first you’ll vomit continuously as if you have indigestion, then at some point all your internal organs will be destroyed and you’ll reach death. So unless it’s truly, truly the worst situation, you must never even smell it.”
“……Why would I have to eat something so painful?”
“Because there are situations even more painful than that. Orabeoni, it hurts when you’re pricked with a needle, right?”
“Yes.”
“Think about being stabbed with a knife. It would hurt more, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then think about having your flesh sliced with that knife. What would that be like?”
“……S-scary.”
“Right. This is just something to have on hand for exactly that kind of situation. If it’s not that kind of moment, absolutely never even take it out to look at. Understand?”
Sansan nodded his head earnestly. Still, as if not reassured, Sanwol repeated her warnings over and over again. The Emperor was a heartless person, a callous person. After favor departed, he showed no mercy.
Once, there had been an incident where a concubine and male favorite who had committed adultery received lingchi. Since the Emperor’s concubine and male favorite had gotten together inside the palace, it was in a way a natural result.
But if you dug deeply into it, it wasn’t quite like that. The reason these two had fallen for each other in the first place was that the Emperor had bedded them simultaneously together.
Sanwol, who had similarly once slept with a male favorite and the Emperor together by the Emperor’s command, couldn’t just see it as someone else’s business. So secretly, she obtained poisonous mushrooms and began carrying them on her person.
For similar reasons, Sanwol wasn’t the only concubine possessing poison for self-defense. Poison that could kill instantly would be even better, but such things couldn’t be obtained by just anyone.
Though Sansan repeatedly nodded to Sanwol, who emphasized with a stern face several times, saying he understood well, even though it was small, carrying an object with volume in his clothes every day was quite inconvenient. So without Sanwol knowing, he put it in a drawer and forgot about it.
That forgotten brocade pouch flashed like lightning in Sansan’s mind at a few words thrown by Wanui Han.
“Even in that state, you’re still alive? Looking like that, Orabeoni is really heartless too. So different from poor Wol-i unnie.”
A few days after the miscarriage, Wanui Han, who came to visit the sick, whispered that into Sansan’s ear.
“After Orabeoni entered the palace, unnie never went to sleep a single day without crying.”
Sansan finally fully understood Sanwol’s heart. And so on the tenth day after the miscarriage, he finished his decision. It wasn’t only because of the Emperor’s rape. To him, the Emperor wasn’t someone with that much influence.
“Where in this whole world could there be someone who could love a rival wife?”
If he’d had sense, he should have eaten it long before Sanwol departed this world. Because he was foolish, he didn’t realize even after becoming like this. Now there were no more promises to keep, so it was time to open the brocade pouch Sanwol had prepared for him.
Foolishly, Sansan had become convinced of that.
Footnote
1) Lingchi: A punishment of slicing flesh while alive.
