In the end, the wanderer was dragged away by the Bulatan public security bureau. All that remained where he had stood was a scattered bundle, left behind without a soul to claim it.
The man’s face lingered strangely in Shin Yigyeom’s mind.
“It’s because he’s Baekah People.”
His father had said.
Shin Yigyeom couldn’t easily make sense of that. The only explanation offered for the injustice that had just unfolded was simply that the man was “Baekah People.”
It was merely a preview of the scenes Shin Yigyeom would go on to witness countless times in Bulatan.
People drifting without work to be found. Those denied wages on the grounds that they lacked imperial identification. Those who sought help only to be beaten with clubs and driven away. And yet, daily life flowing on as though nothing were amiss.
Not a single Baekah Person living that kind of life ever questioned or challenged their own circumstances or situation.
Nearly five hundred years had already passed since they became a vassal state of the Daeryun Federal Empire.
Within the empire, Baekah People existed only as a headcount of necessary functions — and Shin Yigyeom had never particularly thought to find that strange.
Not until five years ago. Not until he first set foot in Bulatan.
“They say you were Palace Guard. Quite the distinguished figure — I wonder how you ended up like this.”
Gwak never missed an opportunity to jab at him over the Palace Guard, sneering whenever he could. Even among the Baekah People, only an extremely select few — those backed by powerful family prestige and financial means — could gain entry into the empire’s mainstream society.
In other words, enlisting in the Palace Guard, a place even imperial citizens struggled to enter, and rising to the rank of Second Guard at that — it meant being born into a good family and receiving a good education. A privilege no common person could ever hope to enjoy.
The fact that he had been appointed the mere administrator of the Imperial Propaganda Corps had been enough to make his chest feel ready to burst. Having fought to suppress his trembling, the moment he had spotted Shin Yigyeom at the site where he first commanded the prisoners — the feeling he’d had then was beyond words.
The gulf in status carved bone-deep did not easily dissolve even when, as a managing official, he faced a man who had become a prisoner. There was a kind of refined dignity in Shin Yigyeom that he himself didn’t possess and had never seen in anyone around him.
“This is exactly why Baekah People can’t be given authority. They don’t know their place, and they try to climb up on top of their master’s head. A dog is just a dog. They ought to be grateful they’re being put to use.”
Behind the torture rack, a brand iron was being heated to a blazing red.
Shin Yigyeom blinked, his gaze dim and unfocused.
Until five years ago, he hadn’t imagined he would become a traitor. Someone who had served in the Palace Guard could never have dreamed of such a thing.
It meant overturning everything he had and enjoyed, by his own hand. There was not a single thing to be gained from it for himself.
The one and only dream of his that he no longer remembered — it was just this: to spend his entire life at his beloved’s side, as his guard.
“Are you even listening to me?”
“…….”
When Shin Yigyeom, who had shown no reaction even as time passed, glanced up briefly, Gwak faltered.
The pupils ringed in blue were easily enough attributed to the Baekah People — but the spirit dwelling within them, quietly overwhelming, the force that seemed ready to erupt in a thunderous command at any moment, was something that even Gwak, standing there with a whip in hand, could not help but find daunting.
Gwak twisted his lips and struck Shin Yigyeom’s cheek once more. His hand trembled and glanced slightly off-mark, but with palms as thick as his and the repeated blows that had already been dealt, the impact was still severe.
“Palace Guard or whatever — no one can withstand a beating. You’ll be clinging to my trouser leg and crying before long.”
“…….”
Shin Yigyeom spat the blood pooled in his mouth and let out a quiet scoff.
‘Do not exchange words with the subject beyond questions necessary for interrogation.’ Even that basic principle, Gwak didn’t know.
More than anything, his beatings were terribly unfocused. The intent to cause pain was clear enough, but there was no direction to it. Rage and mockery, reckless posturing. The face of someone who didn’t even know himself where to strike, how to inflict suffering.
This man’s torture had a visible end. He would stop soon, unable to sustain his own exertion.
Because of that, there was something almost human about him.
…Wi Saheon had not been like that.
His gaze alone had been precise. He knew exactly where to look and what not to look at.
The sensation of a palm pressed steadily into the center of his chest. Force was concentrated there — none of it wasted.
It was the practiced skill of someone who had calculated exactly when to inflict pain and when to withdraw it. His resolve to face death had become laughable; he had ended up begging to be kept alive. By Wi Saheon’s hand.
Just recalling that scene was enough to make the back of Shin Yigyeom’s ears burn hot.
“Do you know what words will be branded onto your face today? You’re becoming the empire’s official slave.”
Crack — ! The leather tip of the whip came down across the nape of Shin Yigyeom’s neck. The speed and force behind each strike varied each time. Reading Gwak’s stride, Shin Yigyeom anticipated the angle of the whip and twisted his body lightly aside.
“Hold still — !”
Gwak raised his voice at the miss.
“…Idiot.”
Shin Yigyeom dropped his head, shoulders shaking with a low snicker. Gwak’s face cycled through shades of red and purple.
“You — what did you just say.”
“…Use your shoulder. Don’t start… from the wrist….”
For just a fleeting moment, a strange and terrible wish flickered through one corner of Gwak’s mind — that this man had nothing to do with something as frightening as treason.
“What in the world are you babbling about — !”
“…You’re going to be called back tomorrow anyway…, and you’ll have to do this again….”
Gwak was beside himself. It was like a cat worrying over a mouse. Did this man actually think he was something? On the verge of becoming a slave, and here he was acting with reckless nerve.
“You’ve finally gone completely out of your mind. You should be on your knees begging for your life, and you dare to lecture me — !”
“If I begged…, you’d only hit harder….”
“…….”
“And if I curse at you…, it would feel like you’d won.”
Their eyes met again, and Gwak reflexively looked away. Even with a face bloodied by his own hands, Shin Yigyeom’s eyes did not waver.
The thought crossed his mind: this man could never be broken by something like this.
Mumyeongdan, was it. He felt he could understand, just a little, why they had tried to blow up the imperial palace — and the nerve it took.
“What do I care.”
Gwak spat the curse and lashed the whip with more vicious and rapid force than before.
Drenched in sweat and consumed by frenzy, as though even that wasn’t enough, he finally snatched one of the many brand irons lodged nearby. The heated face of the iron at the end of the handle seethed with red-hot steam.
“That clever mouth of yours won’t be good for much longer.”
Gwak seized Shin Yigyeom by the hair as he struggled violently against him. Just looking down at Shin Yigyeom writhing in his grip sent a jolt of electric thrill through his entire body.
The moment he moved to press the brand against the bloodied cheek — the interrogation room door flew open.
Wi Saheon’s party burst in without warning, and Gwak froze stiff on the spot, unable even to salute.
They had crossed paths at the labor yard and were acquainted by sight, but that fact seemed to mean nothing at all to Wi Saheon.
Such trivial connections carried no weight for a man who ran the Dark Bureau through systems and discipline. And beyond that — Wi Saheon didn’t even remember Gwak at all.
What the Grand Bureau Chief did not remember, he did not remember because it was not worth remembering. Gwak’s heart plummeted as he confirmed that truth through Wi Saheon’s withholding gaze.
“Your Highness, this man enjoyed the full trust of the officials within the Imperial Propaganda Corps.”
The Dark Bureau’s Senior Inspector standing behind Wi Saheon introduced Gwak, but Wi Saheon did not spare him so much as a glance.
His purpose-driven gaze was fixed solely on the haggard man who had returned to Gamsimwon after two months.
“…….”
Beneath Wi Saheon’s undisguised stare, Shin Yigyeom stirred. The moment he actually appeared before him, Shin Yigyeom’s toes curled inward. His body remembered, vividly, the shame and terror it had endured because of that man.
Wi Saheon possessed something beyond the power to control breath itself.
To keep from being swept up in it, Shin Yigyeom rapidly steeled his mind.
It was only wavering because his thoughts had interfered. He was Two of the Mumyeongdan — one who did not feel.
He had already seen through Wi Saheon’s method. He didn’t merely drive the body to the brink of extreme pain — he made one mentally dependent. He reduced a person to the state of pleading with their tormentor, then left them collapsed in that very place.
So that every value and justification — ideology, homeland, family — fell away, and the person was left to face, by themselves, the wretched human they had become: one with nothing left but the will to live.
If that was what Wi Saheon was after, then he only needed to let go. He only needed to release what he was holding onto.
“What’s wrong. Happy to see me?”
