Shin Yigyeom had been confirmed as part of the Mumyeongdan’s chain of command, and a series of procedures had been carried out to break him and extract a confession. One more procedure remained.
The Traitor Execution Consent Form (逆徒 執行 同意文).
Only then did Shin Yigyeom look down at the yellow document he had assumed had nothing to do with him.
“…What is this.”
“Do not make eye contact with the Grand Bureau Chief.”
The Deputy Commander standing behind him jabbed the end of his scabbard into Shin Yigyeom’s back, reiterating a fact he had already stated multiple times.
Shin Yigyeom, feigning indifference, slowly withdrew his gaze from Wi Saheon and read through the contents written on the yellow document once more.
It was an execution approval for the remaining members of the Mumyeongdan. There was no argument about the reason for punishment or the charges. Below the list of names, only the phrase “scheduled for execution” was written, bluntly and without elaboration.
Shin Yigyeom’s eyes flickered wide at Three’s real name recorded there.
“Well?”
“…….”
“They’re all names you know, aren’t they?”
“…….”
Shin Yigyeom’s lips parted slightly, then pressed firmly shut.
When Mumyeongdan members first introduced themselves, they had exchanged real names just once.
‘Gil Jaesik’ was Three’s real name. He was a comrade more precious than any friend.
“Or is it only some of them?”
Wi Saheon pressed on without pause.
“Which one is Three.”
Wi Saheon’s finger landed on the center of the document. Three’s execution date was two days from now.
“Did he receive the same training as you, or only the same orders?”
“…….”
“Both, then.”
His tone of verification already carried the cadence of someone who knew the answer.
Whether they were only organizationally linked or merely shared a command structure, the fact remained unchanged — Three and Shin Yigyeom, both members of the Mumyeongdan, were an armed anti-state force.
“Do you think Three believed you would succeed in your mission and survive to the end?”
“…….”
Shin Yigyeom blinked rapidly and continued to say nothing. Answering yes would mean betraying Three’s expectations, and answering no would prove it had been a worthless sacrifice from the very beginning.
Wi Saheon knew how to soil a person’s convictions and values without ever laying a hand on them.
“Of course, the execution will proceed even if you don’t sign.”
Shin Yigyeom did not move toward the signature field, but then, he had never been given any power of decision to begin with.
Then why was this procedure being carried out?
Shin Yigyeom shifted his gaze. At the top of the document, an official seal had been stamped. Wi Saheon’s approval was already complete. Since the Mumyeongdan had already been confirmed as a treasonous organization, his sole authorization was sufficient grounds for execution.
“The Dark Bureau keeps records. A record that those who were executed existed — and alongside it.”
Shin Yigyeom kept his gaze lowered and waited for the rest of his words.
“A record that the one who survived gave his consent.”
In the end, this procedure was not for the execution itself — it was for the record.
Wi Saheon pressed his fingertip against the edge of the document to hold it in place. As though to keep it from being swept away by the wind. As though to keep it from escaping anywhere.
“You will be that witness.”
Wi Saheon neither persuaded nor threatened. He was informing Shin Yigyeom that this was simply how things would be.
“…….”
Shin Yigyeom’s eyes grew eerily calm.
Members of the Mumyeongdan had no names. Unless they succeeded in their mission, their existence — their lives — would dissolve into thin air.
Deaths that go unrecorded will disappear. Without leaving a trace in anyone’s memory.
But Gil Jaesik’s name, at least, could be preserved. As a traitor, perhaps — but that was only the Empire’s perspective.
“It seems those rotting in power have no sense of shame.”
Shin Yigyeom’s eyes gleamed with a quiet, otherworldly light. A faint smile, difficult to read, caught at the corners of his cracked and broken lips.
Those who swung their swords without restraint, believing the current seat of power would last forever, had always paid the price befitting their arrogance. It was a truth that history had always taught by repeating itself.
The arrogant man before him would meet that same end before long.
“Is that so. Shame is something only the powerless feel.”
Wi Saheon rested his chin in his hand and stared intently into Shin Yigyeom’s eyes.
Shin Yigyeom held his smile without wavering.
“…Very well. I will sign.”
Wi Saheon did not hand over the ink brush. He waited for the one who had said he would sign to come forward on his own.
“Are you prepared to survive?”
A cold, thin smile rose at the corner of his mouth.
Having determined that everything Wi Saheon said was psychological warfare, Shin Yigyeom refused to be drawn in. I need to find out what this man’s weakness is first, he thought.
Without a word, Shin Yigyeom picked up the ink brush resting before Wi Saheon and barely managed to shift it into his left hand.
“Your Excellency, this man’s hand—”
The administrator frowned.
Shin Yigyeom had removed his bandages. The burn scar on his left palm had not fully healed. The bandages had been replaced with new ones the day after the Chunheunggi had come, but Shin Yigyeom had not left them alone.
The edges of his palm, scorched a deep angry red by the branding iron, were rough and uneven, as though flesh had been forcibly torn away and pressed back together, and even the slightest movement caused blood to seep through.
Treatment had been kept to a bare minimum. Only enough to prevent infection and keep him capable of enduring further torture.
Wi Saheon kept his gaze fixed on the scar and spoke.
“Leave it. He must sign with his own hand.”
“Of course.”
Shin Yigyeom closed his fist around the ink brush. Pain spread across his palm, but he kept his gaze fixed solely on Three’s name.
Then, for a moment, he was caught in a torment of conscience.
Was he prolonging his own life by sending his comrade away with his own hands. Even as he inscribed a record of treason.
His justification — that he was leaving behind testimony — was, regardless of intent, also an act of consenting to the Empire’s judgment that Gil Jaesik’s death was rightful.
Shin Yigyeom closed his eyes for the briefest moment.
This man… had he intended that.
“Fine penmanship. What did Gil Jaesik say when he saw your handwriting?”
“…….”
The tip of Shin Yigyeom’s ink brush slipped. One stroke came down with unusual force, and the ink bled outward. The flesh inside his palm felt as though it was tearing open again, but Shin Yigyeom maintained his script to the very end.
Wi Saheon’s single remark had dealt Shin Yigyeom an emotional blow that made it nearly impossible to sit there with a clear head.
The time he had spent as a Mumyeongdan member alongside Three.
Gil Jaesik had been the only one close to his age, but their personalities clashed so much that they had fought often — yet in truth, he was a man of deep feeling and unwavering loyalty.
He had loved jeolpyeon so much that he would say, like a refrain, that he could spend his whole life eating only that. And he never missed a chance to boast that the woman he had left behind in his hometown brewed makgeolli like no one else.
He had said that when the mission was over, they would call each other by name — that they would have a warm bowl of taro soup and share a cup of makgeolli together. He had even extended his little finger, saying that when that day came, Shin Yigyeom had to tell him his real name.
“It’s done.”
Having barely finished signing, Shin Yigyeom set his throbbing left hand down on the desk.
His signature now sat beneath the determination that Gil Jaesik was a traitor. As the one who had approved a comrade’s death.
“No regrets?”
Wi Saheon took the yellow document and asked matter-of-factly, his eyes lingering on Shin Yigyeom’s signature.
“None.”
At Shin Yigyeom’s clean, unhesitating answer, Wi Saheon smiled.
After a brief pause, Shin Yigyeom’s eyes glimmered with a still, quiet light.
“Might I ask that my execution date be moved forward.”
It was a remark thrown out to draw a reaction from Wi Saheon.
He needed to confirm it. What weakness Wi Saheon had. How far he could be shaken.
Why was Three being executed before him?
If the suspicion that Wi Saheon was delaying his execution was true, there was room for negotiation. In that case, he could use his own life as a bargaining chip.
The Deputy Commander gathered the documents and glanced silently at Wi Saheon. He had already risen from his seat and was prepared to leave the administrative office.
“Did I give you permission to ask questions?”
Without so much as a sidelong glance at Shin Yigyeom, Wi Saheon walked out of the administrative office.
The Deputy Commander followed behind him, casting Shin Yigyeom a sharp, cutting look as he left.
Left alone, Shin Yigyeom stared at the glass lamp casting a cold blue light in the vacuum-like air. A short, involuntary sigh slipped from him.
“…….”
The attempt just now had failed. Wi Saheon had revealed nothing, and he had gained nothing.
It had been a mistake from the start — trying to rattle the other man with a momentary surge of emotion. Nothing could be moved by an unverified instinct.
Far from gauging Wi Saheon’s weakness, his own fate was entirely in that man’s hands. The day he would die, the manner in which he would die. The power over his own life and death was in the hands of the person toward whom he harbored his deepest resentment.
…When that time comes, another Mumyeongdan member will sign the consent form.
They will vanish from the execution ground one by one, bearing the guilt of having survived by sending each other to their deaths.
And above those records, Wi Saheon’s seal will always be stamped. The name that sanctions the end of the Mumyeongdan.
The annex deep in the eastern part of the imperial palace stood apart from the main hall, yet flaunted a hierarchy that was brazen rather than understated.
The pavilion, erected upon a high stone platform, had gilded ornaments hanging from every eave, glinting in the sunlight and swaying ever so slightly.
The pillars were painted red, but not a simple flat red — lacquer had been laid down with a thin dusting of gold powder over it, so their depth seemed to shift depending on the angle. It was an ostentatious style through and through.
The Senior Inspector cleared his throat and came to a stop before the door.
