“Please bear with it a little longer. We’re almost done.”
Fussing hands swept over the top of his head. Then a heavy wig was set upon it, and his neck immediately began to ache. Sa Ha-hyeon stared blankly at the unfamiliar face reflected back at him in the mirror. Powdered white and lips stained red — he looked exactly like a woman.
“…Wol-ah, do we really have to put this on too? Disc — no, wait. I feel like my neck is going to snap.”
It had already been ten years since he’d been living inside this novel’s world. Even so, in moments of urgency, the speech habits from his past life still slipped out. Ha-hyeon kneaded the back of his neck with a grimace.
“Stop being dramatic. Do you have any idea what day today is?”
At Ha-hyeon’s grumbling, the maidservant Wol opened her eyes wide and replied with a deliberately grave tone.
“No, I mean, what I’m saying is….”
“It’s already been a full month since you entered the palace. All this time, you’ve been treated like leftover rice — a disgraced princess from a fallen kingdom — and now, finally, His Majesty has asked for you. The jewels we brought from home are completely gone now. We don’t have money for bribes, let alone firewood. If you fail to catch His Majesty’s eye tonight, forget being leftover rice — we’re going to starve to death.”
Not a single word Wol said was wrong. Ha-hyeon obediently held still so she could finish his hair.
“Right. Better a broken neck than dying of hunger.”
“I hear that the other consorts’ quarters are overflowing with silks and jewels, and here we are like this. They won’t even give us firewood.”
Wol was right. The palace where Sa Ha-hyeon resided was a palace in name only — its appearance and furnishings were worse than the back room of a commoner’s house. There was no point in feeling wronged by it. Here, in the Daehyeon Empire, concubines to Emperor Wei Wuyuan were not companions but spoils of war — hostages kept to ensure that conquered nations would harbor no thoughts of rebellion. Among them, some had surrendered early, received the rank of royal consort, and now lived in greater comfort than they ever had in their home countries.
But Sa Ha-hyeon’s homeland, Seoran, was different. The crime of resisting until the very end and surrendering last of all came with a brutal price. Whether it was treated as deliberate defiance or not, the rank bestowed upon him was a mere Jaein — the lowest of ranks, not even properly counted among the imperial concubines. While tribute women from other nations draped themselves in silk and enjoyed banquets, he — denied even firewood — had to sleep in a freezing room.
‘Offer up both the queen and princess of Seoran. Would it not be a joy for mother and daughter to serve a husband together?’
Wei Wuyuan’s demand had been cruel and degrading. Unable to endure the humiliation, Seoran’s queen had chosen to take her own life the night before entering the palace, and even the young princess had tried to bite off her own tongue, declaring she would follow her mother. It was in that devastating moment that Sa Ha-hyeon — an assassin belonging to the royal family’s private intelligence organization — had dressed as a woman and climbed into the palanquin in the princess’s place.
Even with his chest bound tightly in plain cotton cloth and several layers of silk robes worn over it, there was no completely hiding the frame of a man born with broad bones. Sa Ha-hyeon knew that. It had been a path he’d walked prepared to give his life from the start. If his identity were discovered, he had steeled himself with the fierce resolve to expose himself as a spy, tear out the tyrant’s throat with his teeth, and go down together with him.
But that grim determination had been rendered hollow — not even an opportunity had come. The moment he crossed the threshold of the imperial palace, he’d been exiled straight to this remote detached palace. The only people who passed through were low-ranking palace servants who didn’t so much as glance his way, and the only one attending him nearby was Wol, who had come with him from their homeland.
How on earth had his life come to this.
Sa Ha-hyeon studied the face reflected in the glass with the expression of someone looking at a total stranger. He was not, after all, Sa Ha-hyeon the assassin of Seoran — he had been an utterly ordinary young man who had lived in the Republic of Korea.
One day, riding his motorcycle on a delivery run as usual, a truck skidded on a rain-slicked road and came crashing down on him — a flash of light, a horrific sound of tearing and breaking, and when he opened his eyes, he was in an entirely different world. At first, he had thought it was a near-death experience.
He’d realized it wasn’t the afterlife because of the strangely familiar scene before his eyes. The place Sa Ha-hyeon had fallen into was not the realm of the dead, but the middle of a war — inside the novel his late younger sister used to read.
After that, he had spent a full ten years scraping by in a place where he could barely even communicate. To survive in this unfamiliar world, he had taken up a blade, and crawled through the dirt of battlefields, clinging stubbornly to his life. Time passed, and time passed again — and now here he was, wrapped in a skirt, disguised as a princess, having entered enemy territory.
He was certain the novel he remembered had been a warm story. At least in the beginning. The novel he’d transmigrated into was a long-form work spanning more than ten volumes — a book his younger sister had read until it fell apart. Ha-hyeon, who’d had not the slightest interest in books, had read it once out of curiosity over what could possibly be so entertaining.
The story was a perfectly healing coming-of-age tale. A young assassin gravely wounded during an intelligence mission, and a boy who happened to save him — the two of them tenderly tending to each other’s wounds of body and soul, growing together through the harsh turbulence of a war-torn era. A moving salvation narrative. That was the entirety of this world as he knew it.
To Sa Ha-hyeon, that novel had been his only refuge. For a man who had been grinding himself to the bone in the relentless pressures of modern society — drowning in debt and utility bills — the daily lives of those two people in the novel had been the perfect sanctuary. No cutthroat competition, just wandering fields and mountains to pass the time; when hungry, picking nameless berries to eat; bathing together in a clear stream; carving wood with clumsy hands to make toys, and laughing — those simple, modest moments had been the perfect “healing” that soothed his exhausted soul.
Ha-hyeon had truly loved that peace. And so, when he learned that the small, pitiable boy was fated to meet a wretched end — serving merely as a stepping stone for the protagonist’s growth — he had no choice but to close the book.
Because of that, he didn’t know what had happened afterward. All that remained was a hollow regret — perhaps he should have seen it through to the end, no matter how much it hurt.
When he first fell into this world, Ha-hyeon had genuinely embraced the wounded young protagonist and poured all his warmth into raising him. The judo and self-defense techniques he’d honed through competitive sports until high school, as well as the practical combat skills he’d picked up from years of surviving in this brutal world — Ha-hyeon had taught everything he had without reservation. He had even gone so far as to reveal things he should never have revealed, bending fate itself to keep the child alive — the child who had been meant to die by a rebel’s blade.
It was surely from that moment that the story had begun to unravel beyond all control. But there was no use regretting it now — what was done was done. He could only comfort himself with the thought that he’d at least fulfilled his duty as a human being by saving one poor soul. He simply hoped that the child was living peacefully somewhere, untouched by the chaos of war.
Regardless, who he was now was this: Sa Ha-hyeon, Jaein — the lowest-ranked concubine of a fallen kingdom. A very broad-shouldered man pretending to be a woman.
“Ha-hyeon — no. Jaein, if His Majesty should try to remove your clothes….”
Wol said, dabbing fragrant oil behind Ha-hyeon’s ears.
“If he tries to remove them?”
“You could make excuses — say you’re in pain — or if that doesn’t work… tell him you’ll serve him with your mouth.”
“Hmm? With your mouth?”
What could serving him with your mouth possibly mean. They say even a dog at a village school will recite poetry after three years — and yet here he was, ten years of living in this transmigrated world, and there were still so many things he didn’t understand.
“In other words… that you’ll play the flesh flute for him. Ahem.”
“The flesh flute? Play a flesh flute? Is that a thing? Does he enjoy musical instrument performances?”
Wol, who had been saying it shyly, seemed so frustrated she pounded her own chest with her fist.
“Why can’t you understand what I’m saying? I’m telling you to say you’ll please him in another way. If they find out you’re a man, it’s death by dismemberment on the spot.”
Only after Wol mimed it directly did Ha-hyeon finally understand what she meant.
“…No. I can’t do that.”
“If you just get through tonight, he likely won’t call for you again for months.”
“His Majesty the Emperor arrives!”
The sharp, clear voice of the eunuch from outside was no different from a death sentence. Wol, who had gone pale as ash, swallowed a scream and prostrated herself flat on the ground. As Sa Ha-hyeon was also of too low a rank to dare look directly at the Emperor, he bent deeply at the waist until his forehead nearly touched the floor.
“I-I greet His Majesty the Emperor.”
Oh no. Why in the world is he coming to a shabby place like this.
The old door swung open and the floor shook with the sound of footsteps. Into Ha-hyeon’s downcast field of vision came a pair of magnificent black shoes embroidered with dragon patterns. Then a low, powerful voice rang out — the kind that seemed capable of freezing silence itself.
“We have just returned from a visit to Seoran.”
Why Seoran. Why did he go there?
Ha-hyeon swallowed dryly. He could not begin to fathom why he would have visited Seoran.
“……”
“There, We heard quite an interesting story. And yet, why does the Jaein only show Us the top of her head?”
“…Yes, Your Majesty.”
Before Ha-hyeon could even lift his head, the black leather shoes drew right up to his face.
“Raise your head.”
An order that could not be refused. Ha-hyeon slowly lifted his head. Not daring to meet his eyes, he fixed his gaze on the Emperor’s chest.
“Oh.”
A brief sound of surprise escaped the Emperor’s lips.
“……”
“I had heard that the Seoran royal family is, generation after generation, fine-boned and small in build. The princess is quite… robust.”
Wei Wuyuan’s large hand reached over abruptly and tapped Ha-hyeon’s broad shoulders. It was the touch of someone confirming solid bone structure. A cold sweat ran down Ha-hyeon’s spine. He wrung out his voice into a strained, altered pitch as he answered.
“Th-that is because this humble consort has, since childhood, been uncommonly well-developed…. I am ashamed.”
“Uncommonly well-developed?”
“Yes… Even in my homeland, I was mocked for being large-framed….”
Is it alright to use the word ‘large-framed’? Sa Ha-hyeon bit down on his lower lip.
“Your eyes.”
“Pardon?”
As if to cut off Ha-hyeon’s feeble excuses, Wei Wuyuan’s fingers seized his chin roughly and lifted it up.
“Open your eyes, Jaein. You must look at Us properly.”
There was nowhere to run. Ha-hyeon lifted his trembling lashes and slowly opened his eyes. And the moment he looked directly at the Emperor’s face, he stopped breathing.
Features so perfect they looked as though carved from jade — they had nothing to do with the warlord tyrant drenched in the stench of blood that Ha-hyeon had imagined. To think that Wei Wuyuan — said to have neither blood nor tears — could be this breathtakingly beautiful.
But that instant of admiration was swiftly buried under an even greater shock. The man before his eyes was none other than the very boy Ha-hyeon had bent the original story out of shape to save. Ten years had passed, and every trace of the boy’s fragility was gone — replaced by the intimidating presence of a man like a wild predator — but there was no mistake. He was that child from back then.
This… is a development I never could have imagined.
It was then. Wei Wuyuan’s red lips, which had been watching Ha-hyeon’s confusion with evident amusement, parted slowly.
“From what We’ve heard, the first princess of Seoran has a red birthmark, no bigger than a fingernail, below her navel. We should confirm this for Ourself.”
Wei Wuyuan’s gaze bore down persistently on Ha-hyeon’s waist.
