Wei Wuyuan called off the hunting competition on the spot. Sa Ha-hyeon was loaded into the Emperor’s carriage like a piece of luggage, and for the entire ride, he couldn’t even breathe too loudly. Partly because the Emperor’s fury had yet to subside — but also because the carriage wasn’t heading toward Byeoksong Palace. It was going somewhere else entirely. Wol and the maidservants who had always trailed after Ha-hyeon wherever he went were nowhere to be seen.
The place they arrived at was the deepest part of the imperial palace — the Emperor’s sleeping quarters, Hyeongeuk Hall.
“Go in.”
The heavy doors swung open on both sides, and a dense, suffocatingly rich incense hit him all at once. The moment he stepped inside, Sa Ha-hyeon thought the world had flipped upside down. It was because the gleaming black floor perfectly mirrored both his reflection and the Emperor’s. It was black jade — no less. To use such a rare and precious mineral as flooring for this vast sleeping chamber.
Insane…… How much did all of this even cost.
With every step, dark luster rippled beneath his feet. He wondered if walking above an abyss would feel something like this.
Following the Emperor, Ha-hyeon’s legs went weak and he faltered. His reflection on that black surface looked strangely unsettling, almost eerie. If Wei Wuyuan hadn’t been gripping his arm, he might have made a pitiful sight of himself.
Even looking up offered no relief. Everything that filled the vast space of Hyeongeuk Hall was excessively grand and extravagant — far beyond what any ordinary human being should possess. No matter how he looked at it, it resembled a museum far more than a bedroom.
After passing through several doors and going quite deep inside, a space that could actually be called a bedroom finally appeared. The bed placed in the center of a room the size of Byeoksong Palace in its entirety was enormous — large enough for ten people to roll around in with room to spare.
It was a space that reeked overwhelmingly of wealth and power. Sa Ha-hyeon couldn’t close his mouth as he looked around in open astonishment.
“What are you staring at with that blank look on your face?”
“……It’s just — too vast. I was startled.”
“Isn’t that better than it being cramped.”
Wei Wuyuan replied indifferently, as if it were nothing worth remarking on, and tilted his chin toward the bed.
“Go lie down. I’ve sent for the imperial physician.”
“Your Majesty, I am truly fine. I have no injuries, and nothing feels wrong.”
“How can you be so certain. Since when did you study medicine.”
An attack on my credentials, of all things. Ha-hyeon was at a loss for words and pressed his lips tightly shut. In the end, without even putting up a fight, Ha-hyeon lay down on the Emperor’s bed. Lying there dressed in nothing but a thin inner garment through which his skin was faintly visible, his face burned with shame. Wei Wuyuan looked down at him and made a gesture, and the palace attendants in the chamber stepped forward and drew sheer silk curtains around the bed.
“Send them in.”
At Wei Wuyuan’s command, the door opened and the physician entered. But this time, it was not the blind physician from before. The person carrying a medicine chest, neatly dressed — was, to anyone’s eyes, a young woman. Wei Wuyuan sat in the chair beside the bed with one leg crossed over the other and spoke to Ha-hyeon.
“She is a woman, just like Yeong-ui. You should feel less burdened about letting her examine your body.”
It was the Emperor’s version of consideration, but Sa Ha-hyeon could only be appalled. A blind physician would have been one thing — but a female physician with perfectly functioning eyes? He could only hope she would merely take his pulse, but what if she lifted his clothing to examine him or touched him here and there under the guise of checking his body? It would only be a matter of time before she discovered he was a man.
No — being found out was one problem, but his pride as a man wouldn’t allow it either. No matter that she was a physician, he could not spread his legs or expose his private areas in front of a woman he didn’t know at all.
The moment the female physician reached her hand through the curtain, Ha-hyeon recoiled in alarm, scrambling backward.
“Your Majesty! I — I can’t! I don’t want another woman touching my body! Absolutely not!”
The physician flinched, caught off guard by Ha-hyeon’s intense reaction. But Wei Wuyuan did not get angry. Instead, he merely tilted his head as if he couldn’t understand.
“And why not. Don’t tell me you doubt the competence of this physician I personally summoned.”
“Th, that’s……”
“If you distrust someone I, the Emperor, have personally called upon…… there would be no need to keep her alive. Someone — drag this woman out and behead her at once.”
Unbelievable, he’s starting again. The moment he gets bored, it’s off with someone’s head!
“Your Majesty! No!”
Ha-hyeon shot upright from the bed. The physician’s face had gone as white as a blank sheet of paper.
“I do not doubt your skill at all! I was simply being a bit sensitive — please don’t misunderstand!”
Ha-hyeon turned back to Wei Wuyuan and pleaded desperately.
“Your Majesty, I truly am not ill. I am perfectly fine. So please, please let her go.”
“Yeong-ui!”
Wei Wuyuan’s shout rang through the chamber.
“There may be something wrong that even you are unaware of — that is precisely why I went out of my way to summon a female physician! Do you intend to disregard my sincerity like this!”
The frost-sharp reprimand came flying at him. The excuse of not feeling ill clearly wasn’t going to work anymore.
“……It is because it is too shameful and humiliating for me to be examined by a stranger — exposing my bare skin at that. Please, I ask that you understand my heart.”
“Over something as trivial as embarrassment!”
Wei Wuyuan seemed to think for a moment, then tilted his chin toward the physician.
“There is no other way.”
Wei Wuyuan rose from his seat, drew back the curtain, and climbed up onto the bed. He pushed back Ha-hyeon’s sleeve and placed his own hand over his wrist.
“Your — Your Majesty?”
“Speak with your mouth. Tell her what needs to be checked and how.”
Wei Wuyuan issued a command to the physician outside the curtain.
“Yes. I shall do so.”
“Then I will touch Yeong-ui’s body myself and relay the findings. Yeong-ui — this way, there is nothing to be embarrassed about, is there.”
At Wei Wuyuan’s words, the physician kneeling outside the curtain responded in a voice full of admiration.
“As expected, there is none who can match Your Majesty’s wisdom. Given that Yeong-ui is shy around strangers, this does indeed seem to be the best course of action. In that case, I will instruct from outside the curtain on which areas to examine and how. Your Majesty need only follow my guidance exactly.”
“Very well.”
“First, we must palpate the abdomen carefully and thoroughly. As it requires pressing firmly with the fingertips to examine deeper, it would be best for Your Majesty to sit as close as possible to Yeong-ui — pressed as flush against her as you can manage.”
Wei Wuyuan grabbed Ha-hyeon’s legs, which he had been sitting on, and roughly spread them apart on either side.
“Hah — Your, Your Majesty.”
She had said to sit pressed close — not to sit between his legs. Yet Wei Wuyuan’s face was utterly shameless.
“Stay still…. I know what I’m doing, so just lie back comfortably.”
Having taken his place between Ha-hyeon’s spread legs regardless, Wei Wuyuan pressed one large hand firmly against Ha-hyeon’s lower abdomen as he tried to bolt upright in panic.
“Ugh!”
Before he could even resist, his back hit the bed. Wei Wuyuan undid the silk cord that had been tying back his own hair and used it to blindfold Ha-hyeon.
“It seems you’re acting up because you’re embarrassed by what you see. Just close your eyes and imagine you’re dreaming. What is there to be ashamed of when it is my hands that are touching you.”
Are you insane! Why are you blindfolding me — you should be blindfolding yourself! What’s embarrassing is embarrassing for a reason! Isn’t it embarrassing because someone else is looking at my body?!
“Your Majesty, please take it off.”
Wei Wuyuan tied the cord firmly behind Ha-hyeon’s head and knotted it. In an instant, his vision went completely dark.
“Did I not tell you to stay still. If you keep saying no and this is embarrassing and you keep refusing me — I will personally bind your hands and feet to the bedposts.”
It was exactly the same tone as when he had threatened to have him beheaded. Genuinely terrified that he might actually be tied down, Ha-hyeon had no choice but to let the strength drain from his body. His trembling limbs went limp. Seemingly satisfied by his now-obedient demeanor, Wei Wuyuan smiled and asked the physician:
“In order to palpate the abdomen thoroughly — it would need to be bare skin directly, not through clothing, yes?”
“Yes…… For an accurate diagnosis, one must feel the temperature and firmness of the affected area, so direct contact with bare skin is the most reliable method.”
Wei Wuyuan hooked his finger around the tie of the thin inner garment covering Ha-hyeon’s chest.
Shhh. In the silence, the sound of silk sliding against silk rang out unusually loud. As the collar parted, the cool air of the chamber touched Ha-hyeon’s bare skin. Even without seeing it, he could tell.
“You heard her. Bare skin it is, she says.”
He lightly swept the back of his hand across Ha-hyeon’s pale, smooth abdomen, now exposed between the parted folds of fabric.
“Hmph.”
Like a feather dragging along every nerve, the ticklish and goosebump-raising sensation made Sa Ha-hyeon twist his waist and curl his toes tight. It wasn’t that the blindfold made it less embarrassing — it was that not being able to see made every sensation feel all the more intense.
Wei Wuyuan said in a low voice:
“So sensitive. And here I’ve only touched you with the back of my hand, yet you’re already coming undone.”
Com…… what?
Sa Ha-hyeon was struggling to keep hold of his own senses.
