Not long after, Wol entered the chamber as though trading places with Wei Wuyuan. She took one look at the wrecked room and the wreck that Sa Ha-hyeon had become — and was simply aghast.
“My lady!”
Wol rushed over and carefully supported Ha-hyeon’s head where it had drooped limply to one side. She was muttering about how on earth things had come to this when her gaze fell on Ha-hyeon’s leg. Red blood had soaked the white cloth through entirely and was dripping to the floor. Wol pressed a hand over her mouth.
“Just a moment — just wait here one moment.”
Apparently deciding this was beyond what she could handle alone, she moved to go outside and call for help.
“My lady, it is the physician. I am coming in briefly to check the wound.”
“Yes, please — come in quickly. Please, physician — please help our lady. The blood…… the blood won’t stop.”
Wol clung to the physician’s arm nearly hanging off it. Ha-hyeon was the one in such pain that her leg had gone numb — yet it was Wol who was shedding tears like raindrops. If even a shred of strength had remained in him, Ha-hyeon would have playfully scolded her to stop — but right now there was no energy even for that.
“Wol. I want to lie down……”
“Yes. My lady, just one moment. Physician, could you help please.”
The two of them lay Ha-hyeon properly down on the bed. The physician looked at Ha-hyeon’s leg without apparent shock and silently peeled away the soaked cloth, pressing clean fabric firmly against the wound to stop the bleeding.
“Ugh.”
Ha-hyeon bit down until his lips went white. Wol, watching, bundled up a cloth and held it to Ha-hyeon’s mouth.
“My lady, bite down on this instead.”
Ha-hyeon nodded. Gradually, the pain in his leg began to ease. Ha-hyeon stared blankly at the ceiling. As the body’s pain became something he could grow accustomed to, his heart began to ache.
He could not believe Wei Wuyuan had done that to him.
The two of them had already touched each other in intimate places, had already shared the pleasure the body could give. Even if it had been nothing more than clumsy, artless handiwork — there had been warmth in what they had done then. It had been the fresh, tender joy of hot-blooded young men chasing pleasure led by the most natural of instincts.
But what Wei Wuyuan had done just now was nothing remotely like that kind of warmth. He had used the absolute power of the Emperor to trample Ha-hyeon, to forcibly subjugate him, to try to inflict humiliation in the most degrading way possible. Grief, fury, and betrayal tangled together and scorched Ha-hyeon’s insides black.
He had known well enough that Wei Wuyuan’s temper, having become Emperor, burned like fire. But even so — he had never in his wildest imagination thought that he would try to violate someone in so base a manner.
How was he any different from the Grand Empress Dowager — who had humiliated him in front of a crowd of people, and on top of that, tried to break his leg?
“My lady, it hurts a great deal, doesn’t it.”
A warm hand touched his cheek. Wol. Ha-hyeon shook his head quietly.
“Please don’t cry, my lady.”
And yet as she said it, tears were falling steadily from Wol’s own eyes. Ha-hyeon pressed his lips firmly together. He couldn’t show weakness here. In this palace there was only Wol and himself — if he fell apart, Wol would only become more frightened.
“Wol……”
“Yes?”
“You’re the one crying. Why do you have so many tears. Anyone watching would think it’s your leg that’s broken.”
“I’d rather it were my leg. My lady. Am I not the one who serves at your side? If someone had to be hurt, it should have been me — and yet my lady has ended up like this, so I cannot escape being laughed at as someone utterly useless who can’t even do her one job. If those of high station back home were to hear of this, they would scold me harshly.”
“Calm down. No one knows. That won’t happen.”
Ha-hyeon forced his aching arm to reach out. As Wol wiped her tears and bent close, Ha-hyeon lay there and quietly pulled her into his arms. Family. She was family, wasn’t she? They had not been connected long in this strange place — yet Ha-hyeon had already come to feel Wol like blood family. She was the only one he could lean on, the only one truly on his side.
But the tender moment in which the two of them rested in each other’s warmth, sharing the ache in their hearts, didn’t last long.
“My lady.”
A dry, utterly expressionless voice doused the tender atmosphere like cold water.
“Hm? What is it?”
“Please refrain from moving — it interferes with the treatment.”
“Oh. Ahem. Understood.”
As the treatment was drawing to a close, a eunuch attending the Emperor entered the chamber. He relayed the Emperor’s command with an expressionless face.
“The night has grown very late. My lady’s wounds are also severe, and moving at this moment would be too great a strain.”
“……”
“Please rest here in Hyeongeuk Hall tonight. At first light, a palanquin will be prepared to carry you comfortably back to Byeoksong Palace.”
The tone was polite, but Ha-hyeon understood it for the order it was. Even if he were to say he didn’t want to, all it would do was make things difficult for the eunuch who had no authority in the matter. Ha-hyeon had no energy left to respond and simply nodded.
“I have…… a question. Will His Majesty be returning to Hyeongeuk Hall tonight? Oh — no, what I mean is…… to be alone in a room without its master — ah, no, a chamber without His Majesty — I was simply wondering whether that might be improper in some way. That is what worries me.”
Even just thinking of Wei Wuyuan made his heart lurch, and the words came out garbled. The elder Sangseon listened to Ha-hyeon’s muddled words calmly and then spoke.
“His Majesty will not be entering Hyeongeuk Hall for the time being.”
“Is that so.”
Right. That was how it was. He goes to the concubines’ quarters in rotation…… for sex.
“So please be at ease. Above all else — it is His Majesty’s command. There is no propriety in this palace that takes precedence over an imperial command.”
“That is a relief then.”
Sa Ha-hyeon bowed his head out of habit. The Sangseon sitting beside him had an eyebrow that gave the faintest, almost imperceptible twitch. He glanced around briefly, then drew closer to Ha-hyeon and spoke.
“My lady, I humbly ask that you please speak down to me. If His Majesty were to learn otherwise, he would be greatly displeased.”
Ha-hyeon swallowed a deep sigh inwardly. Even speaking with respect to someone older than him was against the rules here? No matter how strict the palace’s order — the person before him was a white-haired elder who could have been his grandfather. Getting words that talked down to that weathered face to come out of his mouth was not something that came easily.
Even having spent considerable time in this world, Ha-hyeon had always been of low and humble standing.
As Ha-hyeon sat with a troubled expression, lips moving but nothing coming out, the perceptive Sangseon seemed to read his thoughts and took a step back.
“If speaking with me directly feels uncomfortable or awkward, you may convey your words through another.”
“Through another?”
“If it is difficult for my lady to speak directly, please instruct the maidservant at your side. I will then receive that girl’s words as my lady’s command and act accordingly.”
The Sangseon’s gaze moved to Wol, who was keeping watch at the bedside. It was a considerate suggestion — rather than forcing Ha-hyeon to struggle with speaking down to an elder, to simply convey his meaning through Wol, someone Ha-hyeon was comfortable with. Ha-hyeon nodded faintly in understanding. The Sangseon gave a deep bow in respect and then backed away without a sound and slipped out of the chamber.
Once the physician and the Sangseon had both withdrawn, only the two of them remained in the bedchamber — Ha-hyeon and Wol. The vast chamber, ornate yet utterly desolate, felt to Ha-hyeon like a prison.
Whether or not Wol sensed Ha-hyeon’s state of mind, she tidied the bed with practiced hands. Worried that Ha-hyeon might wake in the night with a dry throat, she placed a cup of water within arm’s reach, and set the pain medicine right beside it so it could be taken immediately if the pain became too severe. Last, she carefully made sure Ha-hyeon’s injured leg wouldn’t be pressed down by the covers.
With everything done, Wol quietly moved to rise.
“Then, my lady — please sleep well.”
“No. Don’t go.”
“My lady……”
Ha-hyeon reached out urgently and caught Wol’s sleeve. He couldn’t send Wol out alone. He was anxious. A uneasy feeling crept over him — that the moment he wasn’t watching, the Grand Empress Dowager or Consort Hwa, who were always looking for their chance, might take Wol away alone and harm her. Right now Ha-hyeon’s leg wasn’t even whole. If something were to happen to Wol, he couldn’t go to her aid immediately.
“Just stay and sleep, one night. Would you lie down here? I don’t mean anything strange by it. Just — let’s sleep together. Just one night.”
Ha-hyeon said it and then smacked his own mouth with a sound. To Wol’s ears, knowing that Sa Ha-hyeon was a man, it would have sounded rather scandalous.
“That I cannot do. My lady — how could I lay my body on the imperial bed? Absolutely not.”
“Then let’s both sleep on the floor.”
When Ha-hyeon moved to get up as if about to climb down this instant, Wol threw herself in his way in alarm.
“My lady! Please. Don’t rush your own end!”
“Then could you drag those two chairs over here? If you put them together, they should make a decent enough bed. What do you think about sleeping there?”
Unable to hold out against his stubborn persistence, Wol finally gave in with an air of resignation and got up. She arranged the chairs face-to-face as Ha-hyeon had instructed, and laid a thick cushion across them — and just as he had said, it made a surprisingly decent little bed.
“There. It’s ready.”
Wol carefully lay down on the chairs. She took the hand Ha-hyeon had left outside the covers and held it gently between both of hers. The storm of a day passed, and with the pitch-black dark came a wave of exhaustion. Ha-hyeon’s eyelids, battered all day by physical pain and emotional shock, grew impossibly, leadenly heavy.
In a drifting half-consciousness, Ha-hyeon murmured as though talking in his sleep.
“I wish it had all been a dream……”
If he opened his eyes and saw a familiar ceiling. If he could hear an obnoxious alarm blaring. A world without this terrible pain, without the betrayal slicing through his chest. He wanted to go back to a life that was rough and relentless, where there was no room to ache because just surviving each breathless day was enough. At least that was a kind of pain he could endure.
“My lady. What a strange thing it is. People say that when something is too wonderful, it feels like a dream — and when something is too painful, they wish it were a dream.”
“……I was just muttering to myself.”
“How could anyone know. My lady — you only know something was a dream after you wake up. So sleep well. Who knows — perhaps when you open your eyes, everything will have disappeared.”
That’s true. She’s right. Whether it’s a dream or reality — you can only know once you’ve woken.
“You’re right, Wol. You have an unexpectedly old-soul way about you sometimes. Sleep well, Grandmother Wol.”
“……Yes. Ha-hyeon.”
It had been a very long time since she had called him by name instead of “my lady.”
