“Hngk, nnghk.”
Looking down at Sansan crying as if the whole world had ended, the Emperor furrowed his brow deeply. Sansan’s scent, fluctuating with sorrow, made the Emperor’s heart heavy as well.
The Emperor felt sorry for Sansan. More than the dead baby, his heart ached over Sansan being like this. So he didn’t interrogate further about why he couldn’t love the baby. He just quietly held and soothed him.
“Shh. It’s alright. I loved him enough for your share too, so that’s enough. Now forget about it. Hmm?”
He repeatedly kissed here and there while comforting him. But the more he did so, the more anguished Sansan became. The wailing didn’t subside but only grew louder. And then,
“Sniff, nnghk, I, I want to die.”
It was words that flowed out without him knowing. A tiny, tiny voice buried in tenacious crying. But it was enough to enter the ears of the Emperor, who was kissing Sansan’s face. Immediately the Emperor’s expression went cold.
“What did you just say?”
Sansan covered his own mouth with both palms and hiccupped in surprise. It had been a feeling he didn’t even know himself.
“How dare you, in my presence, what, how?”
“Hngp, ngh!”
Unable to contain his anger, the Emperor grabbed Sansan’s chin and slammed it into the bed floor with a thud. Sansan groaned in pain.
“I’ve been holding back and holding back again, seeing your pitiful state, but you keep going on and on endlessly.”
“……Hk, ahnghk.”
“You are my Noble Consort. You are mine, I say. Even your life doesn’t belong to you, yet you dare, not knowing heaven or earth, you dare!”
The Emperor couldn’t contain his anger. Far from containing it, it was rising as an even greater flame within him. Perhaps it was because of instinctively felt fear, but there was no way Sansan could know this.
Sansan just cried while struggling to swallow pain and sorrow.
“Fine. If you want to die and follow the baby, then I’ll just make you have a baby again.”
“……Hngk, n-no,”
“I was planning to give you my seed again soon anyway. Since you’re my Noble Consort, don’t you have a duty to bear imperial grandsons? I was waiting for you to collect your body a bit more, but there’s no need to do that anymore. This night, receive all of my imperial essence. I have no intention of emptying your belly from now on. Ten or twenty, I’ll make you have my children until the day you die.”
After that, it was disastrous. The Emperor struck the cheek of Sansan, who was wailing that he didn’t want to, and roughly grabbed and spread his slender thighs. Like that, on the day it had been barely ten days since the miscarriage, Sansan was raped again by the Emperor under the pretext of the Noble Consort’s duty.
“Ah! Ahk! Ngh!”
Sansan’s desperate screams scattered everywhere. Imperial Physician Do, who had run over at the palace people’s communication, prepared to be punished and even entered the bedchamber to plead, but it was no use. The forceful intercourse continued to the end.
“Try saying you want to die one more time. Then not only your father and mother but all your relatives will die too. Do you think I’ll let them be?”
Having poured his imperial essence fully into Sansan, the Emperor dropped Sansan’s battered body as if discarding it and said. Even after that, as if unable to contain his anger, he picked up and threw the porcelain decorating the bedside.
Since the Emperor was doing this, the palace people couldn’t readily approach to check on their master lying there as if dead.
“Your Majesty, please have compassion. It has been barely ten days since Mama miscarried. This subject is deeply concerned, so please grant permission for this subject to examine him. Please look down with mercy upon this loyal heart, Your Majesty.”
Only Imperial Physician Do, unable to abandon his conscience as a physician, came forward before the Emperor and pleaded. The Emperor, who had been silent for a moment, opened his mouth.
“Come and check his pulse to see if he has conceived. If not, you shall immediately go to the Imperial Dispensary and prepare medicine effective for conception to be offered to the Noble Consort morning and evening. From today I intend to receive bedding service from the Noble Consort again. The sooner the conception, the better, so devote your utmost sincerity.”
Having thrown down only those thunderbolt-like words, the Emperor left Mianggung Palace without even looking back at Sansan. Imperial Physician Do had no time to be dismayed and first ran to the bed to examine Sansan’s condition.
***
Though he’d threatened that he would receive bedding service again from today, when night actually came, the Emperor couldn’t bring himself to go see Sansan. He also regretted to some degree what he’d done, unable to contain his anger.
“How is the Noble Consort’s condition?”
The Emperor, who had been drinking alone, asked a head eunuch.
“He only sleeps all day, it is said.”
“Hmm……”
“The palace lady Yeongchae came to beg forgiveness, saying the Noble Consort was in too much pain so she had no choice but to express the Noble Consort’s milk herself.”
Hearing those words, the Emperor frowned. Since he hadn’t wanted anyone to touch Sansan’s breasts, his regret grew even greater.
“This won’t do. I must go to Mianggung Palace.”
It was already late at night. The head eunuch, who had been hesitating, spoke his own opinion for the first time, unlike the past days when he had only silently followed.
“Your Majesty. Though it is extremely presumptuous to say, how about just leaving the Noble Consort to collect himself alone, at least for today? This subject believes nothing good will come from going further. Please look down with mercy upon the Noble Consort’s broken heart. These are words this slave offers with loyal sincerity.”
How could the Emperor not know the head eunuch’s sincerity? He too had been worried that the Noble Consort might harbor wicked thoughts, so he reluctantly nodded. Coming face to face again tonight might be a path that needlessly invites anger.
He recalled Sansan’s last appearance he had seen. His breasts were full of bite marks, and his secret place, which had given birth to a stillborn not long ago, was all torn up by the Emperor and couldn’t be looked at. And what of that small face? It was swollen from being slapped on the cheek.
With a troubled face, the Emperor downed one cup, two cups of strong liquor again. He endlessly emptied his wine cup, only hoping this night would pass quickly.
Unfortunately, he would soon learn in the most painfully bitter way in the world just how wrong this day’s choice had been.
That night, Sansan headed alone to Yeongnyeong Palace, taking advantage of the dawn when everyone was asleep. The path to the palace that had been closed for more than four months was truly eerie and unbearably lonely.
Mianggung Palace, which the Emperor had not visited for once, had its lights completely extinguished from early evening. The palace people, who had to stand guard without time to sleep due to various matters, confirmed that their master had fallen asleep and decided to go to bed early for the first time in a while.
With the fixed personnel, they had to greet the Emperor every morning, lunch, and evening, and had to watch the mood of the Emperor who got angry at every little thing, and on top of that their master went mad, so after being assigned to Mianggung Palace, the palace people without exception had all accumulated deep fatigue.
Therefore, in the dead of night before dawn, no one noticed the fact that someone had pushed open the heavy Miyang Gate alone and slipped out, breaking the silence.
Sansan walked through the darkness, step by step. At first glance it seemed like walking without a destination, but the way he walked then turned back showed he actually had a clear destination.
Whether it was because staying up all night staring at dark empty air due to long-standing insomnia had become a habit, or whether he just had good night vision, Sansan walked well relying only on the slanted moonlight.
Sansan’s Mianggung Palace was in the Western Six Palaces, and Sanwol’s Yeongnyeong Palace was in the Eastern Six Palaces. The distance was considerable. But Sansan, who had gone to Yeongnyeong Palace several times right after it was closed and turned back after only looking, traced those memories and wandered here and there without giving up, searching for Yeongnyeong Palace.
And finally, a tall tree that revealed its bare branches over the wall entered Sansan’s eyes.
“If you go back the way you came, there’s a pear blossom tree, did you see it when you came in? I thought Orabeoni would like it if he saw it, so I took care of it diligently.”
It was Wol-i’s pear blossom tree, which had once seemed to hang a curtain with profuse pear blossoms. When he first entered the palace, he had sat beneath it and eaten the gwapyeon Wol-i had prepared. It was Sanwol’s Yeongnyeong Palace.
Sansan carefully pushed Yeongnyeong Gate, which no one was guarding. A chilling creaking sound rang out quite loudly, but whether it was the time or not, no one came out to look from the nearby palaces.
Dust had piled up, fallen leaves had piled up, and snow had piled up on top of that. Yeongnyeong Palace, which had turned into ruins in just five months, greeted Sansan.
Passing through the screen and entering inside, Sansan arrived in front of the rear hall that had been Sanwol’s quarters and stopped his steps for a moment. Thinking about something, he gazed at the rear hall with sad eyes for a while. Then he soon turned his steps toward Dongbaejeon, which had been his own quarters.
Dongbaejeon, untouched by anyone’s hands, was truly like a cold tomb. Sansan, who hadn’t even worn an overcoat over his sleeping clothes, only then seemed to feel the cold and crossed both arms to rub his forearms. Following Sansan’s exhaled breath, white steam rose in the air.
