From early the next morning she was dragged out again and subjected to flogging and cruel torture.
Time passed, and she was hauled back to the prison by the jailers, her entire body covered in bloody whip marks.
Just before entering the cell, Go Gyeong-seong brushed past the table where the female jailers had sat the night before.
Sewing materials lay scattered across its surface. Several silver needles were stuck into the cloth.
Pretending to stumble, she planted a hand on the table
and quietly slipped a few of the needles into her sleeve.
Needles. In the world she had originally lived in—eight years earlier—they had been the means by which she earned her living. If she was to survive without dying, she would have to forget the person named Go Gyeong-seong entirely and reclaim her former self.
She had to live. She must.
Yet on the very day she was secretly planning her escape—the day more than a hundred members of the Go family were to be beheaded—On Mu-ae appeared before her once more.
Appearing suddenly in Cheonroe in his capacity as the Fourth Prince, the Prince of Yeonggun, he took her away. Inside the carriage, throughout the entire journey, she uttered not a single word.
On Mu-ae assumed she was deliberately refusing to speak with him and did not press her further. Around noon the carriage came to a halt.
On Mu-ae stepped down first, and soon a guard helped Go Gyeong-seong out of the carriage.
The moment her feet touched the ground, they buckled. After being confined so long inside the carriage her legs had no strength.
The guard gripped her arm and barely kept her upright.
Go Gyeong-seong slowly raised her head and looked around.
High city walls. Massive gates.
The spear points of the guards lined in front of them glittered in the sunlight. She did not know where they were, yet the air felt strangely heavy and cold.
The two of them walked in silence the entire way.
From the moment Go Gyeong-seong had left the carriage, On Mu-ae had been watching her continuously.
Inside the carriage it had been dark. Having seen only the quiet figure seated in that darkness, he had merely thought her thin.
But now, seeing her standing in the wind beneath the sunlight, On Mu-ae’s gaze hardened.
A pale face. Two clear trails of blood from the whip lashes crossed her cheeks.
His eyes traveled upward along her slender white neck and stopped.
Blood-crusted wounds mottled her throat. The coarse hemp clothing stamped with the word “prisoner” was soaked through with blood and had stiffened.
She was not merely emaciated; her entire body was covered in wounds. Anyone seeing her from afar would find it hard to believe she was a girl who had only just turned sixteen.
“…Do you think I have changed?”
On Mu-ae asked suddenly. His voice was low and subdued.
Go Gyeong-seong looked at him with an expressionless face. She said nothing—nor could she open her mouth.
She merely stared at him with empty eyes.
When she remained silent, On Mu-ae twisted the corner of his mouth into a cold sneer, as if it did not matter. Then he raised his head, gazing at the commoners gradually gathering on both sides of the road and the prisoner carts heading toward the execution ground, and continued in a low voice.
“I will admit it. From the moment I saved you and your mother eight years ago and learned of your status, I deliberately approached you.”
Go Gyeong-seong’s gaze rested on him without the slightest ripple. The anger was already gone.
She simply looked at him with the calm of still water.
For some unknown reason, that gaze of hers sent a chill through one corner of On Mu-ae’s chest.
He had known Go Gyeong-seong since she was eight. She had been straightforward and honest by nature.
She handled matters with greater agility and intelligence than other girls her age.
She had always been lively. On good days her chatter never stopped, like a twittering skylark.
Once she had chased butterflies in the garden and fallen into the pond; another time she had turned the kitchen into a sea of flour while trying to bake pastries she had seen in a book. And she was always startling him with her eccentric, brilliant ideas.
Go Gyeong-seong had once been like the light of dawn that seeped into his life. He had tried to resist, yet as the years passed his heart only shook more deeply.
But now not a single speck of hatred remained in her eyes. She merely gazed at him indifferently, listening in silence to his cold and ruthless words—
as though hearing a story from a distant world.
On Mu-ae’s brows furrowed. His fingertips trembled faintly.
He did not believe there was no turmoil in her heart. Looking straight into her clear eyes, he spoke each character distinctly, sharp as a blade.
“You once said clearly that you remembered nothing from before the age of eight. In all likelihood you have no memory whatsoever of the tragedy more than ten years ago when over a hundred members of the Princess’s household were wiped out.”
The tragedy of the Princess’s household more than ten years ago?
Go Gyeong-seong still did not move a muscle, yet her mind was racing. Indeed, she remembered nothing.
When she had awakened in this place eight years earlier, the original Go Gyeong-seong’s past memories had already vanished.
But whatever the truth might be—whether On Mu-ae truly sought to avenge a years-old grudge—the father she knew, Chancellor Go, may not have been an incorruptible official, yet he was never a man who harmed others. That kind-hearted father knew the rules of officialdom better than anyone.
She believed her father had been framed.
Yet, as On Mu-ae said, she had no memory of the tragedy in the Princess’s household. And since she could no longer speak, there was nothing to argue with him about.
She simply looked at him with cold eyes. A light of disregard flickered in her calm gaze—
as though all of this were trivial, as though nothing mattered anymore.
That look again. The indifferent gaze of someone who had closed herself off.
The moment he saw it, sudden anger surged in On Mu-ae. Somewhere in his chest flared hot.
With a cold laugh he seized her hand and yanked her toward him.
With a sharp pull he dragged her roughly into his arms; her body struck his chest. Thud.
He bent strangely close, pressing his lips against her ear, eyes narrowed. Countless bloodstains on her face came into view.
Wounds whose origin he could not even guess.
Split flesh. Bruised skin.
Dried blood.
He swallowed once, then finally forced out the words from deep in his throat, cruelly.
“Gyeong-seong, you are still beautiful.”
His voice trembled low.
“I nearly set aside all my hatred.”
His voice trembled low.
“But the tragedy of more than ten years ago is as vivid as if it happened yesterday. In the flames that spread through the Princess’s household, my entire family lost their lives.”
On Mu-ae’s breathing grew rough.
“It is still clear before my eyes—the moment I fled with my wet nurse through the rear gate of the back garden.
There I saw it clearly: your father, Go Seung-pyeong, leading the guards and pouring oil barrels into the flames.”
As he spoke his hand moved. Slowly it began to explore her waist.
The strange touch slid over the hemp clothing, climbing higher and higher. Up her back, past her shoulder, until at last it reached her slender white neck.
Before she knew it his hand had closed around her throat; strength gradually gathered in his fingertips. Hot breath brushed Go Gyeong-seong’s ear.
The woman in his arms stiffened for an instant.
On Mu-ae felt it. The woman he held suddenly felt unfamiliar.
Her body was rigid, stiff—like a puppet drained of life.
She had never been like that before.
In that moment old memories surged. Thirteen-year-old Go Gyeong-seong.
The night she had flushed and gently pressed her lips to his drunken cheek. The shy girl raised as the precious young lady of the Chancellor’s household, who studied the Admonitions for Women every day, daring to kiss him so boldly.
He had been astonished. And, on the other hand, glad.
Her lips had been warm; her cheeks flushed like rose petals.
He also recalled the hunt half a year earlier when they had accompanied the Emperor together.
Under a star-filled night sky, in a field filled with the soft chirping of insects, she had pointed with her slender fingers at the ladle-shaped constellation and smiled brightly.
That cluster of stars was the Big Dipper, and the brightest among them the North Star, always hanging in the northern sky…
That night he had been unable to restrain himself and had kissed Go Gyeong-seong. She had not resisted.
Instead she had gently responded to his kiss.
Warm lips. A faint floral fragrance.
Lightly trembling lashes. That night, for the first time, he had learned what it was to kiss the woman he loved.
Sweet and distant, a taste that bewitched the heart.
He had realized he could no longer cast Go Gyeong-seong aside. The emotions surging fiercely in his heart had finally swallowed reason.
He had wanted her.
He had wanted Go Gyeong-seong to be the sole exception among the Go family.
Even if his revenge against the Go family never ceased, he had intended to protect and love only her for a lifetime…
But now all of that had turned to foam. It had scattered and vanished like sand slipping through his fingers.
Yet Heaven does not flow according to human will.
Everything had already reached this point; there was no longer any path of return. Though Go Gyeong-seong had been momentarily shaken by the account of the tragedy more than ten years earlier, she firmly believed there must be some misunderstanding within it.
She closed her eyes.
Her entire body remained rigid under his touch. The Go Gyeong-seong who had always been the first to offer her lips had already drawn far away from him.
When On Mu-ae finally released the strength in his hand and let her go, Go Gyeong-seong hastily retreated two steps.
With a flutter the hem of her hemp clothing billowed in the wind.
Then she stood at a distance, watching him with wary eyes.
On Mu-ae’s hand froze in midair before slowly descending. It was trembling faintly.
He gazed at her gaunt, pale profile.
“Even if I say nothing more, you who are so clever already know how great my hatred is for your father and your family.
All those long years of silent waiting were for this very day.”
His voice sank low.
“Gyeong-seong, it is not that I never cherished you. Yet this is Heaven’s will; we can only follow it.”
Go Gyeong-seong’s gaze did not waver, yet a cold smile slowly rose at the corners of her mouth.
Fate?
What, exactly, was fate? That her father had led the charge in the tragedy of the Princess’s household?
Was that truly something her father had done? Must she be dragged about like a puppet by the revenge and hatred he had harbored?
Must her heart be toyed with and played in his palm for so long?
Fate?
Was that what he called fate?
Seeing the cold sneer at her lips, On Mu-ae narrowed his eyes. He seized her chin roughly and turned her face toward himself.
“You still have not come to your senses.”
Go Gyeong-seong looked at him with cold eyes. She still did not open her mouth.
He knew she was a stubborn woman, yet that indifferent face once again filled him with rage.
The emptiness reflected in the eyes that looked at him. As though she had set down everything between them—neither hatred nor resentment, only resignation and cold scorn.
“Fine. Laugh all you like.”
On Mu-ae clenched his teeth. His jaw trembled as if in spasm.
He had thought he had erased it completely, yet that cold gaze still shook and enraged him so. Tightening his grip on her chin, he spoke coldly.
“In less than half a shichen you will be wailing uglily.”
In the distance, officers were approaching, pulling prisoner carts.
Rumble— The sound of the cart wheels grew nearer. The moment the words left his mouth, Go Gyeong-seong’s gaze turned in that direction.
Her parents, brothers and sisters, wet nurse and governess, cousins, and even the friends she had once played with—everyone who had warmly embraced her these past eight years was there.
With ashen faces, hands and feet bound in heavy iron chains, they were confined in the carts and being taken along the streets of the capital toward the southern gate.
