Goryeo's role was to end the war.
The lodgings in Dadu sat a step removed from the palace walls.
They were arranged with care.
Not so lavish as to flaunt wealth, and not so meager as to slight a visiting king.
Wide corridors layered into one another, and blue silk wrapped each pillar.
When the wind passed, the tips of that silk gave a faint, low hum.
A restrained incense lay in the air, meant to settle the dust of a long road.
In the courtyard, the chill of early spring still lingered.
Before they could even finish unpacking, people came and went.
Provincial governors.
One from Liaodong, another from Shaanxi.
Even the man who held the western gate of the routes appeared.
Their clothes and accents differed, but their eyes were the same.
How far had Goryeo involved itself, and how far had it withdrawn.
What had it taken from this war, and what had it left behind.
The greetings were brief.
"You've suffered much."
"You've come a long way."
Polite phrases, tea set down and replenished.
Each time, the King of Goryeo returned to the same account.
Not a speech invented for the moment.
A judgment already ordered in his mind.
"We could not make all of Jiangnan our enemy."
He said it as he lifted his teacup.
"If we could not destroy all three, it was better to raise one and bind it as an ally."
One governor asked, carefully,
"Would that not amount to condoning rebellion?"
"It is not condoning."
The king answered without softness.
"It is redirecting the current."
"The peace we have now holds because of that choice."
The man from the western routes spoke in a low voice.
"Then it sounds as though Yuan no longer has the strength to govern Jiangnan."
Silence fell.
A gust slipped through the courtyard once.
The king nodded.
"I do not deny it."
Then he continued.
"And that is why we must buy time.
Do not turn all of Jiangnan into an enemy.
Bind at least one power to our side.
That is the best choice Yuan can still make."
Faces loosened, little by little.
A conclusion everyone already knew, now spoken aloud and confirmed.
The King of Goryeo did not avert their gaze.
"Goryeo's role was to end the war."
He added.
"Not to decorate victory, but to prevent the next war."
Some nodded.
Some said nothing.
Between understanding and agreement there was always a gap.
For this room, it was enough.
They withdrew one by one.
The corridors grew quiet again.
Only the low sound of breathing remained.
Thus the night in Dadu began.
On the surface, it was calm.
But every footstep that came and went through these lodgings was already weighing the Kurultai to come.
A small annex, enclosed by a wall, sat one step aside from Dadu's roar.
The wall was not high, yet it drew a clean line between inside and out.
Outside, hooves and carts, voices in mingled tongues never ceased.
Inside, all of it seemed filtered through a veil and dulled.
In the middle of the yard stood a low stone lantern.
It was still early spring, and the earth was cold.
Beyond the wall, willow branches brushed in the wind and shook their shadows.
Park Seong-jin sat at the edge of the wooden floor.
He had not unfastened the black scabbard at his side.
His hands rested on his knees.
His breath was neither long nor deep.
As always.
Even in Beijing, even with rumor and hundreds of eyes hemming him in,
stillness was not something he created.
It was something he kept.
Footsteps stopped outside the yard.
After a pause, a low voice came.
"May I come in?"
Before the door opened, the air shifted first.
The scent was different.
Palace incense.
Not heavy, but it stayed.
Something had crossed the wall.
The door opened.
A court lady entered.
Not a young attendant.
Her bearing was precise, her steps without hesitation.
Her clothing was restrained, yet the cut and color carried the mark of the Empress's quarters.
The angle of her bow was neither too deep nor too shallow.
Etiquette worn into the body over many years.
She crossed the threshold and then took one step back.
The door closed with a small sound.
The yard and the annex were sealed apart again.
With both hands gathered neatly, she greeted him.
"I have come by order of Her Majesty the Empress."
Her words were short, with no excess.
Her eyes stayed lowered, but they did not waver.
The eyes of someone who had survived a long time.
Park Seong-jin did not rise.
He only inclined his head.
Not deeply.
Each of them already knew where they stood.
The court lady stepped in and chose her place.
Not below the platform, but at a low seat at the very edge of it.
A placement that pretended equality.
A deliberate choice.
For a moment, no one spoke.
The wind passed once beyond the wall.
Willow shadows slid over the stone lantern.
Now it was time for words.
Yet the silence up to that instant was heavy, as if half the negotiation had already been concluded.
"Because of my lord elder brother, Her Majesty has grieved for a long time."
Park Seong-jin's fingertips touched the wood once.
So lightly there was no sound.
"You mean Ki Cheol."
The court lady nodded.
"Yes."
Park Seong-jin lifted his gaze.
"Should I have died for him.
I hope you did not come to say I should have fallen to his blade and poison."
Her brows rose the smallest fraction, then returned.
A reasonable statement, yet here it could sound incendiary.
"Of course not.
If that were so, would I be sitting here?"
Park Seong-jin paused.
His eyes ran across the grain of the floorboards.
Old wood.
"You speak of grief, so I answer.
But if you came to deliver resentment, I have already heard enough of it."
Her hands twitched once inside her sleeves.
Her posture did not break.
"It began in Hwajoo.
And there were several more attempts on the way here."
His voice continued.
Low, but clear.
"If it continues, I will not sit quietly and wait."
She bit her lip.
This time it showed.
"Are you threatening me now?"
Park Seong-jin gave a tiny nod.
"I am."
He straightened.
Their eye level aligned.
"I am in Dadu."
"In the same city."
For the first time, her eyes trembled.
Only for an instant.
"Someone like me is here."
He added.
"You've heard the rumors.
A master of the Hwagyŏng."
The room seemed to fall quieter in response.
"Then… what will you do?"
She could not answer at once.
The effort of steadying her breath was visible.
Park Seong-jin said,
"Tell her to keep her head down as though nothing happened.
Tell her not to breathe."
Only then did the court lady bow.
Deeply.
==---*
Inside the wall, the air grew heavier still.
Before words were exchanged, both sides already knew what the other had brought.
Park Seong-jin asked first.
"You must tell me why you came today.
Did you come to gauge me?"
He paused, chose his words.
"Or—did you come to loose a poison you've kept hidden?"
Her eyes dropped by reflex.
The inner fold of her robe, beneath her sleeve.
For the briefest moment, a slight bulge in the cloth seemed to show.
The word poison caught in the air, and the color drained from her face.
The look of someone who had been holding her breath.
"Her Majesty… wishes to see you."
She said, with difficulty.
Park Seong-jin tilted his head a little.
"An invitation that only exists if I survive the poison."
His gaze did not leave her chest.
The silence stretched.
Her breathing shortened.
He continued.
"If you set it off now, you die here."
"I—live."
He spoke calmly, and that calmness was the greater fear.
"And I will go straight to see the Empress."
"And I will ask what came after."
Her hand trembled.
"I will return."
She blurted.
Park Seong-jin indicated the space before him with a small motion.
"You will leave that behind."
"Only your life will be taken."
Denial had no meaning.
This was not a contest of persuasion.
It was nearer to naked transparency.
As though even the question that had just risen in her mind had already been seen.
Slowly, she reached into her robe.
A green pouch appeared.
When it was set on the table, her hand stopped for a heartbeat.
If she burst it now, the mission would be accomplished.
And she would end here.
During that brief moment of struggle, Park Seong-jin only watched in silence.
"Who gave you this poison."
He asked.
Head lowered, she answered.
"Wanjehudu (完者呼圖)."
Park Seong-jin nodded.
"I understand."
Then he added,
"I am immune to all poisons."
"It will do nothing."
That sentence—collapsed her heart further.
Not the poison.
The instant the poison became futile.
The instant she was reduced to a mere tool.
Park Seong-jin said,
"What sin does a court lady bear."
"The fault lies with those who order such things, and force obedience."
He paused, then added quietly.
"Go back."
"And put distance between yourself and those who have calculated even your death."
"It may be better to abandon everything and return to the countryside."
A single tear fell from her eye.
A droplet so small, and so clear it seemed to make a sound.
To hear the word "safety" from an enemy—
to learn how wretched a person can feel in that moment—
that, she learned that night.
She bowed deeply and turned away.
That night, the air in the Empress's palace split.
It began with footsteps.
A eunuch on watch ran, stumbled.
The lantern in his hand swung and spilled oil onto the floor.
When the light warped, a scream burst out.
Short, high.
Then another.
Then another.
Not words, but the sound of breath being cut off.
The door to Wanjehudu's quarters stood open.
From inside came a strange smell.
Green medicinal sharpness mixed with a bitter metallic tang.
A smell that did not cling.
A smell that, if you drew it in too fast, turned the stomach.
Wanjehudu lay collapsed on the floor.
A green pouch was half clenched between his teeth.
Bite marks were clear.
His lips had already blackened.
His tongue was swollen, stiff as if turned to wax.
His eyes stared upward, unclosed.
He did not even look startled.
He looked like someone who had finally decided.
An attendant who stepped closer to confirm the body dropped to his knees at once.
He covered his mouth, but it did nothing.
Vomit surged up as if reversing.
His body began to convulse.
His breath came in gasps.
His eyes rolled back.
Another seized his arm to pull him away, but it was already late.
Those who touched, those who leaned in too near, fell one after another.
The poison spread like air.
Invisible, yet leaving a trace where it passed.
That was when a woman entered from the far end of the corridor.
A palace woman close to the Empress—So-eun.
She had just returned.
Her breathing was still rough,
and the cold of the outside clung to her hem.
The moment she crossed the threshold, the smell hit first.
She took one more step—then stopped.
The scene entered her at once.
Bodies strewn across the floor.
Light smeared across spilled oil in the dark.
And at the center, Wanjehudu lying still.
"..."
No sound came.
Her chest tightened first.
Her fingertips went cold.
And the memory she had been holding surged up all at once.
The green pouch set on the table.
The words: go back.
The stare that did not blink.
She stepped back instinctively.
Held her breath.
The thought flashed: it might already be too late.
But her body had not yet reacted.
Her heart hammered beside her ears.
"Step back!"
Someone shouted.
Only then did So-eun come to herself and run.
Down the long corridor her feet caught on the floor more than once.
Behind her, another scream tore the air.
A dull thud of someone collapsing,
then footsteps overlapping it.
So-eun staggered to a pillar and leaned into it, panting.
She covered her mouth and closed her eyes.
Tears ran down on their own.
She could not tell if it was terror, or realization.
It had not killed at once.
It had left the victims alive, on the edge, breathing for a long time.
Those who tried to help, who came close, were poisoned as well.
The poison spread.
Not enough to kill everyone—
but enough to strip them of function.
In that moment, she understood.
That green pouch had not been an ending.
It had been a warning.
And a beginning.
The night in the Empress's palace collapsed like that.
At an hour meant to be silent, poison spoke.
And its words shook the entire palace.