Chapter 18: A Suspicious Person

At midnight, not even the shadow of a rat could be found anywhere in the palace, let alone a person.

In that darkness, there were those who sought out Lee Kang.

They were not the official imperial guards, but the Shadowless Legion that Lee Kang commanded separately.

Named for the fact that they left no shadow—or perhaps because they were said not to exist even in shadow—those belonging to it had no existence on any roster of the living.

They were alive yet as good as dead, all having pledged their lives to Lee Kang.

“Have you found out?”

At Lee Kang’s question, one of them stepped forward and handed over a rolled scroll.

“This is a list of all food ingredients entering the Royal Kitchen.

Among them, one uncommon herb was mixed in.

Tracing its origin led us to Her Highness the Empress.”

Unrolling the scroll and scanning the list, Lee Kang narrowed his eyes.

“Is this it?”

Among the list, one unfamiliar name was mixed in.

“Yes.

The kitchen eunuchs seemed to believe it was a rare medicinal herb from a foreign land.”

“Seemed to believe?”

“Upon our separate investigation, it is indeed a rare medicinal herb, but if consumed over a long period, toxins accumulate in the body and can threaten one’s life.

However, in small amounts over a short time, the poison leaves no trace, so there are no noticeable symptoms initially.”

Ha.

A sigh of lament escaped.

The Empress had been placing this on the Emperor’s table for years.

This was the reason the Emperor had grown increasingly feeble and dull-witted with each passing day.

He had suspected it but had no proof—until the Empress’s court lady happened to cross paths with Lee Kang near the Royal Kitchen.

On the surface, there was nothing amiss; the court lady bowed properly and waited for Lee Kang to pass.

‘To think I’d run into him here of all places.

His Highness the Crown Prince is too perceptive—it makes me uneasy…

It’s fine.

He won’t know.

There’s nothing wrong with the food.

It’s fine.’

Her inner thoughts flowed into him.

At the time, Lee Kang had pretended not to notice.

Even hearing her thoughts, he couldn’t confront her without evidence.

But the mention of something wrong with the food was impossible to ignore.

The Empress was up to something—that much was clear.

Afterward, he had the Shadowless Legion investigate all ingredients entering the Royal Kitchen.

He ordered them to trace everything from the origin of the ingredients to who was supplying them, and the result was the name of a foreign medicinal herb.

He had always thought of her as a cunning woman, but he never imagined she would be plotting to poison the Emperor over a long period.

He had assumed that as long as he remained Crown Prince, she would stay behind the Emperor’s back to guard against him—but that was a miscalculation.

If the Emperor died, he would be next in line for the throne.

What was she planning?

The answer was simple: before that happened, she would find a way to get rid of him—the current Crown Prince—and install her own son, barely ten years old, as the new Crown Prince.

You’ve underestimated me.

Lee Kang clicked his tongue and rerolled the scroll.

“What shall we do?”

“Leave it.”

“Pardon?”

The Shadowless Legion member who had conducted the investigation asked back, flustered.

Having discovered that the Emperor’s food contained a poison that accumulated in the body, and being told not to act—it was natural for him to find it strange.

“You heard me.

Do nothing.

Leave it as it is.”

At the final confirmation, the Shadowless Legion member bowed his head in understanding.

Lee Kang also turned away.

There was no need to go out of his way to save the Emperor.

That seat would soon be his anyway.

If the Empress hastened that moment, he would be grateful.

However, before that, the Empress must be disposed of.

Rather, this matter had given him a means to bring her down.

It wouldn’t be his head that fell, but hers.

“Mugi.”

At Lee Kang’s call, another figure emerged from the darkness.

Dressed in black robes and a black mask like the others, he was a man whose presence felt even less noticeable than the other Shadowless Legion members.

“What of him?”

“There was no particular movement.

After leaving the palace, he returned directly to his estate and has remained quiet.”

“No contact from the Empress either?”

“We’ve kept watch day and night, but there has been no such sign.”

“He may use means other than conventional methods.

Do not take your eyes off him.”

The elusive one was this side.

King Seongrim—always smiling as if he had no desires at all—but Lee Kang considered him the most suspicious.

Moreover, there had been one time when the Empress had shown a peculiar sign regarding him.

It was a trivial thing in hindsight.

It was at a gathering of all the imperial family.

He had seen the Empress glance at King Seongrim without anyone noticing.

And in that instant, an image of the Empress and King Seongrim in bed together had flickered through his mind.

Whether it was the Empress’s memory or merely her own fantasy, he wasn’t certain.

If it was a memory, then King Seongrim and the Empress were in a secret relationship… but was that even possible?

She was the Empress.

The Emperor’s woman.

Still, the Empress was far too young compared to the Emperor.

Being not much older than Lee Kang, as a woman, she might have found King Seongrim more attractive than the aging, ailing Emperor.

It seemed entirely plausible that the Empress held feelings for him.

What about King Seongrim?

Him being intimate with the Empress?

Anyone who heard that would laugh it off as nonsense.

King Seongrim was one of the most upright people.

He had no excessive ambitions and had always been favorable toward Lee Kang.

So if he were to recklessly suspect a relationship between him and the Empress, it would only appear that Lee Kang was framing him.

Having never been caught in any wrongdoing, he was a more troublesome opponent than anyone.

A person who must never be touched rashly.

Strictly speaking, King Seongrim was the one who should have become Emperor.

His father was the current Emperor’s older brother.

When he was diagnosed by the royal physician as not living long due to a frail constitution from childhood, the late Emperor appointed the current Emperor—the younger brother, not King Seongrim’s father—as Crown Prince.

Thus, King Seongrim, though the eldest son of the firstborn, could not become Crown Prince and had to content himself with the title of King Seongrim.

In terms of rightful succession, he was in a position to claim the throne at any time, yet he was a man who lived without greed or extravagance—that was King Seongrim as the ministers described him.

And him with the Empress…

What a mismatched combination.

For once, Lee Kang was open to the possibility that this might be his own delusion.

Even so, there was always a chance.

A small suspicion, thoroughly verified, was the only way to avoid future complications.

***

As soon as he finished breakfast, Eun-gyo headed to the Crown Princess’s residence under Court Lady Han’s guidance.

It was his first time outside in five full days since being brought to the Crown Prince’s residence.

Even when walking from the banquet hall to the Crown Prince’s residence on the first day, he’d thought it—this damned palace was unnecessarily vast.

It was easy to get lost wandering around, but on the flip side, with such a vast palace and so many people coming and going, if he could blend in, no one besides the Crown Prince and those working at his residence would recognize him.

That meant if he could get his hands on a guard’s uniform or a servant’s clothes, he could move around surprisingly freely.

Looking on the bright side, the conditions weren’t bad.

Unlike in the Republic of Korea, there were no CCTVs everywhere, and no one could track his location by phone.

If he could just avoid the Crown Prince and Court Lady Han’s eyes, it might be possible.

For now, the problem was Court Lady Han, who stuck by his side all day, but opportunities were bound to arise.

He figured he should memorize every building and path he saw, and walked with focus—soon arriving at the Crown Princess’s residence.

“Your Highness the Crown Princess, someone from the Crown Prince’s residence has come to pay their respects.”

“Let her in.”

At the Crown Princess’s permission, the doors opened to both sides.

Inside, the Crown Princess sat upright, dressed elegantly.

It was obvious she was tense, determined not to lose even a bit of the power struggle—it was rather endearing.

The Crown Princess might despise him, but to Eun-gyo, she wasn’t a rival.

On the contrary, he felt sorry for her.

“I greet Her Highness the Crown Princess.

Did you rest well through the night?”

He bowed as he’d been taught by Court Lady Han.

The Crown Princess said she was well and told him to sit.

“Please forgive my rudeness—I was of such lowly status that it never even occurred to me that I should come and pay my respects.”

He apologized once more as he sat.

It wasn’t empty flattery; he meant it genuinely.

He’d never been part of the palace, had been nothing but a dancer, so he never imagined the Crown Princess would want to meet him.

“Your way of speaking is rather unusual.”

He hadn’t known imperial etiquette, wasn’t from Sinhye Kingdom, and no matter how hard he tried, this damned way of speaking still gave him away.

He used to laugh when friends from the provinces would use awkward dialect trying to speak the Seoul way—now his own situation was probably no different to Sinhye people.

Rather than straining to hide what couldn’t be hidden, he decided not to conceal it at all.

“That’s because I’m not from Sinhye Kingdom.”

“Not from Sinhye Kingdom?”

The Crown Princess’s eyes sparkled with curiosity.

Then she immediately cleared her throat and composed her expression.

She hadn’t been born a Crown Princess either—in fact, her day of entering the palace was the same as his, so he could understand.

In some ways, he felt a sense of kinship.

“I come from a distant country that neither Your Highness nor His Highness the Crown Prince would know.”

“Does such a place exist?”

The idea that even the Crown Prince didn’t know seemed to intrigue her.

A smile played at Eun-gyo’s lips.

He felt like he was talking to a younger sibling—a considerably younger one.

If the Crown Princess had just come of age, she was nearly ten years younger than him, so it was only natural she seemed endearing.

“It’s called the Republic of Korea—a place where there is no Emperor and no Crown Prince.”

“Good heavens!

How can such a place exist!”

“Instead of an Emperor, the people vote to elect a President, and he serves a role similar to the Emperor’s.”

“That’s nonsense.

The Emperor is one who descends from heaven.

He is not someone to be chosen at the whim of lowly subjects.”

“It’s a place where no one considers the people lowly.

Every single person is regarded as noble, and all enjoy the same rights.”

The Crown Princess’s eyes grew as large as lanterns.

She dismissed it as nonsense, saying such a place couldn’t exist, but she seemed fascinated by Eun-gyo’s stories.

He’d considered himself lucky just not to be hated, but it seemed tales of another world had captured her heart.

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