Chapter 57: The Ashes of Destiny

The tall man silently endured the youth’s desperate punches before finally reaching out to grasp the thin, emaciated wrists. Though it was the man receiving the blows, the youth was the one who staggered, overcome by sheer exhaustion. Sobbing so violently he could barely draw breath, the young man soon fainted straight into unconsciousness. The man, whose face had remained an unreadable mask until now, instantly contorted into a fierce, frantic rage as he bellowed at the attending servants.

Before long, court attendants clad in mourning garments carried the unconscious youth out of the inner hall on their backs. Once the sudden storm of chaos subsided, the vast hall plunged back into a terrifying, desolate quiet.

“……The Grand Consort is consumed by profound grief. I fear his melancholia will only deepen at this rate. Would it not be wiser to allow him to at least guard the child’s final path? A sorrow so bitter must be vented at a time like this……”

The chief eunuch attending the man stepped forward cautiously, offering his plea. He was clearly attempting to beg the man to lift the ban preventing the youth from visiting the funeral altar. The man, however, cut him off with a single, icy glance.

“Every time he steps foot in this place, he weeps until he collapses. How could I possibly allow him back inside?”

“I am aware Your Highness worries for his fragile mind and body, but……”

Shaking his head to forbid the eunuch from speaking another word, the man walked toward the impossibly small coffin.

Staring down at the tiny infant wrapped in fine burial shrouds, the man’s expression—which had initially seemed utterly devoid of emotion—gradually crumbled into a tortured, agonizing grimace.

He spoke no words. Yet his posture radiated a grief so profound and a regret so bitter that it was painful to witness. As the man extended his hand, the eunuch hurriedly pulled a small ceremonial book—wrapped in white silk and embroidered with exquisite patterns—from his robes, presenting it with both hands.

The man gently placed the ceremonial book inside the child’s small coffin. For a long, silent moment, he gazed down into the coffin with an intensely tender, affectionate expression—one he had never once shown in front of anyone else, least of all the youth—before finally standing upright.

In the blink of an eye, the vision shifted. Yeo Jae-won found himself still following the man in the mourning robes.

Having entered a private study, the man dismissed all surrounding servants. Upon the broad, luxurious desk finished in gleaming black lacquer lay scattered sheets of paper, covered in characters written with a hesitant, deeply conflicted hand.

Across the numerous sheets of paper, some names consisted of a single character, while others were composed of two.

Yeo Jae-won realized what they were instantly: they were names.

Draped in his white mourning attire, the man gathered the sheets of paper—pages as stark white as his own robes. He carried them toward an unlit brazier resting quietly in a secluded corner of the vast study. Bringing a candle over to set the paper ablaze, his hands moved with a solemn, almost sacred reverence, as if performing a holy ritual.

The characters—names that might have once belonged to someone precious—burned away into complete futility, turning to ash.

Eventually, nothing remained but a pile of cinders.

The surroundings shifted once more, transforming the landscape around him. This time, it was a day set amidst an endlessly dreary, prolonged rainy season.

Though the era and location had changed, mourning was still underway. From a bronze incense burner—darkly engraved with the imperial crest—a thin, steady stream of incense smoke rose continuously for the departed.

Beyond a thin, white silk curtain embroidered with lotus patterns, a massive, magnificent coffin rested in absolute stillness. This time, it did not belong to a child, but to an adult. The late master of this grand chamber surely lay within.

At that moment, the man clad in white mourning robes approached the perimeter where the silk curtains guarded the coffin like a taut bowstring. It was the very same man.

With his characteristic dry, unreadable touch, he pulled the curtain aside.

Had the deceased been the master of such a vast, opulent chamber, one would expect attendants to intervene, but the man had clearly cleared the entire hall of onlookers.

Though he could not discern the features clearly, and despite not stepping close to the coffin himself, Yeo Jae-won instantly recognized the person lying inside: it was the youth.

The very same youth who had confronted the man in tears, demanding to know why he had not been cast aside.

The man reached his hand toward the youth lying quietly with closed eyes. He showed not the slightest hesitation in touching the cold, prepared body of the deceased.

“……”

The man remained silent. The waxen, stark white face of the deceased youth was equally motionless.

After standing guard by the coffin for a very long time, the man finally straightened his posture. He retrieved a fresh piece of incense from the container and placed it into the burner. Before long, sweet smoke began to billow anew.

Standing at a distance from the coffin, Yeo Jae-won found it strange that he instinctively knew the person enshrined within was the youth, despite merely observing from afar. Everything felt simultaneously familiar yet foreign, foreign yet familiar. A strangely twisted sense of perception now fixed itself entirely upon the tall man.

The man, whose face remained obscured, parted his dry lips. Though his cracked, dehydrated lips moved as if speaking, no sound reached Yeo Jae-won’s ears.

He spoke for a long time, repeating what appeared to be the exact same phrase over and over based on the movement of his lips.

The man stood before the coffin for an eternity, until tears finally began to spill from his eyes. Seeing tears fall from a face that seemed incapable of weeping struck even Yeo Jae-won as deeply surreal.

Yet, that was all the vision permitted. Time leaped abruptly into another fragmented memory. This time, it was a day where violent, biting snowstorms raged outside.

The very brazier that had once consumed the paper containing names in fierce flames was now radiating a soft, gentle warmth, as though nothing had ever happened.

Having shed his mourning garments, the man was now dressed in a navy leisure robe, deeply engrossed in official duties with a red brush in hand.

“……I have brought the …… you requested.”

At that moment, the door slid open quietly, and an attendant entered to report. It was the very chief eunuch who had worried so deeply for the youth when he was still alive.

Yeo Jae-won strained to hear whom the eunuch had brought, but the man did not repeat the missing words.

The man—who had only displayed his hidden agony before the coffins of the child and the youth—once again wore a cold, unfeeling expression that seemed utterly ignorant of sorrow.

The person the eunuch brought inside was a woman in shabby, worn clothes, her face completely obscured by a thick straw mat. Without even bothering to rise from his seat at the lacquered desk, the man continued using his red brush to point out errors and logical flaws in official petitions, addressing her in a sharp, biting tone.

“To think you survived even after your entire clan was executed…… how impressive.”

“Is this not all thanks to the mercy granted by Your Imperial Majesty……?”

Despite her blatantly sarcastic tone, the man remained completely unbothered. Facing the mysterious woman whose head was covered from top to bottom in dense cloth—making one wonder if she could even see—the man spoke with an imposing, arrogant aura.

“I heard it can be turned back.”

“However, the only thing this humble servant can guarantee is the single act of turning back time itself. No matter how noble a life you sacrifice, or how many worthless lives of the lowly you offer, that truth will not change. Time can be turned back, but that is all.”

“What do you mean by that?”

As the mysterious woman raised her head, a gaunt face prematurely aged by severe hardship was revealed. Yet, her sharp, piercing eyes fixed intently on the hem of the man’s navy robe as she carefully chose her words.

“You may remember absolutely nothing. You will lose every single memory you currently possess, and you will even forget the very fact that time was turned back. Even so, do you truly wish to turn it back?”

Setting his fine red-ink brush across the inkstone, the man’s brow furrowed slightly.

“Will …… also remember nothing?”

“Yes. Most likely, …… will not know that time was turned back. Since the child knows nothing of this spell, that much is certain. However, whether ……’s memories will remain intact or fragmented is something even this humble servant cannot guarantee.”

“Time can be turned back, but that is all, is it……”

The man repeated her words softly, as if digesting the weight of her warning.

“What must be done?”

“The life of …… is required.”

At the woman’s surprisingly calm declaration—spoken as though she feared nothing in this world—the chief eunuch standing nearby turned pale with terror, shouting, “You impudent wench!” But the man raised a hand, stopping him with absolute composure.

“Will that suffice?”

“Yes.”

Even upon hearing that a life must be offered as a sacrifice, the man displayed neither shock nor displeasure. He accepted the reality with complete apathy, instructing her to wait until summoned as he needed time to settle his affairs, before sending the woman away.

The chief eunuch stepped closer to the man with an utterly frantic expression. But before he could even utter a word of protest, the man picked up his red brush, resumed scanning the petitions, and spoke in an indifferent, detached voice.

“Now, move Anok’s mortuary tablet to the Imperial Ancestral Shrine.”

The moment that name—unheard throughout the entire vision—finally echoed with crystalline clarity for the first and last time, Yeo Jae-won snapped awake from the excruciating pain of his lost memories.

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