It seemed the filthy longing he had built up and never been able to release had him burning below the navel since early evening. It was utterly revolting.

But then, had the Governor’s l*st for me ever been a matter of just a day or two.

That was why my face had drained of all color as I was dragged along by a man old enough to be my father. Not because I feared what was about to happen.

I had not yet poured the poison down the throats of those beasts.

Just as I thought all was lost, the man at the foot of the table reached out toward the wine jug I had left on the table. Those men were taken care of. They would drink the poisoned wine with their own hands and tumble together into the River of the Dead.

That meant the only one I needed to drag down to the underworld was Park Wonchul. With every step I took, the silver knife tied at my ankle jabbed at me. I fixed my gaze on the back of the beast’s head and ground my teeth.

I will have to stab that man to death with my own hands.

If I failed, I would slit my own throat and die. I could not allow myself the humiliation of becoming an outlet for an enemy’s l*st.

Rattle.

I was caught off guard when Park Wonchul, who had been dragging me along, wrenched open a door. Not the door to the corridor, but the room right next door.

Then the sight inside came into view, and I felt every drop of blood drain from my body. The room, lit by candlelight, had a silk bedding spread out in plain, shameless display.

He had planned to take me here from the very beginning.

And with only a thin paper door between me and the crowd of men lined up to violate me one after another.

Just how far did those beasts intend to abandon every shred of human decency? My eyes burned at the humiliation I had not yet even suffered. The thought that his accomplices might hear me struggling to k*ll him and come to stop me turned my mind completely blank.

At this rate, I would be taken without being able to do a thing.

“Don’t even think about defying me. Get in there.”

“Ah!”

Unable to resist his crushing grip, I stumbled helplessly over the threshold. I was being dragged into the filthy maw of a demon when it happened.

Bang!

The closed doors at the front of the banquet hall flew open with a thunderous crash. Standing between the open doors was a man of towering build, his head nearly grazing the top of the frame.

He looked barely past the age of twenty. He strode boldly inside. The way his lustrous silk robe billowed behind him was anything but ordinary.

He was plainly an uninvited guest. The young scholar swept his gaze over the room, where the startled faces of the guests made their alarm plain, and curled the corners of his mouth with easy nonchalance.

Then his gaze came to rest on Park Wonchul, who had been forcing me into the side room but now poked his head back out into the banquet hall. The man lit up and called out cheerfully, the way one greets a long-awaited friend.

“Governor, it is I, Baek Seungjo, come all the way from Hanyang!”

In that instant, my breath stopped, the way it would if lightning had struck me from a clear sky.

Baek Seungjo. Could it be… the Seungjo orabeoni I knew?

Even a sudden slap across the face would not scatter my senses this completely. What reason could he have for appearing here in the north, when he was supposed to be in Hanseong serving the king?

Surely there must be another person in this world with the same three syllables for a name. No, there had to be.

Clinging to that wisp of hope, I looked again at the man’s face beneath his hat. What I had only thought were refined features, carved like jade, I now examined closely, and cruelly, it was the face I knew.

But he was not the delicate seventeen-year-old boy in my memory, which was why I had not recognized him at a glance. In five years, the lines of his face had grown sharper and his shoulders had broadened, and he had become fully a man.

W, what do I do? Of all moments to be caught by my former betrothed, it had to be while men were making sport of me.

I quickly bowed my head to hide my face. Had my wrist not been held, I would have fled without a second thought.

But had Baek Seungjo not recognized me? He did not spare me a single glance.

“Well, well. Who do we have here? To think the Minister of War is here as well.”

He gave a light greeting to the Minister of War at the head of the table and then walked in without hesitation. His blue robe swept wide behind him as he dropped himself down into the very seat I had been sitting in until moments ago.

The Minister of War studied the uninvited guest through narrowed eyes and asked, “Chief Royal Secretary, what brings you all the way to Pyongan Province?”

“I have set down my post and am traveling the eight provinces.”

“…What did you say?”

“I came to Pyongyang thinking I might take a boat out on the Daedong River and watch the maidens floating lanterns. Then word reached me that distinguished guests were gathering at this provincial office, so I could hardly stay away.”

“…Word reached you?”

The Minister of War’s face turned ashen at the suggestion that news of today’s gathering had been circulating outside.

“Haha, do not worry. I did not hear it from His Majesty.”

Baek Seungjo seemed to have no intention of saying where he had heard it. He simply picked up my wine cup and held it up, studying the red lip rouge mark on it.

The Minister of War did not press further. Something else appeared to trouble him more.

“You, who enjoy His Majesty’s deepest favor, setting down your post. How did this come about?”

“Have you not heard? The interference from the Right State Councillor’s faction grew too extreme, so I decided to step back for a time under the pretense of illness until things settled down.”

“This is the first I am hearing of it.”

“The trouble likely broke out after you left Hanyang, sir.”

Baek Seungjo answered with an air of indifference and immediately brought the side of the cup marked with my lip rouge to his own lips. My heart lurched as I watched him tilt the cup and drain the remaining wine in one swallow.

Of course, that brazen act could not have come from any tender feeling. He had held no such feeling for me even in the past. Still, his conduct had been composed back then. Now he seemed nothing more than a libertine chasing after the traces a courtesan left behind.

The Minister of War, who had been watching that dissolute display in silence, suddenly curved his lips into a meaningful smile. The old man’s gaze turned in my direction. He gave a look to Park Wonchul, who stood frozen and awkward, neither stepping over the threshold nor retreating.

“A welcome face has arrived. Come sit down.”

Park Wonchul’s face twisted into an ugly grimace, now that he could not violate me on the spot. He glared at me. The way one would glare at someone who had called in an old flame to ruin everything. As if I, who had been locked in that man’s courtesan house for the past five years and could not send a single letter without it being watched, had done any such thing.

Park Wonchul flung my wrist away, unable to contain his fury, and went back to his seat at the table. At that moment, I rushed to slide the door to the side room shut. I could not let Seungjo orabeoni see that grotesque sight of silk bedding spread out on shameless display.

I could not let him see my face either. I was scheming up an excuse to flee when the Minister of War’s command fell.

“What are you doing standing there? Come here and pour the wine.”

With no excuse to refuse, I bit my lip and returned to the table. I sat down a little behind and between the two men, the Minister of War and Baek Seungjo, and bowed my head low.

Baek Seungjo’s unreadable gaze fixed itself on my face. My chest tightened.

Please do not recognize me. I am not Han Seollyeon.

“…I am called Nagyeong.”

I gave my courtesan name in a voice that barely carried. Introducing myself to the man I had been meant to call husband as a lowly woman who sells her body made me want to bite through my own tongue and die on the spot.

Fortunately, Baek Seungjo seemed more interested in the wine than in the courtesan’s face. He thr*st his empty cup out right under my nose, as though telling me to hurry up and fill it.

I lifted the wine jug with trembling hands. But just as I tilted the spout toward the cup, I realized.

This is the poisoned wine laced with arsenic.

Baek Seungjo. This man is a traitor who, on the eve of our wedding, betrayed my father, the man who had raised him like a son, and went over to our enemies.

So it is right that he should die vomiting blood alongside those beasts.

But my hand froze in midair and only trembled.

I was staring down at the empty cup Baek Seungjo held out, steeling myself, when something tied at his waist came into my view. From a distance I had taken it for a short pipe because of its shape. But up close, it was a woman’s hairpin.

What manner of man goes about wearing a woman’s hairpin as an ornament?

I was frowning at that peculiar taste when he moved his arm, and the ornament on the head of the silver hairpin came into full view before me.

A lotus flower carved from white jade.

“I bought this with my first month’s salary. I know you have already been given a dragon hairpin, but… if you wish to establish with me a household that keeps away from extravagance, you might wear this at the wedding tomorrow….”

But I had never once worn it. Before I was taken as a government sl*ve and dragged to Pyongan Province, I had sent it back to him through a messenger. Why he was wearing it now, hanging at his waist…