Chapter 4 #2
“She must go without—” Haewon paused. Words from a ladies’ etiquette manual prickled at the back of her mind: A girl without her veil invites ruin. “Very well, I’ll get it. You help my sister hide, and ensure that no one sees her.”
Haewon rushed around the room, her heart beating in quick, painful stabs. Finally the bright green silk snared her attention. Her sister’s veil was on the floor by a folding screen, and she had left her money pouch there, too. Haewon grabbed both, then froze as the doors slid open.
She lunged behind the folding screen, squeezing into the shadows.
A second passed.
Then two.
Then an eternity.
It was a party of men in conversation, voices muffled under the roar of panic in Haewon’s ears. As her heartbeat slowed, the pounding in her ears eased, and she was able to hear bits and pieces.
“This small gathering has turned into a rather large one … Lord Yu looks absolutely displeased … I didn’t think everyone would come … No, I didn’t intend for this to be a literary gathering like old times, but you all have brought your books! Except Lord Yu … He is positively glowering. Ha!”
Haewon listened, heard the clinking of wine bottles, the gisaeng entertainers joining the conversation. She was too focused on devising an escape plan to listen, until a familiar name was mentioned.
“Everyone is talking about the ban being reinforced,” one gentleman said. “Did you hear King Jeongjo’s criticism of Black Lotus?”
Haewon straightened.
“That is old news. The author’s works have become so well loved among the populace that the king has designated Black Lotus as the newest culprit behind the corruption of the writing culture,” another gentleman replied.
“If I recall correctly, His Majesty said Black Lotus’s work was ‘rough, coarse, and inelegant.’”
Haewon knew the rest, criticism she’d perhaps taken too personally.
The whole book is more suited to heathens than to intelligent, respectable people.
She waited to hear the opinions of those beyond her hiding place.
If they were in agreement with the king, then she was hiding from not only strangers, but strangers she loathed.
“Some say,” another scratchy voice chimed in, “it was the king’s distaste for the writings of those like Black Lotus and Yeonam that led to the reinforcement of the edict in the first place.”
“No, no,” came a fourth voice. “I heard it was because ancestral tablets were broken by Catholics a few months ago. That’s what sparked it.
You know the fear—that there’s Western teachings hidden in the pages of novels.
And as fear grows in the government, the laws will grow harsher, too.
And Black Lotus’s works do have a rather unorthodox streak to them, don’t you think? ”
“Oh, quite unorthodox!” a high-pitched male voice replied. “You can sense the author’s curiosity regarding Western ideas, but I never once sensed anti-Confucian or anti-state sentiments in his work—”
“You refer to Black Lotus as a man,” someone noted. “Do you really think the author is a man? There are so many conflicting rumors.”
As the men discussed, Haewon wished she could join the conversation.
Most female patrons she’d spoken with were convinced that Black Lotus was a woman, and they all quoted the same line from Black Lotus’s fifth volume as evidence: Give her a novel, a window to look out, for the walls that hide her are too high to scale.
No man could write with such understanding.
“I have no interest in Black Lotus’s identity,” another gentleman brightly declared. “I like to read without seeking a thorough understanding. I read merely out of habit. So whether Black Lotus is a man or woman, I have no thoughts on this matter.”
“How like you, Young Master Byeongho,” someone said. “You have no thoughts on most matters.”
Chuckles arose.
“I am, however,” continued this gentleman named Byeongho, “very curious to know what Lord Yu must be thinking so quietly in his corner. Tell us. What are your thoughts on Black Lotus?”
Silence fell.
A silence so complete, accentuated by a rumble of laughter in the next chamber.
Everyone, it seemed, was holding their breath.
She had to look.
Haewon shifted, ever so slightly, to peer through a hole in the folding screen.
Others before her must have hidden here to spy—on what, she didn’t wish to know.
She followed the direction of the stares, and her attention settled on a lone figure standing near the latticed window—the same one she had shoved Yeonhee out of.
The setting sun cast deep shadows across his sculpted, imperious face and silhouetted his graceful figure.
He was tall and had broad, well-shaped shoulders that no scholar had any business possessing.
Lord Yu finally glanced over his shoulder. “My thoughts?”
His voice sent a little shiver down her spine, so low and rich, threaded with a husky warmth. But the strange sensation she felt vanished as he spoke on.
“The writings of Black Lotus, and those like him, are stories we enjoyed in our youth. Writing we ought to grow out of. Novels like the works of Black Lotus are anti-ideology; they stir up one’s emotions, make us change our thoughts and beliefs.
Black Lotus’s works, in particular, are more frivolous adventures than they are stories with moral lessons behind them.
His Majesty realized this; he recognizes the danger in such unorthodox books and knew it would make us stray from the Confucian way. ”
Her ears burned. Irritation flared, hot smoke curling in her chest. And she resented how silent the party remained.
“You all ought to exercise more caution,” Lord Yu went on. “It is reckless, gathering here to discuss forbidden novels. I’ve heard that the king has already dismissed five officials who were caught reading the like.”
“It is why we are gathered here,” a gentleman countered nervously. “A house of secrets.”
“And do you truly believe secrets remain so?” Lord Yu turned to stare out the window again, as though thoroughly unimpressed by his company. “If you continue to read writings by literary rebels, the king will inevitably find out.”
Haewon held back a scoff. She had never heard anyone speak like this, going on and on despite the great discomfort of others.
With such frankness, so little worry about offending.
He must be rich and powerful, for she noticed such people tended to be very blunt.
They never needed to accommodate the feelings of others.
So caught up in outrage, as though Lord Yu had offended her personally, Haewon didn’t notice the passing of time—until she heard, somewhere outside, a loud hiccup followed by her sister calling out for her. “Eonniiiiii? Where are you?”
Haewon clamped her hands over her mouth. She had moved ever so carefully, her knuckles only just barely brushing up against the screen. But as though she had kicked the screen down, Lord Yu turned to stare in her direction.
Her eyes widened as he wandered over to the side of the room, close to the back where the folding screen stood. Standing where he could fully see her.
And he was staring directly at her.