Chapter 33
The world had become an ocean, cold and silent.
Without thinking or feeling, Seojun went through the motions.
He got off his horse once he arrived at Myeongwoldang, passed it off to the stable hand, and staggered toward the garden, unable to recover from the surprise.
Moments before the inspector’s departure, he had inquired how Wuyeong had first learned of the letters between Magpie and Black Lotus.
He’d expected the inspector to name Shin Yeonhee as the source.
Instead, Wuyeong had explained that he’d overheard a woman at the Red Lantern boasting about Black Lotus’s most treasured possession: stacks of private letters from a scribe named Magpie.
The woman, Maid Daebi, had declared that they were, in fact, love letters.
Yeonhee had only confirmed the details afterward.
Now everything made sense. All this time, he had been asking the wrong questions: Why would a maid and his manservant do such a thing?
If fortune was what they were after, they’d had plenty to steal and of far greater value than a stack of pages.
And how had they managed to open both locks, without being noticed by one of the many servants who had risen early?
The questions had expanded in his mind a web of theories, involving book thieves and elaborate plans leading up to the heist. But now Namgil’s note came to mind.
Most crimes are quite simple and ordinary.
Stripped away of the excess, Seojun was left with only the bone, and it was the memory of when he had first received the lock.
It was a memory that rose before him like a door that he had been warned never to open and, therefore, had never thought to consider what might exist beyond it.
But he slid it open now, and the burning brightness of a summer long ago seared into his vision, the silhouette of a man and a boy hovering there.
Such locks are crafted intricately to respect only the hand of the master.
The man’s deep voice echoed in his mind.
Even the most gifted of lock-picking thieves will struggle to open these two.
Here, you’ve watched me unlock them, now it is your turn.
Practice opening them yourself. The locks are yours.
Seojun’s steps slowed. He had arrived at the garden where his father stood observing the pine tree. Sunlight filtered through his three-tiered gauze hat.
Gritting his teeth, he announced his arrival. “Abeoji.”
Minister Yu barely offered him a glance of acknowledgment.
At first Seojun only felt a hot trickle of suspicion in his blood, but that heat built steadily. Was his father involved in the break-in? How involved? And why? He could hardly hear his father through the clamoring of his thoughts.
“Though I am certain you will hold a position in high office one day,” Minister Yu murmured, oblivious to Seojun’s growing turmoil, “my dream for you is simple. I hope that you grow up to be like a pine tree, with integrity and fortitude. Do you know your great-great-grandfather, during wartime, survived by eating the bark of a pine tree?” He inhaled deeply, as though the fragrance might cleanse his soul, then exhaled.
“The Joseon people are born under the pines, live with them, and die beneath them.”
None of what his father said entered his heart.
Everything he said now felt cheap with hypocrisy.
Bitterness billowed as hot smoke, scorching the undersides of his ribs as he joined his father’s side.
He had no idea how to begin this fight. No elder had ever taught him how to confront his father.
It felt almost sinful. And for a brief moment, he half wondered whether he ought to close his eyes and pretend this never happened, as a good and filial son would do.
But he was not one to look away. If his suspicion was correct, then his father’s foolishness had set into motion a series of events that now endangered Shin Haewon and her entire family.
“Abeoji,” Seojun implored, “did you instruct my manservant to steal my keys?”
From the corner of his eye, he saw his father go still, then his expression tightened and his brows shot low over his troubled eyes. It was the face of a guilty man.
“You were behind it all along,” Seojun bitterly concluded. “Did you take delight in my complete ignorance? In watching your foolish son search for answers, chasing after his own tail?”
Minister Yu expelled a weary breath, as though he had known this moment would come. Just as Seojun had known that his secret could never remain hidden.
“I had a second pair of keys made by the locksmith. You were only sixteen.”
Birds landed nearby, but Seojun saw none of it.
The quiet space between them grew like a dividing wall.
“My own manservant stole my keys that night,” Seojun retorted, struggling to keep his composure as memories swept in over his head.
Memories of the shock, of how violated he’d felt, as though his room were no longer his own.
Memories of his sleepless nights. Of wandering the streets wondering if he was being watched.
And memories of his father’s indifference throughout the ordeal.
“Why were my keys stolen if you already had the second pair?” he ground out.
“You turned servants against me, but why was that necessary—” He stopped, the pieces falling as quietly as ash around him, and when understanding came, he felt as though something in him died.
“You wished to make it appear like a break-in, rather than a father stealing into his son’s room. You wanted me to be afraid.”
“As you ought to be. You should be afraid. I saw Mistress Wol lingering outside in the morning—before you left for the gibang house,” Minister Yu explained with a strained formality, as though determined to cling to his innocence, “and so I had Maid Daebi eavesdrop for me. She told me everything. That you are Black Lotus. I went into your room long after you left to verify if it was true. I only meant to scare you, to make you stop writing. So I staged the break-in, and I had your manservant steal the keys.”
Seojun remained motionless, his stare boring into the courtyard. “You could have simply spoken to me.”
“You hid your writing from me in the first place.” Minister Yu’s voice rose a notch. “An entire identity! How could I trust you?”
“In doing what you did, you sent Inspector Wuyeong after me. He knows everything now.”
A muscle worked in his father’s jaw. “It was Maid Daebi, that gossiping wench. I dismissed her the instant I learned of her light mouth. Things got out of hand, I know. I regret that.”
“But you do not regret breaking my trust.”
His father’s voice turned defensive. “You will never understand everything. You will never grasp the depths of a father’s concern.
I work in the Ministry of Justice. I have discussed matters with the king at length.
I have heard, with my own ears, the king’s contempt for novels.
Over and over again, His Majesty and the officials have spoken of you—of Black Lotus.
Writers like yourself, young men with superficial knowledge, who disdain the classics and instead indulge in stories that lead to moral decay.
Again and again, the king and his men speak of how novels are like obscene music and women—they corrupt, they lure men away from the rightful path.
” His father’s voice wavered for the first time.
“And when I realized it was you they were all condemning, I felt a terror in my bones. I wanted to protect our honor. I had to do something. If a man cannot control his own household, how dare he serve in government? How dare he think to shape policies and uphold justice?”
Seojun gripped his hands tighter.
It was like the stories his mother had told him as a child.
Do not cry, do not disobey your parents, or a tiger will creep into the village and snatch you from your blanket. The tiger will drag you into the mountains where it feasts on misbehaving children.
He had learned to behave as a child for fear of being devoured by the unknown.
But he was no longer a child.
And he was no longer terrified of what lay beyond the shadows.
Seojun spoke, not in anger, not in mourning, not in outrage.
Calmly, very calmly, he said, “The one thing I cannot forgive is betrayal. And you betrayed me, abeoji. After all my efforts to please you, after all I sacrificed—my happiness, my dreams, my choices—all for you. And in the end, you betrayed me. And in doing so, you hurt others as well. Others I hold dear.”
“I sense you waiting,” his father murmured. “Waiting for me to retaliate.”
“You always do.”
“I have enough shame not to do so,” his father said, looking ten times older as his shoulders finally sagged. “My only hope is that you will not hate this foolish father.”
Seojun clenched his jaw, restraining his sharp words.
He had always thought his father’s voice was like thunder.
That his words carried the weight of mountains.
But now, he saw a man who trembled like a leaf in the wind.
He had never seen his father look terrified before.
And in this moment, he felt gripped by this urgent need to hurt this man.
To hurt him more. To punish him for the betrayal, and mainly, for the sheer disappointment.
This was his father?
This was the man he had spent his whole life trying to please?
This broken, immoral man?
He could hurt him. Crush the old man’s heart until it was dust grinding beneath his heel. For Seojun knew his father’s greatest weakness: himself. Seojun was the only son, the child his father had yearned for in his old age. A son he had poured all his failed dreams into.
He could break his father’s heart.
He knew how—