Chapter 358. Assassination 1
It was time for her to decide on her own.
Of course, most people could not simply choose a different path.
Youngwoo quietly rose from his seat.
A waiting maid picked up a lamp and led the way.
The estate was so large that she seemed worried he might not find his room on his own.
Had the maid failed to notice the fracture that had opened in the reception room?
She wore the expression of someone who had no idea that, only moments ago, a woman's entire life had begun to waver.
Serious and courteous, she guided Youngwoo all the way to his room.
"We heated the floor earlier this evening. If you are still cold, please let us know."
"Thank you."
At some point, cold had begun to trouble Youngwoo less.
Heat was the same.
Hot and cold had become little more than conditions that passed over his body.
He had not reached the realm known as Han-seo Bulchim—where neither heat nor cold could invade.
But neither could penetrate deeply enough to disturb his mind anymore.
Youngwoo asked,
"Has the master returned?"
"When I checked earlier, he had not. The meeting seems to be going long."
"They may be at it until dawn."
"It has happened from time to time."
Youngwoo returned to his room.
The moment he crossed the threshold, he felt something strange.
Something had changed.
But he could not immediately say what.
The room was clean.
The bedding had been arranged neatly.
A lamp burned low.
And yet it did not feel like the same room he had left earlier that day.
Youngwoo waited until the maid withdrew, then sat down on the heated floor.
Warmth rose beneath him.
He remained there for a while before slowly slipping beneath the bedding.
On a snowy night, the warmth beneath the quilt was almost unbelievably comforting.
It had been a long time since he had rested like this.
Within that warmth, Youngwoo closed his eyes.
A long peace.
A prosperous world.
A name for freedom and fairness.
What was it that people truly dreamed of?
Were they merely piling one illusion atop another?
They spoke of nations, of people, of justice, and yet in the end men hid their own desires within those words.
Lying beneath the warm quilt, all those thoughts settled quietly over him like falling snow.
Then, at some point, the sense of wrongness he had felt earlier grew stronger.
It was the same room.
And yet it was not.
The bedding was unchanged.
The lamp was where it had been.
The doors and windows stood exactly where he had seen them during the day.
Everything was in its proper place.
And still, something had altered the breathing of the room.
Only Youngwoo's eyes moved.
Wall.
Paper window.
Lattice.
Lamp.
Folding screen.
Ceiling.
The moment his gaze reached upward, it stopped.
Directly above where he lay, in the center of one of the recessed wooden ceiling panels, was a tiny hole.
It was fortunate that he had left the lamp burning.
Each time the flame wavered, the edge of the hole caught the light in the faintest glimmer.
It was not a crack opened by old wood.
Nor was it the work of a rat.
The edges were too clean.
Someone had deliberately made that hole.
The instant Youngwoo realized it, something gathered above it.
A tiny droplet slid down along a fine thread.
There was no sound.
It was so small that he might never have noticed it if the light had not caught it.
Youngwoo moved before thought could follow.
He rolled sideways.
The quilt folded over itself as his body slipped toward the edge of the bed.
The droplet fell onto the place where he had been lying.
Tap.
A tiny sound.
Then another followed immediately.
Hiss.
The cloth of the quilt blackened and curled inward.
Instead of merely soaking into the white cotton, the liquid ate into it.
A sharp smell rose at once.
Burned damp cloth mixed with something acrid enough to sting the nose.
Poison.
Something that would bore into flesh if it touched skin, destroy the eye if it entered there, and burn the throat if swallowed.
Had it landed on a human body...
Youngwoo did not finish the thought.
He reached for his hwando, lowered himself, and slipped beneath the edge of the bed.
At the same moment, the thread above trembled again.
A second droplet was forming.
Someone was above the ceiling.
And whoever it was still believed Youngwoo lay beneath him.
Youngwoo drove his sword upward.
Nothing.
There was no resistance.
No sensation of steel passing through flesh.
Wrong place?
Remaining low, Youngwoo stared at the ceiling.
There was more than one hole.
Apart from the first, two or three more tiny openings lay along the dark seams of the recessed ceiling panels.
They had been positioned to aim at the face and chest of someone lying in bed.
Youngwoo raised the tip of his hwando.
He aimed at one of the seams between the ceiling boards and thrust upward without making a sound.
The first strike passed through empty space.
The second scraped something behind the wood.
On the third, the tip pierced something soft.
A muffled groan came from above.
A moment later, blood seeped through the gap in the ceiling.
At first it gathered as a black dot.
Then it formed a thin line and ran along the wood grain.
Youngwoo immediately stepped back.
He did not remain in the center of the room.
He did not turn his back to the door.
He pressed himself against the wall, standing between darkness and lamplight.
His sword stayed low.
The man above might drop through the ceiling.
Or another attacker might come through the door.
A restrained groan sounded overhead.
The space above the ceiling seemed narrow.
Whoever was there could not move freely; the wood gave only the faintest creak.
Another drop of blood fell onto the quilt.
This time it was not poison.
It was blood.
An assassin.