Chapter 465
The Youngest Son of the Silver Sea Trading Company Chapter 465
Chapter 465. Why is this happening? (1)
I was in my room.
The room was dark because the lights were off, as I was officially not supposed to be there.
“Fire! Fire!”
“There's a fire!”
I counted the number of times I heard the cry in my head.
One, two, three...
Just as I counted to fifty, the door opened and Pal-gap entered.
But I didn't sense his presence.
If I had been looking elsewhere, I wouldn't have known that Pal-gap had entered.
That's why I asked Pal-gap to do this.
He has the talent of a king.
“Young master, I brought what you asked for.”
“Thank you.”
Pal-gap handed me a pair of shoes. They belonged to a man named Gong-ho.
I quickly put them in my bag.
“Then, as I said earlier, please do what I ask.”
“Yes, I will. Please be careful.”
“Yes. You be careful too.”
I headed to the prison I had visited yesterday with Seo Woo.
The fire was quite large, and people were busy trying to put it out.
Everything was going according to plan.
Only the traitors and the warriors brought by Gongho remained in the inner quarters, so I set the fire without hesitation.
Only Yeon-woo-mun remained in the inner quarters, but thanks to my warning, he was outside.
We took advantage of the commotion and arrived safely at the prison.
Then, we entered through the secret passage that Yeon-woo-mun had told us about earlier.
Soon, we arrived at the place where the prince was being held.
I immediately drew my sword and cut the chains binding the prince.
Thud.
Seo Woo caught him before his body hit the floor.
The prince opened his eyes from the impact, but his gaze was still unfocused.
He opened his mouth to say something, but I quickly covered his mouth and whispered.
“I will listen to whatever you have to say later, so please be quiet now.”
After removing his clothes, I applied the golden needle's poison to his wounds.
The wounds began to heal quickly.
As expected, the golden needle's poison is the best.
Then I changed him into clothes I had prepared separately.
No matter how secretly we left, I couldn't take him away covered in blood.
I carried Prince Joo-hyun on my back.
- Let's go.
- Yes.
Originally, Seo Woo-musa said he would carry the prince, but it was impossible for him to carry the prince and keep up with me, so I decided to carry the prince myself.
We left the prison and secretly headed for the gate of Chunkyungseong.
There, Master Han Seok was waiting for us, having knocked out all the gatekeepers.
“Did you rescue the prince?”
“Yes. We just need to get him to Beijing, but given the situation, we must not rest. Are you prepared, Master?”
“Of course. I will do my best.”
I nodded and kicked the floor.
* * *
A few hours later, the fire at the Magistrate's residence in Chunkyungseong was extinguished.
Only then could people breathe a sigh of relief.
“My shoes! My shoes!”
Gongho, who wanted the fire to be extinguished more than anyone else, quickly entered his room.
Then he started looking for his shoes.
But no matter how hard he looked, he couldn't find them.
“Where did they go? My shoes...”
He couldn't hide his confusion. One of the messengers asked him, “What's wrong?”
“My shoes are gone!”
“What do you mean, gone?”
“What's the big deal about a pair of shoes?”
Gong-ho shouted in exasperation.
“Damn it! They're not just shoes! They're sacred objects! They're called Ilbo Cheonrihye!”
“Sacred objects?”
Then someone pointed to a corner of the room.
“There's something here that looks like a shoe...”
Hearing this, he quickly ran over. But what he saw was a shoe that had been almost completely burned.
In fact, Pal-gap had placed another shoe there on Eunseo-ho's orders.
But Gong-ho, who didn't know this, could only think that it was his treasure shoe.
He slumped down.
He collapsed on the spot.
His treasure, which was as precious as his life, had been burned.
His vision went white and he was overcome with grief. He was so distraught that he just stared into space.
At that moment, the prison guard ran up and shouted.
“It's terrible! The prince who was imprisoned in the prison has disappeared!”
“What?”
“Judging by the broken chains, it looks like someone broke in.”
Hearing this, everyone forgot about the valuables and the fire and rushed to the prison.
As he said, the chains were broken, and only bloodstained underwear remained where the prince should have been.
Then someone else ran up and reported, "The gatekeepers are unconscious!
“The gatekeepers were found unconscious! Someone must have broken in.”
“Then who?”
“Let's think about it calmly. In order to break in, the intruder would have had to knock out the gatekeepers first, right?”
“But I checked and the gatekeepers were fine before the fire started.”
“That means someone from inside betrayed us, right?”
“Who? Who did this?”
The first suspects were Eun Seo-ho and his group, who had recently arrived from outside the castle.
However...
“Our Captain left immediately after meeting with the military officer earlier.”
“Is that true?”
“The gatekeepers saw him... And you saw him off yourself earlier, so why are you asking?”
“Right, that's right.”
“Then who...”
At that moment, the Yeong-eum warrior spoke.
“There was someone who looked a little strange earlier. The one with a scar on his cheek.”
“Dae-cheol?”
“Yes. I don't know his name, but he was carrying a bundle and kept looking around nervously as he hurriedly went somewhere.”
“Find him.”
At Gongho's words, everyone scattered to look for him, but no matter how hard they searched, they couldn't find him.
Gongho burst out in anger.
“Now it's certain. Jin Dae-cheol, the Royal Guard, is a traitor!”
.
.
.
With it now certain that the Royal Guard Jin Dae-cheol was a traitor, an hour or two passed.
In a secluded corner of the Magistrate's residence.
Jin Dae-cheol was tied to a pillar in a place known only to Eun Seo-ho and the Magistrate.
“Where am I? Where am I?”
He remembered losing consciousness. When he came to, he found himself here.
His eyes were covered and he couldn't see anything, so he had no idea where he was or what was going on.
While he was waiting in fear for his eyes to be uncovered, he heard a familiar voice.
“It's good to see you.”
“...!”
Soon, his vision cleared and he saw the owner of the voice.
It was his fellow Royal Guard, Kwon Jik. He was staring at him with a cold expression.
“Well, did you have a nice dream?”
“....”
“It's time to wake up from your dream. By the way, you tortured the prince, didn't you?”
He was the one who tortured Prince Joo Hyun.
Kwon Jik and his men learned of this fact through today's commotion and were furious.
However, they were soon able to regain their composure.
This was because they realized why Eun Seo-ho had not told them.
“He probably told us not to act rashly.”
They were worried that So-woon might cause a commotion, but perhaps due to the mental training they had received from Eun Seo-ho, they only bit their lips.
“He must be just as angry as we are, if not more...”
Kwon Jik said to Jin Dae-cheol.
“I think we need to help you break his dream.”
He picked up a dagger, and Jin Dae-cheol shuddered when he saw it.
He knew all too well that Kwon Jik was more skilled at torture than he was.
“And I think he will give us the answer we want if we help him like this.”
Soon, he felt tremendous pain.
He couldn't even scream because his mouth was covered with a cloth.
But no one felt sorry for him.
He heard Kwon Jik's voice in his ear.
“Don't worry. We won't kill you. The emperor will ask you about your crimes.”
* * *
Prince Joo-hyun's faint consciousness gradually became clear.
He gritted his teeth.
Now the torture, persuasion, and threats would begin again.
The envoys who had been with him from the beginning were not like this.
They tried to persuade him with offers of wealth and honor far greater than he had ever known.
They told him he could establish his own kingdom in Chun-gyeong and become king.
But he could not do that.
He knew that he must stop the exploitation of Chun-gyeong, and he knew how terrifying his father, the emperor, was.
When he refused to be persuaded, they resorted to extreme measures.
They forcibly subdued him and imprisoned him in a prison.
In the process, the court officials and warriors who tried to stop them and save him were killed.
Without even time to mourn their deaths, hellish days began.
He experienced torture he had never heard of or seen before, which made him realize that humans were capable of inflicting such pain on others.
Even though he suffered through it all, he could never give them the answer they wanted.
That was because he feared his father, the emperor, more than the torture he was enduring.
His father was a very kind man, but as a ruler, he was extremely frightening.
He knew this very well because he had seen it with his own eyes.
And he believed in his father.
He believed that his father would surely save him.
However, the torture became increasingly severe, and his body could no longer endure it.
Even so, he never opened his mouth.
He endured solely with his mental strength.
His mind grew increasingly confused, and just when he thought he was about to die,
someone fed him something. It was very sweet.
It was so sweet that he wondered if it was the nectar of the gods mentioned in legends.
He felt his stomach, which had been aching, begin to recover.
At the same time, he heard a voice in his ear.
“You must not die. You must hold on until the end. You will soon be rewarded for your suffering.”
The voice gave him strength to hold on the next day, but he eventually fainted.
Then, feeling something strange, he opened his eyes.
The face he saw through his blurry eyes was incredibly beautiful.
He thought she was a fairy.
He tried to ask for help, but the hand covered his mouth.
Then he heard the voice again.
“I will listen to you later, but please be quiet now.”
It was the same voice he had heard before, telling him to hold on until the end.
For some reason, he felt relieved and lost consciousness again, and now he had awakened.
“Huh?”
But soon, he sensed something strange.
Instead of the usual smell of dirt and blood, he could smell medicine.
He was no longer in pain.
“Am I dead?”
He even wondered if he was dead.
As his mind cleared, he felt something like needles stuck in his body, and he heard someone talking.
“Why hasn't His Royal Highness regained consciousness yet?”
It was a familiar voice.
It was the voice of one of the eunuchs who had remained in the imperial palace to assist him.
“His strength is greatly weakened. However, thanks to the medicine we gave him, he is still alive.”
Hearing this, he spoke with hope in his voice.
“Ugh...”
“Your Royal Highness!”
“Your Highness! Are you conscious? Your Highness!”
“Man-woong?”
“Yes! Your Highness! It is I, Man-woong! Do you recognize my voice?”
“Where am I now?”
“This is the palace, Your Highness's quarters.”
“What is going on? Why am I in my quarters?”
He had been captured in Yunnan.
It was so far away from the imperial palace in Beijing that it was practically on the other side of the country.
“The Royal Guards, acting on the orders of His Majesty the Emperor, have rescued Your Highness.”
“Then who carried me here?”
When he regained consciousness for a moment, he remembered someone carrying him on their back.
They were sweating profusely from the effort.
He also remembered someone saying, “Captain, I will carry you.”
The eunuch Man-woong answered the question.
“I am Captain Eun Seo-ho.”
He knew Eun Seo-ho. He was a person whom his father, the emperor, loved dearly.
“According to Master Han Seok of the Royal Guards, he played a decisive role in rescuing His Royal Highness.”
“Where is he now?”
He had to thank him for saving him and tell him that Chun Gyeong-seong was innocent and that they were being treated unfairly, and ask him to help them.
“Well... he is not here right now.”
“Not here?”
“He led the imperial guards and headed back to Yunnan.”
Hearing this, the magistrate jumped up and shouted.
“No! The Magistrate of Chunjing is innocent!”
“Yes, I know.”
“What? You know?”
“Yes, Your Highness. Their purpose in heading to Yunnan Province is to capture and punish the unscrupulous traitors who committed this crime and to avenge the Magistrate of Chunjing and the residents of the city.”
“I see.”
Upon hearing this, Prince Joo Hyun relaxed and collapsed back onto the bed, losing consciousness.
* * *
I was now on my way back to Yunnan Province.
Oh, my fate.
How many times must I travel from Beijing to Yunnan...
Fortunately, I was able to save Prince Joo Hyun before he died.
If it weren't for Miss Seo Hyang's advice, it would have been a disaster.
But my work is not done yet.
Pal-gap and the bodyguards are still in Chun-gyeongseong, and I have to deal with the traitors.
By the way, the emperor asked me to tell him what I wanted as a reward, but I told him I would tell him later.
Actually, I already had something in mind as a reward.
Leave me alone.
I am a merchant, not a Royal Guard.