Kitchen workers pressed against the low lintel, their linen aprons stained with gravy and soot, voices drifting through steam vents into the corridor like spilled secrets. "He bloomed—on bamboo—split the tiger—broke the bell," one woman hissed, fingers trembling as they traced the syllables in the air. A stable boy, dirt crusted beneath his nails, echoed in a rasp: "He cracked the Execution Gong itself." Down the line, copyists clutched ink-stained robes, breath held, as if the words might burn their lungs. Each whisper flickered off walls slick with antiseptic rinse, ricocheting until every ear in the infirmary pulsed with the same electric refrain.
Jang moved between them, each step a measured rasp of sandal against flagstone. The Gate ache throbbed in his temple, mingling with the rustle of gossip like a second heartbeat. Overhead, the tremor-leaf lamps guttered as if stirred by the hushed tumult. A dozen pairs of eyes—kitchen girls with spoons still clutched in soapy fingers, stable hands balancing pails of water, scribes shielding ledgers beneath ink-dark robes—tracked him in startled silence. No one dared speak his name; instead, they watched the bandaged arc of his arm, the gray-grey petals of his lotus scar, the slow, relentless cadence of his stride.
Somewhere behind him, a child's gasp slipped free: "He walks in pain and power both." The echo settled over the servants like a benediction and a curse. Jisoo, perched by a steaming laundry vat, dared not look up; her heart hammered against her ribs in a staccato of shame and triumph. She felt the corridor's eyes like lantern beams, drilling into her with every one of those whispered refrains.
At last, Jang reached the arched doorway where the stark white of midday sun pooled on the stone threshold. He paused there, letting the brightness wash the infirmary's shadows from his vision. Outside, the courtyard air glittered with dust motes drifting in the beam—each a tiny promise of rumor yet to be told. Servants lined the path in two ranks, clutching bowls of medicinal rinse, stacks of ledger books, coils of fresh linen. Their faces were pale as koi beneath moonlight, eyes wide and unblinking as the spectacle of his passage.
He dipped his head in the faintest bow—not to Baek or Choi, but to this living gallery of whispered reverence and fear. Each heartbeat pulsed through his ears like a distant gong, reminding him that pain was both his burden and his banner. The sun on his shoulders felt new—as if the world had shifted overnight—and he welcomed the ache in his side, the raw throb beneath his bandages.
With one long stride he crossed the threshold, leaving the corridor's lamplight and its clamoring murmurs behind. The soft scrape of leather against stone followed him into the open air, where the servants dared not speak lest they shatter the fragile accord of silence and awe. Jang stepped forward, each sandal-scrape an echo of the Lotus Pavilion's shattered gates, each breath a vow to carry the weight of every whisper, every gasp, every promise carved into his flesh.
And so he limped into the sun, the world opening before him in vast uncertainty—yet tempered by a pain-steady stride that would not be hushed.