The Plan
A short while later, with Lee Hui at the front, five men climbed up to the summit.
The rain had stopped, and faint steam rose from the soaked earth.
"Nothing happened?"
Lee Hui's question was brief.
Without a word, So-un straightened his index finger and pointed toward a recessed spot beneath the rocks.
"…I see."
As Lee Hui approached, he gave a small wave of his hand.
A signal.
Two men immediately split left and right, sweeping the perimeter in a wide arc.
They were checking for additional intruders.
Lee Hui first examined So-un's face.
His eyes were steady.
Then he walked toward the three bodies.
"You engaged them?"
"They went through our belongings. They seemed to think we had found the General."
"And?"
"I put one arrow in each… then cut them down."
Lee Hui looked down at the corpses for a moment, then nodded.
"Well done. These men were strange. Their movements, their purpose. They were looking for the General, yet their manner was sloppy… like men hollow inside."
The fat man climbed up after tying the horses to a tree.
The animals were exhausted from being dragged all the way to the summit.
As he patted a horse's muzzle, Lee Hui muttered,
"Damn… we went down for nothing. There were already three up here."
"True enough."
Only So-un blinked in confusion.
"What do you mean, three?"
The fat man answered with a protruding lip.
"The General—"
Before he could finish, Lee Hui's scabbard flew.
Crack.
The fat man clutched his head and crouched down.
"Pick better times for jokes, you fool."
"Sorry… ngh…"
So-un grew even more confused.
"General, what three?"
Lee Hui swallowed a sigh and drew So-un closer, lowering his voice.
"Scholar. We brought a corpse up from the village below."
So-un's eyes widened.
"We chose one already decaying. We're going to disguise it as the General's body. That was tonight's plan."
The explanation was short, but its weight was not.
"But… now there are three more."
Lee Hui's gaze swept over the bodies.
The plan had been one; reality had become four.
On the night they meant to create a single death for the General, three genuine corpses now lay before them.
"A night when the dead increased."
There was a bitter undertone in his voice.
One death brought for deception.
Three deaths born of protection.
Only then did So-un grasp the other side of the situation.
Lee Hui gathered the men and quietly restated the plan.
"Listen carefully. From this moment on, this place becomes the General's final ground."
He pointed across the summit.
The cliff.
The rocks.
The position where the iron sword and white outer robe had been left.
"At dawn, we 'discover' him. So-un finds him first. You cry. For real. That won't be acting. Then the squad leaders confirm. The body is already decomposed. The face won't be recognizable. The clothes, the sword, the shoes—those are the proof."
One man asked,
"What if someone tries to open the coffin?"
Lee Hui's eyes narrowed.
"We make sure they cannot. And anyone who insists on opening it will die there."
He took out poison he had prepared in advance.
He smeared it discreetly along the inner edge of the coffin lid and its seams.
It would seep through the skin of anyone who handled it too long or tried to pry it open.
"Suspicion may arise. But verification must be impossible. Anyone who attempts it pays the price."
This was not mere theater.
He had calculated the order of discovery, the scale of the wailing, even the routes by which rumor would spread.
"The funeral will be simple. As on the battlefield. We bury the coffin, erect a marker, and then we scatter. We leave the mountain estate. The General's death will not bind us—it will cut us free."
When he finished speaking, every man bowed his head.
It was deception, yet it was also loyalty.
They brought out the corpse they had carried up from below.
A middle-aged man, not large in build, buried not long ago.
The signs of embalming remained, but decay had already set in.
They dressed the body in the General's outer robe.
They placed the iron sword at his side and set the shoes neatly.
Anyone who saw it would assume it was him.
The face was the problem.
The rain, mud, and rough handling had already damaged it.
Lee Hui deliberately made it harder to recognize.
Enough certainty to convince the grieving.
Enough destruction to prevent confirmation.
"If anyone insists on verifying… we make sure he cannot."
They closed the coffin and drove in the nails.
Meanwhile, the three bodies So-un had cut down were handled separately.
They stripped the outer garments, confirmed their identities, and removed the estate's insignia.
Lee Hui looked down at them for a moment.
"These three were not part of the plan."
But now they had to be drawn into it.
One body would become the "General."
Three would vanish into the night.
The deception was one.
The result was four.
Death was always greater than calculation.
Night grew silent again.
On the summit stood a single coffin,
and inside it lay the "General."
Those who stood beside it wished only that the lie would endure longer than the truth.