Assassination of the Chancellor (2)
The Chancellor turned his head from side to side as if to untangle the knots of thought in his mind, then stepped out of the room.
A horse was waiting before the main gate, and three bodyguards were already mounted behind it.
The distance was not far, and he rarely rode on such occasions.
He had considered taking a palanquin, but judging the time urgent, he chose the horse instead.
So-un remembered the Chancellor's face.
Once, while encamped outside the capital, he had stopped him from entering during the night.
From his high perch, So-un gazed blankly down at the officials in court robes rushing toward the palace gate.
They exchanged hurried greetings as they ran, then continued forward.
Power is like that.
It makes even those who covet it bow their heads.
If he had passed the metropolitan examination, perhaps he would have looked like them.
The thought made time feel unbearably fleeting.
He had once hoped to pass the examination and live as an official.
To become a worthy magistrate—that had been his dream.
For a fleeting moment, he envied the sight of men in official robes.
He had wished to live that way, yet the dream had grown distant.
When he saw others walking the path he had desired but never reached, envy stirred within him.
In a world unbroken, he might have lived so.
Though difficult, he might have succeeded as an official and practiced benevolent governance in some provincial office.
Watching those who had passed the examination rush into the palace, he could not suppress a bitterness.
He waited for the Chancellor to appear.
He studied each official who entered, but none bore a sign reading "Chancellor."
Months ago he had seen him outside the capital, yet the memory of his face, glimpsed in darkness, was blurred.
Dawn gave way to morning.
The stream of officials through the gate thickened.
Some stopped first at their offices before entering; others galloped down the Vermilion Bird Avenue and plunged inside like men possessed.
When great shifts of power loom, the bureaucracy seeks every opening it can widen.
Not one face bore grief for the Emperor's death.
Expectation for change and nameless anxiety for the future only hastened their steps.
Then So-un saw them.
Four horses moved along the avenue at an unhurried pace.
An elderly man in official robes rode at the center, escorted by three guards.
All others in court dress bowed deeply as he passed.
The sheer number of bows marked him as the highest among them.
As everyone hurried to salute, So-un felt certainty settle within him.
Sharpening his vision, he gazed farther.
The face was clear now.
It was the Chancellor.
"That's him."
So-un tried once more to read.
He wished to see what lay within the old man's chest.
There was no trace of sorrow.
Only anxiety, anticipation, and endless calculation approached his senses as though tangible.
To see so plainly the workings of men had become a reality he wished to avoid.
Knowing made it distasteful.
Though life demands that one read the hearts of others, he now grew weary of the petty desires laid bare without effort.
Such weariness came only after reaching a certain height.
"Bastard."
He nocked three arrows onto the bow stolen from the palace guard's armory.
Threading them between his fingers, one by one, he held all three ready.
This was the man who had urged the Great General to resign.
A thought flickered—what if he had killed him then, feigning ignorance?
To imagine altering the first cause is meaningless.
Yet the thought arose because too much had happened since.
When we regret what we failed to do, we name it remorse.
Had he killed the man that night outside the walls, would all that followed have unfolded differently?
The supposition held no weight, yet it lingered.
If so, perhaps none of this would have come to pass.
"Let him be the last."
So-un aimed at the head, the heart, and the lower dantian all at once.
He drew the bowstring to its fullest.
As he released, he infused the arrows with inner force, splitting the current of the wind.
They flew faster than the wind itself.
The long distance collapsed in an instant.
Charged with inner power, the shafts quivered up and down as they advanced, yet they traveled in a straight line, not an arc.
With a slicing hiss they cut through the air.
The Chancellor had no chance to evade.
Before sight or sound could register, the arrows pierced his aged body.
One struck the head.
One struck the heart.
One struck the lower dantian.
They did not merely strike—they tore through him, driven by fury.
The arrow that pierced his abdomen struck the horse's back.
The horse screamed and reared.
The Chancellor fell.
He was already no longer a man.
The most vital parts of his body destroyed, he collapsed onto the road.
Blood scattered across the Vermilion Bird Avenue.
His head struck first and split open, pale brain matter spilling onto the ground.
The power of yesterday, the passion of the night before, the tripod-like balance of authority and the promise of a stable future—all of it had become nothing more than flesh on the road.
One of the bodyguards halted his horse and scanned for the shooter's position.
He could not even determine the direction from which the arrows had come.
"The Chancellor is dead!"
"The Chancellor is dead!"
"The Chancellor is dead!"
People surged toward the center of the avenue.
They confirmed the death and shouted.
A restless, uneasy current swept through the political quarter.
Doors of the government offices lining the avenue flew open, and crowds poured out.
On the lips of those who had bowed deeply moments before flickered expressions mingling shock and something close to satisfaction.
Some recoiled, then rushed forward again to see.
They looked, they confirmed, and then they began to shout.
"The Chancellor is dead."
"The Chancellor is dead. Assassinated."
The cry echoed along the avenue, drawing more and more people.
It was a hollow death.
In a single night, the three men who had steered the capital's power all departed this world.
Nothing like it had ever occurred before.