The red wine gargled at the bottom of the porcelain cup as Jung Ho poured another round of liquor for his tipsy daughter to guzzle. He crossed his arms and grimaced at the ghosted bride's fluster-red cheeks. "My sweet darling, in times like this, you don't need to act so strong, especially in front of me. I'll completely understand if you feel neglected, disappointed, or furious."

From a pile on the salver, Jin Ri picked three kimbaps and gobbled them. A few sticky rice grains scattered to her cheeks; some dropped on her lap, and seemingly, she was unfazed with her horrible look. "No, hmmp, fwathow..." not only was she eating a rice cake but also her slurry words.

"Won't you slow down." scolded Jung Ho.

Her stuffed cheeks turned blue from the non-stop chewing and swallowing like a beggar. Then another round of drink to push the food down her unslaked stomach. "Ahh! That was delicious." Smiling like an idiot, with eyes closed and mouth grinning wide open, she asked, "What is it, father?"

"I said, you can tell me everything that you feel right now."

The drunk woman struck her palm on the table and burst into a witchy guffaw. Her bloated tummy bobbed like a spring ball while on a slouching sitting position. All eyes would frown if they ever saw this woman as he deleted the word 'grace' from her vocabulary. Though it could be a natural response that an abandoned bride would drink all night and get wasted, this convention could simply not apply to the daughter of the next powerful man nether the Prince.

She raised her head and smirked. "Me? Hurt? Ha-ha! Why would I be? It is quite a loss because I thought I'd be the most powerful woman in the kingdom tonight, but, uh, with Sae Joo gone, things would be a lot easier for us—especially for you, father."

"Then why did you ask for a drink?"

"Why not?" she chuckled and reached for the bottle, but Jung Ho slapped her hands because she could touch the neck. "Aww!" She snorted and rolled her eyes. "That Prince and his bastard bodyguard could die, and I don't give a damn!"

"You've had enough, darling."

"Fine... but anyway, have you any news about Orabeoni? I am still disappointed that up until my supposed wedding day, he's still against it." She yawned and banged her head on the table.

The cocksure father assumed that the moment he was talking with her far-from-sober daughter, Jung Min was already busy spending the beautiful, cold night warming up with his new wife. His obedient, threatened son would never break their deal, and he had absolute certainty about that.

"Worry not about your brother. He has more important things to do than being present at your wedding. You do know him, he loves his duties and the people more than anyone else. He has all the qualities to lead a nation—only if he was a Seonggol or married to a Seonggol."

"But still!" The floor thumped in Jin Ri's childish stomping.

"Go to bed, dear."

Pouting her lips, Jin Ri rested her chin on her hand and leaned forward to her riled yet tender father. Her transformed full, round voice suggested that the streak of liquor on her head dissipated for a moment. "I wanted to ask you, father. You seem confident and unbothered about Sae Joo tricking all of you. Matter of fact, for the second time. Are you not surprised that he escaped? Have you known this all along?"

Jung Ho grabbed a cup and filled it with a different bottle of red wine. He took a few sips and wiped his lips. "I haven't known this all this time. Like everyone, I was surprised. But I did expect this..." He cleared his throat and smiled. "—so I have prepared something."

"What is it, father? I'm not going to bed without you telling me." she bit her lips and rolled her braids like those deranged women in the public market.

"That deal would do you no good, my darling. I don't think you could stay awake for the next couple of minutes, so just lay back and rest."

Jin Ri purred and puckered her face. "Hmph! You are terribly underestimating me, father." she shoved the table and pulled the hemline of her pink skirt up to her knees. Unsatisfied in showing off her balancing skills, she twirled like a ginyeo dancer, humming a strange dissonant sound. When her point of view switched back to her father, her head spun, seeing a hallucinated vision of his father's head bobbing back and forth in the same position. Then she fell on the floor, butt smacked on a loud thud.

Jung Ho groaned, but could not help but rush to his befuddled daughter. He carried him to her bed and covered her in sheets. "Hush now, my dear daughter. We are getting close, really close."

~~•~~

He went to the palace courtyard to fish for updates on the ongoing investigation, only to witness a premature trial. Jae Joong was under a mink tent, sitting on his throne illuminated by the ravaging torch fires on the side. Dae Wong paced on the pavement, scrutinizing all forty special security hwarangs of the Prince who were kneeling on the ground with their hands tied at their backs, enduring the freezing cold crippling their knees and legs.

Jung Ho advanced and bowed before the King. "Your Majesty, I'm afraid I am not aware of this."

Dae Wong chimed in, his mundane gaze flickering, "Prime Minister, how is your daughter?" Jung Ho ignored him and aimed his eyes at Shun who was cowering his head on the second row. "I don't wish to impose my authority in front of our King, but since the Prosecution Head is not around, this trial must at least be informed to me."

"Why, yes. I apologize on His Majesty's behalf. I wish to inform you that this is an emergency situation. The King could not inform all council members at once, especially you—since Lady Jin Ri must have needed your presence. Well, bother not, because this is far from a formal trial. We are just here to clarify something about the progress of the investigation."

Just as when Jung Ho was about to rebuff, Jae Joong commanded him. "Won't you come forward, Prime Minister, and see how you could possibly contribute. I would be more than interested if you could suggest some relevant prosecution strategies."

"Glad to oblige, Sire." He sauntered towards Dae Wong and asked the King back. "What made you decide to do this, Your Majesty?"

Jae Joong turned to the Green Turtle hwarangdo who had reported him the vital information that could demystify the problem caused by the Prince. "Explain it, hwarangdo."

"We found a familiar footprint inside the woods, a few miles from the house where the Prince did his party. As we inspected it—" Jae Joong cut him and continued, "—it belongs to anyone from these forty hwarangs."

When they had gone to that particular spot an hour ago, they saw small footprints of slippers, going further north, big bootprints trailing back to the palace, and hoof prints from a muscled horse. At first glance, anyone familiar with Hwarang uniform would deduce that the boot tracks probably belonged to a palace soldier. The remains of the pyramidal netted patterns on the snow sheath signaled Jae Joong's hysterical brain that they indeed belonged to a hwarang—worse to one of the special forces. It has been implanted to him before they even journeyed to the actual place where they were found.

Dae Wong had argued and said, 'Your Majesty, how could they possibly do that when all of them guarded the Prince? Besides, Shun, his bodyguard, was there. He would never let any of his colleagues harm the Prince."

Then Jae Joong rebuked, "How would you explain those footprints? For all we know, they deliberately switched Sae Joo's clothes with that courtesan, abducted the Prince, and then one of these days, they would ask for a ransom and frighten our people. Chaos!"

"The eunuch was there, Your Majesty. He saw everything! We could ask him."

The King was slightly taken aback from his meshed conclusions. But whatever that eunuch would say, he has already barred his mind from receiving any clues that would deter him from believing that the Prince was not abducted. The only way that would save his son from the council and the people's judgment. No—no. He did not run away.

If Jae Joong was to exploit his power, punish and sacrifice some little lives just to cover up his son and ensure that his dignity would remain intact, he would be more than delighted to do so. He had lost a son back in the day by being disgustingly flimsy, kowtowing to the rigid laws. Suppose he could not find Sae Joo in the meantime, as a father, at least he should protect his sacred reputation—and as a King, prevent his people from knowing the dreadful news and from starting a rebellion.

Which then brought the eunuch to the surface. Without Jung Ho's knowledge, the King had summoned the servant beforehand. The old man trundled beside his master and bowed to everyone.

"Tell us what you saw when you entered that house," ordered Jae Joong.

"I heard a distress call from Shun. Thinking that the Prince was hurt, I hurry inside—only to see that the bodyguard was holding whom I thought was the Prince. He then show his face to us, and I was shocked because it was a girl."

"We know that already. Anything else—how about something suspicious—do you think there's a foul play?" Jae Joong bombarded him with flowing questions, which made the old servant rattle.

"None that I, uh, uh, could remember, Sire. Forgive me."

"Do you suppose that one of them, if not the bodyguard, could have conspired with the courtesans to intoxicate the Prince, knock him down, and take him away using the poor girl's clothes?" followed-up Jae Joong.

Instead of the eunuch, the purple ivy, who bullied Shun, raised his hand and spoke. His hoarse voice shivering. "Y-yo-your Majesty, please hear me out."

Dae Wong and Jung Ho looked back at the determined king gingerly.

The King replied pensively, "Go ahead."

"Uh, Your Majesty—none of us could have possibly done that. We were all occupied and focused while manning our stations outside that house. We couldn't come inside because the Prince didn't want us to. Also, when the courtesans came out and bid goodbyes, none of them looked suspicious."

Rage trickled down from Jae Joong's jaw down to his shaking fingers. "Such nonsense! Are you even using your head? All of those courtesans are masked, and probably, a lot of them were drunk. Doesn't it even occur to you that one of them was the Prince? And when every one of you rats out to report that my son was missing, who knows, you could've met those courtesans in the woods?" He stood and strode towards the poor trainee, unable to control his anger over the fatuous reasoning. A quick proclamation expelled from his mouth afterward. "Hear my words, unless someone from you admits it, all of you will be punished."

Protesting as his main response, Dae Wong asked, "Your Majesty, why?"

"Why? Primarily, their job was to make sure the Prince's safety at all cost. There has been negligence, I see. And I can never tolerate it."

"But if you punish them, the real culprit could be roaming around by now, laughing at our incompetence."

Jae Joong scowled, his scorching chestnut iris melted the snowflakes on Dae Wong's hat. "Who says I won't find and punish them? I shall put it this way to make it clear. With a lack of evidence, I still prosecute to punish these hwarangs, simply because of their negligence. As for the real culprit, if he's indeed around the palace, they better hide well, because it would be my pleasure to cut their heads and display it in my chambers."

The minister stumbled with the quick onslaught of the indomitable king. He had to create a way to swerve the ruler from his irrational wrath. Although he fully understood the reason why Jae Joong had to self-stanch the bleeding wound with perforated gauges—that would only offer a partial solution to the main problem, he was afraid of what might happen to Shun. With the King's discreet descent to insanity, the succeeding days or hours would be detrimental for Sae Yoo's life. Yes—at the moment, he thought of him as Sae Yoo, the heir, the twin prince, the savior—not the ordinary nangdo.

Bugs of regrets crept on his skin, wriggling out of his pores as the thought resurfaced on his head. None of this could've happened if I just revealed everything to Sae Joo, just like what I've planned. Why did I even listen to Chil Yook? Now the two of them are in danger! Idiot, Dae Wong. Idiot!

At the time that Dae Wong was busy degrading himself, Jung Ho had finally refurbished his long-term plan—the one that he had settled before the wedding. With the help of Jung Min's motes of fallen golden crumbs from his information bag, he had deciphered a plan to hunt Chil Yook easier, and eventually to locate Sae Yoo.

He tried to spy on him, the usual way, but his good-for-nothing hwarangs only reported wrinkle-inducing news—that they lost them. Going to the library and searching for all the names of the hwarangs in Sangju province did no purpose as well. But because his instincts were perpetually knocking his head, he drafted his plans again and again until he came up with a brilliant stratagem by evoking the Prince's emotion.

The plan went on like this:

First, trick the Prince and let him hear all the truths (and partial lies) between Jung Ho and Jae Joong's conversation in the library. Next, inevitably, Sae Joo would become too invested in searching for his brother and later on abdicate from his throne for the love of saving the whole nation. What did Jung Ho do? Give the list of all hwarangs living in Sangju from the scraps of the Hwarang Registry, which he believed was torn by his son.

However, because he was as conceited and cunning as the original devil, the list was far from being completely factual. He purposely added more than ten hwarangs from other provinces, instead of five, like what he said to Sae Joo during their luncheon together—which in no time would delay the Prince's search.

Jung Ho succeeded on the first two sub-missions. What did he do next?

The subsequent sub-steps had a lot of layers. Device a special security force of hwarangs, all living in Sangju, from his original, meticulously filtered list. For him, this is where he had the most advantage against the Prince. While the runaway groom was out somewhere, in the middle of a mirage, bleak hinterland, he could finally begin his search.

One of those forty hwarangs was Sae Yoo—he religiously believed that. Who said Sae Joo was the only one who had the basic visualization of what Sae Yoo would look like? He lived decades before him. Naturally, an old wild beast had a better instinct compared to a struggling juvenile. It was just a matter of solid confirmation—in which he would execute the moment he butted in between Jae Joong and Dae Wong's subtle argument.

"Your Majesty, I do not fully object with that idea. But can I give something to ponder on since I am here already?"

"Speak up, Prime Minister."

"Well, as we detain these hwarangs, might as well, we should summon their fathers—let them know what their son had done wrong." 

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