At the soft touch, like something gently sweeping downward past the corners of his eyes, Mok-young’s eyelids twitched. Then he found himself swallowing hard. Though no hand had directly touched him, the energy pouring off Hae-gang was so thick he felt his breath catch.
It hadn’t felt this strong just a moment ago. He’d known heat was rising from his body, but he hadn’t imagined that such hot, powerful energy could be pooled in him — enough to press his own body down flat.
“Move.”
Mok-young spat out the word. Just as Hae-gang seemed to be careful not to touch Mok-young’s body, Mok-young too gripped the seat’s base firmly and demanded Hae-gang withdraw.
He must not touch him. Mok-young knew it by instinct. Perhaps at this moment his hands weren’t choosing not to move — perhaps they simply couldn’t move. His eyes, looking up at Hae-gang, trembled faintly, and his neck was strung with enough tension to stiffen.
“Not like this… I don’t want it.”
A few nights ago — the night they should have consummated the marriage — Mok-young had rejected Hae-gang just like that and turned away. And going to his room in the palace, he’d no sooner lain on his bed than he writhed all night in an agony like his whole body was burning.
What Mok-young hadn’t known was that the chill that began spreading from the wrist Hae-gang’s hand had touched had swallowed his body whole in an instant. The start had clearly been from there. From the very spot where Go Hae-gang’s hand had gripped the dagger.
That day he’d gripped the sword’s hilt and tried several times to tear his body away, but he couldn’t. Even amid the sensation, it was something he’d never wanted to do — but that day he couldn’t avoid it.
It was because seemed ready to storm back into the bridal chamber at any moment. If that happened, Hae-gang would surely have cherished his bride sweetly and given her every joy — but knowing that once the night passed, that joy would return to him as enormous humiliation, Mok-young couldn’t bring himself to allow it.
But what choice did he have? He could only leave the house before Hae-gang woke and return late at night, cutting down their meetings as much as possible.
The naivety of thinking that a marriage decreed by heaven’s mandate could simply be accepted as unavoidable fate — that by keeping proper boundaries they could live a stable married life — was shattered. No, it was foolishness beyond naivety. The arrogant foolishness lurking under the name of loyalty. From the moment he met Go Hae-gang, it had bared its true face and led Mok-young down a path he couldn’t handle from the very start.
“Still, it seems you can’t bring yourself to hurt me.”
Looking down at Mok-young’s face, Hae-gang spoke. His voice carried a strange languor and a faint amusement, and a subtle smile played at his lips.
No matter how far he’d pushed the Juyang Divine Art to its limits, Mok-young was already spent — he could have subdued Hae-gang with ease. But that he didn’t use force to demand Hae-gang move was partly about preserving Mok-young’s pride; and though Mok-young had a somewhat different reason for being unable to move carelessly, Hae-gang’s guess wasn’t entirely wrong either.
Even with all that yang energy pouring out, it didn’t change the fact that Hae-gang was ill. Touch him carelessly and there’d be a disaster — and to begin with, Mok-young couldn’t use force against a sick man — so Mok-young found himself in an even worse dilemma.
“Isn’t it only natural? We are, after all, married.”
Mok-young tried to make Hae-gang withdraw by invoking common sense about the vows the two of them had fully exchanged. It was another rejection. Since theirs was a bond forged purely by political strategy, it was a reminder of the duty to do as ordinary couples do.
It had worked well enough on the wedding night, so he’d believed it would work a second time. No — from the very moment of the marriage, his naive predictions had begun crumbling to nothing; how could any faith be left now?
Hae-gang didn’t move as he’d expected. That day he’d meekly withdrawn because it was the “first time” — but was he supposed to do the same every time? At this rate he’d never so much as touch his bride’s fingertip.
“But, General Dan — shouldn’t you fulfill your duties all the better?”
The cadence of his words was soft and gentle, but his voice was firm. Hae-gang, who until now had called him “you” or “my lady,” calling him “General Dan” in this moment made their positions all the clearer. It reminded them why they had married, of course — and drove home exactly *who* Dan Mok-young had married.
No matter that Mok-young had been enfeoffed as a lord, he could never be like a prince born to noble status. Hae-gang wasn’t even of the Ghost King’s rank — his father was still alive as the reigning emperor, and he was a prince with a living claim to the throne. Even though this was Northern Wei’s land, if Hae-gang said he was returning to Namwi, Mok-young would have to let him go — and even in staying here, Hae-gang deserved to be treated as the highest of guests under the emperor’s special favor.
What Hae-gang was saying now was that if he took him, Mok-young would have no other choice.
Mok-young’s eyebrow twitched. Smiling sweetly while doing unbearable things, stealing a person’s soul clean out — it made him think that Go Hae-gang was, after all, unmistakably of imperial blood. Whether Northern Wei or Namwi, the affairs of the imperial house were tangled and complicated, and it was no surprise at all that royals grew up shrewd and cunning within it.
“Don’t be so impressed. I’m one who’s lived twenty-seven years as a royal.”
The words Hae-gang had tossed off like a joke in the carriage on the way to the palace for the wedding now struck Mok-young with fresh meaning.
But there was no time to dwell on it. The hand Hae-gang had braced against the wall began to slide slowly downward, and lightly caught the lower edge of Mok-young’s mask. The mask—
Thinking it might actually be pulled off, this time Mok-young quickly raised his hand and seized Hae-gang’s wrist. The moment strength entered Mok-young’s grip, the corners of Hae-gang’s eyes twitched and his forearm tensed with force. As a chill spread up his arm in an instant, Hae-gang let out a hot breath — “haa.”
“Don’t worry so much. I have no intention of hurting my lady.”
Hae-gang spoke with a voice thickened by a groan, trying to sound authoritative, but he had no intention of forcing Mok-young into submission. As he’d just said, he didn’t want to force things to the point of harming his own spouse.
“Still, a little… shouldn’t we get used to each other, my lady?”
Hae-gang’s hand lifted the lower part of Mok-young’s mask slightly. Mok-young’s hand, gripping Hae-gang’s wrist, tightened with even greater force. In the moment he hesitated, the mask slid up a little further, fully baring his lips, and Hae-gang’s lips were soon upon them.
“Haa…”
A deep sound — from whose mouth, neither knew — slipped between their joined lips. Before Mok-young could resist, his lips parted, and Hae-gang, as though it were only natural, pushed his hot tongue inside. There was no coldness; their lips boldly interlocked.
Hae-gang’s hot energy poured one-sidedly into Mok-young, and when Hae-gang’s hand wrapped around Mok-young’s nape, a frost-like chill swept across their touching skin and seeped into Hae-gang’s body. The fireball Hae-gang carried leapt, reaching to devour even more of Mok-young’s yin energy. The hand gripping Mok-young’s nape grew firmer, his head tilted a little further to the side, and their lips locked even deeper.
“Haa… stop.”
This time the breath that came from Mok-young’s mouth was unmistakable. Before he knew it, one hand was gripping Hae-gang’s arm while the other barely clutched at the hem of his robe, and the mask that had ridden up now veiled his eyes for a moment before sliding sideways to hang half off. With his soul seemingly sucked out by Hae-gang’s invasion, the disheveled mask was the last thing on his mind.
No more. It was dangerous. But with a feeling of *just a little more*, Mok-young barely managed to turn his head, tear their lips apart, and tell Hae-gang to stop. But Hae-gang didn’t stop.
His body twisted again and again. It was a chilling realization, as though plunging into a bottomless deep sea, his very heart about to freeze. If a mere kiss could do this, what would happen in the moment they truly joined? As they caught at each other’s lips again and again, Hae-gang stubbornly pouring out his heat, he only sank deeper.
But the end of his last thread of patience approached all too cruelly — no, it barely held. Hae-gang finally pulled away from his bride’s lips.
His bride — well, if not for that, he might have savored it a little longer… But as he’d said, he couldn’t harm his own wife. Until he accepted him fully, holding back like this was the best Hae-gang could think of.
“Too fine a face to go around hiding.”
Seeing Mok-young’s whole face for the first time, Hae-gang said. The light tone carried sincerity.
Hae-gang’s hand moved slowly, and the mask, half fallen to the side across Mok-young’s face—
—and pushed it fully off. Then, tracing beneath Mok-young’s eyes with his fingertips, he swept down his cheek as though sketching it, and reaching his lips, he cupped his cheek in his palm and brushed his thumb firmly across them.
Dan Mok-young — called the King of Ghosts, who’d made so many tremble with fear — was a gentle beauty. His looks were so fine that one could truly say it was a waste to keep them hidden.
“But I think you’d best keep hiding them. If some rude fellow falls for my lady’s beauty, I’d be in trouble, wouldn’t I?”
But, Hae-gang thought, now that he had an owner, he’d best keep himself hidden from others’ eyes. With no thought of hiding his true feelings, he said it straight out, and Mok-young just gazed at Hae-gang blankly for a moment before letting out a laugh. It was close to an empty laugh, as though the wind had been knocked out of him — but it wasn’t without feeling.
It felt a little absurd and ridiculous. Hae-gang’s remark — that he should hide his face lest someone fall for him and cause trouble — was absurd, and Mok-young found himself absurd too, feeling his strength drain as he heard words about hiding his face for an entirely different reason than anyone else had ever given.
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