It was a night when a white moon hung unusually high.

The moon suspended in the middle of the distant sky was white and clear, as if carved from cool jade, and even the thin clouds passing by it held moonlight and glowed softly.

The night was deep, but it was not dark.

Under the moonlight, the edges of the palace eaves, the waves of the roof tiles, and even the golden patterns carved into the red pillars faintly rose into view, and the whole world held its breath and sank like one painting.

When Crown Prince, Jin Taeryeong entered the emperor's bedchamber, where the autumn wind was slowly seeping in, the eunuchs' movements all became busy at once.

To clear the way ahead of Taeryeong, they hurriedly opened the doors and, with their heads bowed, guided him deep into the bedchamber, all the way to the chamber where the old emperor was waiting.

He usually overflowed with a strange sensuality, but on this night Taeryeong looked especially pale and fair.

Moonlight settled thinly over his cheeks and the nape of his neck, making his naturally pale skin seem even colder.

His eyes under his long lashes were deep as if they held moisture, and the smile caught at the ends of his red lips was innocent, yet there was something about it that could unsettle a person's heart.

He moved slowly and without a sound toward where his father was waiting.

“May you enjoy great fortune, Your Majesty, Emperor Daehyeon.”

The emperor, lightly draped with a golden robe symbolizing the Son of Heaven, was sitting cross-legged inside the sleeping chamber, sipping wine alone.

The candlelight flickered in tiny waves, and moonlight passed through the lattice and settled on the floor in long, faint patterns.

When his son came in, the emperor slowly looked him over with eyes that held the keen intelligence of one who ruled a nation.

But Taeryeong moved forward without the slightest tension.

The farther his steps went into the sleeping chamber, the more the doors he had passed through closed one by one in reverse order.

As the low sound of the door leaves fitting shut rang out in turn, the noises from outside grew distant, and only the scent of liquor and the cold moonlight remained inside the sleeping chamber.

Taeryeong slowly pulled back his robe collar and knelt before the emperor.

The line of his neck, with his head bowed, was slim and graceful, and his side profile under the moonlight was so beautiful that it rather stirred an ominous feeling.

“Were you drinking alone?”

“Now that the crown prince will pour for me, it will not be drinking alone.”

With a subtle smile on a face clearer and fairer than any woman’s, Taeryeong poured wine into his father’s cup.

Clear liquor flowed into the cup like silver thread.

As the thin trickling sound filled the deep night, small sounds of conversation also quietly continued above it.

“Ryeong-a, this old father is truly worried about you.”

“What sort of worry do you mean?”

Taeryeong grew indifferent inside, thinking another boring lecture would follow, but the emperor's expression was a little different from usual.

He put on, as always, the whining that would never work on his son no matter how many times he said it.

“To my eyes, you are more beautiful than any woman, and your bearing is no ordinary thing. When you had just been born, before the wrapping cloth was taken off, I thought you were a girl.”

“…….”

“I think you are so beautiful that even heaven would be jealous, so it seems heaven is setting your fate so harshly.”

At those words, Taeryeong's brows lifted slightly.

The current empire's crown prince, Jin Taeryeong.

There was a reason the emperor had recently been calling his son into the bedchamber every night until the threshold wore down.

Taeryeong was already past the age of twenty, and as crown prince, he was long past the proper age for marriage.

It was not that he had never been engaged.

On the contrary, it had happened many times.

The problem was that all of those engagements had, without exception, met extremely “unfortunate” ends.

His first match was the daughter of the Tang family, the strongest among the noble houses of the current empire.

In the year Taeryeong was thirteen, the imperial family and the Tang family agreed that the wedding would be held when he turned sixteen.

It was the crown prince's first engagement, so the entire court stirred, and the Tang family also regarded it as an incomparable honor.

However, that daughter sadly died before the wedding could take place.

She had gone out on an excursion and lost her footing off a cliff.

The funeral of the most dearly raised girl in the world was truly a sea of tears.

The Tang family's wailing did not stop for three days and three nights, and the imperial family also offered generous condolences and every courtesy.

His second match was a princess from a neighboring country.

Before officially exchanging engagement documents, they had only lightly exchanged intentions, but the circumstances were the same.

On the way back with the envoy party, the princess encountered bandits and lost her life.

It was said the attack had happened in an instant, despite the many escort warriors.

The third was similar to the second.

She too was a princess from another country, and after talk had gone around about making her Taeryeong's partner, she had been on the way to the current empire to hold the engagement ceremony.

However, she was assassinated and died before she could even cross the border.

It was said that country had a twin jiejie, and that she had caused the incident out of jealousy over her younger sister receiving a good marriage prospect.

By then, an ominous rumor had begun to spread.

If you were marked as Jin Taeryeong's woman, you died.

At first, it was said in whispers.

Since they did not dare speak of curses or bad luck in connection with the crown prince, the court ministers and the noble houses all kept their mouths shut, saying it was only a string of coincidences.

But after the same thing repeated three times, people's silence became an even deeper, gloomier fear.

In truth, the current empire was a strong country that held land so vast that no one on the continent dared covet it.

It was also the only country that had ultimately annihilated the monster called sigwi, which had suddenly risen several generations ago and thrown countless countries into chaos.

Among the neighboring countries, there were still places that feared the remnants of the sigwi, asked the current empire to eradicate them, and in return paid tribute.

So its standing kept rising day by day.

To form a connection with the imperial family of the current empire was no different from joining hands with the highest power on the continent.

So if it was the crown prince of such a country, everyone should naturally have welcomed it.

They should have been desperate not to miss the chance to send their daughters.

But after those curse-like incidents kept happening one after another, things changed.

No one willingly wanted to send his daughter to Taeryeong.

No matter how glorious the position of crown princess was, what use was it if she was laid in a coffin before she could even reach it?

That did not mean the position of crown princess could remain vacant forever.

The emperor tried to force one of the noble houses among the dukes and marquises to produce a daughter.

But those who received the order could not hide their troubled expressions.

Outwardly, they bowed their heads and said the imperial grace was beyond measure, but once they turned away, they made all sorts of excuses.

Some said their daughter was still young and had not yet learned proper etiquette, and some said her body was weak and she could not endure a long journey.

There were even houses that secretly tried to put forward a girl from a very distant branch of the family, one whose rank was absurdly low to be a crown princess candidate.

After much difficulty, almost as if they were being pushed into it, a new candidate was chosen.

And even that candidate eventually met a violent death.

That had happened just yesterday.

Now no one would really want to marry a daughter to Taeryeong.

Even if an imperial order were issued, people would use every means to survive.

They might make their daughter sick, shave her head and send her to a temple, or disguise her as dead just to avoid it.

Even as emperor, he had to make a decision.

Even if it meant inviting superstition.

Of course, if it were discovered in public, the imperial family would be pointed at for relying on superstition and such.

It could also stain the dignity of the current empire and the authority of the Son of Heaven.

But the emperor did not think long.

As long as it wasn't discovered, that was enough.

The emperor took another sip of the wine Taeryeong had poured.

As the clear liquor went down his throat, a heavy heat rose from deep in his chest.

He looked at his son with eyes slightly flushed from drink.

“Ryeong-a.”

“Yes, Your Majesty. Please speak.”

Taeryeong answered with a gentle smile, his clear eyes curved softly.

A mild smile hung on the end of his red lips, but inside, he was thinking something entirely different.

What kind of nonsense was about to come out of Father’s mouth this time.

The emperor looked down at his wine cup in silence for a moment.

Then he picked up something he had left under the table and set it down with a tap.

It was a thin, yellowed piece of paper.

On its surface, bizarre patterns were drawn in chaotic red ink.

At a glance, it was obviously not something used in official palace rites.

It was the kind of sinister object that looked as if it had passed through a daoist temple or a shaman's hands, something that should never have been placed in the Son of Heaven's bedchamber.

It was a talisman.

Taeryeong's gaze narrowed.

“……Father.”

How could you put such a sinister thing in front of me.

The words rose to the tip of his throat, but Taeryeong could not bring himself to say them out loud.

The other man was the Son of Heaven before he was his father.

What was more, the emperor before his eyes had an excessively solemn face, whether because of the alcohol or because he was genuinely placing his hopes in this bizarre object.

While Taeryeong was choosing his words for a moment, the emperor spoke first.

“They said to cover yourself in the blood of a great tiger.”

“What?”

Taeryeong's smile froze very slightly.

The emperor lightly pressed the talisman with his fingertips without the slightest sign of joking.

The red ink-drawn pattern flickered like blood under the lamplight.

“If you cover yourself in the blood of a great tiger, then the energy of a man will surely fill you, and that womanly smell of yours will go away too.”

“…….”

Taeryeong was speechless.

He could not believe that those words had come from the mouth of the emperor, who was more intelligent and cold-headed than anyone else.

From the very mouth that ruled the current empire as solidly as iron, that had subdued countless noble houses and ministers with a single word, came talk of great tiger blood, male energy, and womanly smell.

Was it because of the alcohol?

Or because of age?

Or had his marriage matter eroded the emperor's reason that much?

But Taeryeong never showed that thought on his face.

No matter how dumbfounded he was, he could not answer his father by asking if he had gone mad.

After a moment of silence, he asked in an extremely respectful voice.

“But where am I supposed to get the blood of a great tiger? And how am I supposed to cover myself with it?”

“General Hyogi Shin Muwol will return in triumph after exterminating the current empire's sigwi, seven days from now, so I was thinking of holding a hunting ceremony to welcome him grandly.”

Shin Muwol.

When that name came up, the shape of Taeryeong's eyes changed just a little.

A young general who was exterminating sigwi on the frontier of Daehyeon.

He was a man with such a fearsome reputation that rumors said he could even cut down ghosts with a sword.

But what mattered now was not Shin Muwol's martial skill.

“There is no guarantee General Shin will catch a great tiger.”

“It does not have to be General Shin.”

The emperor lifted his cup and slowly swallowed the remaining liquor.

Then he looked at Taeryeong with eyes soaked in drink yet strangely clear.

“It would be best if you caught the great tiger. But if that is difficult, what can be done in the end?”

“……So what are you telling me to do?”

Taeryeong's voice lowered a little.

He could no longer stand the roundabout way of speaking.

The talisman, the great tiger's blood, male energy, and Shin Muwol's triumphant return and the hunting ceremony.

All of these words seemed to mesh together in some strange way.

“Please say it clearly.”

The sleeping chamber suddenly went quiet.

Outside, the autumn wind was still brushing the ends of the eaves, and the moonlight that passed through the lattice was shining white on the talisman on the table.

The emperor looked at his son for a moment.

His gaze was so serious that Taeryeong felt an ominous premonition.

And at last, the emperor's mouth let out a thunderbolt.

“Sleep with him.”

“…….”

For a moment, Taeryeong thought he had heard wrong.

The words that came out of his father's mouth were short and clear.

They were not blurred by drink, nor were they tossed out like a joke.

The emperor was serious.

He was far more solemn than when he had presented that absurd talisman.

So Taeryeong could not say a single word.