Gungwan exclaimed, “Ah, it’s cold.”
Making a fuss, he went out to the sarangbang (main room).
The creaking sound of the wooden floorboards continued back and forth for quite a while, and outside the pitch-black window doors, the flickering lanterns gradually disappeared from sight.
And how much time had passed?
From afar, the bell tolling midnight echoed faintly.
“Are you really not coming back until morning?”
Only after all signs of life had vanished did Sahyeon reluctantly take his eyes off the bamboo slip.
Doing nothing and staring blankly was a pathetic sight, so he read the elementary lessons (Sohak) he had brought for study dozens of times over.
After a while, it felt as if the voices of children parroting the Sohak echoed inside his head.
When parents are alive, do not go far away; if you must go, be sure to inform them of your whereabouts.
(Myeong Sim Bo Gam, Filial Piety section)
Sahyeon had planned to show this part off proudly when Dan Ijae returned, but the more he repeated it to himself, the more uneasy he felt.
Furrowing his brows, he looked down at the passage and irritably rolled up the bamboo slip and pushed it aside.
He hadn’t left without informing anyone, so maybe Ogwang was worried.
Or maybe, since Sahyeon often stayed up all night studying in Chae Gong’s study, not coming back to his room, Ogwang might have assumed he was busy with books in the library.
Ogwang was that kind of person.
For issues that didn’t need worrying about, he would repeatedly ask if everything was okay, annoying everyone.
For real problems, he’d laugh them off and just lie down to rest. Sahyeon used to be upset by that, but now he just accepted it.
He felt the same about Dan Ijae.
Just accepted it…
“Ugh, frustrating.”
Although this was a drawback—getting irritated every time he thought about it—it wasn’t a bad way to cultivate the mind.
Sahyeon brushed himself off and stood up.
He quietly opened the door and looked around.
Only a few faintly lit lanterns hung here and there; no shadows of people could be seen.
He slipped through the door gap, rose on his toes, and lightly headed toward the wooden floor.
Like the palace guards said, the night wind at Gamcheon Hall was especially cold.
The breath he exhaled turned to white frost, chilling his nose tip, and his sharply pointed ears tingled painfully.
For a moment, Sahyeon hesitated whether to just go back inside the sarangbang.
But when he looked up from the edge of the floor, the Mirror Pond glistened—a pale moonlight reflected on the transparently frozen ice, shining softly and enchanting his eyes.
So, with hands still warm, Sahyeon covered his ears and carefully stepped down under the threshold stone.
It was said that if you looked into Mirror Pond at night, you might see ghosts.
A dry branch cracked beneath his feet.
Sahyeon stopped at the ash-gray garden stones surrounding the pond.
He didn’t believe such ghost stories, made up by someone no one knew.
But staring at the pure white shining surface, he thought—if there was truly a boundary between this world and the afterlife, it might look like this.
If, by any chance, one could see the shadow of the dead through the Mirror Pond…
Sahyeon carefully bent down and looked into the water’s surface.
He wondered hopelessly what kind of expression he should make if he saw “that person” again…
“Do you see something?”
Suddenly, a dark shadow abruptly rose above the pond.
“O—”
With superhuman restraint, Sahyeon swallowed the scream that wanted to burst out.
At that moment, the hand that roughly grabbed his collar to pull him back lost his balance.
Their eyes met.
Golden eyes reflected in the white moonlight.
Beneath them, deep blue wave-like patterns were swallowed by the dark night air.
Like the night sea…
“G-Gongja. You’re here now?”
His startled heart still pounded loudly.
Swallowing dry saliva, Sahyeon barely composed his voice, trying to sound as calm as possible, as if he was somewhat surprised but not enough to faint.
“So we meet again. You must have heard the news. I was going to teach Gongja… or rather, could you please let go of me first?”
Only then did Dan Ijae release his grip as if shaking off Sahyeon’s collar.
His heel, which had been half-floating in midair, finally touched the ground.
As Dan Ijae dusted off his sleeves conspicuously, the smell of alcohol wafted from his clothes.
As expected, he must have been drinking heavily until this hour.
“You’ve been drinking until this late hour?”
Dan Ijae looked down at Sahyeon with a dismissive face.
“You might as well have left him out there to freeze to death.”
“I heard most people who die of hypothermia on the streets during winter are drunks.”
“And have you ever heard that most of those people drowned in icy water?”
Sahyeon glanced displeasedly at the Mirror Pond.
Caught up in foolish rumors.
No matter how much he explained that there was no danger of falling in, or that the ice wouldn’t easily break, all it did was give them more to nitpick.
He had to change the subject altogether.
For example…
“Gongja, have you also heard the rumor? They say if you look into Mirror Pond at midnight, you can see ghosts.”
Giving him a chance to explain the eerie rumor connected to “his home.”
“Is there a deceased person you want to see at Mirror Pond?”
He knew Dan Ijae would ask this.
He had intended to say he didn’t believe in ghosts, but strangely, his throat tightened and he couldn’t answer right away.
He didn’t believe in such absurd ghost stories, but he also didn’t come here without any expectation.
Dan Ijae quietly looked down at Sahyeon, whose lips were just moving, then lightly sneered and leaned toward the Mirror Pond.
On the pale frozen surface, the face of a handsome man with jet-black hair tied high was reflected.
Then a low voice tickled Sahyeon’s ear.
“So you really can see ghosts.”
Ha, even living spirits count as ghosts, then.
Sahyeon squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, finally replying.
“That’s exactly the ghost I wanted to see. Since you’ve played around all day today, shouldn’t you study now?”
Dan Ijae’s expression immediately soured.
Then, pretending he hadn’t heard, he turned sharply and headed toward the pavilion.
Sahyeon followed closely behind.
“You don’t seem that drunk. You should sit in a warm room, read good writings, and finish the day well. Honestly, you’re not sleepy now, right? How boring is it to just lie in bed and toss and turn.”
“This is exactly when you need a book. How grateful we should be that we can sit comfortably and learn the insights of countless sages just by opening our eyes…”
As soon as Dan Ijae stepped onto the threshold stone, a palace guard who must have been watching somewhere hurried over and took off his shoes.
Sahyeon would have helped if he waited, but if he did that, Dan Ijae might close the door and hide again.
So Sahyeon hurriedly took off his shoes, tossed them haphazardly under the threshold stone, and quickly stuck close behind Dan Ijae.
“Gongja just doesn’t know the joy of studying yet. I’ll teach Gongja how fun studying is.”
Dan Ijae shook his head and tried to enter the room and close the door.
Sahyeon, however, slipped his body into the gap of the half-open door, thwarting him.
“Didn’t the etiquette say not to enter another’s room without permission?”
“But it also says, when there’s a chance to learn, don’t care about time or place.”
Sahyeon poked his head through the door and asked the palace guard to bring the books he had left in the sarangbang.
He felt if he left, he might never get back into this room.
“Well then.”
Since asking Gongja to attend the lesson politely wouldn’t work, and threats wouldn’t work either, there was no choice but to make him give in by acting like a slightly crazy person.
Sahyeon dragged the desk and placed it in front of the lower part of the heated floor bedding.
Then, spreading out his sleeves still damp from the cold outside, he sat neatly facing the bedding.
Smiling brightly at Dan Ijae, who was watching silently, wondering how far Sahyeon would go.
“Would you like to wash up first or just start as is?”
“Sigh…”
Dan Ijae sighed and pinched his forehead.
At this point, Sahyeon thought he was halfway successful.
It would be good.
Look, in the end, didn’t he come and sit opposite Sahyeon?
He pulled his belt tight and loosened it, then took off his outer garment and threw it carelessly.
Well, that clothes probably still smelled of alcohol, so it’s understandable to take it off comfortably.
Whether it was because he was frustrated or doing it on purpose, loosening even the knot of his inner garment was a bit… much.
“When studying, you should wear your clothes properly…”
“What should you call me?”
“Are you talking about me?”
Dan Ijae was sitting, resting his chin on his hand, staring intently at Sahyeon.
If Sahyeon called him ‘master,’ it seemed like he might overturn the desk, so Sahyeon decided to step back a bit.
“You have been appointed to the 5th rank literary position, so you can be called Baek Munhak.”
“5th rank, huh. It seems His Majesty didn’t quite like Baek Munhak?”
Was he provoking or what?
Since arguing would only make him look foolish, Sahyeon simply nodded vaguely.
“It’s all because I am lacking. The 5th rank is an excessive position for me.”
“Is that so? Then go to a rank that fits you.”
“…Yes?”
“Don’t try so hard to teach me and survive. If you give up easily, I’ll send you to the 6th or 7th rank, somewhere you can just read the books Baek Munhak likes.”
At his absurd words, Sahyeon thought.
He wanted to slap him and tell him to stop talking nonsense, but since he was currently trying to calm Dan Ijae down, he decided to smile and laugh it off kindly.
“What nonsense is this?”
Surely the words he promised himself to only think about came out of his mouth unintentionally — that was clear evidence.