The Foreigner 외국인

Chapter 2

2.

Park No Li had not felt this joyous since the late queen died. He had just returned to the capital and entered his luxurious home proud and victorious.

He immediately sent invitations to the other ministers of the court so they could come and celebrate tonight. Slaying the crown prince had been ridiculously easy, after all, and he wondered why he had waited so long to act. His eldest son's death would cripple the king even further, maybe even kill him, and the young Prince Wook would be put on the throne. The left state councilor laughed wholeheartedly.

He had waited his whole life for this moment. He, the illegitimate son of a servant and a ridiculed noble who wasted his fortune gambling. He had risen through the ranks one by one, from lowly soldier, to war general, to left state councilor. And now he would become Joseon's most powerful man. From his porch, he presided over the courtyard, the palace, the capital, and the kingdom, and watched as his servants bustled around, preparing for tonight's feast.

Park No Li's guests all belonged to nobility and used to look down on him, before his stunning rise through the ranks; now they feared him. The left state councilor received them semi-discreetly in one of the many rooms in his house. They did not know what they were celebrating yet, and all curiously waited for Park No Li to explain the sudden invitation.

At last he raised his cup of wine in a toast. "To the crown prince," he declared, before adding with a wide smile, "who is forever gone." The nobles, startled and slightly panicked, responded all at once.

"What?"

"What do you mean?"

"Is he dead?"

Park No Li was about to answer their many questions when one of his guards entered the room. "My apologies for intruding, my lord, but this is urgent."

"What is it?" the left state councilor asked, drawing him aside, annoyed by the servant's sudden interruption.

"The crown prince's body is nowhere to be found, my lord." The guard lowered his head. As the ministers gathered in the room became even more agitated, Park No Li turned back to the table in front of him and hit the bottom of this cup hard on its surface, silencing them.

"How is that possible? Explain yourself."

"The bodies of the assassins and the royal guards were still there, all dead. But the crown prince has vanished," the man responded, his head down.

The left state councilor took a deep breath. "the last time I saw him," he said through gritted teeth, "the crown prince was on the ground, unarmed and unprotected, while five assassins remained."

"It seems that he received additional assistance after your lordship left. We found some commoners' arrows at the scene," the guard responded, a drop of sweat running down his spine.

"Commoners? Commoners would have killed five highly trained assassins?" Park No Li hit the table with his cup again. If the crown prince was alive, he was as good as dead, as the prince had seen his face during the attack.

"My lord," the guard added, in an attempt to ease his master's mind, "there was a lot of blood on the scene. Even if commoners took him in, he probably died anyway." By now, it would be only a matter of hours before the king learned of his son's disappearance.

"Find him before they do," Park No Li ordered his guard, his mouth twitching. "Visit all the villages around the mountain, and make sure that the prince is dead and buried there."

The king was walking back to his chamber when the head of the Royal Guard came running towards him.

"Officer Yang, what is going on?" the king asked, curious as to why this always composed man looked so distressed.