.forty six.
It seemed that each time Jung wanted to find Ji Mong, the royal astronomer of the palace, he could never find him. That was the case right then, as he had probably searched the entire place, and had yet to run into him. When he finally did, he was walking towards his tower with some scrolls in hand. They probably contained instructions for the new inventions he had in mind, like the tube he claimed people could look into to get a better look at the stars. None of his inventions ever really worked, but the stories he told about them were very interesting and Jung used to enjoy listening to them as a child.
"Ji Mong." Jung called, in such a hurry that he startled the astronomer who was walking down the hall in the opposite direction. Jung had to stop in his tracks and turn to follow after him before he could get away. When Ji Mong turned, offering his undivided attention, Jung continued. "I've been looking all over the palace for you. His majesty says that you can read the heavens like a book, and I've come to ask you some questions about that."
"I thought you didn't believe in that anymore." The astronomer pointed out, alluding to the time when he and the other princes were gathered in the tower from which he studied the stars each night. Ji Mong started telling them a story, to which Jung interrupted by telling him that he wasn't a child anymore, and that he wouldn't fall for his tricks. The other brothers were still interested in the story, but the youngest of the princes thought he was too grown up to hear it. Now he wanted to do just that, hear what Ji Mong had to say about the skies and what he could read. It was such a surprising turn of events.
Jung practically begged, "Please Ji Mong. This is important."
He jutted out his lower lip into a pout like a child and Ji Mong felt hiss resolve falter. It wasn't so much that the young prince had swayed him. It was more of the fact that he really enjoyed telling his stories. With a sigh, he instructed the young prince to follow him and both climbed the endless row of stairs up to the tower.
It was night time already and the stars adorned the blanket of night like diamonds. Jung had just a few hours earlier seen Hak Soon, his beloved, at the lake that was their secret place with none other than his brother who she had been forced to marry. But she didn't seem quite as unhappy as he thought her to be, nor was she as unhappy as he felt. It was almost like she had actually grown to like her marriage to the tenth prince.
They went out onto the balcony and Ji Mong cut right to the chase. "Tell me what you want to know." He said, looking up at the stars.
Jung already had a set of questions prepared in his mind. "What do the stars tell you...about me?"
This he had heard already several times. The date of his birth was determinant to many traits of his personality. From a very young age, Ji Mong had told his brothers what they would most be good at, and it was his words that Jung thinks might have influenced them to become what they were. Who was to say that because Yo was born on a certain date he would be more likely to crave power? Perhaps it wasn't really in the stars, but in Ji Mong's interpretation that influenced everything.
As the astronomer started to explain what he say, Jung already knew it all word for word. "The fourteenth prince of Goryeo--tall, handsome, the youngest of the princes to set foot in the palace, a military man, highly skilled at martial arts." They were the basics that he had been given. He had grown up to be tall, he considered himself to be not ugly at least. Though his father had other children, he was certainly the youngest of his brothers to live in the palace. The others were of lower ranking families and lived with their other family. Jung was a military man, had always been keen on the idea of becoming a soldier, and he was skilled at martial arts. But those were things he had known since he was a child.
