A Road of a Thousand Years. Part Three. Chapter One

That year, spring arrived early in the Forbidden City. The palaces were imbued with the scent of damp earth and old lacquer, and the ponds reflected the faded heavens.

The Emperor, whose name has long been forgotten but whose decrees are still preserved in silk scrolls, was receiving a new concubine.

She was led into a hall where the walls were painted with cranes and pines, and the floors were as slippery as water beneath one’s feet. She walked slowly, not raising her eyes, in a dress of the finest Goryeo silk, the color of young foliage. Bracelets chimed upon her wrists, and this sound was the only thing disturbing the silence.

Servants and eunuchs stood along the walls, motionless. There was neither curiosity nor pity in their gaze. All that was transpiring was part of a ritual repeated from age to age.

“They say she is from Goryeo,” the maids whispered in the corridor, hiding their smiles behind their sleeves. “She has a strange name, not like ours.”

Yeon-ju,” the senior eunuch clarified. “In Chinese, it means Beautiful Melody.”

“Beautiful Melody…” a young maid repeated, as if tasting the alien word. “The Emperor will like it.”

“The Emperor likes everything new,” another eunuch noted. “But the new quickly becomes old.”

The Emperor sat upon a throne of jade, massive and cold, featuring carved dragons with eyes inlaid with jasper. His raiment was of burgundy silk, embroidered with golden clouds and phoenixes. His countenance was calm, almost serene, yet his eyes reflected interest — not in the woman, but in how she held her head, how she stepped, how she did not look at him.

She stopped at the foot of the throne and bowed — slowly, with dignity, as she had been taught in distant Kaesong. In this bow, there was no fear or submission, only learned grace.

At a sign from the Emperor, a servant brought a tray with a teapot and two porcelain cups painted with blue clouds. Yeon-ju, without raising her eyes, gracefully took the teapot, and her slender fingers, adorned with silver rings, moved so fluidly that it seemed she was not pouring tea, but playing an invisible instrument. She presented the cup to the Emperor, bowing slightly lower than etiquette demanded, and at that moment, the courtiers watching the ceremony held their breath.

There was neither haste nor bustle in her movements — only flawless precision and beauty. The porcelain cup in her hands seemed an extension of herself: fragile, flawless, almost unreal. She resembled a porcelain doll, created not for life, but for contemplation.

The Emperor took the cup, never taking his gaze from her. A silence hung in the hall, in which one could hear water dripping in the garden behind the wall.

“She is so beautiful,” whispered one of the senior maids when the girl was led away to her new quarters. “But beauty is only the beginning.”

“Beauty is fleeting,” grumbled a eunuch.

That evening, as the sun set behind the palace roofs, candles were lit in the Empress’s chambers. The name of the new concubine was discussed in hushed tones, as one discusses a change in the wind or a new variety of tea. No one knew how her fate would unfold, but everyone understood: in this palace, it is not words that decide everything, but silence.

Chapter Two →
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