The Cruel Imperial Family Episode 3

[Episode 3] The Opening of the Gates of Hell and the Blood-red Solidarity

 

At the same time, it is the residence of Chairman Kang Min, a high-end house on the outskirts of Seoul, where torrential rain is pouring down as if there is a hole in the sky.

 

The winding entrance leading to the home of Min Hyun-seok, chairman of the Minsuk Group, the number one conglomerate in the Korean Empire, has even the streetlights that usually brightly lit up completely turned off.

 

A pitch-black darkness, where even an inch ahead could not be seen, had heavily settled.

 

There were five black shadows silently crawling through the heavy darkness.

 

They were the elite assassins belonging to the 'Black Shadow,' a shadowy group directly under the imperial family that Emperor Yu Jong-seok secretly nurtured to quietly eliminate those who were offending him, evading the imperial law.

 

 

Their only goal for tonight was one.

 

Arrogantly, they are secretly taking the neck of Chairman Min Hyun-seok, the heart of the Minseok Group, who is disliked by the Emperor.

 

 

The assassination squad leader coldly stroked the special firearm equipped with the latest silencer and signaled with three fingers.

 

It was at the moment they were about to swiftly climb over the high wall as they had been trained.

 

Crunch!

 

Completely buried by the sound of heavy rain, the bizarre and eerie sound of tearing through the bones and flesh tore through the darkness.

 

At the same time, a fountain of crimson blood gushed from the neck of the assassin standing at the very back, and a suppressed scream, like that of a beast, erupted.

 

"Ugh... ...! Ugh!"

 

The startled team leader hurriedly pointed his gun and turned around, only to be struck by a pure white lightning that tore through the night sky.

 

In the fleeting, brightened vision, the face of a Yaksha, who seemed to have just climbed up from the very bottom of hell, came into view.

 

Kim Min-hyuk, the direct chief bodyguard of the Empress, was a massive man in a black uniform soaked from head to toe with rain and blood.

 

 

From the tip of the specially made titanium sword held in his right hand, droplets of sticky blood that had not been fully washed away by the rainwater were dripping down.

 

Earlier in the evening, while raiding Shin-ari's secret annex and extracting information, a deep wound on his forearm was bleeding red, but Min-hyuk was grotesquely twisting the corners of his mouth like a monster who felt no pain at all.

 

"You... you are the Empress's dog!"

 

The team leader stammered in a voice filled with astonishment.

 

I couldn't understand why the hunting dog of the imperial palace had arrived here before the Emperor's direct assassination squad.

 

"Wrong."

 

Minhyuk's low, metallic voice echoed eerily through the sound of rain.

 

"I am His shadow and the grim reaper who will twist your heads and drag you to hell."

 

Before he could even finish his sentence, Minhyuk's massive figure was flung forward as if exploding.

 

Bang! Bang!

 

The assassins, now in a panic, fired bullets that had passed through the silencer in a chaotic cross-fire, but Minhyuk, with beast-like reflexes that had already transcended human territory, twisted his trajectory in the rain and burrowed into the assassins' arms.

 

"Aaah!"

 

In a single, concise trajectory, the second man's wrist holding the gun flew into the air, and subsequently, Minhyuk's titanium sword, having rotated his body, pierced deeply into the third man's heart, reaching right behind his back.

 

Blood mixed with the rain and splattered in all directions.

 

"These bastards tried to kill the father of that fragile person."

 

That fact alone had long since caused the thin fuse that had barely held onto Minhyuk's reason to be cut.

 

Fifteen years ago, in a bloody downpour, he had to helplessly watch his parents kneel before him be severed, his horrifying past memories resurfaced.

 

He couldn't let Si-eun, the only absolute god who saved him as a human, handing him a white handkerchief while he was rolling around like a beast in the mud of that blood-red hell, suffer the pain of losing his family once again.

 

"Try to experience with your bones and flesh how heavy and terrible the price of a single tear from the late Lady Sieun is!"

 

Faced with an overwhelming and suffocating murderous intent, even the assassins of the imperial family, who had been highly trained for over a decade, were nothing more than a flock of sheep in front of the slaughterhouse.

 

That was only five minutes long.

 

 

After that brief time had passed, five torn and severed corpses lay horribly scattered beneath Minhyuk's feet as he gasped for breath.

 

The heavy rain was washing away the blood that had continuously flowed from the corpse, turning the mansion's front yard into a red river.

 

With emotionless eyes, Minhyuk rummaged through the belongings of the foreman who had fallen on the floor, mercilessly tearing off a special communication device with distinct royal family patterns and identification tags proving their identities, and tucking them into his pocket.

 

It was undeniable evidence of the emperor's assassination order.

 

At that moment, the iron gate of the massive mansion opened, and a group of men holding black umbrellas appeared at a rapid pace.

 

They were Minseok Group's elite private security team and the group's direct informants who were on standby under urgent instructions from Secretary Han.

 

And among them, an elderly gentleman with white hair and an unapproachable air, without even using an umbrella, slowly emerged.

 

It was Chairman Min Hyun-seok, the father of Min Si-eun, a giant who controlled the economy of the Korean Empire.

 

"You've worked hard, bodyguard Kim Min-hyuk."

 

Chairman Min, despite seeing the horrific corpses filling the yard and Minhyuk covered in blood, didn't even bat an eye and spoke in a heavy, subdued voice.

 

Minhyuk forcefully brushed the blood off his sword into the air, quickly sheathed it, and bowed politely toward Chairman Min.

 

The image of the sage who had been chopping people up just moments ago was nowhere to be found, replaced by the polite and perfect demeanor of a knight.

 

I simply cleaned up the rats who dared to peek into my family home under the orders of Her Majesty Sieun. He told me to check on the Chairman's wellness.

 

"I see, my delicate daughter has finally drawn that terrifying sword."

 

Chairman Min's deeply wrinkled eyes were filled with an uncontrollable deep sorrow and bitter regret.

 

He was a flawed father who, under the pretext of the fate of the group, used his young, in the den of power struggles within the imperial family as a hostage and pushed them into a victim of arranged marriage.

 

Despite having consoled myself hundreds of times over, thinking it was an unavoidable choice to protect the group and its tens of thousands of employees in the face of the late emperor's immense power and political pressure, the thought of my pitiful daughter, who would have wept silently alone every night in a strange detached palace still made my heart feel like it was being torn apart.

 

But now, that kind and young daughter, to protect her incompetent father, first stained her white hands with blood and flung open the gates of hell.

 

"My daughter shed blood to save her aging father, but the father can't just sit still in the corner of his room because he's old. I need to immediately relay my orders to Secretary Han."

 

Chairman Min's gaze instantly gleamed fiercely and coldly, like an old lion savage beast targeting its prey.

 

It was the moment when the true face of the top business leader, who holds the purse strings of the imperial family, was revealed.

 

"As soon as the Korea Exchange opens tomorrow morning, tell them to sell all the imperial-related government bonds, bonds, and joint investment shares held by all affiliates under the Minseok Group to the market at a bargain price. And I will clearly show Yoo Jong-seok, the arrogant and foolish novice, how to shatter the bottom of the imperial treasury and turn it into a bottomless jar."

 

At Chairman Min's chilling declaration of war, Minhyuk silently nodded his head in silence.

 

Finally, the massive gears of multiple gears began to interlock and rotate, making a deafening noise using blood as lubricant.

 

The massive wheel, which would drag the emperor down from his arrogant throne and twist Shin Ari's detestable neck, was slowly gaining momentum in the torrential downpour.

 

As the night deepened, the downpour that seemed to devour the world grew even more intense.

 

Sieun was sitting alone in the suffocating inner room of the Gyotaejeon, surrendering her body to the precarious flickering shadow of the candlelight.

 

The sound of rain smashing against the glass outside had a cruel knack for pulling out fragments of the past that had been sealed deep within her mind one by one.

 

The foolish vows of a 13-year-old and the disgusting greed of a 12-year-old have continued to this day.

 

Sieun slowly closed her eyes.

 

On the day of the Crown Princess's investiture ceremony 14 years ago, it rained just as eerie as today, as if there was a hole in the sky.

 

Enduring the heavy, almost as if her young neck might break, Si-eun walked across the red carpet toward Jong-seok, who would become her husband.

 

However, the gaze of the young Crown Prince Jong-seok, standing on the platform, was strangely directed elsewhere, not at his legitimate wife, Si-eun, who was walking towards him.

 

At the end of that blatant gaze, there was a young court lady peeking at the grand ceremony on this side from behind a secluded pillar of the lavish imperial family.

 

Shin Ari, a 12-year-old who had just entered the palace after accidentally forming a connection at an orphanage sponsorship event.

 

Even after 14 years, Sieun still vividly remembers Ari's gaze, which was hidden behind the pillar that day, chillingly.

 

Though her body was emaciated and unimpressively thin from poverty and hunger, Ari's eyes, which had been glistening in the deep darkness, were now gleaming with an uncontrollable, fierce greed and envy.

 

I could vividly picture the gaze that seemed to tear his ornate gold-leaf silk garment to pieces at any moment, and the grotesque and blatant longing he desperately wanted to place the dazzling floral crown on his head right away.

 

That young and base greed soon became a terrible reality that destroyed Si-eun's life.

 

After entering the palace, Ari intentionally lingered around Jong-seok, endlessly fabricating detestable lies.

 

He would falsely weep, claiming he was being slapped and tormented by Si-eun's court ladies, and every night, he would sit in Jong-seok's arms and subtly sow d*****d, claiming that Si-eun had a cruel and arrogant nature that oppressed subordinates.

 

The arrogant and vain Jong-seok was helplessly and perfectly drawn to Ari, who, rather than Si-eun, who always spoke the truth and was graceful and sharp, would burrow into his arms, shedding fake tears and praising him like a savior and a god.

 

Ari is a pitiful child who grew up in an orphanage without parents and was only persecuted! "As a mere empress, why are you so blinded by jealousy that you cannot embrace that child and instead try to find fault with it?"

 

Jong-seok was always like that.

 

When Si-eun stayed up all night and embroidered the emperor's birthday jewelry, which Ari had embroidered until all ten fingers were blistered, and when Ari secretly took the highest quality charcoal allocated to Si-eun's quarters in the dead of winter, causing the Empress to shiver in the bitter cold, Jong-seok, without even investigating the circumstances, always stood by Ari's side and indiscriminately criticized and rebuked Si-eun.

 

 

I didn't wish for your meager love; I simply wanted the minimum respect and courtesy as a nation's mother and as your wife.

 

Sieun let out a bitter sneer in the darkness.

 

The noble vow she had made at the young age of 13 to stand by her husband's side in the chilling palace was ultimately shattered by the despicable greed of a 12-year-old orphanage-turned-villain and her husband's foolishness.

 

And the price was devastating.

 

There were countless nights of humiliation when she was the absolute master of the inner court but had to be mocked by a mere court lady's influence, with the miserable label of being an "abandoned empress" who did not receive the emperor's favor.

 

The reason Si-eun endured those hellish 14 years by biting her lip was solely due to the family's honor and the well-being of her father, who cherished her dearly.

 

But today, they mercilessly trampled even the last line of defense that Si-eun had sought to protect as if it were her life.

 

"Your Majesty, you have touched my very sensitive spot that should never be touched."

 

At that moment, the small secret door of the tightly shut inner room opened silently, and a strong smell of rain and a metallic stench of blood rushed in.

 

Sieun suddenly opened her eyes wide.

 

Minhyuk returned covered in blood.

 

He was panting heavily like a wounded beast soaked in the rain, gasping for breath, but as soon as he entered the room, he saw Si-eun and collapsed to his knees on the spot.

 

"As Her Majesty ordered, we didn't spare a single one of the rats that were targeting our family home and took care of them. Father is safe and unharmed."

 

The breath that had been tightly blocked in Si-eun's heart finally burst out with a sense of relief.

 

Barely managing to hold back the fact that her legs gave way and she almost collapsed on the spot, she approached Minhyuk with trembling steps.

 

From his bodyguard uniform, which was stained black, warm blood that had not yet cooled was still seeping out, mixed with the rainwater.

 

"Minhyuk, are you hurt?"

 

Compared to Your Majesty's safety, this small wound on my body is nothing.

 

Sieun knelt on the marble floor, unconcerned about the hem of her skirt getting dirty.

 

And without a moment's hesitation, he roughly tore the hem of the finest silk sleeve he was wearing with a 'squeak' sound, tightly wrapping around Minhyuk's forearm, which was deeply gouged and bleeding unstoppably.

 

The pure white silk instantly absorbed his red blood and became soaking it.

 

Minhyuk flinched and stiffened his body.

 

Fearing that his lowly and dirty blood would stain the noble hands of the Empress, the queen of the empire, he hurriedly tried to pull his hand away, but Si-eun firmly and powerfully gripped his arm tightly.

 

 

"Don't avoid this wound, you got it for me and to protect my family."

 

The moment he met Si-eun's sorrowful and deep gaze, an uncontrollable, heavy sense of longing and pain welled up from deep within Min-hyuk's heart.

 

The dazzlingly beautiful woman, brutally abandoned by the emperor and slowly dying in this vast and cold ice castle, was the one absolute god she had vowed to protect throughout her life.

 

"Shieun Mama"