Chapter 63
“……It’s all my fault.”
Han Tae-moon, who had finished his rant, met my gaze through the bars and calmly spoke. The story he told was something of an epic.
He started out in tears.
Slowly, I began to feel sad.
By the end, when the jumble of emotions had been sorted out, his reaction was.
His reaction was more like that of a first-timer, or an enlightened person.
“I felt very stupid and foolish to talk about it,” he said. I once prided myself on being the head of the Three Great Palaces, the lord of the Northern Sea Ice Palace, and a monarch who had achieved the Great Dynasty of Taiping, but as I spoke, I realized that it was not I who was wronged, but others.”
I think I know who he’s referring to.
“……The countless people of the North Sea. It is I who have made the cold winds of the North Sea even more bitter.”
In a self-pitying rant, he said he was unworthy of the throne.
“I have rejected the touch of the Middle Kingdom, and I have refused to listen to the advice of the other three courts, so…….”
Suffering from all sorts of hardships, he became sickly and weak.
I listened to the words of an elderly man who was far from the majesty of a courtier.
“Who am I to argue about their peace, their security, or anything else?” he said.
I looked at the old man, ashamed to admit that even this was an afterthought, a self-reflection.
“To let go is to be truly unconcerned. As a courtier, if I have not fulfilled my duties as a courtier, I am not derelict. If you have not fulfilled your duties, you must do everything in your power to bring them back, no matter what other excuses you may have.”
