Smoke danced across the surface of the river, curling like ghostly fingers into the night sky. And in the smoke, he saw her.
Lady Nam Haein.
Her voice, like a lullaby carried on the wind, drifted softly through the veil of Muyeon's dream.
> "Sleep, my little flame. Even in darkness, the fire remembers how to burn…"
She knelt beside him, a gentle figure in white hanbok stained with the dust of a crumbling world. A comb of carved wood held up her raven-black hair. Her hands stroked his cheek with infinite tenderness.
Her face was a blend of nobility and sorrow—a noblewoman of a bloodline long fallen, sold as a concubine to a third-rate warlord just to survive.
But to him, she was the world.
"Do you know who you are, Muyeon?" she asked, cradling him close.
He shook his small head.
"You are a riverstone wrapped in fire. You will flow. You will burn. And one day…"
Her voice cracked.
"One day, they will learn what it means to break something that could have saved them."
---
The dream shattered.
And with it came pain.
Hot, searing, blistering across his wrists—bound in rope.
He was ten years old again.
Dragged through the polished stone halls of the Shi Imperial Court, past golden pillars, past guards who looked at him as if he were scum beneath their boots.
The throne room loomed like a lion's maw, filled with nobles dressed in silk, with sneers sharper than swords.
At the top sat King Shi Liansheng (시 련성).
The tyrant himself.
The Dragon King of the Eastern Throne.
Draped in red robes trimmed in black, his crown cast long shadows across his arrogant, cruel features. He leaned forward, his long fingers tapping on the dragon armrest.
"So this," he said slowly, "is the rat."
Muyeon was thrown to the floor like meat.
A soldier stepped forward, grabbing his hair and forcing his head down.
"Bow to your liege."
Muyeon spat blood instead.
Gasps rippled through the chamber. A few chuckled.
The king raised an eyebrow, amused.
"Bold for a bastard born of a servant concubine," Liansheng said. "Does the rat know why he's here?"
Muyeon's voice trembled, but his eyes remained sharp.
"You want to kill me."
"No," the king said with a smile. "She is the one who committed treason."
Footsteps echoed.
And then he saw her.
Lady Nam Haein, her hanbok torn, her hair disheveled—but her posture still straight, still proud.
Chains bound her wrists, but not her spirit.
"Mother!" Muyeon cried.
She didn't cry.
Didn't look away.
She smiled.
"My flame."
Liansheng sneered. "She conspired to hide a royal-blooded child from the court. Your father—an enemy of the crown—should never have sired a whelp like you. And she dared to protect it."
He stood, raising a scroll.
"She forged papers. Lied to the census. Took bribes. Defied the Shi mandate."
He dropped the scroll.
"She will be executed for treason."
Muyeon struggled against the guards.
"Don't! Please!"
Liansheng stepped closer to Haein. "Do you have any last words, rat-woman?"
She met his gaze with ice.
Then looked to her son.
"My son," she said, "don't let them bury your name."
And then the blade came down.
---
Blood splashed across the marble.
Muyeon screamed.
But the world had already gone silent.
The nobles turned away in disgust or delight.
The king laughed.
And in Muyeon's chest, something shattered.
Something was born.
> [Emotion Surge Detected]
[System Activation Level: 34%]
[New Trait Unlocked: Unyielding Will]
[Effect: You will resist pain, torture, and despair with superhuman resolve.]
[New Quest Acquired: Survive]
➤ Objective: Live through the punishment.
➤ Reward: Stat Growth +1, "Survivor's Intuition" unlocked.
But Seojin—the man inside the boy—was still screaming.
This wasn't history. This was memory.
This wasn't reading from a scroll. This was living what he once only studied.
He wanted to turn away, but there was no escape.
---
Later that night, they threw him into a prison cart, to be sent to the mines.
"Not worth a clean death," a guard muttered.
"He'll die in the dark," another said. "Where rats belong."
Muyeon lay in straw and filth, his body broken, his soul ablaze.
And in the darkness, the System whispered again.
> [Optional Quest Unlocked: Revenge of the Crimson Flame]
➤ Trigger Condition: Remember who you were.
➤ Accept? Y/N
He stared into the void.
"Yes," he whispered.
> [Quest Accepted. Path of the Emperor Reactivated.]
[Note: You were broken once. Never again.]
And with that, his eyes closed—burning red behind their lids.
---
In the days that followed, the prison caravan trudged through the mountains, bound for the Shi iron pits.
He was whipped, beaten, starved.
But he survived.
One week in, the guards threw in another prisoner—a half-mad old man with a cane-sword and sharp eyes.
He introduced himself with a kick to Muyeon's ribs.
"Get up."
Muyeon coughed blood. "Why?"
The man crouched beside him, tapping his chest.
"Because I remember what burns in here. You're not just some rat boy."
"…Who are you?"
"I'm the one who taught you how to kill kings."
---
And so began his second chance.
In the mines, among shadows and stone, a flame began to rise again.
Not as a child.
Not as a scholar.
But as Jin Muyeon, the boy who would become the Crimson Emperor.
And this time, he would not walk alone.
---