Post by ajk on Aug 30, 2013 20:26:27 GMT -5
Now Pyeonjo's petting the camel, and now he hugs it...which draws a smile from his owner, an Arab trader. Monks lead lonely lives, I guess!
Now Pyeonjo comes across some sort of magician or performer thrashing a sword around the head of a seated young woman. A blonde Caucasian woman. Out here? Apparently she's a slave and this is some sort of slave-selling presentation. An Dochi happens to be in the crowd watching this, and he and Pyeonjo strike up a conversation about it. Realizing that An is Goryean, Pyeonjo asks him about a prince named Gangneung. He's heard the prince is in the Goryeo Village here and who offers free food and drink to visitors. Pyeonjo says he hasn't eaten in four days; does An know where to find this prince? An gives him directions, tipping off nothing more. But in the process Pyeonjo insults the prince, assuming he's a "gutless noble" because he "takes delight in the pleasures of the flesh and wine after being taken hostage by the Yuan." That actually gets An to screaming at him...
But in the end it works out, because Gangneung is hosting what looks like a dinner for dozens of guests, and Pyeonjo has been allowed in. Everybody else is higher-class; the monk sticks out. We see Jo Il Shin and Kim Yong at the prince's table, and Jung Se Woon too. His three visitors from before. Sort of condescendingly, Gangneung asks Pyeonjo what he can do in exchange for his free meal. "I can predict your fortune, if you wish." Really? "I can say with confidence that you'll become Emperor, Your Highness." Doink! That's quite a prediction and the room instantly becomes silent. Gangneung laughs. "Not a king, but an emperor? So royalty from a vassal state of the Yuan Empire will become Emperor?" Gangneung dismisses it as flattery born of hunger...but it gets Pyeonjo a plate of food, and the luncheon continues, with the prince mingling among the crowd to pour drinks. Then Kim Yong tells the prince he has to return home shortly for his youngest child's wedding. Turns out Jo Il Shin really should go home too; his mother is very ill, possibly near death. But uh-oh, now some tension because Jung Se Woon thinks this is all a pretense and the other two won't come back. Throughout all this the prince has been laughing and joking about his being stuck here. Pyeonjo seems to think it's odd, but he's more concerned at the moment with getting that plate of food in his stomach. Understandably.
Now the party breaking up. And outside, hey, Jung was right! Kim and Jo are talking--about their good fortune that they can get out of here now and head home. They leave, and now we see Jung and An Dochi talking. We know how loyal An is; sounds like Jung is loyal as well, at least more than his two comrades.
Back inside, the room is dark, the tables are being cleared off, and Gangneung is sitting there by himself. No, wait, Pyeonjo is in there too. "If you ate to your satisfaction, it's time to leave. Isn't it?" At that, Pyeonjo drops to his knees in front of the prince. "I'm a merchant from Goryeo, Your Highness. I loaded plenty of costly goods on a ship, and then we went through heavy seas and I barely survived. I lost everything in the storm, so I have nowhere to go. And I've heard about a kind and magnanimous Royal member who will help and shelter anyone regardless of his social position." Oddly, the plea sets the prince off on a semi-self-pitying rant about "whispers of contempt" and all sorts of perceived disrespect, and the "room full of lackeys" who only came today for the free meal. "What do you think about that?" Pyeonjo, who's looked puzzled the whole time, tactfully answers, "I'm just a witless merchant. How could I grasp Your Highness's profound words?" But uh-oh, "witless merchants" apparently don't answer questions so eloquently because the prince immediately accuses him of lying and really being "one of those killers from Gaegyeong, here to slay me!" And at that he pulls out a dagger and expertly throws it right at Pyeonjo! Not surprisingly, Pyeonjo is too quick for that and catches the dagger by the handle--very impressive--but then he immediately puts it on the floor to show his benign intentions...and then tells the truth (which he really should have done upfront). "I'm an ordained monk. My name is Pyeonjo. I killed someone by mistake, and I've been running away ever since." The prince responds with a loud burst of laughter. A weird guy, no question (but a very good scene).
The next morning: The laughter must have given way to some compassion, because we see Pyeonjo in the Goryeo Village, sweeping the stone plaza. Looks like the prince gave him a job and a place to stay. An Dochi walks by, and Pyeonjo tries to diagnose his past lives. An tells him "If you're a monk, then I'm Buddha!" But it's all in fun. Next we see the pair shopping for food for the prince's kitchen...and next back in the kitchen working. So it looks like Pyeonjo has a job, at least for now.
An brings the prince his tea, and cautions him to "be extremely careful when dealing with people around you, Your Highness." And wonders if Pyeonjo really is an assassin. The prince doesn't answer him. (Of course, An didn't see that Pyeonjo had a free shot at Gangneung with a dagger and didn't take it.) Now An starts crying; that gets the prince to asking why. It's because the prince is reading. He hasn't read anything in a long time, we learn. "I sold everything worth anything, I drank all there was to drink. All I can do is read." He laughs. "You have to do it. Do it all until nothing is left." Again An begs him not to lose hope and believe he'll go back to Gaegyeong one day. We've been down this road before, but An has reason to go down it again now: Gi Won is in Yanjing, because apparently the new king's allies are trying to throw their weight around. "Looks like a storm is about to hit Gaegyeong." At that the prince loudly snaps at him: "When did you become a strategist?!" But then calms himself and smiles at his shocked eunuch. All the while Pyeonjo has been outside, just sitting there in the night air, close enough to hear the whole conversation. He learned a lot, no doubt.
Gaegyeong: Hey prince, maybe your eunuch is a strategist after all. Here's Gi Cheol in his covered chair being carried towards the palace--but they slam the gate shut on him!
He does manage to get in somehow, although on foot. We see him stomping around and into the palace, where he walks right up to King Chungjeong and Lady Yoon enjoying a meal. They ignore him! Eunuch Choi Man Saeng awkwardly announces him standing there, and finally Lady Yoon looks up and smiles. "Please, come. I'm serving refreshment to His Majesty. Please, have a seat." One of Gi's trademark disgusted grunts (very funny). And he can't sit because there aren't any chairs! "Really?", she says. "Did anyone throw away Lord Deokseong's chair?" Obviously phony surprise; very funny but what is the deal here? Look at this, who should step forward but Yoon Shi Woo (the minister Gi butted heads with in Ep4). "I threw away Lord Deokseong's chair." Lady Yoon plays the straight man: "Why would you do that?" Yoon answers, "From now on, Your Highness will take care of court affairs, so I took the liberty as I felt it necessary." He turns to Gi. "From now on, everything you do in the Jeongbang (the administrative council overseeing court personnel) will have to meet Her Highness's approval. Gi scowls at that. The council is a Yuan creation and not something for the Goryeo king to fiddle with, he says. Yoon brushes that off, saying this is a trivial matter, too small to require Yanjing's approval. Gi finds that ridiculous and angrily complains: "So fools rush in where angels fear to tread now!" Oops--poor choice of words, and Lady Yoon pounces: "So are you insinuating we're the fools rushing in?!" Outfoxed, Gi storms away. As he does, Lady Yoon shouts, "Be very careful. My son is Goryeo's King!" (Okay, so they're saying he's her son. Historically wrong, but at least we know for sure now.)
Choi Man Saeng runs after Gi and to calm him---plus he apparently was supposed to warn Gi if anything fishy was happening...but he didn't, or at least didn't know what was happening. So Gi loses his temper.
Evening: Over at the empress dowager's home, a thunderstorm has just kicked up. Oddly, she tells her attendant to open all the windows! She's so frustrated with everything that's happened lately, she's oddly invigorated by the storm's violence--hoping it will sweep the palace clean--and even heads out the front door and into the rain to shout encouragement to the storm! Not in a good frame of mind, obviously.
"Can we be safe?" Now Lady Yoon is having second thoughts about her brush-off of Gi Cheol. What if the empress hears about it? And you have to think she will....Yoon Shi Woo is there and tells her not to worry; "She's been dealt with already." Oh really? What does he know that we don't? He leans over and whispers something into her ear...and outside, Choi Man Saeng, who's been standing out there in the night rain getting soaked so he can eavesdrop, doesn't get to hear what Shi Woo just whispered..."She's much greedier than her brother when it comes to jewels," he says with a chuckle. Lady Yoon is all smiles now too, and calls him "My dear brother." News to us. Then Lady Yoon asks about Princess Deoknyeong. The former king's mother--is she a threat? They can't really just throw her out of the capital entirely, can they? Maybe so. Shi Woo says "Isn't she a Mongol woman? So she needs to go back to her motherland." Lady Yoon is all smiles again.
And funny they'd mention her, because now we see Princess Deoknyeong, going to pray for her dead son at a temple monument, outside--darkness and rain no matter. Fortunately Master Bou happens to be at that temple just then, and spots her, and brings her inside. Inside, she tells him, "Nothing ties me to Goryeo anymore. Isn't leaving common sense?" Wow, so she's thinking about it herself.
Inside the Yuan imperial palace. Gi Won has made it there and is telling Empress Gi about the trouble back in Goryeo. "Your Majesty. If this keeps up, we Gi's will crumble. You don't know how much chaos the Yoon clan is causing." Doesn't appear to concern her much...actually not at all. "Your Majesty needs to call Goryeo's King to Yanjing and have him pledge allegiance." Gi Won is really scared, but the empress doesn't answer him. Doesn't even look at him. Just sits there with her usual nonchalant look, with her happy-drug bowl smoking away slowly two female attendants massaging her joints. He begs for an answer, but the silence is deafening and at that point her attendant Park asks him to leave. He doesn't, so a couple of goons come in and drag him away! THEN she speaks. To Attendant Park. She's more concerned about splitting up Botap Shili and the crown prince than about the squabbling over a brand new king out there in Goryeo. But, she tells Park, "I don't see any way we can solve this." Park tells her to just go with the treason angle, like she mentioned previously. How? "Why would someone possibly kill his father if not to do 'that?'" Possibly a clumsy translation there, but it sounds like he's suggesting framing the crown prince for an assassination attempt. The empress smiles broadly.
Now what's this? The crown prince, without his goofy smile. He bangs on the table he's seated at, and tells the King of Wei, "I'll go meet His Majesty myself and tell him." Something about a perceived snub or lack of respect. The king cautions him to be calm; "say the wrong thing and they could accuse you of treason." I'll take care of this, he insists.
Now he and Botap Shili are out for a horse-ride into the countryside. They dismount and stand by a river. Qunluan tells Botap he wants to marry sooner rather than later. "His Majesty is falling into decadence as the days go by. He doesn't even pay attention to court affairs once a month, and leaves everything in the hands of court officials." Botap has heard a rumor: that "Empress Gi is serving him a strange drug." Qunluan has heard that too. "Her ambition is the problem," Botap says. "She's after you, Your Highness."
Arriving back home, Botap joyously runs to see her father. "His Highness officially proposed to me!", she shouts as she runs to the front door. But her attendant stops her outside. She can't go in just yet. Why not? No reason given...so she runs in anyway...
...and finds her father sitting, eyes closed as if in meditation, a written text in front of him. Some sort of petition he's preparing for the emperor. That won't work right now, she tells him; the officials will never let him see it. He must agree with her because he gets up and storms out to go see the emperor personally.
And there's the emperor...again in his bed, freshly gorked up on sex drugs and surrounded by his four young hotties. The King of Wei is in there kneeling just inside the door. Attendant Park tells him to leave the petition and go away. But he won't; instead he bravely stands up and takes several steps forward, kneels again and boldly starts to address the emperor. "The Yellow River has flooded several times recently, leaving the northern territories and Shandong province in ruins. Famine and floods have been continuing for years, and starving farmers have started to rebel. If we don't solve this, we won't be able to preserve the Yuan Empire our forefathers founded." (So obviously this guy is a responsible leader who's trying to do the right thing here; we can deduce that much about him.) But now who should step forward but Empress Gi, who was in the wings. She asks him, "Isn't that what you hope for?" Huh? She actually accuses him of being a separatist--where that came from, who knows--and he argues not for separatism but for the need to return to their roots on the Mongolian plains. "Look at us. Everything about our customs and culture is slowly vanishing" and we're going soft. The sight of the gorked-out emperor in the background, utterly clueless to any of this, sure doesn't hurt his case any, does it.
He leaves the building, looking angry.
Back inside..."Increase the dosage today." More aphrodisiacs for the emperor. The empress leaves.
Now look at this: a chest full of jewelry for the empress, from the Goryeo King! Ah, so that's what the Yoon siblings were whispering about. Park shows the chest to her and she smiles; obviously she likes the jewelry. Park also asks gently about Gi Cheol. "Just forget it," she says with a smile; if he's really that worried, he'll bring his own jewelry! Then a weird instruction about what to do with the jewels: "Bury [them] all around the palace." Huh? "It won't be long before Qunluan's windpipe starts to tighten up." And she laughs...not in a good way. Not sure what this means but undoubtedly we'll know soon enough.
Over in the Goryeo village, a surprising sight: Gangneung is out in the village streets riding a horse--and Pyeonjo is with him on another horse. Why the sudden gesture of camaraderie? "Avoiding the dagger I threw at you, that's not something anyone can do. That you killed someone doesn't concern me one bit. But this will be a good chance to atone for your sins." What will? The two canter off...and as they do, a voice cries out to Pyeonjo. It's Won Hyeon! He survived the boat disaster (which we know, of course, because we saw him alive years later) but he's here now and looks none the worse for wear. How about that. Pyeonjo didn't hear him, though. And now here's Jihyo walking up to Won, so he made it too.
The two riders have made their way outside the city and...oh this looks bad. "This is where they sell and buy Goryeo women," Gangneung explains, as we see terrified young women being dragged in every direction. "Many rich people from Yanjing can't wait to get their hands on Goryeo women and make them their concubines." Gangneung tells Pyeonjo, choose one for yourself! Says they can steal one in the nighttime (somehow). Apparently he's done it himself, repeatedly. Pyeonjo is stunned that Gangneung isn't thinking only about rescuing these women.
Back in the Goryeo Village, Jihyo doubts that Pyeonjo is still alive. But Won is sure he saw him.
Gaetae Temple: Monk Deokun has found a woman to breast-feed the little baby. Ban Ya, that's what they've named her. Looks happy and healthy.
Evening: Gangneung has found a secluded spot and is actually napping, totally unconcerned, while this dehumanizing auction goes on. Pyeonjo can barely stand being there and seeing this. And is disgusted at the prince's lack of interest. But now Gangneung wakes up, and starts to ask him about his background. A temple slave--"I've never been treated like a person." An old monk was generous to me, he explains....
Now the auction seems to have ended; the place has quieted down. "Let's go, Your Highness," Pyeonjo says. "I have an idea where they might be headed to." Who? What are they thinking? At that the prince and the monk jump over a railing and onto the auction grounds. What are they going to do?
Now Pyeonjo comes across some sort of magician or performer thrashing a sword around the head of a seated young woman. A blonde Caucasian woman. Out here? Apparently she's a slave and this is some sort of slave-selling presentation. An Dochi happens to be in the crowd watching this, and he and Pyeonjo strike up a conversation about it. Realizing that An is Goryean, Pyeonjo asks him about a prince named Gangneung. He's heard the prince is in the Goryeo Village here and who offers free food and drink to visitors. Pyeonjo says he hasn't eaten in four days; does An know where to find this prince? An gives him directions, tipping off nothing more. But in the process Pyeonjo insults the prince, assuming he's a "gutless noble" because he "takes delight in the pleasures of the flesh and wine after being taken hostage by the Yuan." That actually gets An to screaming at him...
But in the end it works out, because Gangneung is hosting what looks like a dinner for dozens of guests, and Pyeonjo has been allowed in. Everybody else is higher-class; the monk sticks out. We see Jo Il Shin and Kim Yong at the prince's table, and Jung Se Woon too. His three visitors from before. Sort of condescendingly, Gangneung asks Pyeonjo what he can do in exchange for his free meal. "I can predict your fortune, if you wish." Really? "I can say with confidence that you'll become Emperor, Your Highness." Doink! That's quite a prediction and the room instantly becomes silent. Gangneung laughs. "Not a king, but an emperor? So royalty from a vassal state of the Yuan Empire will become Emperor?" Gangneung dismisses it as flattery born of hunger...but it gets Pyeonjo a plate of food, and the luncheon continues, with the prince mingling among the crowd to pour drinks. Then Kim Yong tells the prince he has to return home shortly for his youngest child's wedding. Turns out Jo Il Shin really should go home too; his mother is very ill, possibly near death. But uh-oh, now some tension because Jung Se Woon thinks this is all a pretense and the other two won't come back. Throughout all this the prince has been laughing and joking about his being stuck here. Pyeonjo seems to think it's odd, but he's more concerned at the moment with getting that plate of food in his stomach. Understandably.
Now the party breaking up. And outside, hey, Jung was right! Kim and Jo are talking--about their good fortune that they can get out of here now and head home. They leave, and now we see Jung and An Dochi talking. We know how loyal An is; sounds like Jung is loyal as well, at least more than his two comrades.
Back inside, the room is dark, the tables are being cleared off, and Gangneung is sitting there by himself. No, wait, Pyeonjo is in there too. "If you ate to your satisfaction, it's time to leave. Isn't it?" At that, Pyeonjo drops to his knees in front of the prince. "I'm a merchant from Goryeo, Your Highness. I loaded plenty of costly goods on a ship, and then we went through heavy seas and I barely survived. I lost everything in the storm, so I have nowhere to go. And I've heard about a kind and magnanimous Royal member who will help and shelter anyone regardless of his social position." Oddly, the plea sets the prince off on a semi-self-pitying rant about "whispers of contempt" and all sorts of perceived disrespect, and the "room full of lackeys" who only came today for the free meal. "What do you think about that?" Pyeonjo, who's looked puzzled the whole time, tactfully answers, "I'm just a witless merchant. How could I grasp Your Highness's profound words?" But uh-oh, "witless merchants" apparently don't answer questions so eloquently because the prince immediately accuses him of lying and really being "one of those killers from Gaegyeong, here to slay me!" And at that he pulls out a dagger and expertly throws it right at Pyeonjo! Not surprisingly, Pyeonjo is too quick for that and catches the dagger by the handle--very impressive--but then he immediately puts it on the floor to show his benign intentions...and then tells the truth (which he really should have done upfront). "I'm an ordained monk. My name is Pyeonjo. I killed someone by mistake, and I've been running away ever since." The prince responds with a loud burst of laughter. A weird guy, no question (but a very good scene).
The next morning: The laughter must have given way to some compassion, because we see Pyeonjo in the Goryeo Village, sweeping the stone plaza. Looks like the prince gave him a job and a place to stay. An Dochi walks by, and Pyeonjo tries to diagnose his past lives. An tells him "If you're a monk, then I'm Buddha!" But it's all in fun. Next we see the pair shopping for food for the prince's kitchen...and next back in the kitchen working. So it looks like Pyeonjo has a job, at least for now.
An brings the prince his tea, and cautions him to "be extremely careful when dealing with people around you, Your Highness." And wonders if Pyeonjo really is an assassin. The prince doesn't answer him. (Of course, An didn't see that Pyeonjo had a free shot at Gangneung with a dagger and didn't take it.) Now An starts crying; that gets the prince to asking why. It's because the prince is reading. He hasn't read anything in a long time, we learn. "I sold everything worth anything, I drank all there was to drink. All I can do is read." He laughs. "You have to do it. Do it all until nothing is left." Again An begs him not to lose hope and believe he'll go back to Gaegyeong one day. We've been down this road before, but An has reason to go down it again now: Gi Won is in Yanjing, because apparently the new king's allies are trying to throw their weight around. "Looks like a storm is about to hit Gaegyeong." At that the prince loudly snaps at him: "When did you become a strategist?!" But then calms himself and smiles at his shocked eunuch. All the while Pyeonjo has been outside, just sitting there in the night air, close enough to hear the whole conversation. He learned a lot, no doubt.
Gaegyeong: Hey prince, maybe your eunuch is a strategist after all. Here's Gi Cheol in his covered chair being carried towards the palace--but they slam the gate shut on him!
He does manage to get in somehow, although on foot. We see him stomping around and into the palace, where he walks right up to King Chungjeong and Lady Yoon enjoying a meal. They ignore him! Eunuch Choi Man Saeng awkwardly announces him standing there, and finally Lady Yoon looks up and smiles. "Please, come. I'm serving refreshment to His Majesty. Please, have a seat." One of Gi's trademark disgusted grunts (very funny). And he can't sit because there aren't any chairs! "Really?", she says. "Did anyone throw away Lord Deokseong's chair?" Obviously phony surprise; very funny but what is the deal here? Look at this, who should step forward but Yoon Shi Woo (the minister Gi butted heads with in Ep4). "I threw away Lord Deokseong's chair." Lady Yoon plays the straight man: "Why would you do that?" Yoon answers, "From now on, Your Highness will take care of court affairs, so I took the liberty as I felt it necessary." He turns to Gi. "From now on, everything you do in the Jeongbang (the administrative council overseeing court personnel) will have to meet Her Highness's approval. Gi scowls at that. The council is a Yuan creation and not something for the Goryeo king to fiddle with, he says. Yoon brushes that off, saying this is a trivial matter, too small to require Yanjing's approval. Gi finds that ridiculous and angrily complains: "So fools rush in where angels fear to tread now!" Oops--poor choice of words, and Lady Yoon pounces: "So are you insinuating we're the fools rushing in?!" Outfoxed, Gi storms away. As he does, Lady Yoon shouts, "Be very careful. My son is Goryeo's King!" (Okay, so they're saying he's her son. Historically wrong, but at least we know for sure now.)
Choi Man Saeng runs after Gi and to calm him---plus he apparently was supposed to warn Gi if anything fishy was happening...but he didn't, or at least didn't know what was happening. So Gi loses his temper.
Evening: Over at the empress dowager's home, a thunderstorm has just kicked up. Oddly, she tells her attendant to open all the windows! She's so frustrated with everything that's happened lately, she's oddly invigorated by the storm's violence--hoping it will sweep the palace clean--and even heads out the front door and into the rain to shout encouragement to the storm! Not in a good frame of mind, obviously.
"Can we be safe?" Now Lady Yoon is having second thoughts about her brush-off of Gi Cheol. What if the empress hears about it? And you have to think she will....Yoon Shi Woo is there and tells her not to worry; "She's been dealt with already." Oh really? What does he know that we don't? He leans over and whispers something into her ear...and outside, Choi Man Saeng, who's been standing out there in the night rain getting soaked so he can eavesdrop, doesn't get to hear what Shi Woo just whispered..."She's much greedier than her brother when it comes to jewels," he says with a chuckle. Lady Yoon is all smiles now too, and calls him "My dear brother." News to us. Then Lady Yoon asks about Princess Deoknyeong. The former king's mother--is she a threat? They can't really just throw her out of the capital entirely, can they? Maybe so. Shi Woo says "Isn't she a Mongol woman? So she needs to go back to her motherland." Lady Yoon is all smiles again.
And funny they'd mention her, because now we see Princess Deoknyeong, going to pray for her dead son at a temple monument, outside--darkness and rain no matter. Fortunately Master Bou happens to be at that temple just then, and spots her, and brings her inside. Inside, she tells him, "Nothing ties me to Goryeo anymore. Isn't leaving common sense?" Wow, so she's thinking about it herself.
Inside the Yuan imperial palace. Gi Won has made it there and is telling Empress Gi about the trouble back in Goryeo. "Your Majesty. If this keeps up, we Gi's will crumble. You don't know how much chaos the Yoon clan is causing." Doesn't appear to concern her much...actually not at all. "Your Majesty needs to call Goryeo's King to Yanjing and have him pledge allegiance." Gi Won is really scared, but the empress doesn't answer him. Doesn't even look at him. Just sits there with her usual nonchalant look, with her happy-drug bowl smoking away slowly two female attendants massaging her joints. He begs for an answer, but the silence is deafening and at that point her attendant Park asks him to leave. He doesn't, so a couple of goons come in and drag him away! THEN she speaks. To Attendant Park. She's more concerned about splitting up Botap Shili and the crown prince than about the squabbling over a brand new king out there in Goryeo. But, she tells Park, "I don't see any way we can solve this." Park tells her to just go with the treason angle, like she mentioned previously. How? "Why would someone possibly kill his father if not to do 'that?'" Possibly a clumsy translation there, but it sounds like he's suggesting framing the crown prince for an assassination attempt. The empress smiles broadly.
Now what's this? The crown prince, without his goofy smile. He bangs on the table he's seated at, and tells the King of Wei, "I'll go meet His Majesty myself and tell him." Something about a perceived snub or lack of respect. The king cautions him to be calm; "say the wrong thing and they could accuse you of treason." I'll take care of this, he insists.
Now he and Botap Shili are out for a horse-ride into the countryside. They dismount and stand by a river. Qunluan tells Botap he wants to marry sooner rather than later. "His Majesty is falling into decadence as the days go by. He doesn't even pay attention to court affairs once a month, and leaves everything in the hands of court officials." Botap has heard a rumor: that "Empress Gi is serving him a strange drug." Qunluan has heard that too. "Her ambition is the problem," Botap says. "She's after you, Your Highness."
Arriving back home, Botap joyously runs to see her father. "His Highness officially proposed to me!", she shouts as she runs to the front door. But her attendant stops her outside. She can't go in just yet. Why not? No reason given...so she runs in anyway...
...and finds her father sitting, eyes closed as if in meditation, a written text in front of him. Some sort of petition he's preparing for the emperor. That won't work right now, she tells him; the officials will never let him see it. He must agree with her because he gets up and storms out to go see the emperor personally.
And there's the emperor...again in his bed, freshly gorked up on sex drugs and surrounded by his four young hotties. The King of Wei is in there kneeling just inside the door. Attendant Park tells him to leave the petition and go away. But he won't; instead he bravely stands up and takes several steps forward, kneels again and boldly starts to address the emperor. "The Yellow River has flooded several times recently, leaving the northern territories and Shandong province in ruins. Famine and floods have been continuing for years, and starving farmers have started to rebel. If we don't solve this, we won't be able to preserve the Yuan Empire our forefathers founded." (So obviously this guy is a responsible leader who's trying to do the right thing here; we can deduce that much about him.) But now who should step forward but Empress Gi, who was in the wings. She asks him, "Isn't that what you hope for?" Huh? She actually accuses him of being a separatist--where that came from, who knows--and he argues not for separatism but for the need to return to their roots on the Mongolian plains. "Look at us. Everything about our customs and culture is slowly vanishing" and we're going soft. The sight of the gorked-out emperor in the background, utterly clueless to any of this, sure doesn't hurt his case any, does it.
He leaves the building, looking angry.
Back inside..."Increase the dosage today." More aphrodisiacs for the emperor. The empress leaves.
Now look at this: a chest full of jewelry for the empress, from the Goryeo King! Ah, so that's what the Yoon siblings were whispering about. Park shows the chest to her and she smiles; obviously she likes the jewelry. Park also asks gently about Gi Cheol. "Just forget it," she says with a smile; if he's really that worried, he'll bring his own jewelry! Then a weird instruction about what to do with the jewels: "Bury [them] all around the palace." Huh? "It won't be long before Qunluan's windpipe starts to tighten up." And she laughs...not in a good way. Not sure what this means but undoubtedly we'll know soon enough.
Over in the Goryeo village, a surprising sight: Gangneung is out in the village streets riding a horse--and Pyeonjo is with him on another horse. Why the sudden gesture of camaraderie? "Avoiding the dagger I threw at you, that's not something anyone can do. That you killed someone doesn't concern me one bit. But this will be a good chance to atone for your sins." What will? The two canter off...and as they do, a voice cries out to Pyeonjo. It's Won Hyeon! He survived the boat disaster (which we know, of course, because we saw him alive years later) but he's here now and looks none the worse for wear. How about that. Pyeonjo didn't hear him, though. And now here's Jihyo walking up to Won, so he made it too.
The two riders have made their way outside the city and...oh this looks bad. "This is where they sell and buy Goryeo women," Gangneung explains, as we see terrified young women being dragged in every direction. "Many rich people from Yanjing can't wait to get their hands on Goryeo women and make them their concubines." Gangneung tells Pyeonjo, choose one for yourself! Says they can steal one in the nighttime (somehow). Apparently he's done it himself, repeatedly. Pyeonjo is stunned that Gangneung isn't thinking only about rescuing these women.
Back in the Goryeo Village, Jihyo doubts that Pyeonjo is still alive. But Won is sure he saw him.
Gaetae Temple: Monk Deokun has found a woman to breast-feed the little baby. Ban Ya, that's what they've named her. Looks happy and healthy.
Evening: Gangneung has found a secluded spot and is actually napping, totally unconcerned, while this dehumanizing auction goes on. Pyeonjo can barely stand being there and seeing this. And is disgusted at the prince's lack of interest. But now Gangneung wakes up, and starts to ask him about his background. A temple slave--"I've never been treated like a person." An old monk was generous to me, he explains....
Now the auction seems to have ended; the place has quieted down. "Let's go, Your Highness," Pyeonjo says. "I have an idea where they might be headed to." Who? What are they thinking? At that the prince and the monk jump over a railing and onto the auction grounds. What are they going to do?