In an unoccupied hospital room Seong-ho Kim and Tak-hyeon Lee sat facing each other.

"A good place to talk. Quiet, and nobody about."

"Yes. Safe enough that one need not worry who might overhear."

Having said in a roundabout way that it was a place where they might speak freely, Seong-ho Kim looked at Tak-hyeon Lee and asked offhandedly,

"But what is it you wished to see me about…"

"Mun-jong went to the Blue House yesterday."

"The Blue House?"

Seong-ho Kim feigned ignorance, put on a startled face, and asked,

"The Blue House summoned my eldest brother?"

Tak-hyeon Lee looked at Seong-ho Kim steadily.

He looked without speaking because Seong-ho Kim had not troubled to hide that he knew and was pretending otherwise.

"Yes. Well… it hardly matters."

Deciding it made no difference whether Seong-ho Kim knew and was pretending or not, Tak-hyeon Lee went on.

"The Blue House told him to put forward a solution, it seems."

"They demanded a solution?"

"Or else, they said, they would break off relations with us. They wouldn't go easy, was it? Mayflies, the lot of them, with five years to their name at most."

Tak-hyeon Lee spat the words out as though the matter disgusted him.

Because it galled him that men who ought to be begging his indulgence should be talking to him of whether or not they would go easy.

But Seong-ho Kim knew that this display was not Tak-hyeon Lee's true feeling.

He carries on so because the man with that five-year term of power could butcher Ilhyeon.

If Tak-hyeon Lee had truly held Min-gu Noh in contempt, he would not have come to him in person.

"Shall I go into the Blue House myself?"

When Seong-ho Kim, knowing that this was wanted of him, made the offer first, Tak-hyeon Lee cleared his throat briefly and nodded.

"Yes. Go and find out what those men are thinking. Whatever is fitting, answer it on your own authority."

Tak-hyeon Lee had said he would give Seong-ho Kim full powers.

The intention was that rather than be pushed this way and that…