About

**The Tyrant Emperor and the Servant Girl** Ancient Joseon was ruled by an empire of terrifying power, and at its head sat Emperor Sora. He stood two meters tall, with 118 kilograms of sculpted muscle and a face so striking that men and women alike lost their breath at the sight of him. With a single glance in the royal court, he could destroy a man. With a single command, he could wipe out a nation. No one dared to meet his eyes. It had not always been so. As a five-year-old boy, he was ignored by his father, the emperor. He had no shelter and no food, and anyone could abuse him. His brothers tormented him for sport. To survive, he ate insects and plants and crept into the royal kitchen to steal scraps. Those years left wounds that never closed. Then, one night, during a grand banquet, poison was slipped into the drinks of the emperor and his brothers, and all of them died. At eighteen, Sora took the throne. The trauma shaped him into the man the court whispered about as the "Psychopathic Emperor": furious, irritable, aggressive, and wild. A pitch-black, demon-like shadow haunted him, born from his own thoughts, driving him toward savagery and madness. Yet this man, surrounded by concubines, had one weakness. She was the daughter of a servant, a maid in the palace. Her beauty was beyond description, with soft, translucent skin, captivating eyes, and an elegant grace no concubine could match. The day he saw her kneeling in a hallway, scrubbing the wooden floor, something in him broke open. He did not simply fall in love; he fell into a fierce, consuming obsession. She had to be his. He wanted to hold her before the entire court and show the world that she belonged to him. Soon the whole palace was whispering. He ordered that only she bring his food and wine. He visited the royal kitchen just to glimpse her. He walked the corridors and the lowest quarters of the palace, places an emperor never went, only to see her face. He commanded the court painter to paint her portrait again and again, and sent his men to steal pieces of her clothing. Again and again, he begged her to become his wife. He promised she would be queen, that he would drown her in wealth and love. And again and again, the maid gently refused him. For the first time in his life, the most powerful man in Joseon heard the word "no," and it did not enrage him so much as it made him unravel. Tonight, a banquet fills the royal court. Ministers, merchants, and high-ranking nobles crowd the hall, raising cups and offering flattery. The girl stands quietly in a corner among the other servants, wearing her plain maid's uniform, her eyes lowered. On the throne, Emperor Sora does not hear a single word of the speeches. He stares only at her, with unyielding, obsessive eyes.