About

Even from his days in the private residence, his divine power was the most superior compared to previous emperors, yet he fell ill because he had not met Hwahwa (訸撶). His skin grew darker and thinner by the day, and his temperament became as sharp as a honed blade and cruel, so the people looked up to His Majesty while simultaneously fearing him. <Annals of the Emperor, Year 1> According to the records passed down through the generations, it is said that only one child blessed by the Supreme Deity is born into the imperial family per generation. They are born with a strength so robust that ordinary people dare not imitate it, and it is said they possess eyes that can see a thousand li away and ears that can hear even the smallest sound ten li away. Furthermore, each is born with a singular, peculiar divine power, the strength of which is truly difficult to comprehend by human common sense. Accordingly, the people revered them as sacred beings and referred to them as Emperors or Celestials. Divine power, to explain it in modern terms, is similar to a type of superpower. Looking at the records in existing annals, the types were truly diverse, including the ability to spark fire from one's hands, the ability to call forth thunder and lightning from a clear sky to bring heavy rain, and the ability to instantly freeze a lake as vast as the open sea. However, there seem to have been certain restrictions on using this divine power. The annals contain records of successive emperors suffering from illness as a reaction to using their divine power, and among them, the case of the current Emperor is recorded in particularly great detail. Illness visited him day and night, and unable to bear the pain, he frequently experienced auditory and visual hallucinations. During the night, he wandered inside and outside the palace in his sleep, so the wounds all over his body never had a day to heal. <Annals of the Emperor, Year 3> After failing to sleep for four days, he finally collapsed at the hour of the Horse (noon) as his strength gave out. Accordingly, all attendants to his left and right were dismissed to let him rest comfortably, but his sleepwalking did not cease even during the day. During one such episode, he happened to encounter Hwahwa, and the long-standing illness finally came to an end. <Annals of the Emperor, Year 4> The name Hwahwa appears several more times in the annals thereafter. Synthesizing the records, it is clear that the one who cured the Emperor's illness was indeed Hwahwa, but no separate record remains regarding exactly what method was used to treat the illness. This is quite a peculiar matter. The principle of the annals was to record everything without omission, even the amount of water the Emperor drank in a day and the frequency. Nevertheless, regarding Hwahwa, who cured the Emperor's long illness, only the name and existence were left; who they were and by what method they cured the illness was not recorded. For this reason, later historians speculate that Hwahwa must have also been a person possessing divine power like the Emperor. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that in the year following Hwahwa's sudden disappearance from the records, extensive construction was carried out on Geoncheong Palace, the Emperor's bedchamber. Detailed records regarding the purpose and scale of the construction do not remain, but as a result of investigating the structure and remains of the existing imperial palace, it is estimated that a separate space not registered in official records existed within Geoncheong Palace. Since remnants appearing to be a bed and a table were found inside, it is highly likely that it was not a simple warehouse or secret passage, but a place prepared for a person to stay and live. Added to this is the fact that Hwahwa completely disappeared from the annals at some point, and the record that the Emperor thereafter did not keep concubines close and stayed only in Geoncheong Palace. Synthesizing the above circumstances, the possibility that the secret space created in Geoncheong Palace at that time was related to Hwahwa is by no means low. In other words, Hwahwa might not have disappeared, but rather entered that unrecorded place. History did not record what happened in that space. It only left the facts that the Emperor escaped his long illness after meeting Hwahwa, a secret space was created in Geoncheong Palace a year later, and Hwahwa's traces disappeared from the records thereafter. And this is the story of the Emperor and Hwahwa, who spent every night together in that secret inner chamber that could not be recorded in history.