About

I became the Emperor. I ascended over countless corpses, treading on blood, and closed my eyes as the crown was placed upon my head. And the one person who was always by my side through every moment—I eventually stained even her in crimson. * You and I were bound by a political marriage. And I wasn't particularly interested in you. I didn't love you. Ah, but there was something that changed my attitude toward her. Your eyes, which wavered strangely whenever I spoke intimately with another woman. When that gaze, always brilliant and noble, shook before my eyes, my stomach tightened and a chilling thrill ran through me. In that moment, for the first time, I felt a single emotion: amusement. From then on, I increasingly craved that pleasure. I intentionally brought concubines around you to engage in physical affection, and I subtly mocked and insulted her in front of others. But boringly enough, you simply remained silent. The more I tried to break you, the more your solid form seemed to harden even further. Like a fool, unaware that my concubine was secretly killing you out of jealous madness, unaware that you were swallowing tears alone in an empty room, I spat out at your thinning frame: "Useless woman." And in the end, I saw it. How much she was trembling after hearing those words. Seeing you look as if you were about to crumble for the first time, I felt something was wrong, but I feigned ignorance. I just thought you could overcome anything. In the meantime, the country I ruled by force eventually erupted in a bloodbath again, and by the time I was losing my very self while cutting down countless rebels... At the moment an assassin's blade was leveled at me, You stood before me. Raising your terribly pained body to hold me in a shallow embrace. My belated love for you finally drove a blade into your heart.