447.
A small audience hall at the center of Yingtian.
The last rancid scent of war still hovered faintly in the air.
Park Seong-jin stepped into what had once been Zhu Yuanzhang's palace, passing broken roof tiles and charred pillars.
Zhu Yuanzhang, seated against the wall, slowly raised his head.
The chains had been removed, but deep marks of binding remained on his wrists.
His eyes looked hollow, yet deep within them a spark still refused to go out.
Park Seong-jin spoke first.
"I have ordered your restraints removed.
You may leave. No one will stop you."
Zhu Yuanzhang let out a breath that sounded like a scoff.
"Leave—where would I go?
All under heaven has already abandoned me."
He exhaled once more, harshly, then looked steadily at Seong-jin.
Discomfort remains discomfort, even when its direction changes.
Zhu Yuanzhang spoke low.
"I hear you argued to spare my people."
"That is correct."
"So you bargain with the life of a defeated king.
You have skill."
Park Seong-jin shook his head.
"This is not bargaining.
It is the last means to save people.
The most precious thing in the world is a human life."
A very subtle light passed across Zhu Yuanzhang's face.
He spat out his reply at once.
"Not words a general who slaughtered thousands should speak."
Park Seong-jin's gaze did not waver.
"The war is over."
Zhu Yuanzhang slowly nodded, as though tracing the grain of that sentence.
Your war may be over,
but mine is not.
The words did not pass his lips.
Yet Park Seong-jin heard the lament of that sorrowful defeat.
Zhu Yuanzhang asked,
"Then what is it you seek to gain here?"
"Nothing."
At that single word, Zhu Yuanzhang's eyelids trembled almost imperceptibly.
"…Nothing?"
"The war is over.
Now I am a student.
I must continue my study."
Zhu Yuanzhang rolled the word study on his tongue,
as if chewing an unfamiliar stone.
Many people believe the place where they stand is not their true place.
Park Seong-jin was only one among them.
"Study…
You could have seized the world.
With power like yours, you still speak of study?"
Park Seong-jin lowered his eyes briefly, then answered very quietly.
"I do not gain power to change the world.
I study to set myself straight.
I wish to become a better person."
Zhu Yuanzhang laughed.
The sound was light, but long-stored exhaustion lay heavy beneath it.
"To change yourself, rather than the world."
"The world changes countless times.
The heart, however, is difficult to govern for a lifetime.
That is the difficult task I choose."
Zhu Yuanzhang spoke as if declaring a truth.
"Then you are foolish.
A man must be strong.
To change the world, one must take up the blade and break others—
as I did."
Park Seong-jin nodded.
It looked like agreement, but his answer was different.
"And that is why you have come this far."
Zhu Yuanzhang's lips trembled.
His words jammed, then rolled back out from his throat.
"…This far.
Yes.
If not for you, I might have taken the world."
Park Seong-jin steadied his breath before speaking.
"The path you walked was like a lamp rising from the ground, lighting the Central Plains.
But it ended there.
It was not your virtue that failed—
no one can endure to the end forever."
A long shadow wavered over Zhu Yuanzhang's shoulders.
His voice sank lower.
"Are you saying I chose the wrong path?"
Park Seong-jin did not shake his head at once.
Instead, he answered more slowly, more firmly.
"The path you walked held meaning.
It was simply a way that could not endure."
Zhu Yuanzhang lifted his eyes.
"A way that could not endure."
"Power that subdues others does not last long.
Power that governs oneself does not decide its own end."
A brief silence followed.
The words were simple, yet Zhu Yuanzhang seemed unable to fit their meaning inside himself.
Park Seong-jin took one step closer.
"To move the world, one must first remain unmoved."
Zhu Yuanzhang let out a hollow laugh.
"…You say I was shaken."
"Yes."
"And that shaking brought down a nation."
Park Seong-jin bowed his head, but his voice grew clearer.
"That shaking belongs to all who are human.
Had you recognized it, Your Majesty would have been the first to examine yourself."
Zhu Yuanzhang released the breath he had drawn in deeply.
"I wanted to change the world."
"Because that wish was so great, the moment you lost yourself must have hurt all the more."
Zhu Yuanzhang closed his eyes.
Park Seong-jin lowered his voice and placed his final question with care.
"What kind of world did you wish for?"
Zhu Yuanzhang's voice trembled.
It cracked like parched earth.
"…A world where someone like me would not starve to death.
A world not toyed with by barbarians."
Park Seong-jin nodded.
"That wish is good.
Hold on to that heart."
With his eyes still closed, Zhu Yuanzhang asked in a smaller voice,
"Then… must I live?"
Park Seong-jin did not answer with words.
The silence was not long, but its stillness pressed against Zhu Yuanzhang's chest.
After a moment, Zhu Yuanzhang spoke low.
"You have won."
Park Seong-jin smiled faintly.
"I have won nothing."
Zhu Yuanzhang slowly straightened his body.
His freed hands trembled atop his knees.
With effort, he looked at Seong-jin and said,
"…I see now.
You walk a path different from mine.
I sought to change the world and grew weary of it.
You stand face to face with yourself and walk to the end.
That path cannot be measured by victory or defeat."
Park Seong-jin bowed his head.
"I only continue forward."
Zhu Yuanzhang twisted as if he might collapse, leaving his final words behind.
"If there is a next life…"
He stared into empty space.
"…then perhaps, like you, I would like to defeat my own heart first."
Park Seong-jin murmured,
"In the next life, you will likely not be born human.
You know better than anyone how you lived—
do you truly think you would be born a man again?
For my own ambition, I did not hesitate to walk the path of evil.
I claimed to act for the people, but looking back now, I used the name of the people to become emperor.
How could I be reborn as a human?
I will wander the lower realms for a long time."
Zhu Yuanzhang let out a dry laugh.
"So that is how my life reads."
"Did you not kill many yourself?" he asked.
Park Seong-jin did not reply.
Having set down his position, Zhu Yuanzhang looked utterly gaunt—
a single human being.
He had not been a man filled with greatness to begin with.
Society had raised him up, trying to realize its hopes through him.
A pitiful life that mistook that elevation for personal worth.
Park Seong-jin quietly bowed in respect.
That day, the words exchanged between a defeated king and a warrior were not recorded in any banquet chronicle.
Yet the silence and truth they shared echoed through the deep night of Yingtian for a long time to come.