Our Blooming Youth: Episodes 5-6
by alathe
Our heroes embark on that most noble of all quests: rampant grave-robbing! But hey, with a killer on the loose, sometimes you’ve gotta grab a spade and go detective-ing. It’s up to our heroine to prove her loyalty, crack the case, and save a life — all before the clock runs out.
EPISODES 5-6
Meet everyone’s new favorite character: SCHOLAR PARK! He’s tall! He’s gorgeous! He’s erudite! He’s… yeah, so, he’s totally Hwan in disguise. And he’s here to exhume a corpse. Jae-yi and Myung-jin, propelled into instant BFF-dom after discovering a mutual love of grave-robbing, set off to examine the second murder victim. They’re joined by a thoroughly grossed-out Ga-ram, and their new friend, the illustrious scholar. With three out of four of their number in disguise, only the long-suffering Jae-yi knows everyone’s hidden identity — assuming Myung-jin hasn’t been holding out on us with an alter-ego.
A short, respectful prayer is offered, before our detectives set upon the grave, eyes a-gleam. There’s a glorious kerfuffle as the humble Scholar Park is ordered to dig. “Eunuch Go” briefly savors the sight of her prince regarding a garden spade like it contains every unpleasant secret of the universe, before she swoops in to save him from his near brush with manual labor.
The body reveals plenty. The royal guard failed to spot that it was stabbed twice: once, after death. Of course, given they also missed the huge letter carved onto its hand, such nuances may not have occurred to them. Together, all three corpse-characters read “Song Family Destruction.” But, without a fourth word, that could mean anything. As Myung-jin sagely notes — and as anyone currently struggling to maintain their Duolingo streak can confirm — in Korean, you must listen until the end of a sentence.
Investigations finish after evening curfew — but, as Scholar Park is scandalized to learn, there’s an inn still open. Our detectives settle in for a night of illegal revelry. Years of royal tutelage have left Hwan shamefully ignorant of drinking chants, but Jae-yi, it seems, is diligently self-taught. Later, cheeks flushed with triumph — and alcohol — she drags Hwan through the streets, leading the night guard on a merry chase. Think of it, she instructs him, as hide-and-seek! Though, as Jae-yi presses close to Hwan in an alleyway, playground games are likely not the first thing on his mind. Her heart’s racing, Jae-yi whispers. She loves hiding like this. Hwan catches her gaze — then abruptly looks elsewhere.
Meanwhile, Ga-ram heaves a drunken Myung-jin back home. She’s shocked to be met with a steely reception. CHIEF STATE MINISTER KIM (Sohn Byung-ho), she learns, is ashamed of his youngest son. He’s likely to have him beaten with a broom. Suddenly, Myung-jin’s flinch when Ga-ram brandished a broom last week makes a nasty kind of sense. And yet, considers Ga-ram, once you get to know him, Myung-jin is pretty impressive.
Guards successfully evaded, Jae-yi sobers up in time to ask some probing questions. Why does it seem like Hwan isn’t just testing her loyalties — but also Sung-on’s? Does he truly distrust him? Or is it to spare him from the fate the ghost letter promised?
Impulsively, she pushes Hwan past the door to Sung-on’s office, urging him to check in on her ex-fiancé. However, Hwan is completely unprepared for Sung-on’s confession: that he held back a piece of evidence out of concern for his father. He’s furious. Sung-on protests — even if the turtle compass had been Councilor Han’s, he’d still have informed his prince. That admission in itself is a massive deal, but Hwan can’t bring himself to believe it. Sung-on can only watch as his oldest friend turns his back, shoulder to shoulder with the eunuch who seems to have replaced him.
It’s the dead of night when Jae-yi makes a realization. The murders correspond to the four phases of life. The first victim was old. The second was stabbed after death. The third was ill. The fourth, she reasons, will be associated with birth: someone pregnant! Urgently, she runs to find Hwan, only to be stopped at the gate. The prince is asleep; nobody dares wake him. Determined to prevent a murder, Jae-yi rushes to the only other person she can trust — Sung-on.
It’s a tough ask. Sung-on has been humiliated at every turn; he has no small reason to resent her. Despite this, he rises to the challenge beautifully. Saddling a horse, he rallies his troops, even trusting Jae-yi to ride with him. Families the city over are unceremoniously woken by soldiers demanding to know if someone in their household is pregnant. Jae-yi’s method is defter: the murders took place at the far end of the capital. She leads Sung-on to a distant house — where, sure enough, screams soon pierce the air.
In a cramped room, seconds after giving birth, a new mother finds herself at the sharp end of a sword brandished by a masked assailant. It’s amid this post-natal nightmare that Jae-yi and Sung-on burst onto the scene. They fling themselves at the attacker, and amid the chaos, manage to yank their mask aside. It’s a woman with long, gray hair. More specifically, it’s the HEAD SHAMAN of the Shamanist Bureau (Lee Chae-kyung).
Jae-yi launches herself at the shaman, knife aloft. However, before she can subdue her, the woman hurls a pot at her head. Jae-yi drops like a stone. Sung-on manages to pin the murderer down, just as Hwan arrives on the scene.
Heedless of all else, Hwan pulls Jae-yi into his arms. Blood trickles from her temple. Still, she blinks back to consciousness for a second, long enough to murmur that Hwan isn’t to blame. Not for the death of her family, or the herald. And certainly not for her injury. Then — good lord, Show, don’t toy with my emotions like this! — her hand. DROPS. Flatly ignoring Sung-on’s protests, Hwan scoops up Jae-yi, bridal style. Eunuch Go, Hwan declares, is someone he trusts. The only person permitted to touch him is Hwan.
Later, Sung-on gets it in the neck from Right State Councilor Jo’s faction. The Head Shaman isn’t talking, and they’re keen to pin it on his incompetence. Stung, Sung-on visits the culprit’s house, in the hopes of gleaning evidence. Instead, he’s met with more masked attackers. In the ensuing battle, Sung-on manages to wound one assailant. However, it’s clear once they retreat that they took most of the evidence with them.
The other shamans give interesting testimony. A month ago, around the time of the Min family murders, the Head Shaman left for Gaeseong. Here, she visited Songak Mountain. She returned carrying with her the smell of strange incense, hair completely gray. Behind prison bars, the Head Shaman rambles and rants, claiming to be the chosen one — sent to carry out the prophecy. It’s a prophecy, she intones, that may still come to pass.
Back in the capital, a woman, BOK-SOON (Lee Min-ji), tends to her returning husband, MAN-DEOK (Kim Ki-doo). He’s been away on a mysterious errand. And he’s injured in precisely the place Sung-on caught his attacker.
Ga-ram, meanwhile, gets word that “Eunuch Go” was injured. Alarmed, she races towards the Kim residence, bashing into an old man. A bottle slips from his grasp. It contains, of all things, an oddly-colored fish. Blinking in bewilderment, Ga-ram wonders why he seems familiar. No time for introspection, though — she must rescue Myung-jin. Arriving at the gate, Ga-ram judges the distance. For a wall-scaler of her tried-and-tested talents, it presents no issue! However, as she peers over it, she encounters Myung-jin himself. Great minds think alike! Ga-ram holds out her arms in joy; Myung-jin makes a full-body leap towards his pupil… and, Ga-ram, doing a quick mental calculation of his weight, steps aside. Okay, so great minds sometimes differ.
Finally — Jae-yi wakes. She’s okay. She’s healing. And her prince is telling her she did well. Turns out, Hwan has been tending to her personally, using the medical knowledge he gained from her father. Jae-yi’s eyes fill with tears. Haltingly, the two remember Ho-seung. For Hwan, he was the mentor who taught him to think critically and serve the people. For Jae-yi, he was the warm family man who urged her to come to him if she were ever in trouble.
When Jae-yi returns to work, she’s hardly able to lift a finger without a very concerned prince intervening. The other eunuchs grumble mutinously. Scrubbing floors? Nonsense — she must meet Hwan on an urgent matter! He has an important duty for her: sit here, eat this tangerine, and rest. The adorable fact of the matter is, a large portion of Hwan’s love language involves feeding people fruit.
Ultimately, Hwan trusts Jae-yi. Perhaps he trusted her from the start. And so, as promised, the two discuss Min family murder. Jae-yi, the accusation goes, poisoned her family in order to be with her lover, SHIM YOUNG (Kim Woo-seok). Yes, Jae-yi confesses, she served her family breakfast that day. Yes, she asked her father to postpone her marriage. But it wasn’t out of reluctance — it was because of Hwan’s secret letter. As for Young? He taught her how to swing a sword. He was like family to her.
Hwan believes her. Moreover, he trusts her enough to show her the original source of his paranoia and fear. The ghost letter. Reading it, Jae-yi shudders, and Hwan hardly manages to mask his horror. But when she meets his eyes, she only says, with the utmost gentleness, you must have been so lonely. Admitting that she’s right seems to all but break him. But now, Jae-yi swears, she will protect him. She’ll help him shape his own destiny, prophecy be damned.
Meanwhile, she must investigate the current murders — this time, minus her good friend Scholar Park. Under cover of evening, Jae-yi sneaks out to the Head Shaman’s residence. There’s an envelope dropped by the door, which she pockets. More worryingly, there’s movement from the trees. Being Jae-yi, her immediate response is to pick up a weapon-sized stick and prepare to do some damage. But, as she scrambles back at swordpoint, she recognizes her attacker: Sung-on! They hastily disengage.
This would ordinarily be a very awkward moment in which to meet your ex. However, by now, that band-aid has been well and truly torn away. You want awkward? Try learning that the envelope you thought was evidence was actually — a marriage license. Sung-on has been carrying it all this time. Jae-yi is touched. Does this mean he believes she is alive? And innocent? If so, Sung-on’s not spilling his guts to his least favorite eunuch. Instead, they focus on the hunt for evidence. There’s little to be found besides an incense bowl, containing strange-smelling petals.
Jae-yi’s right about one thing: Sung-on has been holding out hope for his fiancée. What’s more, his investigations have borne fruit. He has evidence Jae-yi is alive: torn-off clothing from the cave in which she washed ashore. But there’s more news too. Young, Jae-yi’s supposed lover, is dead — by his own hand. Before he hung himself, he left a suicide note… a note that, to Sung-on’s confusion, Hwan has ordered brought to him.
Hwan opens the suicide note, fearful. The first sentence? To my love, Jae-yi. Trembling, he closes it. Then, grim faced, he orders a servant to bring him Eunuch Go. Jae-yi, however, has her own concerns. She’s taken a closer look at the flower in the incense bowl — and whatever she’s discovered gives her a shock of realization.
Do I love that Hwan has tossed aside his trust in Jae-yi so easily? No. But, the more I think about it, the more it feels necessary for character development. This relationship has been such a fast-burn: our leads went from shouting matches to intense vows of loyalty in the space of several episodes. It makes sense. They’re two very traumatized people, and they’ve been through a lot together. Equally, there was always going to be a point where the other shoe dropped. It feels fitting that Hwan is having doubts over some pretty flimsy evidence. His paranoia comes from years of fear and isolation. No wonder he’s looking for any excuse to shun intimacy. As for Jae-yi, she’s open and loving — and grieving. Having lost so many of the people she poured all that love into, it’s no wonder she needs a cause, and a person, to pledge herself to.
In other news, I am hopelessly fond of Sung-on. The prince’s best friend with ambiguous loyalties is a favorite trope of mine, especially when he comes equipped with an inferiority complex a mile wide. (Don’t get me started on Deok-ro from The Red Sleeve Cuff — I’m an unbearable apologist.) I keep thinking about the complexity of his position: once he discovered that evidence, there was no winning move. Surely, of all the competing loyalties you’re likely to encounter in the Joseon court, family comes first! In attempting to put his father first, though, all he did was court his disappointment — more than anything, I suspect, for lacking faith in him. No wonder the poor guy’s tormented. I can’t wait to see how his and Jae-yi’s relationship develops — they’re both shunting their feelings about their almost-marriage quite deliberately to the side. How long before Jae-yi lets herself examine how her feelings might have changed? Here’s hoping we find out soon!
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Our Blooming Youth: Episodes 5-6
Source: Buzz Pinay Daily
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