BASED ON THE KINGDOM OF THE GODS
You must never...
look inside His Majesty's bedchamber.
Do you understand?
Yes, my lord.
THE KING IS DEAD. A NEW WIND WILL BLOW.
- We deserve to die! - We deserve to die!
Over 100 of the same notice were posted
all over Hanyang last night.
His Majesty, who is very much alive,
has perished?
Capture everyone who posted these,
wrote these,
or gave instructions to write these.
Bring in every single one of them.
I shall annihilate their entire families.
The same goes for...
those who did nothing while these notices went up
throughout the capital.
My lord, please spare my life.
My lord, please!
Forgive me, my lord.
- Please, my lord! - My lord!
Please spare my life!
The Haewon Cho Clan is rounding up young scholars.
Goodness. Oh, my! What are you doing?
No! Gyeong-seok!
Gyeong-seok! Goodness!
Gyeong-seok!
Arrest them!
Ten days have passed since His Majesty fell ill with smallpox.
The only two people who had seen His Majesty during the past ten days
are Chief State Councilor Cho Hak-ju and his daughter, the second Queen.
No wonder those terrible rumors
of His Majesty passing away have spread.
Halt!
We received a report that 89 scholars from institutions near Hanyang
worked together to post these heinous notices.
Confess!
The first to confess will have his life spared!
Who are the real traitors of this nation?
Through the spoils system and extortion,
the evil family of the Queen is busy feeding themselves.
The traitors?
Look to the Haewon Cho Clan!
How dare you! Shut your mouth!
Those of the Haewon Cho Clan are but insects
that are sucking the blood of the people.
How do they differ from swine that eat feces?
Perhaps it is better for His Majesty to be dead.
He is a feeble king who handed the nation
over to Lord Cho Hak-ju, the head of those swine!
How dare you!
Did you say it is better for His Majesty to be dead?
Do you admit to treason?
Then to whom are you referring by "new wind"?
Who is the new king you wish to serve?
Is it the Crown Prince?
TONGMYEONGJEON
Your Royal Highness.
You have been at my chambers for days
even though I am not fit to move.
Father has been ill for ten days,
but there is nothing I can do for him.
It devastates me that I cannot fulfill my duties as his son.
Please permit me to enter the King's palace
and to stay by Father's side.
Your father is lying ill from smallpox.
If you catch it from him and fall ill while looking after His Majesty,
who will lead this nation?
As a senior member of the royal family, I can never permit it,
so please leave.
Then just tell me this.
Is Father...
truly alive?
You may have learned how to be filial toward your father,
but not toward your mother.
How could you be so disobedient to me in front of the servants?
Do you hate me that much?
Or is that hatred more toward...
your unborn sibling?
Your Majesty, how dare I...
If that is not the case,
please head back.
What are you waiting for? Escort the Crown Prince.
I must see my father.
I will go to the King's palace.
Your Royal Highness, have you forgotten?
The Queen ordered that Your Royal Highness be kept out of the King's palace.
Step aside.
I said to step aside!
Please be understanding.
Whom do you serve?
Whom do you consider the King of this nation?
Is it my father or the Haewon Cho Clan?
Is there anyone in the entire palace
who does not follow the orders of the Haewon Cho Clan?
Your Royal Highness.
- Please be understanding! - Please be understanding!
Call Mu-yeong.
Your Royal Highness.
Why would you throw something worth more than my year's salary?
If a tantrum is what you wanted to throw,
you should have aimed it at the Queen.
The greatest virtue a crown prince must pursue is filial piety.
I cannot ignore the virtue and risk being deposed.
The wench may be barely of age,
but she is my mother nonetheless.
I see.
Your Royal Highness is a truly devoted son.
I have a job for you.
Is it...
Is it to go to the King's palace and see His Majesty?
Bring me the journal kept at the Royal Infirmary.
The palace guards keep an eye on the journal day and night.
How can I possibly obtain it?
The pears from Naju, the pomegranates from Gochang,
and the ginger sweets prepared with care by the Royal Kitchen...
Did you forget all that you stole from me?
Your Royal Highness.
Think of your wife, who supported you
until you finally passed the state examination
at the age of 40.
You stole from my dessert table in order to bring them to your kind wife
who finally got pregnant
after ten years of marriage, did you not?
Your Royal Highness, you know of my situation.
How long are you planning to use that against me?
If they find out that you stole from my dessert table,
you will be fired.
I will be so if I get caught stealing the journal.
I see.
I hear tonight's dessert table will have beef pancakes.
I guess I cannot force you.
If I try to sneak in before sunrise when the guards change shifts,
I may be able to get the journal.
The guards will not be as frosty before sunrise.
I may be able to get it if I sneak in during the shift change.
His Majesty went missing?
Forgive me.
I only stepped away for a moment...
If you wish to live, you must find him.
Now!
Father is...
missing?
What are you doing here, Your Royal Highness?
There was...
something monstrous in the hallway.
Something monstrous?
It sounded like a beast.
It smelled of blood and had a foul stench.
It was not human. It had the shape of a monster.
That cannot be true.
A monster in the King's palace?
Your Royal Highness must be wrong.
You do not believe me?
Your Royal Highness must be weak from having knelt in contrition for days.
Please return to your chambers
and have a physician check up on you.
Have His Royal Highness's attendants escort him.
Did you find my father?
What do you mean?
His Majesty...
is lying in his bed at this very moment.
He is lying in his bed?
I shall simply check for myself then.
Your Royal Highness, please stop.
Father, it is Chang.
Please stop, Your Royal Highness.
- Open the door. - No!
Open it at once!
You dare draw
your sword at me?
It is the Queen's orders.
I am only maintaining the laws of the palace.
Can a mere commander of the Royal Army
shed the blood of the royal family?
If you can,
strike me.
Where is my father?
Why?
Are you concerned about your father's safety?
I saw...
a hideous monster inside the King's palace.
I saw one as well.
A son pretending to be concerned about his father
when he secretly wishes for his father to die
so that he can secure safety and power for himself.
That is the monster I saw.
Not only that,
but I saw monsters
full of evil thoughts
who intend to use that son to slay His Majesty
and take over this nation.
Those monsters' blood is filling the courtyard
of the Royal Investigation Bureau.
Once that blood overflows, the leader of the conspiracy,
the new king they wish to place on the throne, will be identified.
When the time comes,
even a mere commander of the Royal Army
may shed the blood of the royal family.
Your Royal Highness may continue to wait, but His Majesty will not return.
His illness subsided, so he went to the Queen's palace.
Beom-il,
escort His Royal Highness out.
Yes, Father.
His Royal Highness must have been startled.
Bring him some medicine to calm his nerves.
Your Royal Highness.
Did you retrieve it?
Yes.
I almost got caught, but I managed to sneak it out.
Father collapsed ten days ago,
at the end of the month.
"Chills, fever,
and a headache.
Administered the decoction for rashes numerous times, but it was ineffective.
The fever is too high to be varicella.
The symptoms are severe.
There might not be a cure."
Your Royal Highness,
why are there no more entries?
This cannot be.
Those in the Royal Infirmary must write an entry every day without fail.
Furthermore, Father was in critical condition.
Unless they had to hide something
and intentionally omitted entries...
What is happening to my father right now
in his own palace?
Your Royal Highness.
Who is Physician Lee Seung-hui?
He was a royal physician, but he resigned three years ago.
How do you know of him?
His name is written on the last entry regarding His Majesty.
PHYSICIAN LEE SEUNG-HUI OF JIYULHEON IN DONGNAE WAS CALLED INTO THE PALACE
I must go out in disguise.
Pardon? In disguise?
You cannot. Who knows what the Queen will do to you...
She said not to enter the King's palace.
She did not forbid me from leaving the palace.
Your Royal Highness!
Prepare to leave.
It will be just you and me.
Then what about...
the beef pancakes?
DONGNAE
JIYULHEON
Eat a little more. You will recover faster that way.
I will have it later.
You call that food?
They will croak from starvation before the disease kills them.
The government promised to send us some rice soon,
so wait until then.
Like they would.
Dozens of people die every day
waiting for that rice.
You should rest.
What are you doing?
Those people will become sicker if they do not eat that,
so watch what you say.
By the way,
when is that Physician Lee coming?
I told you he went to Hanyang.
So, when is he coming back?
I came all the way here because I heard he was the best.
Your wound will heal quickly
if you shut your trap,
so be on your way.
What did you just...
What the...
What are you looking at?
The medicine is ineffective since they cannot eat much.
This is bad.
- Physician Lee has returned! - Hurry!
Physician Lee is back!
There he is!
Welcome back, Master.
What is that, Master?
Prepare for a funeral.
Pardon?
Whose funeral do you mean?
Over here.
Help me with this.
Let's open it.
- My gosh, Dan-i. - It is Dan-i!
- Oh, my. Dan-i! - My goodness.
- What happened? - What happened to him?
- Oh, my. - Dan-i...
What happened to Dan-i?
How could this happen to him?
Master!
Master, what happened? Please tell me!
What happened in Hanyang
that Dan-i returned in such a gruesome state?
Please tell me, Master.
Nothing happened.
Nothing.
Nothing happened.
HANYANG
It says they will depose His Majesty,
have the Crown Prince take the throne,
and create a new world.
This is conclusive evidence of treason.
We must bring the Crown Prince to the Royal Investigation Bureau
and interrogate him right away.
Where and how did you find the letter?
Someone reported that one of the scholars
who was arrested had this letter at home.
What a useful informant.
He knew every single one of the 89 scholars who committed treason
and where the secret letter that no one knew about was kept.
Who is this informant?
Why is that important?
None of the 89 scholars admitted to the allegation of treason.
Yet,
you are accusing them of treason based on the statement of that single informant.
This is an insult to the Confucian scholars,
the foundation of this nation.
Are the Confucian scholars really the foundation of this nation?
What did those Confucian scholars
ever do for this nation?
What are you saying?
Two disastrous wars
swept through this land.
Do you know...
why we were defeated so helplessly?
It is because weak Confucian scholars,
who only blabbed of the Analects and Mencius
without taking any action, led this nation.
The same holds true today.
You are completely out of line, Chief State Councilor.
What do you think you are doing?
Can you not see?
Should I help you see it better?
Now do you see what it says?
It says they will tear down the King,
disturb the order,
and create chaos, thus leading this nation to ruin.
After reading such a horrendous letter,
should the members of the Court sit around and argue about
what should be done while doing nothing as they did during those wars?
Lord Cho,
that is enough.
Arrest the Crown Prince and bring him to the Royal Investigation Bureau.
Where is the Crown Prince?
We do not know.
Give me the same answer again, and you will lose your neck.
Where is the Crown Prince?
- I truly do not... - If I may answer,
we have been searching for him all day,
but he is nowhere within the Crown Prince's palace.
You saw for yourself, did you not?
Find the Crown Prince!
Search all over the palace and Hanyang
and drag him to the Royal Investigation Bureau.
The Crown Prince is no longer...
the heir to the throne.
He is a criminal who conspired treason.
Gosh.
Is anyone there?
It is taking a bath.
Is anyone there?
Sure, sure.
Are you Park Jong-yeong,
- an orderly at the Royal Infirmary? - Yes, I am.
What brings the Crown Prince's personal guard by?
I am looking for Physician Lee Seung-hui from Dongnae.
He entered the palace
on the third of the month when you were on duty.
I do not know his name,
but the physician from Dongnae has left already.
The lad who came with him got severely ill,
so they had to return.
Ask what his symptoms were like.
Why was the lad in critical condition?
Did he catch smallpox?
A dullard like me does not know for sure,
but it was not a disease.
He had deep wounds all over his body.
It looked as if he was bitten by a huge beast.
Your Royal Highness, we must hurry.
We will get caught at this rate. We must hurry back.
That way is south, so Dongnae must be in that direction.
I need to know
what happened to my father and to the royal family
of this nation.
What do you mean?
I must go to Dongnae.
To Dongnae?
Now?
Without eunuchs or court ladies to serve you?
You and I alone?
We cannot.
I shall go.
Do you know how far it is from Hanyang to Dongnae?
You almost vomited several times
on the way here from the palace
because of the stench.
How can you make it all the way to Dongnae
on such rough and difficult roads? It is nearly 350km away.
My life until now has been more difficult than that.
What about your meals?
You will not even get to see the delicacies you enjoy in the palace.
I do not care.
We could encounter bandits or rioters.
They might kill us.
I will die anyway...
if I remain here.
Because of the allegation of treason?
Your Royal Highness, even the Haewon Cho Clan
cannot harm you for something you did not do.
I did it.
Pardon?
May I beg your pardon?
I...
conspired treason against Father.
Why?
How...
You are the Crown Prince. The throne would have been yours anyway.
So why?
IT HAS ITS MEANING IN CREATING A NEW WORLD
LEE CHANG
Crown Prince...
That is correct.
I am the Crown Prince of this nation.
I am my father's only son,
but I shall die if the Queen gives birth to a legitimate son.
I am but an illegitimate Crown Prince born of a concubine.
That was why.
Because I wanted to live.
- Still... - I still feel the same way.
Many scholars are dying at the Royal Investigation Bureau to protect me.
The only way to save them and myself...
is in the south, in Dongnae.
I must go to Dongnae, meet Physician Lee Seung-hui,
and find out
what happened to my father.
All I said was that he took the lad home
because he was in critical condition.
Forgive me, my lord!
I am sure
the Crown Prince went to Dongnae in search of Physician Lee.
I told you before, did I not?
We should have silenced Lee Seung-hui by killing him.
Physician Lee...
is still valuable to us.
However,
the Crown Prince is not.
Our messengers will not arrive ahead of the Crown Prince.
You must go and stop him yourselves.
A cavalry of ten on speedy horses will head out first,
and 50 competent soldiers of the Royal Army shall follow.
You must stop him
before he reaches Dongnae
and Jiyulheon.
Even if it means you have to kill him.
HANYANG, DONGNAE
DONGNAE
I cannot stop thinking about...
the strange wounds
on Dan-i's body.
We shall go.
I see smoke from the chimney.
What is going on?
It has been so long since I last had meat.
I feel much better now.
- This is so good! - Can I have another bowl?
This is so delicious.
- What is that? - This is unbelievably delicious!
What is all this?
Is it not obvious?
The patients are starving to death,
but the physician is holed up in his room.
I needed food to live, so I hunted a deer.
A deer?
You found a deer in the mountains?
Did you get the government's permission?
Should we get permission to die too?
People here complain even if I bring food.
My lady.
I am sorry to ask, but could I have some more?
My wife is trying to breastfeed the baby, but is having trouble...
- Sure. - Thank you.
It is all right. Do not cry.
What?
How could you do this?
- How could you? - What are you talking about?
I saw it.
How could you do that to a person?
How could you...
He was like family to us.
Who cares what he was to you?
Once you die, you are nothing but a slab of meat.
Are you out of your mind?
He was a person, just like us.
How can a person
- eat another person? - So what?
Should we all just starve to death
arguing about what we ought to do as human beings?
If everyone lived that way,
half the population of Dongnae would have starved to death already.
What do you mean?
How do you think the people in the south survived?
Do you think His Majesty saved them?
No. What saved them...
were the flesh and bones of neighbors who starved to death.
That cannot be true.
You live as you wish to live.
I will do whatever I need to do to stay alive.
It is delicious.
Jong-gu!
Are you all right?
What is it? What is wrong?
Jong-gu!
Jong-gu.
Jong-gu!
Master!
Mister.
Mister!
Mister, hold on.
Mister!
Do you have anything more to say?