The king’s brother couldn’t be executed simply because the officials suggested that the king appoint a crown prince. Both parties would continue competing with one another until the king established his dignity and Lee Hoo resolutely revealed his will. He groveled for forgiveness because he wanted to live — not because he wanted to die. Because of that, he had to endure till the end. Even if it meant dying after that.
The light snow falling since he arrived at the palace developed into roaring snow flurries. Initially, the snowflakes melted as soon as they touched his body, melting and evaporating repeatedly; from a certain point onwards, it started freezing before evaporating. And snow began to pile up.
When the snow stopped falling and the sun came up, the snow piled up on Lee Hoo’s body melted, wetting his hair and undergarments. However, the snow started falling once again, as though it was playing a cruel joke on Lee Hoo, and the biting wind kept blowing at him, repeatedly freezing his hair and undergarments solid. Even though he was only wearing undergarments, he wore them in several layers, so he could endure the cold. Several layers of thin cotton undergarment kept him very warm, and if it weren’t for the strong winds and snow, he would have been able to endure the cold. But the weather was unforgiving.
Just like that, Lee Hoo ended up spending two days in the snow and put up with the cold. Nobody came to clean up the snow. His beautiful face started peeling, and his lips were chapped and ended up bleeding. White, dry patches of skin appeared all over his face. The exposed skin outside his collar and sleeves had become coarse and hard.
He could no longer tell what the time was at this point. Just then, a long shadow appeared in front of him. When he slowly opened his eyes, he saw the king of this country looking down at him.
“It is cold.”
“I do not feel cold at all,” Lee Hoo replied.
“Get up,” the king said.
“I cannot do something to harm the body my parents have given me, so I am still alive despite committing such an act of disloyalty. Please sentence me to death and lay the foundation of this country.” As soon as Prince Myeong-Hwan finished talking, he kowtowed repeatedly, slamming his forehead to the ground. Red blood splattered and flowed all over the snow that had been piled up. The dripping blood was as red and intense as the plum blossoms that Prince Myeong-Hwan usually drew.
As Lee Hoo was asking to be sentenced to death while kowtowing, the king looked at him with an expression full of mixed feelings. He looked at his cold breath dissipating into the air and shut his eyes tightly.
“I told you to get up. Having me repeat myself is also an act of disloyalty. Since you have admitted your mistakes, I will respond. Go back and lock yourself up for a month.” The fact that the king didn’t refute Prince Myeong-Hwan’s confession meant that he had acknowledged that Prince Myeong-Hwan was guilty too. In the king’s eyes, the very existence of Prince Myeong-Hwan, Lee Hoo, was a sin in itself.
As soon as the king entered the Daejeon and disappeared from their sight, Dong-Ho quickly walked up to Lee Hoo and draped his uniform over his shoulders. As Lee Hoo straightened up, blood trickled down his face to his chin from his wounded forehead. Dong-Ho wiped his master’s blood with a cloth and then stood before him with his back facing Lee Hoo. It was too physically taxing for Prince Myeong-Hwan to walk out of the palace after kneeling for two days.
Lee Hoo felt conflicted for a second. He must not let Dong-Ho carry him on his back for the sake of his own honor. However, if he walked out of there in a dignified manner, it would reduce the significance of his self-punishing act over the past two days. So he stood up first and wore his clothes with Dong-Ho’s help before facing the Daejeon and bowing respectfully. After that, he gestured Dong-Ho to come over and placed his arm around his shoulders. This was the best option he could choose.
As soon as he left the Daejeon with Dong-Ho supporting him, the people who saw him flocked over. Among them was Jimil Sanggung of Daebijeon; she was accompanied by the royal physician. Prince Myeong-Hwan laughed softly when he saw her.
“Please tell the queen dowager that I will visit her next time.”
Lee Hoo turned down everyone’s help. Only after arriving in front of the already prepared sedan did his legs give way, and his body collapsed.
“Your Highness!” Dong-Ho was shocked and caught him. Lee Hoo took a deep breath and muttered.
“This is so strange. It’s so hot in here, but why do I feel so cold?” Lee Hoo hit his chest in frustration and asked Dong-Ho, with a perplexed look on his face.
“Cut! Bad take.”
Despite hearing the director yelling ‘bad take,’ Woo-Jin remained still before raising his hand slowly and touching his face. He looked at the water droplets between his fingers and wondered what they were. His mind went blank for a second.
“These look like tears… Am I crying right now?” Woo-Jin said, blankly.
“Yeah,” Lee Dan-Woo affirmed.
“But why?” Woo-Jin asked.
Lee Dan-Woo responded to Woo-Jin’s own question with a concise answer, but Woo-Jin raised his head and questioned the reason with a blank look on his face. However, it wasn’t a question Lee Dan-Woo could answer. Woo-Jin was the one who deviated from the script, so he should have the answer. Strangely enough, the tears didn’t stop falling that easily. As Woo-Jin was flustered while wiping them with the back of his hand, Director Yoon approached him.
“What’s wrong with me?” After hearing Woo-Jin’s question, Director Yoon said that his eyes were hurting because of the makeup and suggested that the actors and staff take a break for a while. He then advised Woo-Jin to go somewhere nice with him and led Woo-Jin to an old tree that was quite a distance away from the set.
Director Yoon sat down first on one of the large rocks surrounding the old tree like a protective barrier. Then, he beckoned to Woo-Jin, patting the seat next to him. Woo-Jin sat down next to him; he was still wiping away his tears that hadn’t stopped flowing down.
“Are all our actors crybabies?” Director Yoon held back his laughter and handed Woo-Jin a handkerchief. Woo-Jin pressed it against his eyes, and his tears seeped through it. It was starting to make him feel scared. Woo-Jin absolutely couldn’t comprehend the tears he was shedding against his will.
“Why am I acting this way?” Woo-Jin asked, alarmed.
Originally, according to the script, Prince Myeong-Hwan was supposed to smile futilely, as though he was laughing at the world when he said the last line. The warning given to the people planning to use him was a success. However, it left behind a bitter taste because everyone knew that even though Prince Myeong-Hwan risked his life like that, the ambitions of those people wouldn’t cease to exist. The person at the pinnacle of it was his mother. The moment might be gratifying, but his smile that foreshadowed the endless war reflected his complicated thoughts.
However, Woo-Jin was shedding tears with a puzzled look on his face. Such a direct portrayal of emotions was not written in the script.
“Isn’t this the excessive empathy you were initially worried about?” the director said
“Empathy…” His current state was too ambiguous for him to say it was empathy. The actual Prince Myeong-Hwan did not shed these tears. Red Enemy’s Prince Myeong-Hwan was confused because of his childish mind and complicated emotions towards his mother, but he was not sad. Woo-Jin was confident that it was not empathy, so he shook his head.
“Even so, think back carefully. Did you feel something you normally don’t think about while acting? In other words, what thoughts and emotions would the prince have in this situation when he looked at the Daejeon?” the director suggested.
People might feel different when they act out a scenario they had only read. After hearing Director Yoon’s question, Woo-Jin casually answered as he pressed the handkerchief against his eyes.
“Perhaps he wanted to use the bathroom urgently. His frostbitten fingers and toes were unscathed, probably because he constantly wriggled them while holding back his urine. And he would have grumbled about the suffering caused by those old officials in this cold season, and he would have written a poem or sang a song in his heart out of boredom.”
He had almost gone insane because he couldn’t sleep on a cold day. It had taken him a while to realize the king was standing before him, looking down at him because of his frantically wandering mind. Although it wasn’t written in the script, back then, the Sangsun had coughed next to him, snapping Prince Myeong-Hwan out of his thoughts.
Director Yoon also agreed with Woo-Jin, saying it must have been something like that. After all, Prince Myeong-Hwan was only 18 back then.
“In the past, 18-year-olds were treated like adults, but if you look at the precocious kids these days, 18-year-olds still are considered partially as children. It’s the intermediate phase where they are not physically and mentally mature yet, and therefore are not adults.”
However, judging from the circumstances back then, when the average life expectancy was short, people were forced to be adults at such ambiguous ages. As a result, they married at a young age and became parents after that. Living in such a forced environment, they had no choice but to grow up. Things wouldn’t have been much different for Prince Myeong-Hwan as well.
“A child pretending to be an adult. As such, it would be highly likely for him to seek little joys alone even in serious situations,” the director said.
“Yes, Prince Myeong-Hwan wouldn’t have experienced any sadness back then. At least that’s what I think, but why am I crying like this? It’s not like I’m actually sad.” Woo-Jin said vacantly as he wiped his tears for the last time. He finally stopped crying. Director Yoon pondered deeply about Woo-Jin’s response.
“Could it be because you were seeing something different from what you felt?”
“See?” Woo-Jin asked.
“You only understand and see the things you know about, just like how there’s a big difference between the emotions you experience when you have inside knowledge and the times you don’t when we examine a production or any situation. If you don’t know anything, a polarizing scene which people either love or hate could be a tragedy to some and a comedy to others,” the director explained.
The story of Cimon and Pero was one such example; it had appeared in several works. The painting of a young woman breastfeeding an old prisoner might be repulsive to people who see it for the first time if they didn’t know the story behind it. However, if they were to learn that the daughter, who had given birth not too long ago, couldn’t stand seeing her father starve to death in prison and breastfed him to help him stay alive, the painting might look different to them. Nonetheless, before that, people either liked or disliked it based on what they saw, stimulating them to feel various emotions. After learning the backstory or attaining inside information, the greater the twist, the greater the emotions felt. However, under the circumstances where a person already had a lot of information, they would understand and empathize with the situation the moment they see it.
“Before the shooting started, didn’t you research and look into Prince Myeong-Hwan’s information the most out of everyone? So even while you were acting, you might have felt sad when you looked at the scene.” Director Yoon proceeded to tell him that he had experienced something similar at times before when he watched movies or looked at artworks. Even though it was just an ordinary portrait, knowing the subject of the painting and what their life was like evoked a different feeling.
He felt those emotions first after seeing whatever he was looking at before his brain could comprehend it. There were also times when he experienced various emotions without knowing why he felt that way.
“However, I was in the middle of acting. I didn’t have time to look at it subjectively at all.” Woo-Jin wondered if he felt sad and cried because of the unfinished scene, so he shook his head with a serious look on his face.
When he was acting, he acted as Lee Hoo from Red Enemy, not Chae Woo-Jin. He didn’t even have time to think objectively because he wasn’t aware he was acting. More importantly, he was living his life as Prince Myeong-Hwan. So there was no reason for him to grieve just because he felt a contrasting emotion from what he was feeling. That’s if Prince Myeong-Hwan didn’t sympathize with Prince Myeong-Hwan.
“Ah…”
Realization hit Woo-Jin in an instant.
