Upon this Lunar New Year, amid the wintry air, beneath the noble starry–black, the beauty of the moon shines brightly above the cities of the Li Kingdom. 

Fire. It echoed the starlight upon that winter night, leaping throughout the Royal Palace that stood in grandeur amid the capital city.

To the east of the palace, a lone figure is given chased by a group of imperial guards as he navigates his way towards the closed gate that divided the midnight chaos of the palace and the stillness of the capital night.

Wielding his sword against the entrance guards he quickly scaled his way up the walls of the palace to escape.

The figure slowly made his way towards a run–down inn near the city gates farthest away from the Royal Palace. He ripped a piece of clothing to tie his sword around an injured hand. The cloth quickly darkening as blood oozed out.

“Daesung!” The figure aggressively pushed his way into the closed inn, ignoring the poorly designed closed sign. “Daesung, quick, you have to get out of here. He’s trying to get rid of us!”

The inn was dimly lit with a single candle near the counter where a sturdy looking man stood.

Daesung, the inn owner, rushed towards the intruder, helping him to a nearby seat before heading back to lock up the doors.

“Seunghyun, what happened to you?” He grabbed a bottle of alcohol from a shelf nearby to clean off the bloody injuries.

“Daesung.” The injured Seunghyun pushed the aid away. “He wants to get rid of us. The rest of our people –” He stood up dragging Daesung towards the stairway leading to the second floor. “Our team was invited back into the palace tonight. They said he wanted to check up on us, to ensure we were well off since he kicked us out with good intentions. I should’ve known, someone like that wouldn’t have compassion for people like us. But we missed it, our lives back there, so we decided to accept his invitation just to take in the palace views once more. Who would’ve known he would do something so atrocious! He had us all locked up in one of the dinning halls and set it on fire!”

“Wait Seunghyun, ho–”

“Your daughter.” Seunghyun looked towards the top of the stair flight. “I was coming to see you this morning to tell you about it, but you were out so your daughter served a drink for me. Seeing how filial she was, reminded me of mine. I didn’t want what happened to me to happen to you. Your daughter would’v