Dawn was touching every corner if the village they were entering, and the people stepping out from their houses for their daily chores, stopped in their tracks and stared at the exiled family who were being escorted towards an isolated house situated at the edge of the village with a hovering jungle behind.

“You’ve got basic supplies to last about a week. You’ll find them in the kitchen.”

The captain of the troop informed, after they arrived at their destination. His disciples began to untie the lady as he continued his explanation.

“Find a job for yourself in the meantime or you won’t survive after the supplies are over.”

Baekhyun helped his sister back to the ground.

“And mind you young master. Think twice before you try anything funny. The village magistrate’s guards will be visiting your house daily, so any illegal moves might end up getting you all beheaded. And...”

Not waiting for the officer to finish with his advising, Baekhyun strode into the house and slammed the door shut behind him. And he slid down to the floor, closing his eyes tight, hoping the throbbing headache will go away.

And the note he had tucked inside his robes the previous night suddenly came to his mind. He pulled out the crumpled parchment, and opened it to find Jaehyun’s neat handwriting inside.

“We are here to help in whatever you need hyung. Return to the city gates in five days time. We will be there when night falls.”

A sudden urge to run back to the capital filled his insides, and all kinds of brutal methods to revenge against Kim Junmyeon ran through his mind. Although he has sworn revenge against the Royal Secretary, and wanted nothing more than to cause him all the pain and agony he had gone through himself, Baekhyun had not planned anything so far. His jumbled thoughts of hatred needed a plan, a real way to cause the pain Kim Junmyeon deserved to go through.

“It’s not revenge you need hyung.” Taeil’s calm voice crept into his head just then. Knowing the youth, he will probably say that if he knew Baekhyun’s thoughts right now.

“The most important thing is to prove your father’s innocence. Shouldn’t we do that before everything else?”

“Omma is this all?”

Little Inhyun’s voice brought him back to earth. “We have to eat these for a whole week? Will it be enough?”

Baekhyun stood up and made his way into the kitchen where his sister’s voice was coming from, and found a small room that was not bigger than a space where three people could barely stand in. in a corner of the so-called kitchen stood a small sack, with a few withered green onion leaved sticking out.

“Just for today Inhyun.”He ruffled the little girl’s hair, coming to stand behind her. “Oppa will find work and we will be eating better food soon.”

“Get some sleep Baekhyun.” His mother said, taking the one and only usable pot she could find in the kitchen. “We were up all night weren’t we? I’ll wake you up after making some porridge.”

Baekhyun shook his head.

“I’m stepping out for a moment omma. Feed Inhyun. I’m all set.”

Walking through the narrow village paths wasn’t an easy feat, given how his off-white exile robs and hair that was short and sticking up in an odd messy manner was attracting too much attention. And the too loud whispers he heard as he passed the ogling villagers were reminding him of his pathetic stage, over and over again.

“Traitors they said.”

“His hair?”

“Probably the soldiers cut it off to insult him.”

“He was a nobleman wasn’t he?”

“A very high one.”

“But it doesn’t show on his face at all. Looks quite indecent.”

“Will they betray the King if they were decent people?”

Clenching his jaws and doing his best to refrain from screaming out his family’s innocence to the whole village, Baekhyun finally arrived at a small inn, where the inn keeper woman was sweeping the front yard.

“Is there...”

The plump old woman raised her head and blinked at him.

“Is there anything that I can help you with? Any job. I’m alright with anything.”

His words brought a scoff to the woman’s lips.

“Just look at you young man! With a face pretty like a gisaeng’s, and with skin that looks as soft as a new born’s... you think you noble people can do the tasks that we ordinary people do?”

“I was trained to become a soldier.”Baekhyun replied eagerly, and it made the woman scan him from head to toe. “You were? ... Well, can you chop wood then?”

“I can.” He nodded. “Of course I can.”

“Hmm. You’ll find some firewood in the backyard. But I need them chopped before lunch time.”

Arriving at the mentioned backyard, Baekhyun found an axed propped against a log in the middle of the sandy open area.

And also a pile of neatly stacked firewood that almost reached the inn’s roof in height.

* * *

Five days passed, Baekhyun kept an eye on the magistrate’s guards that daily arrived at their house, lazily walked around it once and left without further inspection. For three days he had found odd jobs in the village inn, but since the inn keeper did not seem to have any more work to give him, he spent the entire day inside the one-roomed housed where all his family slept together.

Planning the best way to provoke Kim Junmyeon, to lure him out of the capital to finish him once and for all.

On the fifth afternoon, once the guards had finished their usual fake-patrolling and returned to their duties, he lied to his mother about searching for a job in the neighbouring village and set off to the capital.

A few hours of nonstop fast travelling had finally brought him to the city gates, and Baekhyun waited wandering around the street stalls in the outskirts, his face covered in a straw hat and a bag hanging over his shoulders to imply himself as a traveller.

Everything that used to fascinate him in the past, the past he had ended just a few days ago, was in front of Baekhyun’s eyes as he strolled among the outskirts market.

City guards wandering, dressed in the uniform he once had dreamt of wearing, pretty young ladies entering through the city gates, he recalled how they always got tired of Yukhei’s nonstop stalking of girls, random