Chapter 379: The Black Magic Plague
A heavy silence settled over Princess Zhi’s courtyard.
The cheerful atmosphere that had once filled the elegant pavilion was gone.
Yesterday’s horrifying incident still lingered in everyone’s minds.
Princess Zhi’s personal maid...
Dead.
Not from poison.
Not from a weapon.
Not from illness.
A black shadow had passed through her body before the life disappeared from her eyes.
Now the Emperor had summoned everyone to discuss the matter.
The Emperor sat at the head of the stone table.
Beside him sat the Empress, unusually quiet.
Princess Zhi looked exhausted, having barely slept after witnessing her maid’s death.
The Dowager Empress slowly rolled her prayer beads between her fingers.
Prince Liang stood beside one of the carved pillars with his arms folded across his chest.
Lady Chen also sat in the pavilion, her expression filled with concern.
Several imperial guards stood outside the courtyard.
No one dared speak loudly.
The atmosphere itself felt oppressive.
Finally, the Emperor broke the silence.
"There are now one hundred and eighty-four confirmed deaths."
His deep voice echoed through the quiet courtyard.
"Every report says the same thing."
"A black shadow."
"It passes through the victim."
"They collapse instantly."
"The physicians find no poison."
"No wounds."
"No explanation."
He looked around the table.
"Has anyone ever heard of such a thing?"
Everyone remained silent.
Prince Liang was the first to answer.
"I have fought on battlefields for years."
"I’ve seen strange illnesses."
"I’ve seen poison capable of killing hundreds."
"But never..."
"...this."
The Dowager Empress nodded slowly.
"The imperial archives contain records of floods, famines, epidemics, rebellions..."
"But nothing like shadows killing people."
Lady Chen frowned.
"The reports don’t even make sense."
"How can a shadow kill someone?"
Princess Zhi lowered her eyes.
"I watched it happen."
Her voice trembled.
"My maid wasn’t sick."
"She wasn’t frightened."
"She was speaking to me."
"Then..."
Princess Zhi closed her eyes.
"The shadow appeared."
"It moved faster than I could follow."
"It entered her body."
"She screamed."
"And then..."
Princess Zhi’s voice broke.
"...she died."
Silence returned.
The Emperor’s fingers tapped lightly against the table.
"The Ministry of Justice believes someone is spreading panic."
"The Imperial Physicians say there is no disease."
"The Ministry of War suspects a foreign plot."
He sighed.
"But none of those explanations answer what happened."
The Empress finally spoke.
"What about the places where the deaths occurred?"
Prince Liang picked up a scroll.
"I investigated that."
"They are spread across different provinces."
"No common water source."
"No common food."
"No connection between the victims."
"The youngest was six."
"The oldest was eighty-two."
"Merchants."
"Farmers."
"Soldiers."
"Children."
"Nobles."
"Servants."
"There is no pattern."
Lady Chen slowly whispered,
"Then..."
"It could happen to anyone."
No one answered her.
Because everyone was thinking the same thing.
If there was no pattern...
Then no one was safe.
Just then—
A palace maid hurried into the courtyard.
She knelt immediately.
"Your Majesty."
The Emperor looked up.
"What is it?"
"Lady Shin Gu requests an audience."
Everyone looked surprised.
The Dowager Empress raised an eyebrow.
"Shin Gu?"
Princess Zhi blinked.
"I haven’t seen her in months."
Lady Chen also looked surprised.
"She rarely comes to the palace anymore."
The Emperor nodded.
"Let her enter."
Moments later—
Soft footsteps echoed through the courtyard.
A woman dressed in plain gray robes walked inside.
Her expression remained calm.
Her movements graceful.
She bowed respectfully.
"This humble one greets Your Majesty."
"Rise."
Shin Gu stood.
Her eyes swept across everyone before resting briefly on Princess Zhi.
"I heard about the maid."
Princess Zhi nodded sadly.
Shin Gu continued,
"I also heard about the one hundred and eighty-four deaths."
The Emperor looked at her.
"You know something."
It wasn’t a question.
Shin Gu nodded.
"When I was traveling years ago..."
"I visited an abandoned monastery hidden deep within the western mountains."
"The monks there preserved ancient texts that had disappeared from the Imperial Library centuries ago."
Prince Liang frowned.
"What did those texts describe?"
Shin Gu answered quietly.
"A forbidden calamity."
"The Black Magic Plague."
The pavilion became completely silent.
Even the breeze seemed to stop.
Lady Chen’s fingers tightened around her teacup.
"The Black Magic Plague?"
Shin Gu nodded.
"The manuscripts described exactly what is happening now."
"A black shadow."
"It passes through the victim."
"The victim dies instantly."
"The soul is extinguished before the body has time to react."
Princess Zhi’s face turned pale.
"It’s exactly the same..."
The Emperor’s expression hardened.
"What causes it?"
Shin Gu slowly shook her head.
"No one knew."
"The scholars searched."
"The cultivators searched."
"The physicians searched."
"They never found its source."
Prince Liang asked,
"And the cure?"
For the first time...
Shin Gu hesitated.
She lowered her gaze.
"The final pages of every manuscript ended with the same sentence."
She looked back at everyone.
"There is no recorded cure."
A cold silence settled over the pavilion.
Lady Chen whispered,
"Then..."
"People will continue dying?"
The Dowager Empress’s prayer beads stopped moving.
Princess Zhi’s breathing became uneven.
"What are we supposed to do?"
"What if another shadow appears?"
"What if it enters someone here?"
Her frightened eyes moved around the pavilion.
The Emperor slowly stood.
His voice remained steady despite the tension.
"No."
"I refuse to believe that an empire which has stood for centuries will surrender because an old manuscript claims there is no cure."
He looked directly at Shin Gu.
"Ancient records tell us what previous generations discovered."
"They do not define what we are capable of discovering today."
The Empress silently watched him.
She agreed with his words.
Yet...
Something about Shin Gu’s explanation troubled her.
Shin Gu had spoken with certainty.
Almost...
Too much certainty.
And for reasons she couldn’t explain—
The Empress felt that Shin Gu was hiding something.
Outside the pavilion, dark clouds slowly gathered over the palace rooftops as an uneasy wind swept through the flowering trees.
Somewhere within the vast Imperial Palace...
An unseen danger continued to move in silence.
A cold wind swept through Princess Zhi’s courtyard.
The flowering branches swayed gently, scattering pale petals across the stone floor.
No one spoke.
The words "There is no recorded cure" still hung heavily in the air.
The Emperor remained standing, his gaze unwavering.
"I refuse to believe our empire’s fate was decided by words written centuries ago."
His voice was calm, but every person present could hear the determination behind it.
"We will search every province."
"We will question every scholar."
"We will find the truth."
Prince Liang bowed his head.
"I will personally lead the investigation."
"The Ministry of War will cooperate with the Imperial Physicians."
The Dowager Empress slowly resumed rolling her prayer beads.
"Then we shall pray that Heaven guides us."
Princess Zhi lowered her eyes.
Her hands trembled slightly as she remembered her maid’s final scream.
The Empress quietly reached across the table and rested a comforting hand over Princess Zhi’s.
Princess Zhi looked up.
The Empress offered a reassuring smile.
"We’ll face this together."
Princess Zhi nodded weakly.
"...Thank you."
Across the pavilion, Lady Chen sighed.
"I never imagined such a calamity could exist."
Her voice sounded worried.
Perfectly worried.
No one questioned it.
Only one person silently observed every expression around the table.
The Empress.
Her eyes briefly met Shin Gu’s.
Only for an instant.
Shin Gu lowered her gaze respectfully.
Outwardly, she appeared calm.
Humble.
Concerned.
But behind that composed expression...
A quiet satisfaction stirred.
She had carefully guided the conversation.
Not with outright lies—
But by revealing only fragments.
Enough to deepen uncertainty.
Enough to make everyone question what they knew.
Around her, she could see the tension growing.
Princess Zhi’s fear.
The Dowager Empress’s unease.
Lady Chen’s anxious silence.
Even Prince Liang, usually so composed, was deep in thought.
The Emperor remained resolute.
Yet Shin Gu noticed something else.
For the first time...
He looked burdened.
Not defeated.
But burdened.
Inside herself, Shin Gu smiled.
Not outwardly.
Only within.
The second step of her hidden design had unfolded just as she had hoped.
The plague itself was already spreading through the empire.
Every report arriving at the palace painted the same grim picture.
More villages.
More unexplained deaths.
More frightened citizens.
She believed that if events continued unchecked, the empire would soon face suffering on a scale it had never seen before.
Still...
She kept every thought hidden behind a mask of concern.
The Emperor looked toward the assembled officials.
"No one is to spread rumors."
"We deal with facts."
"If people panic, more lives will be endangered."
Everyone bowed.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
The Dowager Empress spoke quietly.
"We should arrange prayers in every temple."
"If nothing else, it will calm the hearts of the people."
The Emperor nodded.
"Do it."
Prince Liang added,
"I will strengthen patrols throughout the capital."
"If anyone is exploiting this tragedy, we will find them."
The Empress finally spoke.
"There is something that troubles me."
Everyone turned toward her.
She looked directly at Shin Gu.
"The ancient manuscripts..."
"You described them with remarkable detail."
"The wording."
"The sequence of events."
"You remember them very clearly."
For the first time since entering the pavilion...
Shin Gu paused.
Only briefly.
Then she smiled gently.
"I spent several weeks studying those texts during my travels."
"The details remained with me because they were unlike anything I had ever read."
The explanation sounded reasonable.
Prince Liang nodded thoughtfully.
The Dowager Empress accepted the answer without comment.
But the Empress wasn’t entirely convinced.
It wasn’t what Shin Gu had said.
It was how she had said it.
Too precise.
Too practiced.
Almost as though she had repeated the explanation many times before.
The feeling settled quietly in her heart.
She would not accuse anyone without proof.
But neither would she ignore her instincts.
The Emperor looked around the pavilion once more.
"From this moment onward, every unusual death is to be reported directly to me."
"No report is too small."
"No witness is to be dismissed."
"If there is a pattern..."
"We will uncover it."
Prince Liang bowed.
"It will be done."
The meeting slowly came to an end.
Servants began clearing the untouched tea.
Princess Zhi remained seated, still shaken.
The Empress stayed beside her.
The Dowager Empress quietly whispered another prayer.
Lady Chen lowered her head, hiding her expression.
Shin Gu offered one final respectful bow.
"If Your Majesty has no further questions, this humble one shall take her leave."
The Emperor gave a slight nod.
"You may go."
Shin Gu turned and walked away at an unhurried pace.
Her footsteps echoed softly through the stone corridor.
She never looked back.
Behind her, the palace remained consumed by worry.
Ahead of her, the evening shadows stretched long across the gardens.
Above the palace roofs, dark clouds continued to gather.
The first distant rumble of thunder rolled across the sky.
And although no one in Princess Zhi’s courtyard realized it yet...
The struggle against the mysterious plague had only just begun.