I made that declaration, but honestly, I had no idea what I was going to do. I felt myself cringe internally when I thought back to it.

  Wolmae was a highly esteemed kisaeng, but in the end, she was still a slave.

  Which meant I was one too.

  The days passed one by one, in a strange kind of peace. I met with Red every day, pretending I didn’t know he was the magistrate, and he in turn pretended the same. We talked about nothing in particular, since he wouldn’t talk about gaming, and I didn’t want to give him any information about myself.

  There was no sense of urgency in his words or actions, no apparent desire to hurry along the scenario. Rather, he was like a slowly constricting snake. With this and the modded name, I was fully convinced that Red was not the Striking Red Crane that Peach knew.

  So who was he?

  He was certainly a favourite with the other staff of the administrative offices, and indeed, with the slaves too. Sociable and generous, he happily distributed money as if he were made of it. Occasionally, I heard the whispers of the other officials wondering where all the money was coming from.

  It’s his golden goose, don’t feel so bad.

  Awake before dawn while the rest of the kisaeng slept, exhausted from entertaining into the night, I dressed and walked out into the warm, dark morning. The blossoms were long gone, the dense green leaves of the plum trees still in the gloam.

  “Kill Feed.”

  I checked obsessively, every day, wondering if one of the names I was seeing was Tommy’s. Mercifully, I never saw 898LeeWM, or Your_Father, or Excellent_Ruthless_Woods. No sign of Han_sung-hyuk either.

  “Inventory.”

  The items here remained obstinately the same, unsurprisingly.

  There was a little coin icon with a circular badge on it, reading 0. No money.

  I stared at it. Money wouldn’t be particularly helpful in this situation, at least. At least, not unless there was a lot of it.

  Idly, I reached out for the icon.

  A new window flashed up.

  Complete your dailies.

  COMPLETE YOUR DAILIES???

  As I watched, the window disappeared and was replaced by a tranquil animation of the courtyard I currently sat in. However, the plum blossoms here were in full bloom, pink and white branches swaying in an animated breeze.

  If this game uses one more exclamation mark, I’m going to punch it in the face.

  Since the game unfortunately didn’t have a face to punch, I had to content myself with aggressively moving my animated basket to catch the petals, choosing not to think about the fact that I was playing an insipid little mini-game when I could die at any moment.

  Hating myself, I clicked Y, and moved the animated basket backwards and forwards with disgust for a minute, earning myself another fifty-four coins. Then I closed the window and raised my eyes to the sky, rapidly brightening to streaks of pink and gold.

  Dailies. Daily quests. This was a mobile game, of course there were dailies.

  I stuffed my hand into my mouth and screamed around it.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  What else had I missed? Gacha pulls? Special events?

  “Besides, who the fuck puts their daily quests in the coin pouch?” I yelled at the tree above me.

  “It’s shitty game design,” Red agreed, sitting down next to me. “Found the daily quests, have you? I thought you already knew.”

  My soul nearly leapt out of my throat. Why the hell was this guy here again?

  “I didn’t,” I muttered, covering my face with my hands.

  “Oh well. The rabbit was there, but you can still call the dog.”

  Meaning: Better late than never.

  That is, if you’re from China.

  “Red.”

  “Yes?”

  “Someone told me once that you’re Japanese.”

  Red opened his mouth, but no sound came out. For the briefest moment, a flash of panic crossed his face. And then he smiled. “This was getting tedious, wasn’t it?”

  I didn’t respond. There was nothing to say.

  Standing, Red stretched lazily. “Well, that’s fine. Seong Chunhyang, it has been lovely talking to you. I will see you at a later time.” He bowed to me, then strolled away with his arms behind his back, pausing only to exchange greetings with the first officials making their way through the courtyard. The group of men turned their heads to look at me and laughed knowingly.

  In the heat of that summer day, I felt so, so cold.

  I had to get out, but my legs had welded to the seat. My jaw was locked shut. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak.

  A woman holding a broom emerged to sweep the courtyard, but catching sight of me, she nodded. “Well, congratulations, Seong-ssi.”

  I recognised her as one of the many servants of the offices. When I stared dumbly at her, her expression shifted from a mixture of admiration and jealousy to pure contempt.

  “I suppose Sir Magistrate has a poor choice in women.”

  Her words propelled me upright. Ignoring her irritation, I rushed away towards the kisaeng sleeping quarters.

  Everyone was awake.

  “Oh, Chunhyang-ssi! Congratulations!”

  “What good fortune!”

  “Wolmae-ssi, you must be so proud!”

  Wolmae was still in her sleeping attire, but she glowed and preened in the attention. “Look at my daughter. Of course she wouldn’t be destined for a kisaeng life.”

  Panting, I stared despairingly at her. “M- Mother… Did Re- Did… the Magistrate…?”

  “The Magistrate has asked for you to be his concubine!”

  The kisaeng all erupted into cheers.

  “Well of course he would. They were always spending time together in the courtyard!”

  From the chest where I kept my clothing, I dug out the battered umbrella that Han Sung-hyuk had tossed at me, and that I in turn had tossed into the bottom of the box. “But I already… The old Magistrate’s son…”

  Wolmae blinked at me. “But that was the old Magistrate’s son, Chunhyang-ie. The current Magistrate is asking for you. Besides, you didn’t seem to mind when you were spending so much time with him.”

  I’m an idiot.

  I’m a stupid fucking idiot.

  Red had looped his coils around me, one by one, and now they were crushing me slowly.

  The window popped up so unexpectedly before me that I almost yelled out. As it was, I stumbled backwards and landed on my clothing chest. The kisaeng were luckily all too excited to notice, beyond one or two who glanced my way but shrugged and lost interest when they saw I was otherwise fine.

  The only task I had left was to ‘maintain my faithfulness’.

  Was the game saying I could abandon Han Sung-hyuk and…

  The only alternative was to throw myself at Red.

  Over my dead fucking body.

  And so, I had to run.

  As the day wore on, the heat grew more and more oppressive. Growing up in Hong Kong, this familiar feeling had me growing lethargic – a big storm was coming. Usually, that meant staying indoors, binging K-dramas and checking my food and water stocks, hoping that any blackouts would be brief. Sedentary, waiting, trapped.

  There was nothing in my inventory that would help me. Nothing in my clothes box (or any of the others I surreptitiously checked) that would help me. Nothing in my skill tree that would help me. No other players that would help me. Certainly no NPCs would.

  Think.

  Already, servants were rushing back and forth with candles, fruits, and red and blue silks. A tailor measured me out in silence. I slouched, subtly bent my limbs, even sat in the corner of the room at one point, but it seemed this man had seen this all before. He persisted in measuring, bit-by-bit, and disappeared after taking notes.

  Wolmae and the other kisaeng fluttered about like birds, dusting off their most beautiful clothes and accessories. The room glittered and whirled with colour, and in the heat I could barely breathe.

  By early afternoon, the sky was as dark as twilight. The first growls of thunder rolled through the heavy grey air. This was what I was going to run into. But if I didn’t leave tonight, would I be able to leave at all?

  The rain and darkness would cover my tracks. I would head in the direction I had run on the first day of the scenario.

  Rain began to pepper the tiled roof. Large, lazy drops at first, but growing increasingly more frequent and violent until it might have been hailing. The wind picked up, roaring between the buildings.

  With the battered, folded umbrella clutched in one hand, I slipped out into the night. Immediately, I was blown sideways, staggering to a halt. It was a strain to even remain in one place. There was no way a lantern would have stayed lit in these conditions, and I knew I made the right decision to not take one.

  I let the wind push me out of the administrative complex, away from the pale granite flagstones of the courtyard. The night swallowed me instantly.

  Anyone following me would struggle, but so would I.

  The rain lashed at my face, stinging. Only the faint glow of candles filtering through the shuttered windows of the village houses lit my way and I slalomed down the main street, gusted in all directions by the driving wind.

  I left the village, into the yawning void of the fields beyond. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, and the rain lashed at my face, stinging. I wanted to wrap cloth around my face, but I could already barely breathe.

  My foot left the path.

  I was tumbling, unable to tell up or down, landing in the muddy water of the rice paddy with a jolt that drove the breath from me and I gulped earthen water instead of air. Vomiting and coughing filthy liquid, I reached blindly, desperately, for the bank. My hands somehow found the umbrella I had dropped. Grit clung to my tongue and my lungs. The dizzying heat and the endless storm gripped my head and shook it back and forth as I crawled unsteadily back up to the path, then on my hands and knees along the path itself, my fingers blindly seeking the path edge to lead me on.

  Faint, faint, I heard behind me, “Find her!”

  Run.

  I launched upright. The path was straight. I just had to run straight. Why was it so hard to just run straight?

  I was off the path again, and this time my head struck the ground as I slid. Past the flavour of dirt and stomach acid, I tasted blood. Dimly I realised my lip had split.

  I was half-submerged this time. Upright, but my hands and feet sank into the mud each time I tried to lever myself up.

  I don’t know how long I desperately fumbled in the pitch black, the darkness pressing physically on my eyes. The umbrella was long gone. Long enough for them to find me, the lights of their lanterns finally lighting my way too late, too late. Even if I could climb from the water, I couldn’t outrun their horses, the huge animals snorting and sweating in the summer heated rain.

  Hands seized my shoulders, gripped me under my arms, pulled me upwards. I screamed. I must have screamed words.

  Because momentarily, everything flashed white and the scene was seared on the inside of my eyelids – the men and the horses on the path, thrown into stark relief, the squares of the rice paddies stretching out into the night, and Red… Wén Yǒng, approaching from behind them all. Every one of them sharp in black and white.

  It wasn’t lightning.

  The moment passed. The world tilted.

  I fell.