519.So being an official allows false accusation?
The interrogation began with Park Seongjin.
"Very well. We will begin now.
Write down whose mouth you heard that from."
Seongjin's tone snapped straight in an instant.
The senior official stiffened reflexively, but held his seat with forced dignity.
"I am a state official, entrusted with national affairs."
Seongjin narrowed his eyes.
"So being an official allows false accusation?
If you hold office, that means you bear responsibility for it as well."
"That cannot be— but why the sudden familiar speech?"
"A criminal is not a person.
I may speak down."
Tap.
Seongjin pressed the floor with his toes and stepped forward half a pace.
His presence alone crushed the air in the room.
"Write. Now."
Without realizing it, the official picked up the brush.
From the moment the paper was laid out, his hand shook.
From whom did you hear it.
When did you hear it.
Who said it first.
In what wording did the rumor spread.
Seongjin demanded clarity in every single character.
"I have written it."
"One more page."
The official, pale-faced, wrote again.
When the seals were finished, Seongjin seized his wrist and pressed his side.
In an instant, a pressure point closed—
the tongue lost strength, the body slackened.
Consciousness remained perfectly clear.
He had written down every inconsistency he himself knew.
In a terror that felt like the soul cracking, he could not do otherwise.
Seongjin spoke low.
"For now, we will focus on establishing the facts.
Your mouth will rest. Your body will move."
He lifted the official as if slinging him over his shoulder
and headed straight for the Patrol Office—the interrogation chamber of the Capital Command.
Opening the door, he said neatly,
"This is the criminal's statement.
It has been recorded in writing. Judgment is yours."
He handed over two documents.
He laid the official—tongue frozen, unable to speak—on the floor.
"I have bound his mouth for now.
If his testimony changes once it loosens, report it immediately."
The interrogators blinked in shock,
but the moment they read the documents, their faces hardened.
The outline of an organized fabrication
formed within the bureaucratic ranks themselves.
With the source exposed, slander was reclassified as political manipulation.
Turning away, Seongjin said briefly,
"This is only the beginning.
The roots must be dug out for the state to stand."
Even after the official was transferred to the Patrol Office,
the air in court did not settle.
Among the officials who had held their breath, murmurs spread again.
This time they were more cunning, more malicious.
The slander aimed at Seongjin spread like a deliberately released stench.
That afternoon, another man was seized by the Military Police.
He shared the official's intent—his methods were even more base.
When Seongjin entered, the man overturned his chair and tried to flee.
Seongjin smiled lightly and flicked his fingers.
The sound of a knee snapping echoed through the room.
"I will conduct the interrogation."
The officers stepped back.
Seongjin approached slowly and pointed to the confession paper on the desk.
"The story you claim to have heard.
Write exactly who said what, where, and when."
Trembling, the man shook his head.
"General, I only followed what others were doing—"
Seongjin's palm struck like lightning, pinning his shoulder.
He could not breathe, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly.
It was as if the very air for breathing had frozen.
Those who followed without intent collapsed easily.
They lacked the weight to endure.
Seongjin spoke softly, low.
"Write.
Everything. Leave nothing out."
The man lifted the brush with shaking hands.
As he wrote, character by character, Seongjin watched.
In Lord ○○'s study, on ○ month ○ day,
I heard Vice-Minister ○○ say,
'Seongjin intends to abolish the land tax.'
Names followed in succession—
the great aristocratic houses that had blocked reform.
"Have you written everything?"
"Yes."
"The one who ordered you to spread that phrasing—
there is someone else."
He shook his head.
Seongjin pressed lightly on the Mingmen point.
The man's vision flared white.
"Speak now.
If you wish to pass the night whole."
At last, the name burst out.
"It was an instruction from the Secretariat of the Privy Council.
They said His Majesty's reform was dangerous,
and told us to spread the rumor that General Park stood behind it."
Seongjin handed him the brush.
"Write exactly what you just said.
Write it with your own hand, and seal it with your blood."
The man pricked his finger and stamped the page red.
Seongjin folded the paper and passed it to an officer.
"Refer him for full judicial interrogation."
An hour later, the news spread.
Two men were taken in succession,
and both wrote the names of those above them.
Those named were brought in.
Before Seongjin, they confessed,
wrote it down, and sealed it.
The officials' faces turned ashen.
No one said it aloud,
but everyone knew.
Park Seongjin goes all the way.
Light rumor games would no longer work.
A rumor becomes a seed, and a seed grows roots.
One became three.
Three became ten.
Seongjin would pass through the doors of the Military Police again and again,
to dig out those roots.
The ministers exchanged glances, as if measuring one another.
"I could be next."
"Do not get entangled with him.
Once he decides, he will pursue you for ten years."
Those who had trafficked in schemes were the first to lower themselves.
But it did not end there.
Within the two confessions,
the outline of an organization quietly surfaced.
The Privy Council.
And beside it, a small envelope
gathering the seals of the great aristocratic houses.
Someone was trying to push Seongjin aside.
Only the beginning had been revealed.