Empire of the Ring

Fatima and the kids' domestic travel was not so loud as they quietly traveled around Azerbaijan on a royal train.

What was special about it was that Fatima stopped by all stations and met with local residents for a short period.

Since she had been meeting the residents of Baku as the queen of the federal kingdom, it was not a new idea to her.

However, the residents of small towns took it differently as her visit was the biggest event ever since the birth of their towns.

They were thankful that the queen had come to visit them after several trips by Princess Zeynep on a hospital train.

This was a huge honor because not even regional administrators visited them before.

On her visit, Fatima never made a single political comment but listened to local people's complaints and inconveniences in their regions.

It was a simple job for her, but it was not the same for her entourage.

They had to check all the complaints and what the queen promised to them, so that they could figure out how to resolve them and carry out her promises.

It was because the queen asked them to let her know about the results of improvements later.

As most of the civil complaints were related to the construction of various infrastructures, they had to support the ruling party as they would be resolved only when the current ruling party was maintained.

The infrastructures were close to none existence in small towns until now, which was why Zeynep was continuing to operate a moving hospital train.

The population was high, but there, the number of the hospitals was far short to accommodate them, and the quality of medical service was lagging.

It seemed like the cities and villages around the Caucasus Mountains still remained in the 19th century.

There were villages that could not communicate with the villages across the valley due to the lack of roads and places where people kidnapped female travelers to use them as surrogate mothers.

Some remote villages were still living lives similar to that of the Middle Ages.

There were plenty of places that were not benefited by civilization due to the rough mountains.

The people's view on the queen who visited those remote towns were bound to be warm.

The politicians in the ruling party who were reported of the queen's travel route were glad to hear about her movement.

It was because they did not have to worry about the election anymore. It was like they had already won.

It was like they were receiving votes every step the queen took.

Sevan, who visited Youngho's office, showed a big smile.

"Minister, you should maintain your poker-face."

Youngho joked at Sevan's happy face.

"Who's going to say a word against the queen's move? We have to deport such disloyal people. If there are any."

The public poll result also showed the people's high preference for the ruling party, so Sevan was confident.

"The Queen says she was helped a lot by you and your cousins Karajan and Gerhardt when she first came to Baku. She always wanted to pay you back for your favor."

"I don't know what to say. How can I repay her grace?"

"Minister Sevan, we are not strangers. We are a family, so why do you keep mentioning grace? You don't have to do anything for us."

"Your Highness, how can someone like myself be a member of the royal family? It's nonsense."

Sevan's cousin sister Karajan was Park Jong-il's wife, so he had been supported by his background so far, but he never thought that he was included in the royal family.

However, when the Duke said he was family, he felt much pressure.

He was not confident to present himself as a member of the royal family.

"What are you talking about? Prince Leon and the princesses call Director Park their uncle. He's a friend closer to my own brothers to me as well. Then, you are not a stranger to me either."

Youngho was mincing words and warning him to behave carefully by saying that he was part of the royal family.

Listening to him, Sevan showed various emotions on his face.

He could neither agree nor disagree with Youngho's words.

Seeing him deciding how to react busily in his mind, Youngho had to bite his lower lip to hold his laughter.

"Hahaha… Sevan presents himself like a snake, but sometimes he can be so innocent. If he's told to be a royal member, he can be just happy, but why did he have to be so nervous? That's so funny."

When Youngho told Jong-il about what happened with Sevan later, he laughed for a while.

"He won't look sideways from now on. He looked pressured when I told him Fatima was traveling to help him."

Even if Sevan won the election by an overwhelming number of votes, he would not be able to say that he won with his own efforts. He would have to be loyal to the royal family for such a reason.

"Of course, he should feel pressured. We made him the head of the party, funded him, and helped his campaign. He should bow down to us."

"But we are here because of Sevan, too. It feels like we are repaying his favor now."

Youngho and Jong-il could settle down in Baku because of their connection to Sevan. It was him who helped Youngho start a grape farm after all.

"He was a director of the police agency and we made him the Secretary of Interior. Honestly, he doesn't deserve such a huge position."

"Don't you know the saying that the position makes a man? Sevan is a totally different person than who we used to know."

Sevan's attitude and way of talking were already changed to suit the head of a political party already. He was quite well adapted to new changes.

"Even so, there are limits to a person. When he finally realizes his quality, he will understand that he was only able to go up there because he was lucky and come down on his own at the right time."

"We will see. What I'm sure of is that he needs some checks and pressures to a certain extent, so we need to give him that."

Since he was Park Jong-il's in-law, Youngho did not feel easy to talk about him in this way, but he had to make it clear.

He chose Sevan because there were no better options, but Sevan was an unpredictable person, who should always be kept in check.

When the air became heavy due to the hard talk, Park Jong-il switched the mood talking about taking a break.

"Hey, why don't we take a break now that the election is already leaning toward us?"

Youngho was puzzled since Park Jong-il never had ever asked to take a break before.

"What's gotten into you?"

"When am I going to take a break if it's not now? When the election is over and once we go back to Kazakhstan, it will be hectic all over again."

"We are sort of taking a break now."

"Jeez, you don't know how to enjoy your free time. I'm saying, we should not think about anything else but focus on resting. Why don't we go goat hunting? It's been forever, and we can have a barbecue party with a drink, too."

"If we do it by ourselves only, you know others will complain later."

Youngho thought of Cha In-soo and Cho Chul-hwan. They could never dream of going on a vacation as they were the busiest people in Kazakhstan these days along with Youngho and Jong-il.

"Let's call them and maybe they can stop by. Let's gather together for a long while and drink all night long. There is no one to give us an earful now."

Since Fatima was gone, there was no one to complain even if Youngho drank until he passed out. Likewise, Karajan also left with Fatima, so Jong-il saw an opportunity.

"Gee. Look at us. We are always worried about our wives."

Youngho said so, but his heart partly felt empty without his family.

Sometimes he could not tell why he was working so hard without a break.

When he lived in Baku, he used to have a goat leg barbecue on a bonfire with people he loved whenever he could.

The time when he had an oil-dripping barbecue and exchanging of glasses filled with alcoholic drinks seemed to be so long ago.

When Park Jong-il suggested a barbecue party, Cha In-soo and Cho Chul-hwan flew to Baku immediately.

By the time the goat they caught after wandering in a mountain for about two hours was roasted into the right color, Cho Chul-hwan said something random.

"Are you sure this is a mountain goat?"

"What the heck are you saying when we are serving you hard-won meat? Does it look like pork to you?"

At Park Jong-il's rebuke, he made a strange comment.

"I was just wondering if it's human flesh by any chance."

"Why are you talking so strangely? You're going to make me lose my appetite for a drink."

"You know, I've heard that the Chinese people are treating the Uyghurs like sheep with two legs and now everytime I see meat, I can't shake off the thought. This is from the Uyghurs who crossed the Chinese border recently, and they said that the political prisoners in the Chinese political prisoner camp are missing. The rumors say that they are sold for human flesh."

There was a saying that everything except chairs was a food ingredient in China, but would it make sense that people still treated human flesh in the 21st century?

Chinese cannibalism was so prevalent that it was recorded 200 times in Chinese political history from the Han Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty.

Especially during the Tang Dynasty, human flesh was said to be sheep with two feet, and human meat dishes became popular.

Eating human flesh in this age was not seen as such a sin.

Even the Chinese representative medical book 'Ben Cao Gang Mu' (Compendium of Materia Medica) recorded the medicinal effects of each human part in detail, and the book Gyereuk(鷄肋) in the Song Dynasty even described how to cook human flesh.

Marco Polo's The Travels of Marco Polo also introduced Chinese cannibalism as human flesh was bought and sold openly.

If, as Chul-hwan said, such a culture was still secretly practiced in China and its victims were Uyghurs, it would be ridiculous.

"Are you sure that's valid information?"

If this was true, Kazakhstan would have to intervene for sure as this would be one of the ways to carry out the policy of ethnic extermination.

"It's a rumor going around in Uyghur. It's not yet to be proven, but it's still weird that the political prisoners keep disappearing."

"We were going to take a break for a few days, but you are not helping. We need to start an investigation on this immediately."

Park Jong-il, who already lost his appetite, did not say anything.

He never cared for such ridiculous rumors before but only paid attention to the Chinese military movement.

"Why would the Uyghurs remain still if such a thing really happened?"

"There's no hard evidence and what can they do even if they know? Anyway, the rumors must've started from eyewitnesses. We need to dig into this."

There had been rumors that human flesh was sold in secret in China, but Youngho did not believe them.

However, if cannibalistic culture was still preserved, the Uyghurs were likely to be victimized by it.

In Uyghur, there were a few political prisoner camps, and they said that it was hard to get out of it once one went in there. The prisoners could be used in any way.

If this turned out to be true, Kazakhstan would have a good reason to free the whole Uyghur.