Blooming even in the mud - Chapter 13

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 13: Blooming Even in the Mud
 
 
 
“Your Highness! You cannot! Outside the palace is…!”
Court Lady Lee hurried after her with the palace maids, her voice trailing off anxiously, but Yoo Seo-hwa did not stop.
In truth, Court Lady Lee’s voice did not even register in her ears.
‘It makes no sense! There is no way he would do such a thing! There has been a misunderstanding. Royal Father has terribly misunderstood!’
The chaos raging inside her heart seized her consciousness, blocking her ears and blinding her eyes.
It couldn’t be. It was a mistake. A false accusation. She had to inform Royal Father. She had to save him. Right now.
The frantic, fragmented shards of her thoughts refused to align in any semblance of order.
‘Where should I go? What should I do? Should I go to Royal Father? Or should I go to the Imperial Prison first to make sure the young master and the general are safe…?’
Her blind, rushing footsteps were suddenly blocked by a thick arm.
Yoo Seo-hwa shouted without even looking at the owner of the arm. Her breath, catching in her throat, tore out raggedly.
“Step aside!”
“Forgive me, Your Highness.”
It was a deep, weathered voice. A man’s voice. A rare occurrence in the Princess’s Palace, where the only males were eunuchs.
Only then did Yoo Seo-hwa raise her head toward the sound.
Her vision, which had been as blurred as her drifting sanity, finally snapped into focus. It was a guard with a face she had never seen before.
To be precise, it was guards. They were surrounding not just the palace gates, but the entire perimeter of the walls. As if they were laying siege.
“An imperial decree has been handed down forbidding entry or exit from the Princess’s Palace.”
“Do you not know who I am?! I am the master of this palace and the flesh and blood of His Majesty! How dare you not step aside immediately!”
“It is an imperial decree.”
The guard merely repeated the phrase like a parrot. The arm blocking her path did not slacken in the slightest.
“Step aside!! I told you to step aside!!”
A burst of fury finally shattered what little composure she had been holding onto. Yoo Seo-hwa blindly tried to push past the guard and cross the palace threshold.
“Please do not do this!”
The guards were unyielding. They went so far as to commit the insolence of touching the imperial princess’s precious body to block her path.
“Unhand me! I must go!!”
“Your Highness!”
Arriving a step late, Court Lady Lee and the palace maids grabbed Yoo Seo-hwa from behind in a panic. With so many hands pinning her arms and waist, she could not even struggle.
“Royal Father!! It is not true! Not General Gyeong…!”
As Yoo Seo-hwa lost her mind and screamed hysterically, Court Lady Lee held her tight, weeping.
Blood rushed violently to her head. Her chest tightened, suffocating her, choking the very air from her lungs. She couldn’t breathe.
“Your Highness! Please pull yourself togeth-.”
Court Lady Lee’s tearful cry marked the final moment of her fading consciousness.
 
The swooning Yoo Seo-hwa was carried back to her inner chambers on the back of a eunuch. Even as the palace maids massaged her limbs and wiped her face with cold water, she failed to wake.
The tightly shut palace gates finally opened, and the Imperial Physician entered. Only after receiving acupuncture from him did her long-closed eyelids finally flutter.
“Your Highness, do you recognize me?”
Seeing Court Lady Lee’s anxiety-ridden face first, Yoo Seo-hwa closed her eyes again. A single, despairing tear rolled down the corner of her eye.
She had prayed desperately for it to be a cruel nightmare, but it was no dream.
As she sat up, pressing a hand to her forehead, Court Lady Lee quickly supported her. She then offered a bowl of medicinal broth.
“The Imperial Physician just left. Your vital energy is unstable, so you must rest for a while. Please drink this.”
Yoo Seo-hwa pushed the broth away with one hand. She was in no state of mind to consume medicine.
“Tell me what happened to Young Master Gyeong and the general.”
“You must stabilize yourself first-”
“How can I possibly be calm?!”
The despairing, rampant anxiety she could not suppress shattered her reason once more.
Startled, Court Lady Lee hurriedly knelt on the floor and bowed her head low. Yoo Seo-hwa pressed her palm against her forehead, smoothing her suddenly ragged breathing.
Court Lady Lee was not at fault.
“……I am sorry.”
After a quiet apology, she lifted the broth and gulped it down all at once. The liquid, hot enough to scald, poured down her mouth and throat.
Passing the pain in her throat with a single knit of her brows, Yoo Seo-hwa set the empty bowl down.
“Now, explain.”
“I do not know the exact details either. From what I briefly overheard, an accusation was brought forward at dawn today claiming General Gyeong has been colluding with Zhanghou State.”
Court Lady Lee’s explanation was brief.
She added that by Emperor Xuanwen’s command, Gyeong Baek-jong and Gyeong Won-ui were subsequently imprisoned, and the Gyeong Clan residence was sealed. In the process, the two would surely face interrogation and investigation.
“Have they… been subjected to interrogation under torture?”
“Not yet, Your Highness.”
Not yet… Yoo Seo-hwa bit her lip.
Though it hadn’t happened yet, colluding with an enemy state was treason, so torture would naturally follow soon. The mere thought of Gyeong Won-ui and Gyeong Baek-jong undergoing horrific torture threatened to make her mind go blank with horror again.
‘Before that happens, I must clear their names somehow.’
If she could, she wanted to rush to the Interrogation Ground and use her own body to shield them from the executioners.
That must be why her imperial father had sealed the Princess’s Palace. Otherwise, she would have lost her mind and rushed straight to Gyeong Won-ui and Gyeong Baek-jong.
“……Bring me paper, ink, and brush. I will request an audience with Royal Father.”
 
* * *
 
Emperor Xuanwen coughed as he folded the letter he had received from Yoo Seo-hwa.
“Would you like your medicinal broth, Your Majesty?”
“I would prefer a cup of warm tea over medicine.”
“Understood, Your Majesty.”
Chief Eunuch Gu promptly served a warm medicinal tea. With the arrival of autumn, Emperor Xuanwen’s health was deteriorating sharply.
This was precisely why he had immediately imprisoned Gyeong Baek-jong and Gyeong Won-ui based on a single accusation. For the sake of the Crown Prince’s reign—who was woefully inadequate compared to himself—he had to excise all treacherous elements before he died.
‘I had my suspicions from before anyway.’
The old doubts he thought had been resolved when he permitted the Grand Wedding ballooned instantly.
“Tell Sujeong that I grant her an audience.”
Emperor Xuanwen knew Yoo Seo-hwa well, and he knew exactly how much of her heart she had given to Gyeong Won-ui. If he ignored even her letter, she was the type of child who would scale the walls to force her will.
Confining his cherished daughter did not sit well with him either. Now that her initial hysteria upon hearing the grim news had been checked, it would be acceptable to loosen the reins a bit.
The moment the news reached the Princess’s Palace, Yoo Seo-hwa rushed to the Great Hall.
After offering her formal greetings, Yoo Seo-hwa parted her lips calmly.
“Royal Father, though I have not yet celebrated the Grand Wedding, it has been several years since our betrothal. Young Master Gyeong and I are no different from a husband and wife bound in heart.”
“Your father knows well how deeply you care for Won-ui.”
“I am not ignorant of the rule that I must dare not interfere in affairs of state. However, my husband and his family are now facing an existential peril, so how could I possibly look away?”
“…….”
“I will accept whatever punishment you deem fit for my presumption afterward, Royal Father.”
Finishing her words, Yoo Seo-hwa prostrated herself before Emperor Xuanwen once more.
Yoo Seo-hwa’s two hands, neatly joined before her forehead, were trembling faintly. Emperor Xuanwen personally took his daughter’s hands and raised her up.
“Sit comfortably.”
“Royal Father…….”
“As your father, I have failed you. I betrothed you without knowing Gyeong Baek-jong harbored treasonous intent.”
“That is not true.”
Yoo Seo-hwa bit her lower lip hard.
“Do you not know General Gyeong’s loyalty better than anyone, Royal Father? This must be a false accusation. Please investigate the accuser first.”
“Evidence has come to light.”
“……!”
She gasped in a hurry. Evidence. There was no way such a thing could exist.
As her thoughts reached that point, something suddenly flashed through Yoo Seo-hwa’s mind. It was Jiang Huang’s Dagger, which she had heard about from Gyeong Won-ui not long ago.
“C-Could you tell me what the evidence is?”
“What is so difficult about explaining the situation? How much do you know?”
“I heard an accusation was made at dawn, and General Gyeong and the young master are currently imprisoned.”
“Mm, that is correct. Upon verifying the anonymous accusation, I issued a secret order to search Gyeong Baek-jong’s private residence. And physical proof was found. Evidence that supports the claim of collusion with Zhanghou State.”
Emperor Xuanwen rummaged through his desk and handed her a few sheets of paper. Fortunately, it was not a dagger. Yoo Seo-hwa frantically read down the pages. It was a letter with an anonymous sender.
The contents varied slightly, but the core message was identical.
It claimed that for decades, Zhanghou State had secretly paid Gyeong Baek-jong in exchange for battles he had intentionally lost.
Rereading the letter over and over to organize her thoughts, Yoo Seo-hwa took several deep, sharp breaths. Only after her anxiously fluttering heart calmed down slightly did she speak composedly.
“I know nothing of state affairs, but these letters seem insufficient to serve as evidence.”
“The victories and defeats of the battles recorded in the letters match the actual outcomes.”
“Such details could easily be fabricated after the battles took place. Furthermore, are there not even minor, localized skirmishes here that had no significant impact on the war?”
While anxiously awaiting Gyeong Won-ui’s return, she had once looked into Gyeong Baek-jong’s expedition records. She had done so while trying to understand the feelings of Lady Zhang, who must have waited for Gyeong Baek-jong whenever he left for the battlefield.
Though Yoo Seo-hwa was entirely unversed in tactics and strategy, this letter, which cited even minor defeats from his youth, felt highly suspicious.
Emperor Xuanwen shook his head and spoke coldly.
“Had it been only these letters, I would have suspected him, but they would not have served as definitive proof. However, look at this as well.”
Upon confirming the item Emperor Xuanwen pulled out next, Yoo Seo-hwa’s eyes widened in sheer shock. A thunderous astonishment jolted through her.
It was a dagger.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————