Blooming even in the mud - Chapter 26
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Blooming Even in Mud, Chapter 26
She did not even know how she managed to leave Wang Jeong-mun’s quarters. With every staggering, frantic step, his words spun dizzily in her head.
Gyeong Won-yeong had been violated by an official. That young girl, who was so much younger than her and used to smile shyly whenever she spoke of her elder brother.
Who would save a mere government office slave?
Who would bestow grace upon the family of a treasonous rebel?
Her frantically trembling legs caught on the root of an old tree protruding from the ground, sending her crashing down.
“Sob…”
Sprawled on the dirt road, Yoo Seo-hwa could not even think of standing up as she choked back her stifled sobs. Dust was smeared into a hazy mess inside her clenched hands.
‘So that’s what it was, that’s why… the people around me…’
Now she finally understood.
Emperor Xuanwen, who looked as if he had something to say but closed his eyes without ever spitting it out; her brother’s mockery, his lips curling strangely whenever he brought up Lady Zhang and Gyeong Won-yeong; Court Lady Lee, who repeatedly dissuaded her from sending letters to Ganam Province.
They all knew and hid it from her.
Thoroughly marginalized and isolated from the moment Gyeong Baek-jong was framed for treason, she had been an utterly ignorant fool until the very last moment.
‘It was five whole years.’
What had kept her alive through that vast stretch of time, when she could not even bring herself to die, was Lady Zhang and Gyeong Won-yeong in Ganam Province. She had floundered about, trying to care for Gyeong Won-ui’s remaining family within whatever distance her hands could reach, but what a joke. It had all been useless.
From the beginning, it was an entirely meaningless, foolish endeavor.
‘Imperial Father, how will you bear this sin? Did you have the audacity to face them in the underworld?’
Grief overflowed through her tightly clenched teeth.
Gyeong Won-ui, who lost his entire family, could not even retrieve their corpses. There was not even a gravesite he could visit whenever his heart ached and bled.
Gyeong Baek-jong’s corpse had been torn to pieces as a felon of high treason and sent to various regions across the country, the body of Lady Zhang, who died of illness, was abandoned on a wild mountain to become food for beasts, and Gyeong Won-yeong was buried haphazardly beneath a street where people trod.
And Yoo Seo-hwa was the daughter of the man who was the root cause of all this.
The biting winter wind that blew in, shaking the tree branches, tore at her chest and scattered the hair of Yoo Seo-hwa, who was biting down on her blood-stained lips.
The bleakly howling sound of the wind reminded her of where she was. A strange sense of déjà vu washed over her.
“Could this place be…”
Her gaze, which had been wandering along with the sound of the wind, circled the surroundings in fear before slowly lifting upward.
“Ah…”
The moment she tilted her waist back and bent her head all the way up, a low, sobbing groan finally slipped out of her mouth as if bursting forth.
A massive nutmeg tree completely filled Yoo Seo-hwa’s vision.
Gyeong Won-ui and Gyeong Won-yeong, and the children of Gyeong Won-ui and Yoo Seo-hwa, and even the children of those children.
The greenness of the nutmeg tree, which seemed as though it would stand unchangingly to protect them throughout the long, vast years of their lives, had faded into a dull color.
The leaves of the evergreen, which should have retained the freshness of a verdant green all year round, were no longer green.
Standing there was a single withered, dead tree that could no longer sprout new buds.
As if to say those days of the past could never return.
As if to loudly declare that Gyeong Won-ui and Yoo Seo-hwa would never again enjoy a time of lush, green youth.
“Sob, hic…”
Yoo Seo-hwa leaned her face against the dead nutmeg tree, her shoulders shaking as she sobbed.
Even while doing grueling work, she had never once uttered a weak complaint. She thought that if she kept herself busy and exhausted her body, the thoughts in her head would be emptied out, but she was wrong.
The thoughts did not disappear in the slightest; they only plunged deeper and deeper, stacking up like thick layers of grime.
She had not even realized it was strangling her breath until it was exposed by the shock of her father’s final sin and the crumbling of the past years she had barely endured.
‘You and I really won’t be able to welcome a new spring.’
At this precious place of memories where she used to whisper love with him, and where he used to play affectionately with his sister, all she confirmed was a ruined sorrow. A sorrow that would never shine in its original colors again.
III.
Sometimes, he felt the illusion of a fire erupting within his body. No, it was not an illusion.
The vivid scars left on his body, the traces of torture. The skin and flesh that had been torn, sliced, crushed, and branded had not healed even after five years, eating away at Gyeong Won-ui.
Inside the Imperial Prison, where only a disgusting stench of blood and dismal hostility lingered, Gyeong Baek-jong had tried to send Gyeong Won-ui away like that.
Telling him that he must live.
That he, at least, must survive.
He had managed to object through lips that were crushed and torn from the harsh interrogation under torture. Gyeong Won-ui believed that the one who needed to live was his father. His father, who had been falsely accused and lost everything, had to live to repay everything to the Emperor.
Gyeong Baek-jong’s subordinates, who had sneaked in to break Gyeong Baek-jong and Gyeong Won-ui out of prison at the risk of their lives, urged them on. It was a crack that had barely formed because the execution had been decided and security had grown lax.
Outside the Imperial Prison where they were locked up, the unconscious jailers lay slumped on the ground.
Gyeong Baek-jong was a great general of Songyang State who was widely praised for his integrity and innocence. The other prisoners in the Imperial Prison, who usually respected him, remained silent without causing a stir, aligning themselves with the father and son’s escape.
They could buy a bit of time, but it was not enough. Whether it was to rely on King Ning or to go to another country, they had to escape this Imperial Prison immediately.
Gyeong Baek-jong shook his head heavily.
At those words, Gyeong Won-ui could tolerate fleeing alone even less.
If he stayed behind, Gyeong Baek-jong would surely die. He would end up dying a gruesome death, torn apart by the furious Emperor’s wrath.
Yet Gyeong Baek-jong was thoroughly resolute.
‘Then do you mean for me to become a son who abandons his father and runs?’
He had intended to say that. However, his torture-ridden body was slow to form the words, and the subordinates, receiving Gyeong Baek-jong’s nod, struck the back of his neck.
At the edge of his consciousness as it plunged into blackness, he saw a faint smile and tears.
That was the last with his father.
Gyeong Won-ui, hit by the aftereffects of the torture, did not regain consciousness for a long time even after safely escaping the Imperial Prison.
By the time he opened his eyes at Prince Ning’s Estate in Qiheng Province, everything was already over. His father had taken his own life lest he accidentally divulge his son’s escape route under pressure, and the final breaths of his mother and sister had long since fallen into disorder.
And even Emperor Xuanwen, the object of his revenge, was no longer a person of this living world.
“Ugh…!”
Gyeong Won-ui choked back a groan and opened his eyes. It felt as though a fire had spread onto his body. The flames spreading along every single scar of torture engraved upon his flesh were consuming him.
The pain, rushing over him like a seizure, even choked and crushed his airway. Since even breathing did not go according to his will, Gyeong Won-ui clutched at his chest.
‘The torture ended five years ago. I am no longer so powerless as to suffer in vain. This is merely phantom pain.’
He repeated it to himself, but the pain burning his body showed no signs of calming down easily.
Eventually kicking himself up from the bed, Gyeong Won-ui staggered toward the door.
The eastern sky where the first dawn was breaking looked pale gray. Relying on the dimly brightening twilight, Gyeong Won-ui laboriously moved his steps.
‘The well is over there.’
He mindlessly drew water from the well with a bucket. The cold water, chilled deep underground, was poured repeatedly over his burning body.
“Haa…”
Only after the cold water, chilly enough to freeze his bones, thoroughly soaked his body did the phantom pain finally dissolve and his mind return a little. Gyeong Won-ui stood with his hands resting on the well, unable to even think of tidying his hair and clothes.
Water droplets from his wet hair dripped onto the back of his hand. It was a hand where all the fingernails had pulled out and had been branded with a hot iron. Although the fingernails on both hands had grown back, the scars that twisted the skin still remained clearly on the back of his hand.
Gyeong Won-ui gritted his teeth.
‘I should have killed Emperor Xuanwen with my own hands.’
It was a life prolonged by abandoning even his father to flee. The price of that life ought to be revenge.
‘But I couldn’t.’
While he was lying helplessly on the bed without even regaining consciousness, Emperor Xuanwen passed away on his own in a place his hands could not reach. How enraged had he been upon learning the news that his enemy had closed his eyes after enjoying his natural lifespan?
He could not even pay the price for the life his father had saved by choosing death for himself. Revenge and resentment, unconsumed and having lost their purpose, boiled up from within.
From that day on, Gyeong Won-ui occasionally began to feel terrible phantom pain in his old wounds.
“…”
Without even realizing that a shivering chill was creeping in due to drenching himself in cold water, or that the sky was gradually brightening, Gyeong Won-ui stood by the well for a long time.
“Oh dear, why is it so hard to open my eyes again today?”
“When have you ever woken up easily?”
“I want to rest fully for about a month without thinking about anything.”
“If you slack off, you might end up resting forever in a coffin, girl.”
From afar, the chatter of maidservants giggling together drifted over. The maidservants, who were coming over carrying large water buckets between them to draw well water, failed to see Gyeong Won-ui standing in the shade by the well because they were busy gossiping.
“Ah…”
The first person to discover him was Yoo Seo-hwa, who was walking a short distance behind.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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