Blooming even in the mud - Chapter 31

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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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Mud-Bloomed Flower Episode 31

She pressed him about why today of all days was so important, what his name was, where he came from, and how he knew her elder brother, but the man didn’t utter a single word.
“Hmph, don’t tell me if you don’t want to. I’d get more out of talking to a wooden log than you.”
Sulking, Chu Na-yeon trudged along beside the man in the heavy silence.
Then, the street grew chaotic. It was Yoo Seo-hwa’s wedding procession. The parade escorting the palanquin, which was adorned with silk and leopard skin, stretched long from the Imperial Palace. The sound of the ceremonial music was deafeningly loud.
Forgetting that she was angry with the man, Chu Na-yeon clicked her tongue.
“It hasn’t even been a few months since her fiancé died, yet she falls in love with another man and gets married so quickly? Truly amazing.”
“…….”
“I heard his family barely managed to hold a seventh-rank official post for four generations. No matter how blinded by lust I were, I’d be too ashamed to ever marry into a family like that.”
“…….”
“Don’t you think so too?”
Turning her head to seek his agreement, Chu Na-yeon’s mouth fell wide open.
“…….”
The man remained silent. His face was hidden beneath the Bamboo Hat, making it impossible to see.
Yet, even through the vision obscured by her Mongsu, that redness was starkly visible.
As red drops of blood dripped from the man’s tightly clenched fist, Chu Na-yeon was left utterly speechless.
‘I didn’t know it then, but I only found out after going to Qiheng Province that the man was Gyeong Won-ui.’
At that time, Gyeong Won-ui was a traitor who would have been torn limb from limb on the spot if he were discovered alive. Nevertheless, he had risked death to infiltrate the Capital City.
Just to remember the wedding of the woman who had betrayed and abandoned him.
Just to remember the sight of the woman drenched in her own solitary happiness.
‘So there’s no way any lingering attachment could possibly remain.’
Having witnessed Gyeong Won-ui’s hatred from up close, Chu Na-yeon murmured to herself repeatedly, convincing herself.

“Surely you’re not acting like this because of that slave woman, right?”
The words Chu Na-yeon left behind floated through the empty air like debris. They wedged themselves into the crack of his heart, a crack he had tried to turn away from after realizing his gaze was constantly wandering in search of Yoo Seo-hwa.
‘If only Chu Na-yeon hadn’t brought it up.’
He tried to make excuses to himself, but only self-mockery swirled in his mind. To blame it on Chu Na-yeon pointing it out? Was that really the case?
Even if he had married another woman, had children, and lived his life, could he confidently say that he would never have thought of her again in his daily routine?
“Sigh.”
Gyeong Won-ui groaned softly, rubbing his face roughly.
Unable to kill her, unable to ignore her, this was something he should have anticipated from the moment he allowed an enemy to stay under his shadow.
‘Should I kill her? Or should I send her somewhere else to erase her from my sight?’
Even though he knew a solution wouldn’t come easily, Gyeong Won-ui could not control his floating emotions.

As soon as he lay down on his bed, the Butler, who had run over at Gyeong Won-ui’s call, bowed deeply. Despite the late hour, Gyeong Won-ui was neatly dressed, not having changed into his sleepwear.
“For what reason did you summon this servant, Master?”
“I want to ask about what happened when Chu Na-yeon visited during the day.”
“Please ask, Master.”
“Did the lady happen to stop by the Servants’ Quarters while she was waiting for me?”
It was a question prompted by the thought that she wouldn’t have brought up Yoo Seo-hwa for no reason.
His suspicion was correct. The Butler confirmed it.
“She did stop by briefly.”
In fact, the Butler had intended to report Chu Na-yeon’s thoughtless behavior of rummaging through the Servants’ Quarters at will, but he had hesitated because he didn’t know how deep the relationship between the two was. If it was a relationship the master knew about and was tolerating, wouldn’t his interference just cause unnecessary trouble?
“What did she do there?”
“I was debating whether to report this to you, Master… but she strictly ordered the maidservant to just guide her and not follow, then went to the Servants’ Quarters alone, so I do not know her exact path.”
Understanding the hidden meaning behind the Butler’s euphemistic words, Gyeong Won-ui knitted his brows slightly. Chu Na-yeon, who officially held no relation to Gyeong Won-ui, had recklessly trampled through his Private Residence and committed what was practically an outrage.
He had known Chu Na-yeon’s forward personality since childhood, and since she was also Chu Se-gu’s daughter, he tended to tolerate her to some extent. Had this occurred in anyone else’s private residence, it would have been an act that disgraced not only Chu Na-yeon but also the face of her father, Chu Se-gu.
“However, before going to the Servants’ Quarters, she did ask about the whereabouts of the nameless one.”
“The nameless one?”
To Gyeong Won-ui’s puzzled question, the Butler explained once more. He also knew the rumors among the servants, so his demeanor was quite cautious.
“That, well, she is the bondwoman you received most recently, Master. Because she has no name on her slave registry, we simply call her the nameless one.”
“Ha…”
A short, mocking laugh slipped out.
The nameless one. A nobody, a nothing. Someone known to no one. The one who abandoned him.
It was an utterly destitute designation to describe her, who had once been the princess of a nation. At the same time, Gyeong Won-ui recalled her thin fingertips, which had been gripping the hem of her worn-out sleeve just like that pitiful name.
Brushing his hair back, he asked one final question.
“Where in the Servants’ Quarters is the nameless one’s dwelling?”

The snow that had been falling since evening quickly accumulated to the depth of a finger joint. Crunch, crunch. Only the sound of Gyeong Won-ui’s footsteps walking over the white snow, untouched by anyone else’s prints, echoed through the solitary night air.
The moonlight reflected off the snow, shining brightly. Gyeong Won-ui walked softly over the snow without even holding a lantern.
‘Snowy nights are still dreadful.’
Because he had lost consciousness, he didn’t remember it personally, but he had heard that it was also a snowy night just like this when he escaped from prison, leaving his father behind, to head toward Qiheng Province.
Therefore, it must have been snowing on the day his father took his own life as well.
His mother, who had passed away in a foreign land after leaving for distant Ganam Province in the harsh weather, and his sister, who had thrown herself into a well that chilled her to the bone to meet a death colder than the well water, had all died in the winter.
The footsteps that had been carved into the snow at regular intervals stopped in front of a small shack.
‘What am I trying to do by coming all the way here?’
Gyeong Won-ui sighed as he stared at the dark door, which cast not a single glimmer of light.
He stood blankly, staring for a long while before parting his lips.
“Are you asleep?”
It was a foolish question. It was perfectly silent beyond the door. He lightly placed his hand on the door. It pushed inward without resistance, creaking open.
He pushed the door open all the way.
The single room was very small. In the corner, stacks of sewing work were piled up, and beside them was a table that seemed to be used for sewing. The bed, receiving the faint warmth radiating from a small brazier the size of a child’s face, was pushed against the wall.
That was all.
A few pieces of poorly finished wooden furniture were everything inside the narrow room, which could be traversed from end to end in just a few steps.
“Mmh…”
Yoo Seo-hwa tossed and turned in her sleep.
Gyeong Won-ui, who had been staring into the room, momentarily lost his speech at the sight of an environment far more destitute than expected, flinched.
He quietly approached the bed. The moonlight and the snow-glare faintly illuminated the room. A soft shadow fell across Yoo Seo-hwa’s face as she slept with the blanket pulled up to her shoulders. She was curled up like a frightened child.
“You…”
Unconsciously, a half-formed word almost slipped out before he swallowed it back down. He didn’t know what to call her.
Your Highness. She was the one he had brought to ruin with his own hands. It was absurd.
The nameless one. If he could have casually referred to her as a nobody, he wouldn’t have secretly come all the way here like a thief in the night.
Gyeong Won-ui’s lips parted slightly.
“……Seo-hwa.”
Until a mere five years ago, it was a name he had held only in his heart.
Because he could not carelessly utter the name of a member of the imperial family, it was a name he had called only in his mind, very occasionally. A name so precious that merely holding it required the utmost care, a name he had tried calling softly, as if cradling a piece of rare porcelain.
“Seo-hwa.”
It felt incredibly foreign to drag up from his throat the name he had kept buried deep within his chest since childhood.
As if fumbling through an unfamiliar foreign tongue, he gently rolled the tip of his tongue and captured the sound upon it.
“Seo-hwa.”
This time, it came easier.
As if she had heard her name being called in her dreams, Yoo Seo-hwa’s eyebrows twitched. Not knowing himself whether he wanted her to wake up or remain asleep, Gyeong Won-ui stood there silently.
“…….”
Yoo Seo-hwa did not wake.
Her eyebrows, which had seemed to knit together faintly, soon relaxed into the defenselessness unique to a sleeping person. Only then did the breath he had been holding quietly slip out from between Gyeong Won-ui’s lips.
That was right.
She was defenseless.
Defenselessly, she hadn’t latched the door, and defenselessly, she fell asleep. She was defenseless in front of the enemy who could easily snap her neck at any moment.
‘Could there be anything easier than strangling this person?’
Gyeong Won-ui’s gaze slowly traced over Yoo Seo-hwa. The pale neck exposed slightly above the moth-eaten, discolored blanket was thin enough to be held in a single hand. No, it could easily be crushed with one hand.
Had he not already tried to strangle this neck before?
Had he not tried to plunge a blade into this neck before?
He remembered the hatred and rage of that moment. Even at this very moment as he silently stared down at her, Gyeong Won-ui knew that he was capable of letting his hatred explode, strangling her neck, and plunging a blade into her.
And he also knew that he would end up stopping halfway.
‘Why is it that I cannot kill you, you who are so utterly hateful?’
When all of his lingering attachments should have been discarded, along with the blood he spilled while watching her wedding procession.
His fingertips, which had reached out as if to choke the woman’s slender neck, gently traced the contour of her face instead. It was a line far more gaunt and thin than the one preserved in his heart’s memory.

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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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