Blooming even in the mud - Chapter 44

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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 Blooms Even in the Mire, Chapter 44

The firm forearms embracing her limp body, the heat blending deeply as fingers traced the groaning lips, the movements penetrating one after another as if loath to lose even a single moment.
Behind the ecstasy that made her feel as though she might lose consciousness lay a heavy, painful sorrow.
Every time her body, held tightly by him, sobbed from its inability to endure the pleasure, every time she was consumed by the repeatedly pouring passion.
Somewhere in her mind, there was a fragile soul weeping sorrowfully, unable to even let out a scream.
The tears flowing from the corners of her eyes were not proof of joy.
Yoo Seo-hwa was relieved that the darkness was coloring her face. Because Gyeong Won-ui would not be able to recognize it.
‘I wish he wouldn’t hold me so tenderly. Please….’
Before holding her, he never offered a single kind word or a single glance.
Even so, if her body stiffened to endure the pain, he would kiss her deeply and stroke her until she was fully prepared. Even when he was driving ruthlessly, if a color other than pleasure mixed into her sobbing, ecstatic cries, he would slow things down.
Therefore, Yoo Seo-hwa never let out a scream, even if her soul wept sorrowfully.
“Ah!”
It was a body that had been blended and overlapped time and time again. The core that meticulously knew Yoo Seo-hwa’s sensitive areas skillfully rode the rhythm.
A lightning-like sensation of heat pierced from her curled toes to the crown of her head.
“Wh-imper, ah.”
As she let out a sob and clawed at the sheet beneath her back, Gyeong Won-ui caught her hand. Without a word, he made Yoo Seo-hwa’s arms embrace his shoulders.
She tried to relax her arms as if telling him not to, but as if a moment’s gap was too wasteful, the sweat-drenched body rolled wildly.
Unable to withstand the force thrusting up from below, her arms grabbed Gyeong Won-ui’s shoulders, and both legs wrapped around his waist.
As if only then satisfied, Gyeong Won-ui caught her as she was pushed upward and overlapped their lips. The breath, breathlessly mixing and crushed by groans, was perilous.
It was a night that had been repeated countless times since last winter.

* * *

Ganam Province, the representative exile land of the Songyang State.
In the sea near Ganam Province, nameless uninhabited islands were scattered. Among them, the only island inhabited by people and given a name was Eogu.
The residents of Eogu Island were gathered in a cluster at the island’s only port, waiting for the ship.
“I’m worried because the sea suddenly got rough, but it’ll arrive on time, right?”
“They aren’t people who’ve only boarded a ship for a day or two, so don’t worry.”
“Does the Sea God only take away greenhorns? Then no one would die even when a storm rises? Just take Uncle Seok, for example—.”
“Are you going to keep spouting ominous words?”
A chattering boy shrunk his shoulders under the glares of the surrounding adults.
The residents of Eogu Island, a small island, numbered around twenty households. The men fished, and the women tilled the land, enduring day by day.
The fishing grounds where fish were well-caught were mostly monopolized by the people of Ganam Province, and because the land was rough enough to barely farm, life was always exhausting.
It was also a place lacking daily necessities. The village representative buying goods from Ganam Province every three or four months was the only passage connecting this small island to the outside.
Because of the monsoon, they couldn’t launch a boat to Ganam Province in the winter, so it was a boat that had finally gone out now that spring had arrived. The residents looked forward to the boat, craning their necks anxiously.
“Oh, oh! It’s coming over there!”
“Where? Where is it?”
At the cry of someone with sharp eyes, the residents’ gazes turned simultaneously toward a spot on the horizon. Soon, the people who discovered the boat waved their hands, and the two ships, receiving a welcome, safely entered the island after three days.
“You’ve all suffered a lot!”
“Did you buy everything well without missing anything? You didn’t forget again like last time, right?”
“Is there no other news from the mainland? Are those cultist Taoists still running rampant?”
“No one was hurt, right? If you hide that you got into a fight while drinking again, I won’t let you go out to the mainland ever again.”
At the flood of pouring words, the middle-aged man leading the boat waved his hand.
“Aigo, it’s distracting, so let’s talk slowly. Let’s divide the goods first. Eulsu! Take some trouble.”
“Yes, Elder.”
While the young man called Eulsu checked the ledger, the other men carried bundles and boxes one by one from the boat to the land.
Eulsu, who was a head taller than the islanders, was intelligent enough to be the only one on the island who could read and do arithmetic. His appearance was also handsome, so until he married four years ago, he was a man who made the hearts of the few village maidens ache.
The palm-sized port was bustling with people checking and receiving goods.
“So, how is the mainland?”
“Ah, that is to say. Not long ago, the ruler changed, and those Taoist bastards were all swept away!”
“Is that true?”
“Then would I eat warm rice and tell a lie?”
“My goodness. Living a long life, I see the day those Taoist bastards ruin themselves.”
It was an island so small and poor that even pirates ignored it and passed by, and they wouldn’t know even if a war broke out. Eogu Island, where information was always late, only now received the news that the Emperor had changed due to a rebellion.
“Hearing that those damn Taoist bastards were kicked out makes me feel refreshed, pui.”
A woman spat on the ground.
In fact, to the peasants who lived from hand to mouth every day, it didn’t really matter who the Emperor was. However, the tyranny of the Taoists, who enjoyed the favor of the Deposed Emperor who worshiped the Evil Cult, reached even this small island.
A Taoist had rushed all the way here, demanding they present a beautiful woman and hand over treasures, tormenting them. Though he returned in ten days, unable to adapt to the shabby island with nothing to plunder, it was enough to make the simple islanders utterly sick of it.
“Everyone is here. I’m not too late, am I?”
There was a voice approaching the port late. It was a young woman holding the hand of a child who was toddling along.
“Eulsu’s wife, you’re coming now?”
“Dong-i kept saying his stomach hurt. It’s not like he ate something wrong this morning, but he keeps having a stomachache.”
“Papa!”
The child waddled over to Eulsu. Eulsu, who was about to bring down a hen wrapped in a bundle, lifted the child with one hand.
“Were you listening to your mother well?”
“Uh-huh, uh-huh. Mom said she misses Papa.”
“Geez, you’re still like newlyweds, so it’s really good to see.”
Laughter burst out all around at the innocent voice.
“My, this child.”
Eulsu’s wife also blushed faintly, but it didn’t seem like she disliked it.
Five years ago, in a sea where the storm was rough, Eulsu saved a girl. Eulsu took care of the girl, who was shipwrecked and had even lost her memory, with the utmost sincerity.
Though she was skin and bones and in shabby clothes, her face, which exuded an air of nobility, was brightly fair, her behavior was proper, and her personality was gentle. The islanders, who used to whisper suspiciously, also gradually accepted the girl into the island.
A year after that, Eulsu and the girl set out a bowl of cold water and held a wedding ceremony to become husband and wife.
Though enough time had passed for the girl to become a woman, the island called her Eulsu’s wife as her memory had still not returned.
“Right, we should tell Eulsu’s wife too. The ruler changed, and those cultist Taoists were all kicked out!”
“Oh, really?”
“I hope that Taoist bastard who tormented Eulsu’s wife also got his head chopped off.”
“The new Emperor will become a wise ruler.”
“Since he kicked out that damn Taoist bastard and the tyrant, it’s only natural.”
The topic returned to the new Emperor again, and the crowd buzzed. The man who was unpacking the mainland news slapped his knee.
“Ah, come to think of it. I also heard the story of a general who achieved great merit this time, and well, that person was originally—.”
It was just when the man was about to excitingly unpack his bag of stories. A hen that escaped from a bundle fluttered its wings and stirred up all directions.
“Aigo, what a surprise!”
“Where do you think you’re escaping to, you rascal!”
“Mister! The chicken is flying under your crotch!”
Because of a single chicken, the port was swept into a small commotion.
By the time Eulsu barely wrapped the struggling hen back up in the bundle, the topic about the new Emperor and his young general had been washed away by the seawater and disappeared.
On the way back home, Eulsu’s wife asked.
“What is the hen for?”
“Because you suffered severely from a cold in the winter, it seems my wife’s body has become very weak. When we get home, I’ll boil it deliciously and thoroughly for you.”
“Even though I told you not to worry because it’s no big deal….”
Her husband’s tenderness caused a smile to spread across Eulsu’s wife’s face.
Looking around, she reconfirmed that the only people walking on the road were her family, yet she still lowered her voice and whispered.
“How did the matter of going to Ganam Province go? Was there no letter from the Crown Prince this time either?”
“Yes, the letter I received last summer is the last one.”
“I’m worried that he might be too unwell to even write the letters he always used to send. He already seemed to have ruined his health….”
“Since they said he got married, perhaps he has no time to write letters because a child was born. I asked the merchant group traveling back and forth to the Capital City for news of the Crown Prince, so we’ll be able to know the next time I go out to Ganam Province.”
In Eulsu’s mind, the story of a certain general he had heard in Ganam Province lingered.
A family that became traitors at the end of the Preceding Emperor’s reign. The Gyeong Clan.
It was absolutely not a common surname.
While hiding the gloomily lingering guilt, he comforted his wife, who was worrying about the Crown Prince.

* * *

Since some point, the days when the phantom pain caused by harsh torture visited had become rare.
Gyeong Won-ui faintly sensed when that period began. It was from the day he held Yoo Seo-hwa on that mountain.
When he deeply inhaled the body fragrance that grew voluptuously dense as Yoo Seo-hwa drenched in pleasure, and licked the sweat-soaked soft skin, an illusion occasionally arose.
An illusion that the old phantom pain, stirring turbulently inside his chest, was gradually subsiding.
On the days he held Yoo Seo-hwa, even nightmares did not visit.

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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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