Blooming even in the mud - Chapter 61

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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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Chapter 61: Blooming Even in the Mud
 
 
 
In an instant, her vision flipped upside down, and she felt a strange floating sensation. Freezing water savagely struck the top of her plunging head and swept down to her toes in a flash.
Splash!
The calm surface of the pond twisted and churned noisily, but Yoo Seo-hwa, submerged in the water, could not hear it properly.
“Ugh! Cough!”
Her legs, which had been thrashing instinctively, stiffened with a painful cramp. The water she had swallowed as she fell into the pond choked her breath away.
Sinking lower and lower, the last thing reflected in Yoo Seo-hwa’s fading vision was the back of a man hurriedly vanishing somewhere.
 
After tossing and turning this way and that, Dal-rae finally opened her eyes. Her head felt heavy and she was sleepy, but since sleep simply wouldn’t come, she felt incredibly frustrated.
“Ah, damn it, I can’t sleep. I came all the way to the servants’ quarters just to sleep comfortably, but it looks like I’m going back after doing nothing but lying here.”
Dal-rae grumbled in annoyance, glaring aimlessly at the mud-plastered ceiling. Not that doing so would bring back her fled sleep.
“Why do I have this nagging, unpleasant feeling… I can’t tell what it is, which makes it even more irritating.”
Every time she drifted on the verge of sleep, that uncomfortable sensation would creep up and linger in her mind, preventing her from resting peacefully.
Dal-rae furrowed her brow and retraced her entire day.
It was an ordinary day. She had woken up before dawn to prepare breakfast, washed the dishes, prepared lunch, washed the dishes again…
Because she was a bit tired today, she had received permission from the kitchen maid to go and close her eyes for just a moment during a free block of time…
“Wait a minute.”
The nagging feeling that had been purely unpleasant suddenly morphed into a strange sense of anomaly. There was someone she had run into while walking to the servants’ quarters. It was Kkeoksoe.
“Why was that bastard Kkeoksoe in the servants’ quarters at this hour?”
Working in the Banbitgan, Dal-rae was busy when others were eating and resting, and she had a brief window of free time between meals. But that wasn’t the case for the other slaves.
It was a time when everyone should be working hard, fighting off springtime drowsiness. Of course, the same went for Kkeoksoe. Besides, Kkeoksoe usually worked in the guest rooms, so unless he had a specific errand, he had no reason to come all the way to the distant servants’ quarters.
“There’s nothing worth stealing in the servants’ quarters either… And to say he abandoned his work just to go see Yoo Seo-hwa… Ah, damn it. This won’t do.”
Dal-rae kicked off her blankets and stood up irritably. One way or another, sleep was out of the question now.
The servants’ quarters were quiet during the afternoon. Kkeoksoe was nowhere to be seen either.
“Yoo Seo-hwa? Are you inside?”
Yoo Seo-hwa’s room was completely empty.
“She said she was going to the needlewoman after lunch, so has she not returned yet?”
Scratching her head in contemplation, Dal-rae headed toward the sewing room. Her plan was to run into Yoo Seo-hwa on her way back to the Banbitgan and warn her to be careful around Kkeoksoe.
Although Yoo Seo-hwa’s room was in a secluded spot, there were many watchful eyes within the private residence. As long as she bolted her door securely at night, there shouldn’t be any major issues.
“I doubt Kkeoksoe would actually commit a crime, but as the saying goes, it’s always better to be safe than sorry…”
Muttering to herself, Dal-rae offered a bitter smile. Safe than sorry. What kind of slave habitually used expressions like that in daily life?
“I have to forget the past. Only then can I live on without dying, even if it’s the life of a slave.”
Dal-rae murmured the resigned words to herself with a bitter tang.
Splash!
It was at that moment that the sound of something heavy plunging into the water rang out. Dal-rae looked toward the direction of the sound in puzzlement.
“What was that sound? Ah, did it come from the pond over there?”
She wondered if some idle bastard had thrown a heavy rock into the water just to take out their frustration on the fish, but successive splashing sounds followed immediately.
“What? Don’t tell me some fool fell into the pond?”
She rushed over to the edge of the pond.
She saw someone who had been loitering on the bridge flee frantically the moment Dal-rae’s figure appeared in the distance, but she couldn’t give chase.
“Y-Yoo Seo-hwa! Is that you, Yoo Seo-hwa?!”
The pale, blurry shape slowly sinking beneath the pond was unmistakably that of someone familiar.
The sight of her sinking without a single movement was chilling. It overlapped distantly with the corpse of her older sister, which had hung limp and swaying in the air.
In the next instant, Dal-rae dove into the pond.
“Yoo Seo-hwa! Wake up! Hey!”
She barely managed to catch hold of her. The heavy fabric of her clothes, thoroughly soaked with water, clung limply to Yoo Seo-hwa’s unconscious body.
Dal-rae, who was a poor swimmer, could not drag Yoo Seo-hwa out of the pond no matter how hard she tried. Pulling her face above the surface of the water was her absolute limit.
“Help me! Is anyone there?! Someone fell into the water!”
Dal-rae’s desperate voice echoed through a corner of the private residence that had been steeped in lethargic springtime drowsiness. The pale, lifeless face of Yoo Seo-hwa, who lay limp with closed eyes, terrified her.
 
“What are you all doing instead of working?”
The slaves were gathered by the edge of the pond, whispering among themselves. What on earth were they doing during the busiest hours? As Deok-sun approached with a scowl, the slaves began to clamor in a fuss.
“Auntie! A disaster almost happened just now!”
“What? What do you mean by that?”
“They barely managed to pull her out when she almost drowned to death. What a mess this is.”
“If Dal-rae hadn’t discovered her early, she really would have died.”
“How did she even fall into the pond…”
“Don’t tell me she jumped in to kill herself?”
“But I don’t know why she isn’t regaining consciousness like this. She already threw up all the water just now.”
“Hey, let’s move her to her room quickly now!”
With everyone tossing out words haphazardly, it only grew more confusing. Sorting through the chaos, it seemed someone had fallen into the water and was saved thanks to Dal-rae.
“I get it, so move aside. My goodness, it’s distracting.”
Pushing through the slaves who made way for her, the first thing Deok-sun saw as she walked to the edge of the pond was Dal-rae, sitting on the ground, completely dazed.
The next thing that caught her gaze was the woman a burly slave was about to hoist onto his back. Her thoroughly drenched clothes and long hair were plastered wetly against her pale face.
“W-Wait a minute! Don’t tell me the person who fell into the water is Yoo Seo-hwa?!”
Startled out of her wits, she rushed forward. Goosebumps erupted over her skin at the touch of the chilled, cold flesh that held almost no warmth, showing just how long she had been submerged.
“Q-Quickly! Go fetch the doctor immediately!”
Deok-sun hurriedly threw off her own outer coat to wrap it around Yoo Seo-hwa’s body. Then, she forcefully stripped the coat off another dazed slave standing nearby and wrapped it around Yoo Seo-hwa as well.
“She’ll regain consciousness soon enough, so why go to such lengths… Won’t the butler scold us later?”
“Is there really a need to call a doctor? It’s not like she’s dead, so we can just let her rest in her room.”
It was merely a matter of a single slave falling into the water. The slaves actually found the instruction to fetch a doctor absurd. Was her life not as cheap as that of a horse or a cow?
“Didn’t you hear me tell you to fetch him this instant?! Run over to Zhang’s pharmacy, the closest one to the residence, right now!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Despite Deok-sun’s thunderous scolding, the slaves dawdled. They feared that if the butler found out they had called a doctor over a single slave, the sparks of his anger might fly at them.
Exploding with frustration, Deok-sun had no choice but to reveal the secret she had intended to keep hidden.
“Yoo Seo-hwa might be experiencing a pregnancy with Gyeong Won-ui’s child! If something goes wrong with the young master or lady, every single one of you will be executed!!”
A silent horror swept across the edge of the pond.
Though the slaves could not close their gaping mouths, only then did they begin to sprint around busily.
 
Her consciousness, which had been submerged in pitch-black darkness, slowly surfaced. The very first things to greet her were a stinging throat and a throbbing pain in her chest.
“Ugh…”
As Yoo Seo-hwa groaned while rubbing her chest, a voice filled with relief washed over her.
“Yoo Seo-hwa! Are you finally waking up?”
“Auntie Deok-sun…?”
“Don’t rub your chest too hard. Your breathing stopped for a moment when they pulled you from the water. They pounded on you to bring your breath back, so it’s going to hurt for quite a while.”
“I see…”
Replying blankly with whatever came to mind, the circumstances before and after the event barely managed to surface in Yoo Seo-hwa’s head.
While she had been looking down at the pond, someone had pushed her from behind, causing her to fall into the water. It seemed someone had saved her before her breath stopped entirely.
She blinked her eyes. Her hazy, blurred vision gradually grew clear. It was her own familiar room.
“It’s a relief we pulled you out before it was too late, but how did you end up falling in?”
“…I lost my footing.”
“Not being careful, tsk tsk. If Dal-rae hadn’t happened to be passing by, a terrible disaster would have occurred.”
“Did Dal-rae save me?”
“Yes. Dal-rae, you come closer too.”
Shifting her eyes to the side, she saw Dal-rae standing in the corner of the room.
“Now that I’ve seen her awake, I’m going back to work.”
Dal-rae mumbled under her breath, then swung her body around and left the room just like that.
“She seems to be shy. Despite acting like that, she couldn’t leave your bedside the entire time you were unconscious.”
“…”
She felt like she ought to say something in response, but half of her consciousness still felt muffled, as if submerged in water even now.
Deok-sun observed her expression, then cleared her throat with a loud cough.
“The doctor came by earlier, and… it turns out you weren’t experiencing a pregnancy. S-Still, it’s a relief that you didn’t lose a child, right? So don’t be too heartbroken. Alright?”
Ah.
Only then did she recall the train of thought she had been pursuing before falling into the water.
Yoo Seo-hwa moved her hand, which had been lying limp on the bed, and slowly rubbed her lower abdomen. Still, not even a hair’s breadth of a spark of life could be felt.
It was only natural.
For there was no way the seed of a father stained with hatred would take root in the womb of a mother who had lost her meaning to live.
Would that not be truly cruel to the child?
Her mind, which had been darkly warped as if submerged in deep water, slowly sorted itself out.
“Auntie Deok-sun.”
“Yes? Tell me anything.”
“There is something I am curious about.”
Yoo Seo-hwa questioned Deok-sun in a cautious voice.

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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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