Blooming even in the mud - Chapter 77

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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 77

Pildubaek was fickle by nature. It could not extend its roots deeply in the wild, so it required a certain degree of care. Yet if human hands made its environment too ideal, the leaves would overgrow excessively, causing its medicinal efficacy to drop.
The solution was to cultivate it interspersed among various other herbs.
Since a trowel might damage the fine roots, the soil had to be dug out cautiously by hand.
Gyeong Won-ui, carefully inspecting the herb garden while getting his hands thoroughly covered in dirt, finally succeeded in harvesting a single root of Pildubaek around dawn.
‘Wow, he actually succeeded in the end.’
Seeing the Pildubaek with even its finest roots intact, even Mang-a, who was wide awake now, marveled at the sight.
Han Gak also nodded upon seeing Gyeong Won-ui, who immediately descended from the herb garden after staying up the entire night without showing a single hint of fatigue.
“I shall pray that the General’s sincerity reaches the Buddha. And might this poor monk ask a favor of you?”
“Yes, please speak.”
“Even if it is just for a few months, I ask that you look after this child.”
The person Han Gak pointed to was Mang-a.
“Abbot! What do you mean by that!”
Stroking the hair of the protesting Mang-a, Han Gak explained.
“He is a child who originally has no ties to a temple, but I have been looking after him due to unavoidable circumstances. Please allow this child to serve Her Highness for the time being.”
“I shall do so.”
He was reluctant to have a stranger become Yoo Seo-hwa’s servant, but since it was Han Gak’s recommendation, he would not be a bad child. Gyeong Won-ui readily agreed.
Only Mang-a pouted his lips. Somehow he felt a day like this would come eventually, but now that it was here, he disliked it even more than expected.
Mang-a was truly displeased.

The Doctor, who had been stabilizing her Qi and Blood by decocting the Pildubaek sent ahead through a servant earlier, beamed with joy upon seeing the new Pildubaek Gyeong Won-ui brought.
“You have brought back a precious medicine that cannot be bought even with gold.”
“Can she make a full recovery?”
“I will do my absolute best, so please put your mind at ease.”
The Doctor immediately set to work preparing the decoction.
He had climbed the mountain late at night and even acted as an unfamiliar herb gatherer. Although fatigue ought to have accumulated heavily, Gyeong Won-ui did not even close his eyes and kept watch by Yoo Seo-hwa’s side.
“Your Highness, here is your medicine.”
He carefully fed Yoo Seo-hwa the decoction that Kkot-bun had brewed. Yoo Seo-hwa, who was unconscious, could not swallow the medicine well.
He blew on it gently so it wouldn’t be hot, letting her take it in a mouthful at a time, and wiped away the decoction that trickled past her lips. Only after confirming she had swallowed slowly did he spoon another mouthful for her to drink.
By the time he managed to make her finish the single bowl of decoction, his arm was stiff, but he couldn’t even feel any pain.
Once she was given the medicine, Yoo Seo-hwa’s breathing stabilized bit by bit. Even so, her consciousness seemed to float along the fringes of a nightmare.
“Ugh…”
As if a fever was rising intermittently, she let out low groans and exhaled rough breaths. With a silk handkerchief soaked in water, he carefully wiped the sweat drenching her forehead and the nape of her neck.
The droplets of sweat rolling past the corners of her eyes looked just like tears.
“Your Highness.”
As her cheeks burned hot with fever, he wanted to cradle them and wrap his hands around hers. He wanted to press a light kiss against her skin and whisper to her.
But knowing that Yoo Seo-hwa would not desire any of it, he could do nothing more than cool her fever with the silk handkerchief and call out to her softly.
“The one who should suffer pain should have been me, not you…”
Gyeong Won-ui groaned and buried his face in his hands.
He did not know how to lessen her pain and take it upon himself. He would do anything for Yoo Seo-hwa, but his sins were so uncountably deep that he did not even know what he ought to do.
‘No, does she even want anything from me?’
That was an assumption just as horrific as the nightmare of Yoo Seo-hwa leaving his side. The longer Yoo Seo-hwa remained unconscious, the more Gyeong Won-ui was consumed and suffocated by the worst-case assumptions.
It was a time akin to the nights in the Imperial Prison where he used to be tortured.

The sun set and rose again twice. When Yoo Seo-hwa twitched her eyebrows and opened her eyes, he wondered if he was seeing hallucinations from not sleeping a wink for several days.
“Ugh…”
“Are you awake?”
“Where is…”
Yoo Seo-hwa, trying to speak in a raspy voice, burst into a fit of coughing. When Gyeong Won-ui quickly offered her water, she accepted and drank it absentmindedly, but soon retched it back up.
“Ugh! Retch!”
While lying on the sickbed, she had barely put anything into her mouth other than the decoction. Vomiting yellow gastric juices mixed with water, Yoo Seo-hwa trembled.
“Your Highness! Are you alright?”
There had been no warning from the Doctor that she would vomit even if she drank water. Panic-stricken, Gyeong Won-ui held her in his arms to soothe her and rubbed her back, even though he knew she shrank from his approach.
Yoo Seo-hwa, who had been retching and panting for a long while, realized she was being held in Gyeong Won-ui’s arms and pushed him away with a violent shudder.
“I am sorry. I was overly anxious and took a liberty.”
He apologized hastily, but that was not the reason Yoo Seo-hwa had rejected him.
“Why do you keep saving me, Young Master?!”
A blood-curdling scream erupted from her cracked, parched voice.
Words he had heard once before. Yet the meaning behind them had changed completely. For a moment, Gyeong Won-ui even forgot that he needed to breathe. Yoo Seo-hwa’s scream choked his windpipe and squeezed his heart.
“I should have died. Five years ago! Back when I misunderstood that you were dead, I should have ended my life!”
She who had once welcomed the death approaching her amidst the flames was now leaping into death of her own accord. In Yoo Seo-hwa’s tear-stained eyes, Gyeong Won-ui saw his own face, stark white and frozen with shock.
Even when he had tried to strangle her, tried to kill her, and acted cruelly, her cheeks, which had never spilled a single tear, were now drenched by her screams.
A heart that had been worn down and crushed for a long duration spanning well over five years, making it difficult to even maintain its shape, had been severed by Gyeong Won-ui. Even when burning the Magnolia Hairpin, she had not shed tears.
Her bleakly wasted heart had become incapable of feeling either joy or sorrow. In the place that was quietly decaying and about to crumble away, a single blood-hued peony blossomed.
As her sorrow revived, her despair revived as well.
Yoo Seo-hwa cursed herself for failing to die.
“If I had died back then, I would have been happier instead. Because in the Nine Springs, I would have held onto hope, knowing that you were alive somewhere on the Earthly Realm. But what is this now? Why was I alive? Why did I live to see this!”
The tear-choked scream was agonizing, as if ripping her soul and spirit apart.
If she had succeeded in hanging herself, she wouldn’t have held the futile wish to protect Lady Zhang and Gyeong Won-yeong. She wouldn’t have entered a disastrous marriage with Park Kwon-bok either.
And she wouldn’t have reunited with Gyeong Won-ui. She could have been happy in the Nine Springs, harboring her feelings of affection.
Gyeong Won-ui could do nothing for his old lover who cursed her survival. He could do anything for her, but only now did he realize that in reality, he did not even possess the right to do so.
Even so, Gyeong Won-ui had to do something. Because he had to hold onto her as she plunged headfirst toward death.
“If you wish it, I will never appear before Your Highness for the rest of my life. So please, just do not speak of dying…”
Losing Yoo Seo-hwa would be a tedious agony akin to death itself. But it was better than Yoo Seo-hwa dying. If only he could drag Yoo Seo-hwa out of the swamp of death, he could willingly face his own demise.
Yet this, too, was a belated resolution. From the moment he reunited with Yoo Seo-hwa and pressed a blade against her neck, everything was already too late.
“What use is any of that.”
Yoo Seo-hwa sobbed, wiping away her tears.
“You and I can no longer return to the past. Can you piece a broken vessel back to its original state? Can you restore broken trust?”
“…”
“Please leave. Just leave me alone…”
With her own hands, Yoo Seo-hwa drank down a bleak, withered death. There was no place for Gyeong Won-ui by her side.

* * *

The scent of the decoction lingered heavily. Kkot-bun, who had been pacing anxiously in front of the medicine bowl, grasped Yoo Seo-hwa’s hand pleadingly.
“My lady, won’t you please at least drink your medicine?”
“…”
“At this rate, I really think you’re going to die. Please?”
Several days had passed since she cut off not only her medicine but also grains and food. Her health, which had deteriorated as she collapsed from shock, worsened by the hour.
Looking at Kkot-bun whose eyes were brimming with tears, Yoo Seo-hwa shook her head with great effort.
“I am sorry to you… But staying alive is a greater pain to me.”
At the weak but firm words, Kkot-bun could not press further and left the room. A muffled sob could be heard from outside the door, but Yoo Seo-hwa tried not to listen.
Through the slightly unclosed door, the figure of Gyeong Won-ui outside was visible. She tried not to look. She even closed her eyes and turned her back, but his form, which she had glanced at just once, remained faintly imprinted on her retinas.
“I will not even beg for Your Highness’s forgiveness. I will leave your side forever.”
“…”
“Just please stay alive, I beg of you.”
When Yoo Seo-hwa refused all grains and food, Gyeong Won-ui fell to his knees in front of the room and implored. It was a desperation closer to begging.
Yoo Seo-hwa did not listen.

Everyone in the Private Residence came to know of Yoo Seo-hwa’s worsening illness. The Butler and Deok-sun whispered anxiously, and the eyes of the slaves who had been acquainted with Yoo Seo-hwa hovered uneasily around her quarters. A gloomy despair spread across the entire residence.
Even while Yoo Seo-hwa grew gaunt day by day, Gyeong Won-ui’s pleas did not stop. During the day, and during the night, he pleaded without drinking a single drop of water, let alone eating, just like Yoo Seo-hwa.
The aura of death was infecting not only Yoo Seo-hwa, but Gyeong Won-ui as well.

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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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