Blooming even in the mud - Chapter 88

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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 88: Blooming Even in the Mud
 
 
 
“You were right! They say it was such an incredible battle that it felt almost anticlimactic! The drums only rolled once, yet the fortress fell, and they opened the gates right away!”
The Government Army, preceded by the victory report, had returned. Having overheard snippets of the story here and there, Kkot-bun chattered away in a state of high excitement.
“Master will be back soon too, right?”
“I doubt it. He has to submit a detailed report to His Majesty and handle the post-war cleanup, so I imagine it will be difficult for him to return home within the day.”
Unlike Kkot-bun, Yoo Seo-hwa replied in a calm voice and let out a small yawn.
“I’m tired today, so I should go to sleep early.”
“You stayed up all night these past few days making that embroidered belt pouch. Go get some rest quickly.”
Having barely touched her dinner, Yoo Seo-hwa went to bed early before the sun had even set. Her head throbbed heavily from the rushing fatigue, but she could not fall into a deep sleep.
‘Is it because I barely ate dinner?’
Yet, it was not that she was hungry.
Waking up in the middle of the night, Yoo Seo-hwa blinked slowly and stared up at the ceiling. Her head was still heavy, and she felt a stifling discomfort, as if weariness were encrusted upon her like tattered rags.
She tossed and turned for a long while, but sleep eluded her completely.
‘Perhaps catching the night breeze and taking a walk will clear my mind.’
She rose from the bed and tidied her clothes. Since it was a bright night with the round moonlight pouring down radiantly, a lantern would not be necessary.
The season was ripening into midsummer, but tonight the night air was cool. As Yoo Seo-hwa walked along, looking around the garden at the night painted in summer hues, a familiar presence surged into her consciousness.
Only then did Yoo Seo-hwa realize why she had been unable to sleep.
“……Young Master.”
It was because she had not seen this man return. Because at the end of every expedition, the man always returned to her.
Standing in a corner of the garden that overlooked Yoo Seo-hwa’s room, Gyeong Won-ui noticed Yoo Seo-hwa’s presence belatedly.
‘Did I hear an auditory hallucination?’
As he turned around in a daze and recognized Yoo Seo-hwa, his cheeks flushed red. Just how absentmindedly had he been standing there to not even notice her approaching right behind him?
“I heard from the maidservant that you went to bed early, so what brings you out at this hour?”
“I woke up in the middle of the night.”
“Was your bed uncomfortable?”
“……It wasn’t anything like that.”
For some reason, Yoo Seo-hwa hesitated slowly and looked up at Gyeong Won-ui. The reason she felt a faint warmth in his gaze, which parted the moonlight to cling to her skin, must be that he had been picturing her in his heart until just moments ago.
“Are you hurt anywhere?”
“I am fine. Not even a stray arrow came near me.”
Even after examining him for a long while, Yoo Seo-hwa only felt relieved after hearing a definitive answer to her cautious question. He had kept his old promise not to show himself injured.
Now that she knew he had returned safely, was her business concluded?
It was not. Yoo Seo-hwa’s heart, which refused to let her feet move away, was the answer. Yoo Seo-hwa looked once more at Gyeong Won-ui, who was cast in shadow by the moonlight.
Unfitting for a general who had just returned from a great victory, a dark gloom was swirling within him.
“I heard it was a great victory, but your expression does not look good. Did you perhaps lose the Minister of State Affairs?”
“That is not the case.”
Following that brief reply, Gyeong Won-ui’s lips closed. However, it did not seem to mean that he disliked conversing with Yoo Seo-hwa. He wore an agonized expression, as if he could not shape whatever was spinning inside him into the form of words.
“……I felt sorrowful.”
A faint voice drifted out from between his slightly parting lips. Yoo Seo-hwa did not rush him and waited.
The vaguely broken words continued, as if gaining courage from her waiting.
“I felt sorrowful for my father’s past life, having shared decades of friendship without knowing that the closest friend beside him intended to drive a dagger into his back.”
“…….”
“I feel sorrowful for your past life, having had to suffer unjust misery because of a foolish man who did not even know who his enemy was.”
“…….”
“Do I even have the right to resent Chu Se-gu?”
She realized it through his words.
To atone to her, Gyeong Won-ui would willingly abandon his own revenge. Even if his soul, left with nothing but a torn and blood-soaked grudge, were to scream, he would bury himself within it.
“If I tell you to let the Minister of State Affairs go, will you allow him to escape?”
“If that is what you wish, I will do so.”
“You will lose everything. His Majesty will certainly never forgive you either.”
“Compared to your suffering, it is nothing.”
As Gyeong Won-ui continued to speak, his voice gradually grew firmer. Because the weight of his heavily echoing sincerity was burdensome, Yoo Seo-hwa let out a deep exhale.
“You told me to live on. Yet why do you intend not to live on?”
“Princess, to me, I…….”
Yoo Seo-hwa quietly raised her hand to stop Gyeong Won-ui’s words. Through her fingertips gently pressed against his lips, she could feel Gyeong Won-ui’s sharply trembling breath.
“It is true that you once tried to drown me in grueling sorrow. However, at the end of it, you returned meaning to my past five years that had been discarded as worthless. My life has become gratitude toward you.”
Yoo Seo-hwa’s fingertips slid down softly.
One step. The moonlight that had been shining above Gyeong Won-ui’s head cast a shadow over her.
“In the past, believing I would stagnant at the bottom and die, I pushed away anyone who approached me.”
And another step. The breath that had touched the skin of her fingertips now mingled with her own breath and dissolved.
“Now, I intend to reconnect my life and time that I had given up on. Will you leave me alone again? Must I walk my life alone?”
“……To me.”
The strained voice that barely returned sounded like a groan and also like a cry.
“I do not have the right to walk by your side.”
“Please stay here, by my side. If I can only give my heart to you, that is enough for me.”
“……!”
A shallow tremor swept lightly through Gyeong Won-ui. The unfamiliar manner of speech that Yoo Seo-hwa had brought to her lips belonged precisely to him.
Five years ago, in this very private residence, it was the utmost romantic devotion that he had conveyed to her.
The moonlight traced a faint but clear smile onto Yoo Seo-hwa’s face. Having wound its way through a long stretch of time, Yoo Seo-hwa’s smile finally faced him.
“To the lover who spoke those words, I wish to convey the very same words as well.”
The resonance cast by the smile overflowed within Gyeong Won-ui.
For him to finally shape a single word of reply into a voice, he needed as much time as the life he had spent by her side.
“……May I live on?”
“Of course.”
“Will you live with me for the rest of your life?”
To spend the rest of their lives together. Because they had been betrothed since childhood, the words of a marriage proposal became a belated confession.
Accepting that meaning deeply, Yoo Seo-hwa closed her eyes languidly. The warmth that approached carefully gathered her lips and embraced them softly. It was the embrace of a lover, tender just like the first time.
 
* * *
 
When he first heard the news that a rebellion had broken out, he had thought nothing of it. He merely wondered if his grand uncle could not even govern a single rebellion.
When he heard the news that the ringleaders of the rebellion were members of the White Head Sect, he became anxious with an inkling of worry.
And when he even heard the news that the members of the White Head Sect had put forward his restoration, he despaired.
‘I will not survive past this year; I will die!’
What fool in the world would leave alive a criminal whom rebels sought to enthrone as Emperor? The fact that he had nothing to do with those who raised the rebellion would not even serve as an excuse.
The Deposed Emperor Yoo Jeong grew even more gloomy. It was to the extent that, misunderstanding Gyeong Won-ui’s purpose of visit as delivering a poisoned drink, he had fled to his room and hidden.
Of course, there was no way that Gyeong Won-ui, a general, had come upholding an imperial edict to execute him. Hearing the reason for the visit, Yoo Jeong was surprised in a different sense.
“You are saying Sukjeong made these clothes? For me?”
“That is correct.”
“Why on earth?”
Lee Nam-seon, who was seated beside him, also appeared surprised.
It was natural for Yoo Seo-hwa to care for Lee Nam-seon. However, no matter how much he thought about it, there was no reason for her to care for Yoo Jeong.
The reasons not to care for him were countless, without even needing to think. Yoo Jeong had hated Yoo Seo-hwa, who received the Emperor’s affection all to herself. When they were young, he ignored or secretly tormented her, and after he ascended the throne, it went without saying.
“When I was on the throne…….”
Inadvertently about to speak of the past, Yoo Jeong flinched and shut his mouth. Was the man sitting in front of him not precisely Yoo Seo-hwa’s lover?
Instead, he brought up a different question.
“I am aware that Sukjeong was also deposed to commoner status and became a slave?”
She must have been living a grueling life that was burdensome just to endure day by day. In the midst of that, he could not fathom at all that she had set aside time separately to even make clothes for him.
A crack appeared on Gyeong Won-ui’s expressionless face. To control his emotions, he clenched and opened his fists a few times before replying.
“Because of that matter, I did not send the clothes through a servant and came to find you directly.”
“That matter?”
“Do you truly not know the reason why the Princess was deposed to commoner status?”
It was a voice laced with killing intent that he could not entirely conceal. Yoo Jeong was startled and clamped his mouth shut tightly.
“Using my family, who had become government office slaves, as a pretext, did you not threaten the Princess to extort riches and force her to contribute them to the evil cult? Because of that, the Princess falsely accused of being involved with the evil cult.”
“Your Majesty! Is that true?”
Having learned the truth, Lee Nam-seon cried out in horror. As his utterly petty true colors were exposed, Yoo Jeong could not even lift his head out of shame.
Gyeong Won-ui clenched his teeth tightly. If he did not, it felt as though he might draw his Hwando this instant and take the head of this bastard, whom he could not even call an elder brother.

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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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