Born As The Daughter of a Lowly Concubine - Chapter 1

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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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Born as the daughter of a lowly concubine.
Episode 1
For more than twenty years of living, I had never known it until I recently awakened to a certain truth.
Short, plump little arms and dainty hands.
You can only find them cute and smile warmly at the sight of them when they belong to someone else.
“Sigh.”
“Whatever troubles could such a tiny young miss have that she keeps sighing like this?”
Hearing the sound of my sigh, the woman beside me reached out her hand toward me.
I tried to crawl forward to escape her touch, but it was a futile effort.
‘Please put me down…’
Against my will, my surprisingly light body was cradled in the woman’s arms in an instant.
My fern-like baby hands could barely grasp a single one of her fingers, so any resistance was meaningless.
“My, how dignified you are. Even as an illegitimate daughter, you carry yourself differently, being of royal blood.”
Hearing the voice from above my head, a whimper escaped me, though I stifled it.
Smack! Smack!
“Ooh! Oo-ooh!”
“Goodness me, young miss. You’ve got such spirit.”
Though my hands certainly did not hold back.
A baby’s fern-like hands probably couldn’t hurt much, but I needed some way to vent my frustration.
Hmph—even baby hands should have some sting to them.
‘For now, this is all I can do, but let’s see what happens later.’
There are things you can say in front of a child and things you cannot.
That woman—or rather, the Wet Nurse—was disqualified as a caregiver.
And by the Wet Nurse’s very standard, I could tell my circumstances were far from favorable.
It had been several months since I was born as a child in this place.
From the moment I first looked around, I could not help but understand my situation.
Though I was still a newborn who could not yet walk, the observations I’d made thus far gave me a rough estimate.
‘Whether this is the Joseon Dynasty Era I know or some other world, I cannot say, but judging by people’s clothing and manner of speech, this is the Royal Family. And if the women who appear to be court ladies call me young miss, there can only be one conclusion.’
A newborn who can legally exist in the Royal Family = the son or daughter of the king or crown prince.
But there are barely any attendants beside the mother who just gave birth, and her condition is far from good?
‘The daughter of a lowly concubine—one without favor or backing, sprung from a court lady or servant.’
So that explains why the Wet Nurse acts this way.
Moreover, the woman sitting in the back, who appeared to be an official, was letting the Wet Nurse’s attitude slide.
It was a clear dereliction of duty, but such attitudes were enough for me to understand that my current position was hardly a positive one.
And that situation had continued unchanged from the moment I regained consciousness until now.
‘I didn’t want to realize this harsh truth from all those historical dramas I watched.’
In truth, whether princess or royal daughter, if you weren’t favored by the king, it couldn’t be said to be a comfortable life.
Moreover, if a full sibling brother happened to become involved in treason, you could die alongside him.
Though from the atmosphere, the chances of even a full sibling—much less a full brother—being born seemed low.
‘Ugh. Of all things, to be a royal daughter without the king’s favor. Still, at least I won’t starve, so I suppose I should count my blessings.’
In truth, rather than worry about an uncertain distant future, if this truly was the Joseon Dynasty Era, the infant mortality rate was what concerned me most.
The memory of watching a historical drama based on official records, becoming interested, researching actual history, and being shocked to discover that the protagonist couple’s children died young still surfaces vividly.
In the old days, even the Royal Family lost many children early, I’ve heard.
‘Will a frail creature like me truly survive with the medical technology of this era, without even vaccinations?’
I died unfairly and was born again—shouldn’t I at least live longer this time?
While entertaining such thoughts, the Wet Nurse noticed me frowning and patted my back.
“Why has the young miss become upset? Are you hungry?”
“Uh-uh.”
Coming to my senses at the Wet Nurse’s words, I lifted my head, but upon seeing her fumble with her clothing tie, I shook my head with all my might to signal my refusal.
‘No! Just give me porridge!!’
It’s not that I particularly disliked breast milk, and I was a bit hungry, but I didn’t want to feed from the Wet Nurse.
Or rather, it wasn’t so much that I didn’t want to—I simply couldn’t bring myself to.
“Why does the young miss keep refusing the breast?”
As I turned my head away to avoid it, I glared at the sighing Wet Nurse with exasperation, though my intentions could hardly be conveyed.
‘It’s because you keep trying to feed me honey every time you nurse!’
As a result, every time the Wet Nurse tried to nurse me, I broke into a cold sweat.
Don’t you know how dangerous honey is for babies?
‘But you wouldn’t know that.’
I’m not a prince, and there’s hardly reason to deliberately harm a favored concubine’s royal daughter who can’t even claim the king’s affection.
People here don’t seem to know, but honey is a food babies must never eat.
If I hadn’t refused, clinging as I was to memories of my past life, I might have been forced into yet another rebirth at worst.
‘All that knowledge I was forced to gain, raising a younger brother eight years my junior alongside my sister—look at it shining through now.’
Though the brother I’d raised that way died young in a traffic accident on the way back from a family trip with our parents.
In that accident, my younger brother was killed instantly, while our parents spent a long time in intensive care.
My sister gave up higher education because of hospital bills and threw herself into the job market, but both of them eventually passed without regaining consciousness.
‘My sister went through so much.’
The funeral, the aftermath, and handling everything for me—still a middle schooler at the time—fell entirely on my sister, barely an adult.
She’d seemed so grown-up back then, but now that I was her age, I saw she hadn’t been grown-up at all.
‘She even postponed her own wedding because of me. I fought so hard with her to get married once I became independent.’
I learned my sister’s boyfriend existed when an oven suddenly arrived on her birthday.
After surprising his girlfriend, who’d developed an interest in baking, with a gift—and getting scolded for it instead—her boyfriend apparently decided that whenever he sent my sister a gift, he’d send me something too.
‘I even received a drama script, but I never got around to watching that either.’
The novel “Lover of Yihwa,” which was scheduled to be adapted into a drama—my prospective brother-in-law somehow obtained the script and sent it to me. I’d been a fan since the original web serialization and had high hopes, but unfortunately, caught up in part-time work and assignments, I only managed to read a little of it.
‘I was planning to read more after my shift ended that day.’
While waiting for the signal at the pedestrian crossing, a car suddenly veered onto the sidewalk. Of course, there was no way to dodge it, so the life of university student Yun Si-a ended right there.
‘Why another traffic accident? Now my sister will be all alone. What am I going to do?’
At least my prospective brother-in-law was there, I thought as consciousness faded.
After that, I had no clear memories.
When my body ached and felt heavy and suffocated, and I groaned in distress, I could hear a small, whispered voice—my sister.
‘You need to get better soon……’
A voice caring for and tending to my body, which I couldn’t see clearly and couldn’t move as I wished.
‘I thought my sister was nursing me back to health.’
The thought that I was making my sister do yet another difficult thing made me cry, and she soothed me, wiping away my tears.
‘Why does it all feel so sorrowful?’
‘Sister, I promise I’ll repay your kindness later.’
Until I realized I’d been reborn as a baby, that’s what I believed.
When my blurred vision grew clearer and I realized I was inside a Korean Traditional House, I only thought it was some kind of delirium from a severe injury.
‘Reincarnation, really?’
But I could understand the language well enough. Shouldn’t the language be different if it were a different era or a different world?
I kept my mouth firmly closed and turned my head away, deliberately ignoring the busy Wet Nurse who tried to soothe me, when a feeble voice called out to me.
“Young Miss.”
When I turned my head the other way, a woman with a haggard complexion smiled and met my eyes.
A face so terribly familiar—my Biological Mother.
“Ahhh.”
“Will you come to me?”
“Mmmm.”
I reached out my small arms and nestled obediently into my Biological Mother’s embrace.
Though the Wet Nurse was there, I felt sorry for making my Biological Mother work harder, but I had no choice but to ask her for breast milk if I was to survive.
‘The more I see her, the more we look alike.’
My Biological Mother, whose complexion was always poor, likely from the aftermath of childbirth, looked exactly like the sister I remembered, who had heard the sudden news of her youngest sibling’s death.
‘The voice I thought was my sister’s was actually my Biological Mother’s voice.’
Though it couldn’t possibly be my actual sister, because of this familiar face and voice, I felt as though I were with her, and my heart found peace.
Since my Biological Mother seemed about the same age as my sister, I kept wanting to call her “sister” rather than “mother.”
‘I wonder how my sister is doing.’
I closed my eyes, clinging to her warm touch.
Watching my Biological Mother’s exhausted face as she tended to this young body, already ill and having been sickly since birth, filled me with nothing but unease. But as a newborn, there was little I could do.
All I could manage was eating well, sleeping well, and not crying while smiling.
The best a newborn could offer.
“Coo.”
“Are you full now?”
“Mmm.”
My sister’s—no, my mother’s complexion looked particularly dark, and I wanted to cheer her up, but once my belly was full, sleep crashed over me at once.
“Still so young and frail……”
I won’t be sick anymore, so I’ll grow quickly.
‘Surely I won’t die so easily after dying and being reborn like this?’
With my fern-like hand, I patted my sister’s—no, my Biological Mother’s arm, and fell asleep right there.
And the reason my Biological Mother worried so much would become clear to me soon enough.
***
“Mistress Yun, His Majesty has already granted his permission on this matter.”
“But she is still so sickly—how could I possibly send her to an unfamiliar place? I beg you, please grant me just a little more time.”
When I opened my eyes, the world around me was chaos.
‘I was having such a good sleep, too.’
Who in their right mind made such a fuss in a room with a newborn?
I forced my eyes open.
“How can you expect me to leave this precious child in the care of a Court Lady of Bestowed Favor who hasn’t even received her official certificate yet? I shall look after the child myself—you needn’t worry. Just focus on your recovery.”
“Please, the child is delicate. Please, just a little longer—let me care for her.”
At the sound of that familiar, desperate voice, I turned my head, and the hands holding me only gripped tighter.
‘What? What’s happening?’
The person cradling me was a stranger—a woman I’d never seen before.
She was strikingly beautiful, and her robes and jewels were equally lavish; clearly she was no ordinary person.
“You suffered from puerperal fever yourself, I hear? With a body in that state, how could you possibly care for a sickly child? Don’t worry yourself. I shall raise her with every care.”
The words came sweet as honey, but they were nothing but lies.
‘The hardest part was months ago. Why is she suddenly talking nonsense now?’
In all these months, aside from the Wet Nurse and that derelict official, I’d barely seen anyone else come and go, let alone heard their voice properly—so why was she suddenly playing the concerned benefactor?
It had been some time since I’d died in an accident and been born again. Honestly, I’m not sure exactly how long—a few months, I suppose.
Either way, it was absurd reasoning, even from a newborn’s perspective.
“So please, don’t make any more trouble. Go rest and take care of yourself.”
“Miss!”
Waaah!!”
As my sister’s wail grew fainter and fainter, I thrashed with all my strength.
It was infuriating—in all this commotion centered on me, my wishes counted for absolutely nothing.
And yet I fought back with all I had.
Waaaah!!”
“Oh dear, you’ve gone and woken the child from her sleep.”
The strange woman, who had been criticizing my Biological Mother, now turned to the Nursemaid Official as though it were all her fault, moving to hand me over.
‘No!!’
How satisfying it would be if I could speak, but that was impossible.
My short, stubby limbs and tongue that couldn’t form proper sounds were infuriating—all I could do was squirm and thrash.
‘Don’t make my sister cry!!’
As I twisted and flailed, a figure came into view—a woman on her knees, weeping, reaching for me desperately.
Screech!!”
And in that same instant, a cry pierced the air, and my head lurched downward.
By the time I realized the woman had lost her grip, my body was already falling toward the floor.
‘No—is this life going to be even shorter?!’
It was unjust enough to have died young in my last life, worn out from studies and odd jobs in an accident. But could it really be worse than this?
My sister, who had been on her knees, stretched her hands toward me with wide, startled eyes.
I wished I didn’t have to see this.
‘Well, if I die like this, at least that woman will be blamed for it.’
Maybe she’ll gain some sympathy, and my sister will have an easier time because of it.
So many thoughts flickered through my mind in that brief moment.
Screeeech!!!”
So this is how it ends.
Making a quick peace with myself, I relaxed my body and squeezed my eyes shut.
Thud—

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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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