Born As The Daughter of a Lowly Concubine - Chapter 10

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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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I was born the daughter of a low-ranking concubine.
10
When I, who had been crawling about with a ready smile, suddenly burst into tears, the ones most startled were the concubines who had been watching me from the corners of their eyes.
“You were smiling just a moment ago—I don’t understand why you’ve suddenly become like this.”
The innocent concubines, flustered, bowed their heads.
It was the owner of the hand gripping me as I tried to leave who finally opened his mouth.
“Father, it seems my sister was searching for someone.”
“Searching for someone? What do you mean by that, Gyeong Won-gun?”
Only then did I realize that the one holding me was the only male child in this chamber.
“As she moved between the concubines, she was examining each face, as though looking for someone in particular.”
And following Gyeong Won-gun’s words, a woman with a slightly pallid complexion standing beside him continued.
“Your Majesty, might not the young princess be yearning for her birth mother?”
“……That may well be so.”
“Your Majesty, if I may be so bold as to humbly request—please allow Yun to attend to the young princess. When the newborn princess was suffering from fever, Yun neglected her own needs and devoted herself with all her heart to caring for her. How could such a perceptive child so easily forget such devotion?”
Speaking thus, the woman bowed deeply.
“Indeed, Seon Bin shows such deep concern for the princess.”
Since she was called Seon Bin, she was a Rank 1 Concubine, just like Young Bin.
‘Is she trying to send me to my sister? She’s a good person…… wait?’
As I lifted my head with a sniffle, I caught sight of a faint smile at the corner of Seon Bin’s mouth—the kind of smile visible only from the angle of looking up from below.
‘Oh. So this is what a Rank 1 Concubine has to be capable of.’
She was far from merely a simple ‘good person.’
Now, by praising me and emphasizing maternal affection while sending me to my birth mother, she was scoring points for herself, while subtly needling Young Bin, who had tried to take me but failed to care for me properly.
‘She’s quite skilled. Are things between her and Young Bin not good?’
In any case, it meant no harm to me.
Seon Bin hadn’t mistreated me the way Young Bin had.
‘Could it be that one of them has a son?’
As they say, the enemy of my enemy might be my ally.
I shook off the hand of the boy who had been holding me and crept back toward my biological father.
“Hic.”
“There now, you seem disappointed.”
“Woo-woo-woo.”
“It’s all right. I’ll arrange for you to meet soon.”
Really? You mean it? You trust me? Really?
I clung to my biological father with sparkling eyes.
The only people in this world I could trust as truly my own were my biological father, my life’s benefactor, and my biological mother—my sister.
Since the first two were too busy to care for me continuously, I needed to go to my sister to feel at peace.
Yet despite the king’s grand promise, I found myself waiting day after day, unable to meet my sister, though I could not fathom what other steps were necessary.
Even my patience was beginning to wear thin as I waited and waited.
‘I’m going to become twisted.’
Whimper—
“Oh my, young princess! You must be bored. Here, this is paper that tears very easily.”
Rip-rip!
“Dear me, young princess. If you toss this thin book here, that would be fine. The thick ones are too heavy for you, aren’t they?”
Crash-bang—
“Here, young princess. Here are brushes of various thicknesses. Feel free to play with them as you wish.”
“Eek-yah!”
As I rolled across the floor and flung myself about in sudden rampage, the king alone seemed flustered and asked the court ladies.
“Does anyone understand why Sia is acting this way?”
“Please set your mind at ease. This is merely a natural stage of development. In fact, she has been far too well-behaved until now.”
“Wahhh-ehhh!”
No, this is wrong!!
‘How can this be…… Even when I misbehave, they all look at me with eyes that say “as expected, how commendable,” and they encourage me!!’
In my frustration, I brought the blanket down with a slap, but it was so thick and soft that only dust scattered.
Watching me, the court ladies and attendants of Daejeon Hall praised me in pleased voices.
“The young princess is so dignified and well-mannered, we must say.”
“She merely throws books into empty corners—she never tears or soils any important documents, does she not?”
Ah. I’ve been caught…
My capacity for mischief was far too limited compared to actual infants……
It couldn’t be helped. That was the matter of human conscience……
My dignity as someone who had lived into adulthood……
She could not sully important official documents, much less the books of this era, which were painstakingly made by hand.
In my past life I hated underlining or folding even mass-produced books! So how could I ruin these precious ones here?
‘Only someone who’s been a spoiled brat before knows how to act like one.’
I disliked breaking intact things, disliked making messes, disliked wasting good food—my options were far too narrow.
“Waaaah!”
“It seems the young lady is growing sleepy now.”
I’d kept up the act of being a spoiled brat earnestly for several days, but in the end I wore myself out first.
I thought I could manage it with a baby’s stamina, but—a normal adult mind couldn’t sustain it.
When I suddenly stopped the commotion I’d been making for days, my biological father grew concerned instead, pressing his hand to my forehead as if worried.
“You have no fever. Aren’t you making a scene today?”
“Mm.”
Treating me like a spoiled brat! I nearly yanked that beard right off his face!
‘Wait, that’s actually not a bad idea.’
But since we were together twenty-four hours a day, and the only time he played with me was when he was bored—otherwise he worked like a workaholic—it seemed too cruel to torment even his beard. So I held back.
I couldn’t act up anymore, and everything interesting in the room had been put away during my spoiled period, so there was nothing to see. Eventually, bored out of my mind, I rolled around the room and fell asleep facedown. Through the fog of sleep, I dimly felt my biological father pick me up and lay me on the quilt.
When I woke, there were many people in the room for some reason.
‘Seeing the royal secretary and the Sagwan here, it must be something about state affairs, but…’
I crawled and waddled out, lifting my head, and at almost the same moment my biological father was taking down his words, one of the Sagwan looking up made direct eye contact with me.
“…….”
“…….”
The Sagwan who had locked eyes with me in silence for a few seconds looked away first.
I thought he’d report it to my biological father, but he’s pretending not to notice?
When I tilted my head and turned to the side, there were grandfatherly figures instead.
‘Oh, it’s like a scene from a historical drama.’
I confirmed that the king was reading a Sangsō and moved my body eagerly.
But somehow the eyes of these grandfather-figures looking at me seemed to waver?
***
Gwon Sang-ik, a Rank 9 official of the Yeomun Hall, avoided the baby’s unwavering stare and returned his focus to writing the Sachō. No matter how much it was said that he did not record alone, a Sagwan could not allow records to be omitted through carelessness.
But this young lady was no ordinary royal daughter.
Not long ago, wasn’t she the one who seized the beard of the Jwasang himself with those fern-like little hands and struck his face mercilessly? The memory was still vivid in Gwon Sang-ik’s mind—he had witnessed that very scene firsthand when he came on duty as a Sagwan to write the Sachō.
In particular, among the civil officials and scholars who disliked the Jwasang—who was already strutting about as if he were the royal in-law—there were some who took that day’s incident as table talk and clinked glasses with petty chuckles, he had heard.
Though the Jwasang’s dignity had been somewhat damaged, since the other party was infirm and still unable to walk—just a frail young royal daughter—everyone laughed it off with comments like ‘The Jwasang must have been at fault,’ and found it all the more satisfying that he could not openly show his anger.
If the little young lady had even plucked the king’s own beard, who would say anything?
The memory of being busy evading people who had heard the rumors and come seeking vivid eyewitness accounts was still fresh, so it was unavoidable that his hands would stiffen at the young lady’s movements—thus Gwon Sang-ik justified himself.
And it seemed the other ministers who had either directly witnessed that day’s incident or heard the rumors well enough understood were no different. While the king was concentrating on the Sangsō, when the young lady began to move, the ministers who noticed this tensed up and quietly shielded their beards.
What was entertaining when it happened to others was not so amusing when it happened to oneself.
So Gwon Sang-ik had to keep the corners of his mouth from twitching.
At the same time he was wondering whether to report to the king that the young lady had awakened, he also briefly wondered whether this too should be recorded.
For reference, that day’s assault incident was already written down in the Sachō—the rough draft written by Sagwan. Whether it would later be recorded in the Sillok itself remained to be seen.
The young royal lady kept glancing back as if watching the king, crawling along carefully, and the moment the king’s eyes left the Sangsō, she slipped away and hid right behind the Uuijeong.
“……?!”
“……?!”
The ministers, their faces half-covered as they shielded their beards, wore uncertain expressions—unsure whether they should be relieved that the young lady had vanished from sight or anxious about what might happen next.
And only the king, unaware of the ministers’ predicament, opened his mouth seriously.
“What is your reason for opposing the dismissal of the Jeonju Governor and the Magistrate?”
“Your Majesty. The Jeonju Governor Kim Hwan-sik is…….”
And the ministers could only pretend not to notice.
Even as Gwon Sang-ik busily wrote the Sachō, he caught sight of a tiny finger appearing from between someone’s robes during the gaps in speech, and quickly lowered his eyes.
But his gaze naturally drifted toward where the small finger was.
As the king turned his attention to the next Sangsō, the little finger moved as if it had been waiting, and the young lady’s face popped up from among the ministers.
“……!”
This time too, when her eyes met with those of Gwon the Sagwan, the young lady smiled silently and brightly, then disappeared again among the elder ministers. Those in front seemed unaware of what had happened, but those in back appeared to have caught on to the young lady’s mischief, their faces showing a hint of a smile.
Among those of Dangsanggwan rank, it was rare to have no children or grandchildren.
Thinking this better than crying and throwing tantrums, no one moved to stop the young lady.
“A fire broke out in Pyeong-an Province, and some three hundred households are said to have burned.”
“Implement Hyuljeon relief and distribute Gwanhyangmi to the displaced families, and exempt them from Buyeok for one year.”
The young lady, who could not yet walk, was busily moving between the ministers. With those ministers who looked somewhat kindly, she exchanged glances with a grin.
It was a rare sight to behold, but if he recorded this, the seniors at Yeomun Hall would surely not leave him alone. Gwon Sang-ik decided to keep only the memory in his heart.
And in contrast to the young lady’s smooth game of Hide and Seek, the mood in Daejeon Hall was growing tense.
“Your Majesty. That cannot be allowed.”
“Why do Your Excellencies never think to propose alternatives, only to repeat that something cannot be done?”
“Your Majesty, if I may—”
“I don’t wish to hear it!”
The princess, who had been playing Hide and Seek, startled at the sharpness in the king’s voice. From where His Majesty sat, he could not see it, but Gwon Sang-ik noticed the child’s eyes widen in alarm, and he was thinking that this might be the moment she finally began to cry when, unexpectedly, the princess crawled toward him instead.
“……?”
“Ehehe.”
Giggling softly, the princess plunged her small, fern-like hand into the Inkstone that had been ground thick with black ink, then pressed her palm directly onto the Sachō that the Sagwan were writing on.
Pitter-patter! Thud-thud!
And then, unable to hold herself up any longer, she simply collapsed where she stood.
A brief silence fell over the hall.
“……Sia? When did you get there?”
The ministers, unable to admit they had been watching her play all along, simply clamped their mouths shut.
But in the next moment, the king was startled for an entirely different reason.
The princess, having seized the writing table where the Sagwan were recording the Sachō, pulled herself to her feet, and now held her ink-stained hands out before her as she began to walk toward the king, as if asking him to wipe them clean.
“Ah!”
One step, two steps, three steps, four steps, five steps.
Even the ministers held their breath as they watched. The princess’s first attempt at walking ended after five steps, and she tumbled forward once more.
“Ah?”
A Daejeon Hall attendant rushed over, wiped the princess’s hands, and placed her in the king’s arms.
All anger had vanished from the king’s face—it shone now only with delight.
“That’s right. Sia has begun to take her first steps.”
“Ooh.”
“Heheheh.”
Warmth seemed to flow unexpectedly into the once-frozen hall.
The elder ministers, who remembered their sovereign’s fiery temperament from years past, could not help but realize that his affection for the young princess ran far deeper than they had supposed.

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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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