Born As The Daughter of a Lowly Concubine - Chapter 129

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

I was born as the daughter of a low-ranking concubine.
Chapter 129
“Sigh. The progress doesn’t look bad at all. Maehyang and the other courtesans who received the Cowpox Vaccination are doing well too?”
“Yes. Please don’t worry yourself too much.”
But I knew that in the meantime, several people had come down with smallpox here and there—how could I not be anxious?
Still, if I showed too much concern, the palace women would worry in turn, and to break this chain of anxiety, it was better for me to simply let go a little.
That day, after carefully reviewing the physicians’ requests and issuing the necessary instructions, I returned to the palace and found myself half under house arrest in my residence.
So-i had requested the confinement, Ga-i and Song Bi had accepted it, and the Crown Prince had given final approval.
There was no need to escalate it to the king.
The reason was “the Imperial Daughter might do something unpredictable.”
‘What am I, some kind of time bomb?’
Contrary to my thoughts, unfortunately many people agreed with So-i’s assessment, and I found myself confined to my residence for a time, doing nothing but reading letters—living a life of leisure.
‘Well, perhaps not pure leisure.’
What kind of leisure comes with so many reports?
Furthermore, a considerable portion of the money spent on smallpox treatment was coming from my own purse.
‘The production of Disinfectant Alcohol seems to be stabilizing.’
Of course, the manufacturing equipment had passed through expert hands, and since I ran a restaurant, there were plenty of experienced spirit-makers among the staff—those in charge who understood the principles picked up the technique surprisingly quickly.
They said it was a bit difficult to produce spirits of the desired proof, but since they thought they could manage it themselves, I decided it was good enough.
I had wanted to give them a bonus for the extra work beyond their regular duties, but when I said it would be used to prevent the spread of smallpox and for treatment, they said no additional pay was necessary, so I gave them several bars of soap instead.
When I think about the price of soap, it seems like six of one and half a dozen of the other.
‘I wish we could establish some kind of mass production system.’
It seemed the clinics would end up using it regularly.
Of course, mass production in this era wasn’t mass production by modern standards, so it was simpler than expected.
‘In the first place, the population isn’t that large, and technically it’s not feasible anyway.’
However, since alcohol is alcohol, there were occasionally those who would sneak some away, dilute it, and drink it as spirits, saying they’d rather die this way.
Those caught were all ordered to perform mandatory unpaid service as caregivers for smallpox patients.
Yes. The alcohol you drank was supposed to be used for disinfecting patients and medical staff.
But because of you, if we run short on disinfectant and someone catches smallpox, you might end up lying in a bed like those patients.
After seeing the smallpox patients with their own eyes and caring for them directly, they all wept tears of remorse, saying they had been wrong and declaring they would never drink again.
There’s no need to go that far, but… drinking isn’t a good thing anyway, so I suppose it worked out.
‘It’s important for people to understand the consequences of their own mistakes.’
The sight of smallpox patients must have been shocking, so I wonder if it was excessive… but thanks to it, no one laid a hand on the medical alcohol after that.
Several more people already infected with smallpox appeared at the Gisaeng House even after the first day, their symptoms manifesting, while all the others received Cowpox Vaccination and suffered only mild symptoms before recovering and returning to work.
Maehyang too, I heard, recovered without aftereffects after suffering for a few days.
After that, saying she wouldn’t catch smallpox anymore, she helped with the care for a while.
And seeing Maehyang like that, even the physicians who had been reluctant about the Cowpox Vaccination decided to give it a try.
‘That’s good.’
After all, many people showed resistance to the idea of introducing cow pus into their bodies.
Some seemed to think of it as a kind of rabies.
“How are things at Siyeongwon?”
“Heo Yeontae and Heo Seongji are vaccinating primarily healthy people, I’m told. Since there are so many people, they can’t do it all at once—they’re working through them in order.”
“People get sluggish for a while after vaccination, so if you did them all at once, there’d be no one to work. That would be quite troublesome.”
I heard that while children were afraid of needles and thus relatively obedient, it was surprisingly the Chae-tam-in who showed stronger resistance and disliked it. I wonder if things will go smoothly.
“Speaking of which, Seong Gyeom-sabok. You were investigating Heo Yeontae, weren’t you? Anything unusual to report?”
Seong Gyeom-sabok, summoned to report on Siyeongwon matters, wore an expression of mild surprise, but soon shook his head.
“Nothing particularly unusual has come up. However…”
“However?”
After checking that no one else was nearby, Seong Gyeom-sabok whispered in a low voice.
“It appears Heo Seongji is not blood-related to Heo Yeontae.”
“Hmm. I see.”
“You’re not surprised.”
“Every household has a story straight out of a novel, one way or another.”
Honestly, our own family is like something out of a melodramatic corporate drama—brothers killing each other, being killed.
Of course, if I actually voiced such honest thoughts aloud, I couldn’t predict how much more sympathy I’d receive, so I decided to keep it to myself.
“They’re busy people. Don’t pester them.”
“I have a conscience too. I don’t do such things to the physicians.”
After the report was more or less complete and the refreshments cleared away neatly, Seong Gyeom-sabok withdrew.
‘Whether or not Seongji is a blood nephew is one thing. Why he reacts so sensitively to me… it might be difficult to figure out.’
Honestly, blood-related or not, if family members got along well, that was a good thing, and it wasn’t something important to me.
But still, when something bothers me, it bothers me.
I summoned a Royal Physician who had known Heo Yeontae, both to discuss smallpox and to verify the facts.
When I had first mentioned the Vaccination Method, those physicians had seemed bewildered, murmuring about “cowpox pus……?” But now, witnessing smallpox patients recover through vaccination, they were growing confused—and I found it rather amusing, if I was being honest.
“I hear the Vaccination Method has been showing remarkable results against smallpox lately. What do the physicians of the Royal Medical Office make of it?”
“Forgive me, Imperial Daughter.”
Since the physician knew the Vaccination Method had been my directive, he dodged the question.
Of course, that wasn’t what I intended to ask anyway.
“Now that I think of it—did Physician Heo Yeontae treat smallpox cases back when he served in the palace?”
“Pardon? That would be…… perhaps…… well…”
Perhaps? Well?
It was an odd response. When I pressed for a proper answer, the physician finally had no choice but to speak.
“When Physician Heo was employed at the Royal Medical Office…… he was attending to a Princess—the daughter of Queen Seong Hyeon, who held the position of consort in the Inner Palace. The young Princess was not robust in health, and Physician Heo devoted himself to her care with great devotion. Yet she eventually contracted smallpox and passed from this world.”
“Ah……”
This was the first I’d heard of it. No wonder that gentleman had seemed so earnest in treating these recent smallpox cases.
Perhaps that same reason explained why he had preserved medical texts on smallpox rather than dismissing them as merely the writings of an ordinary courtesan-healer.
‘If leaving the Royal Medical Office was due to that loss, he likely wouldn’t have gone about speaking of it.’
A Princess born to Queen Seong Hyeon would have been Seongwon’s full sister.
I didn’t know the exact time, but it must have been when even Seongwon was still quite young—which meant the current Crown Prince likely knew nothing of this matter.
“Surely, even for a Princess, those with smallpox could not be approached by the King and Queen. The young lady must have suffered greatly, and been terribly lonely.”
Mm, court protocol matters, I suppose, but it seems rather harsh to separate a small child from her parents.
And if the child’s illness was contagious, she had to be isolated even more strictly lest the King and Queen be infected—so the parents, unable even to nurse their own daughter at her bedside, must have suffered as well.
“It is said that because of this, the young Princess came to trust Physician Heo deeply, for he alone cared for her morning and evening with such devotion.”
“They must have grown quite close, then?”
“So I have heard. And thus His Majesty did not reproach Physician Heo for failing to save the Princess. However, when the young Princess passed, Physician Heo found he could not bear it, and so he left the Royal Medical Office.”
“I see…”
So that’s why he had been so anxious around the children.
‘A tragic loss, but there was nothing anyone could have done. Still, he seems to be getting along well with them now.’
Feeling a bit uncomfortable that I had pried into someone else’s old sorrow, I was about to dismiss the physician, when he suddenly fixed his gaze upon me as if remembering something.
“……Why are you staring at me like that all of a sudden?”
“F-forgive me, Imperial Daughter.”
In this era, apparently the custom was simply to apologize without proper explanation.
The physician withdrew.
Seong Gyeom-sabok also seemed to regard it as private matters and said nothing more about Physician Heo after that day.
‘I would like to learn more about that medical text……’
At first glance, it was a book that showed detailed, long-term research into smallpox.
If Heo had possessed it when the Princess fell ill, the treatment might have succeeded. Given that it failed, it seemed more likely he had acquired the book afterward.
The origins of the book itself remained unclear.
Yet its contents were undeniably useful.
It even contained methods for treating smallpox patients in the early stages after symptoms had already appeared.
I heard that the courtesan who first contracted smallpox had avoided pockmarks on her face thanks to being treated according to the methods described in that text.
‘Though from what I understand, even knowing the method, the actual execution required grueling work.’
What mattered was that civilian physicians like Heo Yeontae and Heo Seongji had managed to treat smallpox and had even discovered a prevention method.
Since multiple people at the Gisaeng House had been infected, those who had contracted smallpox or feared they might have heard the rumors and volunteered for vaccination.
Once it was confirmed that Maehyang no longer contracted infection even when exposed to patients, she made sure to publicize her recovery—and not subtly either. She went to the Siyeongwon playground and arranged a grand announcement that “Maehyang will sing,” performing on the stage originally built for theatrical promotion.
Since smallpox patients still remained at the Gisaeng House, Maehyang had undergone disinfection, had her clothes burned, and arrived at Siyeongwon in fresh garments to stay there, so the effort was not unduly taxing.
As a result, those who had come to ride the amusements happened to enjoy the bonus of hearing Maehyang’s song.
Of course, there were some foolish enough to jeer at the fact that Maehyang had been vaccinated, shouting that her voice sounded like a cow’s lowing.
And Maehyang, seasoned from all she had endured, laughed and replied: “For those who cannot tell the difference between my voice and a cow’s bellow, I’d suggest visiting a cowshed instead of the Gisaeng House from now on—at least then you won’t be disappointed.”
I hear those fools who had mocked her became laughingstocks among the crowd and were dragged away by Maehyang’s devoted fans.
Thanks to Maehyang’s growing fame, news of the Vaccination Method was spreading throughout the Capital City.
At first, the rumor had been that the Imperial Daughter was conducting some strange experiment by vaccinating children at Siyeongwon. But as Maehyang herself received the vaccination and walked about singing with an unblemished face, people began to wonder if it might not be so bad after all.
And when matters grew this large, the court could hardly remain ignorant.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————