Born As The Daughter of a Lowly Concubine - Chapter 134

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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 as the daughter of a low-ranking concubine.
Chapter 134
“What… do you mean, my lady?”
“If it comes to light that you smuggled out a traitor, you’ll be sent to the State Security Force for interrogation, and that Court Physician Woman will become a court slave. Along with her daughter, of course.”
Heo Yeon-tae trembled, and the lofty concubine seemed amused, laughing softly.
“Did you really think no one would find out? How naive. After all, it’s human work. If you don’t kill to silence them, it will come to light eventually.”
“H-how… how could…?”
“How could what?”
“That is… yes, my lady.”
Heo Yeon-tae’s mind went blank. His entire body shook uncontrollably without his knowing.
He had never been the sort of person capable of committing such a grave deed in the first place.
What on earth was she trying to make him do?
And then came an unexpected order.
“Do nothing.”
“Pardon?”
“How could I trust someone as fearful as you with something dangerous? Simply do nothing. Just make it look as though you’re treating her diligently.”
“…”
Then why had she summoned him at all?
Yeong-bin spoke as if she had read through the very thoughts turning in Heo Yeon-tae’s mind.
“I heard rumors that you’ve been researching the Smallpox Treatment. Might you not accidentally save the Princess?”
“…”
“Do nothing for her. It’s quite simple, isn’t it? Not like you’re killing her.”
“…”
When Heo Yeon-tae could not speak, Yeong-bin continued as if to herself.
“Better to leave no clumsy traces than to do anything at all. It would be nice if the Queen Consort could witness how the Princess suffers for a long time… and that wretched Im Sanggung as well.”
“…?”
What was she saying? Heo Yeon-tae was not so naive as to believe that the relationship between the Queen Consort and the other concubines was as harmonious as it appeared on the surface.
He himself was always careful—careful and cautious—to avoid entanglement in the affairs of the Concubine’s Quarters whenever possible.
Physicians found it difficult not to become tangled in such matters, so naturally he had to keep his ears alert and watch closely for any trouble.
The King seemed particularly lacking in fortune with his children.
The Queen Consort had even suffered miscarriages since her days as Crown Princess, and had lost children she’d given birth to; the concubines he had taken in had either remained childless or miscarried.
And yet now he had the Crown Prince and the young Princess, did he not?
“Are you afraid of me? You’re wondering how I can speak so coldly?”
“N-no, my lady.”
“But if you do as I say, you won’t just save the person you wish to save—you could save others as well.”
“Your meaning is…?”
As she spoke, Yeong-bin stroked her belly beyond the bamboo mat.
The gesture’s meaning was unmistakable.
“If you don’t save the Princess, another child might live instead. What do you say? Which will you choose, as a physician?”
“Such… such a choice is not…?”
“If this child is born safely, that will be your merit. How could I pretend not to notice? So do not forget my words.”
“How… how could you… do such a thing?”
From the barely squeezed-out voice, Yeong-bin answered in a pitiful tone.
“If the Queen Consort’s attention is directed elsewhere, she won’t learn that I’m carrying a child. You know as well as I do that many women in the Concubine’s Quarters have already had to let their children go more than once.”
And she murmured in a hollow voice:
“The Queen Consort prevented the children of other concubines from ever being born to protect her own offspring—someone must pay for that sin.”
It was chilling.
Those words sounded as though someone had deliberately been killing the children of concubines, did they not?
Surely the children who had never seen the light of the world all this time—if it wasn’t mere accident or natural miscarriage…?
Until now, he had comforted himself that, caring for the young Princess rather than the Crown Prince, he would have little to do with such power struggles. How naive that thought had been.
And finally, Yeong-bin issued her warning.
“You know well what will happen if you let slip a word of what you hear in this place. Even if I’m dragged away tomorrow, how difficult could it be for me to deal with one sickly woman and a young girl?”
Unable to speak a word of refusal and gripped with fear, Heo Yeon-tae fled the Chui-yeong-dang, truly helpless.
Unable to treat the Princess.
Unable to tell anyone what he had heard that day.
And so, while Heo Yeon-tae did nothing, the Princess eventually departed this world.
The young Princess—he had killed her.
He was terrified.
That he might lose everything.
That protecting Geumbi and Seong-ji might be nothing but an excuse.
How could he not be afraid of the possibility that he, too, might be branded a traitor?
One wrong move, and everything he had built up over the years could crumble.
That is why he had stood by and done nothing as the young Princess suffered.
After the Princess died, he could do nothing but drown in fear, relief, and guilt.
Those around him consoled Heo Yeon-tae, saying it was unavoidable.
Even the King and the Queen herself did not blame him.
No one suspected him, for he had faithfully cared for the Princess all along.
Heo Yeon-tae could not bear it and submitted his resignation.
Though he left the palace, Yeong-bin’s venomous voice never left his mind.
Neither did the face of the dead young Princess.
Paralyzed by terror and remorse, he began to drown himself in drink from that day forward.
Geumbi noticed that Heo Yeon-tae had become strange, but thinking it was merely the shock of the Princess’s death, she said nothing more to him.
It was understandable—he had not been able to care for them while staying in the palace to attend to the Princess’s smallpox.
And while he sank deeper into drink, Geumbi’s health too began to deteriorate steadily.
Though her body had survived smallpox through the Inoculation Method, the aftereffects from enduring it before her body had fully recovered from childbirth were considerable.
Even through it all, she raised her child and continued her research on smallpox, yet never let on that she was struggling.
By the time Heo Yeon-tae became aware of Geumbi’s condition, it was already too late to turn back.
Perhaps there would have been nothing he could do even if he had known earlier, but still, Heo Yeon-tae found himself drowning in regret once more.
“If you asked me to name the finest thing I’ve done in my life, it would be helping you that day, Physician Heo.”
“You’ve only just realized that now?”
He tried to brush it off with a laugh, but tears spilled from his eyes.
Yet Geumbi could already see nothing.
And still, she smiled. As if to say she had no regrets.
“Thank you, I thank you. One last shameless request—please look after Seong-ji.”
“Seong-ji is already as much my daughter as anyone’s. Don’t speak such things.”
“The time the three of us spent together—Seong-ji, you, and me—it was the happiest time of my life.”
That was the end.
To raise the still-young Seong-ji alone, Heo Yeon-tae had to return to the work of a physician—work he had abandoned after the Princess’s death.
Though he lacked the credentials of a true physician, he knew no other way to support a child.
Young Seong-ji naturally followed close at Heo Yeon-tae’s heels and took a spontaneous interest in medicine.
A bright child, taking after her mother, with keen interest in medical knowledge.
Perhaps this child could carry on Geumbi’s will.
The only thing a man without proper credentials could do was to raise this child as a true physician.
Heo Yeon-tae did his utmost to raise Seong-ji as a physician, and the child, taking after her mother, learned medicine with bright, eager eyes.
But Heo Yeon-tae was well aware of the limits that came with being a woman.
No matter how skilled Geumbi had been at medicine, people never truly believed in her abilities. No one trusted the medical texts she had written either.
Had he made a mistake? Perhaps he should have raised her properly and sent her to a good marriage instead.
Yet it seemed wasteful to let such medical talent wither away. If she married and became someone’s wife, wouldn’t that talent rot away in the women’s chambers?
Along with his worry for Seong-ji came an ever-present fear: what if one day she learned that he had caused the death of that young Princess? Would she not feel revulsion toward him then?
Struggling with this anguish, he sank deeper into drink, until one day he heard that Yeong-bin and her son Gyeong-eon-gun had fallen from power. And shortly after, that Gyeong-eon-gun had taken poison.
There was joy in it, but also a hollow emptiness. The child in Yeong-bin’s womb had died anyway, so his actions had been utterly meaningless.
Rumors about Gyeong-eon-gun circulated in drinking halls, and he found himself unable to break free from drink at all.
Seong-ji was grown now—perhaps it wouldn’t matter if he simply ceased to exist.
Lost in such thoughts, stumbling home dead drunk one evening, he encountered the dead young Princess on the street.
Though years had passed, Heo Yeon-tae could not forget the face of the young Princess.
The face that would light up at the sight of him with gladness; the face that, even burning with fever, would weakly smile and ask, “Now that Physician Heo is here, you’ll make it stop hurting, won’t you?”; the tearful face crying, “I want to see Mother”—all of it came flooding back as if it were yesterday.
If he did not drink, the young Princess would appear in his dreams, staring at him with what seemed like resentment.
But now, a young Princess who appeared slightly older than the one he remembered suddenly stood before him.
The thought that she had finally come to take him away came at the same moment he cried out.
He had thought he wanted to die, that he should die, but it seemed he actually wanted to live.
When he regained his senses, Seong-ji was looking down at him with contempt.
And she said:
“The Royal Princess Si-yeong-won came to visit.”
“Si-yeong-won?”
“Surely you’ve heard the rumors, Uncle? The Royal Princess who doesn’t grow. I saw her briefly a few years ago—she really hasn’t grown at all.”
“The Royal Princess came here?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She said she wants to cultivate physicians.”
“Physicians?”
“Yes. So I suggested to my uncle that perhaps he might consider teaching the students, but he…he actually fainted right there in front of Si-a.”
Seong-ji reproached herself, saying she couldn’t bear to show her face after such embarrassment.
“Si-a…”
Then the child she had seen that day—could it have been Si-a?
It felt like some kind of revelation.
From that day forward, she never again wandered about in a drunken stupor as before.
If there was still work to be done, she thought, she must follow where it led.
***
“So I resolved to follow Si-a’s intentions. Assuredly, I harbor no suspicious thoughts whatsoever.”
If anything, she felt grateful.
Si-a was accomplishing things she herself had never dreamed of.
Seong-ji’s name had risen as a physician, and the medical texts Geumbi had left behind were confirmed to be correct.
But the Gyeom-sabok who attended Si-a seemed not to hear those words, and asked something else instead.
“She resembles her exactly?”
“Pardon?”
“Si-a resembles the late Princess exactly, you say?”
“Indeed, she does bear a striking resemblance. I understand the late Princess resembled Queen Seonghyeon exactly, so Si-a would resemble Her Majesty as well. It occurred to me that perhaps Si-a’s mother, So-ui, must have resembled Queen Seonghyeon—that the resemblance ran through her line.”
“…!”
At those words, the Gyeom-sabok’s eyes wavered.

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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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