Born As The Daughter of a Lowly Concubine - Chapter 21

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

I was born the daughter of a concubine of the lowest rank.
Chapter 21
“So you’re saying Gyeong-eon-gun has tormented the young lady before?”
Whether it was an act of betrayal against the master she had served, or whether she’d received some courage from witnessing my conviction, or simply seized the opportunity—Nain spoke of things no one else had ever revealed.
Before the Queen Consort and my sister. My birth mother.
“How dreadful…….”
My sister pulled me close, her face drained of color, trembling visibly.
“Can you take responsibility for what you’ve said?”
“How could this humble servant dare speak falsely, when I have no safety to protect?”
With those words, Nain rolled up her sleeves and revealed what she had endured at Gyeong-eon-gun’s hands all this time.
The air in the room froze over.
“But why have you kept silent until now?”
“This servant has a younger sister who entered the palace following me. The prince threatened that if I did not obey, he would not spare the child.”
It meant that not only were palace attendants in no position to defy a royal prince, but her younger sister had been held as a hostage.
Yet given what I knew of Gyeong-eon-gun’s character, it seemed likely her sister had eventually been assigned to Chwieyeong-dang as well and suffered the same abuse.
‘Though she’s a half-sister, she’s still my younger sister, and he acts that way toward me—so of course a powerless palace attendant would……. Ah, now that I think about it, I remember reading something like that in a novel once.’
In one of the novels I’d read, there was a palace attendant who took her final revenge on the villainous prince vying for the Crown Prince’s seat, and her circumstances had been similar.
‘The prince had abused and killed the maid’s only younger sister, and she harbored such resentment that she joined hands with the protagonist.’
She was an impressive supporting character—you might call her the sharp, decisive turning point of the novel’s climax.
Even as she sharpened her blade for vengeance, she outwardly served her enemy as a faithful attendant, gathering evidence of treason, and in the end, she lured the fleeing prince under the guise of helping him escape—to her sister’s grave, where she drove her sword into his back before the tomb, delivering the ultimate satisfaction of her revenge. An unforgettable supporting role.
Thanks to her, the protagonist couple’s hands remained clean of the villain’s blood.
‘That scene at the grave when she killed him was intense. I’d hoped if they dramatized it, I could see it on screen, but they said the plot might change during adaptation and it might not make it in. Well, I won’t get to see it anyway, so it doesn’t matter now. Come to think of it, that maid’s name was…… what was it again?’
I remembered it as something like Jogai.
I was rolling my eyes, rummaging through memories, when the Queen Consort, who had been lost in thought for a moment, finally spoke.
“What is your name?”
“My name is Jogai, Your Majesty.”
Oh, right. It was Jogai!
I struck my knee without thinking, and my sister, who’d been holding me, tilted her head curiously. But I had no attention to spare for her reaction.
‘Wait? Jogai here too?’
Though I did seem to recall hearing somewhere that names like Gai were common in the Joseon period. It was probably just a coincidence.
Yet for some reason, an inexplicable dread suddenly washed over me.
Why did the title “Ihwa” sound so familiar?
As I searched my memory, a fact suddenly struck me, and I shuddered with shock.
“Eek!!”
“Young lady? Is something the matter?”
“Did the princess perhaps become too frightened just now?”
“Ah…… n-no, I’m fine.”
At the concerned voices of my sister and Seon-bin—no, the Queen Consort—I shook my head quickly.
The Queen Consort, misunderstanding, smiled gently and tried to comfort me.
“We’re taking her away to conduct an investigation. Do not worry.”
“H-huh?”
Confused, I blinked as Nain—Jogai—was led out by the senior attendants. I caught sight of her bowing her head, offering me a faint smile.
‘Will she be all right? She should be all right?’
From the Queen Consort’s perspective, a trump card had fallen into her lap of its own accord—a way to decisively remove both Young-bin and Gyeong-eon-gun. Since Jogai seemed to harbor not loyalty but ill feeling toward the prince, she would naturally be cooperative, and Jogai’s credibility was essentially vouched for by my own attitude. It couldn’t have been better.
‘Rather, I should be more worried about whether Young-bin might do something reckless.’
Would the Queen Consort be able to prepare adequately?
A person was rare who, while suffering the oppression of a royal prince and exposure to violence, with even her younger sister’s safety threatened, could turn away when a small child faced danger.
I hoped she’d come through unharmed.
***
I didn’t hear the details of what happened afterward.
But thanks to Jogai’s testimony, Young-bin, who had seemed destined to remain quietly confined to her quarters, was demoted to the rank of Sukui, and visitors were forbidden from entering the residences of Gyeong-eon-gun and his mother.
Meanwhile, my sister rose rapidly in rank—to Senior Concubine, a meteoric promotion.
Those who had treated her as an eyesore and made her life miserable were gone; her rank had risen.
Our quarters, which had been tense with the grim atmosphere of those events, began to feel warm and lively once more.
Yet even as everything seemed to fall into place, my heart remained unsettled.
‘Surely not?’
The novel , whose contents had now grown somewhat hazy in my memory.
The arrangement of characters at that earlier point in the story…… it resembled this situation far too closely.
‘No, no, it can’t be. But what if it really is?? But could that even be possible?’
As I agonized uselessly over this, the Crown Prince and Ihwa, who had invited me to share refreshments in the Back Garden for the first time in a while, looked at me with puzzlement, peering at my face.
“Why does our Sia look so serious? I even brought baekseolgi, which you like so much.”
“Mm.”
The moment the Crown Prince held out the rice cake and I grabbed it eagerly, Ihwa—who stood beside me—launched into the predictable lecture I’d come to expect.
“How can you take something offered by the Crown Prince so carelessly with your mouth?”
“Eh, ay-uh ay-uh? (Don’t you know how old I am?)”
“I can’t make out a word you’re saying.”
I stared at Ihwa, who sighed in a way that seemed far too mature for a child, then swallowed the rice cake in my mouth and grabbed his arm.
“What?”
“Your name—what is it?”
“……You’re asking your brother his name out of nowhere?”
Unlike Ihwa’s sullen expression, the Crown Prince seemed delighted as he patted my head.
“How clever of Sia to already know that Ihwa has a proper name. Most would think Ihwa is his name. Are you particularly interested in such things?”
“Hmm. Someone must have told me.”
Even as Ihwa pouted slightly, he didn’t seem to mind—he pulled me into his arms.
No, tell me your name.
“Your name.”
“……”
Refusing to tell me and merely tapping the plate carelessly, Ihwa drew a smile from the Crown Prince, who shook his head and spoke.
“Ihwa’s name is ‘Hwa.’ Ihwa. It’s a lovely name, isn’t it?”
“Brother.”
“And just so you know, this brother here is ‘Hye’—Ihye. You’ll remember your eldest brother’s name too, won’t you?”
“……Yes.”
What should I do? This seems to be real…….
The male protagonist’s name in the novel was ‘Ihwa’—easy to remember.
When the male lead’s name appeared in the novel, I’d laughed at how direct the title was, but now I couldn’t laugh at all.
“Sigh.”
“Now you’re even sighing. What’s wrong, Sia?”
“N-nothing at all.”
I drained the sikhye in one gulp and set down the cup decisively, my thoughts churning.
‘So that’s why I can understand them without using Middle Korean.’
It wasn’t reincarnation—it was Novel Possession.
***
“Parents who told their son to take care of his younger sister left home after placing a single plate of strawberries on the table for them to share at dinner.”
Ihwa objected to my story.
“……How can parents leave only young siblings alone? And with merely a single plate of strawberries at that.”
“Fool. Commoners aren’t so wealthy. They have to work to survive—there’s no way around it.”
“I, I see?”
“That’s how it is.”
Unlike Ihwa, who couldn’t quite grasp the concept, the Crown Prince nodded as if he understood something.
I know a secret: the Crown Prince sometimes sneaks out on secret outings.
‘They say he goes only with a few close guards.’
Our ladies-in-waiting saw him. Goodness, he should be more discreet about that. Tsk, tsk.
“The brother left his younger sister alone to play and focused entirely on his studies. But then he kept hearing the sister call from behind.”
“Hmm.”
“‘Brother, brother, can I eat a strawberry first?’ And the brother, not wanting to be disturbed from his studies, said, ‘Yes, go ahead,’ and allowed it readily.”
“Hmm. What a good brother.”
But why are you suddenly approving?
“But then, a little later, she called from behind again. ‘Brother, can I eat just one of your strawberries?'”
“Yes, go ahead and eat.”
“Why are you…… Anyway. When the brother said she could eat, the sister asked again a moment later. ‘Brother, can I eat just one more strawberry?'”
“……”
“And she kept asking over and over: ‘Brother, can I eat a strawberry?’ And then a moment later: ‘Brother, can I eat the last remaining strawberry?'”
As the repetition continued, something felt off to Ihwa, and his expression began to harden.
“The angry brother shouted, ‘Yes, eat them all!’ and turned around—and there he saw…….”
“Saw what?”
“A ghost with a mouth dripping with blood, gnawing away at the last sister’s fingers with a crunch-crunch sound…….”
I wiggled my fingers and thrust my face toward Ihwa’s, my eyes wide open, grinning wickedly.
“‘Thank you for the meal, brother,’ it said…….”
“Aaahhh!!”
As Ihwa recoiled in horror and clung to the Crown Prince, the Crown Prince laughed while patting his back reassuringly.
“Sia, wherever did you hear such a frightening story?”
“From my past life.”
I had heard it in my previous existence.
‘In a way, this life is even more of a horror story.’
All the more so because it’s real.
“Were you scared?”
“……I wasn’t scared. You just startled me by thrusting your face so suddenly into mine.”
Fair enough—he was at that age now when children struggled with honesty.
“How is it that you, barely six years old, have so little fear?”
“How is it that you, now twelve years old, have grown so timid?”
“What—what’s wrong with that?”
“Leave off. You’re making such a stern face that a six-year-old sister can mock you for it.”
“Brother!”
The Crown Prince chuckled warmly as he tried to placate the indignant Ihwa.
He’d told that frightening story because Ihwa had been grumbling about the heat, and it seemed to have worked quite well.
‘The clothes are heavy, certainly.’
I needed short sleeves, short sleeves.
Propriety was paramount, so I couldn’t even bare my arms.
Of course, palace attendants fanned me when it grew warm, but I felt terrible imposing on them like that.
Besides, the brothers wanted an intimate time together just now, so the attendants had been dismissed, and there was no one to fan me anyway.
I used my youth as a shield and collapsed face-first onto the table.
“Why is Sia always sprawling about like this?”
“Because I’m hot.”
Still face-down, I raised and lowered my hand without conviction, earning a rebuke from beside me.
“Show respect before the Crown Prince.”
“Hah. It’s just the privilege of our youngest.”
The Crown Prince lifted me—considerably heavier now—effortlessly and cradled me in his arms.
As if I weren’t already hot enough.
“Since the Crown Prince is so permissive, isn’t that why Sia grows so insolent?”
“Mm. Look, brother—without you, does brother torment Sia like this?”
“What—what are you saying?”
“Ah, come now, both of you. I know perfectly well how well you two get along when I’m not here.”
Years had passed since my reincarnation and awakening to my Novel Possession.
‘I’ve completely adapted to this life now.’

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