Born As The Daughter of a Lowly Concubine - Chapter 5

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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 lowborn concubine.
5
“Why are you crying, sister?”
“The Crown Prince told Father a falsehood.”
“How could I have lied to Father? Come now, don’t cry. There’s a good girl.”
“Sniff-sniff?”
Ah—my savior.
At the sound of the Crown Prince’s voice, which had left such a vivid impression from our meeting yesterday, I lifted my head to find a composed, handsome boy looking down at me with a smile.
It seemed he had come to pay his respects, one of his regular duties as Crown Prince.
‘The King’s perfectly timed arrival yesterday—that must have been thanks to the Crown Prince, wasn’t it?’
At that moment, the Crown Prince had said he would tell the King about me, so even if I didn’t know what lie he was telling now, he had clearly already reported my situation to the King.
When I thought about it, I’d received help twice in one day.
A person can’t treat her lifesaver coldly—so I, who had been crying from exhaustion, abruptly stopped my tears as though I’d never shed them, and crawled toward him.
When the child who had been weeping so bitterly approached him, the corners of the Crown Prince’s eyes lifted pleasantly, as though he didn’t dislike it.
‘Oh. He must be popular with the palace maids.’
With childish thoughts running through my head, I nestled into the Crown Prince’s embrace, and he hugged me with evident delight. The familiarity of his hold suggested he had other younger siblings.
‘Well, I suppose the unpleasant boy I saw yesterday is technically my half-brother too.’
Which made him my half-brother as well.
Sigh. I wanted to refuse.
As I lay quietly in his arms with a weary face, a flash of betrayal crossed the features of the one who had been so earnestly soothing me just moments before—but I pretended not to notice.
Yet the Crown Prince, having little choice in the matter, suppressed his smile and turned his attention to consoling the King.
“Sister seems so pleased to see me that she appears to remember my face, Your Majesty.”
“Then why did she burst into tears upon seeing it?”
At the King’s gruff tone, the Crown Prince opened his mouth carefully, as though at a loss.
A middle-aged man’s sullen manner of speaking—really, it made my brow furrow of its own accord.
“My, now you’re frowning again. What troubles you this time?”
“Wah!”
This space! This air!
As I squirmed, the Crown Prince patted me soothingly.
“It’s all right. It’s all right. Your brother is here, isn’t he?”
A handsome boy far younger than my actual age was comforting me with a smile, and unbidden, I felt a pang of conscience and my heart softened.
Besides, he was my lifesaver.
‘All right. Control yourself. Just endure this.’
No matter how I’d been reborn as an infant, I was still an adult.
As I began to calm down, the Crown Prince’s gaze turned back to the King.
“Was she crying when Your Majesty brought her yesterday as well?”
“No—yesterday, the moment I picked her up, she stopped crying and fell asleep.”
“I suspect waking in such an unfamiliar place startled her.”
“Is that so?”
The King leaned his face close and spoke to me just as I was beginning to settle.
“Eeee!”
Finding myself face-to-face with the King’s features at such close range, I buried my face in the Crown Prince’s embrace.
While the two of them earnestly searched for reasons, the truth was far simpler—my tears had come the moment I woke.
The first reason was merely that upon opening my eyes, I found myself cradled in the arms of a strange man.
A strange!! Man’s!! Arms!!
Of course that was terrifying!
And the second reason was that remembering yesterday’s events, I immediately realized that this man was my biological father.
‘A man!!’
If my mother was a former palace maid turned current concubine, then my biological father had to be the King.
And the bearded man before my eyes was the current King. Which meant I had been born of the two of them.
‘Surely this man doesn’t have the same face as my brother-in-law.’
The possibility that my brother-in-law, whose face I’d never seen, could be this man….
‘It’s possible…!’
What if my sister had dated him for years without showing me his face precisely because he was so much a man—meaning middle-aged?
And that was not the only problem.
Of course, he might have a different personality and background, but the man before me was well-built and possessed wealth and power, yet his relations with women were complicated, and most critically….
‘He’s far too old compared to my sister!!’
This couldn’t be happening!!
Thump!
The thought devastated me anew, and I wailed against the floor, tears streaming down my face.
“Wah-wah!”
“……Why are you crying again?”
“Perhaps it’s not just the presence of unfamiliar people.”
“You stay quiet when you see the Crown Prince, yet you don’t cry when you look at your father’s face. Why is that?”
“The child hasn’t even learned to walk yet—how could she understand such things? Ah, perhaps she was startled seeing your beard for the first time, Your Majesty.”
Even as the infant wailed, the young Crown Prince’s desperate attempts to lighten the mood struck me as almost pitiful.
Of course it was never wise to displease a man of power. That was an eternal truth.
‘Right, there’s no law saying that brother-in-law is that old man.’
Sister was surely living well somewhere with a capable, handsome, considerate brother-in-law of her own age—one who didn’t even stray.
Since sister resembled my current mother, there was no reason they’d share the same fate.
This was purely irrational anger and sorrow.
‘I have thousands of miles ahead to walk—I can’t let something like this extinguish my future.’
I wiped away my tears and slowly drew away from the Crown Prince, reaching my hand toward my biological father instead. The Crown Prince dabbed at my eyes and broke into a bright smile of relief.
Yes, we do these things to survive. And when the other party is the king, there’s no way around it……
“Come here, to your father.”
……As if I would!
“Squeal!”
“Huh?”
“What?”
I wrenched my hand free from the king’s and twisted around with all my infant strength, clinging back to the Crown Prince’s arms.
Surely even a man of power wouldn’t expect to have his way with a newborn who doesn’t follow speech!
‘After neglecting me all this time! Don’t expect to hear “papa” from me so easily!’
The king stood frozen, hand still outstretched, while the Crown Prince wore a look of awkward distress. The room fell into an icy silence.
The Crown Prince, breaking that silence, spoke as though an idea had suddenly come to him.
“Since the princess has no name yet, perhaps Your Majesty might bestow a Childhood Name upon her?”
“Hmm. That is indeed proper.”
The king peered down at my face, nestled in the Crown Prince’s arms, his brow creasing as he murmured to himself.
“……They say a Childhood Name should be humble so the child lives long……”
“Kee-yow!”
What kind of name was he about to give me?!
Recalling how Emperor Kojong’s Childhood Name had been “Dog Dung,” I thrashed my stubby limbs about, making my vigorous refusal absolutely clear, and my biological father stopped short in alarm.
“She seems to dislike it.”
“Surely she doesn’t already…… understand what I’m saying?”
“That hardly seems possible, Your Majesty.”
The Crown Prince laughed and denied it, then with a playful expression picked up one of the books nearby and held it out to me.
“Well then, why not choose a character you like from among these?”
“Ooh!”
The book the Crown Prince opened was packed densely with Chinese characters I couldn’t read at all, yet I flipped through the pages roughly with clear intent.
‘My Chinese character grades in school weren’t even that bad—why can’t I understand any of this now?’
Come to think of it, I’d need to learn Chinese characters here.
I had no intention of living as a fool because I didn’t know them.
Grappling with a book I couldn’t even read, I finally spotted the character I’d been seeking.
“Oo-oo!”
“Mm? Where…… To Bestow, the character Shi? That pleases you?”
“Oo-ooh!”
“You like the shape of the character Shi itself?”
“You really do like it? The Crown Prince isn’t teasing me, is he?”
Slap! Slap!
Growing annoyed at his repeated attempts to confirm, I struck his hand several times and pointed to the same character again, whereupon the king finally nodded with a bewildered expression.
“Very well. It must be chance, but the meaning is also fine and fitting, I suppose.”
“Your Majesty, it seems my sister may be a genius after all.”
“The Crown Prince’s partiality is even worse than my own blindness. Though you yourself were remarkably clever from childhood……”
No matter how poorly one knew Chinese characters, you remembered your own name.
While the king and Crown Prince had fallen into nostalgic reminiscence, I repeated the same gesture once more, and thus my Childhood Name was settled to my original name.
‘Though the family name changed.’
My mother here was Yun, just like my sister in my previous life, yet only I became Lee, so it felt like I’d been forcibly adopted.
‘But then my parents changed too, so I suppose it’s similar.’
Having been born anew, even my parents in heaven would surely understand. Probably.
“Si-ah.”
“Ooh?”
At the sound of my name, I turned my head to find the Crown Prince smiling broadly as he pulled me into a tight embrace.
“Your brother will come to visit again, so you mustn’t cry—you must wait for him, yes?”
“Uh?”
With that, he nestled me snugly into my biological father’s arms, offered a proper bow to the King, and vanished.
My savior, where are you going!!
“Wahhh……?”
“The Crown Prince is occupied with his studies, so he cannot always look after you.”
“Ah?”
So Seo-yeon was the Crown Prince’s studies.
Then why does he keep me with him?
Of course, I know he’s working—even when I woke this morning, he was laboring in a state that made me doubt he’d slept at all.
But there’s no reason he needs to keep me around just for that!
‘Send me back to my original caretaker!’
The image of my sister crying the last time I saw her remained vivid in my mind. She must be worried sick.
With my savior gone and left alone with this strange man, a wave of melancholy crashed over me.
The palace maids brought pap, but I had no appetite and pushed it away.
“You’ve eaten nothing, so your belly must be hungry—yet you do not fuss?”
“Mmph!”
To show my defiance, I wriggled out of my crimson Dragon Robe and crawled earnestly across the floor.
In my mind, I would have already bolted from the room, but in reality, I could only manage an awkward flutter.
Soon I was caught again and had to eat pap from the arms of the man—no, my biological father.
I was hungry and tired of being constantly grabbed, so I ate, but pap fed by a strange man, biological father or not…
“Waaah!”
How irritating!
“Why do you suddenly cry and fuss like this again?”
“Hiiii!”
The middle-aged woman who entered with the meal tray seemed to be receiving the food well enough; she watched me with occasional bursts of fussiness and offered a benevolent smile. Was she a new nursemaid? Or simply one of the intimate palace maids assigned to the Main Palace?
“What is your assessment, Han?”
“It is common for infants of this age to cry and grow cross without cause, Your Majesty. From now on, this humble servant shall attend to the young lady, so please have no worries.”
“Hmm. Still, the child seems to be quite wary of strangers, which troubles me.”
“She will grow accustomed in time, Your Majesty.”
That’s true.
It is true, but having recently experienced profound distrust of people, I quickly turned away from the kindly woman reaching toward me.
“Ahhh!!”
“…….”
Leaving the woman with her outstretched hands behind, I scurried toward the King, whose expression was at once troubled yet strangely bright.
“It appears the young lady recognizes Your Majesty.”
“Indeed. The Crown Prince’s judgment was sound, as always.”
What’s so amusing about this?
Thump! Thump!
I beat his shoulder with all my strength, but the man only laughed with delight, so I gave up in annoyance.
‘I thought he was a cold man who wouldn’t even visit to see his child’s face, but he seems rather ordinary after all.’
Though many days have passed since I came here, my life hasn’t changed much.
Only that a disengaged, uninteresting biological father and a handsome savior who cannot take his eyes off me even during courtesy visits have been added to my world—or something like that.
‘But when exactly will I be able to return to my sister?’
Since there’s nothing I can do but eat, sleep, and roll about, something may have been decided while I slept, but for now, I had no idea what would happen next.
“There. Now that you’ve eaten your pap, sleep comes calling, does it?”
“Uh.”
Though I still occasionally burst into fussiness, I’ve now grown accustomed to the pap he feeds me, and my biological father seemed pleased, gently patting my back.
‘Put me down now.’
I wanted to resist, but with my belly full and my back warm, drowsiness overwhelmed me.
Yet being still a small child, I couldn’t control my own body.
Though I wanted to stay awake longer, my head drooped despite myself, and I heard my biological father’s laughter fade into the distance.
“Hiiii.”
Don’t laugh. I’m getting attached.
I didn’t want to sleep, but being still so young, there was nothing I could do about how much I needed it.
“It’s all right. Rest easy and sleep.”
I can’t rest easy.
Worried that someone might hurt me again, I still felt anxious around the palace maids. Who knew what might happen? Perhaps one of the intimate maids of the Main Palace was in league with Young Bin. So even as sleep pulled at me, I clutched tightly to my biological father’s robe.
‘Young Bin wouldn’t go so far as to do something so dangerous, surely…’
Even as I reasoned through it coldly, unease coiled in a corner of my heart that I couldn’t quite shake.
But that was one thing.
“Huh.”
A baby’s body really did tire so easily.
As my head began to dip, I felt a familiar large hand catch and support it, and then consciousness slipped away from me.
I had fallen asleep.
When I woke again, unfamiliar voices were whispering by my pillow.
“Goodness, why is she so particular about people? Because of it, His Highness hasn’t been able to leave her side for even a moment.”
Mm. Hearing that made me feel a bit self-conscious.
‘I’ll just sleep quietly a while longer. I’m still drowsy anyway.’
While I was thinking that, another Palace Maid raised a suspicion grounded in fact.
“I heard she used to be nothing but docile — don’t you think something really happened at Chui-young Palace?”
“That, that can’t be. There must have been some misunderstanding.”
“Hmph. You’ve been oddly protective from the start. You’re pretty close with the attendants at Chui-young Palace, aren’t you? Did you get something from them?”
“Shh. Keep quiet. What if the young lady wakes?”
Chui-young Palace — that was definitely Young Bin’s quarters, wasn’t it?
In an instant, the last threads of sleep scattered and my eyes snapped open. All that faced me were unfamiliar Palace Maids.
As I newly grasped that there was no one I could trust, a chill ran down my spine.
“Waaahhh!”
“Oh no…….”

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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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