Born As The Daughter of a Lowly Concubine - Chapter 53

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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 concubine of the lowest rank.
53
“She ate something that disagreed with her, suffered for a few days, and then died.”
“As for Hye Minser……”
“Back then, I didn’t even know such things existed.”
Truthfully, seeing the state Hye Minser was in that day, I wasn’t sure whether I could have gotten her treated even if I’d known.
Even in this era, there must be institutions like the Poor Relief Office that care for young children, though I doubt the benefits reach people like her.
‘Even in the novel, the male lead—the Crown Prince—tries to create laws for poor relief and orphans.’
Perhaps he’ll create them here too, but when would that actually happen?
The children still had bright eyes, but it seemed only I was burdened with worry, though I couldn’t help it.
“Why did the owner of that ring die? It doesn’t seem like they were from a house too poor to call for a physician.”
“Hmm……”
If I told them the honest truth, I thought these children would be frightened. But should I tell them anyway?
As I was deliberating whether I should speak, the child’s face grew slightly sullen and their words trailed off into a mumble.
“Well, if you don’t want to tell someone like me, that’s fine……”
“A tiger mauled them.”
“Gasp.”
The child startled and quickly scrambled away from me.
‘Hmm. So the Tiger Ghost really is famous.’
The child cautiously crept back closer, eyeing me nervously.
“You’re… you’re just joking to tease me, right?”
“What would I gain from a lie like that?”
“Oh… I see.”
“If you’re scared, you can stay back. Besides, I don’t even know your name anyway.”
“Who! Who said I’m scared?!”
The child approached with a solemn expression, though the tension was still plainly visible. And as if some understanding had dawned, the way they looked at me shifted into something subtly different—like the look one gives to someone they pity.
‘What in the world are they thinking……’
Between the story of their dead older brother and now this, it seemed they’d formed an odd sense of kinship with me.
“I won’t tell anyone what you said.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter.”
To judge by their mumbling, they were still frightened, though they seemed to be putting on a brave front. Fair enough—in this era, tigers are a living terror, and I’d been too callous.
“You children again?”
The girl who came out of the house the children visited let out a sigh, yet acknowledged them as if they were familiar.
“Ah, the kind older sister who feeds us well.”
She certainly had a title worthy of a drama.
“Why does it seem like there are more people than usual today?”
“Just give them the usual amount.”
Though the children said this, the girl—unlike others who simply handed out rice and sent them away—took notice of my presence and pressed the children for answers.
“Who is that young lady over there?”
“Hmm. The older sister who buys us soup?”
I realized I had no business worrying about anyone else’s titles.
The children spoke proudly about how I was guiding them, but the girl didn’t accept it.
“Are you perhaps deceiving this naive young lady?”
“No!”
The children’s vehement protest struck me as both endearing and embarrassing, and I moved forward to clarify. But as the children drew away, the girl caught my arm and spoke something unexpected in a low voice.
“Please don’t be too kind to begging children.”
“……?”
“They’ll come to rely on help. If you won’t offer them sustained support, your kindness will only ruin them.”
“……Thank you for the advice.”
She was older than those children but still looked young, yet her manner was quite firm.
And she was right.
‘Without cost or education, once they grow accustomed to receiving free charity, even a decent person becomes ruined.’
Though I hadn’t been giving unconditionally to those children.
I leaned in and whispered to the girl so the children wouldn’t hear.
“But I made a mistake.”
“A mistake?”
I could say it was my error—giving a large sum to a child at once and having them caught up in pointless trouble over it.
“Because of my mistake, there’s a child who was hurt, so I can’t just pretend I didn’t see it.”
“Hurt? But I told them to come find me if they got hurt.”
At my words, the girl’s eyes widened in surprise, and she asked who had gotten hurt. When I pointed out the child who’d been injured before, she rushed toward him, and the two of them began to bicker back and forth.
“I told you to come find me if you got hurt!”
“But it hurt so much I couldn’t think straight! And when you’re in pain, how am I supposed to walk all the way here?”
I caught the little children and questioned them.
“Do you visit this house often?”
“Yeah. She shares her food with us. She’s a nice sister.”
“Sometimes when we’re sick and go there, she gives us medicine. But in return, she works us like dogs.”
“Medicine?”
Ah, now that I thought about it, I realized that familiar smell I’d noticed was the scent of herbal decoction.
“So the house must be a clinic.”
“Maybe? But I’ve never really seen patients coming there.”
Just from how she distributed rice to the children and the fact that the household seemed well-off, it was strange that this clinic saw so few patients.
Wondering what she did for a living, I watched the rather affectionate quarreling between the girl—who insisted they come again next time—and the child who complained about the noise. When it seemed appropriate, I stopped them, took my leave, and headed toward my next destination.
And that was when I turned the corner.
“There! Those kids!”
……?
From the alley we had just passed through, several men came rushing toward us.
Seong Yoon, who until then had been following silently behind me, stepped closer and whispered.
“Miss, one of them is one of the men who stole money from the children last time.”
Well, this didn’t seem like a pleasant errand.
Moreover, this time there was someone who looked rather important among them.
I say “rather” because he was dressed as a constable.
“You brats! I hear you’ve been stealing. Is it true?”
“What?”
Even in this era, a constable was someone ordinary people would prefer to avoid.
You’d be nervous even if you’d done nothing wrong, and as for children who lived on the streets—it was hard to say they’d never once broken the law.
Faced with frightened, cowed children, the constable and his men began shouting loudly that the children had stolen a ring and money.
“If you’ve committed a crime, you must be punished!”
“N-no, we didn’t steal anything!”
Overwhelmed by the man’s aggressive bearing, the children trembled with fear.
‘Could it be they think the children stole the money Seong Yoon brought back that day?’
As for the ring, since we’d searched through other districts, it wouldn’t be strange if word had spread about it.
“Is it a fact that these children stole a ring?”
“W-who are you?”
The constable, who had been about to snap at me for stepping forward suddenly, softened his tone awkwardly after taking in my appearance. It was convenient, but there was something peculiar about the way this status-conscious society worked.
“I’m someone who asked these children to find a ring for me.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The children promised to search for the ring, and I agreed to pay them for it. If that ring turns out to be stolen, then I would have a problem too.”
The children began to protest at my words, but Seong Yoon silenced them.
“However, if what the children brought me is indeed stolen, then that responsibility falls on me, and I can offer appropriate compensation accordingly.”
“Is that… truly so?”
The man’s face brightened at my words.
But a lesson about speaking with Joseon people is that you must always listen until the very end.
“So then, what kind of ring are you looking for?”
“What?”
And the questioning began.
“A jade ring? Or a silver ring?”
“Ah, well, that is… ah, a jade ring.”
“What color? White? Or soft green? Deep green?”
“That is……”
I watched the man hesitate to answer and turned to the constable.
“You said plainly that if someone has committed a crime, they must be punished. What then is the penalty if you have falsely accused an innocent person of theft?”
At my words, the man’s face darkened and a desperate voice burst out.
“D-deep green! A deep green jade ring!”
But the questioning was far from over.
“What about the markings?”
“M-markings? What markings would be on a jade ring… there’s no such thing.”
“If it were high-grade jade, then certainly it wouldn’t have any striking marks. But neither what I was looking for nor what these children found for me is high-grade jade—it’s soft jade.”
With that, I produced the jade ring. A soft-green jade ring.
Because of its low hardness, it scratched easily, and its color was somewhat mottled, with small black specks like marks visible if you looked closely.
From the start, I didn’t think those street ruffians would know anything proper about a Jade Ring.
“It seems this isn’t what you’re looking for, so how could I take responsibility for it?”
“No, I…….”
“Pffft!!”
The children burst into laughter at the sight of the man’s face flushing red and purple.
“You, you little brats……!!”
The man, who didn’t dare raise a hand against me but lunged at the easier targets, was naturally subdued by Seong Yoon’s hand at my side.
“It would be wise to withdraw at this point.”
“What? Who do you think you are, telling me what to do?”
His resistance didn’t last long.
“Aaahhh!”
“If you keep bothering our young lady, I won’t stay my hand either.”
“Help, help me, friend!”
“Stop this at once! How can you act so barbarously!”
The man called for help from the Constable who’d come with him, but it proved little use.
“Tell me, which office does the Constable serve?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Only that the two of you seem remarkably intimate. If you were conspiring to frame someone on some private matter, surely that couldn’t simply be overlooked? Don’t you think so, Miss?”
“I’d rather not trouble Father with such affairs, but since I’ve been drawn into senseless gossip, I may have no choice but to report it to him.”
Perhaps because our act—or was it no act at all?—rang so convincing, cold sweat beaded on the Constable’s face.
I wondered if Seong Yoon’s skill at this had played no small part.
“Ah, Miss! I don’t know whose household you belong to, but I beg you to overlook this just once!”
“It would be wise not to engage in such matters going forward. Especially since the Constable, as an official drawing the state’s stipend, ought not to associate with such ruffians?”
“Indeed, Miss! Tsk! What was this wretch thinking, trying to block someone’s path?”
“Ah, please, that’s enough.”
Since the two of them seemed to be putting on a show, I decided to drive the point home.
“I’ll let it pass this time, but if I hear you’ve harassed these children with such schemes again, I won’t be so lenient.”
“Yes, yes! I’ll remember your words, Miss!”
At this point, the man wouldn’t dare lay hands on the children again.
They seemed close enough that even if we turned him over to the magistrate’s office, without actual orders from above, he’d likely slip out easily enough. And then he’d probably just take out his frustrations on the children in revenge.
A Constable was much like a modern policeman, wasn’t he? The collusion between corrupt officers and gangsters or vice establishments hardly seemed novel or surprising to me.
‘Ah, the more things change.’
Hardship was never the fault of the wretched—it was always the burden of decent folk.
Truth be told, I couldn’t vouch that all these children were blameless and upright, but it was abundantly clear that men who extorted money from children and made their lives miserable were the far greater villains.
Once the men had vanished and we’d escaped this unexpected crisis, I noticed something subtle, slightly different in the way the children looked at me.
“I wish I could be like you someday, Miss.”
“Like me and not him?”
“No, why would we want to be like him…….”
Seong Yoon, thus dubbed “him,” wore a faintly forlorn expression, though I pretended not to notice.
In this era, that age certainly qualified as a man. What else would they call him?
The child said something unexpected.
“I wish I could be that way too—confident, saying what I need to say, questioning things, living like that.”
“Mm.”
My own case owed much to fortunate birth, truthfully. But it seemed my methodical questioning about the Ring had made more of an impression on these children than I’d expected.
“Would studying help? If you’re willing, why not start by learning to read and write?”
“Me? Read and write? Truly?”
“Chinese Characters would be difficult, but even just Hangul could be helpful……”
Learning letters alone wouldn’t make them clever, of course.
Yet suddenly I recalled my earlier thought about what it might mean to teach these children to write.
‘Wouldn’t they be easier to manage if they could read and write?’
What if they recorded their own lives in writing? Wouldn’t that be better still?
But my modest ambitions were cut short by Seong Yoon’s anxious voice urging that we return home soon.
I parted from the children promising another time, but I could only nod at the steady chorus of voices from those around me insisting I be more careful.
‘Hmm, perhaps taking so much interest in these children isn’t wise.’
As the girl at the Clinic had said, there was no guarantee I could see this through to the end, so perhaps it was better not to involve myself further.
Yet that too lay beyond my control.
The Rainy Season was approaching.

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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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