Born As The Daughter of a Lowly Concubine - Chapter 55

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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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Born the daughter of a concubine of the lowest rank.
Chapter 55
“Princess, I beg you — please stop the Crown Prince.”
Moon Sanggung, whom I’d known for ages and grown accustomed to, bowed before me with an unusual look of panic on her face.
What? What on earth is going on?
“In truth, troubling rumors have been circulating at court of late.”
“I have a rough sense of what’s happening, so you can skip to the main point.”
Moon Sanggung, aware of my preference for directness, didn’t hold back.
“His Highness the Crown Prince has seen the tide of sympathy rising for the Deposed Crown Prince Lee Soo, and he has become greatly incensed. After wrestling with the matter for some time, he has ordered……”
“Ordered what?”
“That dried persimmons be sent to the homes of the ministers.”
I saw Ga-i’s brow furrow at those words.
Since that incident, no one in the palace had dared mention dried persimmons in my presence, so it was a term I hadn’t heard in a long while.
As for this Crown Prince of ours — truly……
“He’s bolder than I expected.”
“Oh, Princess.”
At my words, even Ga-i, who had been wearing a look of disapproval, shook her head in surprise.
I gave Ga-i a brief smile before turning to Moon Sanggung. “Has it been sent already?”
If it had, she wouldn’t have come to me in such haste.
Moon Sanggung shook her head.
“Not yet, Your Highness. Even the senior scholars of Sikanggwon have tried their utmost to dissuade him, but he will not listen. We have nowhere left to turn but to you.”
If he won’t listen to the senior scholars, he’s come to ask me to stop him.
“Perhaps the Crown Prince has noble intentions in wishing to send dried persimmons as gifts to the ministers. The royal household does not consume them much except during ancestral rites, so it seems they have surplus stores.”
Ordinarily, everyone would have enjoyed them as snacks, but it appeared that since that incident, all had begun to avoid them.
“Princess, we fear only that the ministers might misinterpret His Highness’s intentions.”
Misinterpret? They’ll likely take it at face value.
‘Though that is precisely the problem.’
Moon Sanggung seemed flustered when I showed no immediate objection, contrary to what she’d apparently expected.
These people still don’t truly know me.
I suppose I can’t fault them. To the people of the East Palace, my image must have been overwhelmingly defined by that day — my collapse as I coughed blood. And I couldn’t deny that I was still young.
Besides, hadn’t my role since then been chiefly to restrain the Crown Prince whenever he threw tantrums?
‘But certainly, this is risky.’
The fact that dried persimmons had become a taboo in the royal household was due to their association with poisoning.
Yet to send dried persimmons as gifts? And from the Crown Prince himself — the very person who nearly fell victim to poisoning?
Mishandled, it could appear as if the Crown Prince were threatening the ministers: ‘Would you like to experience death?’
The Crown Prince’s position was not yet secure, and his greatest rival, Gyeongeon Prince, was now gaining public support through this very incident — a situation that would frustrate me as much as it frustrated him.
I tapped my knee thoughtfully for a moment, then raised my head.
“I need to see the Crown Prince. Where is he at present?”
“I shall escort you at once.”
Moon Sanggung brightened and bowed.
By contrast, my own attendants looked decidedly troubled.
And when we arrived at the Gaeyuwa — an annex to the Gyujanggak, primarily used as the Crown Prince’s private library — the Crown Prince himself did not look particularly pleased to see me.
I raised my register, mindful of those around us. “Your Highness, I have heard the news.”
“How did the Princess arrive without sending word ahead?”
Moon Sanggung did not flinch before the Crown Prince’s sharp gaze.
She was indeed a veteran who had endured years at his side.
Unlike the Crown Prince, whose mood had been unsettled by my arrival, the familiar attendants and senior scholars seemed considerably relieved to see me.
By contrast, the Crown Prince’s face was full of disappointment, his lips pressed tight.
It seemed he felt hurt that I had not understood his true intentions.
But why did they all assume I would want to stop him?
“So you’ve come running to her for confession? How the discipline of the East Palace has deteriorated, sending word behind my back like this.”
That’s because you’ve been tormenting people and making their lives miserable.
“It is not as you say. I merely heard that Your Highness intended to send dried persimmons to the ministers, and I wished to speak with you on the matter.”
I approached the Crown Prince and opened my eyes wide as I spoke.
It was a privilege afforded by our blood relation.
“Would it not be better to send the dried persimmons under my name rather than yours?”
“……What?”
I felt the expectant gaze of those around us, but what I had to say differed from their hopes.
I stepped closer to the Crown Prince and widened my eyes as I spoke.
It was a privilege only blood could afford.
The Crown Prince looked dazed, as if my meaning had failed to reach him.
The palace attendants who had summoned me and the court ladies who had greeted my arrival turned their heads in unison, frozen mid-moment with question marks seemingly floating above their heads.
I offered a clarification, speaking gently.
“I merely suggest that the Dried Persimmons Your Highness intends to send would be better dispatched under the girl’s name.”
“What do you mean by such a thing?”
“The one who ate the poisoned Dried Persimmons those vile creatures sent and wandered the edge of death—that was no one but the girl herself. How can those who emerged without a single hair out of place presume to defend such criminals?”
“That is…….”
The court ladies seated beside the Crown Prince stared at me, unable to form a reply.
And the palace attendants who had brought me here as well.
What? If anyone’s unhappy about it, why don’t they try eating some poisoned Dried Persimmons themselves.
Did everyone forget why Dried Persimmons had become half-taboo within the palace walls?
Not that much time had passed—so why did the time sense of the victim and everyone else diverge so sharply?
One of the court ladies opened her mouth, clearly flustered.
“But, but my lady. The ministers might misinterpret the intentions of His Highness and yourself.”
“I find the ministers’ intentions far more suspect. Lee Soo, once the Gyeongeon Prince, was rightly deposed and subjected to Wiri Anchi for good reason—how can the ministers dare disregard so lightly the royal will that commanded his confinement?”
“That could scarcely be so.”
“Has it been five years since the Deposed Crown Prince was confined, or ten?”
……
When no one answered, the Crown Prince himself spoke.
“My will aligns with that of the princess. There are things they have done that are scarcely fit to speak of…….”
“They even threw a small child into the Pond.”
……!
“There is no need for you to shield the girl by hiding that matter.”
In truth, it had been kept from the public for the sake of royal dignity.
Several of the younger court ladies heard this revelation and wore expressions of shock.
“The girl has not forgotten what happened then, so she will hardly be newly devastated if the matter comes to others’ lips now.”
“……Both my brother and I deeply regretted that we could not protect you then.”
“And if he returns, who knows what he might attempt next.”
One of the court ladies interjected into our sigh-laden exchange.
“But my lady, the Deposed Crown Prince remains your brother. How can you speak so harshly rather than shelter his faults? Mencius wrote that when the sage-king Shun’s stepmother and half-brother repeatedly tried to kill him, he nonetheless fulfilled his filial duty and embraced his half-brother—”
What, this Confucian pedant. Who asked you to lecture?
That logic of yours—citing Chinese tales to say one must fulfill filial piety even when a stepmother torments you—why don’t you use that when you’re the one being harmed?
Sure, Shun gained beautiful wives and the throne thanks to that filial devotion, but ordinarily people just get murdered before that. So would that be unfaithful to my dead mother, who wished for me to live happily and long?
“If you truly believe that, then you would accept it without complaint even if His Highness unjustly threw all of you court ladies into the Pond and demanded your unwavering loyalty?”
“That……!”
“Is it not said that ruler and teacher are one body? If children must obey even when parents torment them, then surely subjects and people must likewise obey when the king does the same—so how dare you presume to judge His Highness’s conduct?”
“Oh, my lady. How can you speak such outrageous words.”
“And what you say now also implies that even if the Deposed Crown Prince dared harm His Highness, he should be forgiven just as Shun forgave his half-brother who tried to kill him—is that not so?”
“That was not my intention.”
Right. You just wanted to lecture me.
“Of course not—since Mencius also wrote of the Yeongseong Hyeongmyeong.”
“No, no, that is not——!!”
Don’t tell me you’re harboring seditious thoughts.
I turned away from the court lady, who was now sweating profusely, with a slight smile.
The look of utter shock that I might actually know what was in Mencius was deeply satisfying to witness.
Seeing the Crown Prince regard me and the flustered court lady with amusement, it became clear he had endured such pedantry from her before.
‘She butted in while the Crown Prince and the princess were conversing, and she’s hardly in a position to lecture anyone on propriety.’
Still, pushing the court ladies too far would not serve well, so I wrapped up my point and steered us back to the matter at hand.
“If Your Highness would prepare a list of ministers to receive the Dried Persimmons, I shall have them sent.”
“But even Dried Persimmons from you might not look appropriate.”
The Crown Prince seemed to realize that sending Dried Persimmons to the ministers was rather like throwing down a gauntlet, and he hesitated.
It was reassuring that he had some awareness.
Of course, my aim was not to provoke conflict with the ministers.
“Certainly, Dried Persimmons alone would lack proper presentation.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“I thought to send Gyeran-milttok alongside them.”
“……Did I not ask you to change that name?”
The Crown Prince, perpetually displeased with my naming sense, lodged his objection here too.
As a result, the formal designation had recently become Gamran Jeon-byeong, a name the Crown Prince himself had proposed, though everyone still called it Gyeran-milttok.
But everyone’s tongue was already accustomed to the old name.
In any case, the Crown Prince and the court ladies nodded in silent agreement that my proposal wasn’t a poor one.
This changed the meaning somewhat from simply sending dried persimmons.
And since sending only dried persimmons and Gyeran-milttok seemed rather bare, I prepared a two-tiered Stacked Food Container.
In the upper tier, I arranged dried persimmons as the centerpiece, and surrounded them with Walnut-wrapped Dried Persimmon, Pine nut-studded Dried Persimmon, Honey-marinated Dried Persimmon Balls, and other decorative pieces.
In the lower tier, I arranged Gamran Jeon-byeong—or Castella, as it was also called—as the main item, along with Pudding in a bowl, Gwapyeon, Yakgwa, and other delicacies.
Since there were many people to send these to, I didn’t pack them too abundantly, but given my position, it was an appropriately charming size. After all, these were precious foods to begin with.
Of course, for those who held negative feelings toward the Deposed Crown Prince’s mother, I decided to send only the Castella and other items arranged in two tiers, omitting the dried persimmons.
To the ladies.
“To the ladies?”
“Would it not seem odd if a girl sent gifts to the ministers themselves?”
Though I was young, I ranked third in the Waemyeongbu hierarchy, so I had met the ministers’ wives on several occasions.
Or rather, I would sit nearby when the Queen summoned the ladies of the Waemyeongbu.
‘Thanks to that, those ladies had actually tasted Castella before—more than the court ministers themselves.’
Castella was a confection one could scarcely receive unless one had a direct personal connection.
As a result, there were plenty of people of considerable rank who had never tasted it.
But if a minister’s wife received food from a princess? And it was Gyeran-milttok? The more powerful someone was, the greater their curiosity about things they hadn’t acquired—they could never pretend not to be interested.
‘Well, even if they tried to look the other way, once they knew the contents included dried persimmons, the story would spread.’
Even if this matter became known and I faced reproach from the King, what of it?
I had no desire to sit idle.

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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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