Born As The Daughter of a Lowly Concubine - Chapter 67

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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 as the daughter of a concubine of lowly station
Chapter 67
For Yu Gwae, a junior official at the Ministry of Public Works, today had been cursed with misfortune from the moment he arrived at the office.
He’d been handed his dismissal the instant he walked through the door.
“Why—why is this happening?”
“You didn’t know that six days of unauthorized absence means dismissal?”
Well, this was his sixth day of not showing up, so the ignorance was understandable.
He’d dragged himself out of bed at dawn to come in, and for what?
In the Joseon dynasty, officials reported for duty at dawn—between five and seven in the morning—and left in the evening between five and seven.
(*In winter, these hours shifted two hours later.)
While it looked like a twelve-hour workday, the absence of accurate timekeeping in that era meant people applied the hours with reasonable flexibility. Some departments did require overtime, of course.
Unauthorized absences were often overlooked, or servants took the punishment in their master’s stead—things were handled loosely. But this time, he’d had the rotten luck to get caught red-handed.
He’d passed the civil service examination to get this post; he couldn’t possibly be fired over this. He’d reached out through every connection he had, but it was all for nothing.
No. It won’t work. I’m done.
He’d even appealed through his father to his relative, the Minister of Public Works, but was turned away.
Instead, he’d been told that the Royal Majesty’s mood was troubled of late, and not to waste time on foolish petitions.
His seniors had skipped work, his peers had skipped work—everyone did it. So why was he the only one being made an example of?
Apparently, there’d been recent rumors in the Capital City about officials taking unauthorized absences, and the crackdowns had gotten strict. He’d been unlucky enough to be the one made an example of—everyone sympathized, but no one helped.
His luck was foul, so for a change of scenery he went out with fellow dismissed officials and hired some courtesans for the evening. He’d planned to stay up all night, but his father sent word that he’d kill him if he didn’t come home soon.
He’d protested and sent the servant back, but with his post already gone, he couldn’t disobey his father’s command, so he had to leave the Gisaeng House.
On the way home, he spotted a pack of brats he’d been noticing around for a while.
Their clothes were shabby, but their skin was pale and clear—odd for street urchins. He’d been startled to realize they were beggars’ children he’d seen around town from time to time, but by now he’d grown used to them.
Before, he hadn’t paid attention because they were so dirty, but now that he saw their faces washed, he noticed there were girls among them too. He wondered if some courtesan house was grooming them that way to recruit them.
He was getting tired of the flirtations of the courtesans anyway, and felt a strange urge to sponsor a young courtesan’s hair-raising ceremony—to initiate one of these innocent, fresh girls—but he had no money for it.
The sudden thought that he might have fallen from his father’s favor sent a twist of fury through him as he recalled the expressions of those courtesans, how quickly they’d changed.
Courtesans, all of them—faithless, lacking all virtue, thinking only of how to bleed men dry. Did they have any idea how hard he’d worked to pass the civil service examination and become an official?
He knew the haughty ones looked down on him, subtle though their disdain was, just because he was a junior official.
How could girls who hung around men, selling nothing but smiles and favors, possibly understand the hardship of his life?
Those girls would end up in the Gisaeng Houses anyway, in the end. What else could pretty little things like that possibly do?
Suddenly, he remembered a girl he’d seen not long ago.
Last time, when he’d drunk too much in a valley and tried to play around with her, she’d had the gall to glare at him and run away with all her might. She’d even slipped and fallen down the mountainside.
‘How fitting for lowborn trash—stupid as they come.’
He remembered seeing her limping down the mountain afterward with the other beggar children.
But what were the odds? That same girl appeared before him now.
‘Anyway, once that one becomes a courtesan, she’ll be exactly like the rest. Infuriating thing.’
The child was running alone, clutching what looked like a bundle, separated from the others.
He’d resented her running away that day, and now she’d walked right into his reach.
“You there!”
“Eeek?!”
As he grabbed her shoulder, she let out a most unladylike shriek. What a pathetic thing, he thought with disgust.
The moment he seized the girl’s hand as she bolted without even turning to look, still screaming—
Yu Gwae lost consciousness.
***
“They say there’s quite a stir over the dismissed officials lately.”
“Are there that many?”
“From what I hear, most are managing fine, but quite a few are struggling. Apparently, in the past, officials with powerful relatives or good connections would slip through, so many didn’t take this seriously. But the hardworking officials are naturally pleased.”
The Crown Prince had been the one to petition the king about this, which was why the diligent officials were cheering, though there was considerable pushback from those being dismissed.
But no one could argue when it was pointed out that five days’ grace had been given—anyone continuing to skip after that didn’t deserve a second thought.
‘The civil service is demanding work here, but why waste an official stipend on someone who won’t even do the job?’
It was good news for those waiting for openings, and holding a special examination to stabilize public sentiment seemed like a reasonable move.
When I looked into who’d been tormenting the beggar children, I was surprised to find they weren’t unemployed ruffians at all—they were officials.
Habitual truants, all of them.
That settled it; I didn’t need to feel sorry for them. You could tell by how they spent their time—all from comfortable, well-off families.
I decided to spread word of it through the Marketplace—or rather, I cultivated public opinion about it.
Many officials did skip work and loaf about, did go out playing and tormenting beggars and children, and occasionally harassed women—these were facts, so shaping public opinion wasn’t difficult.
The problem was that everyone already knew this; they just hadn’t thought to call it a problem because it had become so normalized.
I’d mentioned in passing to the Crown Prince that officials were taking unauthorized absences and gallivanting around, and at first, he’d dismissed it—a man with such a packed schedule overseeing both his studies and state affairs couldn’t imagine such laxity.
‘Ha. You must be mistaken about something. How could those who passed the examinations and draw the state’s salary live so recklessly?’
But the Crown Prince, by nature, couldn’t let my words pass lightly, so he made inquiries of his tutors.
He also asked the royal guards.
I asked the Crown Prince’s teachers as well.
Even among the common people, voices were rising that this was excessive; they too had no choice but to hesitate in their answers, and the answer was plain from their very demeanor.
The Crown Prince, who had just learned a truth he alone had not known, burned with quiet rage.
‘Is it true? When one requests granted leave, they’re not even refused.’
Some worked themselves to death while others simply occupied their posts and idled about—it was incomprehensible to one who had lived a diligent and conscientious life.
‘I haven’t even lived that faithfully, and I can’t understand it either.’
Perhaps the times had changed. A civil servant’s casual unauthorized absences… I simply couldn’t grasp it.
With only one day off every ten, someone accustomed to a five-day work week would surely think they’d die.
Still, at weddings, funerals, and ancestral rites, they received two or three days off each time. The gentry’s rites were so numerous, and their relatives and acquaintances so many, that few days passed without cause to absent oneself.
Besides, did farmers have holidays? Did tavern keepers have holidays? Did merchants have holidays?
“It is now the turn of the Princess, my lady.”
“Ah. Already?”
I received the Yunmok—that five-sided stick of a die—from the young attendant.
“The Princess has advanced in rank, my lady.”
“Soon I’ll be Chief Minister.”
These days we’d been playing the Board Game of Official Promotion whenever the mood struck.
The game was something like a board game—in essence, a Joseon bureaucrat version of the game of life.
The goal was to progress from passing the civil examination all the way to Chief Minister.
In practice, if one’s starting position—determined by dice at the outset—was favorable, advancement came swiftly; along the way there were routes of dismissal, exile, even death by poison.
I’d heard the schools often used it to help children memorize the complex bureaucratic system and official titles.
‘There’s no Queen Inhyeon here, so there’s no Board Game of Women’s Conduct either.’
The Board Game of Women’s Conduct was the female version of the Board Game of Official Promotion, concerning women’s virtue and conduct; since it was created by Queen Inhyeon, it apparently didn’t exist in this world.
‘I could instead create a board game where one enters the palace as a young attendant and rises all the way to Chief Court Lady. But I’d have to include routes of royal favor and concubinage in the middle, which seems… complicated.’
But then, where exactly is the apex of a concubine’s station……
This was dangerous ground—create a board game on this topic and there was no telling what might come of it—so I quietly shelved the idea.
My turn came around again, and I cast the Yunmok.
“Mm. I’ve won.”
“Again the Princess takes first place, my lady.”
“I’ll give cakes to second and third place; do your best.”
“Yes!”
While the children absorbed themselves in the game, I read letters sent by the ones outside.
In the letters sent to “sister,” most of the children were tearfully lamenting how strict Min Sanggung had been since her recent formal appointment as director following my proposal; in the letters sent to “Your Highness,” the tone was mostly cheerful, saying that there hadn’t been anyone bothering them lately and it was all thanks to the Princess.
‘I suspect half of that isn’t really my doing.’
The Chae-tam-in, who had been living quietly as ordinary folk, were indignant upon learning that there were those harassing the children in their care.
Being indignant, they… well, I’ll spare you the details.
‘Of late, there are occasionally yangban found in streams throughout the Capital City, passed out drunk.’
The weather had grown much colder, though they hadn’t frozen to death yet.
Their mouths might be a bit twisted, though.
Thanks to this, physicians renowned for treating facial palsy saw their coffers unexpectedly fill.
‘Of course, it’s none of my concern.’
Yet strangely, there were those who came to where our children were and tried to pick fights with them.
So when they showed the plaque hanging outside the gate, they’d quietly turn back.
That plaque was obtained after I’d confirmed through Seong Yoon how much of what I’d done had been discovered, and then badgered my father for it.
More precisely, during a moment alone with my father, I’d wheedled the Crown Prince to write the calligraphy, and he said the King himself would write it instead.
‘He must have been busy. Chronologically, it was still before the poison discussion, at least.’
In any case, I ended up with a plaque bearing the King’s own calligraphy.
The King himself had chosen the name.
Si Youngin.
No matter how I looked at it, one character was taken from my name, Si-a, and one from my title, Su-Young.
When later I was alone with the Crown Prince and said plainly that Father must have been too tired to bother naming it himself, he laughed so hard he could barely breathe; seeing how fatigued he’s seemed lately, I had Moon Sanggung put him to bed early.
‘I’m not tired, I’m not tired!’
Watching him cry out that very thing while laughing as Moon Sanggung threw quilts at him, seeing the Crown Prince’s attendants gasping as they tried to stifle their laughter, was truly heartening.
Recalling that moment, I felt a slight laugh escape and caught my expression.
It wasn’t yet time for laughter to echo within the palace. After all, even though one’s blood mother’s enemy was dead, it would hardly do for laughter to slip out.
The rumor I’d heard when I last ventured to the Marketplace was true.
Gyeongeon Gun had received the death sentence by poison.
The Crown Prince evidently knew it already; when I sought him out, his face was composed.
According to the Crown Prince’s account, my father, much as I had suspected, harbored doubts about Gyeongeon Gun.
In truth there was no clear evidence, and those who had been in contact with Gyeongeon Gun were already revealed to be part of the treasonous faction and had been dragged away and executed, leaving no one to testify.
Yet contrary to initial public opinion, the officials lent their support to Gyeongeon Gun’s execution, and the King’s resolve seemed to have hardened as well.
The ministers who received my gift were no fools—they would have grasped what that box of sweets signified.
Dried persimmons that might have contained poison, and egg honey cakes, rare and difficult to procure.
When faced with my question—or perhaps the Crown Prince’s question—which would they choose, the ministers gave their answer.
Whether my gift had struck true, I couldn’t say for certain.
But what was clear was that in the end, Gyeongeon Gun received the death sentence by poison.
‘I hadn’t actually meant to kill him.’
That’s how it goes for male royalty implicated in treason. Even the innocent receive the poison cup.
Of course, there were those who said the death sentence seemed excessive, or so I heard.
When I was placed under house confinement, it was I who drank the poison, while Gyeongeon Gun insisted to the end that he’d done nothing, that it was all slander, and he tried everything to claim ignorance of the curse upon the Crown Prince, saying it was all Hong Sukwon’s doing.
Yes, perhaps Gyeongeon Gun’s situation was unjust.
As far as the treason was concerned.
But was he any more unjustly treated than Yun Sukwon, who lay dead, along with the child she carried; or than I, who swallowed poison and walked the edge of death; or than Seongwon, who cared for his brother as a sibling should, only to be cursed with something grotesque, and after death was said to have become a vengeful ghost?
Thinking of those who had gone, the palace seemed desolate anew.
Knowing it would grow even emptier when I departed, I pitied those who would remain.

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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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