Born As The Daughter of a Lowly Concubine - Chapter 75

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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 Low Rank.
75
If my memory serves, in the original story, Byeong-pan’s Daughter, who became the Crown Prince’s new betrothed and a candidate for Crown Princess, had been confirmed after passing through the Triple Selection.
Yet after the Selection was complete, the girl spent her final days at her family home, and as always, she collapsed in agony after eating the food her maidservant brought.
The royal court sent a Royal Physician, and the girl wandered through deathbed for several months before surviving.
It was publicly announced as a sudden illness, but it was clearly an attempt at poisoning.
Fortunately the girl opened her eyes, but Byeong-pan refused to send his daughter to the palace, buying time by claiming her body had not recovered.
What parent would willingly send their child to certain doom?
Yet now to change the Crown Princess would be to damage the royal family’s reputation.
To anyone’s eye, it would look as though the palace were abandoning the pitiful Crown Princess candidate.
But the palace understood well enough why Byeong-pan was doing this, and moreover, held doubts about whether a girl who had consumed poison and collapsed could properly fulfill the role of Crown Princess, so they decided to wait until she recovered.
Or more precisely—they withdrew, saying they would discuss the matter again once the girl had grown and her menstruation began.
But the girl who had consumed poison and collapsed did not grow.
‘Was Byeong-pan’s Daughter ten years old then? Or was she eleven?’
Though she was somewhat older than me, whose growth had stopped at seven, once the palace confirmed that the Crown Princess candidate would grow no further, they yielded to Byeong-pan’s wishes and withdrew the girl from candidacy.
Yet rumors had already spread that Byeong-pan’s Daughter could not fulfill the duties of a woman, and those who realized that the position of Crown Princess carried the risk of assassination hastily married off their own daughters in that interval.
The palace had its own worries, but it was a catastrophe for Byeong-pan’s Daughter.
Though life was not materially difficult, who could understand the agony of remaining motionless while everyone around her aged and became adults?
Moreover, in this era it was common wisdom that a woman who did not marry was not treated as a proper person.
Who would accept as a bride a woman who did not grow, and even if someone did, would he truly be a man of sound mind?
The girl, trying to appear composed for her parents’ sake though suffering inwardly, withered day by day.
And it was the female protagonist, Ji-hwa, who healed such a girl.
‘No, that’s right. She changed her name and went by an alias. What was it—Jin-hwa? No, Yeon-hwa? Se-hwa? Or was it Mi-hwa?’
One would think this shouldn’t be so confusing, but there was nothing I could do about it.
By the time I realized this world was inside a novel, I was already fortunate to remember the plot itself with any accuracy.
‘At least I’ve met her, so I know her real name.’
I remembered that she kept one character the same between her birth name and her alias, but I couldn’t recall exactly which one.
Details like “Young Lord Yeong-won” or “the lover of Yi-hwa” were easy enough to remember as names go.
In any case, the fact that my condition—growth arrested—could ultimately be cured meant Ji-hwa could heal it.
The female protagonist who fled had encountered a stroke of fortune like something out of a martial arts novel, learned medicine, and returned.
‘At first she nearly gets expelled, but in the end, Ji-hwa, having cured Byeong-pan’s Daughter’s illness, is treated as a benefactor to the household and becomes an incomparable companion to the girl.’
It was a splendid way of dodging the rival role that a sub-heroine should have played, converting her into an ally of the female protagonist instead.
Moreover, having prevented even the male protagonist from becoming a married man, it was, from a romance novel’s perspective, a killing two birds with one stone.
‘Though one might wonder whether it makes sense for the Crown Prince to live as never having married until he reunites with the female protagonist, well past twenty years old.’
Call it a concession to genre convention.
And so Ji-hwa, setting out to find medicinal herbs necessary for healing Byeong-pan’s Daughter’s illness, unexpectedly reunites with the Crown Prince, who happened to be hunting in the mountains, and thus the two begin to have feelings for each other without knowing the other is that person they met in childhood.
The Crown Prince, already carrying guilt toward Byeong-pan’s Daughter, naturally aids Ji-hwa in every way when he learns she is searching for medicinal herbs to cure Byeong-pan’s Daughter’s illness.
And Ji-hwa, in turn, comes to feel affection for such a Crown Prince—well, in that manner the two’s eyes meet in the mountains, and once the Crown Prince learns that Byeong-pan’s Daughter has recovered and grown taller, he considers Ji-hwa a person whose skill and character he can trust, and takes her as one of his close attendants.
‘And so the two begin to have feelings for each other. But if things continue this way, won’t the person Ji-hwa cures end up changing?’
Still, events that are meant to occur are already unfolding, and perhaps the protagonist couple, left alone, will find each other without even trying.
‘When Ji-hwa returns, she ought to be able to cure my condition too.’
But such carefree thoughts were mine alone; the opinions of those around me could scarcely be otherwise.
‘We really did build the private residence too hastily.’
In the Joseon era, marriages of princesses and royal daughters occurred as early as around ten years of age.
When the king’s favor ran deep, the ceremony might be held early, yet the girl would remain in the palace and be raised further before departing; and in rare cases, unavoidable circumstances might delay marriage—for instance, Princess Jeongmyeong, daughter of King Seonjo, remained confined with her mother, Queen Dowager Inmok, and married at age twenty-one after the Injo Restoration.
In my case, there was an older brother who could not be surpassed, so the marriage was quite delayed, which was hardly the Crown Prince’s fault.
“Surely it must stem from that poison back then.”
“The Royal Physicians say they have no idea how to treat it. What can be done?”
By now I was twelve years old. The Crown Prince was eighteen.
There was no help for it.
The household of the Crown Princess candidate fell along with the charge of Yeok-mo, Gyeong-eon-gun received the Poison for Execution, and the Queen Dowager, apparently so shocked by her grandson’s death that she had endured weakly for some time, passed away, ushering in a National Mourning Period that had not long begun.
The Queen Dowager’s National Mourning Period was three years long, so for approximately two more years, the Crown Prince had to maintain his chastity.
To take even a Concubine, much less establish a Crown Princess, during this period would invite criticism of every sort.
‘If things go on like this, the Crown Prince really won’t be able to marry until he meets the female protagonist, will he?’
It felt like the desperate effort of an author to preserve the male protagonist’s chastity, or perhaps the will of the universe itself.
Meanwhile, there was naturally some talk about whether it would be good to decide my marriage partner in advance, but I clung to wanting to remain in the palace a little longer and barely stopped it.
Back then I still believed that I would grow if I just waited a little while.
Even so, as mentioned before, my private residence outside the palace was already complete.
For reference, in this world’s setting there is no restriction on official rank for one who becomes a Royal Son-in-law, so it should have been a position to be preferred, as the Crown Prince himself had said before.
In historical records from my past life, restrictions on the ranks available to Royal Sons-in-law became formal relatively early in Joseon, perhaps because a king with many children—King Taejong Yi Bang-won had twelve sons and seventeen daughters—granted various privileges to so many sons-in-law that later dynasties began to regulate it increasingly, until it was fully established during the reign of King Sejo when he prohibited the royal family’s participation in politics.
However, in this kingdom’s history, it was actually the royal sons-in-law who had often aided threatened kings, so they were not subject to restriction.
But given that few households were particularly eager to become royal sons-in-law, it seemed many people were troubled by my near-death from poisoning. It was a situation similar to Byeong-pan’s Daughter from the original novel—a character whose position was ambiguous even as a secondary heroine.
‘And it had become reality.’
I grabbed my father’s sleeve as if to seize the Royal Physician by the collar, struggling to calm his fury.
“Your Majesty, what fault could the Royal Physician possibly have?”
“How can you say it is not the Royal Physician’s responsibility that he is helpless against the princess’s illness?”
As I held the king’s sleeve and pleaded with him, tears of gratitude welled in the Royal Physician’s eyes as his head bowed.
In truth, what fault did the Royal Physician have? The one who administered the poison—that was the villain.
Moreover, this condition could not be cured by anyone but the heroine, so it truly was not the Royal Physician’s fault.
And the investigation into the poison’s origin was not the Royal Physician’s responsibility, but that of the Office of Censorate.
At the time, they had questioned Gyeong-eon-gun about the poison’s source, but he claimed it was not his own but something that Hong Sukhwon had possessed.
When Hong Sukhwon heard that I had been poisoned, her face turned ashen and she denied it outright, but upon hearing Gyeong-eon-gun’s account, she sealed her lips like a clam.
With both of them refusing to speak, they could not interrogate someone who had been the king’s woman and someone who had been a prince, and the few palace attendants who served them all claimed they knew nothing of the medicine’s origin, so there was no way forward.
Considering that Gyeong-eon-gun had long shown a knack for harming animals, speculation arose that he may have used poison he had possessed even before his confinement, but what good would that do?
The saving grace was simply that I did not die and regained consciousness within a few months.
And the fact that I knew who could resolve this?
Thanks to that, I was able to calmly restrain my enraged father.
“That this girl could open her eyes safely is surely due to the efforts of the Royal Physician and the physicians of the Royal Medical Office. Though my growth has ceased and it brings inconvenience, does this girl not have Your Majesty, the Queen, and the Crown Prince? Please do not worry yourself so. I am only concerned lest your health be harmed.”
“Si-a……!”
And moved by my honeyed words, my father granted me land and wealth on the spot.
What in the world was this.
“Your Majesty, this girl believes she already received property upon her establishment as a princess……?”
Besides, my business was thriving and bringing in considerable income.
“Who knows what may come to pass. How could I be at ease with merely that?”
“When this girl marries into another family, did Your Majesty not already prepare a residence……?”
“Living in the palace has its conveniences, but there are times when a private residence becomes necessary.”
At age twelve, I had truly realized my dream of home ownership and the life of a wealthy idler.
I’m running a business, you say?
In reality, Ga-i has been managing everything now…….
With the Queen Dowager’s passing, I decided to step back.
And aside from Si Yeong-won, even the business name was simply under Ga-i’s name.
What if Ga-i pocketed everything and ran? In an era where state authority was more fearsome than a tiger, such worry was baseless.
Besides, if a princess openly engaged in commerce, people would be scandalized, so it was unavoidable.
‘But is it really acceptable for my wealth to grow through taxation like this!’
Though I had been reborn for only a few years, my spirit still bore the marks of a commoner’s life.
Could I truly enjoy this golden-spoon life for nothing?
‘Well, I did eat poison meant for the Crown Prince.’
The Crown Prince likely would not have eaten it anyway. But was that enough absolution for me to idle about at the kingdom’s expense?
With this on my mind, I offered my father some advice as he sought means to cure my condition.
“Would it not be wise to have an investigation conducted among physicians throughout the realm to see if similar cases exist? Even the Royal Physicians of the Royal Medical Office cannot cure every illness under heaven, can they not?”
Even among physicians, each had their own specialty.
And one could hardly guarantee that every Royal Physician would be as renowned as Huh Jun.
Though I did not say so far, the king nonetheless tacitly agreed with my suggestion.
“……There is merit to your thinking.”
“And furthermore.”
“Furthermore?”
“If physicians were to investigate and compile statistics on the treatment cases they have handled over the years, might not entirely new methods of treatment be discovered that were previously unknown?”
“That is…….”
“It may become an undertaking of considerable scope, but fortunately, does this girl not possess the wealth Your Majesty has given? There is no pressing need for it at present, so I wish to use it where it is needed.”
After all, living in the palace, there are not so many places to spend it.
Si Yeong-won is running smoothly now.
And the other ventures are thriving as well.
“Should a new treatment be discovered in that process, would it not be a benefit to all the world?”
“The princess herself……!”
I could practically see gratitude written across the Royal Physician’s face.
‘Hmm, this old man is quite virtuous after all. Or perhaps he’s being moved because I restrained the king and turned his words around.’
The workload of the Royal Medical Office was about to become enormous.
When treatment cases began arriving, who would review and compile the statistics? Simple statistics might be one thing, but the relevant department staff would have to handle it.
‘Are there no civil service exam candidates waiting for their posting?’
It would be good to bring them in and put them to work.

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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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