Born As The Daughter of a Lowly Concubine - Chapter 96

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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 minor concubine.
96
“Sister, there isn’t enough bread.”
“……Make do with what you have.”
“But you said you’d give us something delicious!!”
I’d shared some with the children earlier, which is why we’d run short.
But Ayeong…… surely you’re too old to be whining like that now, aren’t you?
Nain, watching the children cling to me and demand bread without shame, barked at them and chased them away.
“Hey, you brats! Now that you’ve eaten, get out of here and study or work!”
“Wah!”
“What’s with the complaining?”
“But sister said she’d give us bread!”
“And you ate it!”
“Not enough!”
Watching these two, who’d become close as real siblings, seem ready to launch into an actual sibling squabble, I stepped in to mediate.
“……I’ll make more for you later.”
“Really?? You promise?!”
Crying out her delight, Ayeong bolted away from Nain’s reaching hands.
What is this…… why do I feel like a bread courier?
Me, born a princess, turned into an actual bread courier? The thought flickered like some absurd novel title, but that was a title that simply couldn’t be written.
‘It wouldn’t suit this era’s sensibilities.’
In this time, a descriptive title like that would likely be dismissed as childish and crude.
These days, there was a strong sense that novel titles ought to be in Classical Chinese to be respectable.
Perhaps that’s why some of the celebrated authors wrote their novels entirely in Classical Chinese.
Even the most talked-about recent novel, Hwa Yeong, was no exception.
‘At least the children are motivated to study Classical Chinese so they can read that book.’
A copy lay scattered about on the floor of Siyeongwon, true to its bestseller status.
It was a tumultuous romance: a yangban lady loses her parents in a sudden bandit attack, flees with barely her nurse, learns martial arts, and returns—only to discover that her father’s trusted friend was the bandit all along. And the boy who’d aided her escape turns out to be the enemy’s son, leaving the heroine tormented by impossible choices.
‘The plot feels…… like I’ve heard it before, which nags at me, but honestly, stories like this pop up fairly often in historical romance.’
Jang mentioned they were sounding out the author about releasing a Hangul translation, given how well it was selling.
The rental shop business was fine, but selling books would be even better, wouldn’t it?
‘Joseon has printing technology but people are lazy about using it…… what if I set up a printing house?’
With the bookshop already in place, it was certainly a viable venture.
Turning pages with this thought, I found something tucked between them.
‘But why…… is there a picture here?’
To be precise, illustrations had been inserted at key scenes—one per important moment. I knew who’d drawn them.
“Hmm…….”
“Oh! Miss, what are you looking at?”
It was Jeyeong’s brushwork—she handled the illustrations for Siyeongwon.
“Oh, did Jeyeong draw these illustrations?”
“Ah, well, that is, um, you see, miss…….”
Jeyeong flushed with embarrassment and confessed she’d drawn them as a hobby.
“I’m sorry for wasting paper and pigment…….”
“No, no. A hobby like this—what’s the harm?”
Pigments in this era were expensive, so she’d understandably been nervous.
“So, how was it?”
“It was quite good.”
Jeyeong, who drew ceaselessly at Siyeongwon, had developed into a skilled illustrator with a vibrant, lively style—particularly gifted with portraiture and genre scenes.
This sort of work really does need to be done by someone who loves it.
‘Hmm.’
A Hangul translation was fine, but a limited edition with illustrations wouldn’t be bad either.
And so I decided to launch a new venture.
***
Back at the palace, when So-i heard of it, she made a sour face.
“No, miss. You said you’d live comfortably, and now look at you.”
“Be quiet. I don’t understand myself either. I just thought of it, so what can I do?”
Watching me step into publishing, Ga-i smiled softly.
“I told you to take it easy, miss, and yet you keep starting new ventures. I’m sorry.”
“Not at all. This humble one is content so long as you do what you wish to do. But where do you plan to obtain printing blocks?”
“I’m planning to ask the Crown Prince first.”
In this era, I’d heard that cases where printing blocks were made but left unused were more common than not, so I thought if I asked around, they might turn up somewhere.
And obtaining printing blocks turned out to be surprisingly uncomplicated.
“Printing blocks, you say? What do you intend to use them for?”
“I’m the owner of a Book Rental Shop, so if you’re asking what I’d use printing blocks for…”
At my words, Seongwon let out a slightly embarrassed cough. He’d completely forgotten about it, hadn’t he?
“So what books are you planning to print?”
“Books that sell well, naturally.”
“Hmm. What books sell best these days?”
“Religious texts never go out of demand, children’s study books are constantly consumed no matter how many are passed down through generations, and these days there are plenty of people seeking novels as well.”
“That much is true, but I don’t see how mere Unofficial History Novels would sell well enough to warrant printing blocks.”
That’s only because you don’t know that world very well.
There are cases where people fall so deeply into novels they end up in debt—something the Crown Prince would likely find hard to grasp.
And I felt no particular need to make him understand either.
Not that I meant to bankrupt myself in the process of selling books, of course. Just… that’s how it is.
I’d wondered whether printing required official permission, but surprisingly it went through without much trouble.
“It’s an undertaking that spreads books, after all. Though of course, if they were seditious works, that would be problematic.”
“I haven’t the audacity to print anything of that sort.”
“But wouldn’t it be a shame if the books you’d gone to such lengths to print ended up later designated as forbidden and burned?”
“Well, of course it would be a shame if they were burned, but wouldn’t a hand-copied book be even more of a shame? One the copyist labored so hard to transcribe?”
…!
Despite all his hedging, Seongwon was the sort to honor requests, and before long he genuinely procured the printing blocks for me.
But I did feel some uncertainty about whether using these for printing novels was truly acceptable.
“Apparently they were originally used by a provincial government office, and when the administrative divisions were reorganized, they found these stored away in some warehouse.”
“Is it permissible to use something like that for personal purposes?”
“The items are old, so it’s hard to say their condition is entirely sound; they’d be awkward to melt down and recast, so you may as well use them as they are and commission additional blocks as needed. I also informed the Queen of your interest in printing, but she offered no particular objection.”
“My gratitude, Crown Prince!”
The reason government materials fell into my hands so easily was simply because they weren’t being used.
Even the central ministries rarely made use of them, let alone anywhere else.
Even with printing blocks on hand, people found the assembly process tedious and simply hand-wrote the Jobo—the court’s premodern gazette announcing state affairs—so long as readers could decipher it, and sent it out; printing blocks never had a chance to develop.
In a way, my putting them to use like this seemed better.
Moreover, and quite honestly, printing with blocks was far easier with Hangul than with Chinese characters. Assembly was simpler too.
As Seongwon suggested, I found a technician to inspect the blocks and decided that whenever certain characters ran short, I’d have them made additionally as wooden blocks to fill the gaps.
Arranging the blocks was labor too, so it amounted to giving bright-eyed children a new livelihood.
‘Hmm. Unexpected job creation.’
Of course, at the same time, the positions of those doing manuscript copying were threatened. But if it wasn’t large-scale publishing, copying might still be more convenient.
“Then what about illustrations?”
“I’d hope we could print them using woodblock printing, though it might be difficult for now…”
“Pardon?”
In this era, mass producing illustrations meant something other than woodblock printing—tracing underdrawn sketches and painting them over and over.
But since the author was currently writing the Hangul translation of the original novel, it would take time; meanwhile, I could find a technician capable of making Jeyeong’s drawings into woodblocks.
Jeyeong herself looked flustered.
“I can hardly believe my drawings would be included as novel illustrations.”
“Jang showed them to the original author and got approval. The writer was pleased with them, don’t worry.”
“Really? Is that truly so?”
Heavens, how is it that fan behavior remains unchanged no matter what era it is?
“But what if people don’t buy them because they don’t like my pictures?”
“The illustrated edition will only be available to advance reservations, so those who don’t want it simply won’t buy it.”
As Jeyeong said, illustrations are a matter of taste, and frankly I couldn’t guarantee how well the woodblocks would turn out either.
“But wouldn’t the Hangul edition sell poorly since the Classical Chinese version has already sold so well?”
“People find what they’re accustomed to reading hits them more directly, so it’s not necessarily so. Besides, the novel’s setting is Joseon, isn’t it?”
“That’s true. Then won’t the Classical Chinese edition stop selling?”
“There will be people who seek the original for its own merit. How many, I couldn’t say.”
It’s like how people who watch foreign dramas or films dubbed always want to watch the subtitled version again afterward.
“Ah, I see! But how do you know so much about such things?”
“Well…”
That’s because I’m someone who owns both the Classical Chinese version and has placed a pre-order for the Hangul translation with illustrations.
“Incidentally, as promotional incentive, the original author’s signature will be included with advance reservations for the illustrated edition, which costs twice as much.”
“Really?! I want to pre-order too!”
This one loses all reason in the face of fandom as well, it seems.
“It’s expensive, though…”
“But you gave me the woodblock printing fee!”
“No, just because you received money doesn’t mean you pour it all back out like this. What were you thinking?”
“But I want it. I want to see my drawings turned into woodblock prints, and I want to have a copy with my author’s seal too.”
“Good heavens. What’s the use of me trying to stop you?”
“Hehe.”
Perhaps I needed to give the children some proper financial education.
‘Though the commoner children might not understand, Jeyeong’s a nobi—she deserves to have these small pleasures.’
Within Siyeongwon, no one looked down on the nobi, but the world outside was different.
Besides, the nobi sent to me were oddly all young, unmarried women, which made me uneasy about letting them venture beyond these walls.
‘Could that have been why they were sent to me deliberately?’
If they’d gone elsewhere, they likely wouldn’t have been able to live as peacefully as they did here.
Having witnessed men harass gisaeng before, I couldn’t help but feel that anxiety all the more keenly.
‘Wait, now that I think about it—haven’t they all passed marriageable age?’
I’m sixteen now.
In this era, that’s when the pressure to marry begins.
Of course, nobi and commoners weren’t bound by such expectations, but when I first received these women, they were already in their mid-to-late teens, so by now they’d be in their early-to-mid twenties.
There are men within Siyeongwon—so why haven’t I heard of anyone getting married?
“Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone in Siyeongwon mention getting married. Why is that?”
“Pardon? Ah, now that you mention it… well, for those of us like this, most would rather not marry at all, so unless you—our mistress—urged us to, we wouldn’t.”
They’d been raised with strict teachings on chastity in yangban households, so they had no desire to marry men of lower status, nor did they wish to become second wives, and so they’d chosen to remain as they were.
Besides, aside from the former Chae-tam-in, nearly all the men in Siyeongwon were quite young children.
“I have no intention of forcing anyone, but if you’re hesitating only because I’m still unmarried myself, there’s no need for that. Though if you do decide to marry, I’d hope to grant you emancipation and find you a man worthy enough to take as a true wife.”
“My, you do say the most unusual things, young mistress.”
Jeyeong laughed brightly regardless, unbothered by my words.
“But somehow, the other girls also seemed reluctant about marriage. Could it be because Lady Min taught us so strictly about chastity?”
“Ah…….”
Surely that wasn’t actually the reason…….

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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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