Even If Flowers Bloom on a Broken Branch - Chapter 11

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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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11.
It was nothing new, but the household staff of the Seo Clan possessed truly exceptional efficiency.
Although a sudden crowd of distinguished guests had arrived, their panic lasted only a fleeting moment; they immediately prepared food and served countless exquisite tables. It was a swift and precise response that made the absence of the mistress of the house entirely unfelt.
Lee Yeon handed a bowl of cold water to Lady Han, who had finally caught her breath after barely finishing the cleanup of the Side-dish Kitchen, which had been piled high like a mountain.
“You did a wonderful job. Thanks to you, we avoided what could have been a very embarrassing situation.”
“Even if dirt gets into my eyes, my lady’s face will never be allowed to lose its dignity.”
The lady spoke with mock sternness, then smiled a little.
Her gestures showed that her scattered wits were only now returning to her. After draining the bowl of cold water in a single breath, she wiped her mouth and looked at Lee Yeon.
“But why did you hide such a secret even from me? I am starting to feel a bit hurt after the fact.”
“I am sorry. But please understand my position as well. Consider how anxious my heart must have been.”
Lady Han looked at Lee Yeon with narrowed eyes before nodding as if she could not help but give in.
It was completely unheard of that their flower-like young lady had someone she was betrothed to, but to hear that the partner was a Grand Prince, the younger brother of the King of this country? Her shock at that had lasted only a moment before the thunderbolt of a revelation that they had already held a wedding ceremony with just a bowl of ritual water made her feel as though the back of her neck was seizing up.
The words that this would never have happened if the late mistress were alive rose all the way to the tip of her throat, but she barely managed to press them down and endure. If there were words that were good to say and words that were better left unsaid, those words certainly belonged to the latter.
Lee Yeon gently took her wrinkled hand.
“Still, I think of you as my own flesh and blood and have relied on you for a long time. I want you to know this heart of mine. Hmm?”
“……How could I possibly not know that?”
Lady Han was someone who had been brought along from the Private Residence when Lee Yeon’s mother married into the Seo Family. Though she had a strict personality, her affection ran deep, and she loved taking care of every matter, earning the trust and loyalty of many until she had become a sturdy pillar of this house.
Lord Seo also trusted and relied on Lady Han immensely, though he rarely spoke of it, and the same went for Lee Yeon. She deeply treasured the woman who had cherished her like a daughter and a flower throughout her entire life.
That was why she worried and fretted even more.
‘In case she held any resentment toward me, or to be more precise, in case she was disappointed in me.’
Did she have any idea that Lee Yeon’s heart was trembling just as much as when she had confessed to Lord Seo that she had a fiancé? Lady Han silently stacked the dishes in the cupboard one by one.
Just as Lee Yeon’s shoulders began to droop a little at that, the lady quietly took Lee Yeon’s hand and pulled her along.
“This is not a place to speak of this, so please go to your room, my lady. I will come see you shortly.”
“Oh?”
Lee Yeon blinked. She meant that she had something to say, but this was not the place for it. Because it was awkward to ask what it was again, Lee Yeon simply nodded.
If no one else, she tended to listen to Lady Han quite well. In a way, even more so than to the words of Lord Seo.
‘Though these are words I could never say to Father.’
It was right when she was making such silly thoughts, taking off her shoes on the stepping stone and opening the door. She heard the sound of footsteps pattering across the stone floor. Anyone running like this was probably—
“My lady!”
As expected. Lee Yeon smiled slightly and turned her head. Just as anticipated, Chohee was running toward her.
However, her face was not very bright.
“A visitor has come for you, my lady.”
“For me?”
Following the morning, this was the second guest.
Jinyul had at least sent word, so when she asked back wondering who it could be this time, Chohee caught her breath and nodded.
At the name her maid exhaled along with her ragged breath, the corners of Lee Yeon’s mouth hardened.
“Yes. The young lady of the Chae Clan has come to see you.”
The young lady of the Chae Clan. —Chae Eun-oh.
There was no one who did not know of the connection, or rather the ill fate, between her and Lee Yeon. At least, not among the people inside this residence.
“What should we do?”
That was why she was asking so cautiously like this.
Furthermore, her arrival today meant that she too must have heard all the news; her intention to scratch at Lee Yeon’s insides by any means necessary was transparent.
Lee Yeon stood silently lost in thought for a moment before stretching out her arm to throw the door wide open. Then she stepped inside and took her place in the seat of honor.
“Bring her in.”
Just how many things must she want to say, and how many things must she want to hear?
Lee Yeon’s lips twisted. She was glad she did not have to go out of her way to see her. Since it was a face she would have to see anyway, it was better to save the trouble of going to her.
* * *
At first, she had been bewildered.
Why Chae Eun-oh harbored such malice toward her, and why every word she directed at her was laced with thorns.
‘At first, I tried to understand, and I even tried to look for the problem within myself.’
Then, as the years passed and various incidents piled up, she had tried to endure and ignore it, but even that tolerance shattered when she discovered that the filthy rumor which had pained her so deeply had originated from that very tongue.
‘Well, they say she is a Barren Woman.’
It was not long after she had received confirmation that Hong Ran was pregnant with the King’s child.
Alongside the story of the Palace Maid who carried the Royal Descendant completely turning her life around, another story that circulated quite busily within the palace was that Lee Yeon possessed a useless body incapable of bearing children.
They whispered that because the field was bad, it could not hold the seed, so wasn’t it inevitable that the seed would wander to an unexpected place? They mocked that since she could not accomplish for several years what a mere Palace Maid could do, she was failing to fulfill even her basic function as a woman.
The words that brutally trampled upon her self-esteem and reason for existence as a woman, as well as her dignity as a human being, circulated in vivid detail.
‘Is that not so? Both the Palace Maid Hong and His Majesty have proven it, after all.’
If they do not join their bodies, there is no way to hold a seed in the first place.
They could not manage even that simple piece of reasoning. Because the premise that the King had never embraced the Queen did not exist at all.
The King used that fact—which he could tell no one and which must never be spoken of—as a weapon instead to silence Lee Yeon, and the Queen’s silence became an amplifier for the rumors. The one who had data-vaded most actively behind that shield was Eun-oh, who had entered the court as a concubine.
‘And yet, she seems to feel no guilt whatsoever. To commit such a sin against the ancestors.’
Pushed aside by Lee Yeon and pushed aside even by a lowly Palace Maid, Eun-oh’s sole amusement and entertainment had been to leak slanders about Lee Yeon to the masses, and she thoroughly enjoyed seeing Lee Yeon painfully isolated. As if that alone were her sole reason for living.
Therefore, Lee Yeon intended to let Eun-oh have her way this time.
“Welcome, Lady Chae.”
This time, she hoped that Eun-oh would become the mistress of the Queen’s Palace just as she desired, looking down upon the world. She wanted her to sit in the position of the Queen according to her long-cherished wish and receive the greetings of everyone.
If that was such a desperate wish of hers, and if she had driven her so viciously for the sake of it.
“What brings you to grace this place with your steps today?”
She intended to push that back into hell with her own hands. She was fully prepared to open the path ahead wide for her.
By the time she realized that the crimson path was not a path of flowers but a path of blood, every breath of hers would already be choked off.
Just like her own past self.

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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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