Even If Flowers Bloom on a Broken Branch - Chapter 49

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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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49.
The atmosphere within the Seo Family Residence was deeply unsettling.
Lee Yeon and Hong Ran, who had left around noon, had not returned even though evening was falling, leaving everyone in the Seo Clan on edge.
“Why are they so late…?”
The inner thought slipped out loud. Chohee quickly clamped a hand over her mouth, but everyone with ears had already heard it.
Inside the anchae, Lord Seo was likewise listening intently to the happenings outside.
Upon returning home late in the afternoon, he had been greatly shocked to hear that Lee Yeon had entered the palace at the Queen’s summons. He had not expected the Queen to move this quickly.
‘Should I have gone back to the palace myself?’
Regret came too late, but there was nothing he could do now except wait.
Then, a sudden thought crossed his mind, causing Lord Seo’s eyes to cloud over.
‘So that is what she meant back then.’
When he had entered the palace to inform the King of the marriage between Lee Yeon and Jinyul, Lee Yeon had complained that she felt as though her heart were melting away anxiously because they had taken so long to return.
At the time, he had laughed it off without thinking much of it, but thinking about it now, he finally understood just how agonizingly Lee Yeon must have waited.
For right now, he felt as though his own insides were burning to ash.
It was then.
“I hear something.”
Juhwa, who had been sitting and staring at the gate with desperate longing, suddenly tilted her head. A moment later, she leaped up from her seat.
“They must be coming!”
At her words, everyone looked toward the gate all at once. Hearing the sound of footsteps indeed approaching this way, the men rushed forward immediately and flung the front gate wide open.
Immediately after doing so, they recoiled in utter bewilderment.
“Oh, heavens, my lady…!”
Hong Ran was walking in, weeping bitterly. That was not the only shocking thing. Some palanquin was crossing over the threshold of the front gate.
Lady Han, completely shocked out of her wits, practically flew down the stepping stones.
“My lady! My goodness, what on earth happened!”
Upon seeing them, Hong Ran wept even more sorrowfully. Lady Han grabbed Hong Ran by the shoulders and asked urgently.
“H-How did this happen? Why are you crying like this, and what happened to my lady? And what is this palanquin!”
“You should move the Grand Princess Consort inside first.”
Only then did a stranger catch their eye. Lady Han was so startled she could not even make a sound. The one who answered the suggestion was not her, but Lord Seo.
“What brings His Majesty’s Chief Eunuch all the way to this place?”
“I greet Lord Seo.”
The eunuch, who had addressed Lady Han, turned his body to look at Lord Seo. He spoke with a calm countenance.
“The Grand Princess Consort’s health was in severe decline, so His Majesty personally granted his palanquin.”
Lord Seo’s expression turned grave as he looked at the palanquin.
This palanquin was one that only the King could ride, a precious vehicle that not even the Queen would dare set foot inside. Yet he had granted it to Lee Yeon.
‘Why…?’
If the Queen found out about this fact, she would run even wilder; Lord Seo’s expression hardened.
At that moment, Lady Han, who had been anxiously fretting at his side, said fretfully.
“Daegam-manim. It seems best to move my lady inside first. To hear that her health is in severe decline makes me so worried.”
“Yes, let us do that first.”
As Lord Seo nodded immediately, the eunuch signaled to the palanquin bearers. And at the revealed interior, Lord Seo’s face froze.
“Lee Yeon…!”
Lee Yeon was leaning against the backrest, completely unconscious. Seeing her unable to even hold herself up, looking as though all strength had drained from her, Lord Seo cast aside all decorum and frantically scooped Lee Yeon up to carry her outside.
“I-I will do it, Daegam-manim!”
The servants extended their hands one after another, but Lord Seo instead tightened his grip around his daughter and glared at the eunuch. Anger flared in his eyes.
“The child who clearly walked out on her own two feet when she left, why has she been brought back carried like this in a faint? Could it be that His Majesty…?”
“It is the exact opposite. His Majesty pulled the Grand Princess Consort out of the quagmire.”
The eunuch looked toward Hong Ran. With a face drenched in tears, she was looking only at Lee Yeon.
“That…”
The eunuch, about to address Hong Ran, hesitated momentarily. With an expression of not knowing what to say, his lips parted as he chose and rejected words, before finally glossing over it.
“You may ask that person over there. She should know everything from beginning to end.”
The eunuch gave Lord Seo a polite bow and turned around, and Lord Seo, still holding Lee Yeon, stared blankly at his departing back before looking at Hong Ran.
Everyone present on the spot looked at Hong Ran. Their eyes urged her to speak quickly. However, Juhwa’s countenance alone was different from all the others.
‘That person?’
She wondered what on earth had happened in the palace for His Majesty’s eunuch to refer to Hong Ran as “that person.”
It was then.
“Let us head inside first.”
Lord Seo hoisted Lee Yeon more securely in his arms and took a step toward Lee Yeon’s quarters. Lady Han hurriedly followed behind him, shouting to Chohee and Jain.
“You two go ahead and spread out the bedding for my lady to lie on. Prepare plenty of hot water and washcloths too! And Ran, you…”
Lady Han started to say something but swallowed it back down.
‘Did that child even know how to make such a face…?’
Hong Ran’s expression was starkly different from usual. It was a face so chilling and cold that everyone caught their breath—the face of a deeply, intensely angry person.
* * *
“Now, tell me what happened.”
Lord Seo finally spoke heavily only after Chohee, Jain, and Lady Han had laid Lee Yeon down, changed her clothes, and even meticulously washed her face with a wet towel.
Hong Ran, who had been sitting at the foot of Lee Yeon’s bed like a stone statue, slowly raised her head.
“After entering the palace following the guide sent by the Queen, she vanished from right before my eyes in the blink of an eye.”
“Vanished? Not that you lost sight of her, but she vanished?”
“Yes.”
Hong Ran nodded. Clutching her two hands tightly together, she continued speaking.
“However, my lady was not alarmed in the least and calmly sought out the Queen’s Palace. Thanks to her walking easily as if she had already known the way, we arrived somewhat earlier than the scheduled time. But… that was the problem.”
The light in Hong Ran’s eyes sank. Her face had always been full of bright smiles, but now, not a single trace of warmth could be found.
“The Queen, on the contrary, found fault with our arriving early and—”
“Child!”
With a face turned deathly pale, Lady Han scanned their surroundings. She exclaimed in a low voice.
“No matter the circumstances, to say that the Queen found fault…”
“Leave her be.”
Lord Seo signaled to Lady Han. At the rare flash of annoyance in his eyes, Lady Han shut her mouth and sat back down.
Lord Seo nodded to Hong Ran.
“Continue.”
“She ordered my lady to kneel in the courtyard of the Queen’s Palace and wait until she finished dressing.”
“…She told her to kneel?”
“Yes.”
Hong Ran nodded firmly. Tears began to well in her eyes. She tried hard to suppress them, but the moisture forcing its way up made her eyes grow damp once more.
“We only hurried our steps in an unfamiliar place because being late would be rude, arriving just ten minutes early. Yet my lady had to kneel in the mud for over two shijin.”
Jain and Chohee recalled the clothes they had just removed with stunned faces. They had whispered to each other that it looked as though she had rolled around in the mud, and that had actually been the truth.
“Because she endured that punishment while facing the harsh sunlight and wind, my lady ended up losing consciousness. If His Majesty had not arrived…”
Hong Ran clenched her two hands tightly into fists.
Lord Seo looked down at Hong Ran’s hands. Those hands were covered in fingernail marks. It was plainly visible how hard she had gripped and twisted her own hands, torturing herself.
Lord Seo averted his gaze from those blood-tinged hands and looked at Lee Yeon. His heart ached at her deathly pale face.
“Then His Majesty did indeed help her.”
“Yes.”
So that is what the eunuch’s words meant, Lord Seo murmured to himself.
He had wondered what it meant when the eunuch said His Majesty had actually pulled her out of the quagmire, but he had truly saved her.
‘What is the meaning of this, Lee Yeon…?’
Everyone in the palace knew that the King’s ill will toward Lord Seo was no ordinary matter.
Knowing that the King sought to take his life by any means possible, he could not fathom at all what this current development signified.
‘To think that he cares for Lee Yeon even to the point of lending the King’s palanquin, when he was once so enraged…’
Not stopping at snatching her from the Queen’s hands, he had even put her in the King’s palanquin to send her out of the palace. It was impossible to know what his true intentions were.
On top of that, there was one more thing.
“What did those words mean as well?”
Hong Ran slowly raised her head. It was because she realized the nature of the question had changed.
“His Majesty’s eunuch referred to you as ‘that person.’ Can you explain this?”
Just then, the door creaked open, letting in a draft of cold air.
Juhwa, who had not dared to enter the room and had been listening with her ear pressed to the outside, could not hold back any longer and slid the door open the moment her daughter was mentioned.
Meeting Juhwa’s eyes, Hong Ran clenched her fists tightly. As if having made up her mind, she parted her lips.
“That is…”

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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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