Even If Flowers Bloom on a Broken Branch - 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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75.
The paving stones in front of the Grand Hall were exceptionally jagged and cold.
The palace maids of Daehee Palace stood with their heads bowed, led by Court Lady Shin, and in front of them, Chae Eun-oh knelt with her hair disheveled and dressed in plain white mourning clothes.
It was a simple appearance, with her hair down for the first time since she entered the palace.
“Your Majesty.”
Chae Eun-oh bowed her head toward Jeongjeongjeon.
“Please punish your humble servant.”
Hearing that the Queen was performing Seokgodaemyung, officials and palace attendants lined up in front of the gate to Jeongjeongjeon with troubled expressions.
With the Royal Court assembly and departmental schedules pending, it was difficult to enter while the Queen was acting in such a manner.
“And yet, why does she hold her head so high while pleading for her crime?”
Though she sat in plain white clothes on a roughly woven straw mat, Chae Eun-oh sat with her back straight.
She bowed her head but did not prostrate herself. It was not the posture of someone begging for forgiveness.
“Please take heed, Your Majesty!”
“Please take heed, Your Majesty!”
At Court Lady Shin’s cry, the palace maids bent their waists and shouted in unison.
People watched the scene from a distance and did not approach. They did not even cross the threshold.
In their eyes, before being the Queen, Chae Eun-oh was the daughter of a criminal. She had gone from someone they did not want to be involved with to someone they must not be involved with.
“……”
Chae Eun-oh felt those gazes too. She could clearly tell that the temperature of the eyes watching her had changed.
She knew that what lingered in those eyes was neither fear nor awe, and that a smirk seeped through their glancing expressions.
‘Why me?’
Chae Eun-oh gritted her teeth.
Her entire body trembled so much that her hemp mourning clothes shook.
It was not from the cold, but from rage. What was written on her pale face was not fear, but a sense of injustice.
‘Why do I…… have to suffer such a plight?’
She could say it with certainty. Upon her life, without a doubt, she had absolutely nothing to do with this matter.
She did not know her father was lending money, nor did she even know a woman named Hong Ran existed in this world.
The idea itself of kidnapping that woman to torment Lee Yeon was quite excellent, but she was not the one who ordered it.
‘Then why…… is this spark flying at me? Why must I take the damage?’
The words she could not shout out loud felt as if they were melting her internal organs inside her body. It felt as if her bones were rotting from anger, humiliation, and resentment.
‘Why!’
Countless times she had cried out for him to listen to her heart, to listen to her words. She had even gone to him directly to beg him to spend the night with her.
That was how she had protected and built up this position. Yet she could not accept, she could not tolerate, that the tip of the blade was pointed at her, entangled in her father’s crime rather than her own.
“This is unjust.”
She knew that saying ‘please punish me’ was not actually begging for punishment, but a roundabout way of asking him to look into the situation. She knew that. But the words would not leave her lips.
Since it was a phrase that could only come out if there were even a handful of atonement and reflection, not a single word could spring from a heart filled with injustice and resentment.
“Your servant is wronged, Your Majesty!”
Chae Eun-oh gripped the cold straw mat with both hands. It was the moment she lowered her body over the foul-smelling fabric, about to shout once more for him to look into it.
“Your Highness.”
Court Lady Shin called out to Chae Eun-oh in a low voice. Chae Eun-oh slowly raised her head. A fleeting hope crossed her face, wondering if Jinpyeong had heard her voice and come out.
However, Court Lady Shin’s face was rigidly stiff.
“A soldier is coming.”
A soldier?
Chae Eun-oh whipped her head around to look where Court Lady Shin was staring. A lone soldier was running from afar.
Court Lady Shin hurriedly walked over and asked the soldier something. And the next moment, her face turned pale.
‘What is it?’
Anxiety suddenly reared its head. Her heart felt uncomfortable.
Thump, thump—the pulsing was so violent that her heart felt as if it would leap out of her throat.
‘What did he say to make her face stiffen like that?’
The urge to snap at her to come and report quickly rose to the tip of her throat.
As if she had heard that thought, Court Lady Shin walked back with quick steps and bowed her head to Chae Eun-oh.
“Your Highness.”
“What is it?”
Court Lady Shin could not speak easily. When she only hovered her lips, Chae Eun-oh shouted lowly.
“I am asking you what it is!”
At the sharp and fierce urging, Court Lady Shin closed her eyes tightly and spoke.
“They say the Gukgu Lord…… passed away during the Gungmun.”
For a moment, the air seemed to freeze. The faces of the Daehee Palace maids standing behind Chae Eun-oh turned pale all at once.
Chae Eun-oh stammered as she asked back.
“Passed…… away?”
It felt as if the words heard by her right ear had slipped out through her left ear.
Her heart pounded. It felt as if the world was spinning around her. As Chae Eun-oh staggered, Court Lady Shin quickly supported her body.
“Your Highness!”
Thinking that Chae Eun-oh was fainting, the palace attendants called out to her in confusion.
Chae Eun-oh thought blankly, pressing both hands against the ground.
‘He is dead?’
No tears came. Even though she heard that her father was dead, that he had passed away while being tortured, not a single tear fell.
The first thought that came to mind was neither sorrow nor misery, but this.
‘Then what about me now?’
Her father was a shield. He was annoying and unpleasant, but still, throughout her life, he had protected her from the wind and waves and backed her up so she could enter this palace.
Though he had broken himself by doing foolish things at the end, he had still served as a shield. But now, that had vanished. And in the worst possible way.
“How……”
Her breath grew ragged. Unable to breathe properly, her face turned white. People grabbed her from all sides. They held her from both sides to help her breathe properly and made her bend her waist.
“Pull yourself together, Your Highness!”
Chae Eun-oh pressed her face against the floor for the first time. Pressing her cheek against the dirty fabric, she gasped for air. Chae Eun-oh, who was breathing in the air frantically, suddenly widened her eyes.
‘I cannot accept this.’
If she prostrated like this, if she bowed like this, the realization that it would look like admitting the guilt was hers assailed her entire body.
It was unbearably unjust. More than that, she was afraid. For the first time, truly and sincerely, she was terrified.
The thought that she might really be stripped of this position flashed through her mind.
‘I cannot accept it.’
Since her father committed the crime, the crime belonged to her father. It was not a matter for her to suffer damage over.
This was unfair. The world was always unfair, but this was incomparable to anything she had suffered until now.
She had swallowed countless tears to become the Queen. She did not know how much her inside had rotted away. It was a position she had finally grasped after all that, so she could not step down so pointlessly.
“No.”
Her resolve leaked out of her mouth.
“I cannot do that.”
Chae Eun-oh raised her head. What welled up in her eyes was not tears, but wrath.
‘This position, at least.’
This, at least, she had to protect. This position was the very essence of the person named Chae Eun-oh. To lose it was the same as having her entire life denied.
Chae Eun-oh gritted her teeth.
‘You cannot drag me down.’
Her bloodshot eyes gleamed with venom.
* * *
At the same time, Jinpyeong was not in Jeongjeongjeon, but in Geonhwijeon beyond it.
It was a space located in the innermost part of the pavilions where the King’s bedchamber was, where Chae Eun-oh’s voice would not be heard no matter how loudly she shouted.
And opposite Jinpyeong, Hong Ran stood straight.
“Your Majesty.”
Not long after Jinpyeong arrived here, a soldier rushed in to deliver the news that Chae Mun, who had been transferred to Hyeongjo, had died before entering the prison.
Because Chae Mun had been tortured from the very moment his imprisonment began, his body and mind could no longer hold out.
Hearing the news that her enemy had died right in front of her, Hong Ran was not surprised. She did not rejoice either. She merely had a calm face.
Therefore, Jinpyeong was, on the contrary, more curious. He wanted to know what thoughts were swirling behind that clear and gentle face.
“Speak.”
When Jinpyeong urged her to speak with a glance, Hong Ran slowly parted her lips.
“Thank you for executing the one who has long tormented me, my family, and Your Majesty’s people.”
It was a composed voice. There was no sobbing, no exaggeration.
“Only now do I feel I can be free from the misery of the past. I will never dream that day’s nightmare again.”
It was merely gratitude and appreciation, nothing more. Just as it had been since the first day they met.
“Perchance.”
Hong Ran caught her breath for a moment and looked up at Jinpyeong.
She had a face that looked as if she had braced herself or made up her mind. She seemed a bit flushed and somewhat trembling.
“Tonight, may I serve Your Majesty wine with all my heart?”
Jinpyeong paused. He slowly raised his head and looked at Hong Ran.
Hong Ran slowly stretched out her hand and, audaciously, grasped the sleeve of the King’s robe.
“I dare to pray for it.”
Hong Ran’s voice was peaceful, but Jinpyeong’s robe sleeve was fluttering. She was trembling that much. A fire lit up in Jinpyeong’s eyes.
“No.”
Jinpyeong reached out his other hand and gripped the small hand holding his collar. And he pulled her shoulder toward him.
“Not tonight, but now.”
Hong Ran’s body naturally leaned into his embrace, and Jinpyeong buried his face in the nape of her neck, pressing his teeth against it.
“I will take you immediately.”
It was an irresistible command.
Hong Ran did not answer. Instead, she lifted her coat string and placed it in his hand.
That was enough. Jinpyeong did not hold back any longer.

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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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