I Became My Ex-Boyfriend’s Concubine - Chapter 20

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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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Episode 20

She shrank back against the bitter cold, and the Gold Guard soldiers gripping both her arms wrenched her forward roughly.
Dan-bi stumbled ahead, powerless against their force.
When they reached the gray iron bars glazed with white frost, the door swung open with a harsh screech.
“Inside. Now.”
Shoved forward by their momentum, Dan-bi crashed hard onto the stone floor.
The moment she lifted her head, the door slammed shut behind her. The Gold Guard fastened the bolt without a glance and departed, leaving only silence.
Heavy footsteps echoed hollowly down the empty corridor.
“God, it’s freezing——”
Dan-bi scrambled to her feet.
The skin that had touched the ground felt raw from the cold. Her clothes were so thin that they offered no defense against the chill seeping in from every direction.
She drew her knees up and hugged herself as tightly as possible. Her breath rose in white plumes into the air. She stared at it numbly for a moment, then buried her face between her knees.
“Well. I suppose I’ve paid my debts now, haven’t I?”

***

Two hours before Dan-bi entered the Cold Palace.
She recalled the Gold Guard soldiers in the Royal Wardrobe Chamber with blades drawn, and Hyun watching her with eyes that promised death.
In the oppressive silence, Hyun studied her face before finally speaking.
“You tried to kill me?”
“Yes.”
“What changed your mind?”
Attitude.
That single word told Dan-bi exactly how Hyun saw her.
A desperate woman who would lie without hesitation, using any means necessary to escape danger.
Nothing more, nothing less.
He wasn’t the sort to be fooled so easily. Which meant she had to convince him over and over, in whatever way necessary.
That the strange dream was never a dream at all.
“You remember, don’t you? What we talked about in that dream?”
“What do you——”
“You already know. That it’s no longer ‘real’ anymore.”
“——!!”
Hyun’s eyes trembled violently. Dan-bi barely suppressed a smile that threatened to bloom across her face.
It was a decidedly successful reaction.
When Dan-bi had reviewed the reset cycle in order to convince Hyun, the moment that had troubled her most was their negotiation.
Her station was merely that of a concubine who had just entered the palace. The fact that she received official robes upon arrival suggested noble birth, yet the world-order placed absolute power in the king’s hands.
She could never have dared to contradict him.
And yet in the previous cycle, after Dan-bi had exited the game, this character had moved on its own and attempted a bold negotiation with Hyun.
And what mattered most was that the negotiation had succeeded.
There had been only one thing Hyun wanted.

“Your Majesty, I truly know where the Jade Seal is kept.”

The location of the Jade Seal.
That single offer had made Hyun accept even absurd proposals—like bringing rain from the heavens.
It was quite likely that Hyun’s desperate push for the Rain Ceremony stemmed from that very negotiation with her.
If it was something he desired that intensely, she was certain it would work again now.
And judging by his reaction, her intuition had proven correct.
“Ha.”
Hyun exhaled, looking at Dan-bi as though she had taken his breath away. Then he suddenly began to laugh, as if overcome by madness.
“Hahahaha!”
The Gold Guard and the servants turned to stare at him in alarm. His wild laughter cut off abruptly.
He adjusted his grip on the sword in his hand.
Whoosh——
The blade whistled through the air, its sharp edge leveled straight at Dan-bi.
“So I amuse you, do I?”
“I’m just telling you the truth. Whether you believe it is your choice.”
A heavy silence fell over the tense standoff. Dan-bi met Hyeon’s gaze with unwavering eyes.
“I fail to see your logic. Even if all you say were true, the fact that you attempted to harm me does not change. Do you truly believe I would spare your life?”
“Well, that depends on how badly you want ‘that.'”
Hyeon’s face crumpled in an instant. Dan-bi suppressed a surge of satisfaction.
If he remembered the past before the Reset and believed it had truly happened, then the conversations they’d shared would be equally unforgettable to him.
The terror of the blade’s edge that had sought his death would linger just as vividly as the hunger to reclaim the Jade Seal.
The fact that Hyeon remembered the Reset was, in that moment, decidedly lucky for Dan-bi.
“Take the consort to the Cold Palace.”
“Your Majesty! But surely—”
Hyeon answered only by sheathing his sword and turning away. He cast one final glance at Dan-bi, then left the Royal Wardrobe Chamber without hesitation.
Rang hurried after him, calling out to the Gold Guards.
“Bind the consort and transport her to the Cold Palace!”
“Yes, sir!”
Dan-bi was seized by the rough hands of the Gold Guards surrounding her. Moments later, she was hurled into the barred cell of the Cold Palace.
Dan-bi pulled gently at the Iron Shackles encircling both her wrists. The cold metal bit into her skin, emitting a sharp sound.
Still, she could count herself fortunate. She had survived that brush with death, and as long as she lived, some path forward must exist.
The problem was that she had no idea what that path might be.
What troubled her most was the simple fact that she could not leave this game.
Dan-bi looked up at the Status Window still blinking above her head.

「Cannot Exit Game」

The words burned themselves into her vision.
Since being killed by Hyeon in the previous cycle, that message had never disappeared—as if condemning her to remain trapped in this world forever.
There was no guarantee anywhere that clearing all the quests would allow her to escape.
It was merely speculation.
Yet she could not simply accept being imprisoned in this false world eternally without action.
Dan-bi recalled the error windows that had multiplied infinitely and swallowed the screen.
If this current state was some kind of bug, then forcing the game’s situation to progress and refreshing the data might produce some change.
Of course, all she could do for now was struggle within the game itself.
But there was something else—in a game already so strange, the existence of Hyeon, who remembered the Reset, sparked another suspicion.
She had played countless games over the years, yet she had never encountered a single NPC who retained memories of the player’s previous life.
NPCs were designed such that they could never conceive that this world was anything but real. For them, only their programmed worldview constituted the whole universe.
But Hyeon clearly remembered the previous cycle. It was an exception utterly outside the game’s systems.
His perception had been contaminated with a perspective that viewed this world not as real, but as false.
Yet Hyeon could not see the Status Window as she could, nor was he a player aware that this place was a game.
Watching him teeter on that precarious threshold, Dan-bi allowed herself a thought.
Perhaps the key to escaping this bizarre game lay with him.
“That man has something. Perhaps…”
Dan-bi lifted her head to look at the Status Window. Above the ominous warning that read “Cannot Exit Game,” a newly updated Main Quest window blinked ominously.
“Maybe that Main Quest to kill him is no coincidence either.”
That was when it happened.
From far down the corridor, she heard people speaking in hushed tones.
Heavy footsteps drew nearer, and soon a long shadow fell across the bars.
When she looked up, she found herself face to face with a man in red Official Robes, his eyes suddenly widening in shock.
“Dan-bi!”
“Who—”
Dan-bi began to answer, then caught herself and fell silent.
By the way he spoke her name, he was clearly someone she knew. There was no point in feigning ignorance and drawing suspicion.
Fortunately, he didn’t seem to have heard her half-voiced response. He gripped the frost-covered bars, his eyes growing red.
“How did you come to be in such a state… I have no face to show you, your father.”
Father? Did he just say father?
Dan-bi studied him with puzzled eyes. His tears flowed freely at the sight of her—it was quite convincing.
So this man was cast as her father in this game.
The man bowed his head as if to press his forehead against the bars, sobbing. The Gold Guard watching him turned away indifferently and stepped aside.
As the footsteps faded toward the end of the corridor, the man glanced after the departing guard, then abruptly swiveled his head toward Dan-bi.
For a brief moment, the tears that had lined his eyes vanished as if they’d never existed. He gestured urgently to Dan-bi, beckoning her closer.
She tilted her head and slowly approached. He leaned down and brought his lips close to her ear, whispering.
“Have you found it?”
Found what? What on earth is he talking about?
When Dan-bi stared back at him with an expression of utter bewilderment, the man swept his gaze around the space once more before dropping his voice to barely a whisper.
“The Jade Seal. Are you asking if I found it?”

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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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