I Became My Ex-Boyfriend’s Concubine - Chapter 30

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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 30

As the Queen consort approached with assured steps, the palace attendants around her bowed their heads in unison and retreated.
“Your Majesty, what brings you here at this hour?”
“What brings me? I’ve come to see the King.”
The Queen consort’s gaze lingered briefly on Danbi standing beside him. She lifted her head, the flicker of emotion vanishing from her face as quickly as it had appeared.
“But tell me, if I may—is what I’ve heard the truth?”
“It is.”
At the King’s candid reply, the Queen consort’s brow tightened, then smoothed just as quickly. With her usual gentle composure, she drew her lips into a faint smile.
“How can that be…?”
“I intend to bring Sukwon with me on the hunt to procure offerings for the Rain Ritual Ceremony.”
“Forgive me, Your Majesty, but please reconsider this matter.”
Rang, who had been watching from behind, stepped forward with a bow and remonstrated once more.
“Bringing Sukwon herself to the Hunting Grounds runs counter to proper protocol…”
“I am the law itself. What significance has propriety against that?”
“That is not all, Your Majesty. Sukwon herself…”
Rang trailed off, closing his mouth.
The King grasped his meaning at once.
He had issued a Gag Order regarding Danbi, so the confrontation that day was merely whispered rumor drifting through the palace—nothing more.
The King’s mouth curved slightly as his eyes moved between Danbi and Rang. His casual gesture severed the silence stretched taut as a bowstring.
“Rang.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Go finish what you were about to do. Her Horsemanship instruction.”
At the King’s command, Rang’s eyes flickered restlessly between the Queen consort and Danbi.
In that moment, the Queen consort’s gaze descended quietly onto the crown of Danbi’s head. That serene look, unmarred by censure or fury, sent a chill across the back of her neck.
“Did you not hear my words?”
The pressure in her voice left no room for refusal. Rang bowed deeply and, casting a suspicious glance at Danbi, turned toward the Training Ground.
The King watched Danbi’s retreating figure until she was gone, then turned to face the Queen consort with a gentle bow.
“Your Majesty looks pallid. It seems you have something pressing to say. Come, let us go inside.”

***

The Queen consort entered the Great Hall and took her seat across from the King, her bearing impeccable.
Her warm smile remained, yet a subtle chill emanated from her fingertips as she set down her tea cup.
“Your Majesty, I wonder if flowers have been drifting through the palace of late—the fragrance grows quite heavy.”
Her voice was gentle. Rather than accuse directly, she had always favored such roundabout comparisons to flowers and weather, embedding thorns within her words.
“Flowers, you say? I took it for mere fog hanging thick, yet your eyes perceive it otherwise?”
“The fragrance is far too strong for mere fog, and I confess concern that it might cloud Your Majesty’s keen judgment in matters of state. Especially since this hunt concerns the nation’s very fate.”
The Queen consort paused, meeting his gaze directly, her smile never wavering.
“Such a resolve to bring Sukwon, who has scarcely mastered proper decorum, to such a momentous occasion must surely spring from purposes beyond my understanding. Yet I worry that a flower blooming too early breaks easily in the cold wind, and I fear Your Majesty’s precious heart may be injured by association with her.”
It was a warning disguised as concern.
The King understood at once: she was cautioning him not to be undone by some dangerous woman surrounded by vile rumors.
He stirred his tea cup absently and let out a low laugh.
“Your Majesty’s concern exceeds what is warranted. Do I go to admire that flower? I merely wish to test whether it can survive the tempests it might face.”
“A test, you say? How mischievous you are, Your Majesty.”
The Queen consort laughed lightly and raised her cup, yet her eyes remained cold and distant throughout.
“If you were to test, surely a sheltered hothouse would suffice. Yet to see you drag her into such rough terrain suggests that the thorns this flower bears have captured Your Majesty’s fancy indeed. I merely hope that before those thorns wound your hand, you will first pluck them at the root.”
It was a gentle yet cutting rebuke.
The King savored it, inclining his upper body back with evident pleasure.
“Whether I uproot it or cultivate it further for the hunt remains my decision. Let Your Majesty simply wait with patience to see what quarry I shall snare.”
The Queen consort bowed her head in acknowledgment rather than reply.
It was an elegant, composed posture, yet the white knuckles of her clasped hands betrayed what lay beneath.
The King observed those clenched knuckles in silence for a long moment before speaking.
“Your Majesty.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“I had a curious dream last night.”
The sound of her teacup being set down rang with unusual harshness.
“In that dream, I obtained a most precious quarry. Yet when I attempted to dress this beast in beautiful hide, someone standing nearby tore that hide from its living body.”
Hyun stopped his horse and studied the Queen’s expression.
“That such a twisted heart would rather destroy the leather in her hands than see it slip through her fingers—as though her envy were strangling me. When I finally seized the ruined hide from those hands and draped it across my own body, I woke.”
Hyun’s gaze pierced deep into the Queen’s eyes.
Yet her face held only a faint bewilderment, as though she truly did not understand.
The crazed obsession she had shown in the past, tearing the Rain Ritual Ceremonial Robes apart, left not a trace.
It was a memory only he possessed—too vivid to dismiss as merely a dream.
On the day of the Rain Ritual Ceremony, Hyun had sought out the Queen’s quarters first, believing her skilled hands would have created perfect robes.
But what he glimpsed through the crack in the door was something utterly unexpected.

“Damn woman.”

At the Queen’s feet lay an unfinished garment, trampled beneath her as she gripped a completed set of robes in her hands, grinding her teeth with sharp fury.

“Your Majesty?”
“My lord!”

At the sound of his voice, the Queen startled and spun around. The garment in her hands she hastily concealed behind her back, her eyes wavering without focus.
Hyun approached her slowly.

“I came believing you had already completed the Rain Ritual Ceremonial Robes. Might I see them?”
“That is… I…”

Hyun regarded her hesitation quietly, then gently took the garment she had hidden behind her back.
He accepted the cloth she reluctantly offered, his gaze lowering.
Trampled beneath the Queen’s feet and strewn about was unmistakably the unfinished work of hers that he had seen each time he visited her quarters.
‘Then…’
If his suspicion was correct, the robe now handed to him belonged to the concubine with whom the Queen had been competing.
Before he could even wonder how the concubine’s creation had come to rest in the Queen’s hands, Hyun simply looked down at her in silence.
Her bare feet, which trampled the garment she herself had sewn, gleamed pale and trembling.

“…My lord.”
At her quiet voice, Hyun stirred from his reverie.
He lifted his head as the Queen, still bowed, spoke with calm composure.
“A dream is merely illusion. Why burden your heart with such an ominous phantom? I must redouble my devotion to your wellbeing.”
“Illusion, you say. I wish to believe as much, but with the hunt approaching, such a dream leaves my mind unsettled.”
Hyun lifted his teacup again.
“Tell me, Queen—what do you make of a hunter who desires not the quarry itself, but only to destroy what falls into my hands out of spite?”
“How could I presume to fathom such intentions? I can only hope that no one harboring such malice dwells at your side.”
The Queen offered her customary gentle smile.
“That would ease my mind. Though I should tell you—my hunting grounds are no gentle place.”
Hyun set down his cup and spoke softly.
“The identity of hunter and hunted becomes quite clear there.”
Hyun rose and straightened his robes. The Queen remained bowed in courtesy.
As he passed her, his eyes had grown cold and sharp.
Who truly was the hunter and who the prey—the blood-soaked hunting grounds would strip away her pretense, layer by layer.
And it would begin with sharpening the claws of the hunting hound he himself would release into that arena.

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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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