I Became My Ex-Boyfriend’s Concubine - Chapter 39

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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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Chapter 39

Dan-bi squeezed out what strength remained and pulled Hyeon forward, then shoved open the gate of the private house.
The cottage had been silent for so long that no warmth lingered in its rooms. Weeds thick enough to wind around her ankles carpeted the courtyard, and the musty smell of dust caught in her nostrils.
Fortunately, someone had sheltered here recently enough that an old wooden platform bed still lay in the inner room.
Dan-bi hurried to lay Hyeon on it. The moment his back touched the floor, a weary groan leaked through his lips.
“Your Highness, just hold on a little longer.”
Dan-bi ran outside in haste.
Behind the house, she heard the gentle babble of water—a small stream flowing from between rocks.
She tore the sleeve of her jeogori roughly and soaked it in the cold water. Her hands ached from the cold, but there was nothing better for bringing down Hyeon’s fever.
Returning to the room, Dan-bi placed the wet cloth on Hyeon’s forehead. Then she roughly undid the crimson official robe covering his chest.
The flesh exposed beneath the torn cloth was already gruesome. The wound—shattered by the arrowhead and festering—looked painful enough to turn one’s stomach.
As Dan-bi carefully wiped away the wound, her hand suddenly froze.
The fever was too intense.
It was too hot to be the body of a living person. The warmth felt like touching a glowing coal, and her heart sank.
‘This isn’t right. It can’t be just from the arrow strike…’
Dan-bi frowned and examined the wound more closely. As she wiped away the blood, the true horror came into view.
The area around where the arrow had lodged was already blackened. The corrupted, festering appearance suggested something far worse than a simple injury.
Black tendrils crawled upward from the stab wound, writhing as if alive.
Dan-bi reached out and touched the edge of the wound with her fingertip. In that instant, a transparent, viscous liquid coating the arrowhead transferred to her skin.
“…!”
Her fingertip burned as though touched by flame. As Dan-bi jerked her hand back, Hyeon—who had been breathing heavily—parted his lips with effort.
“…Poison.”
“Poison?”
Hyeon offered no response, his eyes closing once more.
Poison.
So his weakness all this time hadn’t been merely from blood loss.
The situation was far worse than she’d thought.
A black poison aura was spreading from the arrow wound toward his chest—visible to the naked eye.
It was critical. If left as it was, the poison would reach his heart only a matter of time.
As Dan-bi moved to examine the wound, Hyeon’s fevered hand reached out and gripped her wrist weakly.
His eyes, visible between sweat-dampened bangs, were unfocused and hazy.
“Is it truly so?”
“What…?”
“That you are… a foreigner.”
The voice that had moments before cut like a blade now held no strength.
Dan-bi’s lips twisted at this sudden question. Of all things to wonder about now.
“How can you ask something so pointless at a time like this!”
Dan-bi snapped, her frustration boiling over.
Here he was, suspicious and muttering nonsense, while his own life hung by a thread. The absurdity of it infuriated her.
Then something flashed across her mind. Dan-bi hastily patted her own robes.
‘Please let it be there…’
Her searching fingers found something cool and glass.
It was the antidote she’d received as a quest reward not long ago. Even in the darkness, the liquid inside the bottle flickered with an otherworldly light.
Dan-bi unstopped the bottle without hesitation and brought it to Hyeon’s lips. But the poison had spread so far that he seemed to lack even the strength to open his mouth.
When she tried to pour the liquid between his lips, it merely ran down his chin and dribbled away uselessly.
“What am I supposed to do!”
Dan-bi bit her lip.
At this rate, he wouldn’t swallow a single drop of medicine—he would stop breathing without managing even that. The black mark spreading across his chest was advancing at a terrifying pace.
There was no time to worry about propriety.
Dan-bi filled her mouth with the antidote. The sharp, herbal scent of the medicine flooded across her tongue.
She seized Hyeon’s jaw and forced it open, then pressed her lips to his. His breath, burning hot, rushed in against hers.
Slowly, Dan-bi pushed the antidote down his throat. Through the contact of their lips, the irregular rhythm of his heartbeat reached her with vivid clarity.
Only when she felt his Adam’s apple move did Dan-bi carefully withdraw.
He swallowed the medicine, then gasped for breath before falling into a deep, quiet sleep.
Was it working?
Dan-bi leaned her head close to him. The breath at his ear was far steadier than before.
At last, her worry eased. She exhaled the breath she’d been holding and rose to her feet.
With trembling hands, she gathered the fabric draped across his forehead and wiped away the cold sweat clinging to his face.
In the darkened room, only the two of them breathed—ragged, shallow, filling the silence. Dan-bi pressed her lips tight and whispered low.
“You have to live. Even if you die, let it be by my hand.”
The words fell like a curse and yet, at the same time, like a desperate incantation to hold herself together.
“Gasp—hack!”
He convulsed with a violent cough. Dan-bi reacted on instinct, clinging to him.
“Hyun!”
“……Still so careless with my name.”
His eyes opened to slits, turning toward her. At last, he was awake.
Dan-bi rested her head against the wall, breathing heavily. Cold sweat traced a path down her spine.
“……Your wish.”
His voice, hoarse and broken, shattered the silence. Dan-bi murmured without opening her eyes.
“Don’t speak. You haven’t the strength.”
Instead of answering, Hyun’s gaze fell to his own chest.
The Antidote was beginning to work—the black poison aura around the Stab Wound was gradually fading.
His eyes lingered on the crimson Ribbon wound carelessly around it, and for a moment something complex flickered across his gaze.
“A rather reckless thing to do.”
Dan-bi laughed quietly. Not a word of thanks—only complaint. That was how she knew he truly would live.
“Had I done otherwise, Your Highness, you wouldn’t be of this world by now.”
“That blunt tongue of yours hasn’t changed.”
The Wound throbbed; pain twisted across his brow. Dan-bi watched the steady rise and fall of his chest.
After a long silence, his gaze drifted to the ceiling. Then his heavy lips parted once more.
“What sort of place was it, where you came from?”
“……Pardon?”
The sudden question caught her off guard. Dan-bi blinked, and Hyun turned to face her directly.
“Must I repeat myself?”
“You didn’t…… believe me before, did you?”
Dan-bi felt a flutter of confusion.
Until now, Hyun had never asked again about her claim to come from another world. She’d assumed he simply didn’t believe her, that he was dismissing her entirely. But perhaps that wasn’t it at all.
She met his gaze directly.
His eyes were gentler now than before—softer. In that brief shift, something stirred in her chest.
Dan-bi turned slowly toward the window.
The forest, soaked in pale moonlight, was desperately quiet. No hum of a city of towers, no light that defies the night—this place was still strange to her.
“There……the night is as bright as day. Even when the sun sets, no one sleeps.”
She pulled her knees close and rested her chin on them.
“Buildings rise so high they seem to pierce the sky, and a Thatched Cottage like this…… you’d be hard-pressed to find one.”
Dan-bi’s voice fell to a dreamlike murmur.
Hyun knit his brow as though struggling to comprehend, yet he held fast to each unfamiliar word that spilled from her lips.
“And there’s no stubborn king like Your Highness. Everyone says what they please. Sometimes it’s so loud it’s unbearable.”
Dan-bi laughed softly. With each word chosen, an ache blossomed in her chest.
Even as she spoke, one face flashed before her eyes—a face she missed. Her voice grew thick with longing.
“I left someone behind there. That’s why I have to go back. No matter what.”

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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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