I Became My Ex-Boyfriend’s Concubine - Chapter 52

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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 52

“That should do.”
The moment Dan-bi stepped into the Inner Chamber, she pulled away from Hyun’s embrace at once.
His eyebrows twitched at the sight of her calmly adjusting her disheveled clothes as though nothing had happened. Dan-bi glanced up at him without concern and continued speaking.
“Your voice won’t carry out there to the attendants. So what is it you really wanted to say?”
“Ha.”
Hyun let out a breathless laugh as if utterly at a loss.
“You already knew why I came here?”
“Otherwise there’d be no reason for you to put on that act in front of the attendants.”
All that talk of loving him, of wanting to give him love.
It was nothing but honeyed words meant to tickle the ears of others and draw their attention.
His intention was transparent. Without something weighing heavily on his mind, he’d never resort to such hollow words to mask the truth.
‘He thought he had me dancing right in his palm. So why does reality disappoint him so?’
Dan-bi stared at him while swallowing her thoughts. Hyun’s eyes narrowed as if trying to read her expression.
“Quite the confident gleam in those eyes.”
“I have some perceptiveness too.”
“Then you must already know what brought me here.”
Before she could respond, his hand shot out. In an instant he seized her throat and shoved her roughly against the wall, his voice dropping to a growl.
“Ugh—what is this—!”
The pressure choking her throat made Dan-bi reflexively grab his wrist with both hands. Hyun leaned his head close and whispered.
“What. You didn’t see this coming?”
As a sound began to escape her, his other hand clamped over her mouth, his fingers pressing hard.
“P-please—!”
“If you thought I’d simply fall into your hands because you saved my life, you’re sorely mistaken.”
“What?”
The eyes locked with hers twisted with fury. Dan-bi bit her lip as his grip tightened further.
“From the assassins Woo-sang sent, to the antidote you had already prepared. Where do I even begin?”
His voice emerged raw and fractured, twisted with an emotion that might have been betrayal—or perhaps a disbelief he simply could not bear.
“From where did you start toying with me?”
Now Dan-bi understood why Hyun had become so sharp-edged.
From his perspective, every event had fallen into place like a meticulously choreographed script.
Woo-sang had sent assassins to the hunting grounds, and the arrowheads they fired carried a lethal poison. Until that point, no one could have predicted such a variable.
Yet of all things, she possessed the antidote to that very poison.
She—Dan-bi, the daughter of Woo-sang.
To Hyun’s eyes, this entire dramatic rescue could appear to be nothing but a contemptible scheme orchestrated by father and daughter to bring him down.
It was unjust.
She herself had never dreamed the antidote would be used for such a purpose.
But if she told him it was an item received as a reward for completing a sub-quest, she’d be branded a lunatic all over again, that much was certain.
And hadn’t she already told him this was all part of a game?
If he couldn’t understand that, then what was she supposed to do?
Dan-bi’s face flushed with indignation. She opened her eyes wide with defiance, staring directly into Hyun’s gaze as he looked down at her.
She did not regret saving him.
Dan-bi knew her own nature far too well—rigid and inflexible to a fault.
She had a compulsion to return what she received; she had merely repaid the debt of gratitude she owed him.
But if he insisted this had all been orchestrated, faced with a coincidence that fell into place with such impeccable precision, she had no convincing excuse to offer.
“So this is all part of the game—”
“Will you spout more nonsense about having come from another world?”
His curt interruption made Dan-bi bite her lip.
Even speaking honestly landed her in this state—what explanation could possibly help? His eyes had already lost all reason.
No. The important thing now was not confession.
Even if he suspected her, he had ultimately shielded Woo-sang’s crimes before the ministers.
He was the one who had commended her for saving his life and bestowed upon her the rank of Noblewoman. None of those actions could have been mere whimsy.
She had observed enough throughout all this time to know he was not the sort to act on such impulse.
And the fact that he had come all the way here and questioned her away from the attendants’ eyes meant he would not make this public.
So he had no intention of killing her here and now.
It was clear. He wanted something from her.
‘What is it? What am I missing?’
Clinging to her slipping consciousness, Dan-bi forced her eyes open.
A Status Window flashed blue in the empty air. She fixed her gaze on it, then slowly parted her lips.
“Rain.”
“……?”
“If it rains, would you believe what I say?”
For a breath, the hands strangling her throat went slack. She seized the gap and rolled her body sideways at once.
“Hack, hack!”
A dry cough tore from her bruised throat. Her legs gave way and she sank to the floor, yet she still lifted her head.
Her eyes met Hyun’s, whose gaze still bore down on her with terrifying intensity.
“What did you just say?”
“Rain. Isn’t that why you came here? Because of that?”
“……!”
Hyun’s pupils quivered sharply.
Dan-bi recalled what had happened in the Throne Hall moments before. When she’d demanded that Hyun grant her a Noblewoman’s rank, he must have remembered their conversation from the previous iteration.
That bargain where he offered to give her the Royal Seal if she would accept the rank.
But Dan-bi had not given him the Royal Seal. Instead, she’d raised a plea for rain and sabotaged the Giuoje ritual.
From Hyun’s perspective, she’d struck him squarely in the back of the head.
“Is this also mockery of me?”
“How could it be?”
Dan-bi met Hyun’s piercing gaze directly, not flinching.
A tense silence stretched between them.
Now she understood why Hyun had been so fixated on the Royal Seal.
Her initial suspicion that the Royal Seal was connected to the Giuoje had come from words Woo-sang had spoken when he’d sought her out at Naeng-gung.

“If things continue as they are, the Giuoje will open. If we cannot find the Royal Seal before then, we must kill him by any means necessary before that happens. Do you understand?”

Woo-sang was pursuing the Royal Seal, and if he couldn’t find it before the Giuoje opened, he’d said Hyun must be killed instead.
In other words, if the Royal Seal existed when the Giuoje opened, the entire landscape would shift.
If that was true, then his desperation for the Giuoje made sense, as did his decision in the last iteration to grant her Noblewoman’s rank and keep her by his side to search for the Royal Seal.
The Giuoje was undoubtedly far more than a mere ritual to petition heaven for rain.
A king who had endured all this time without the true Royal Seal. His subjects who reviled him, and his ministers who constantly threatened his life.
An absolute symbol that could overturn all these disadvantages in a single stroke.
‘Unwavering, steadfast royal authority.’
That was what he truly sought. And if that was the case, what he desperately desired now was equally clear.
“You do have perceptiveness—I suppose that wasn’t entirely a lie.”
Hyun dropped to one knee, bringing his gaze level with Dan-bi’s. He leaned close and sneered.
“Tell me. Where is the true Royal Seal?”
The true Royal Seal.
Dan-bi swallowed a sigh and squeezed her eyes shut. So he wanted only one thing after all.
The fact that Hyun hadn’t asked outright about the Royal Seal’s whereabouts until now was almost a stroke of luck. If he had, she would never have crossed the threshold of Oon-cheong-gak to begin with.
Of course, she had no way of knowing what scheme had kept him silent until this moment, but at least it hadn’t worked against her.
The problem was, regarding the whereabouts of that true Royal Seal, she herself had nothing whatsoever to say.
It was only natural.
After all, she’d entered the palace to find the true Royal Seal in the first place. How could she know where it was?
“It seems your thoughts haven’t reached that far yet.”
At his sudden interjection, Dan-bi lifted her head. His expression was quiet as he spoke matter-of-factly.
“I already know. That you don’t have the Royal Seal.”

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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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