I Became My Ex-Boyfriend’s Concubine - Chapter 6

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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 6

The concubines stirred at her unexpected words.
Danbi lifted her shoulders in a light shrug, utterly indifferent to the stares that flooded toward her.
“Sure, I could. But there’s no reason I should follow your orders. I don’t care about the Rain Prayer Ceremony or anything else. So I’m done here!”
Danbi reached for the power button and touched her right ear.
Sigh—she’d turned on the game for nothing, just to see a tired face.
“You lack confidence, it seems?”
“What?”
The moment her finger found the button, the Queen Consort stepped close and whispered directly into her ear.
“All big talk and then running away like a child. Isn’t that what they call someone whose mouth got ahead of her nerve?”
“You——!”

“Who says I haven’t beaten you before?”

The Queen Consort spun around smoothly.
“From today onward, you are forbidden from leaving the Private Palace for one month.”
“Pardon? What do you mean by——”
“Your impudent tongue toward me, the Queen Consort, constitutes a Crime of Disrespect, which shall be punished with severity. Therefore, you shall not be seen outside the Private Palace again—”
“Fine.”
All eyes turned to Danbi.
“Fine. That robe—I’ll make it myself.”
“If you——”
Before the Queen Consort could finish, Danbi raised a single finger.
“But I have a condition.”
“A condition?”
A cool tension settled over the gathering as an easy smile played at her lips.
“Seven days. Whichever of us finishes the Rain Prayer Ceremonial Robe first. How about it?”
The concubines began murmuring at Danbi’s unexpected proposal. To dare suggest a contest with the Queen Consort—it was insolence, defiance that went far beyond a simple provocation.
The Queen Consort’s gaze swept quickly around the room.
There were far too many watching eyes and listening ears. She could not predict what rumors might spread if she refused here.
She looked down at Danbi with icy composure.
“Very well. Then, I shall suspend your Confinement for these seven days. Should you complete the robe within that time, I will forgive all your transgressions today. However——”
The Queen Consort stepped closer to Danbi and added quietly.
“If you fail to complete the robe within seven days, you shall remain confined to the Private Palace for the next month. Do you accept?”
Danbi’s mouth twisted upward as if she’d been waiting for this.

***

“How could you simply agree like that!”
The moment they returned to the Private Palace, Manager So’s sharp rebuke descended on Danbi.
Danbi looked up at her with an aggrieved expression, but as the endless scolding stung her ears, she quietly covered them.
“She kept provoking me. What was I supposed to do, just sit there?”
“You should have stayed silent, admitted your fault, acknowledged your place! That’s what you should have done!”
“Why should I? What am I lacking?”
Manager So pressed a hand to her forehead and sank down, at a loss for words.
“The Queen Consort has been renowned since childhood for her exceptional Aesthetic Sense. How could you, who’s never sewn once before, hope to compete against her?”
“Well, perhaps I was like that before, but not anymore.”
“……I beg your pardon?”
Manager So slowly examined the fabric Danbi had handed her.
The embroidered pattern seemed casual at first glance, but its precision was masterful enough to believe a professional had crafted it.
When she looked up in astonishment, Danbi grinned at her triumphantly.
“So? What do you think?”
“Did you really make this yourself? When on earth did you——!”
“Oh, I was just loosening up my hands a moment ago. Not bad, is it?”
Danbi rose abruptly to her feet.
“So, shall we go?”
“Where to?”
When Sol tilted her head in confusion, Danbi reached out her hand.
“Where else? Half the battle in making clothes is choosing the right fabric.”
Danbi recalled a cooking competition show she’d watched on television not long ago.
Before the contestants began cooking, they threw themselves into a frenzy to claim the finest ingredients first.
Materials were skill, and skill was half the victory.
Just as good cooking demanded good ingredients, fine garments demanded fine fabric.
Danbi seized Sol’s hand and made straight for the Royal Storehouse. According to Manager So, most of the royal family’s premium fabrics were kept there.
But then.
“Not a single bolt, you say?”
She’d arrived too late.
“Yes, well—the court ladies just now took every last piece of fabric with them…….”
“What am I to do, miss? It’s certainly the Queen’s command. Perhaps it’s still not too late to beg her forgiveness……!”
“Cut off the supply line out of spite?”
Danbi snorted and bolted from the Royal Storehouse.
“Wait, miss! Where are you going!”
Sol hurried after her, breathless.
The look on her face suggested that if Danbi were left to her own devices, something catastrophic might well unfold.
And that ominous premonition would prove entirely correct.
“……Miss!”
Sol glanced nervously around her. Thankfully, there was no one in sight yet.
Or rather—there shouldn’t be. If anyone caught wind of this, her head would surely roll.
“Miss!”
Sol called out desperately toward the hem of Danbi’s skirt as it swayed before her. Only then did Danbi turn around, pressing a finger to her lips.
“Hush! If we’re discovered, it’s over!”
“But you’re the one drawing attention! We’re more conspicuous than anyone!”
Once Danbi learned that no more fabric could be obtained within the palace, she’d reached only one conclusion.
They’d have to go outside.
It was simple logic: if it couldn’t be found within, it must be found without.
The problem was that she couldn’t simply leave as she pleased.
“So what am I to do? I can’t ask officially, can’t sneak out in disguise—I can’t think of any way to leave except this!”
In the end, Danbi decided to scale the wall. Fortunately, the feel of climbing still lingered in her muscles from childhood days spent ruling the playground on a single bar.
She scrambled up the tree. Before long, she’d climbed so high that the red-tiled roofs spread out below her.
“And what exactly do you mean to do once you’re out there?”
“Find fabric. If I don’t get it today, I won’t have time to finish the garment within the deadline.”
“Couldn’t you simply beg the Queen’s forgiveness and be done with it?”
“Absolutely not.”
Danbi’s answer was firm, and Sol’s lips compressed in a thin line.
“But why go to such lengths?”
“It’s just…….”
The branch beneath her foot cracked suddenly. Her body began to tilt backward over the wall.
“Miss!”
With a sharp snap, the branch gave way entirely.
She reflexively grabbed the wall’s edge. In the moment of her descent through the air, her body defied gravity, rotating lightly through the void in a single turn.
And as she began to land.
‘Hmm? What’s so soft?’
A stranger’s face appeared before her eyes. She found herself half-perched atop an unfamiliar man’s body.
“I’m terribly sorry.”
She started up in alarm, and he rose slowly to his feet. The way he dusted dirt from his clothes was neat and composed.
His durumagi was spotless, not a speck of dust upon it—yet his gaze was sharp as a blade.
“Not at all. But—did you just scale that wall?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You appear to be a court attendant.”
The man’s eyes shifted between Danbi and the wall, then narrowed.
“Surely you don’t mean to tell me the Palace Administration granted no such permission……!”
“No, that’s not—look, over there!”
The man’s gaze followed her pointing finger. But there was only wind-tossed foliage—nothing else at all.
By the time he realized he’d been duped and turned back, the suspicious woman’s silhouette was already vanishing into the distance.
“Wait……!”
The man’s feet halted just as he was about to pursue her. He heard something rustling softly beneath his sole.
He knelt and picked it up, and it gleamed yellow in the moonlight.
A small yellow ornamental pendant that hung from the edge of the jeogori of the woman who had fallen beyond the wall.

***

Danbi quickened her pace and kept glancing back over her shoulder. She’d nearly been caught climbing over the wall.

“Say, did you just climb over that wall?”

Well, actually, she’d already been spotted. There was no hiding that now.
Hmm, what was she going to do about this?
Danbi stood with her arms crossed, her mind working quietly through the problem. Still, there was one bright side—she’d managed to get away from him.
‘So what? That’s good enough, isn’t it?’
After all, they’d only met outside the palace. There was no reason they’d ever cross paths again.
So, worry solved!
Danbi’s face brightened as she stepped into Market Street. The same vibrant energy she’d felt when she first entered the game washed over her, and her tension finally melted away.
“There—!”
Just then, someone grabbed her shoulder from behind. Her instincts flared instantly.
In one fluid motion, she wrenched the arm backward and subdued her attacker. A groan of pain escaped them.
“Ow, I’m dying!”
“Who are you?”
As Danbi asked, a young girl came running up from a distance.
“Father!”
“Hyang-ah!”
She had black hair neatly tied with a white taengi—the very same white taengi Danbi herself wore.
Danbi apologized to the man, who was bowing his head in confusion, saying she’d mistaken him for someone else. She hadn’t meant to go that far, but her body had simply reacted on its own.
Now that she thought about it.
“This doesn’t feel like the first time I’ve done something like this.”
The moment she’d fallen from the wall suddenly flashed in her mind. How she’d braced herself against it and spun her body once through the air.
Danbi stared down at her own hands, turning them over slowly.
“How on earth did I do that?”

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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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