I Became My Ex-Boyfriend’s Concubine - Chapter 65

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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 65

“Her manner of speech is peculiar?”
“Yes, sir.”
Park Dae-yeong’s eyebrows slanted upward.
“What do you mean by that?”
At his pressing inquiry, the court lady’s mouth worked silently before closing shut. The hesitation annoyed him enough that deep furrows carved themselves between his brows.
Under the weight of his formidable presence, Lady So’s head sank lower, nearly touching the floor.
She knew the palace’s nature better than anyone—a place where a single word could determine life and death.
Seized by the terror that one misstep might sever her lifeline, Lady So remained pressed flat, scarcely breathing.
Prime Minister Park Dae-yeong.
Father of Queen Park Ha-rin and the true power behind the Court, his gaze touched everything.
The trembling Lady So before him was merely an extension of himself—one of his eyes and ears, placed there to watch Dan-bi.
Dan-bi had originally been sent as a sharp blade meant to sever the sovereign’s lifeline.
But Park Dae-yeong placed no faith in human constancy. A comfortable life might dull the blade’s edge, or she might turn her back on her master altogether.
Through Lady So, he monitored every breath Dan-bi drew, never loosening the reins of surveillance for a single moment.
Yet this report was unexpected.
The strange manner of speech that had come from Dan-bi’s lips, and her incomprehensible movements.
A curious light kindled in Park Dae-yeong’s eyes.
“It’s… difficult to describe, my lord, but not a manner of speech I’ve commonly heard.”
“Are you saying she speaks in a foreign tongue?”
“I—I cannot say, my lord.”
“You cannot say?”
Lady So flinched at the glacial intensity of his gaze.
Unaware that Dan-bi greeted the servants each morning with “Good morning” as she moved about the palace, Park Dae-yeong merely snorted dismissively.
She had arrived bearing heavy burdens, he reasoned. A slight addling of the mind was hardly surprising.
But the oddities did not end there.
“A glass vial?”
“Yes, my lord. The composition is one I have never encountered.”
Park Dae-yeong furrowed his brow as he regarded the bowing physician from the Royal Medical Office.
“A composition you’ve never encountered?”
“I have never seen its like in all my years, my lord.”
“And yet you call yourself a physician?”
“I—I beg your pardon, my lord.”
The physician bowed deeply, studying Park Dae-yeong’s expression. He released a heavy sigh, suppressing the frustration that threatened to surface.
He had sent assassins to the Sa-nyang-teo hunting grounds while the sovereign gathered sacrificial beasts for the Rain Prayer Ritual.
According to reports from his informant, the arrowheads had been coated with a lethal toxin—one so novel that even its antidote components remained unidentified.
It was a supreme poison, capable of paralyzing even a massive man with a single drop.
It had not been recorded in any medical text of the Dohwa Kingdom—the poison known quite literally as the Salt of Death.
A mere graze would have been sufficient to stop the sovereign’s breath, and he had been certain this time there would be no remedy.
Yet the sovereign had returned from the hunting grounds alive, as if to mock him.
He bore the mark where an arrow had pierced his chest, yet he carried himself with perfect composure, as though nothing had occurred.
It was incomprehensible. This was a poison that no ordinary antidote could possibly neutralize.
But the moment the sovereign returned from the hunting grounds, word reached him that he had entrusted a peculiar glass vial to the Royal Medical Office.
The information had come through a physician Park Dae-yeong had strategically placed there.
“Then, have you determined what the substance is?”
“It is not certain, my lord, but it appears to contain powerful antidotal properties.”
“An antidote?”
“Yes, my lord. Should we discover the true nature of this medicine, we could neutralize all the poisons we have thus far been unable to cure.”
It was as though it had fallen from heaven at the precise moment the sovereign’s life hung in the balance.
Did this mean the sovereign had prepared in advance?
Park Dae-yeong already knew he was no ordinary man. It was entirely possible he had seen through his schemes.
Yet the true source of that mysterious antidote remained unexplained.
And not long after, a clue emerged to answer the riddle.
“Are you saying Dan-bi was there?”
“Yes, my lord.”
From the lips of the sole survivor among the assassins who had managed to escape came a name neither expected nor welcome.
Only Dan-bi had stood at the sovereign’s side, isolated from the Geum-gun, while he fought.
Yet one question lingered that he simply could not bring himself to accept.
“But what does that mean? The King shielded Dan-bi?”
“The arrow meant for Dan-bi—His Majesty took it in her stead.”
Indeed, the King had returned bearing a fresh wound upon his chest.
Did that truly mean His Majesty had thrown himself before her without hesitation?
“Perhaps you were mistaken.”
“I saw it clearly with my own eyes.”
At this unwavering assertion, Park Dae-yeong let slip a low groan.
That Dan-bi had been at the King’s side, that she had stood idle even as the perfect opportunity for assassination presented itself before her eyes—none of it made sense.
Could it be that she had turned her back on her mission?
As doubt compounded upon doubt, he found his thoughts drifting to that peculiar glass vial said to have been entrusted to the Royal Medical Office.
“How strange.”
If the King had ordered him to determine its contents, then His Majesty himself did not know what it was.
Which meant the original owner must surely be someone else.
And at the hunting grounds, there had been only one person standing closest to the King.
……!
Could Dan-bi have possessed the vial?
No—an assassin smuggled into the palace with nothing to her name would never carry such a rare object.
And yet, if he assumed that Dan-bi was indeed its owner, every misaligned piece fell perfectly into place.
But that was not all.
“Concubine Ja, might I trouble you to pause a moment?”
“What is it?”
He stopped Dan-bi as she stepped out of the Central Palace.
Her eyes were markedly different from before—the very air around her had shifted, as though she were an entirely different person.
Only then did he understand what the senior court lady had reported as her “strange manner of speech.” Though her words were the same, an uncanny distance hung between them.
Park Dae-yeong did not hesitate to press her.
“Tell me—is this place truly not foreign to you, Concubine?”
Dan-bi’s expression hardened. She fell silent for a moment before responding with caution.
“What do you mean……?”
“I experienced something most unusual not long ago.”
Dan-bi’s brow furrowed. Park Dae-yeong seized on that tell and cut across her words.
“I opened my mouth to speak, yet the words would not leave my lips.”
Park Dae-yeong watched Dan-bi tilt her head in bewilderment, his mind turning over the matter.
His words were no mere idle talk.
More than once, he had been startled by the strange phenomenon of his body refusing to obey his will.
At first, he had thought it merely a temporary loss of vigor, but he knew something was deeply wrong from the very day Dan-bi received her rank as Concubine.

“Maiden Yeo has guarded Us in Our hour of peril, and her merit reaches toward heaven itself. We hereby bestow upon Maiden Yeo the rank of Concubine. Let both the Inner and Outer Court Ranks show her all proper respect in accordance with protocol.”

The moment the King’s edict fell, Park Dae-yeong had been ready to protest.
He could not stand by and watch her station rise while doubt remained as to whether she had truly turned to their side.
But the instant he moved to speak, his entire body seized.
His tongue lay paralyzed, unable to move, and his limbs felt as though rooted to the floor.
It was as if some vast, invisible hand had clamped shut his mouth.
It lay entirely beyond his will.
Park Dae-yeong raised his head, his brow drawn tight.
While all the others knelt with their foreheads pressed to the ground, he could see Dan-bi standing beside the King, her gaze fixed on nothing in particular, staring into empty air.
As he recalled that day, Park Dae-yeong fixed his eyes on the Dan-bi before him. Her face had gone pale with shock.
“What, precisely, were you looking at that day, Concubine?”

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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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