I Became My Ex-Boyfriend’s Concubine - Chapter 71

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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 71

An hour later, at the Sajik Altar.
Hyeon stood before the platform, cradling the Jade Seal wrapped in silk cloth. Below the dais, officials from the Prime Minister down were arrayed like a wave, holding their breath.
Hyeon scanned them once, then slowly unwound the silk. As the Jade Seal caught the sunlight, radiant and dazzling, thousands of eyes locked onto it at once.
The Purification Jade was the most sacred ritual to commence the Rain Prayer Ceremony.
The main ceremony would take place at night, but only if the preliminary rite was flawless would sincerity finally reach Heaven.
Hyeon clenched the cloth, resolved.
When he turned his head, the Crown Princess had already drawn near. Hyeon exchanged a brief glance with her, then turned again to face the incense burner.
As he reached out to place the incense, Eunuch Yun, attending nearby, approached silently and knelt.
In the small brazier he carried, a deep red ember lay dormant beneath the ash, glowing with pale light.
Eunuch Yun rolled up his sleeves and lifted silver tongs, carefully extracting a piece of charcoal heated to the utmost intensity.
He then gently transferred the small flame to rest above the agarwood powder mounded softly in the incense burner.
Sizzle—
The moment the charcoal’s heat touched the powder, thin white smoke twisted like thread and shot upward through the air.
The cool, bitter scent of agarwood spread instantly through the heavy silence of the Sajik Altar.
Once Eunuch Yun confirmed the ember had caught, he bowed deeply and withdrew.
Through the swirling incense fog, Hyeon extended his hand toward the White Jade Basin, still clutching the Jade Seal.
It was the very moment he was about to lower the Jade Seal into the pure water.
“Your Majesty, please pause a moment!”
At the voice from below the dais, Hyeon’s hand froze.
He looked up to find Park Dae-young already standing before the platform, his head bowed.
Hyeon’s brow sharpened.
“What is it?”
“Your Majesty, this humble subject has something to say to you.”
Hyeon’s eyes moved between the Jade Seal in his hand and Park Dae-young before he wrapped the seal in silk cloth again.
“Speak.”
Park Dae-young paused for a moment, then finally opened his mouth.
“Your Majesty, I beg your understanding and mercy. I believe it would be wise to discontinue this Rain Prayer Ceremony at once.”
“What did you say?”
At the unexpected words, Hyeon’s expression hardened like stone.
But before he could speak, Park Dae-young’s cool voice rang out first.
“With utmost respect, Your Majesty, the Jade Seal now in your hand is a forgery.”
The shock of Park Dae-young’s statement froze the assembly in an instant.
At the same moment, the solemn court music that had been playing abruptly stopped.
Hyeon’s piercing gaze cut straight through Park Dae-young.
But Park Dae-young did not flinch. Still bowing his head, he stood more upright than ever.
Soon Hyeon’s voice, pitched low, blanketed the Sajik Altar.
“What did you just say?”
“I said that Jade Seal is a forgery.”
“Ha… hahahaha!”
At the manic laughter, the officials flinched where they stood.
Park Dae-young held his breath, motionless, until the echoes faded.
How much time passed?
Hyeon’s laughter abruptly cut off.
He began slowly descending the steps that led down from the platform.
With even the music now silent, only Hyeon’s footsteps rang out loudly through the space.
He came to a halt before Park Dae-young’s face and broke the silence.
“If what the Minister says is true, then I have been ruling this realm with a false seal for years?”
“It has been years without rain.”
Park Dae-young’s immediate retort cut deep, and Hyeon’s brow furrowed sharply.
Park Dae-young lifted his head to meet Hyeon’s eyes, then bowed deeply once more.
“In all the years past, every Rain Prayer Ceremony performed has brought no rain. Your Majesty, what do you think is the reason?”
……
“Heaven is angry. The sky itself punishes so harshly the deception of a royal house that speaks of sincerity while wielding a forgery!”
……
Hyeon did not answer.
A suffocating silence fell over the assembly.
No one spoke, yet all understood the weight of Park Dae-young’s words.
In the history of the Dohwa Kingdom, the sight of a king raising the Jade Seal to summon rain was sacred proof itself.
If no rain fell—
It could only lead to suspicion that the Jade Seal held by the king lacked Spiritual Efficacy, and moreover, that his Legitimacy bore a fatal flaw.
Dismay flickered across the ministers’ faces.
These same men who had already conspired with the inner court to swap the sovereign’s authentic Jade Seal for a counterfeit now found themselves reeling. Park Dae-young, whom they believed to be the sovereign’s ally, had just exposed their conspiracy.
How he had learned of it, why he chose precisely this moment to denounce it to the sovereign—they could not fathom his calculation.
But Park Dae-young’s mind worked differently.
Having obtained from Dan-bi the information that the Jade Seal in the sovereign’s hand was ‘genuine,’ what he needed now was to seize the initiative.
Even if what the sovereign held was authentic, he would first brand it as false.
Then, just before the ceremony proper, when he swapped it again for a fake, the people would be left in no doubt: the reason rain did not fall was the ‘insufficient Legitimacy of a king who clutched a counterfeit Jade Seal.’
A cunning stratagem to shake the sovereign’s authority to its very roots.
“The people harbor great expectations, Your Majesty.”
Park Dae-young slowly raised his head, meeting the sovereign’s gaze.
He fixed his eyes upon the sovereign’s grave face and parted his lips once more.
“No matter how auspicious the date chosen, if the Jade Seal remains as it was before, the outcome shall be the same. Already, whispers circulate among the ministers—doubts that the Jade Seal Your Majesty holds might be counterfeit.”
Park Dae-young stepped closer to the sovereign.
“Should rain fail to fall again, the people’s disappointment will spiral beyond control.”
He whispered in a voice only the sovereign could hear.
“I would humbly suggest that before then, you verify whether this Jade Seal is genuine.”
It was a naked threat: fail to produce rain a second time, and the king’s authority would plummet irreversibly.
The sovereign seemed to read the lethal intent behind those words, falling into heavy silence.
Then—
A short, sharp laugh escaped the sovereign’s lips.
He turned and climbed the steps with long strides.
At the base of the platform, the crystalline water in the White Jade Basin trembled quietly.
The sovereign gazed down at its ripples before lifting his eyes. He fixed Park Dae-young below with a piercing stare and spoke in an icy tone.
“Very well, Minister. I shall prove with my own hand that this Jade Seal is genuine, shall I?”
A tremor ran through the assembly.
While the ministers murmured in bewildered tones, Park Dae-young alone bowed deeply and calmly.
“Your boundless grace overwhelms me, Your Majesty.”
“Minister.”
The sovereign’s gaze hardened as he looked at Park Dae-young.
“You too shall bear responsibility for all that follows.”
The sovereign slowly unfolded the Silk Cloth he held.
As the smooth fabric fell away, the Jade Seal, drinking in the midday sun, blazed with brilliant light.
In the moment all eyes were drawn to that wondrous sight, the sovereign silently handed the cloth to the queen consort beside him.
The instant she accepted it, the sovereign’s gaze shifted to the White Jade Basin. Over the rippling purified water, the hand holding the Jade Seal extended slowly downward.
Slip—
The moment the Jade Seal’s underside touched the water’s surface, ripples spread in concentric rings.
It was then.
“That… that is—!”
A small gasp escaped from among the courtiers.
Park Dae-young’s brow trembled faintly. As though disbelieving, his eyes fixed upon the sovereign’s fingertips.
Above the White Jade Basin into which his hand was immersed, a faint yet unmistakable Blue Aura shimmered.
Park Dae-young’s eyes narrowed, following that mystical light.
There was no doubt.
The Blue Aura emanating from the Jade Seal’s own Spiritual Efficacy—
It was now proving to all under heaven that the Jade Seal in the sovereign’s hand was ‘genuine.’
‘So that woman did not deceive me.’
The suspicion that had flickered—that Dan-bi might have betrayed him—melted away like snow.
Relief washed over him. The game was set perfectly.
Yet what truly mattered came next.
Park Dae-young narrowed his eyes, never turning his gaze from the sovereign.
Under the intensity of his stare, the sovereign carefully washed the Jade Seal within the water again and again. The quiet, deliberate motion of his other hand gently stroking over it repeated in silence.
At last the sovereign lifted the Jade Seal above the water.
As the midday sun broke across its wet surface, the Jade Seal blazed with even more radiant splendor than before.
Before that overwhelming spectacle, the courtiers threw themselves prostrate upon the ground as though by covenant.
“Your grace, your boundless grace overwhelms us, Your Majesty!”
Behind the magnificent chorus that filled the Sajik Altar, the sovereign slowly turned his head.
She placed the damp Jade Seal back onto the Silk Cloth that the Queen held aloft, water dripping steadily from its surface.
The Queen then wrapped the Jade Seal with reverent hands, stepped back behind her, and assumed the proper stance.
Hyeon approached the White Jade Basin and lightly rinsed her hands with the remaining water. Park Dae-young simply watched her retreating figure intently.
By now the agarwood in the basin had burned down nearly to ash, and thick smoke billowed upward, obscuring the view in all directions.
Everything was proceeding as planned.
When Park Dae-young turned his head, his eyes met the Queen’s across the hazy veil of incense fog.
In that brief moment, she gave a subtle nod.
With one hand gripping the Silk Cloth containing the Jade Seal, she quietly slid the other into her sleeve.
‘It should be around here.’
Her slender fingers searched roughly through the deep inner pocket sewn into the lining. In moments, her fingertips brushed against something hard and solid.
‘Found it.’
The Queen drew it out silently.
As the thick Incense Fog pressed down upon her vision, an identical Silk Cloth—matching the one that had just wrapped the Jade Seal without a single deviation—was drawn out from her sleeve.

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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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