I Became My Ex-Boyfriend’s Concubine - Chapter 73

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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 73

An hour earlier, outside Sang-ui-won.
“Myeong-i, what are you looking at so intently?”
“The sunlight is so lovely.”
The man turned away with a satisfied smile, but Myeong-i tilted her head back. The bright sunlight pouring overhead was genuinely warm.
She shaded her eyes with her hand and gazed upward. Not a single cloud marred the clear sky.
Today was the day of the grand Rain Prayer Ceremony.
By now, the pre-ceremony rites would surely be finished, and everyone would have broken for rest.
The sudden image of Dan-bi’s face drew an involuntary smile from her lips.

“Of course. If the moon shines so brilliantly, how could the heavens hold back their tears?”

Back when Dan-bi had been consumed with creating the “moon” at Sang-ui-won, she had made Myeong-i a promise.
That no matter what happened, she would bring rain for this ceremony—that she would protect her family from the cruel drought.
‘It’s strange, really. It was just words.’
There was no good reason to trust someone she’d known so briefly.
Yet Myeong-i’s heart had already fallen helplessly into Dan-bi’s keeping.
Perhaps it was because she had witnessed firsthand the blood and sweat Dan-bi had poured out—the very notion of bringing rain after a decade of drought seemed outrageous, and yet she wanted to believe it.
Watching Dan-bi, despite her noble rank, work day and night alongside everyone at Sang-ui-won, giving her all without reservation, Myeong-i had thought:
With such devotion, surely even the heavens could not remain unmoved.
“I do hope it rains.”
Myeong-i had paid no mind to the countless rain ceremonies held before.
But this time was different.
She truly wished for this ceremony to succeed—one that carried the heartfelt desire of Master Je-jo, Sang-gil, and everyone at Sang-ui-won.
“Myeong-i.”
A familiar voice called from behind. She turned to see a face she recognized.
“Lady So, the court lady?”
What brought her here alone?
She had never once walked to Sang-ui-won without Lady Dan-bi, her charge, in tow.
As Myeong-i tilted her head in confusion, the woman approached and suddenly gripped her shoulder.
“Come with me. There’s somewhere we need to go.”
“Where, ma’am?”
“Lady Dan-bi has summoned you.”
Myeong-i’s face brightened instantly.
“Lady Dan-bi is calling for me?”
“Yes. We mustn’t tarry. Come along.”
Myeong-i hurried after the court lady.
Just the thought of seeing Dan-bi made her steps feel light as clouds.
‘She’s summoning me already—I wonder if something urgent has come up?’
With excitement blooming in her chest at the prospect of meeting Dan-bi—someone she’d grown to care for just as much as, or perhaps even more than, Sang-gil—Myeong-i was practically humming.
It was as they ventured deep into a narrow woodland path, overgrown with brush, that something shifted.
“This place…”
Myeong-i stopped dead in her tracks. A chill crept down her spine.
“Lady So?”
“Go inside.”
“Pardon? What do you mean?”
She looked around, but not a soul was in sight. Before her stood only a solitary, dilapidated structure—the Abandoned Building—lonely and forsaken.
The court lady’s expression, as she gestured toward it with her eyes, was devastatingly cold.
Myeong-i instinctively stepped backward. She didn’t know the palace grounds well, but she could sense that something was terribly wrong.
This was wrong. She had to run.
The moment that thought flickered through her mind, she spun around.
But a strange shadow had already fallen across her path. Before she could even see who it was, a violent blow struck the back of her neck.
Myeong-i fell without even a cry, crumpling to the ground.

Splash!
Ice-cold water cascaded over her head, and her eyes snapped open. Water droplets clung to her chin, dripping steadily downward.
Before consciousness could fully return, rough hands seized her jaw and forced her head up.
As her eyes fluttered open through the haze, a familiar face gradually sharpened into focus.
‘The Chief State Councillor?’
It was a face she’d glimpsed several times before, when goods from Sang-ui-won were being delivered to Jung-gung-jeon.
Myeong-i’s eyes darted nervously around her surroundings.
Darkness pressed in from all sides, broken only by a single candle that flickered and cast slanting shadows across the space.
She was inside the Abandoned Building.
The assault she’d endured moments before—it hadn’t been a dream. Her pupils trembled as the realization sank in.
Park Dae-yeong gazed down at her with something like amusement playing across his features.
“Quick on the uptake, aren’t you? Getting you to talk shouldn’t prove too difficult.”
Park Dae-yeong stroked his beard where he stood askew, then turned his head to the side.
“Sang-gil.”
“Yes, sir.”
A man who had been concealed in the darkness stepped gradually into view, dressed from head to toe in black—a severe and unfamiliar sight.
Park Dae-yeong cast him a brief look.
“Begin.”
The moment the order fell, the man strode forward.
Just as her vision began to blur—
Crack!
Her head snapped back from the blow, a searing pain as though her face were being torn away. The impact sent her bound body crashing to the ground.
Blood pooled in her mouth—metallic and hot—and spilled down from her nose. When she wiped it with her finger, scarlet stained her skin.
Before she could even comprehend what was happening to her, rough hands seized her hair.
“There is a matter I am most eager to ask you about, and I have taken the trouble to come here for it.”
Park Dae-yeong knelt before her, bringing his eyes level with hers, his gaze piercing and intense.
“The Consort has been visiting Sang-ui-won daily of late, or so I hear.”
The moment her name was spoken, Myeong-i’s jaw clenched instinctively shut.
“What exactly was she having made there? Come now, confess just to me.”
“……!”
Myeong-i’s chin dropped toward her chest.
The arms bracing her against the floor trembled beyond her control. Blood dripped from her nose in steady beads, dotting the earthen ground.
Her torn lips quivering, Myeong-i forced herself to speak.
“The C-Consort… she was h-having garments made… to present to His M-Majesty….”
“Tch. I thought you were quick, but you’re duller than I gave you credit for. Sang-gil.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Strike her.”
Park Dae-yeong rose, indifferent to the whimpering girl’s stare, and Sang-gil stepped forward, beginning a merciless beating.
Watching the young servant endure it without a single cry, her small body curled into itself, Park Dae-yeong clicked his tongue.
He’d expected her to crack easily under a few blows. Instead, she proved far more stubborn than he’d anticipated.
When the beating ceased and Sang-gil stepped aside, Myeong-i’s face was revealed—a mess of blood and bruises.
Her entire body had become a ruin of gore and filth.
Park Dae-yeong regarded that pitiful sight for a moment, then stepped close and nudged her with the tip of his boot.
She didn’t move at all.
“Time is not on our side at the moment, you see. I think we ought to bring this matter up instead.”
Park Dae-yeong paused for a moment, then opened his mouth with a bitter smile.
“A filial daughter who crawled into the palace to feed her starving family—that would be you, wouldn’t it?”
Myeong-i’s fingers trembled. Her eyes, which had been shut, slowly opened, her unfocused pupils turning toward Park Dae-yeong.
Park Dae-yeong savored the wretched sight before he spoke.
“Do you still intend to keep your mouth shut?”
In that instant, Myeong-i’s face drained of color entirely.
The girl was clever enough to understand the keen-edged threat veiled in his words.
As he watched her lips tremble and quiver, Park Dae-yeong’s smile deepened with satisfaction.
There was a reason he had risked so much to abduct this girl from Sang-ui-won.

“But there is one condition.”
“What……?”
“Do not lay a hand on Sang-ui-won until the Rain Prayer Ceremony is finished.”

On the day when they had concluded their transaction over the Jade Seal, she had grasped his hand and spoken those words with unyielding firmness.
Not a hand was to be laid on Sang-ui-won until the Rain Prayer Ceremony ended.
It was a curious stipulation—an odd price to demand in exchange for surrendering her position.
But to Park Dae-yeong, those words were nothing less than a confession: there was something hidden within Sang-ui-won that simply had to remain concealed.
The more an opponent refuses to reveal something, the more one must seize it—that was the law.
Especially now, after failing to switch the Jade Seal during the Pre-ceremony and receiving a harsh blow from the King.
Whether or not his plans unfolded as intended, he had to uncover the secrets of Sang-ui-won—no matter what.
The Queen had mentioned that Dan-bi was having clothes made at Sang-ui-won, but there was no reason to believe such a claim outright.
The words came from Je-jo’s mouth—a man who could barely manage his duties as a spy—and it was absurd to think Dan-bi had been confined to Sang-ui-won all this time merely to make garments.
Not in this critical period, with the Rain Prayer Ceremony looming.
There had to be another card hidden away. He was convinced of it—and it was precisely at this moment that he pressed Myeong-i harder.
“The m-moon, sir…….”
A faint voice escaped between Myeong-i’s split lips. Park Dae-yeong leaned forward at once, drawing his face close.
“What did you just say?”
“I said the moon, sir…….”
Myeong-i spilled words as though her mind had fled her body.
“For rain to fall during the Rain Prayer Ceremony, a moon is needed, they said. They were making a massive piece of cloth in the shape of a moon—so enormous that a dozen strong men hanging from it would still not be enough.”
“Mm…….”
Park Dae-yeong let out a short hum.
A moon-shaped cloth, was it.
He could scarcely credit that she was fashioning such a thing merely for some Rain Prayer Ceremony.
Yet Dan-bi was a woman who had come from beyond this land, was she not.
That fact alone meant he could not overlook whatever strange undertakings she pursued.
“Sang-gil.”
At his call, the man in black emerged from the shadows like a phantom. Park Dae-yeong turned without hesitation.
“See that she speaks no more.”
“Yes, sir.”
A terrible sound followed at his back, but he did not turn. A heavy door swung open, and blinding sunlight poured down upon his head.

He went directly to Jung-gung-jeon.
“……Then what of this moon?”
“I have already sent a man to deal with it, Your Majesty.”
The Queen tilted her head in puzzlement upon hearing his account.
“But Father. Did you not make an arrangement with the Consort beforehand? That you would not lay hands on Sang-ui-won…….”
“Your Majesty.”
Park Dae-yeong’s lips twisted into a smile.
“That is precisely why I sent a man instead. My hands have touched nothing, so the agreement remains unbroken.”

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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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