I Became My Ex-Boyfriend’s Concubine - Chapter 74

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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 74

At that same moment, inside the Sangui-won.
“What brings you here, sir?”
“I’ve come to see the Master Craftsman.”
“The Master Craftsman is not present at the moment.”
Woo Sang stepped past Chim-seon-bi with a cold gaze, watching her bow low before him.
“Then I’ll wait inside.”
“Yes? But sir…….”
“What. Do you have some reason I shouldn’t enter?”
At Woo Sang’s sharp probing, Chim-seon-bi’s face flinched, and she lowered her head again.
“No, forgive me. Please, come in.”
Following Chim-seon-bi’s guidance, Woo Sang entered the innermost room of the Sangui-won.
Stale, musty air pricked his nostrils. It was a shabby place he would never normally approach, and his brow furrowed involuntarily.
“I shall inform the Master Craftsman the moment he arrives.”
As Chim-seon-bi closed the door and withdrew, her footsteps gradually faded into silence.
Woo Sang pressed his ear to the door and listened until he was certain she had gone before turning to survey the room.
The chamber was cluttered with stacks of unsorted fabric piled high as mountains.

“You mean from the Sangui-won?”
“A cloth shaped like the moon. It’s said to be enormous — so vast that a dozen strong men could scarcely move it — so finding it shouldn’t prove difficult.”

Woo Sang had received his secret orders from Bak Dae-yeong only moments before: destroy a certain object.

“But what exactly…….”
“The Guiin has been carefully crafting that moon at the Sangui-won, or so they say. There’s clearly some hidden purpose at play during this Giwuje ceremony.”

Woo Sang began tearing frantically through the piles of fabric, searching every corner of the room.
Yet no matter how thoroughly he dug and pulled apart the heaps, he found nothing remotely resembling a moon — not even a trace of one. Only stacks of faded, discolored fabrics lay scattered about.
“Where in heaven’s name has it been hidden?”
Woo Sang released a deep sigh and hung his head. Irritated by how events were slipping beyond his control, he kicked at the floor with growing frustration.
“Damn it. How did things ever come to this?”
Woo Sang’s mood was deeply unsettled.
He had begun to sense that he was falling behind Bak Dae-yeong, a man who had once stood as his equal.
Looking back, everything had begun to unravel a month ago, when Joo Sang miraculously returned alive from the Sa-nyang-teo.
“I should have seen it through to the end, no matter what.”
When Joo Sang returned to life, he immediately elevated Yeo Dan-bi to the rank of Guiin — as reward for saving his life in the Sa-nyang-teo.
For Woo Sang, it was outrageous. The assassin he had dispatched to kill had instead dragged Joo Sang back from the brink of death.
Yet Woo Sang had been forced to hold his silence, and ironically, it was because his own life had been spared by her hand.
When the Jao Cho Poison lodged in the assassin’s teeth had begun to strangle him at death’s very threshold, it was she who had pulled him back from that abyss.
Of course, it wasn’t long before he learned why she had chosen to let him live.

“I… I beg your pardon, my lady. This old one offers his gratitude. Thanks to you, I still draw breath―.”
“Be still.”
“Yes? What do you mean…….”

After that encounter, when he met Dan-bi at the Uncheonggak, she looked down upon him as though he were beneath an ant.
In that moment, he felt the bitter truth: the puppet that had once rested in the palm of his hand had somehow risen above him entirely.

“You tried to have me killed too, didn’t you?”
“……!”

Her penetrating gaze paralyzed him, and his breath caught in his throat.
He could not mistake what she was asking.
On that day when he had unleashed assassins to murder Joo Sang, Woo Sang had given explicit orders to Yeo Dan-bi, who held his secret in her hands.
If necessary, erase her without a trace, he had commanded.
And yet, she had somehow learned of his treachery.
As Woo Sang stood frozen, unable to answer, unable even to meet her gaze, Dan-bi turned her face away in cold dismissal.

“So please, don’t do anything. Just stay put. I’ll handle everything myself.”

That was the last she heard from her.
In front of Bak Dae-yeong, Woo Sang kept up the pretense of staying in close contact with her, but the truth was the opposite.
If this truth ever came to light, he wouldn’t just lose his footing as an equal—he’d be crushed entirely beneath Bak Dae-yeong’s heel.
Woo Sang stamped the floor with bitter frustration.
“Damned woman. Doesn’t she realize whose mercy kept her alive all this time, and yet she dares—”
How many years had he spent raising her, this girl who had nowhere to go? He had given her his daughter’s name and clothed her with his own care.
She had always been obedient as his shadow.
But the moment Yeo Dan-bi set foot in the palace, she became someone entirely different. As if her very soul had been switched with another’s.
Somewhere along the way, she had begun treating him like a chess piece that had outlived its usefulness.
She kept him breathing only for the sake of having a backing hand. It was a bitter humiliation.
“Does she really think I’ll just take it lying down?”
Woo Sang thrust himself deeper into the piles of fabric, as if the rough motion could erase Dan-bi’s loathsome face from his mind.
He was rummaging wildly when he saw it.
From the very bottom of the cloth heap, an odd light was seeping out—a color far too alien to be hidden among these worn, faded fabrics.
“What on earth is this?”
As if bewitched, Woo Sang pulled it up. Then something emerged from the darkness, carrying within it a faint, luminous blue glow.
A cruel smile spread across his lips as he gazed down at the enormous cloth.
A cloth shaped like the moon, so vast that a dozen strong men would be needed to suspend it.
There was no doubt.
It was the very thing Bak Dae-yeong had spoken of and Dan-bi had worked so desperately to conceal.
Woo Sang immediately drew his Short Sword from within his garments. As he tore away the cold scabbard, the sharp blade gleamed in the candlelight.
Without hesitation, he swung the blade toward the cloth.
Whish—!
With the sound of wind being cut, the blue moon was torn to shreds.

***

“Chief Seo?”
“Yes. I was certain it was Guiin Dan-bi who sent her.”
The moment the preparatory ceremony ended, Dan-bi rushed straight to the Sangui-won.
With the ceremony safely concluded, all that remained was for the main ceremony to succeed, and the entire carefully built tower would be complete.
Just as she was about to verify the “moon” for a final check, she noticed that Myeong-i, who always came to greet her, was nowhere to be found.
When she asked Chim-seon-bi nearby, the answer was unexpected.
“Are you sure you’re not mistaken? I never sent Chief Seo.”
“I’m certain of it, Dan-bi. I saw Myeong-i clearly go with Chief Seo.”
Her mind went blank at the fact that Chief Seo—whom she had never sent—had taken Myeong-i and vanished.
Myeong-i was supposed to be guarding the Uncheonggak until the Giwuje ceremony was complete. What in the world was she doing here?
“When was that?”
“Well… it’s already been over an hour. I’ve got mountains of work waiting, and she should have come back by now, but I haven’t heard from her since.”
An hour.
That meant two hours had already passed.
Something was wrong.
Myeong-i was such a diligent girl that she rarely stepped away from the Sangui-won. There was no reason she’d be gone this long.
Suddenly, the strange expression on Chief Seo’s face from this afternoon flickered through her mind.
‘Could something have happened?’
“Dan-bi! Dan-bi!”
Dan-bi ignored the voice calling out to her and bolted straight out the door.
A terrible foreboding gripped her heart.
She had to find Myeong-i. Where could she have gone?
If Chief Seo had taken the girl for some other purpose, it would surely be somewhere hidden from prying eyes.
A place suddenly flashed through her mind.
‘Pyejeongak.’
The palace had countless abandoned halls and pavilions, left to decay once their master’s footsteps no longer reached them.
There was no better place to scheme away from watchful eyes.
Dan-bi began running like a woman possessed, following the narrow forest path closest to the Sangui-won.
Soon, beyond the trees, an old pavilion with weathered tiles came into view.
“Myeong-i! Are you in there?”
Dan-bi yanked open the firmly shut door with a gasp, wrenching it wide.
Creak—
Sharp sunlight flooded into the musty darkness.
At the end of that shaft of light, Myeong-i lay crumpled on the floor, her body dark with blood. Dan-bi’s eyes went wide.
“Myeong-i!”
Dan-bi cried out and pulled Myeong-i into her arms. The girl’s limp body sagged heavily onto her lap.
Myeong-i opened her eyes slowly, gazing up at Dan-bi.
“Self… you came…”
“Can you focus? Can you hear me? Look at me, Myeong-i!”
“How did you… find this place?”
Dan-bi bit down on her lower lip. With the back of her hand, she wiped away roughly the hot tears that had welled up in her eyes.
“It’s all right now. I’m here. We need to get out of this place, quickly.”
“Self, I… I’m so sorry.”
Tears that Myeong-i had been holding back spilled freely from her eyes.
Dan-bi held the aching in her chest and wiped Myeong-i’s face over and over with her own sleeve. Her voice, choked with tears, echoed thinly through the empty building.
“I told them. I told them everything.”
“What?”
“About Dal. I told them about Dal, self.”
Dan-bi’s heart plummeted.
Now she understood why the child had been beaten so savagely.
Dan-bi gripped Myeong-i’s shoulders and leaned in close.
“Why would you do that? Why? I told you plainly — if something like this ever happened, you were to say nothing, to deny everything!”
“I… I’m sorry, self. I was careless… but…”
Even as the wound at the corner of her mouth split open again and she winced, Myeong-i managed a faint smile.
“At least I didn’t tell them that. I did well, didn’t I, self?”
“You…!”
Dan-bi couldn’t find words. She pressed her lips tightly shut.
She despised herself for laying this burden on such a child.
It was all her fault.
No — there was no time for regret now. They had to escape this place, immediately—
Creak, bang—!
The great door that had been swung wide suddenly slammed shut.
Dan-bi rushed toward it.
But no matter how hard she pulled at the handle or threw her shoulder against the wood, the door wouldn’t budge.
“It’s… locked.”
That was when she heard it — an unpleasant sound from somewhere.
Crackle—
The sound of something burning.
Dan-bi’s head snapped around. Her pupils dilated. Black flames were crawling up the walls of the building like serpents, devouring everything around them.

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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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