I Became My Ex-Boyfriend’s Concubine - Chapter 83

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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 83

Three days had passed since blood stained the palace.
Hyun moved through the palace compound in shadow, evading every watchful eye.
His small frame helped him shake off pursuers, but hunger drove him to desperation—he finally scaled the wall into the Royal Kitchen.
There, crawling deep into its recesses, he managed to scrape together a meager meal.
When the Geum-gun soldiers burst in without warning, Hyun hid inside a wooden chest, and exhaustion claimed him before he could stop it.
Creak—
Sunlight forced its way through the gap, and his eyes snapped open.
He curled instinctively, raising his head, when a familiar face came into view.
“So this is where you’ve been, Your Highness.”
“Y-Your Excellency…!”
It was Park Dae-young.
“Come with me.”
Hyun stared at the hand Park Dae-young extended. The faint fragrance that clung to his robes made Hyun bite his lip without thinking.
The Banquet Hall had become a wasteland—that acrid smell of blood and iron.
Unlike the others, Park Dae-young’s official robe bore not a single drop of blood. Hyun gazed at its immaculate fabric in stunned silence.
Without a word, he took the offered hand. And so Hyun inherited the throne from his predecessor.
After that day, rain vanished from the Dohwa Kingdom.
With the rain gone, everything withered. The earth cracked, rivers ran dry, and green leaves no longer budded.
As the world’s color drained away, Hyun felt it in his bones: something terrible had gone wrong.
Yet time flowed on, indifferent and merciless.
“…Your Excellency.”
In the Throne Hall, Hyun’s voice fell low. A boyish softness still clung to his features.
“Are these all the Provincial Reports that have arrived from the provinces this month?”
Park Dae-young, standing before him, lifted his head with a benevolent smile. He bowed deeply, observing all proper courtesy.
“Indeed, Your Majesty. We live in an Era of Peace and Prosperity, without even the smallest unrest in the border regions. Is there something that falls short of Your Majesty’s expectations?”
“…I have heard rumors that the people of Yeongnam wander in want and beg for sustenance due to a poor harvest. Yet this report claims the tax in kind has exceeded the usual amount. How is that possible?”
At this sharp interrogation, Park Dae-young did not so much as blink. Instead, a faint smile played at his lips, and he bowed again.
“Your Majesty, rumors are like the wind—they have no substance. The Court devotes all its strength to the welfare of the people. I humbly beseech you to set aside your worries.”
The moment his words ceased, the ministers bowed in unison. As Hyun looked down at the sea of bowed heads, his lips pressed firmly shut.
“If that is Your Excellency’s will, then…”
“Your grace is boundless, Your Majesty.”
“Your grace is boundless, Your Majesty!”
Before Park Dae-young had finished speaking, the ministers’ voices filled the Throne Hall.
Hyun gazed at the scene, then picked up the Royal Seal before him. As he moved to press it onto the Provincial Report, his hand froze.
“…”
Instead, he stamped the seal on a different Provincial Report on the next page.
That night, Hyun visited the Royal Secretariat in secret.
While the chief secretary was away, he meant to double-check the Provincial Report he had refused to seal during the day.
But when Hyun found it, his eyes widened in shock. The spot he had deliberately left blank now bore a clear, crimson seal.
“How can this be…?”
That was not the only problem.
The Royal Edicts he had issued had been altered—their content reversed entirely. Provincial Reports he had never approved now bore the Royal Seal as if to mock him.
None of them bore his mark.
A low murmur of voices drifted in from outside.
Hyun quickly stuffed the documents away and hid himself in the darkness. As he held his breath between the bookcases, the door opened and Woo-sang entered.
‘Why would the Vice Premier come here in the dead of night?’
Before Hyun’s suspicion could fade, Woo-sang approached the spot where Hyun had been and pulled out a stack of Royal Edicts.
He slipped in documents he had prepared in advance, then left in haste.
Once the silence returned outside, Hyun immediately retrieved what had been left.
Inside lay Royal Edicts bearing the genuine Royal Seal—ones he had never even glimpsed.
Now, finally, he understood why not a drop of rain had fallen on the Dohwa Kingdom for all these years.
After that, Hyun pursued the Royal Seal’s trail.
He tried to reclaim the authority that should have been his, but failed again and again.
The shadow that loomed above him was too dense, and he was far too powerless to dispel it.
He had to grow stronger.
He would gain power, reclaim the authority that had been stolen, and ensure that blood would never rain upon this land again.
He had endured these years believing this alone was the reason he remained in his place.
And at last, rain fell.
The torrents pouring from the sky seemed relentless in their effort to wash away every drop of blood that lingered in the corners of the palace.
Watching that sight—as though it were someone’s sorrowful tears—his chest grew tender and soaked with ache.
“Lang.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Truly, is this not a miraculous thing?”
Hyeon reached his hand toward the window.
The cold touch that shattered against his palm was refreshing—as if washing away some knotted pain buried deep in his chest.
In truth, he had half given up.
No matter how hard he tried, the Royal Seal would not come into his grasp, and he had been pondering whether he should end it all by turning the blade on his own throat.
He never imagined someone would appear to cast the moon upon the earth.
She was a peculiar woman.
“So she truly brought rain as promised.”
Truthfully, he had not entirely believed Dan-bi’s words.
In a state of despair, he had grasped at her hand as one grasps at straw—nothing more.
There was no other way left but to resign himself to death.
Yet however she had summoned the rain, Hyeon could not hide the turmoil that overwhelmed him.
It was no ordinary rain.
The moment he was touched by it, at first he thought it was merely an illusion. But as countless scenes surged in like a tidal wave and wrapped around his chest, he came to understand it naturally.
These were memories he had lived through himself.
In all those memories, she was there.
For all that time, she had always sought his life. Her eyes always held the killing intent to stop his breath.
What he could not comprehend was the emotion that remained at the end of those memories.
Not fear, not anger, not betrayal—but a terrible sorrow.
Hyeon could only wonder: why did his heart ache so when he beheld the woman who raised her blade against him?
At first, he had thought her merely a conspirator with Woo-sang. After all, she had sought his life every time.
But the woman who lingered nearby kept catching his eye.
Somewhere along the way, as they crossed the line between life and death together, his gaze had naturally begun to follow her.
He could not even recall when it had begun.
Hyeon slowly opened his palm. The rainwater caught in his hand fell drop by drop below. He gently clenched the falling droplets.
Perhaps it had all been foreseen from the beginning. After all, it was he who had chosen to keep by his side a woman he could simply have cast away.
“A woman utterly beyond understanding.”
At his quiet murmur, Lang slowly raised his head. Hesitating for a moment, he carefully opened his mouth.
“Your Majesty. I have one more matter I wish to report to you.”
“What is it?”
“Do you recall the Yellow Ornament we found at Sa-nyang-teo?”
“An ornament?”
At this unexpected question, Hyeon turned his head. Lang nodded and continued.
“When I found Noblewoman Dan-bi’s ornament at Sa-nyang-teo and located where the two of you were, it was then.”
“I remember. Why do you ask of it?”
“That is…….”
Lang paused to collect his breath before speaking.
“It is a miraculous thing, Your Majesty, but when I touched that ornament, a strange memory came to me.”
“A memory?”
Hyeon’s brow furrowed.
“Yes. Though I had never experienced it, I saw memories with Noblewoman Dan-bi as though they were real. Perhaps…….”
Lang regarded Hyeon carefully.
“Does Your Majesty understand what it means that she came from the Other Realm?”

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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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