I Became My Ex-Boyfriend’s Concubine - Chapter 84

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Episode 84

The front courtyard of Woon-cheong-gak.
“Som, if you catch a fever doing that, what then!”
“Don’t worry, miss. I’m really quite sturdy, I promise!”
Watching Som hum tunelessly while getting drenched in the downpour, Dan-bi couldn’t help but laugh at the hopelessness of it all.
It wasn’t only Som. The other servants also seemed delighted by the rain, walking through it with joy written across their faces.
Though the rain had been falling for four days straight now, the people’s spirits showed no sign of flagging.
‘The people at Sang-ui-won must be equally pleased right about now.’
The smile blooming at the thought of familiar faces faded just as quickly.
Her heart ached to dash over there and see for herself, but the order that had come down the moment the rain began had left her confined to Woon-cheong-gak, unable to take even a single step beyond its walls.

“The Noble Consort shall not leave Woon-cheong-gak by even a single step until I give the command.”

The memory of his rigid expression sent Dan-bi slumping onto the veranda in dejection.
She drew her knees to her chest, curling in on herself, and a heavy sigh escaped like a stone dropping to the floor.
“What is all this about…….”
She understood well enough why Hyun had reacted that way. Truth be told, her own mind had been in no better state.
The moment the rain touched her, memories had flooded her thoughts all at once, and for a while she’d struggled even to find her center.
At first, she’d mistaken them for merely unfamiliar scenes—illusions born of confusion.
But soon enough came the realization. They matched the memories that had bled into her when she and Hyun had crossed swords in the Ui-sang-go.
Fragmented pieces flickering past, vivid sensations of experiences she’d never lived yet somehow undeniably had.
Within those countless scenes, Dan-bi found herself living entire lifetimes alongside Hyun—as if the innumerable playthroughs that had been reset were suddenly threading into one.
‘Could it be. That this memory. This isn’t the first time.’
The memories spoke clearly: she had not seen all the playthroughs.
Yet Dan-bi still couldn’t comprehend it. She’d entered this game for the first time only in the previous round.
The memories that had flowed into her in the Ui-sang-go had been nothing more than events from the moment she’d started the game until she’d logged out.
But this time was different.
The fragments flooding in as the rain fell were moments she’d never played through herself.
It was unthinkable that her character could have experienced all those things during the intervals when she was logged out.
Then where could these memories possibly have come from?
‘Wait. Could it be.’
A scene flickered at the edge of her mind.
It was the Status Window she’d encountered in that pitch-black void when the game first began.

“Game Over? But I haven’t done anything yet?”

At that moment, there had been only two choices: YES and NO.
She’d clicked YES without hesitation and plunged into the game without giving it a second thought, but now that sense of wrongness caught at her heels.
‘Now that I think about it, why did it ask if I wanted to start over?’
This was definitely her first time playing this game.
Yet that message appearing meant someone had played this game before—someone else.
Could it have been a console that someone else had been using?
She recalled the sound of knocking at the front door late that night. The thought struck her: perhaps whoever had left this console behind was the one who’d played it before.
Could it possibly be that Som had played this game?
But something didn’t quite fit with that conclusion.
The player in this game was a perfect copy of herself, and there was even someone who looked exactly like Som.
If the world was constructed by projecting a user’s memories, as she’d theorized, then the game should have been restructured when the user changed.
Yet when she thought back to that Status Window message, it seemed she had simply inherited someone else’s game.
How was that even possible? Who had played this game before her, leaving these traces behind?
‘Could it be…….’
Her thoughts spiraled in circles until careful footsteps stopped just outside her quarters.
“Dan-bi, Yun has brought word from His Highness.”
At the voice of the servant standing guard at the door, Dan-bi’s head lifted. It was Yun himself, Hyun’s chief steward, who had come in person.
His measured voice carried to her from beyond the door.
“Dan-bi, His Highness commands that you enter the Bedchamber.”
“Right now?”
“Come with me once you are ready.”
Dan-bi rose from her seat without hesitation.
She had been waiting anxiously for news from Hyeon for days now. Following Yun, she hurried toward Hyeon’s bedchamber.

Moments later, outside the bedchamber.
“Your Highness, the Honored Concubine has entered.”
“Let her through.”
At the low command, heavy doors swung open on either side. As she stepped in, Dan-bi saw Hyeon seated with his back to the Sun-Moon-Five-Peaks Painting, and Rang across from him.
‘He wasn’t alone.’
The door closed behind her. Hyeon gazed at her quietly, then gave a slight tilt of his chin.
“Come here.”
Dan-bi approached carefully and sat across from him.
“You summoned me, Your Highness.”
“I called you here because I have something urgent to tell my concubine.”
Perhaps it was about those lost memories.
Dan-bi glanced sideways at Rang, who sat beside her. This was a man who would have offered his own neck to the sword for Hyeon’s sake without question.
With someone like that present, she found her body shrinking inward.
“If there’s something you wish to say……”
“Rang.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Before Dan-bi could even begin, Hyeon called for Rang first. Rang nodded and bowed toward Dan-bi.
“Forgive my intrusion, but there is something I wished to ask of you.”
“Of me?”
Dan-bi tilted her head in confusion, and Rang held her gaze for a moment before letting it fall again as he asked.
“Have you perhaps encountered me outside the palace before?”
“Outside the palace? That hardly seems possible……”
Dan-bi’s lips faltered mid-answer.

“No, wait. When did you climb over the wall?”
“Pardon?”
“You appear to be someone of the palace.”

Suddenly, a moment from a previous playthrough came flooding back—that confrontation with him outside the palace walls. Dan-bi’s head snapped up.
“Surely not.”
Seeing her reaction, Rang immediately turned toward Hyeon. Hyeon’s eyes were quiet as he looked at her, and he spoke.
“From that response, it seems you truly have met before.”
“Yes. But that was……”
Dan-bi hesitated for a moment before continuing.
“It happened in the last playthrough.”
Hyeon fell silent as though he already knew. Then Rang asked her again.
“Do you still have that yellow ornament with you?”
“A yellow ornament?”
At the unexpected question, Dan-bi fell into thought.
Then she suddenly reached down and pulled out the yellow ornament hanging beneath her jacket, showing it to him.
“Is it this?”
It was the very ornament he had found and given her at the hunting grounds long ago.
Rang nodded, and Dan-bi immediately untied it and handed it over to him.
As Rang took it, he gently smoothed its surface, and when his face settled into something like certainty, he turned to Hyeon and nodded.
Watching the two exchange their subtle glances, Dan-bi asked.
“But why are you looking for the ornament?”
Hyeon turned slowly to face her.
“Where did that ornament come from?”
“I received it from Som.”
“Som, you say……”
Hyeon seemed to be recalling someone for a moment, then blinked once before speaking again.
“After Rang touched that ornament, he said a memory emerged—one he’d never experienced before.”
“After touching the ornament?”
That couldn’t be.
Som had merely given it to her, saying it would bring good fortune.
Dan-bi took the ornament back and examined it carefully. And then, when her eyes landed on one particular spot, she went rigid.
‘Wait.’
The pattern carved into the ornament felt familiar somehow.
Could it be…?
“This… I made this myself, didn’t I?”

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————