I Became My Ex-Boyfriend’s Concubine - Chapter 86

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

Chapter 86

“What are you saying?”
Hyeon’s brow furrowed as though he could make no sense of her words.
“You say you are you, yet you are not you—to my ears, that sounds like nothing but sophistry.”
“Those words are correct. But they are also true.”
As Dan-bi nodded, the furrow in Hyeon’s brow deepened.
“How am I to believe such a perplexing claim?”
“You yourself recalled all the memories you shared with me, didn’t you?”
Hyeon fell silent. Dan-bi met that silence with a steadiness born of inevitability, swallowing a sigh.
From the moment he had summoned her, she’d known a question like this would come.
By now, surely Hyeon too had recalled those countless encounters where they had crossed blades with the sharpness of winter steel, each wielding the other as an opponent.
That she harbored no killing intent now meant little—he would not accept her words so readily.
Heavy silence filled the chamber. After studying Dan-bi for a long moment, Hyeon finally spoke.
“I could simply dismiss us both as mad and have done with it.”
“Your Majesty—”
Ignoring Rang’s protest, Hyeon continued.
“But how am I to believe you?”
Deep doubt still shadowed his eyes. Dan-bi met that gaze without flinching, her voice measured.
“Did you not promise me? That if rain fell, you would believe what I said—that all of this is a game?”
“……”
Hyeon’s lips tightened. A moment passed before he spoke in a low voice.
“I could kill you here and now, and confirm your words that way.”
“You may do so. But if you do, all circumstances will return to the moment before the Rain-Making Ritual began.”
Hyeon regarded her quietly. Dan-bi met his chill gaze, her mind turning over the logic.
According to the game’s rules—that a player’s death triggers a restart—she would certainly be pulled back to that sedan chair in the marketplace where she’d first logged in.
Since Hyeon too must remember returning to that starting point after living through countless cycles, he could not easily refute her.
Then something struck her.
That so many lives had repeated meant she had failed to complete the mission even once.
Every time the Dan-bi of her memories drew a blade against Hyeon, the result was always the same—an ignominious death.
The sword stroke she’d unleashed either shattered uselessly in the air, or some unforeseen disaster blocked her path forward.
Were all those things truly mere coincidence?
Dan-bi lifted her gaze toward empty air.
There, visible to her eyes alone, hovered her Status Window.

「Jade Seal—Generating」

Without breaking her focus on the blue-tinged window, Dan-bi slowly parted her lips.
“Before that, there is one thing I wish to ask of you.”
Hyeon’s eyebrows tensed faintly. Dan-bi met his gaze directly.
“If I discover a way to find the Jade Seal, will you help me?”
All attention snapped toward Dan-bi at once. Hyeon repeated, disbelief etched across his features.
“Are you saying you know where the Jade Seal is now?”
“Not yet. The Jade Seal is being created at this very moment.”
“What?”
Hyeon’s brow furrowed in complete incomprehension. Dan-bi continued, her tone unhurried.
“Do you remember the Antidote I gave you before?”
At those words, something flickered in Hyeon’s eyes.
He could not possibly have forgotten—he was the very man who had secretly ordered the Imperial Medical Bureau to investigate the composition of that mysterious medicine.
Ignoring the unspoken question in his gaze, Dan-bi added her next words.
“That Antidote came to me in the same way.”
“Do you claim to practice sorcery?”
“Sorcery, perhaps. You could see it that way.”
Even if she had explained the intricate system—text appearing in empty air, rewards following the completion of given tasks—he would struggle to truly comprehend it.
So she had abbreviated her account. Yet contrary to her expectations, Hyeon sank into profound silence.
Having witnessed the true miracle of rain falling at the end of the Rain-Making Ritual, was he now prepared to swallow even the most outlandish of tales?
After a long silence, Hyeon spoke again.
“Very well. You say there is a way to find the Jade Seal. What is it?”
“Your Majesty, do you remember the moment when color returned to the world?”
Dan-bi recalled that day when she had been trapped in the burning pavilion.
In that desperate moment when Hyun came to rescue her, she had stabbed her own thigh to prevent the System from wielding her body by force.
The instant her crimson blood touched the black flames, they regained their color and shimmered with an otherworldly brilliance—a sight that was no dream.
“If we recover all the lost colors, perhaps we may finally obtain the Jade Seal.”
“Recover the colors……?”
Though Hyun’s response betrayed confusion, Dan-bi nodded with unwavering conviction.
The moment she had seen the message “Jade Seal being created” after the rain fell, Dan-bi connected the scattered clues into a single thread.
If the Jade Seal had vanished when the rain stopped, and the world had lost its color in the same moment, then the inverse must be possible as well.
As each thing lost by the Jade Seal was restored, the Jade Seal itself would finally reveal its true form.
For now, she could only rely on that vague premonition.
Hyun still wore a puzzled expression as he spoke.
“But why would you ask me to do this?”
The Jade Seal was the symbol of Royal Authority and the foundation of the realm to Hyun, but to Dan-bi it was merely an Item in a Game.
There was no reason for her to go to such lengths for the noble cause of breaking a drought and saving the nation.
And yet she had to know the end of this strange world.
“There’s something I need to confirm.”
At her brief reply, Hyun fell silent for a moment before nodding.
“Very well.”
“Your Majesty……!”
Nang, standing nearby, raised his voice in alarm, but Hyun’s gaze remained fixed on Dan-bi.
“Then you do know the way to recover the colors?”
“No.”
Hyun’s brow furrowed at once. But Dan-bi smiled gently and continued with unhurried confidence.
“I can’t say for certain, but I do have a method in mind.”

***

In a corner beyond the palace grounds, within the Yuhwadang.
“What on earth is the meaning of this!”
Lee Minister could not hide his alarm as he struck the table. At the sound, all eyes in the hall snapped toward a single point.
Then Jung Minister clicked his tongue disapprovingly.
“What do you mean, ‘what is the meaning’? The King must truly possess the Jade Seal, don’t you think?”
“That can’t be! Did you not all say just recently that Woo-sang held the Jade Seal?”
“Ahem!”
Woo-sang, seated at the head, coughed uncomfortably.
This was a situation he himself had utterly failed to account for.
Even if the Rain-Making Ritual had been held, he never dreamed that rain would actually pour from the barren sky.
Woo-sang’s cunning eyes flickered uncontrollably.
“Did you lose the Jade Seal? Why did you not speak of it sooner!”
“Minister, this is surely an affront to us!”
“Indeed! Did we not swear that should any trouble arise, we would report it at once!”
As the ministers’ protests rained down upon him, Woo-sang answered nothing, his lips merely twitching with anxiety.
“All of you, silence.”
At that very moment, a low voice drifted in from the wide-open door.
Park Dae-yeong then stepped inside, and as if by agreement, the clamoring ministers’ mouths snapped shut. He walked in unhindered with his hands clasped behind his back and came to a halt before Woo-sang.
“Tch.”
Pushing aside Woo-sang as he reluctantly yielded the seat, Park Dae-yeong settled naturally into the position.
“What’s done is done. There’s no use raking over the past.”
“But……”
“Before that—are all of you gathered here truly of one mind and one heart?”
At Park Dae-yeong’s piercing question, the ministers looked at one another, bewildered.
“I seem to recall seeing all of you dancing about merrily when the rain fell.”
“……!”
The ministers’ bodies went rigid as stone.
Years had passed since they had plotted to seize the Jade Seal and usurp the Royal Authority.
Intoxicated by the sweetness of that power, they had lined their own pockets well, yet as the land grew ever more parched, they too had felt the creeping terror of famine in their hearts.
Now, as the memory surfaced of how they had danced unbidden when the sudden downpour came, they all clamped their mouths shut like guilty men.
Park Dae-yeong, regarding their expressions with contempt, turned his head.
“Woo-sang.”
“Yes.”
“Have you discerned the King’s movements?”
Kim Panseo, standing beside Minister Woo-sang, ventured to interject carefully.
“He has not set foot outside the pavilion, Your Excellencies. That much is certain.”
Only then did Park Dae-yeong exhale a short breath of relief, his gaze sweeping across the assembled ministers.
“Listen well, all of you. This is where the true game begins.”
The ministers’ attention fixed upon Park Dae-yeong’s lips.
“As you already know, the real Jade Seal is now in the King’s hands.”
The chamber erupted in sudden unrest.
Park Dae-yeong brought his fist down upon the table, quelling the turbulence, then spoke with iron certainty.
“Our task is simple—to retrieve that Jade Seal. There is no cause for alarm. We need only proceed as we originally planned, and all will fall into place.”
“Indeed!”
Relief bloomed across the ministers’ faces at last.
Yet the heart of Woo-sang, who watched them, burned with something else entirely.
He could make no sense of this. The notion that the King possessed the Jade Seal was absurd—as impossible as rain falling from heaven.
The real Jade Seal had shattered into fragments some time ago, destroyed by his own hand.

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