Surviving as Jang Hee-bin's Child Court Lady - Chapter 2

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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 2. A Young Maid of Chwisuondang
My first day fallen into the Joseon Dynasty.
I found myself in the midst of absolute pandemonium.
“Burn the lips! Sear the mouth!”
Men in eunuch robes bellowed at the top of their lungs, waving torches wildly about.
Young palace maids, their mouths stuffed with rice cakes, shrieked as though seized by convulsions.
“So you dared to move your lips carelessly within the palace, did you? I’ll singe that mouth of yours shut!”
One of the eunuchs thrust a flaming torch forward, his voice dripping with menace.
Amidst the roaring of the eunuchs and the screams of the maids, sparks scattered like fireflies through the chaos.
I stood there with a blank expression, observing the spectacle unfold.
‘What a ridiculous dream this is.’
My last memory was collapsing into sleep while poring over the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty.
And of all things, I had to dream of becoming a palace maid.
Wasn’t this far too cruel for a history graduate student suffering through thesis work?
Sigh. Someone save this graduate student.
“Burn the lips!”
‘Burning the lips’ was a form of hazing ritual designed to discipline newly arrived palace maids.
‘It’s called discipline, but it’s nothing short of child abuse.’
For young maids, it must have been an absolutely terrifying ordeal.
But to me, a twenty-four-year-old modern woman, it was merely a cringeworthy performance put on by middle-aged men.
The only strange thing was how unnaturally vivid my senses felt.
The screams of the maids were one thing, but…
The heat piercing through the frigid air, the crackling sound of sparks, the sharp sting against my skin—everything was far too real.
That was when it happened.
“Is this the child you spoke of?”
“Yes, Your Ladyship.”
At the sound of a woman’s voice, I lifted my head, and a resplendent silk robe entered my field of vision.
For the first time, I was genuinely startled.
The woman’s beauty was extraordinary.
Honestly, she was the most stunning beauty I had ever laid eyes upon—the kind that made your jaw drop.
‘But why is this woman so tall?’
I thought as I craned my neck to look up at her distant face.
“Quite composed for one so young. Even maids in their teens would be weeping, yet this little one remains so unflappable. Well done bringing her here.”
The woman spoke as she regarded me.
“How remarkable that such a young child possesses such composure. You’ve brought me a good one.”
With an intrigued gaze fixed upon me, the woman gently removed the rice cake stuck to my lips.
The sensation of her fingertips brushing against me felt so real that I flinched involuntarily.
“Little one, how old are you?”
“….”
Did she just call me ‘little one’?
I stood there bewildered, hesitating.
“Ahem. Does the lady not ask you a question? Answer at once.”
Sang-gung, who stood beside the woman, urged me sternly.
‘If I’m being called “lady,” then she must be a Bin—the highest rank among the concubines.’
Bin or not, I had to endure such authoritative speech even in a dream.
But perhaps from my experience being grilled by professors, an answer tumbled out immediately.
“Twenty-four years….”
Wait? What was this lisp? What on earth was that?
Flustered, I rolled my eyes.
‘Something’s wrong. What kind of dream is this?’
When I lowered my gaze, I saw crimson trim sewn onto the edge of a jade-colored sleeve.
‘This is a palace maid’s uniform?’
The problem wasn’t just that it was a palace maid’s uniform.
The hand protruding from beyond that sleeve was… quite literally a child’s tiny hand.
Only then did I understand.
It wasn’t that the women were tall—I possessed the body of a small child.
“Twenty-four? Ha ha. Being so young, it seems you don’t even know your numbers properly yet. You must mean four years old.”
“Indeed, my lady. Though she is currently three years old, the year will soon change, so it would be reasonable to say she is four.”
Even as I spiraled in confusion, the concubine and Sang-gung continued their exchange back and forth.
The situation didn’t feel like a dream at all. The sensation grew increasingly strange.
This won’t do. I need to pinch myself and wake up from this bizarre dream immediately….
“Ow!”
“…Child. Why do you do that?”
My hand stung so badly that tears welled up in my eyes.
…What is this? Is this really not a dream but reality?
Then the woman spoke.
“I like this child. My heart has felt so empty of late, and having a little one in my quarters might lift my spirits.”
“Surely that will be so, my lady. Though she is an orphan, being from a noble house, she should have learned proper etiquette well enough.”
“An orphan? Oh dear. How pitiful.”
…More shocking than the fact that I—uncertain whether this was dream or reality—was an orphan, was that she would say such things right in front of the child.
“This child’s fortune has turned for the better. Surely the Crown Prince will look upon her favorably as well.”
“There is no doubt of it, Jang Hee-bin.”
‘Jang Hee-bin…!’
In that instant, shock froze me in place.
Could it be that Jang Hee-bin? The one I knew?
‘No. That can’t be.’
I steadied myself.
There’s nothing to worry about. After all, this is a dream…. No, it has to be a dream.
Besides, there was more than one person called “Jang Hee-bin” in the Joseon Dynasty era.
“Then, my lady, with your permission, I shall take the child to your quarters.”
“Yes. This should ease the loneliness of Chwisuondang.”
The moment those words reached my ears.
“What?! Chwisuondang?”
I cried out before I could stop myself.
Chwisuondang, no less.
Me, a lady-in-waiting of Chwisuondang!
Chwisuondang was the name of the residence where the woman who could be called the most famous female figure throughout all of Joseon history once lived.
Hee-bin Jang. Jang Hee-bin, to be precise.
Which meant the woman standing before me right now was….
‘Could she really be Jang Hee-bin?’
A legendary beauty and seductress who etched herself into history through her romance with King Sukjong.
The epitome of palace intrigue and the villainess most representative of Joseon.
But my panic stemmed from an entirely different reason.
Any history enthusiast would know this fact: Jang Hee-bin was executed for cursing Queen Inhyeon.
There were disputes about whether she drank poison or was strangled, but such details hardly mattered now.
If I truly was a lady-in-waiting of Chwisuondang….
‘Most of the ladies-in-waiting of Chwisuondang were executed after Jang Hee-bin’s death!’
***
“Sigh….”
I stared up at the wooden rafters of the ceiling—the kind you’d see at a folk village museum—and exhaled a sigh deep enough to make the earth swallow me whole.
This was Changgyeong Palace.
The place where I lay was a lady-in-waiting’s quarters attached to Chwisuondang.
When I lifted my head, I could see antique furniture that looked like something from a historical drama, all within this warm ondol room radiating heat.
Fearing my back would roast, I pushed myself upright, and a chamber pot sitting alone in the corner came into view.
It was the kind of object you’d only find in museums or antique shops in modern times.
That chamber pot spoke volumes about the reality of my situation.
‘I’ve possessed someone’s body.’
Typically, when someone undergoes possession, they’d have some special ability or noble status—that’s the unwritten rule.
But none of that applied to me.
Let me summarize just how absurd my circumstances were….
1. I was a graduate student majoring in Joseon history. In other words, I’d possessed myself into the very era I’d been studying.
2. I’d possessed the body of an ordinary lady-in-waiting with no connection to royalty, nobility, or any special abilities. And not just any lady-in-waiting, but a mere child-attendant, tiny as a bell!
3. I was apparently an orphan with no family. Therefore, there was no shadowy father figure to reform me, no family harboring secrets—nothing of the sort existed.
‘…But there’s an even more serious problem.’
In truth, the personal details of a powerless child-attendant were worthless.
What mattered was this.
A time bomb that would drive the ladies-in-waiting of Chwisuondang to their deaths was ticking even now.
‘Jang Hee-bin was executed in the 27th year of King Sukjong’s reign. But what year is it now?’
I needed to know how much time I had left before my own death.
Just then, the door burst open.
“Hwang Bong-bong! Are you feeling better now?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Whether from the shock of possession or some other cause, I had spent the past few days bedridden with fever.
During that time, I managed to glean only a single piece of information about this child whose body I now inhabited.
Her name: Hwang Bong-bong.
At this point, I couldn’t help but wonder.
‘What kind of name is Hwang Bong-bong? What on earth were her parents thinking?’
In any case, the court lady who came to our quarters was a maidservant named Seol-hyang.
She was a senior attendant who shared a room with the young maidservant Hwang Bong-bong.
Seol-hyang was remarkably kind to me, tending to my needs with meticulous care while I lay ill.
“Come now, Bong-bong. Get dressed and come out, will you? Today is the first day of spring. It’s the day we post the spring couplets on the pillars, and we can’t have the youngest missing, can we?”
If today was the first day of spring, that meant we were in the twelfth lunar month, with the Lunar New Year not far away.
Though a small detail, my ears perked up at this information.
As I struggled into my clothes with my short, stubby limbs, a thought occurred to me.
“Yes, ma’am… but…”
“What is it?”
“How old is the Crown Prince?”
“His age? Why do you need to know that?”
“Just curious.”
Seol-hyang didn’t press further and answered readily.
“His Highness is twelve years old. He’ll be thirteen after the New Year.”
“He’s twelve right now?”
“Yes. But Bong-bong, why do you look like that? Does something hurt?”
I heard Seol-hyang’s voice, but my mind was already spinning.
‘Jang Hee-bin was executed in the twenty-seventh year of King Sukjong’s reign, in the ninth month. The Crown Prince was fourteen then.’
The Crown Prince—son of Jang Hee-bin and the eldest son of King Sukjong, destined to become King Gyeongjo—was twelve this year.
And today was the first day of spring, as I’d just been told.
‘So right now, it’s the twenty-fifth year of King Sukjong’s reign, in the twelfth month.’
Which meant…
‘One year and nine months…’
That was the time I had to save Hwang Bong-bong’s life—a young maidservant in Jang Hee-bin’s quarters.

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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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