The Five-Year-Old Baby Princess Rules the Palace - Chapter 64
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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#64. Communicating with King Yeonjo
A soul, that is, a body capable of containing spirits!
Could someone who isn’t a shaman possess such an ability?
Eunhye looked back at Park Jeong-bin, who still hadn’t regained his senses, with disbelieving eyes.
“That’s impossible. A body capable of containing souls! How could my uncle have such a body?”
Eunhye asked with a tearful face as she watched Park Jeong-bin, who seemed to be regaining consciousness with groaning sounds.
But Gwangjo turned his body to the side with an apologetic expression, and Yeonjo just smiled faintly while looking at the sobbing Eunhye.
“Then how has Uncle lived all this time? Mother, myself, no one knew.”
“Oh, my head… What exactly didn’t you know, dear niece?”
Park Jeong-bin, who seemed to have regained consciousness, frowned and opened his eyes as he asked Eunhye.
“Uncle! Are you coming to your senses?”
At Eunhye’s worried voice as she crouched in front of him, Park Jeong-bin looked around with a surprised face and asked.
“Why am I like this?”
Then he looked at Lady Han, who was standing beside Eunhye with frightened eyes, and frowned.
“Did I grab the sleeve of your personal lady-in-waiting again?”
“What? What are you saying? Lady Han’s sleeve?”
Eunhye looked back at Lady Han, who had an involuntarily surprised expression at Park Jeong-bin’s strange words.
“Lady Han, what does Uncle mean?”
Lady Han, remembering how she had threatened him earlier at the library side door not to lay a hand on her body again, shook her head vigorously.
“Oh my, Princess, what could it mean? It’s just nonsense, nonsense. Didn’t you see it yourself, Princess? He was standing alone trembling and then collapsed by himself.”
“What, what do you mean I was alone doing what? Have you ever seen such a shameless woman? Oh, my head. Niece, do you know how fierce that woman is? Earlier she said to me…”
“Oh my, a person who’s learned enough to be learned is making quite a fuss with his nonsense.”
Lady Han waved her hands frantically in front of the bewildered Eunhye and glared fiercely at Park Jeong-bin.
Why is that man suddenly saying such things here! Honestly, he was standing there having a fit by himself and then collapsed and lost consciousness by himself, yet he’s trying to blame someone else.
Just now, seeing the Princess talking with the Late King about spirit gates and such, he must have been possessed by a ghost!
Just as Lady Han, with an aggrieved expression, was about to open her mouth again toward the angry Park Jeong-bin,
“That’s enough, Lady Han. Uncle seems confused after suddenly losing consciousness, but aren’t your words too harsh?”
Then Lady Han, looking aggrieved, pouted and bowed her head deeply.
“Yes, I apologize.”
Then Park Jeong-bin, who had been pressing his throbbing forehead with one hand, frowned and looked up at Lady Han. Then he was startled and became pale.
“Gasp!”
“Why, why, why are you doing that again! So scary!”
When Park Jeong-bin, who had been frowning at her, suddenly gasped and opened his eyes wide, Lady Han also turned around quickly and jumped.
“Your Ma… No, Late King…! I have shown an unseemly appearance! Please forgive me!”
Park Jeong-bin stood up abruptly and bowed his head while clasping his hands in front, having finally noticed the spirits of Gwangjo and Yeonjo.
[You were making quite a racket, are you done now?]
Knowing it was a sound that wouldn’t reach Park Jeong-bin, Gwangjo chuckled and spoke.
Lady Han also opened her surprised eyes wide and bowed her body.
Ah, the Late King was beside the Princess!
Eunhye, whose soul had been knocked out by the argument between Park Jeong-bin and Lady Han, also cutely shook her head and came to stand beside Gwangjo.
“Uncle, are you really alright now?”
At Eunhye’s question, Park Jeong-bin slowly blinked his eyes and frowned slightly to recall what he had just experienced.
Ah, what happened? I definitely came into the library and the Princess was talking with the Late Kings… heard? Ah! King Yeonjo!
Park Jeong-bin, who remembered being surprised by the news that not only King Gwangjo but also King Yeonjo was here, bowed his body again with a startled face.
“Yongho-yeong training officer, no, now Princess Eunhye’s guard Park So-and-so, pays respects to both Late Kings.”
[Enough! Why are you greeting twice?]
At the surprised Park Jeong-bin’s greeting to Yeonjo and Gwangjo, Eunhye smiled brightly and spoke.
“Uncle, you already greeted Queen Dowager Gwangjo and Queen Dowager Yeonjo earlier.”
“Ah… I apologize. I wasn’t in my right mind… But Princess, did I really lose consciousness?”
Why? Even though I have the physical strength to confidently win against a tiger, I really lost consciousness?
Gwangjo, who had been laughing alone, suddenly leaned forward toward Park Jeong-bin, who was asking with a serious expression as if he couldn’t understand or accept it.
[You communicated with Yeonjo.]
He thought everyone could see them.
Behind the faces of his mother and father, whom he saw for the first time after birth, whitish smoke-like things floated around, and his pretty sister’s body always had a light like sunlight surrounding it.
Even when playing war games with neighborhood friends and stealing fruit, there were always one or two piles of whitish smoke.
He learned that not everyone could see such things when he started attending the village school.
When he first went to a place called a village school holding his mother’s hand at age six, he saw a pile of dark cloud-like smoke sitting on the shoulders of the long-bearded teacher.
Jeong-bin stared at the teacher’s shoulder for a while as he spread out books like the Thousand Character Classic and Dongmong Seonsup in front of him.
When his mother paid a mal of rice as tuition and returned alone, Jeong-bin alternately looked at the white pile of smoke following behind his mother and the dark gray pile of smoke attached to the teacher’s shoulder.
Why are the colors and shapes of the smoke piles different?
After that, Jeong-bin attended the village school with neighborhood friends, and one day, as usual, watching the teacher who kept tapping his shoulder, he asked curiously.
“Teacher, why does your shoulder have a pile of smoke like dark clouds, different from other people?”
At Jeong-bin’s question, the teacher’s face turned deathly pale, and all his friends opened their eyes wide and began murmuring.
A few days after that incident, his mother came to the school, and Jeong-bin had to quit school that very day.
It was around that time, he thinks, that he learned his sister was not an ordinary person.
His sister, who was four years older than him and very pretty, often had prophetic dreams to foresee people’s futures, and would find armfuls of medicinal herbs that could cure diseases without anyone teaching her.
The villagers treated such a sister as if she were a shrine maiden, and labeled him, who could only see smoke piles attached to people, as a strange child.
“Jeong-bin, the white or dark-colored smoke piles you see are souls that couldn’t leave this world. For some reason, only you and I can see them, so never tell other people about them from now on. You’ll receive unnecessary misunderstandings like now.”
After that day, Jeong-bin lived as his sister had told him.
He lived pretending not to see the things visible to his eyes, acting as if he didn’t know, and never spoke to anyone about what he could see.
On the day his sister, who had cherished him greatly, received the king’s summons and entered the palace to become a shrine maiden, Jeong-bin cried and cried until his eyes were swollen.
And his sister, who entered the palace and truly became a shrine maiden, could never be met even once after that day.
Kim Hee-ran, the name of his only sister – when young Jeong-bin missed his sister, he would call her name alone and wet his pillowcase.
Time passed like that, and one night when Jeong-bin turned eleven, an unfamiliar nobleman secretly visited his home with a servant.
Then he politely asked his surprised father and mother to send him as an adopted son, saying it was his sister’s request.
That person, who came into the room with a heap of gifts sent by his sister, took out a letter written by his sister from his bosom and read it.
That night, his father and mother took out precious new clothes and dressed him in them, telling him to follow the high nobleman and live as his son.
Thus Jeong-bin became the adopted son of Park Nam-il, who was a great general of Taekang Kingdom, and changed his surname from Kim to Park.
In the general’s house, who became his adoptive father, there was a sister named Park Ji-hee who was the same age as his sister who had become a shrine maiden.
But unlike his sister who was a natural woman, Park Ji-hee was a tomboy excellent in swordsmanship and horsemanship.
Park Ji-hee, who knew him as the second son of a distant relative who would continue the family line, was genuinely happy to have a younger brother.
Although he had suddenly been separated from his parents and came up to the capital, Jeong-bin studied and trained hard with Park Ji-hee’s warm welcome and his adoptive father’s consideration that showed no discrimination in education.
But he could never meet his sister Hee-ran, who had become a shrine maiden at the palace.
Five years passed like that, and sixteen-year-old Park Jeong-bin took the military examination and proudly passed as the top candidate.
But what remained puzzling was why only the forms of whitish spirits were visible to his eyes.
Sometimes the piles of smoke he had looked at would hover around him, making him feel spine-chilling coldness, but since he couldn’t see clear forms or hear sounds, he had lived ignoring them.
But now, the forms of the souls visible before his eyes couldn’t be ignored even if he wanted to.
They were none other than the souls of King Gwangjo, the most notorious (?) bloody king in Daeshinuk’s history, and King Yeonjo, the sword god. Moreover, his young niece, who he thought only suffered from smallpox aftereffects, could freely converse with those souls!
Park Jeong-bin, who had been standing with his hands clasped, suddenly closed his eyes tightly at the coldness that suddenly reached right up to his face.
His niece’s surprised voice reached his ears!
“Communicated? Queen Dowager, where did Uncle communicate with Queen Dowager Yeonjo?”
Communicated? Communicate? Me? With King Yeonjo?
At Eunhye’s surprised words, Park Jeong-bin opened his eyes wide and looked up at the white pile of smoke floating in front of him.
[Listen here, your body was born with a spirit gate that allows souls to enter and exit, but it’s not a body that just any soul can enter. There must be a connection.]
“Niece, could you perhaps tell me what His Late Majesty is saying?”
Park Jeong-bin pleaded with a desperate voice to Eunhye, who was looking up at the souls of the late kings.
“Well, the thing is… Uncle, your spirit gate is open, and for some reason I don’t understand, souls that connect with you can freely enter and exit your body.”
[Exactly! As expected, you’re quite clever.]
Unlike Gwangjo who nodded and smiled contentedly, Lady Park and Lady Han, who hadn’t even been asked, simultaneously cried out with Park Jeong-bin and gaped in shock.
“What?!! So you’re saying King Yeon-jo’s soul has been entering and leaving my body?”
How could such a thing be possible in this world? Sharing a soul and body!
Park Jeong-bin, his eyes wide as saucers, shook his head in disbelief.
Watching him, Gwangjo frowned with pity and moved to stand beside Yeonjo as he spoke.
[He probably could see the forms of spirits from childhood. However, with only half-inherited divine power and an open spirit gate, there must have been many demons coveting that body. But though the spirit gate is open, it’s a body that can only lend itself to souls he connects with. Hehehehehe! Somehow, your uncle has connected with Yeonjo.]
“The thing is, Uncle…”
Seeing Eunhye looking up at him with pitying eyes, Park Jeong-bin kept shaking his head.
“Something is wrong, niece. Isn’t that right?”
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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