The Morning Star Baby Wants a Family - Chapter 1

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

Chapter 1
The acrid stench of smoke and blood hung thick in the air.
Hae-na crouched in the cramped confines of a wall closet, her small frame trembling.
Through the narrow gap in the door, a hellscape of black and crimson unfolded before her eyes.
“Execute the traitors!”
“Not a single one must escape!”
Thunderous commands echoed through the sprawling residence, reverberating off every wall.
The sound of running footsteps.
The chilling ring of steel and anguished screams filled the air without pause.
Thud, thud!
Heavy impacts shook the ground beneath her. The sound of bodies collapsing—those who had drawn their last breath.
“Hh, hhh…”
Hae-na clamped her small hand over her mouth.
A sob threatened to escape, to betray her hiding place.
The Yeon Family—masters of the kingdom’s greatest merchant house, wielding wealth and influence that rivaled even the noblest of aristocratic clans in the Cheonmang Kingdom.
Everyone had proclaimed that the Yeon-ga would maintain its dominance for at least another century. Yet now, engulfed in flames and falling blades, it crumbled before my eyes.
No one had foreseen the Yeon Family’s collapse.
But I had always known this day would come.
I had grown up within the Yeon Family since birth.
Though I was merely a lowborn servant, I understood the true nature of the household I had spent my entire life serving.
Yeon Ki-mun, the patriarch of the Yeon Family, was a man consumed by greed. He doubled the inherited fortune and expanded trade across foreign lands, yet remained insatiable.
Eventually, he began to covet what he had no right to possess.
The nobility of the Cheonmang Kingdom inherited the power of heaven itself.
The proof of this lay in the Celestial—one born to each great house.
The Celestial were born bearing the power of the stars their families served.
The strength of that power determined a family’s standing in the realm.
Naturally, no Celestial had ever been born to the Yeon Family, a house of merchants.
So Yeon Ki-mun resolved to create one himself.
Beneath the palatial residence, hidden from all eyes, lay an underground facility as vast as the mansion above it.
Yeon Ki-mun’s plan had begun before I was even born.
Under the pretense of sheltering orphans with nowhere else to turn, he gathered children. Those children died in the underground facility, subjected to endless experimentation.
I was assigned as a servant in that basement.
An orphan with no connections, raised within the Yeon Family from birth—there was no risk of secrets leaking from my lips.
From the moment I could walk and speak, I was sent below.
And there, I witnessed what transpired.
Day after day, I worked amid the screams and pleas of the children, their voices a constant refrain.
I knew what was happening was wrong. But I had no choice.
Even high-ranking servants who dared defy the patriarch were carried out as corpses.
I was only eight years old.
Refuse an order and die. Attempt escape and die.
I didn’t want to die. So I pretended not to see everything that happened in that Underground Facility.
But I was always afraid.
Because if you commit a sin, you must surely be punished.
The stern heavens would be watching all of this.
What the Yeon Family, and what I had done.
And today, Government Military soldiers stormed into the Yeon Family Mansion.
People fell before the gleaming blades.
Those who fled outside lost their lives to the soldiers surrounding the residence, while those who hid within perished in the raging inferno.
It was merciless slaughter—not a single rat would be left alive.
Soon that blade would hover before my neck as well.
‘This is heavenly retribution.’
I swallowed my sobs and thought.
Though young, I knew what was right and what was wrong.
Or rather, precisely because I was young, I understood it all the more clearly.
Yet I pretended not to know.
Because I wanted to live.
Today I would die.
It was the punishment I deserved.
But….
“Ugh, sob….”
I buried my face in my knees and wept.
I was terrified.
Shamefully, I wanted to live. I didn’t want to die.
Thump, thump.
In that moment, I heard footsteps.
I forgot my tears, my face drained of all color as I held my breath.
The footsteps drew steadily closer.
They were definitely approaching the wall closet.
‘Please, please just pass by.’
With clenched fists, I prayed with all my heart.
My thundering heartbeat sounded impossibly loud.
A brief silence fell.
But before I could exhale in relief, the door burst open.
Crash!
The closed door was torn away without resistance.
The darkness gave way to light, and the screams and stench of blood became all the more vivid.
Then a shadow fell darkly over the child.
With my head bowed, I saw black cotton clothing in my vision.
I trembled as I lifted my head. The moment my eyes met those dark navy blue irises, my complexion turned deathly pale.
‘The Greatsword of Greed…!’
Blood clung to her ash-gray hair, pulled up in a neat knot.
Blood dripped steadily from the woman’s pale face as well.
Among all the stars of the Cheonmang Kingdom, the Seven Stars stood supreme.
A celestial being of the Yul Clan, wielding the power of Greedy Wolf, the first of the seven.
One of seven granted the title of Sage Star—and the merciless blade of the royal house.
The Greedy Wolf Star had always been formidable.
Yet in this generation, the celestial being Yul Seowon had earned a reputation for cruelty that echoed across the entire realm.
A loyal hound who obeyed every royal command without question.
A cold-blooded killer who showed no mercy to anyone, regardless of who they were.
A demon who had slaughtered even his own blood relatives with his own hands.
Had it been any other soldier, she might have begged for mercy.
But standing before Hae-na now was the Greedy Wolf Sage Star himself—Yul Seowon.
Hae-na could not cry anymore.
A single tear fell.
One drop of tears pooled at her eyes and fell.
“….”
With her eyes closed, I trembled as I waited for the death that would come.
But no matter how long I waited, there was no pain.
“H-hic!”
I opened my eyes hesitantly and was startled beyond measure.
Seowan had approached right in front of me.
His pale face, stained with dried blood, stared at me expressionlessly.
In the next moment, Seowan grabbed my arm and pulled me out from the wall closet.
“Ugh.”
Overwhelmed by shock and terror, I could not resist and was dragged out.
Seowan, now on his feet, looked down at me.
“General. You were here. We have rescued all the children held in the Underground Facility.”
A soldier approached Seowan at that moment.
“We have arrested the Family Head Yeon Ki-mun and transported him to the Palace. The household members have been executed on the spot. However, among those listed in the servant registry, there was no young maidservant named Hae-na, so we assumed she was inside the burning Hall….”
Terrifying words poured out. The soldier glanced down at me.
“Here she is.”
That gaze was as sharp as a blade. I trembled involuntarily.
All the servants of the Yeon Family wore brown garments embroidered with cloud patterns.
Naturally, the clothes I wore also bore the cloud emblem.
“P-please, please spare me.”
I collapsed and clasped my hands in supplication.
My pleading voice and tightly clasped hands both trembled uncontrollably.
At that, Seowan’s gaze turned toward me once more.
Desperate amber eyes met cold blue ones.
“Do you wish to live?”
Hae-na nodded frantically, her head bobbing with desperate urgency.
Even as she thought there was no chance of survival, she grasped at this straw like a drowning soul.
“Then so it shall be.”
Yet an answer came that I could scarcely believe.
The moment Hae-na lifted her head in shock, her small body was suddenly hoisted into the air.
‘What?’
I processed what was happening only slowly, as if moving through a haze.
A rough, calloused hand gripped my back, and beneath my belly I felt the hard, unyielding surface of armor.
Seowan had lifted Hae-na into his arms—though he carried me slung across his shoulder like a bundle of goods.
“Are there any other survivors besides this child?”
His cool voice sounded closer now than before.
The soldier, equally startled, fell silent for a moment before responding.
“None, sir. Though as I mentioned, that servant child….”
“Verify once more that the corpse matches the name in the registry. Once that is done, we depart.”
“But General, that child is also of the Yeon Family.”
Seowan fell silent at this. Yet the hand holding Hae-na’s back did not waver.
“I will take the child with me. Report this to His Majesty as such. I shall present myself before the throne and take full responsibility for this matter.”
I could not believe the words that reached my ears so clearly.
It seemed as though Seowan might cast me to the ground at any moment.
With my small hands, I gripped Seowan’s collar tightly.
Still cradling the child, Seowan strode out of the residence with long, purposeful steps.
The acrid smoke and stench of blood faded into the distance. Tears fell silently from Hae-na’s eyes, her lips pressed firmly shut.
I had survived.
Shamefully, I was overwhelmed with joy.

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