The Morning Star Baby Wants a Family - Chapter 3

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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 3
Cheonmang Kingdom Palace.
The vast Grand Hall held only two figures.
King Tae Mu-jin sat leisurely upon the jade throne, while Yul Seowon stood motionless in the center of the Grand Hall, facing him directly.
“At last some peace. What tonic are those fools consuming to possess such thunderous voices? It’s maddening.”
Mujin furrowed his brow and pressed his temples repeatedly with his fingers.
The bureaucrats had only just departed after their cacophonous clamoring, and his head still rang with their noise.
To disturb the King’s composure warranted death as recompense.
Yet the one standing before him showed no sign of seeking forgiveness.
Observing this, the irritated King addressed Seowon.
“What are your thoughts, Tamlang Seongggun? It seems all would find peace if you would simply bend your will.”
“I beg your pardon, Your Majesty. That is not possible.”
But the response that came was the same rigid answer he had heard countless times before.
Mujin creased his elegant brow and clicked his tongue.
He was a deeply pragmatic king.
Thus, no matter how much the bureaucrats prattled on about Tamlang Seongggun’s origins, he did not so much as blink.
To Mujin, Seowon was a loyal subject and a useful blade.
She was an exceptionally powerful Celestial Being, and she obeyed the King’s commands absolutely.
Because she had personally annihilated the entire Yul Clan, there were no forces to stand beside her, making her an ideal instrument for the Royal Family’s will.
Mujin himself had recognized Seowon as Tamlang Seongggun and bestowed upon her the rank of Grand General along with countless treasures.
Unlike the Celestial Beings of the Seven Star Clan, who constantly clawed their way upward, Seowon had always remained loyal.
‘That she would cause such a grave transgression…’
Even now, the thought vexed him. Mujin narrowed his eyes as he regarded Seowon.
What Yeon-ga had done crossed every line.
They had attempted to artificially create Celestial Beings, and in doing so had kidnapped countless children—even the Fourth Prince had become entangled in their scheme.
The entire clan had to be exterminated.
Not a single soul belonging to Yeon-ga could be permitted to live.
Yet the Tamlang Seongggun he had sent to apprehend them had returned with a young servant girl in tow.
Had the child been confined in the basement, it might have been different, but this girl had grown up and labored within Yeon-ga her entire life.
In the worst case, she could be a bastard child that Yeon-ga had secretly raised.
And now she was asking to spare the girl’s life.
‘The reasoning is equally absurd.’
Mujin rested his chin in his palm with evident displeasure.
A half-sister, she claimed. One whom she herself had abandoned to Yeon-ga in her childhood.
To shield a traitor’s family member for such a trivial reason.
Mujin found it entirely unacceptable.
“I had no idea Tamlang possessed such profound familial affection.”
“That is not the case. I simply bear responsibility for that child.”
Seowon replied calmly to his sarcastic remark.
The King’s expression remained one of incomprehension.
It was plausible enough.
The man who had slaughtered the Yul Clan upon becoming Tamlang Seongggun was now stepping forward to save his half-sister.
Naturally, the Court erupted into chaos.
Arguments ranged from the claim that the seed of a traitor could not be allowed to remain, even if bound by blood, to suspicions that Tamrang Fortress itself was implicated in Yeon-ga’s rebellion.
“The Fourth Prince has not yet awakened.”
The King’s previously light tone grew somewhat grave.
“There are limits to overlooking your achievements. If the Fourth Prince does not awaken, they will view this rebellion as far more serious.”
Unlike other families where only one Celestial Being existed per clan, all members of the Royal Family born with the power of the sun were Celestial Beings.
The Fourth Prince, whose power was weaker than the other royals, had been relegated to the shadows, yet the fact that he was both a Celestial Being and of royal blood remained unchanged.
“I understand.”
Still, I did not waver in my resolve.
I intended to take Hae-na under my wing, whatever the cost.
It was not some shallow sentiment about kinship or pity for a child.
What is given must be repaid, and what is taken must be reclaimed.
This was the principle of life I had upheld without fail.
I had exterminated the Yul Clan and pledged loyalty to the King for this very reason.
Hae-na.
That child was my transgression.
I lowered my gaze, and memories long buried surfaced—a time from long ago.
* * *
At sixteen, when I learned of my mother’s pregnancy, I answered without hesitation.
“Erase it.”
Crack!
The response came not in words, but in a sharp, stinging pain.
I turned my head to face my mother.
“Cruel as a demon! Such words to your pregnant mother?”
My mother, once the finest Entertainer in the Capital in her youth, remained beautiful even past forty.
“Do you know what kind of child this is? It’s from the Gok Family, no less! Such a prestigious house!”
I laughed despite the sting on my cheek.
I could not help but find my foolish mother amusing—unchanged even with age.
My mother was a lowborn dancer. By day she sold her dance and song; by night she sold her body.
Like so many men, my father had whispered sweet lies to a woman he spent a single night with.
I am the Head of the Yul Clan, Tamlang Seongggun, and I shall take you as my second wife and bring you into the family.
With those words, he left, abandoning me in my mother’s womb.
She believed his promise with absolute faith and bore me, but he never returned.
She was beautiful, but beautiful women were plentiful.
Her body, ruined by childbirth, fell from the depths to even greater depths.
She resented my father and despised me.
‘This worthless wretch. I live like this because of you!’
As if she could not survive otherwise, she blamed me every single day.
She blamed her poverty on the child, and at the same time, she wanted to be compensated for it.
From the moment I came of age, I worked whatever jobs I could find.
Whenever I brought home money, my mother would scream.
“Is this all you could earn? You lazy wretch. Do you know how much I’ve invested in you?”
At first, I was afraid of her. Then I grew angry. Eventually, I was utterly sick of it.
And now she wanted to repeat that cycle all over again. Wasn’t it absurd?
“This child is different from you. A truly precious one. Once I give birth to this child, that man will take me to the Gok Family.”
My mother murmured dreamily, caressing her belly.
Unlike the crumbling house, she wore silks and ornaments far beyond her station.
There could be no greater farce than this.
I regarded my mother with cold indifference.
A cheap Entertainer like her could never have entertained such an esteemed guest.
Even if it were true, no noble family would accept a child born of a lowborn dancer into their ranks.
In the end, it would only mean one more useless mouth to feed.
I cursed quietly under my breath.
My mother, sitting idle in the house. And the child yet to be born.
The thought of working myself to the bone to feed them both filled me with dread.
In the end, my mother did not abort the child.
But contrary to my expectations, we remained two.
My mother died.
They said she lost too much blood during childbirth.
The face that had always been twisted in a grimace like that of a malevolent spirit finally softened once death’s pallor had settled upon it.
After my mother’s funeral, I looked at the newborn child in my arms.
Cruelly, the child resembled me—not my mother, nor my father.
Seeing this blood relative who bore my likeness, I thought to myself:
Why must I raise this child?
I had only just escaped the suffocating bonds of motherhood. And now I was to be shackled by it again?
I did not want to take responsibility for this child.
Raising this newborn would only make my circumstances worse.
I knew well how those who harbored such thoughts treated their children.
A useless burden.
The ruin of my life. Lazy, worthless, wicked.
One such wretch was enough. I would not become another.
After twenty-one days had passed and the child’s ruddy face had turned pale, I sold my dead mother’s silks and ornaments.
With every coin I had, I made clothes and swaddling cloths for the child.
That was all I could give to my half-sister.
A heartless and base creature who would abandon her own blood could not even give the child a name.
I wrapped the baby in fine clothes and silk swaddling.
And in the pre-dawn darkness, before the sun rose, I took the child into the streets.
The sleeping child did not whimper.
Seowan set the child down at the gate of the Yeon-ga Estate, a residence belonging to a wealthy merchant family.
Wrapped in silk swaddling clothes, the child would be fortunate enough to be adopted as a daughter if luck favored her, or at worst, she would serve as a maid and never go hungry.
After laying the child down, Seowan turned and left.
The child began to cry, but she did not look back.
Seowan lived on, forgetting the blood relation she would never see again.
She clung to a life that was both tedious and horrific, killing many to survive.
She came to understand that her mother’s words had been truth, and she no longer went hungry.
So she continued to obey orders to maintain that existence.
When she visited the Yeon-ga Estate as part of those duties, Seowan felt a strange sense of déjà vu.
When she discovered the child amid the chaos of the hall, that déjà vu became memory.
The moment she saw the child’s face as it lifted, Seowan understood in an instant.
“Please… please save me.”
A skeletal frame. Roughened hands.
A frail voice mingled with pleading sobs.
All of it was her sin.
Every transgression the child had confessed was Seowan’s transgression.
For she was the one who had made the child live that way.
Hae-na’s face came to mind.
A child who resembled her yet did not.
Round eyes and amber irises. A gaze of pure innocence, untainted by malice.
Seowan had intended to tell the child the truth. Hae-na had the right to know.
“Thank you…”
The small, murmured voice from where the child had rested against her shoulder echoed in her mind.
Seowan’s gaze fell. She bowed deeply to the King.
“I shall take my leave from the Palace now.”
After learning everything, how would the child look upon me?

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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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