The Survival Story Of A Fallen Lady - Chapter 10

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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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The Fall of a Noble House, Episode 10
Yet she could not rebel.
‘His Highness struck down Maeng General because of Jae-in, didn’t he?’
‘If we misstep, there’s no telling what will happen to us.’
The attendants forced themselves to pick up their chopsticks again.
But even that didn’t last long.
They’d managed to swallow a few more bites with difficulty when nausea rose in their throats, and their hands stilled.
“Why have you stopped?”
“Ugh… I can’t eat any more, Jae-in.”
At Jae-in’s innocent question, the attendant’s face twisted with distress.
Food rose all the way to her throat.
It seemed as though even the lightest touch to her belly would send it spilling back up.
Jae-in, who had been watching the attendants in silence, finally picked up her chopsticks.
‘Ah, so she’s going to eat something herself now.’
The attendants felt a moment of relief.
“Here, open wide—don’t spill it.”
Jae-in, her chopsticks laden with Cucumber, held the food out to the attendant with a gentle smile.
When the attendant shook her head, Jae-in’s face turned cold.
“You dare refuse food sent down by His Highness? Or is my command a joke to you?”
As Jae-in stared at her without a trace of warmth, the attendant reluctantly opened her mouth.
Only then did Jae-in’s smile return—satisfied—as she shoved the Cucumber deep into the attendant’s mouth.
The other attendant watching trembled violently.
‘She’s absolutely, thoroughly insane!’
We should have known the moment she was dragged here by the Cursed Prince and didn’t shed a single tear!
“Ugh! Uuugh…!”
The attendant chewing on the Cucumber could no longer hold back the food rising in her throat, gagged, and stumbled outside to retch.
The sound carried through the window.
“That’s mild compared to what you did to His Highness, isn’t it?” Jae-in said pleasantly, picking up another heaping portion of Cucumber.
Jae-in smiled warmly as she collected another full portion of Cucumber.
The attendant watched the chopsticks approaching her with trembling eyes, her neck shrinking back like a turtle’s.
“What, is this not enough?”
It was at that moment—as Jae-in reached for even more food—
that a rough hand seized her wrist.
What are you doing?
Jae-in dropped the chopsticks and looked up to see a masked face looming over her.
Seo-heon surveyed the room in chaos.
Outside, one attendant was retching; another attendant’s face had gone pale with evident suffering.
And Hye-rang was watching the entire scene with reddened, glistening eyes.
Tormenting the Royal Residence’s attendants, making a scene like this in front of Hye-rang—
Was it a mistake to have shown mercy to Jae-in back then, brief as it was, for Maeng General’s sake?
That she would go so far as to threaten Hye-rang and run amok as though nothing mattered.
Seo-heon pressed Jae-in hard against the wall.
That was when—
“No…!”
A small hand gripped his black sleeve with all its strength.
When Seo-heon turned, Hye-rang stood before him, her eyes ready to spill tears at any moment.
“Hiccup!”
Another hiccup escaped Hye-rang’s lips as her eyes met his.
Her hands trembled.
Her face was like that of a frightened puppy.
Yet Hye-rang squeezed her eyes shut and cried out:
“Don’t eat Sister Jae-in…!”
In her seven years of life, it was her greatest act of courage.
Eat her?
Seo-heon was left speechless.
“If you eat her like you ate my mama and papa… hiccup!”
Hye-rang’s trembling voice grew thin.
Seeing the tears welling in the child’s eyes, his chest tightened.
Could she truly believe he had killed the late King?
The grip on Jae-in’s wrist loosened.
He had deliberately ordered that the late king’s cause of death not be revealed to young Hye-rang.
He couldn’t bear to tell her that monsters had torn him to pieces.
He’d thought it was the right path for her sake. But in the child’s eyes, he was nothing but a murderer.
【Not entirely wrong, either.】
A sneer flickered across his lips, then hardened.
The late king’s death.
Seo-heon had been there.
Helpless. Unable to do anything.
Seo-heon clenched his fists.
Jae-in watched him in silence.
In her past life, she’d heard stories about the late king and Seo-heon.
‘They said he followed him like a father.’
As for the deep grief Seo-heon had shown at the late king’s death, Seo-gon had mocked it then, saying he hadn’t known ‘that monster’ could weep at all.
“Your Highness.”
Jae-in called to him in a calm voice, feigning ignorance.
“Surely you weren’t actually trying to eat me just now?”
She asked the question as though it were the most natural thing.
The space between his brows furrowed beneath the mask.
Eat a person.
For a moment, he wondered if this woman was in her right mind.
But then Seo-heon understood her intention.
【Of course not.】
As he shook his head, Jae-in smiled brightly.
“Your Majesty, you saw, didn’t you? It seems there was a misunderstanding.”
“But……”
Hye-rang hesitantly released the hem of the Silent King’s robe.
Then, in a rush, she darted to Jae-in’s side and pressed herself against her.
‘When did they become so close?’
Watching Jae-in gain Hye-rang’s trust in mere days—trust that Seo-heon had never earned despite a lifetime of effort—his brow furrowed once more.
Then Jae-in calmly pointed to the table.
“These cucumbers—they were sent by Your Highness, yes?”
The table was laden with cucumber dishes.
They were the ingredients Seo-heon had ordered No Chong-gwan to send.
As Seo-heon nodded, Hye-rang’s face grew even more frightened for some reason.
Then she buried her face in Jae-in’s skirts, her hands trembling as they gripped the fabric.
What on earth……?
“Did you know that the young lady Hye-rang doesn’t eat cucumbers well?”
Seo-heon’s pupils wavered.
【Hye-rang doesn’t like cucumbers?】
But he’d heard reports.
That Hye-rang loved cucumbers and ate them every day.
For her sake, Seo-heon had even sold his own small sword to have rare cucumbers procured for her.
“Perhaps the attendants mentioned that Your Highness was fond of cucumbers?”
As Jae-in asked calmly, Seo-heon turned to look at the attendants.
Faced with the cold mask, the attendants immediately fell to their knees and pressed their foreheads to the floor.
“I only thought that the young lady truly loved cucumbers……”
“So the attendant didn’t even know the tastes of the one you serve? When eating cucumbers makes her vomit?”
Jae-in tilted her head slightly from behind.
The attendant jolted in surprise and shook her head frantically.
“Your Highness! That’s not it—we only wanted the young lady to grow up healthy, so we tried to offer a balanced diet……!”
“And so you told Your Highness that the young lady had a special fondness for cucumbers?”
To have him send such a quantity of cucumbers, hard to procure in this weather?
“That is, we……!”
The bewildered attendants rolled their eyes in panic, then finally pressed their foreheads to the ground, begging forgiveness.
“We were wrong! We were wrong, Your Highness!”
As Seo-heon grasped the situation, the veins on the back of his hand bulged.
【……Ha. What a pathetic sight.】
Playing at being king, when he couldn’t even discern Hye-rang’s own heart.
What a wretchedly incompetent king he was.
Self-reproach twisted his lips into a bitter line.
【No Chong-gwan.】
When Seo-heon flicked his finger, No Chong-gwan approached with the ledger in hand.
[Report the market price of winter cucumbers.]
Seo-heon wrote on the stone tablet.
“Yes, Your Highness. Even in the Imperial Capital, they are difficult to procure—a single cucumber easily commands the price of a full measure of rice.”
No Chong-gwan bowed deeply as he answered.
Seo-heon’s gaze turned cold toward the attendants.
[For my Hye-rang, I procured no fewer than a full cartload of cucumbers.]
As No Chong-gwan read Seo-heon’s words aloud, the attendants’ eyes widened as though they might burst from their sockets.
A cartload at the price of a full measure per fruit—it was a fortune that even a lifetime of labor would not allow these attendants to touch.
“P-please, Your Highness! We have erred! We merely thought it wasteful……!”
Then Seo-heon loosened his grip on his wrist in a languid gesture.
[Indeed. I too find the expense regrettable.]
Seo-heon took up the brush again.
[For the crime of disrespecting the sovereign and assuming a false name, beheading would be fitting—yet considering your faithful service thus far, I shall spare your lives this once.]
One could hardly execute people over cucumbers.
Just as the attendants were about to release a breath of relief at this merciful judgment.
The words on the stone tablet continued.
[Instead, dispatch these attendants to the Ice Storage as administrators, and let them work off the debt of those cucumbers.]
As No Chong-gwan recited Seo-heon’s command, the attendants’ faces drained to a ghastly pallor.
A place where biting cold gnawed at the flesh year-round.
A hellish place where hands and feet so often fell victim to frostbite that amputation was routine.
“W-wait, Your Highness! Please, anywhere but the Ice Storage……!”
The attendants wept, their hands clasped in desperate supplication.
But there was no reversing a Royal Decree.
[Do not think to return until you have repaid every last copper of the cucumber debt.]

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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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