The Survival Story Of A Fallen Lady - Chapter 12

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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 Survival Chronicles of a Fallen Noblewoman — Episode 12
Because he had lived through it himself, he recognized it more keenly than anyone else.
The traces of a desperate survival etched into the way she had lived.
Seo Heon suddenly recalled the Covenant he had made with her.
[Sixth. Ask nothing of anyone.]
Had he laid down that condition back then for this very reason?
The feeling of having exposed someone else’s hidden wounds weighed on his heart.
“I hear that coming here as Jin Jaein was unexpected—apparently the Second Daughter Jin Mok Yeon refused to come and made a fuss, so she switched in at the last moment.”
That itself was surprising.
‘So she hadn’t chosen to come here on her own?’
That bold gaze.
The way she moved as if she understood everything.
He had assumed she must have had some other motive entirely.
‘What arrogance on my part…….’
Seo Heon reminded himself of his own circumstances.
A cursed prince.
A monster everyone avoided.
The Northern Region, swarming with creatures and demons.
Who in their right mind would want him?
‘She must have simply grasped at a rotten rope, anything to escape…….’
A place that others would shun and flee from had been nothing more than a refuge for her.
Another hell she had been forced to escape into.
He called to mind Jin Jaein’s face, bright with that clear smile.
He had found it remarkable how she adapted so readily to this strange place without fear…….
‘It was a survival tactic.’
That smile may have been nothing but a mask to stay alive in this place.
Seo Heon’s gaze came to rest heavily on Shin Sang Rok’s ink-stained mark.
Looking back, her actions had never once brought him harm.
‘The way she reads my heart, her quick understanding…….’
These were habits her body had learned to survive as a Fallen Noblewoman, despised by all.
To survive, one had to miss nothing—not a glimmer in someone’s eyes, not a breath.
Seo Heon suddenly remembered the wrist of the young maid he had seized.
The slender wrist, barely substantial enough to fill a palm, was thinner even than that of ordinary women.
He had thought her unusually lean, but…….
【What in the world was that woman……?】
The moment came back to him—when he had driven her harshly, mistakenly believing she was tormenting Hye Rang.
Seo Heon drew his lips dry beneath the mask.
* * *
That evening.
When the young maid returned to her room, white breath misted from her lips.
The room was dark, its fire extinguished.
Cold air filled the space.
The moment she stepped inside, the young maid’s lips curved upward at the familiar sensation.
‘Just as I expected.’
The Brazier that should have been warm lay cold and dark.
The Oil Lamp that ought to have been lit was the same.
It was an act of defiance from the servants and maids.
The reason for this sudden protest was obvious.
‘The maids must have been quite close with one another.’
They thought the banishment of their two companions was her doing.
‘This treatment is familiar enough…….’
It had happened often when she was at the Main Estate.
In fact, she had often done the maids’ own work and attended to them herself.
Bringing wood and charcoal to light a fire and kindle the lamp was simple work—she could do it as easily as eating.
‘A tree must have its branches pruned if it is to grow straight.’
The woman in this place was not the Jin Clan’s despised Fallen Noblewoman, but the lady who had once worn the Empress’s crown in a past life.
* * *
As darkness settled over the hour.
The footsteps of an elderly person echoed along the quiet palace’s back passage.
Then, as the silence was torn asunder by the sound of beating wings, a deep shadow surged up from the undergrowth.
“Good heavens!”
The old steward’s heart, which had nearly leapt from his chest, settled as he looked up.
A massive silhouette cut across the moonlight.
‘What in the world is that!’
The old steward adjusted his crooked spectacles and moved toward where the enormous shape had vanished.
But then.
“Steward?”
Before him stood a frail woman cradling an armful of dried straw.
“How did you come to be here at this hour, Jin Jaein?”
Wandering alone through the dark palace on a cold night when breath misted in the air—it was most unusual.
“Ah, I thought I might need straw to warm my room properly.”
“Pardon?”
The old steward stared at her in bewilderment.
Just recently,
after the matter with General Maeng, he had instructed the attendants to provide plenty of charcoal.
“Is the charcoal insufficient?”
The steward watched Jin Jaein’s hands trembling from the cold as she clutched the straw.
She must feel the cold keenly, having come from the south.
Jin Jaein smiled, her cheeks flushed red from freezing.
“Ah, it seems the Manor is short on charcoal due to General Maeng’s affair.”
“Short on charcoal, you say?”
He had surely distributed charcoal generously to the attendants after General Maeng’s matter was settled.
The old steward, unable to make sense of the situation, made his way to Jin Jaein’s quarters.
“But the room—?”
A room with no fire lit was a frozen chamber indeed.
The brazier had grown cold, and the bitter chill in the room was so severe that thick breath rose visibly into the air.
“I tried to start a fire, but without straw, it wouldn’t catch.”
“Where—where have the attendants gone?”
“They were nowhere to be found, no matter how I searched. It was far too cold to wait idle, so I thought I would manage as best I could—”
The steward pressed his forehead and looked at Jaein, who held the straw to her chest.
‘So she was treated like a servant in the Jin Clan—!’
What lady would ever carry straw herself and kindle a fire with her own hands!
“Why did you not speak to me about this?”
“But there was an agreement—”
The covenant she and Seo Heon had made.
[Second. You shall not harbor resentment toward the austere life at Muk Wang Manor.]
And so she was attempting to overcome this austere life through her own efforts!
“Merciful heavens!”
The steward struck his forehead.
He had thoroughly misunderstood the terms of the covenant.
For all that Muk Wang Manor was austere, it was never quite this sparse!
The steward quickly took the straw from Jin Jaein’s hands.
“It will take some time before the room warms. For tonight, you shall rest elsewhere.”
The steward promptly led Jin Jaein to a warmer chamber.
* * *
At the well, where the attendants had gathered.
“Those two got cast out like dogs because of Jin Jaein! And they’d been working here for years.”
“An outsider comes and overturns the whole palace.”
The attendants stood with their arms crossed, speaking in tones of discontent.
“Right. What’s so great about just one lady anyway? Not even properly married, and dragged here like a prisoner.”
“Exactly. A time like this calls for breaking her spirit once and for all.”
By now, she should have felt the absence of the attendants’ care acutely.
The attendants giggled amongst themselves.
Then one attendant, glancing about nervously, spoke up.
“But what if the lady catches a serious cold from this—”
“Young Gyo, are you actually worried about that woman?”
The attendants turned on Young Gyo with sharp words.
“But what if the Master found out?”
“Foolish girl. If the Master had taken a liking to that lady, he would have already held a banquet and made her a secondary consort.”
Several days had passed since Jaein’s arrival, yet Muk Wang had not visited her quarters even once.
A young lady raised delicately in the South would be shivering pitifully by now.
Then it happened.
“You there—Administrator Noh wants everyone assembled at once!”
“Administrator Noh?”
The attendants exchanged bewildered glances.
Did he mean to conduct a surprise inspection after all this time?
The attendants set out toward the courtyard without understanding the reason for the sudden summons.
But the usually gentle Administrator Noh’s face was shadowed with dark displeasure.
“Those of you assigned to Jin Jaein’s quarters—step forward.”
At the Administrator’s gesture, the attendants exchanged wary glances.
As the assigned attendants stepped forward, Administrator Noh had a subordinate deliver small name tablets to them.
The attendants who received the tablets went rigid, eyes wide, staring up at the Administrator.
Laundry Division.
The moment the attendants read those three characters, their eyes widened in shock.
The Laundry Division was where all the washing was done.
In the cold Muk Wang Manor, it was work every attendant dreaded.
“M-Master Administrator! A sudden transfer like this…?”
A flustered attendant blurted out in alarm.
“Do you not know the crime of neglecting your assigned duties and damaging the honor of the Manor?”
At the Administrator’s question, the attendants fell silent.
‘How could the Master Administrator have found out?’
He was far too busy attending to the lord himself.
He was hardly the sort to concern himself with what happened in Jin Jaein’s quarters.
“No, sir! We certainly fulfilled our duties…! It wasn’t us who let the fire go out—it must have been Jin Jaein who extinguished it by accident, wasn’t it?”
The attendants protested with clasped hands.
Then, from behind them, came a quiet, measured voice.
“I said nothing about the fire. Yet you knew there was no fire in her quarters—which tells me this was deliberate, doesn’t it?”
Darkness deepened across Administrator Noh’s features.
Not an accident, then—but deliberate cruelty toward a superior.
The attendants’ faces fell with the weight of their miscalculation.
They should have kept silent.
By speaking, they had confessed to knowingly leaving her room to grow cold.

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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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