The Survival Story Of A Fallen Lady - Chapter 20

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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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Chronicles of a Fallen Noblewoman’s Survival – Episode 20
And on the back of that Ledger.
“It appears this is some sort of warehouse for Cheonseong?”
A crimson seal had been stamped there.
Unmistakably the seal of Cheonseong Trading Company.
Wang Dae-in’s face drained of all color.
“Where on earth did you—!”
Where, indeed.
Thanks to Seo-heon’s commotion drawing every eye in the room, she’d slipped the evidence into her hands with ease.
The proof she’d been asking the creatures to retrieve these past few days.
So-ah answered not with words, but with a gentle smile.
With this Ledger, one of the financial threads binding Cheonseong and Wi-wang Province would snap.
Behind his mask, Seo-heon’s gaze briefly settled on her.
In the mere moments since entering the Gambling Den, she’d produced a hand of this caliber.
It was the instant he began to regard this small, spare woman with genuine gravity.
And then, on perfect cue.
“Wang!”
Chaos erupted outside the Gambling Den.
The heavy tread of soldiers came pouring in.
Those who’d been at the gambling tables scrambled to flee in panic, but the swift soldiers had already seized the back exit—there was no way out.
So-ah smiled thinly and closed the Ledger.
“It seems you’ll have quite a lot to discuss once you reach the Government Office.”
“You wretched—!”
Wang Dae-in lunged toward her, desperation driving him forward.
Steel sang.
The tip of Seo-heon’s blade stopped a hand’s breadth from his throat.
……
Wang Dae-in’s eyes burned scarlet, veins prominent, but he could not move.
The soldiers dragged him away like a beast.
Seo-heon watched his receding form, then turned slowly toward a pillar.
The rope parted with a sharp crack.
His blade had cleanly severed the bonds holding the boy.
A large hand caught the boy’s shoulder as he slumped sideways against the pillar.
The battered boy’s eyes flickered for an instant.
But he set his jaw and forced himself to stand.
* * *
Clatter-clatter.
The carriage wheels rolled along the dirt road.
Tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap.
The boy drummed his knee anxiously.
“……What is it?”
A sharp voice broke the silence first.
Soldiers had stormed in, and everyone at the gambling tables—Wang Dae-in among them—had been dragged away.
Everyone except one.
The boy looked at the woman sitting across from him.
Against her snow-white face, her dark eyes fixed upon him with striking clarity.
Her refined, almost noble features contrasted strangely with the delicate, near-fragile wrists of someone who could barely afford to eat.
And beyond the small window.
A man in a cloth hat followed alongside on a black horse.
His massive shadow stretched long across the carriage curtains.
‘That man is Seo-heon…….’
The cursed monster.
He’d heard that epithet countless times.
“Son Ujae.”
“……!”
The tapping fingers went rigid.
The boy’s gaze snapped back to the woman before him.
“Don’t be alarmed. Knowing a name is simple enough.”
Ujae’s face flickered with disturbance.
So-ah calmly withdrew a handkerchief from her sleeve and offered it to him.
“I want to know why you stepped into the gambling world.”
Son Ujae regarded So-ah warily, as if guarding himself.
Yet he did not refuse the handkerchief.
He wiped away the nosebleed that stained his face with rough, careless strokes, then turned his gaze toward the window.
“……Because I need money.”
“Everyone needs money, but not everyone falls into gambling.”
“A noble lady like you wouldn’t understand a life like mine, but for someone like me, there’s only one way to lay hands on real money.”
Son Ujae muttered with bitter sarcasm.
“Why do you need so much money?”
“My sister’s medicine. I need the funds for it.”
He answered obliquely.
The explanation was brief, but So-ah understood.
‘In my past life too, he would have done anything for his ailing sister.’
The herb that could cure his sister’s chronic illness did not grow in Muk-wang Province.
Only in the Southern Region grew Shinmaek Grass.
For someone nearly destitute, it was a precious herb beyond reach.
In her past life, Son Ujae had been beaten senseless at the gambling dens, only to be cast out without earning a single coin.
In the end, he had sold himself for the medicine.
He became a bondservant to the Cheonseong Trading Company in exchange for receiving the herb.
It was there, in Wi-wang Province, that he caught So-ah’s eye.
He had helped elevate Cheonseong into the finest trading company on the continent.
A key figure who held the finances of Wi-wang Province.
His ability to work with numbers was something she could vouch for.
She had witnessed remarkable things from him more than once in her past life.
But in this life, he would walk a different path.
“You tried to buy the herb from Cheonseong, didn’t you?”
“…….”
“How much did they demand?”
“Thirty silver currency units.”
At those words, So-ah let out a hollow laugh and thrust a small ledger toward Son Ujae.
It was a record of Wang Dae-in’s personal dealings with Cheonseong.
And there, documented for Wang Dae-in’s tonic, was the Shinmaek Grass.
The price was merely.
“Ten coin……?”
Son Ujae’s face went rigid.
In truth, Shinmaek Grass was one of the common root plants found throughout the Southern Region.
If the climate conditions were right, it was not difficult to cultivate.
Even dried, it retained its medicinal properties, so its distribution posed no difficulty either.
Ten coin would have been more than enough, yet they sold it for thirty silver units.
A difference of three thousand fold.
Because commerce was underdeveloped in Muk-wang Province and Cheonseong held the monopoly, whatever price they named became the price.
“Cheonseong demanded an unreasonable sum from you and led you to the gambling dens. Just win big once, they’d have said.”
Son Ujae’s eyes wavered.
He searched his own memory.
“But that gambling den was introduced to me not by Cheonseong, but by someone else…….”
“Did it never occur to you that person was also working for Cheonseong?”
A simple method: manufacture desperation, then approach as a stranger and offer a way into the gambling dens.
“They make certain you go into debt. That’s how they make bondservants.”
A effortless method to create a bondservant for less than ten coin.
Son Ujae’s split lip trembled as he clenched his teeth.
“Damn them.”
He bowed his head and raked his hands through his hair roughly, as if tearing it out.
“There’s no more reliable business than peddling hope by exploiting fear and want.”
“……So, you mean to sell me hope as well?”
He had some perception about him.
Taking him aside like this—she meant to use him, that much was clear. By seizing on his weakness.
At that, So-ah laughed.
“Not hope—I’d call it a trade in talent.”
“……Talent?”
“Back there at the gambling dens, you counted the cards and calculated the probability combinations within the remaining forty-one. For three players simultaneously, even.”
So-ah understood his talent well.
Swift calculation.
Probabilistic judgment.
And beyond that, he had a keen eye for reading expressions, gazes, and the hearts of men.
In her past life, he had been the genius who made the Cheonseong Trading Company the finest merchant house on the continent and became Seo-heon’s primary source of funds.
Yet Son Ujae himself held it in contempt.
“Ha, a bit of quick arithmetic—is that really a talent?”
“I call it one. Don’t others?”
So-ah smiled quietly.
Son Ujae’s mouth fell open in surprise, then closed again.
He despised his own gift.
“If you felt wronged, you should have kept quiet then.”
“If you’d just held your tongue, your family wouldn’t have ended up like this!”
It happened years ago.
He’d uncovered that the village elder had been embezzling taxes—something he should never have revealed.
After that day, the elder harbored resentment and isolated his family from the village.
In the end, his grandfather had thrown himself into dangerous work just to survive, and a demon took his life.
Son Ujae and his sister were driven out of the village with stones and curses.
A mind too sharp for its station had essentially killed his family.
If only he had never been born—then none of that suffering would have followed.
But this woman wanted to buy that very talent.
“I’m thinking of founding a trading company in Muk-wang Province and investing in it myself. I’ll find ways to procure herbal medicines directly. How would you feel about using your talent to help source them?”
Son Ujae’s eyes widened.
His fingers began tapping against his knee again.
Calculations flooded his mind.
What was the probability that this woman’s offer was a deception?
Was there any guarantee she’d be different from the Cheonseong Trading Company?
Were there other ways to procure medicines?
So-ah watched his fingers tremble and smiled.
“And though it’s late, this is a gift I brought as a greeting.”
She drew a small bundle from her robes and handed it to him.
Before she came to Muk-wang Province.
One of the few things she had taken with her.
“Open it.”
Son Ujae unwrapped the bundle she had given him.
A root with a ruddy tint.
Rough leaves and a hairy stem.
Shinmaek Grass—the very thing he had longed for so desperately.

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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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