The Survival Story Of A Fallen Lady - Chapter 32

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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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A Fallen Noblewoman’s Survival Journal – Episode 32
The Jin So-ah that Mok Yeon knew had always been pitifully easy to manage.
Hunched shoulders beneath a worn dress.
A head perpetually bowed toward the ground.
All day long, she’d watched everyone’s mood like a beaten dog reading its master’s temper.
How much more miserable would she become when sent to Muk Wang’s Residence?
Mok Yeon had imagined her growing even paler from the cold, her frame withering from hunger.
She’d assumed the girl was barely surviving in that hellish place, clinging to life itself.
“You brought the dowry?”
The reality before her was the exact opposite of what she’d expected.
A calm, measured gaze that somehow looked down upon others.
An easy smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
And the servants of Muk Wang’s Residence bowing before her.
‘Anyone seeing this would think she’d become the Mistress of the Household.’
Mok Yeon had heard the rumors.
That Muk Wang kept Jin So-ah quite close to him.
That this plain creature was receiving the prince’s favor and living in comfort?
“You’ve gone through so much trouble bringing a carriage for me, sister.”
Mok Yeon’s brow tightened.
The tone was condescending, as if addressing some lowly servant who’d run an errand.
‘How dare she…….’
So the girl had grown a little close to the prince and now she was swollen with pride, having crawled out of servitude.
Mok Yeon swallowed the barb that rose to her tongue and opened her eyes wide with a sweet smile.
“And I came to share some wonderful news besides.”
Mok Yeon raised her hand gracefully for display.
A brilliant Gold Ring adorned her ring finger.
“Do you know what this ring is?”
Mok Yeon turned the ring for show, letting it catch the light with obvious pride.
Jin So-ah gazed at the ring with an expressionless face.
“I’m afraid I couldn’t say.”
“The Crown Prince has promised me a betrothal.”
Mok Yeon smiled with satisfaction.
Everyone in the Crown Prince’s Palace knew that Jin So-ah had admired Crown Prince Seo Gon.
Whenever news came that Seo Gon was visiting, her face would light up.
At such times she’d undertake any difficult task without complaint.
But now Jin So-ah had become the bride of a monster, while Mok Yeon would enter the Crown Prince’s Palace — her resentment must be consuming her…….
Yet just then—clap, clap, clap!
The sound of light applause rang out.
“How wonderful, sister. I’m truly happy for you.”
Jin So-ah clapped her hands together tightly and smiled warmly.
A reaction wholly unlike what Mok Yeon had anticipated.
‘When did this girl become such an actress?’
Her heart must be twisted with anguish, yet here she was, smiling and offering congratulations as though nothing were wrong.
Mok Yeon’s eyes swept up and down Jin So-ah’s form, then fixed upon her hands.
“But look at these hands. Tsk. Your nails—what are they even?”
She seized Jin So-ah’s hand with the one wearing Seo Gon’s ring.
Hands raw and cracked red.
Nails cut short and blunt.
A striking contrast to Mok Yeon’s delicate, well-tended hands and her long, perfectly shaped nails.
“They look like a servant girl’s hands—it breaks my heart to see them like this.”
As Mok Yeon subtly disparaged Jin So-ah’s station, her attendants covered their mouths and giggled.
Then Chief Steward No, unable to bear it any longer, stepped forward with a measured cough.
“Ahem! The Jae-in has taken upon herself the management of many duties throughout Muk Wang’s Residence.”
“The management of the residence?”
A mere Jae-in was meddling in the internal affairs of the estate?
Such an absurd thing……!
“It seems her hands have chapped from working busily in this cold weather. Young-gyo, why have you not applied the Hand Salve for the Jae-in?”
“I apologize, Chief Steward. It was my negligence!”
Young-gyo, the maid standing behind, bowed deeply and lowered her head in contrition.
“Never mind, Young-gyo. There’s nothing to be proud of when one’s hands are soft.”
Jin So-ah helped Young-gyo to her feet, patting her arm reassuringly.
Watching this, Mok Yeon’s fingers began to tremble.
Even the steward was bowing to her with the deference one would show a high-ranking concubine.
‘There’s no way he’d treat a mere Jae-in like this.’
Low-ranking Jae-in often died without ever laying eyes on their husband once.
And yet the steward was personally attending to her?
It made no sense.
In the Crown Prince’s Palace, a Jae-in wouldn’t even dare address the steward.
‘Is it because this is a remote frontier town that such hierarchy doesn’t exist?’
Well, there was only one Jae-in, after all.
Perhaps he simply had the leisure to attend to her.
‘More like a village headman than a prince.’
It rankled her.
The old steward and that Young-gyo creature both.
But all the more reason not to back down now.
“So-ah, look here. I’ve brought things that would be difficult for you to obtain.”
Mok Yeon gestured toward the cart behind her with an air of doing someone a favor.
The boxes stacked on the cart contained precious fine silk and ornaments.
“Though I’ve come somewhat in your place, so I thought it best to show consideration.”
Mok Yeon tilted her head back slightly, smiling.
Jin So-ah had probably never owned anything like this in her entire life.
Surely she would be overwhelmed with gratitude for these scraps.
Sure enough, So-ah gently ran her fingertips across the fine silk on the cart.
“How beautiful, sister.”
So-ah smiled with satisfaction, then turned to Young-gyo.
“Young-gyo, I’ll give this fine silk to you.”
“What?!”
Young-gyo started with surprise, waving her hands in protest.
But So-ah looked at her warmly and spoke.
“Actually, I saw you crying in the courtyard not long ago.”
“I… I…”
“Your sister must hold her wedding ceremony soon, but your circumstances seem difficult.”
“How did you know that?!”
Young-gyo’s lips trembled.
She had sent every coin she earned working in the palace back home.
After losing her mother in childhood, her sister had raised her with care, and she had meant to give her the money as a wedding gift.
But months ago, a relative had taken all that money and disappeared.
She had been secretly suffering over it ever since.
“I thought of pretending not to notice, but I found I couldn’t.”
As So-ah handed over the fine silk, Young-gyo’s eyes filled with grateful tears.
“Thank you, Jin Jae-in!”
Seeing this, Mok Yeon’s lips went slack.
She was giving away the finest silk to a mere servant girl?
“So-ah, you… you…!”
“Oh, and you there.”
So-ah called over a young servant girl who had been passing in the distance.
“I hear you did a fine job attending to Lord Hye-rang’s quarters recently.”
“Yes?”
“I’m giving you a reward. Take it.”
So-ah reached into one of the boxes on the cart and pressed a jade ornament into the girl’s hand.
“This is… this is…!”
“You must continue to serve the Lord with all your heart.”
“Thank you so much, Jin Jae-in!”
Mok Yeon’s lips trembled.
‘Is she really…!’
Giving a jade ornament as a reward to a servant girl.
As if it were nothing precious.
“Thanks to you, sister, my people even received rewards. I’m grateful.”
So-ah smiled brightly and tilted her head.
‘My people,’ is it?
A mere Jae-in, yet here she struts about as though she’s ensnared someone’s heart.
“That’s right—in this backwater place, you’d struggle to keep even a single maid in your service, wouldn’t you?”
Mok Yeon found Jin So-ah’s self-importance utterly laughable.
But then.
“Oh, you slept the whole way in the carriage, didn’t you, sister?”
“What?”
“Even if it’s a backwater, these days Muk Wang’s Residence is quite prosperous.”
“What do you—!”
“It seems you don’t quite understand how the world turns anymore. You should stay a few days and tour Muk Wang’s Residence properly.”
Jin So-ah seized Mok Yeon’s hand and pulled her into the palace.
* * *
The finest guest chamber in Muk Wang’s Residence.
A sun-lit room, immaculately kept.
Seated at the writing desk, Mok Yeon bit her lip, barely containing her fury.
“She really is playing mistress of the household, isn’t she?”
One of the maids standing behind her opened her mouth incredulously.
At the Jin Family Estate, Jin So-ah had been the very one whom even the maids looked down upon.
The other maids murmured in agreement.
“There’s something wrong with that girl. The way she keeps calling our young mistress ‘sister’ like that!”
“Could the Cursed Prince actually favor Jin So-ah?”
“Impossible! If he favored her, he’d have held the ceremony by now and given her a new name!”
Mok Yeon, who had been listening quietly, cut in sharply, and the maids belatedly chimed in agreement, nodding their heads.
Then the most resourceful of them spoke up.
“I asked the servants here earlier—apparently there hasn’t even been a conjugal visit, and the King of Muk hasn’t even called upon her quarters.”
“She’s never received a ring either, unlike our young mistress.”
At their mocking sniff, Mok Yeon’s cheeks relaxed in satisfaction.
She’d known as much.
“Throwing on airs about nothing in front of me?”
Such pathetic pride.
Cursed prince or not, a prince is still a prince.
She simply wanted to parade the fact that she’d married into the royal family.
“It’s ridiculous. Our young mistress will soon be entering the Crown Prince’s Palace.”
The maids giggled together.
Mok Yeon laughed with satisfaction and held her Gold Ring up to the sunlight, admiring it on her ring finger.
“Once this matter is settled well, I shall summon you to the palace.”
“How could the King of Muk compare to the Crown Prince?”
At the maid’s words, Mok Yeon laughed knowingly.
But soon Seo Gon’s words came to mind.
“The King of Muk’s name has been rising in the court these days.”
“It seems his fortunes have improved considerably through the Salt Mine—I should have you go take a look, Mok Yeon.”
Of late, the King of Muk’s name had been heard frequently not only throughout the Imperial Capital but even in the streets of Crown Prince’s City.
‘Now that I think of it, this fellow Seo Heon….’
He hadn’t seemed so strange compared to the rumors.
Mok Yeon recalled Seo Heon, whom she’d encountered at the Jin Family Estate.
The prince they called a monster.
There were whispers he had a hunchback, and others that he suffered from a skin disease across his entire body.
But thinking it over, he’d seemed like an ordinary man.
‘No—his physique was actually quite impressive.’
A tall, imposing frame with an upright bearing.
Straight shoulders stretched at right angles, a broad back.
Muscles lean and taut from sword practice.
His dark hair, falling across his face, cast an air both mysterious and formidable.
‘What if the rumors about the King of Muk were lies?’
Jin So-ah’s attitude when she’d offered congratulations on her betrothal to the Crown Prince had continued to grate on her.
She’d sent Jin So-ah to him because he was supposed to be a monster.
But what if what she’d discarded as trash to Jin So-ah was anything but?
If she’d been wrong….
“I cannot leave it as it stands.”
Mok Yeon lifted her long eyelashes.

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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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