The Survival Story Of A Fallen Lady - Chapter 41

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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 Fallen Noblewoman’s Survival Chronicle, Episode 41
Flutter—
In that instant, a black sleeve swept across his face.
At the same moment, Crash!
Seo Heon surged to his feet so violently that the chair scraped backward with a dull, heavy scrape.
【Leave. Now……!】
“Ahhh!”
Seo Heon’s large hand seized Mok Yeon and hurled her like a bundle of cargo.
Mok Yeon lost her footing and collapsed.
Seo Heon wanted to help her up, but he could not draw the sleeve away from his face.
【I told you to leave at once!】
Even so, his voice echoed meaninglessly inside his mouth.
Mok Yeon remained frozen where she had sunk to the floor.
The fleeting glimpse of that face drained all color from her mind.
An uncontrollable tremor seized her.
Her heart hammered against her ribs as though possessed.
“Ah, ah……!”
That face beneath the mask filled her vision so completely that even with her eyes shut, it burned there, vivid and indelible.
Then.
“Your Majesty!”
At the commotion from within, Noh Chief Steward rushed through the door from outside.
“What in the world……!”
Noh Chief Steward’s face drained of all color.
Mok Yeon, collapsed and huddled on the floor.
A chair overturned in disarray.
Seo Heon trembling, his face hidden beneath his sleeve.
And the Yunche Mask lying across the cold stone floor.
“Damn it……!”
A curse tumbled from Noh Chief Steward’s mouth for the first time.
“You there! Drag this woman out at once!”
Soldiers rushed in and seized Mok Yeon by both arms.
But she, her mind fled somewhere distant, offered no resistance and was led away without protest.
Seo Heon buried his face in his large hands.
“I will spend the rest of my life despising this face.”
He knew all too well what would happen the moment his face was revealed.
The mask.
He had to don the mask again.
He moved toward the mask lying on the cold floor.
But then.
Clink.
Another hand reached down to pick up the mask.
Seo Heon recognized that hand.
Those slender, delicate fingers, the cracks from winter frost still not healed.
“Your Majesty.”
Seo Heon lifted his head without thinking.
And he saw it.
His own face reflected in those dark eyes.
His bare face, witnessed by Jin So Ah.
“……!”
He wrenched his head away and hastily concealed his face beneath his robe.
Why her.
Why of all times, here, now.
In his panic, the mask was quietly extended toward him from beneath her sleeve.
Without a second thought, Seo Heon snatched it from her hand and pressed it to his face.
But he could not remove his hand from the mask.
‘The cord…….’
The mask’s cord had snapped, hanging limp and useless at his ear.
Then Jin So Ah stepped closer.
Seo Heon thrust his hand forward roughly and shoved her away.
【Do not come near me.】
Holding fast to the mask that covered his face, he clamped his jaw shut.
Just now, in that fleeting instant.
Their eyes had met unmistakably.
She must have seen his face…….
“Your Highness.”
Seo Heon’s body trembled violently.
“I saw nothing, my lord.”
Her answer was serene, unmarred by the slightest disturbance.
Truly saw nothing?
Seo Heon gripped the mask pressed to his face and lifted his gaze.
Jin So Ah regarded him with her customary composed expression.
A tranquility that would have been impossible if she had glimpsed his face.
【Was she truly telling the truth?】
Then what were those eyes I met?
Was it an illusion?
At that moment, Jin So Ah untied the White Cord that had bound her hair.
Her dark, carefully arranged tresses tumbled over her white shoulders.
When Seo Heon tensed, Jin So Ah gestured carefully toward his mask.
“Might I tie it secure for you?”
His hands clung desperately to the fractured mask.
When Seo Heon did not answer, her hands holding the White Cord reached toward him.
【Stop……!】
He raised his hand to strike hers away, but Jin So Ah waited without fear, perfectly still.
At her composed restraint, Seo Heon lowered his hand, and she extended her fingers once more, with care.
Her fingertips touched the edge of the mask.
Into a distance no one had ever crossed in his lifetime, she entered as though it were nothing.
Seo Heon’s senses sharpened.
He felt her hands tying the knot at his ear.
Her warmth, brushing the tip of his ear, seemed to spread and set his skin ablaze.
Like a frightened beast, Seo Heon stood rigid, incapable of the slightest movement.
His taut chest heaved roughly.
He could not tear his gaze from Jin So Ah.
Beneath her long lashes, her dark eyes gleamed with depth.
At his ear, he heard the soft whisper of cord being knotted.
From her sleeve drifted the scent of spring.
“It’s done.”
With that, Jin So Ah stepped back and smiled faintly.
When his fingers brushed his ear, he felt not the familiar leather cord but her soft hair binding instead.
Seo Heon gazed at her.
Then Jin So Ah bowed deeply.
“I beg your pardon on behalf of my foolish sister’s transgression.”
Seo Heon’s brow furrowed.
Was that all she had to say?
Jin So Ah asked nothing more.
In her clear, dark eyes lay not a trace of curiosity.
As though she had no wish to know of his Curse.
That tender indifference pressed down upon a corner of his heart.
‘What am I……?’
Seo Heon looked inward at the feeling rising within him and swallowed a hollow laugh.
[First. You shall not be curious about the Curse.]
It was he who had proposed such an oath.
For all those who had faced his Curse had met with ruin.
Even those he had called friends.
Even the servants he had trusted.
So he had drawn a line and kept all others from crossing it.
To expect nothing, and to let nothing be expected of him.
And yet, somewhere along the way, he had begun to hope.
In those clear eyes.
In that quiet voice.
Seo Heon understood.
Before he knew it, he had drawn her inside the threshold.
“Your Highness must be occupied as well, so I shall take my leave…….”
Jin So Ah.
Seo Heon caught her wrist as she stepped back.
When So Ah looked up, the eyes behind the mask flickered crimson.
Don’t you want to know about my Curse?
he asked.
Asking would yield only silence.
She knew his voice would never reach her ears.
And yet.
“Should I not be curious about Your Highness’s Curse?”
So Ah asked in return, as though answering him.
As though responding to his own question.
* * *
Inside the dark Prison Cell.
A thin strand of moonlight spilled across the cold stone floor.
Mok Yeon sat with her back against the wall, chin resting on her drawn-up knees.
Soiled silk robes.
Disheveled hair.
The Mok Yeon of old would have screamed and thrashed without restraint.
But now.
“The Mute King, Seo Heon…….”
What consumed her mind was something else entirely.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
That face rose in her mind again.
In that moment when the mask fell away.
That face, crystalline in her gaze.
“They said he was a monster…….”
They said the Curse had twisted his features.
That his skin was so rotted, so hideous, it was sickening to behold.
That he bore terrible scars.
That he possessed the ugliest face in all the world.
All the world spoke of it thus.
And yet, beneath that mask…….
“There was not a single blemish.”
Mok Yeon’s hands clenched into fists.
Flawless, white jade skin.
Eyebrows drawn as though by a brush—straight and precise.
Lashes long and dark, sweeping across his lids.
The eyes that peered through the cascade of black hair were deep and cool and something fragile—impossible to look away from.
A face so otherworldly it seemed to transcend humanity itself.
Even the finest men in the Imperial Capital would pale like faded paintings before him.
‘And he had hidden such a face beneath the mask all along?’
A single glimpse was enough to sear it into memory, indelible.
Merely recalling that face set her heart racing.
Even the memory of those rough hands casting her aside like dead weight returned unbidden.
“Ha…….”
A shallow breath escaped between her lips.
Though she sat in the cold Prison Cell, her cheeks burned hot.
“Then Jin So Ah’s time at the Mute King’s Residence…….”
She would have seen that face every day, standing close beside him.
That is why she smiled at him with widened eyes, why her tail wagged—entirely unlike her.
“From the start, you meant to take what was mine. I should have seen it coming……!”
Mok Yeon clenched her teeth.
Through the bars.
Her eyes, caught in the moonlight, gleamed with jealous fury.
* * *
So Ah, having returned to her quarters, shut the door and leaned against it.
Her legs gave way, and she sank down before the threshold.
So Ah! Mok Yeon has suddenly gone to the Private Chamber!
It was upon Woon Jo’s report of Mok Yeon’s suspicious behavior that Seo Heon had headed straight to the Private Chamber.
But he never could have anticipated what would unfold.
Jin So Ah recalled the sensation lingering at her fingertips.
The cold touch of the Yunche Mask.
And the face revealed beneath it.
‘……Not a monster.’
Brief as it was, she had seen it.
In that moment when their eyes met.
His face, witnessed with perfect clarity.
Far too beautiful to be called monstrous.
‘But why such rumors……’
It wasn’t that she’d never been curious about what lay beneath his mask.
But she’d had no inclination to pry.
His curse posed no threat to her, and she harbored no desire to seize his weakness and wield it against him.
She had no wish to excavate what he wished kept hidden.
Because she herself had much she longed to conceal.
And yet.
“Woon Jo.”
As Jin So Ah rose and moved to the window, Woon Jo settled beside her.
“Look into the Mute King’s curse for me.”
【So you’ve suddenly grown curious about that man, have you?】
Woon Jo tilted his head.
“Yes. I’m curious.”
For the first time, genuine interest stirred within her.
The secret that compelled Seo Heon to hide that face.

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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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