The Survival Story Of A Fallen Lady - Chapter 66

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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 of a Fallen Noble Daughter — Episode 066
Seo Heon laughed at her words.
Just for a day?
Perhaps that child would spend her whole life remembering the lamb soup she’d eaten today.
So Ah turned her head toward Hong Ok, who was stirring the pot with a ladle.
“Miss Hong Ok.”
At the sound of her name, Hong Ok flinched and clasped her hands together.
Her round, pale face—like a steamed bun—was beaded with cold sweat.
“Please, I beg you, pretend you saw nothing today and keep it secret……!”
Hong Ok pressed her hands tightly together.
“Keep it secret?”
“If Father finds out, he’ll be furious. He’ll say I should be embroidering in my room or practicing calligraphy, not swarming after food like some fly…….”
Then.
“Hong Ok.”
At the low voice behind her, Hong Ok’s shoulders trembled violently.
The man who parted through the crowd wore an expensive silk robe and was middle-aged.
“F-Father……!”
Hong Ok hastily hid the ladle behind her back.
But it was already too late.
The gaze of Hong Ok’s father fixed on her rolled-up sleeves.
“I suspected as much.”
“No, that’s not it……!”
“A daughter of the Hong family, holding a ladle in front of a pot at the Street Market?”
As Hong Ok’s father’s voice rose, eyes turned toward them.
Hong Ok’s round face flushed crimson.
“Come along. That’s shame enough for the family.”
Just as Hong Ok’s father reached to seize his daughter’s arm.
“I greet you, sir.”
So Ah stepped forward with a graceful bow.
Hong Ok’s father narrowed his brow as he looked down at her, then recognition dawned on his face.
“……A Jae-in?”
She was already known at court.
Hong Ok’s father’s expression stiffened awkwardly.
“What brings a Jae-in to such a place?”
Hong Ok’s father’s gaze shifted beyond So Ah.
A man in a headwrap, hunched over a small vendor’s table.
‘Surely not……!’
As Hong Ok’s father moved to bow, So Ah shook her head and signaled him with her eyes.
“The Young Master is rather withdrawn by nature.”
Cough.
A cough erupted from beneath the headwrap at So Ah’s excuse.
But Hong Ok’s father, quick-witted, grasped her meaning and swiftly dropped his formal manner.
‘He must be out incognito.’
But with the Jae-in?
Hong Ok’s father recalled the gossip that Baek Ui Seop and Dan Mok Heum had been spreading.
“Ahem, if my daughter has caused any offense, I apologize on her behalf. The child is thoughtless and keeps meddling in such vulgar matters.”
Before the King and Jae-in.
He felt all the more ashamed of his daughter.
At those words, Hong Ok’s shoulders shrank inward once more.
Yet.
“It seems you may have misunderstood, sir.”
“……I beg your pardon?”
“Miss Hong Ok was not cooking—she was performing a Culinary Appraisal.”
“A Culinary Appraisal……?”
Hong Ok’s father’s brows twitched.
“There is a discerning eye for painting and calligraphy, and a discerning ear for music. Is it not equally natural that there should be a discerning palate for food?”
“How can the Jae-in speak such sophistry?”
“Whether it is sophistry or not, you can verify it yourself, sir.”
So Ah pointed toward the interior of the stall.
The spot where outsiders who had just arrived and ordered lamb soup were now seated.
“What’s this? Why is it so delicious today?”
“Get Pjjuk over here at once. Haven’t we been practically starving because the food in Mugwang Territory smells gamey and tastes awful?”
“One more bowl here, please!”
Before long, the street stall was packed to capacity.
Empty bowls piled up like mountains.
“We’ve already gone through nearly four days’ worth of inventory, sir.”
The proprietor hummed cheerfully as he carried away the dishes.
“Or perhaps even more than that…….”
Master Seol’s gaze landed on that mountain of bowls.
“Your young master certainly ate with great satisfaction, didn’t he?”
So Ah pointed to the empty bowl in front of Seo Heon, and Master Seol’s eyes gleamed differently.
“As you well know, Mugwang Territory has been receiving distinguished visitors quite frequently of late.”
“Indeed.”
“We must ensure that nothing is lacking in the tables we present to our honored guests.”
So Ah paused deliberately.
“Where else in Mugwang Territory would we find someone with talent equal to Miss Seol’s? The territory needs the assistance of the Seol family.”
Family.
At those two words, Master Seol’s shoulders relaxed ever so slightly.
“And so we would like to call upon her often for such help.”
“You mean our daughter?”
“Yes. Of course, it would be difficult without your permission, sir.”
So Ah let a hint of reluctance color her words.
At that, Master Seol’s expression—which had seemed so stubborn—shifted.
He cleared his throat and straightened his collar.
“Ahem. Since you speak so, how could I refuse?”
Then he glanced sidelong at his daughter.
“But mark this well, Hong Ok.”
“……Yes, Father.”
“What you do is appraisal, not cooking. Never again lay hands on a ladle. Do you understand?”
“Yes…….”
“And should you enter the palace, mind your bearing with particular care…….”
Clearing his throat once more, Master Seol gave a slight bow toward Seo Heon behind him, then vanished into the crowd.
Master Seol’s shoulders, as he receded into the distance, were noticeably more relaxed than before.
“Ah…….”
Only after Master Seol had passed from sight did Hong Ok release the breath she had been holding.
“Thank you, Jae-in.”
“Think nothing of it.”
“You made up a story on my account…….”
“A story? What do you mean?”
So Ah tilted her head with a puzzled expression.
“Miss, you are now indebted to me.”
So Ah laughed with evident delight, and Hong Ok’s eyes widened.
“But how could someone like me……!”
“Miss.”
So Ah gently cut off her protest.
“What else would you call this, if not talent?”
So Ah gestured toward the stacked bowls.
Hong Ok’s eyes slowly grew wide.
Talent.
A word she had never heard applied to herself in her entire life.
A family that clicked their tongues whenever food came up, calling it vulgar.
Noblewomen who mocked her whenever she ventured to discuss the taste of dishes.
“But……surely someone like me shouldn’t be trusted with such an important responsibility?”
“I told you, didn’t I? The talent you possess is extraordinarily rare.”
So Ah’s eyes drifted toward the proprietor standing behind Hong Ok.
“Isn’t that why the proprietor handed you the ladle while pretending it was nothing?”
At that, the proprietor turned his head away with a guilty look.
“W-what! You kept butting in, so I just said, ‘If you want to try, go ahead’…….”
So Ah knew the truth.
An old stray cat that prowled the streets had told her long ago.
【She wandered through the Street Market, always finding fault with tasteless food, but the lamb soup vendor was actually handing her the ladle outright.】
Once Hong Ok lent her hand to a stall that barely drew customers, patrons began gathering, and the owner found himself waiting hopefully for her arrival whenever money grew tight.
“It’s said that you took hold of this establishment’s ladle because the ingredients were too precious to waste, Miss?”
So Ah seized Hong Ok’s hand.
“It’s your talent I find too precious to waste.”
At that, Hong Ok’s eyes grew misty.
“I will not disappoint you……!”
Her wavering voice steadied with resolve.
Beside them, Seo Heon watched both women in silence.
‘The greatest talent of this Jae-in was not hearing my words at all.’
He reflected on it.
If Hong Ok’s talent lay in drawing flavor from food, So Ah’s talent lay in drawing people toward her.
She knows how to make others her allies.
From the chief minister down to Hye Rang, Son U Je, Ho Bu Sangseo, Gong Bu Sangseo, and the Seonwidae guards themselves.
And perhaps even Seo Heon, down to him.
‘……My own oath grows irksome.’
He does not wish to let that woman go.
He wants to keep her at his side.
That desire only deepened.
‘What am I thinking.’
Seo Heon, who had been watching So Ah beneath his headwrap, turned his gaze away.
The sudden surge of impulse that rose in him upon looking at her was disconcerting.
‘No, this is only natural.’
So Ah is a talent of the Mugwang Territory.
It’s only natural to be unwilling to let such a talent slip away.
As a person, not merely a Jae-in, he simply finds her desirable, nothing more.
‘Everyone would feel the same.’
Do not Ho Bu Sangseo and Gong Bu Sangseo also favor her?
He is no different from them.
Having reached this conclusion, his mind settled into order.
But then.
“Young Master.”
Just then, So Ah, finished with her conversation with Hong Ok, turned to him.
“Shall we go find Miss Hye Rang now?”
So Ah tilted her head toward him.
Her long dark hair scattered in the night breeze.
The simple robes she had worn to venture outside the palace.
A lotus pin, slightly askew from chasing after the child.
Beneath the lantern light, her eyes still held the shadow of a smile.
Ripples stirred once more in the ordered waters of his mind.
Did everyone truly feel the same.

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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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