The Survival Story Of A Fallen Lady - Chapter 8

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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 Nobleman’s Daughter Survival Record — Episode 8
“Child. Are you all right?”
Concern drew her forward.
The girl startled violently and lifted her head.
Her lips had gone blue — she’d clearly eaten something that disagreed with her.
“Shall I take you to a physician?”
The girl shook her head and stumbled backward.
“W-w-who are you?”
“I am Mukwang’s servant. I mean you no harm — you’re safe.”
“M-m-Mukwang……!”
At the sound of his name, the child’s face drained of all color. As though she’d glimpsed a demon, she bolted and vanished like an arrow loosed from a bow.
“Wait——!”
If this continued, something truly terrible would happen.
So-ah moved to follow, then thought better of it.
‘She was afraid of me.’
To approach her rashly would only make things worse.
“Unjoh.”
【Right. I’m watching her.】
No words needed between them.
Unjoh launched himself skyward.
* * *
Hye-rang huddled in her room, trembling.
Since her parents passed, she had always been alone.
‘Mukwang terrifies me……!’
That eerie mask.
A frame towering and broad as a demon’s.
A gaze that watched her in silence, cold and intent.
Every time Hye-rang saw him, her knees went weak.
After witnessing him wield a sword in the Military Camp, even hearing his name made her heart plummet.
His masked face haunted her nightmares.
‘Mukwang must have killed my parents…….’
Conjuring that dreadful figure, Hye-rang’s chin clenched tight as a peach pit.
After her parents’ sudden death, he had seized control of the household.
‘The one who murdered my mother and father……!’
Sob.
‘When I’m grown, I’ll make him pay.’
Hye-rang pressed her lips hard together and scrubbed her eyes with her sleeves.
Mukwang had set the servants upon her to torment her.
“Young lady, you mustn’t leave the cucumber — you must eat every bit!”
Hye-rang despised cucumber with a passion.
The smell it gave off when she put it in her mouth, the soggy texture, the slimy feel of it——
“The Gunju himself took special care to send this dish — you mustn’t waste it!”
Forced to swallow the cucumber, Hye-rang could not hold back the retching and vomited up everything she’d eaten.
Then the servants blazed with fury.
“What a waste of good food!”
“Raised in such luxury you don’t know the meaning of hunger.”
It wasn’t that she didn’t know food was precious.
She simply could not eat cucumber.
The servants despised her for it.
Even in the depth of winter, the room was so cold her breath misted — they would not patch her torn clothes. The servants would huddle and whisper among themselves, only washing and dressing her in clean garments when No Chonggwan came to visit.
And today, they had shoved cucumber into her mouth by force. When she gagged, they turned angry once more.
“Had it not been for the Gunju, you’d have been cast out into the streets by now — and you don’t even show gratitude……!”
Weeping, Hye-rang fled the scene.
As she heaved again, a bitter thought took hold.
‘Mukwang left me here only to make me suffer.’
Sorrow crashed over her.
And yet.
“Child. Are you all right?”
An unfamiliar woman appeared without warning and asked the question.

“I’m one of Wangya’s people. I’ve no intention of doing anything wrong, so rest easy.”
Mukwang’s man!
He’s sent someone else to torment me again!
Hye-rang bolted from the room and shut herself away.
Sniffle, sniffle…….
She sat by the window with her face buried in her knees, weeping. Her skirts were soaked through with tears and mucus.
‘I wish I could eat Tanghoro with Mother again…….’
Just then, a great hawk descended onto the Sophora tree outside her window.
‘What a magnificent bird……!’
Hye-rang’s eyes went wide.
Gold ringed the hawk’s black eyes, and below them grew sleek black feathers shaped like buffalo horns.
Its long black tail feathers gleamed like silk.
“Sniffle—where did you come from?”
As Hye-rang spoke, the hawk flew to her window and laid a single Yeongchunhwa blossom before her.
But it wasn’t even the season for flowers yet—where had it come from?
“Is this for me?”
Hye-rang picked up the pale yellow bloom, and her tear-filled eyes began to sparkle.
The hawk spread its magnificent wings and called out, as if affirming her question.
Only then did a faint smile bloom across Hye-rang’s lips.
“Sniffle—thank you. Actually, you know…….”

* * *

【So that’s how it is?】
Unjoh sat by the window, wiping away sweat and sighing.
She’d spent a full two hours
(*four hours)
listening to Hye-rang’s grievances, and it had worn her out.
‘Seems like she had a lot bottled up.’
So-ah rewarded Unjoh for her effort by offering her a large chunk of meat.
“The daughter of the former king…….”
So-ah reached back into the memories of her past life.
‘Now that I think about it, there was a rebellion in the Mukwang Household…….’
A faction had risen up seeking to depose Seoheon and enthrone a new king.
And the bloodline they put forward was none other than the former king’s.
Hye-rang.
‘And Seogon profited greatly from it.’
Seogon had planted his people in the Mukwang Household under the guise of military support when the rebellion erupted.
This had greatly weakened Seoheon’s position and strengthened Seogon’s path to the throne.
And most troubling of all.
‘Could it really be true that Mukwang killed the former king and has been tormenting that child?’
A swordmaster wasting time tormenting a small, defenseless child?
It seemed unlikely, yet not entirely implausible either.
‘Human hearts are unknowable.’
Just as Seogon had smiled and abandoned her.
There was no guarantee that Seoheon was any different.
So-ah bit her lip.
For some reason, the child weighed on her mind.
She knew better than anyone what it felt like to be left alone in a house, abandoned and forgotten.
She also knew how starved affection could blind one to cheap kindness, leading to ruin.
Unjoh fixed her with those hawk’s eyes.
【You’re thinking of helping her? Though I suppose you’ve never been one to pass by someone in distress.】
“That’s not it.”
So-ah looked away.
That child’s suffering might one day seed a rebellion—and she wanted to prevent that.
That was all.
Unjoh, studying her closely, opened her beak once more.
【Ah, and she says she hates eating cucumbers and wants Tanghoro instead?】
“Tanghoro, was it…….”
Somehow, the request seemed endearing.
* * *
“Miss, time to eat!”
With a dull thud, the servants set dishes down on the table.
Hye-rang’s stomach churned at the sight of the food, but she forced the nausea down.
Cucumber soup, cucumber egg soup, stir-fried vegetables with cucumber and beef, flatbread studded with cucumber. There wasn’t a single dish without cucumber.
A Cucumber Set Meal, in the truest sense.
“His Lordship Mukwang himself prepared this meal for you when he returned from the Imperial Capital, so you mustn’t leave a single bite, understood?”
The servants laughed with their arms folded across their chests.
Before the Cucumber Set Meal, Hye-rang’s eyes welled with tears that spilled like drops of chicken fat.
“Look at her sniveling again.”
“If you leave any cucumber, His Lordship might gobble you up like he did your parents!”
The servants tittered and tried to scare her.
Frightened by the mention of Mukwang, Hye-rang reluctantly picked up her chopsticks.
Just then.
“Hey, girls—Jae-in’s here!”
A servant who’d been loitering in the courtyard rushed back inside.
“Jae-in?”
“The woman His Lordship brought back from the Imperial Capital!”
“The one who had General Maeng thrown in prison? What’s she doing here?”
The servants whispered among themselves, then scattered outside like scattered beads.
While they were gone, Hye-rang stopped her sniffling, carefully checked where the servants had gone, and grabbed the plate of cucumber soup.
‘I have to hide this before she gets here!’
Hye-rang fished the cucumber slices from the egg soup and hurled them into the brazier. The fire sputtered and died as the smell of cucumber filled the room.
‘What do I do!’
After a moment’s panic, Hye-rang stuffed the cucumber soup into the inner folds of her sleeve.
‘I’ll sneak outside later and dump it in the flower bed!’
She clutched her now-damp sleeve and was trying to figure out what to do about the cucumber in the flatbread when—
“Without a word of warning, why would she come here…?”
The servants opened the door and stepped back inside.
Startled, Hye-rang quickly hid her arm—the one concealing the soup—behind her back.
“Since I’ll be staying in this place, I ought to pay my respects to the
Princess
here.”
Behind their voices came an unfamiliar woman, stepping through the door.
‘That woman…!’
Skin as smooth and pale as fresh snow.
Eyebrows as distinct and elegant as if painted by a brush.
Lips like cherries.
She could never forget such a beautiful, refined face.
‘She’s come—Mukwang’s spy…!’
Hye-rang’s pupils trembled at the sight of her.
The spy had tracked her down here.
‘She’s come to make sure I eat all the cucumber!’
Hye-rang’s eyes darted toward the brazier. Unburned cucumber pieces still lay scattered in the ashes.
Before they could burn away completely, Mukwang’s spy drew near.
“Hic!”
The tension burst from her mouth as a hiccup.
“Shh!”
She slapped both hands over her mouth to muffle it—
Whoosh!
The cucumber soup hidden in her sleeve came tumbling down like a waterfall.
Hye-rang froze solid at the sight of the scattered soup on the floor.
Her face drained white.
Her heart thundered in her chest.
“Hic!”
Another hiccup escaped before she could stop it.

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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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