🚨 Warning: This chapter includes depictions of sexual content under unequal power dynamics. Please remain mindful of this as you read. If you feel uncomfortable, do not hesitate to stop reading. 🚨
I returned to the palace after dinnertime had already passed.
The newly arrived palace maid, Bin and Madam Gyeongin sent worried looks toward General Hunmu and me, but I had no energy to pay them any mind and, like a zombie, walked past them into my room.
General Hunmu didn’t follow but stood watching me like that, and Madam Gyeongin…
“Dinner…”
She trailed off, but I didn’t have the strength to put anything in my mouth.
I collapsed onto the bed as soon as I came in without caring if the clothes I had just changed into got rumpled. My body had no strength left, as if I had just completed an IRONMAN, [1] yet my mind felt like it was going to go mad.
While in a daze, I would burst into tears like someone with bipolar disorder, raking my nails down my own body.
I didn’t know what was happening.
The only thing I was certain of was that my emotional state was far from normal. Even after washing and scrubbing myself over and over at the river for a long time, it still felt as if red traces of blood remained all over my body. And whenever I closed my eyes, the scene of a blade sinking deep into someone’s body and then being pulled out kept replaying again and again.
If I hadn’t begged for Sucheong’s life, would those four men have lived?
But even so, was it right to turn a blind eye to Sucheong’s death?
The tear-streaked face of Sucheong, born into desperate poverty and forced to do whatever Buyeon Yuhwa ordered, came vividly to mind.
She had spat up blood and told me not to forgive her. Her final image was…
It was terrifying. Truly terrifying.
The people in this palace were terrifying, humanity itself was terrifying, and that woman, Buyeon Yuhwa, who treated life so lightly, was terrifying too.
King or not, I never wanted to receive any favour or affection. I just wish they would live happily among themselves and die quietly, with absolutely no connection to me whatsoever.
Even with my eyes closed, the tears I couldn’t hold back spilled, trailing down from the corners of my eyes.
Would the scenes I saw today ever fade with time?
Please, please, I wished someone would erase my thoughts.
“Please… do not forgive me… my lady…”
I clutched my head. Suddenly, just my existence here felt like a burden.
If I hadn’t come to the palace in the first place, or if I had died by the king’s hand instead, the five who died today might still have lived.
What was I supposed to do now? How was I supposed to live, knowing just how terrifying this palace was?
Creak.
While I had been struggling with my emotions for a long time, long enough for my pillow to be soaked with tears, the door suddenly opened without a sound or any warning that someone had come in.
But I had no room to spare a thought for anyone, so I kept my eyes shut until a strange feeling made me turn my head, and there, unexpectedly, stood the king.
Behind him, Bin had her head bowed low in tension, and the king fixed his gaze on me as I lay there.
"Does it still hurt?"
Only after hearing the king’s voice did I hesitantly lift myself from where I had been lying.
But still in a daze, I didn’t even realise I ought to move from where I was sitting, and simply stared at him blankly.
A tall figure, a solid build hidden beneath a gonryongpo (royal robe), the man with the highest status in this palace.
After the door closed behind him, the king walked toward me, and the moment he saw me, his expression hardened. It was when he noticed my face, streaked with tears.
He would surely ask for the reason, but still, I was truly relieved.
Just as General Hunmu had said, if I hadn’t arrived before the king came that evening, another horrific event — one I dared not even imagine — would have occurred.
“…I apologise… I am not quite myself right now.”
Seeing the king’s stern expression, I lifted my heavy body and stepped aside, but instead of sitting, he reached out and cupped one side of my face.
Then, seeing the tear stains so vivid that no lie could hide them, he tilted his head slightly.
"The reason you’re crying."
“...Pardon...?”
“...”
“...It’s nothing.”
Swish.
“Ah!”
At the words that it was nothing, the king’s hand, which had been holding my cheek, tightened. As he pressed his body even closer, I stepped back, and the folding screen wobbled, crumpling against the wall as it fell backward.
In that brief moment, feeling the cold, ruthless gaze reflected in his eyes, I suddenly grew so exhausted that I let my head drop.
‘Please, just leave me alone today.’
Even if the king didn’t touch me, my head already felt like it was about to explode, and I felt like I was losing my mind.
But in that moment, I remembered what General Hunmu had said by the river.
The deaths of four men, and the death of Sucheong, who took the blade in my place. The way to repay that was to act with careful judgment.
If I gave the impression that I was losing my mind here and provoked the king’s temper, the situation would spiral out of control.
Thinking that, I lifted my head, and sure enough, a coldness passed over the king’s face. Seeing him like that, sorrow and fear welled up again, and tears began to fall once more.
“…Why… didn’t you come earlier today?”
“What?”
I didn’t even know what I was saying anymore. But I couldn’t let anyone be harmed because of me. No one should die or get hurt on my account.
"I was… just curious… why you came so late…"
As I was talking with tears streaming down my face, the king’s persistent gaze lingered on me. In any case, I was asking questions differently than usual and behaving unlike my usual self, so from his perspective, he must have been very curious about why I was acting this way.
“I finished all the work I needed to handle in advance. Just so I could bring you out of the palace again.”
“…I see… You were busy… because of the work… on my account…”
“From tomorrow, I can spare about three days. So tell me where you want to go.”
"…The place… I want… to go… well… sniff…”
“...”
I had to say something, but the tears that welled up again made it impossible to answer properly.
I wasn’t really a strong person. I just fell into a strange world and was struggling to adjust in any way I could, yet people still told me to adapt and called me foolish.
He asked me to tell him where I wanted to go, but I knew he was watching all my actions and every word I spoke.
"...I will… think about… where I want to go… sniff… thank you… hic..."
“...”
“For no reason, I… just ended up feeling sad on my own… and… my emotions have been strangely off today.”
“What thoughts?”
“…Um… so… today is… uh… Mum’s birthday. My mother’s birthday. She must be worried since I suddenly disappeared… and I can’t visit or see her, so I started thinking about her… that’s why she came to mind.”
“...”
"I know well how much the king cares for me and considers me… but it’s because of thoughts of my mother… that’s why I cried. It’s by no means because I dislike life in the palace… umph.”
While I was speaking, the king’s lips met mine. I desperately swallowed the lies I’d been telling about my long-past mother’s birthday, and soon his tongue slipped in, entwining with mine.
The tears I hadn’t yet shed ran down the back of my throat, and I swallowed the king’s saliva along with them.
“Haa…”
“Women seem to have stronger feelings toward their mothers than men do.”
It seemed he believed me. Thankfully, the king trusted my lie.
But then, he suddenly took off the gonryongpo he was wearing. Still pressed against the folding screen, I couldn’t think of moving my back away and just stared while the king’s hands began removing the multiple layers of clothing while he kept his eyes locked on mine.
“I’ll make you forget. So that not a single memory remains.”
My vision of the king blurred and cleared repeatedly because of my tears.
Before I knew it, his hand was tugging at my jeogori, but I could only watch.
Instead, thoughts I hadn’t even considered came to mind.
Humans were said to be creatures both weak and strong.
Perhaps because I had witnessed as many as five people die before my eyes in a single day, for the first time, I began to wonder if I would truly have to bear the king’s child in order to survive in this palace.
The vivid memory of the low-born palace maid who had died in my arms, coughing up blood, her cold warmth still lingering, made me realise with chilling clarity that to avoid the same fate, I might have to bear a child and seize some position — any position.
As my jeogori came undone, and my chima was pulled off, I still made no move to resist. Seeing this, the king kissed me again and pushed me down onto the soft bedding.
Did this king know?
The terrifying fact that Buyeon Yuhwa, the woman who would become his first queen, had ordered a palace maid to be killed.
Or perhaps, even if he did know, would he be surprised? After all, when I was first taken to his bedchamber, the stern-faced head court lady had spoken about the women who had died there.
Without blowing out the candle, the king’s lips traced my neckline. Still, as I wondered whether he had ever killed anyone with his own hands, I felt no urge to push him away.
"Were you close with your mother?"
That wasn’t always the case. After all, mothers and daughters often clashed a lot.
While preparing for the civil service exam, I built invisible walls even with my family and often felt a sense of distance. Even on a rare family trip before the exam, I retreated to the library, so I wasn’t in any of the photos. At the time, it felt natural, but after failing the exam, I regretted not going with them.
I wondered what my mother was thinking as she searched for me, someone who had never properly shown her any filial piety while buried in my studies and had simply vanished.
“…It was much like the relationship between a typical mother and daughter… I’d been studying for so long that I hadn’t been very affectionate recently… And since I wasn’t working, I couldn’t properly fulfil my duties as a daughter either.”
“...”
“Having failed to even show filial piety, and ending up in this strange place, I am a daughter… who has done nothing but… be unfilial to my mother.”
"I didn’t even get to see her face."
He didn’t even get to see her face? Did she pass away early?
The king soon grabbed my chest covering and pulled it aside, lowering his lips from my neckline down to my breast. Then, lightly taking my nipple into his mouth, he spoke again.
“And because of my existence, she had to face a miserable death.”
“!”
Death.
At the sound of the word ‘death’ from the king’s lips, my body tensed and stiffened. Unaware of why I had reacted this way, he gently brushed my rigid shoulders and licked my nipple with his tongue.
But my mind was so blank that I felt no pleasure at all. The king didn’t even let out a sound and simply left me there as my expression darkened.
“I have never even shed a single tear for my mother. Even in front of the grave of my real birth mother, whom I only discovered after more than twenty years, I felt nothing. So, then, who is it that is truly committing filial impiety?”
Lick.
The grave of his real birth mother, whom he had only learned about after more than twenty years?
Unlike what I had expected, a flicker of expression crossed his face, as if he had some story of his own, but he seemed unwilling to say more and sucked my nipple with force. Then, keeping his tongue in contact, he moved downward, parting my underwear and resting his face between my thighs.
He ran his tongue over every part of my body, as if he somehow knew that it had been streaked and smeared with blood.
Lick.
"Huu."
This time, even with my dazed mind, a faint breath escaped me. The king applied as much skill to sucking my clitoris as he had to sucking my nipples, showing quite a noticeable technique.
He gently licked with his tongue, then, as if holding a candy in his mouth, he nibbled in a way that didn’t hurt, and my toes curled and stretched on their own.
Slurp.
Suck.
It was a situation where, because of what had happened, I couldn’t focus or even get aroused, yet the king persistently continued moving his tongue.
When I looked up at the ceiling after staring at his face buried between my legs, only a lingering drop escaped — my tears had already stopped.
Slip.
"Hng!"
A single finger reached beneath my labia, which had been teased for a long while. As it slowly slid inside me, the king, watching my expression, immediately pressed his body closer, his hands still moving as he returned to caress my nipples.
Squelch, squelch.
"Ha-ngh!"
“Where you come from, how do people find comfort when they are sad?”
"Ngh... Pardon?"
"Do you drink liquor?"
Squelch.
“Hng! …Some drink liquor… sing songs… read good books… we comfort our sadness in various ways.”
“What method did you use there?”
The way I comforted my sadness.
What did I do? Ever since I started preparing for the exams, even that kind of sadness felt like a luxury, and in the two years that followed, the only time I drank was when I met a friend for the first time.
The finger moving inside me pressed deeper, and as I gently bit my lower lip, the king’s finger brushed against it. Then he looked at me, as if urging me to answer.
“…Haah… While studying, I felt that even sadness was a luxury…”
"So you just endured it?"
Nod, nod.
As I answered the king’s question, the image of Sucheong coughing up blood faded from my mind. But whenever it threatened to resurface during a brief silence, his fingers refocused my attention on the sensitive depths inside me.
“If you suppress your emotions, they’ll burst out one way or another.”
Slide.
"Eup!"
“In my case, it was a full-on outburst.”
One finger inside me became two. This time, unable to stay still, I closed my legs, and the king rhythmically moved the two fingers he had inserted.
“Even I didn’t know when that outburst would end, but thanks to you coming from a strange world, it gave me a brief moment to catch my breath.”
"Haangh."
"So I, too, will bear that sadness of yours."
The king’s fingers withdrew, and soon a firm penis replaced them at my entrance. As it slowly began to enter, I found myself wishing: even if it meant clinging to the king I had once feared or tried to avoid, I wanted to forget what had happened today.
"Hueup!"
"Whether you cry from sadness or cry in my arms, the tears will come all the same, won’t they?"
Fwop!
"Ha-eugh!"
Fwop!
"Heub! ...Haa... Eup!"
"By the time that candle burns out on its own, your emotions will have worn themselves out too."
Fwop!
"Heug! ...Ahng!"
The king soon pulled me into a firm embrace and drove his hips against me with even greater force than before. Each time his pelvis, which had been drawing back at an unhurried pace, slammed into me hard enough to wrench a gasp from my lips, the tip of his length struck my womb with such a stinging ache that I could think of nothing else.
Every time he moved his hips in a steady rhythm, my whole body swayed in time with his, and my head dropped helplessly to the side.
Fwop!
Fwop!
"Ngh! Aheup."
With my head tilted, I could see the candle the king had mentioned glowing and burning down. Because of his sudden visit, the palace maid had hurriedly left without replacing the half-burned white candle with a new one.
I watched the wax drip from the candle and let out a rough breath, wondering whether the king truly intended to hold me until the candle melted completely.
Perhaps, just as he said, by the time that candle naturally burned out, these feelings of mine might also grow weary and vanish.
Fwop!
Thwack!
“Ahng... huu.”
Since I believed in ghosts, the pitch-black evening felt terrifying, and in truth, I couldn’t even be sure I would be able to sleep properly.
My instincts took over with the king’s rough thrusts, and I soon wrapped my arms around his neck and locked my legs around his hips.
It didn't matter if the candle burned itself out or if we stayed up all night. Tonight, while in the king’s arms, I merely wished for absolutely nothing to occupy my mind.
Translator's Corner:
Thanks again for your patience, everyone!! Hope you enjoyed this update~
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[1] IRONMAN is a triathlon-style race that consists of swimming, cycling and running. Source: https://www.ironman.com/
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