MOSC 10

On just kept her head down, as if she had become one with the floor, and continued to address her superior.

Suddenly, with a soft chuckle, an unexpected question came from the Queen’s lips.

“So, was it quite good?”

“Yes… It was so good… Yes?”

The trials were endless.

At the sudden question, On’s eyes grew as round as platters.

She had almost replied, thinking of the special night before, that her night with him had been so good she could have rolled her eyes back.

“Th-That is… that is… I am overwhelmed….”

She was at her wits’ end.

On had no way of knowing why Her Majesty was asking such a cruel question.

One wrong move, and she would have been confessing to her groom’s mother-in-law that she had been utterly captivated by the man’s bedroom skills.

It was just as On was flustered, trying to squeeze out tears that wouldn’t come.

“That is enough. Just reporting those few words has made your neck flush so red that I feel as uncomfortable as if I were sitting in a steamer myself. I have confirmed that you have fulfilled your duty. You may withdraw.”

On didn’t even have time to be surprised.

At the Queen’s cold command as a signal, the door slid open again.

Those who had entered before her withdrew in order, and the Queen also left.

The scene became as desolate as a riverbed after a great wave has swept through.

Although she hadn’t seen a single hair on the Prince Consort’s chin during their nighttime affair, On, who had prepared over a hundred more sentences to report to her superior, couldn’t help but be dumbfounded.

‘Is it really over, just like this…?’

On, who had expected the Queen to ask about and scrutinize every little detail out of a mother’s concern for her daughter’s marriage, couldn’t help but be surprised by the Queen’s coolly indifferent reaction.

It was a truly dry and business-like attitude, as if she were merely following a pre-arranged script.

Which, of course, was the case. This whole affair had been a setup with Sim Wigyeom from the start.

The Queen knew, and Princess Bonghwa knew.

The only one who knew nothing was On.

⋯In short, she had been scammed.

But On had no way of knowing that yet.

She was simply left standing there like a lost duck, bewildered and embarrassed, wondering what on earth had just happened.

It was then. An event occurred that changed On’s confused state of mind.

The closed door slid open, and a court lady entered.

Thwack.

“This is the reward for your hard work.”

The court lady tossed a heavy money pouch, full of silver ingots, to On.

On stared at the silver ingots in shock.

Her stopped heart began to beat again.

The pouch shone brightly, like a future that would take responsibility for her uncertain days ahead and her opaque prospects.

On quickly tucked the pouch into her clothes and thought about what had just happened.

‘…Yes. There must be a reason.’

She decided to cast the questions in her heart beyond the western heavens.

The clinking sound of the silver ingots rang more clearly than ever.

‘…Of course, that’s right. There must be some great purpose behind it.’

A person can be doubted, but money cannot.

On’s eyes had already turned into the shape of silver ingots.

And so, thanks to On, blinded by money, and the silver ingots that had done their part (?), the fraudulent scheme surrounding Sim Wigyeom and the royal family was proceeding smoothly without On’s knowledge.

Time flew by.

The day of the wedding arrived.

The princess’s marriage was arranged with the speed of a thunderbolt, and everything was wrapped up before one could even catch a breath.

On, the hwachok lady-in-waiting, was locked up like a sick chicken that had served its purpose and was only released on the day of the wedding.

It was called confinement, but it was practically imprisonment.

It was a harsh treatment for a court lady who had entered the palace around the age of ten and dedicated her life to it.

But On couldn’t complain.

Instead, she stayed up all night planning how to build her fortune with the silver ingots she had received. Swallowing her tears, she clenched her small fists.

‘Even if the world, no, the palace betrays me, I will one day walk a flower path.’

Of course, the situation was more like a thorny path with buzzing bees and vipers instead of flower petals, but didn’t they say a good start is half the battle?

⋯Of course, Wigyeom was paving On’s flower path for her, so she had nothing to worry about.

On didn’t know it, but Wigyeom wasn’t just plowing a field for her; he was bringing in tenant farmers and herds of cattle to turn her entire field into a flower garden.

Completely unaware of this fact, On sniffled, fiddling with the silver ingots.

‘I want to see Head Court Lady Chu one last time before I leave the palace. And Gwiseng, too… but I probably won’t be able to see them again until I die.’

Thinking of the palace family she had lived with like her own made the tip of her nose sting and her heart ache.

But On had already shed her status as a court lady.

She was now, nominally, a concubine of the Sim family.

Her new life would unfold here.

Putting her regrets behind her, On looked at the ninety-nine-kan tiled house spread out before her.

It was the princess’s palace, which would be the newlywed home of the princess and the Prince Consort.

The wedding ceremony had not yet been completed, so the house was bustling.

‘By the way… is this what they call a reversal of fortune?’

The new home for the princess and Prince Consort was a magnificent palace in its own right.

It was clear that the King had been very generous for the marriage of his troublesome daughter.

The soaring main gate, facing due south, was extraordinary from the start. Just by passing through the gate, one could see rare pomegranate trees elegantly drooping in the front yard, and a ninety-nine-kan tiled house, enviable with its twelve main beams including the main quarters, men’s quarters, detached rooms, and rear garden, spread out before her.

The rumor that the royal officials had torn down ten neighborhood tiled houses to build this was probably no exaggeration.

On swallowed a dry gulp.

Being a Prince Consort might be more rewarding than she thought.

‘…I thought he was just a scholar who only read books, but maybe he was surprisingly savvy about the ways of the world?’

A suspicion arose that he might have a much greater ability to accumulate wealth than she had thought.

But On quickly shook her head with a good-natured smile.

‘Nah, no way.’

If that were true, he wouldn’t have just let his family fall into such ruin that they had to borrow even a spoon.

‘A man who lived in that thatched cottage couldn’t possibly be skilled in finance.’

On gave a faint, bitter smile.

She didn’t know about anything else, but to On, Sim Wigyeom had long been imprinted as a man who was naive about the ways of the world.

…Of course, this thought was On’s misunderstanding.

Naturally, this house was the wealth Sim Wigyeom had received as compensation for the considerable trouble Princess Bonghwa would cause in the future.

On could never have imagined.

⋯What kind of bargain Wigyeom had struck with the Queen to receive this house.

The old Sim Wigyeom, the eldest son of a powerful family, might have been clueless.

But the current Wigyeom was different.

After his regression, Wigyeom’s eyes were filled not with loyalty, but with venom.

The first thing the regressed Wigyeom acquired was financial competence.

Being loyal to the royal family and treating wealth like a stone had brought him nothing but poverty and hardship.

After his regression, for Wigyeom, property was his lord, and money was his honor.

‘First, I’ll change the house where my wife will live.’

From the beginning, Wigyeom had no intention of yielding even a fingernail’s worth of this place, the princess’s palace where On would live, to the royal family.

No, in fact, when it came to On, he had no intention of losing anything at all.

In his past life, Wigyeom had suffered a great loss due to his marriage with Princess Bonghwa.

To maintain the family’s dignity and hold a splendid ceremony befitting a royal wedding, he had borrowed a large sum of money from his in-laws’ relatives.

By borrowing furniture made of ivory and utensils decorated with gold, several years’ worth of income had vanished into thin air.

The gold plaques and jewels offered as wedding gifts, and the fields received as a dowry, were destined to be offered up as tribute, and in reality, they became empty wealth that would never be returned.

It was true that through the royal marriage, the family members had briefly gained opportunities for advancement.

But even that eventually became a target for the envy and jealousy of their political rivals.

As rumors spread that the marriage with the princess was the product of a political deal, the reputation of the Sim family as incorruptible officials, which they had held so dear, was tarnished.

If Wigyeom had had to bear all these losses alone, he would have felt less wronged.

⋯But the one who suffered greater damage was On.

After Princess Bonghwa disappeared in a certain incident, Sim Wigyeom was forced to bear all the blame and responsibility simply for being the Prince Consort.

The court branded Sim Wigyeom as a disloyal subject and exiled him as an overseas envoy.

During her husband’s absence, On had to act as the head of the family.

The Sim family began to lose even the privileges they had gained from their connection with the royal family, and the cousins were hell-bent on dividing up the remaining property.

…And On, the concubine, was the one who remained in the Sim family until the end.

On tried to protect the family under the name of Wigyeom, who had been abandoned even by the royal family.

But amidst accusations that a mere concubine dared to control the Sim family, she was not even given a chance to speak up properly.

Even as the family and village declined, On silently fulfilled her duties and held her position to the end.

Even when they reached a point where they had to humbly borrow money from tenant farmers, On tilled the soil and farmed herself. Through such hardship, she protected the fields and lineage of the Sim family.

‘My wife.’

Wigyeom only learned of this fact at the very end of his past life.

By the time he realized the burden her slender shoulders had had to bear alone, it was already too late to turn back.

A person could only change after experiencing unspeakable regret and anger.

‘I will never let a single drop of water touch my wife’s hands again.’

Wigyeom immediately put that anger into action.

He went to the Queen for a showdown and laid down as if he had nothing left to lose.

In reality, he was a man who had nowhere left to retreat.