"Uncle? Why have you summoned me here to the palace? And why am I on my knees? What have I done wrong?" "You have been found guilty for coming adultery with a concubine that we sent of here in the palace, and before you deny the charges, we have already searched your quarters throughly." "Uncle?" "I know that nothing physical has happened between you both, but the palace and the entire kingdom will not see it that way…" "So is this why you took me in uncle? To use me as a tool for power? Just as your own father did you?" Normally, a comment like that would have me overreacting and resorting to my own violent ways, but my wife had taught me the art of patience and I knew that I had better plan for him in the future alongside my own children and I had to keep him alive until then. "If you knew about it all this time, then why are you questioning me about it at all? Is it because you had nowhere else to go? And no other family to rely on?" "Uncle!" "Fret not, you are the only family member that I cherish enough to let you into my home and leech off of my resources for free. But this crime that you have committed will come at a price and you had better remember this. I am only letting you off this time due to your service to me in assisting in taking down The Nam Clan. But I still have to impose some sort of punishment upon you to save face, so go home and I will think about what to do with you." "You have made me kneel on my knees for2 hours now, there is no way that I can walk home like this!" "Very well, then take my horse if you wish, since I will not be leaving anytime soon. Do not inform my wife about any of this and do not even think about sneaking off to the brothels, I might even have to think about your marriage from the looks of things." As I watched my nephew walk away from me in defiance and full of arrogance, he left an unsettling feeling in my heart. My wife helped raise him as much as she could, but he was ultimately the son of my uncouth half brother and his scheming maid of a wife, and he was every single insult that my brother, father and even this kingdom hurled at me before I chose the right woman to settle down with and help heal me and indulge me at the same time. But I could never fully forget what I had been through in my previous life before chaos ensued and my nephew would always be a reminder of that. So I had to send him away, far away before got into anymore trouble, and just in time for myself and my wife to retire to her brother's village so that I could build my second home there for my children.
But not even minutes had passed when my servants came running back to me panting and with a terrified look on their faces. That is when I found out that my nephew had been involved in an accident involving my own horse that somehow trampled all over his leg and possibly crippled it. He had reportedly passed out from the pain and even before he was taken to the infirmary, I already had an idea about what the concubine had done with her earnings from selling the golden lockets. I instantly examined my horse and was a little more than shocked to discover that there were needled lodged into the saddle. My horse was an old one, so I must have been provoked as soon as my nephew clamped his legs down onto the animal. My horse that was my only comfort apart from The Seo's, my hose was compromised for the very first time to hurt me and disable me instead. What if I had been the one who was harmed instead? How could I have faced my wife and my children with a cripple body? No, this was an intentional sabotage and I had to put my growing family first. I had to bring them all down before I left to take a break and enjoy the rest of my wife's first pregnancy with her. I will take care of The Senior Scholar myself and my wife…I didn't want to bother her anymore and she needed to rest more…but I couldn't be in 2 places at once and the only people I could trust in this village with my work was MoonBok and his family and my own wife. I could only hope that she forgave me for this and didn't dwell on it too much. In fact I was more grateful now to have our trip to distract her, and I couldn't summon The Senior Scholar without it now. "Servants! Go and find some green chrysanthemum's and deliver them to my wife as soon you can! She will know what to do and I will be expecting her presence in the palace soon…and also send a message to MoonBok."
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My husband disappeared in the morning after he had filled me in on the progress he had been making alone in the palace, and it strangely left me feeling rather guilty. From the first moment that I was left alone with that man, he had always let me into his business even right upto our time in the palace. My husband was a cunning and capable man, but for the plans that he had in mind for his paternal clan, he could not be seen as the one orchestrating the chaos that they have suffered since they barged into our home unannounced. They had already tried to desecrate my reputation by leaving hints about my pre=marital relationship with my husband which they only guessed about at the most. That in itself would have caused a Hughe issue for me if anyone did believe it, but once again I had my father's reputation to save me as well as the friendship that my husband had with my brother for almost all of their lives. But I myself had been far too tolerant of the behaviours from The Nam Clan so far and I wasn't wiling to let it compromise my health during my pregnancy. They will literally be the death of me if I didn't expose them for the final time in front of the public, and when I finally got my green chrysanthemums from my husband's servant's, I couldn't help but to spend the rest of the morning cherishing my swollen belly and spoiling my babies by indulging myself in my various cravings that I have had throughout my pregnancy that kept my husband amused enough to both tease me and pamper me and his children even more. How I wish he was here to hold me and give me some moral support before I carried out this task on his behalf. I couldn't be more grateful to him for not reducing his love and favour for me whilst my body grew a mind of it's own and just kept being bigger to support my babies. And in hindsight, it was probably better to handle this issue now before we retired to my brother's village for god only knows how long. My valuables were already packed up anyways as was my husband's, so we were not leaving anything behind and I was hardly loosing out on leaving this yangban where the pressures to keep up a wealthy image were overwhelmingly difficult and rather pathetic to be honest. And now the only obstacle I was facing in my path of freedom was The Nam Clan that I was finally ready to take down. The aunts and their children were taken care of, now all that was left to take down for good.
"…my husband is indeed terminally ill now, and staying by his side this past year is almost equal to an entire decade. But others will surely take advantage of him and he needs my counsel now more than ever in his personal and business affairs, and his baby of a concubine shouldn't be burdened with such a heavy issue like this…Madame Nam? What on earth are you doing here? Who are you to just walk in this residence unannounced?" "May I remind you that my husband still owns this property? Then I have every right to enter any residence under his name. You are not even paying my husband rent Big Madame, so who are you to stop me from entering anywhere against my will?" "I am your senior, in case you have forgotten girl! So don't you just…my goodness! You are a difficult one to deal with indeed! How long will you harass my clan like this? How are you this much of a pest even after not spending a single day with that infuriating mother of yours! How is that even possible! Is it too much to ask for you to just leave us alone! Just the sight of you with your mother's face infuriates me to my bones! You raise my blood pressure even more than my useless daughters!"
"Who is it wife? Who has graced us with their presence? Is it…is it her? Has Seo Geom's wife come to visit me at long last? After all this time? My girl…my precious girl…" "Husband! Do you have any idea what you are saying right now? I have accompanied you for a lifetime and I have given you plenty of children; and you still think about that damned slut? Even after 3 decades? Then what about me? Who am I to you then? Tell me! Or have you only tolerated me as her substitute! The woman that you couldn't take in as your concubine because she rejected you over and over again! She was a baby compared to you anyways! Why do you still love her! Why can't you forget her? She was a damned kisaeng and I a woman of noble birth! How could she compare to your ambitions at all!" "His wife…his wife is here! She is finally here to give me a chance! She left her husband to see me one last time! She…she is her because she loves me, don't you girl?" The once strong=willed man with the loud booming voice and silk pressed robes had turned into a cripple of a man with old clothes that stank to the high heavens and his veins popping out of his skin. He was already quite an old man when I met him, and now he looked as though he has aged another 4 decades since I saw him last and he clearly wasn't in his right mind at all. He was showing obvious signs of being poisoned, despite his wife's attempts to keep us apart. "Do you love me? Have you ever loved me as I loved you? You never responded to my letters, you always returned my gifts and you ignored me when that lowborn with his sword showed up! You only had eyes for him! You only smiled at him! He was the only one who couldn't afford to give you any gifts and you still chose him over me! Why! I have been betrayed by everyone in this life and left on my own don't you do it as well! Do not let me depart from this world without a soul to understand me! Nobody understood me as you did! Not once! Not even my own wife! Do you understand how your betrayal broke me! When you chose Seo Geo over me! I still have your drawing that I kept under my pillow, but I lost it recently…only you saw me! Even when both my parents tortured and neglected me! Only you understood me when you saw me reading my books outside of the brothel! Only you spoke to me! And you cared for me, I know that you did…!"
It was at this point where he collapsed in my arms with blood spewing out of his mouth and ears, but I couldn't catch him lest it caused some harm to my swollen belly. But he was still addressing me as if was my mother and uttering some nonsense about some promise to be buried alive with him as his final wish, which I was already preparing for his wife to use against me in some way or another. I was being exposed to some really horrific things in my most vulnerable state and yet I dare not numb myself too much since I wanted to remember every single world of his confession about my mother until I was in a better position to go over it all in my own mind and with my brother alone. But the old man was dying in my arms and there was nothing that I could do but to hold him whilst looking away so that I wouldn't be traumatised, but I still had to get away from this family before they had a chance to harm me. I was contemplating faking labour pains when my husband suddenly stormed in with a handful of servants, and the first thing he did was to pick me up win his arms just when I was at my heaviest weight and sat me in the furthest corner from the rest of the clan and had placed some of his guards from the palace cover me as we watched the old man bleed out until the end.