With all of the chaos going on in my life, it was the prospect of my wife facing my family in her current condition that almost had me going out of my mind with worry, so much so that the first solution that came to my mind was to run to the nearest opium den. But my wife was already nearing her third trimester in her pregnancy and she was at the stage where my children were kicking up a storm in her belly and I had the pleasure of feeling their little feet press up against my hand. They always kicked the most when I placed my hand on he belly late at night, even though it always kept her up half of the night. It was a rather strange yet endearing feeling that I felt every single time that I did that; even more so than the private moments that I had with my wife even before our marriage and I was beginning to regret sending her to carry out my mission even though she was the only person who could pull it off whilst I tended to my nephew to the best of my abilities. I ended up running out of the palace after a few hours had passed by in the hopes that The Crown Prince would take my rare absence as me fulfilling my filial duties to my elder who had died right in front of my eyes. I was used to dead bodies at this point, but my wife was not and I could only hope and pray that it didn't traumatise her too much. And if she showed any signs of distress or if my babies were affected in any way, then its would be on me this time. There were only a handful of times that I had been too ashamed to look her in the face, but this was definitely one of those times and all I could do was to sit besides her and take her hands into mine as the palace guards carried out an impromptu raid of the entire household when everyone else was under arrest in front of my eyes so they couldn't interfere in this surprise investigation even if they all really did have something to hide.
"Lord Nam?" "MoonBok? What good timing you have…" "Here, take a look at what we have found in the quarters of The Big Madame and her husband over here." "Have you determined what poison was used in this case?" "What poison? What exactly are you trying to accuse me of here? You ungrateful little bastard…" "I have found plenty of ginkgo sprout in her quarters, which is really quite rare for this season, and take a look here; the sprout of the white nut is poisonous and if you extract the liquid out of it, it is fatal to anyone who ingested it, especially little children as young as that nephew of yours that I always see on my rounds in the brothel." "So I can easily accuse The Big Madame over her for the crimes that were committed against him then, including what happened only this morning to him. Could you determine what foods this poison could be distributed in?" "Pretty much anything, you can even get away with saying that she did this for quite a while now, imagine she was being praised for taking care of her husband in her old age, and now we can see what she was truly up to this whole time. Will you make your testimony for me?" "We are not young and reckless men anymore Seon=Ho. I will do it for you but only one last time since I have my family too consider now and I will hand you some of my most trusted apprentices that you can hire and even board in your own home." "Very well, this shall be your last exhibition, so I am sure you know what to do, and I will reward you through your daughter." "I have other children you know!" "I know, but you also know that Bo=Geom is everyone's favourite child and she has the most obstacles to face in her future, so I shall dedicate my time to her to help her the most." "Very well, let us summon both The Crown Prince, his mother and even a eunuch from The Emperor as a witness to this whole scenario, which is better than bothering The Emperor himself." Nephew! How could you even think to sever ties with us this way? Will you really go as far as to ruin your cousins marriages!" "That is nothing compared to the damage that your clan has done to both myself and The Seo Siblings! It is my mission to eradicate this clan before my family grows and if you are not satisfied with a private trial, then we can take this case and all of the evidence to a public court and have the magistrate judge try this case for us. Would that suit you even more? Servants! Call them in and clean up this mess before we are honoured with the presence of royalty!" "Before we are honoured with the presence of royalty? Husband?" "After tonight, everything will be over wife I can finally promise you that! Then I swear to you that I will build you a palace in the village with my own hands! I will take you away as soon as everyone is arrested and we can feast on our sister=in=law's food all night long." "Very well husband…"
"…my husband had been unreasonably controlling throughout our marriage and I would get scolded or punished under the slightest pretext and I even lost the right to manage my household to one of his many passing flings, allowing her to step on my face when she pleases. He has gamble away all of our assets upon retirement and due to his decision to meddle with our daughters nephew life, we were also going to loose this home which is our last means of shelter, so I had to do something to stop him…" "And you thought that poisoning your husband would do the trick, Big Madame?" "I just wanted to weaken his health a little, that is all, to have no energy to care about meddling in more affairs that did not concern him so that I could regain my household and take care of mattress pertaining to my children after their own children's exile and marriages…." "Are you aware that everyone had access to these tainted meals? Anyone else could have lost their lives Madame, are you going to take responsibility for that also? Or do you simply not care about anyone else's lives? Or do you not since your husband is solely responsible for the lives of everyone else in this household? Even your own children that would come here to visit on occasion? Or was regaining the management of this household much more important to you?" "It was my daughters! They both manipulated me! They gave me this idea and hardly cared about their own father at all! They were continuously blackmailing me for funds ever since I married them both off and they were harassing our entire clan for decades now!" "Is that why you are easily turning them over like this, instead of defending them like any good mother would?" "They have been corrupted since their birth! There is nothing more that I can so for them now at my old age! Forgive me My Lady, but your royal status has no place my family's internal affairs like this!" "That may be so in a moral sense, but we are formally in=laws and I need to get a handle on this situation before The Emperor finds out about this and draws up his own conclusions, heaven forbid. Let us get into the witnesses now, Lord Nam." "Very well My Lady, let us start with the personal servants now."
"…My Mistress never promoted me, so I simply saw the opportunity to make more money to feed my family and pay off our debts and I took it without hesitation. I was told to spy in her daughters home for her and…" "Is this true mother! That lowly maid that always had eyes for my husband, is it rue? And where is my sister? Why isn't she here to bask in this new humiliation with us?" "Now you care about our familial relations daughter? She has already denied the charges against her, so what more can she say or do here? Well?"
"They still cannot just treat us like this! My children are still married into The Royal Family and we have never suffered like this before!" "Aunt, your children are divorced from their respective spouses as of today and they are rotting in the cold palace and are waiting for you to join them as The Crown Prince has made this exception for the whole clan to suffer the same collective punishment at once. And with the dead corpse of your father in front of us with no suitable reaction from you at all, that might happen as soon as tonight."
"Is that why you have detained my mother so helplessly like this? My Lord Nam?" "You are certainly in no position to spew out your venom on me, not after what you and your sister have done collectively." "How dare you casually but in your elder's conversation like the feral bastard you truly are!" "Do not push your aggressions and sins onto me! Don't you dare!" "Calm down husband! Do not rise to her nonsense if you have nothing to hide at all! Remember who you are and what it took for you to get here and don't you dare forget it for a second!" "Forgive me wife, I am trying to manage my temper, but it isn't always easy." "As long as you are trying husband, you have nothing to feel guilty about." "Do you see how entranced he is with his wife, even during a time like this? Is she a witch or something mother? She can seduce man and charm them as easily as her mother could! How many times did Seo Geom risk his life for her in that brothel? Both Seo Geom and his son=in=law have that same look of yearning that our husband never graced us with, mother!" "Just wait and see how boastful she will be when she births whatever spawn comes out of that belly of her's, that minx of a woman! A beauty like that always courts disaster, and it is out of our hands now!" "I cannot believe that he is pulling us down his far for her only! He set out traps for us to prove himself to her like this! Just because he cherishes her that much!" "He has turned his pain into power, unlike his father and even his own brother. He has finally surpassed them all and will stop at nothing to bury our bloodline and erase our history that obviously doesn't suit him at all." "But he is more than satisfied with her own scandalous past? Really, mother?" "All that we can do is hope and pray that his vile obsession with her does not last a lifetime and pollute his new Seo lineage, daughter."