"So what happened exactly? How did this all start?" "Your Highness, it didn't really take long to carry out and investigation at all; the servants were ordered to collect some doses of poison to a source known to us and can be undeceivable by the silver needle. This type poison can induce rapid death if taken in large amounts and generally by extracting the juice from the ginkgo sprout over 40ml. If one consumes the sprout, they will die in just under one hour, and they can only acquire this poisonous vegetable via private farmers. The recipe and method of this poison was copied down by The Big Madam's literate servants; and was given to them by the same known source. Here are the written testimonies of the servants from both families and my seal is upon them, showing that I carried out the investigation accurately." "My Lady! Do not be tricked by him! He never even left this home to interrogate anyone else! He is simply lying to you to use you to come to a point in his own feud with The Senior Scholar and his wife!" "Big Madame! These baseless accusations does not absolve you or your daughters for the crime of murder! If you wish to speak, then make sure that you have proof to back up your words! Even my own wife who wasn't born into nobility knows this! Instead all you do is instigate gossip and schemes upon my family! It was you who ordered the source of the poison from the family of The Senior Scholar! You are then forcing my hand to make this case go public in the name of justice!" "You bastard! You will not take this clan's dignity into consideration? You really want to ruin our amicable relationships like this! You will not leave us a path to survival at all!" "Why? So you can torture more people at your whim? Big Madame?"
"Are you accusing your own faithful servants on turning on their masers and falsely accusing you? Who would dare to commit such a lowly crime? Trying to kill an elderly relative is an unpardonable crime upon the heavens and bullying intolerably! It is now up to Their Highnesses to make their judgements about this case so we can wrap things up and hand out non=biased judgements!" "Non=biased? You are asking in=laws to judge and try each other? I have already lost my husband's favour long ago, and now my grandchildren have no more ties to the palace now…my own martial home is full of my husband's vixens and he wild have divorced me long before this! My grudges and temper can no longer endure such a hard life! I was favoured in my maternal and paternal home, but not my marital home! I just couldn't take it anymore!"
"And that is the answer for your audacious behaviour and to have easily committed beastly sins like this! God only knows who else you have harmed in your lifetime!" "I didn't choose the marriage that I have suffered in for decades! What else was I supposed to do!" "Mother! Stop talking so much!" "Shut up you useless bitch! This bastard is more successful than you will ever be! He has a more splendid career than either one of our husbands have! And we useless are incapable of cultivating such luck as The Seo's have! And now I am being trampled upon my by own blood relatives in such a humiliating manner! I might as well just kill myself here and now to put and end to this once and for all instead of being constantly contradicted by my juniors like this!" "Very well, please kill yourself to save my face if you can, Big Madame!" "My Lord Nam! Cease your aggressiveness towards my family! We have done nothing to you to warrant your wrath upon us like this! Stop stepping on us to gain a pathetic promotion in the palace! Just keep me here under house arrest and simply move on with your lives! Pay no heed to me at all! Just go!" "What a malicious woman full of sinister intentions! You are not even fit for a fair trial in court! And you must forfeit your life to repay one back!" "Nephew! Even if you cane my mother to death, my father cannot simply comeback to life like this! Show her a little mercy in her old age!" "There will be n mercy for anyone once news of this spreads throughout the entire kingdom! Your clan will be eradicated and are will be no=one to reminisce about your past achievements anymore! And I will make sure that you die as a disgraced and divorced woman, just you wait! And I will impose the same punishment on all of your daughters! And I will take down your ancestral hall and burn it so there shall be no trace of your existence left!"
"Husband! You have had a tiring day and you need to finally take some rest, as do i. We need to be well rested enough to tend to your nephew during his most difficult time and we can now leave the fate of this clan to the hands of The Crown Prince who can surely judge this case fairly and without bias. He will surely no let anyone associated with these people suffer the humiliation of their once existent ties and a suitable punishment shall be carried out to regain your honour!"
"And what are you suggesting exactly, Madame Nam?" "Execution to restore peace and honour to my husband in return for his service to your family and this nation. We all know how The Emperor detests this clan himself and wishes rid of them, so your Prince can give this gift to his father to wipe out the shame that his marriage has incurred, it will even wipe out the scandal that his marriage caused altogether, My Lady." "And you are aware that you pushing such a hard crime agains your in=laws are a sin that not even your father's good name can protect you from?" "And hiding a killer is uneven bigger sin and the only one that I am concerned with My Lady. I have known more strangers that have treated myself and my husband with more kindness than his own blood relatives at this point, and there are no more scapegoats for her to use anymore, not on my watch." "Even if it means destroying your husband's clan in the process?" "Enough of this mother! Let us just punish this family now quickly and quietly, and as for The Senior Scholar, I already have plans for his retribution for inflicting this damned clan onto me! The Lord Nam…I mean Seo has nothing to do with this since he was the one who warned me about my wife in the first place and I still didn't listen to him at all!" :My husband didn't study diligently from the age of 4 despite the seasonal changes and childhood illness that he incurred just to be dragged down by a ruthless family like this either; and no noble family should have the skies to defend their sins and let them loose their sense of duties like this! How many lives are lost in the hands of clans, such as this one? Presages families such as this one should have set examples for everyone else! There is your motive and first act, Crown Prince!" "But we have never even suffered supercilious wounds before! How can we survive being caned, My Lady! This is clearly a plot to kill us all!" "Lest you create more endless troubles in the future! Then this is your best option, Big Madame! One should be strict when disciplining their children and harsh when testing one's character!"
"Is that so? And what about my husband's last wish to have you buried alive with him then? Will you honour that request at least? You cannot deny a dying man's wish, can you?" "What nonsense is this now? I am not his wife, you are! You are the one who shut die buried alongside him! What do you think, husband?" "Obviously! There is no punishment better suited to her crime at the moment, is there?" "How can you disrespect his wishes on the day of his death, Madame Nam? It was you who he embraced in his final moment," "You must be loosing your mind due to grief, madame, or show us the decree if there is any proof to back up your delusional claims and I will gladly comply!" "Wife! What are you…?" "My Lady and Your Highness, I do hope now you have clear proof of her disillusionment and it shows you rather clearly what needs to be done here. Reinstatement is clearly out of the question here, and this clan is known to have taken advantage of past military actions to claim false merits, my father's ones in particular. They have also accepted bribes to help The Third Prince accept high=ranking posts for unqualified subordinates in the past who leaned on his power and acted with impunity. Their disobedience is a result of his previous backing she years ago and they have lost their morals because of it as you can clearly see. This is something that cannot be retrieved without lack of class and elegance; so do not blame us for our bad temperaments today!"
"Thank you for your assistance wife; only you understand me and sees me for who I am and what I stand for. This es exactly why I chose to fight for you instead of giving up on myself and the rest of us." "I love you and I support you husband, but now I am far too tired to travel tonight and we cannot go anywhere without deciding your nephews future plans. I shall go back to our home and get some sleep now." "Very well, I shall make a plan as soon as I can so that we can leave as early a possible. I will also sort out these women first before coming back for my aunt as she has different paperwork to fill out, and then I swear to you that I shall hand off HuiJae to her rightful owner and we need not ever come across her again in our lives. This is it wife, we can finally take a good break, long enough for the children to be born and we can decide on our next move from there." "But what about your job husband?" "I can practically work from home for a while until we make a plan for ourselves, but if you want me to take a longer break, then I will give is up for you wife. Now is as good a time as any to walk away, but I shall have my spies in there to keep me up to date until it is time for our children to take up where we left off." "You shall be with us every step of the way husband; you shall help me bathe them, change them and they will have all of their firsts in my father's village instead of around the judgmental eyes of these shallow people that are so caught up in the social=climbing race that they have forgotten all about humanity." "Very well wife, I shall oblige you this time; you go catch up on your rest and I'll try my best to return to you tonight," "I love you husband, please do not let me wait upon you for too long." Success in life is not for those who run fast, but for those who always keeps running and stay on the move, and today we had accomplished that. We now had a very life in store that was waiting for us, and it was finally within arms reach, I only had to wait one more day to realise it all.