The Red Blossom
Fixing her eyes steadily on Hui-bin, Gwi-in Kim broke the silence.
"It has been quite some time, Hui-bin-jaga."
"Indeed it has."
Her opening greeting was entirely mundane.
...Which meant the bomb was primed to drop right after.
"At Hui-bin's age, the long walk all the way to Aeryeonji Pond could not have been easy. Yet you seem to have arrived without incident."
Gasp.
A loud squeak nearly tore from my throat.
Did she just... hit her with an age insult?
Granted, Hui-bin was in her early forties—roughly ten years older than Gwi-in Kim—but still! That conversational gambit was practically begging for a recount of her criminal rap sheet.
Yet Hui-bin remained remarkably poised.
"Is the Gwi-in worried for my well-being? To see you taking a stroll in the Huwon brings me great joy as well." Smiling warmly, Hui-bin went on, "Your residence is tucked away in such a desolate corner that the sun rarely reaches it. It will surely do wonders for your health to breathe the fresh air and soak in a bit of sunlight here in the rear gardens."
Gwi-in Kim’s face flushed crimson in an instant.
"Who would utter such nonsense? The sun shines plenty upon my pavilion! I am wanting for nothing, living in absolute comfort!"
"Ah, is that so? Yet I do not recall claiming that you were wanting for anything... Regardless, that is a relief."
"You...!"
Gwi-in Kim failed completely to conceal her fury.
Hui-bin blatantly appraised her from head to toe. Only then did the stark contrast between them catch my eye: while Hui-bin wore extravagant robes shimmering with gold and silver leaf and adorned with every kind of fine ornament, Gwi-in Kim was dressed so plainly that without her jade cheopji, one would hardly suspect she was a royal consort at all.
It was then that Gwi-in Kim, having glared daggers at Hui-bin, shifted her gaze to the Crown Prince.
"Crown Prince-jeoha. Your burdens must be heavy these days."
"Ah, no, Mama-nim."
"No need for modesty. I know full well how devotedly Your Royal Highness tends to Her Majesty the Queen's illness each and every day."
"..."
Both the Crown Prince and Hui-bin fell dead silent.
Unfazed, Gwi-in Kim pressed on. "Even amidst her grave illness, Her Majesty cherishes the Crown Prince so deeply. Such maternal affection toward her son tugs at my heartstrings. The Queen could not stop praising Your Highness's filial piety."
...Wow. That is genuinely foul.
Knowing she can't win against Hui-bin, she turns her arrows on the Crown Prince instead.
A venomous ploy to drag him into the crossfire and wound Hui-bin where it hurt most.
"...I merely fulfill my duties as required," the Crown Prince replied, his voice heavy.
"Of course. What greater duty could there be than serving the one and only mother granted to you in this world?"
Her callous disregard for the Crown Prince's precarious position made even my blood boil. Hui-bin's expression had already frozen into cold, rigid stone.
A twisted sneer tugged at the corner of Gwi-in Kim's lips. Casting a triumphant glance at Hui-bin, she turned to her court ladies.
"Even Aeryeonji Pond is not what it once was. Its prime has long passed, its beauty withered away to nothing worth beholding. Let us return."
...Her words don't just have barbs; they're packing literal daggers.
Offering a curt bow toward the Crown Prince, Gwi-in Kim departed Aeryeonji Pond, leaving clouds of dusty earth swirling behind her and her entourage.
A woman practically forged from pure malice toward Hui-bin...
I knew better than to judge a person solely on first impressions, but Gwi-in Kim was an immediate, resounding dislike.
Later down the line, she's even suspected of plotting to harm King Gyeongjong.
Lady Gwi-in, even if I lived through another reincarnation, there’s no timeline where I'd ever like you...
"...Mother."
The Crown Prince's quiet voice broke the silence. Glancing toward him, my eyes caught his hand.
Poor Crown Prince.
The tips of his fingers were trembling faintly.
"Yes, Jeoha. Please speak."
"Do not pay any heed to Gwi-in Kim's words. She has never been one to measure her speech."
For such words to come from the Crown Prince—an officially certified saint by Hwang Bong-bong standards—hinted at just how turbulent the history between Hui-bin and Gwi-in Kim truly was.
On another note... Crown Prince, you're quite something yourself.
Even after he ascended the throne, Gwi-in Kim was fingered as the mastermind behind numerous conspiracies, and yet he shielded her every single time.
I don't know whether to call it saintly kindness or utter spinelessness.
Our dear Crown Prince was certainly never built to be a satisfying, vengeful protagonist.
"Yes. Your mother is fine. It is hardly the first or second time the Gwi-in has acted so."
Oho... Look at Hui-bin taking the high road.
"However... Crown Prince."
The voice of the woman I had just credited with magnanimity trembled faintly.
"Under the heavens, there is only one mother to you, and that is me. No matter how difficult our circumstances have become, you must never forget that undeniable truth."
"...Yes, Eomamama."
The Crown Prince's eyes sank into a dull, suffocating despair.
It wasn't that I didn't understand Hui-bin's plight, but I couldn't stomach her attitude either.
Please, think about how the Crown Prince feels! Stop tearing him apart...
King Sukjong, the root cause of this whole catastrophe; Gwi-in Kim, who wielded the Crown Prince as a weapon; and Queen Min, who burdened him with guilt—they were all awful, but...
No matter how agonizing it is, you're his biological mother! You should be comforting him, not twisting the knife!
Yet contrary to my desperate hopes, Hui-bin's voice grew increasingly shrill and agitated.
"Crown Prince, you must never forget. The indignities your mother suffered because of Lady Min, the humiliations heaped upon me by that Gwi-in—"
Aargh, stop it! Stop tormenting the poor kid!
Look at his eyes—tears are already pooling in them!
Somehow, by any means necessary, I had to shut Hui-bin's mouth.
And so, I...
Though I loathed the thought, I decided to deploy my ultimate technique.
"Whoaaaa!"
Splash!
Channeling the grand spirit of Shim Cheong throwing herself into the Indang Sea...
I was certain this could only be described as a truly sublime and majestic sacrifice.
Pretending to lose my balance and slip, I hurled my body straight into Aeryeonji Pond.
"Bong-bong-ah!"
The Crown Prince's frantic shout, Hui-bin's panic-stricken cry, and the piercing screams of court maids erupted all at once.
However...
I must be out of my mind.
I had overlooked two critical details.
First, Aeryeonji Pond wasn't particularly deep, but—
I completely forgot I'm trapped in a four-year-old's body!
And second...
This water is literal liquid ice!
No matter how mild the afternoon felt, I had utterly forgotten that it was the dead of winter.
In short: I was screwed.
I sank like a stone. Paralyzing, bone-chilling cold engulfed my flesh.
I flailed wildly, but my tiny feet couldn't touch bottom. The harder I struggled, the tighter tangled lotus stems coiled around my little limbs.
Thick, murky silt surged down my throat.
As if a water ghost were dragging me down by the ankles, I couldn't break free of the pond's clutches.
Ah... can't... breathe...
The shore erupted into chaos.
Faintly, the shouts of a man pierced through the water.
Suddenly, a massive surge rippled through the pond.
Tossed about as if caught in a crashing wave, my body was hauled out of the depths in an instant.
"Gaaasp!"
Spewing up muddy water, I coughed violently.
"I have retrieved her!" shouted the man holding me aloft.
This young man looked familiar. Ah, right—the Crown Prince's eunuch that Seol-hyang had a crush on...
Staring past his dripping sleeves, my eyes drifted toward the shore.
...A dragon robe?
Why on earth was that showing up here?!
Blazing into my vision was the gleaming golden insignia of a five-clawed dragon stitched across the chest of a crimson royal robe.
...In other words, King Sukjong was standing right here.
"Cough! I-I fell in while playing, Jeonha! Cough! I'm all wi-right..."
...Except I was definitely not all right.
Muttering those few slurred words was the last thing I managed before blacking out entirely.
The King's presence at the pond was purely coincidental.
His arrival at Aeryeonji just as the quarrel between Hui-bin and Gwi-in Kim flared up;
his sour expression as he prepared to turn away from the venomous air between his two consorts;
and the exact moment he caught sight of an aegi-nain peeking out timidly from behind Hui-bin’s skirts.
That child.
Though the King suffered from poor eyesight, he recognized her immediately.
The child court maid who handled Geumdeok with uncanny skill.
He changed his mind about leaving.
There was something about the girl that arrested his gaze. Her uninhibited demeanor, which stirred fond nostalgia for the past, was part of it, but more than anything else...
She resembles her.
Even though he knew how absurd such a notion was.
A figure from his faded, dusty memories overlapped seamlessly with the child's bright, unblemished face.
Just then.
Splash!
"Bong-bong-ah!"
The Crown Prince's desperate cry shattered the stillness of Aeryeonji Pond.
Jolted from his reverie, the King snapped his head up and strode swiftly toward the water's edge.
Before he could even bark an order to the Naegeumwi guards, the Crown Prince’s eunuch plunged into the pond and hauled the child out.
"Cough! I-I fell in while playing, Jeonha! Cough! I'm all wi-right..."
Despite having just brushed against death, the child neither wept nor threw a tantrum. She only stammered through her coughs, desperately insisting that falling in was entirely her own fault and not Hui-bin's doing.
Yet the King was deaf to her words.
...Could it be?
His eyes were locked upon her arm.
Beneath the sleeve pushed up past her elbow, right in the center of her exposed forearm, was a birthmark—a vivid, scarlet plum blossom.
The King stared at it with wide, unblinking eyes.
He took one heavy step after another.
As the King strode toward the child—
Her small frame went completely limp.
The red blossom slipped lifelessly toward the ground.