Suk-bin's Method
“What is the meaning of this?”
The moment Royal Noble Consort Suk-bin arrived, the air shifted entirely.
I had encountered her once before. To me, Suk-bin had appeared to be a woman who concealed a chilling, calculating mind behind an elegant, demure countenance. Now, watching the scene unfold, another conviction solidified in my mind.
Suk-bin is truly someone to be feared.
From the second she showed herself, the court maids of Bogyeongdang had begun trembling like aspen leaves in the wind. Recognizing me, Suk-bin wore a faint look of perplexity.
“Are you not the child court maid from Chwiseondang? Your name was Bong-bong, was it not?”
She was extraordinarily sharp. She still remembered my name after hearing it only once, in passing, that day.
“So… were you all tormenting an aegi-nain just now?”
“N-No, we were not tormenting her! We simply saw an unfamiliar child maid passing by, and she was s-so darling that…”
Before the maid could finish her stammering excuse, Suk-bin’s voice cut through the air with a furious roar.
“Dare you insult your superiors with such deceit? Answer me. Why are you holding that hoechori in your hand?”
“T-This is…” The maid flailed, utterly at a loss for words.
“Um… Suk-bin-jaga.”
Stay calm. Just stay calm.
Struggling to steady my racing heart, I opened my mouth to speak.
“May I have permission to say something?”
“…Speak.” Her eyes narrowed to thin slits, her gaze sweeping over me with piercing scrutiny.
“I failed to greet the court maids immediately when I saw them,” I said, enunciating each word as clearly as my four-year-old tongue could manage while looking straight at her. “I did not do it on purpose, but that was certainly my mistake. However, the court maids insulted Chwiseondang and my senior hamanim without any cause. Afterward, they even brought out a disciplinary rod and tried to strike me.”
For the record, I was incandescent with rage.
I had faced something similar before, when I ran into those ten-year-old maids on the western grounds of Chwiseondang. Hearing them insult my parents had stung, but I hadn’t dwelled on it or held a lasting grudge. As wicked as their words had been, they were still just children.
This, however, was entirely different.
Every single one of these Bogyeongdang servants was a full-grown adult, while I was merely a four-year-old toddler. For four grown women to corner a lone little girl—intimidating, threatening, and preparing to beat her—was despicable, cowardly, and entirely unforgivable.
“Haah…” A low, measured sigh slipped from Suk-bin’s lips. “I have nothing to say in their defense. This is unequivocally the fault of my household.”
It was unexpected. I hadn’t anticipated she would acknowledge their wrongdoing so readily.
“What must be done to appease your grievance?”
To Suk-bin’s inquiry, I replied without a moment’s hesitation.
“As a maid of Chwiseondang, it is not my place to meddle in the affairs of Bogyeongdang. However, for insulting Seol-hyang Hamanim, I must have a proper apology.”
“……”
A peculiar glint flashed in Suk-bin’s eyes as she regarded me. At her subtle gesture, the maid who had been brandishing the rod stepped forward, creeping toward me with hesitant, dragging feet.
“I-I am sorry… The reason I spoke ill of Seol-hyang was because she once cursed at me, too…”
“That has nothing to do with what happened just now. I wish to receive a proper apology.”
“…I was in the wrong. I offer my sincere apologies.”
The maid ground her molars together so hard I could hear the crunch of her teeth. But I hadn’t started this without being prepared to incur that much spite.
“I have received her apology,” I said, turning back to Suk-bin. “Then, if you will excuse me…”
Just as I thought it was time to make my exit, Suk-bin spoke.
“Then it is time to mete out punishment according to the ways of Bogyeongdang.”
Suk-bin snatched the slender rod directly from the maid’s trembling grasp.
“Present your hands.”
At her unyielding command, the maids offered no resistance whatsoever, holding out their open palms in unison.
Whoosh!
Crack!
The rod whistled through the air like a whip, striking the maid’s palm with vicious force. And Suk-bin’s lashing did not end with a single blow.
A fierce rush of wind, followed immediately by the cruel, tearing slap of wood upon raw flesh.
“Could you not restrain a petty emotion, bringing about such disgrace?”
“We have sinned, Jaga!”
“You have sinned? Knowing that, you dare drag my name through the mud while serving as palace women of Bogyeongdang?”
Crack! Crack!
Unable to bear the agony, the maids broke down into ragged sobs. Their torn palms were already smeared crimson with blood.
It was excessive.
The merciless flogging that shredded their skin was bad enough, but the deliberate manner in which Suk-bin swung the rod—as though putting on a gruesome display specifically for me to witness—was chilling beyond words.
Only after a prolonged flurry of strikes did the beating finally cease. Weeping and clutching their bleeding hands, the maids retreated into the depths of Bogyeongdang. Standing frozen amidst the bloody aftermath, I offered Suk-bin a polite bow.
“Child. Wait a moment.”
Suk-bin was entirely composed. Even after expending so much strength to deliver dozens of brutal strikes, she wore an expression of gentle benevolence, as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.
“…Yes, Jaga.”
“There is a favor I would ask of you. Will you grant it?”
A favor…?
Suk-bin hardly knew me. Suspicion flared as to why she would ask anything of a toddler, but in truth, I was in no position to refuse.
“Please speak, Jaga.”
“There is a child named Bok-hee in your quarters, is there not?”
“Bok-hee? Ah…”
That was her name. The shorter of the two ten-year-old child maids.
“Deliver these words to Bok-hee for me.”
Suk-bin lowered her posture, leaning close until her lips were right beside my ear. She whispered softly:
“The full moon.”
“……”
“Say only that, and she will understand.”
I froze on the spot.
The full moon. The fifteenth day.
I knew all too well what those words signified. Even so, I had to feign complete innocence.
“Do I just tell her that?”
“Yes. Be sure to deliver it.”
“Yes. Then I shall take my leave.”
I bowed and turned to depart, but a firm touch halted me.
A hand came down gently upon my shoulder.
“What was said just now is a secret between the two of us. Understood?”
“…Yes, Suk-bin-jaga.”
Struggling with all my might to suppress the urge to bolt, I forced my little legs to move at a slow, measured pace. The back of my head prickled with heat; Suk-bin was undoubtedly watching my every step.
Within Chwiseondang, the ‘full moon’ held only one meaning.
The day Suk-jeong comes.
Only now did the conversation I had overheard between the two child maids click into place.
‘We have to find physical proof quickly…’
‘She said we’d receive a great reward if we find evidence…’
Those young maids snooping around the western grounds of Chwiseondang had been acting under Suk-bin’s direct orders all along.
A sudden chill crept down my spine, making me shudder. It was the chilling reminder of historical fact: the person who ultimately reported Queen Inhyeon’s curse to King Sukjong was none other than Royal Noble Consort Suk-bin.
Which meant…
Suk-bin already knows. She knows there is something hidden in the western grounds of Chwiseondang.
Yet… how could she? It made no sense. At this point in time, the shamanic shrine had not even been erected yet.
An ominous hypothesis flashed across my mind.
Either Suk-bin was far more deeply informed about the internal affairs of Chwiseondang than history let on, or she had been entirely willing to fabricate an accusation out of thin air simply to destroy her political rival.
Which of the two is it?
There was no way to know right now. The only certainty was clear: stopping that disaster was my responsibility.
Trudging back toward Chwiseondang, my head felt ready to burst.
The unfamiliar, calculating side of the King I had witnessed at Huijeongdang; his cryptic attitude hinting that my birth was far from ordinary; and on top of that, the explosive secret Suk-bin had just thrust into my hands.
What had started as a lighthearted stroll through Changdeokgung Palace had ended with me returning under a crushing mountain of burdens. And among them, the issue that posed an immediate, tangible threat was…
Bok-hee.
That was the most pressing crisis. Ten-year-old Bok-hee was, by all accounts, Suk-bin’s planted spy. If I delivered Suk-bin’s message to her…
Wouldn’t that make me an accomplice to espionage?
Yet failing to deliver it was just as perilous. Suk-bin did not strike me as a woman who let loose ends slip through her fingers.
Her eyes looked like she was testing me.
I could pretend to have forgotten, leveraging my status as a four-year-old child, but after speaking so sharply and articulately moments ago, that excuse wouldn’t hold water. I had trapped myself in my own cleverness.
Naturally, there was another option: coming clean. If I went to Jang Hui-bin and confessed everything—overhearing the child maids’ plotting, and Suk-bin ordering me to whisper ‘the full moon’ to Bok-hee in secret…
Hui-bin would completely lose her temper.
Jang Hui-bin was a woman driven by raw passion and volatile emotion, and she loathed Suk-bin with every fiber of her being. Armed with mere suspicion that Suk-bin had planted a spy in her compound, she would fly into a blind rage and ruin everything prematurely.
Think. Use your brain, Bong-bong!
Just as I was clutching my innocent head in frustration, lost in frantic thought, I spotted a familiar small figure trotting along the path ahead. The child maid noticed me, faltered, and abruptly stopped dead in her tracks.
As the saying goes, enemies always cross paths on a narrow wooden bridge.
Bok-hee. You showed up at the perfect time.