After the Storm
Once the tempest that had battered Chwiseondang passed, the aftermath was sorted out with swift finality.
Even with her identity as Suk-bin’s spy laid bare, Yong-hee refused to confess the whole truth to the bitter end. She admitted she had started the fire, but stubbornly maintained it had been an accident—claiming a stray spark had jumped while she was trying to play Jwibulnori.
Regardless, Yong-hee’s fate was sealed. There was no keeping a palace maid in Chwiseondang who was unmistakably a mole, let alone an arsonist. Setting a fire within the royal palace, even by accident, was a heinous crime; had Yong-hee been an adult, she would have faced a hundred lashes of the heavy paddle, if not outright decapitation.
Yet Jang Hui-bin extended her own brand of mercy. The very next morning, Yong-hee was banished to the palace vegetable garden.
Toiling in the Chaemabat was among the most grueling, miserable labors on the palace grounds. Not only did workers have to weed the plots day in and day out beneath the blistering sun, but they were also forced to haul night soil to use as fertilizer. It was arduous grunt work that could hardly be considered the duty of a court maid.
"I was wrong! Please, Hui-bin-jaga! Have mercy, just this once...! Not there, anywhere but there! Please...!"
Despite her frantic wailing and belated pleas for forgiveness, Yong-hee was carted off to scrape by in a squalid place shunned even by the government slaves she had so thoroughly despised.
Court Lady Han shrouded the entire matter in absolute secrecy. Consequently, most of the court maids never learned the full truth behind Yong-hee’s sudden eviction; they merely assumed she had been cast out for starting the fire on top of her habitually foul behavior.
On the evening of the day Yong-hee was dragged away kicking and screaming by Sun-rye, Bok-hee crept into my room, fidgeting with raw anxiety.
"Bong-bong-ah... You know, don't you? That Yong-hee was dragged off to the Chaemabat..."
"What about it?"
"Yong-hee... She got exposed as Suk-bin’s spy, didn't she?"
Look at Bok-hee, actually being sharp for once. Reassessing the girl in light of her dead-on deduction, I nodded solemnly.
"Yep. Yong-hee-hamanim did bad things. Lots of bad things."
"Th-Then... what about m-me?"
Bok-hee’s face was already on the verge of crumbling.
"Why would anything happen to you, Bok-hee-eonni?" I asked, widening my eyes innocently as if utterly bewildered by her concern.
"B-Because... I, I also..."
"Huh? You didn't do anything, Eonni. You were just a little bit—a teeny-tiny bit—friendly with Yong-hee-hamanim, wasn't that all?"
"...Huh?"
"That’s what I thought, anyway. Why? Is there a problem?"
"...Hic!"
The girl was a broken faucet. Bok-hee’s tear ducts burst wide open all over again.
"Thank you... Bong-bong-ah. Truly..." she blubbered, sniffling loudly.
"There’s nothing to thank me for, Eonni," I said, offering the words I’d been saving for her. "We're young. Kids our age make mistakes and mess up all the time. As long as you never repeat the same mistake, you're fine."
When I patted her shoulder with mature reassurance, Bok-hee suddenly threw her arms around me and pulled me into a suffocating hug. Is hugging Hwang Bong-bong the new palace trend or something...?
"I want to do anything I can for you too...! I really mean it. I want to be helpful to you, Bong-bong-ah."
"Sure. If I ever need your help later, I'll definitely tell you. But before that, can you do one favor for me?"
"Yes! Just say the word!"
"Stop crying all the time." I reached up and wiped her tear-streaked cheeks with my thumb. "Even four-year-old me doesn't cry, so how can a grand ten-year-old eonni cry every single day? Crying is only for very rare occasions when you're genuinely sad. Got it?"
"Yeah, I got it!" Bok-hee answered vigorously, scrubbing her face dry with her sleeve.
...From that day on, Bok-hee officially became 'Hwang Bong-bong’s Minion' within Chwiseondang.
The day after Yong-hee left Chwiseondang, I took advantage of a quiet moment while Seol-hyang was away to sort out my thoughts in peace.
What a tumultuous holiday Daeboreum had turned out to be. It had begun with an inferno engulfing Chwiseondang and ended with Suk-bin weeping tears of blood, utterly humiliated after taking Jang Hui-bin’s vicious slap across the face.
Thanks to Court Lady Han’s meticulous discretion, the entire incident had been buried in silence. Any maids who had caught wind of the commotion were strictly ordered to keep their lips sealed.
I wonder what Suk-bin is thinking right now.
Suk-bin’s trembling voice as she groveled for mercy before Hui-bin... Just recalling the bloodshot, tear-filled venom in her eyes as she departed Chwiseondang sent a faint chill down my spine.
In the end, Jang Hui-bin had chosen not to report Suk-bin’s treasonous scheme to the King. That decision had been born neither of mercy nor soft-heartedness; rather, it was a shrewd calculation.
In an era where female jealousy was branded a mortal taboo under the Seven Evils, and with the Westerner faction firmly in power and eagerly painting Hui-bin as an 'incarnation of jealousy,' raising an unsubstantiated fuss without hard material evidence could easily turn the arrows right back on her. And so, Hui-bin seemed content to bury the scandal for now, satisfied simply with holding a dagger directly at Suk-bin’s throat.
Yet Suk-bin will hardly leave it at that.
To Suk-bin, that night was bound to become a lifelong vendetta. And that grudge wouldn't be reserved for Hui-bin alone. After all, the person who had provided the decisive wedge that shattered her cunning plot was none other than me.
An enemy.
I, Hwang Bong-bong, had made Royal Noble Consort Suk-bin my sworn enemy. That was an inescapable reality. Considering how meticulous and cunning she had proven herself to be, it was a chilling thought.
If there was any consolation, it was that I hadn't heard a peep from my other enemy, Suk-jeong.
Do I... have some cosmic curse with people whose names start with 'Suk'? Suk-jeong. Suk-bin. Suk-j... Nope, let's stop there.
In any case, Suk-bin would never back down like this. She might lay low for the moment, coiling herself and biding her time, but the second she spots a single weakness in me or Hui-bin, she'll sink her fangs right into our throats.
Speaking of weaknesses, there was one nagging worry that refused to leave my mind: the whereabouts of Boom-boomi, officially missing and almost certainly stolen by Yong-hee.
Yong-hee hadn't been allowed to take anything beyond a few sets of clothes and undergarments. That had given me the chance to sift through the belongings left in her room. Honestly, I’d fully expected Boom-boomi to turn up among her things.
...Yet it wasn't there.
Where on earth had that cursed, hideous straw doll gone? Suk-bin’s face flashed through my mind, unsettling me, but I shook my head. What's done is done. No use agonizing over things I can't undo.
Steeling my resolve, I got to my feet.
Over the past few days, Chwiseondang had been treating me like a national hero—the 'valiant child who rescued Hui-bin from the raging inferno.' As a result, I had been relieved of all duties and sentenced to the terrible "punishment" of lounging around doing nothing all day.
Why was that a punishment, you ask? Because this was the Joseon Dynasty.
In this era, there was literally nothing for a kid to do. Since I was still keeping up my illiterate toddler facade, I couldn't openly read books, nor was I about to sit around playing with dolls. Bok-hee clearly dropped hints that she wanted to play house with me, but there was no way I was going to waste these tense days pretending to mash grass roots.
To make matters worse, the Great Hall had sent over herbal decoctions personally brewed by the Chief Royal Physician. Aside from a slightly raspy throat from inhaling smoke, I’m completely fine!
Ultimately, fed up with doing absolutely nothing, I marched over to the supreme ruler of Chwiseondang: Jang Hui-bin.
"My baby. What brings you here? How is your body feeling?"
Her voice was as soft and fluttery as a butterfly’s wings. I'm melting, absolutely melting. How could our Hui-bin-jaga’s voice sound like such a dream?
These days, Hui-bin called me "Aga"—my baby. While it was a title that made my twenty-something inner soul squirm with embarrassment, it wasn't just the title that had changed. She treated me with genuine, tender maternal warmth. She constantly stroked my cheeks and hair, fed me delicious sweets, and took me on walks through the gardens. Whenever she did, an odd sensation would wash over me. It was something I kept locked away in my heart, but... sometimes, she really felt like family.
And not just Hui-bin—Seol-hyang, Bok-hee, Sun-rye, and even the stern Court Lady Han felt the same way.
Anyway, I cut straight to the chase. "Hui-bin-jaga. I want to work again. I want to run errands to Jeoseungjeon and help the court maids with their chores."
"Already? Little one, you may rest longer. Are you not still taking your medicine?"
"But I'm totally strong and healthy! Want to see?"
Hiyah! Ha!
Belted out with spirited battle cries, I showed off my athletic prowess with straight punches and snappy kicks—the Taekwondo moves I’d picked up over someone’s shoulder in my past life. Finding my stubby limbs thrashing about utterly adorable, Hui-bin burst into laughter and playfully pinched my cheek.
"Have it your way, then. Just don't overexert yourself."
"Yeth, Hui-bin-jaga! Thank you!"
Free at last from the agonizing punishment of idleness!
Cheering inwardly as I skipped out to the courtyard to scout for errands, I soon ran into a welcome face: the Crown Prince.
Because Court Lady Han had clamped down on any leaks, the Crown Prince only knew that an accidental fire had broken out. And to him, I had become the magnificent child who had saved his mother's life.
"Bong-bong-ah..."
There he goes again. Looking at me with those eyes. Melancholic, damp, brimming with emotion—as if a single poke would send jade tears tumbling down like marbles. Crown Prince, those eyes are confiscated... Wait, no, that's treason. Those eyes are banned! Stop giving me that look!
"Crown Prince, I'm completely fine!"
Just as I was debating whether I needed to put on a Taekwondo demonstration for him as well, he spoke.
"You truly are... a remarkable child, Bong-bong-ah. So much so that I wonder if you simply dropped from the heavens," the Crown Prince said softly. "To have saved my mother... She is a person I would not trade for anything in this world."
"..."
The weight of his words struck me with sudden, heavy solemnity. I was reminded of the tragic fate etched into history—where Jang Hui-bin is sentenced to death by forced poison on the King's order, and the Crown Prince weeps, begging his father to kill him alongside his mother. His boundless, heart-wrenching devotion to Hui-bin radiated from every breath.
"I owe you a debt so vast that nothing can ever truly repay it. Therefore, Bong-bong-ah."
"Yeth, Your Highness."
"If ever, in the days to come, a time should arrive when you find yourself in dire need of aid..."
With an expression of profound gravity, the Crown Prince declared: