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Chapter 2
The first day after falling into the Joseon Dynasty.
I found myself in the middle of complete chaos.
“Burn their mouths! Burn ’em shut!”
Men dressed in eunuch robes shouted while waving torches around.
Young court maids standing with rice cakes stuck to their mouths shrieked as if they were having fits.
“See what happens when you speak carelessly in the royal palace? We’ll scorch those mouths shut!”
One eunuch brandished a flaming torch threateningly.
Amid the eunuchs’ yelling, the girls’ screams, and sparks scattering through the air,
I stood there blankly observing the situation.
What a ridiculous dream.
The last thing I remembered was passing out while reading the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty.
And now, of all things, I was dreaming that I’d become a court maid.
Wasn’t this too cruel for a history graduate student already suffering because of her thesis?
Ugh. Somebody save the grad students.
“Burn their mouths!”
“Burning the mouth” was a kind of initiation ritual used to discipline newly entered court maids.
Calling it discipline is generous. This is basically child abuse.
From the perspective of those little court maids, it must have been terrifying.
But to a twenty-four-year-old modern woman like me, it just looked like a bunch of middle-aged men putting on an embarrassing performance.
Still, one thing felt strange.
Everything was too vivid.
The girls’ screaming was one thing, but the heat cutting through the chilly air, the crackling sparks, even the stinging sensation on my skin—it all felt unnervingly real.
Then—
“Is this the child you spoke of?”
“Yes, Your Ladyship.”
At the sound of a woman’s voice, I looked up and saw luxurious silk robes enter my vision.
And for the first time since arriving here, I was genuinely startled.
Because the woman was unbelievably beautiful.
Honestly, she was the most breathtaking beauty I had ever seen in my life.
But why is this woman so tall?
I stared upward at the woman towering above me.
“She is no ordinary child. Even the girls of ten or so are crying their eyes out, yet this little one remains perfectly calm?”
The woman was talking about me.
“To think such a young child could be so composed. You brought her well.”
The woman looked at me with interest before gently removing the rice cake stuck over my mouth.
The brush of her fingertips felt so real that I flinched.
“Little one. How old are you?”
“……”
Did she just call me little one?
While I stared blankly in confusion—
“Ahem. Her Ladyship is asking you a question. Answer properly.”
The senior court lady standing beside the woman scolded me sternly.
If she’s being called ‘Jaga,’ then she must be a Bin—the highest rank among royal consorts.
Bin or not, I couldn’t believe I still had to deal with authoritarian speech even in my dreams.
But perhaps because I was so used to being grilled by professors, the answer popped right out.
“Twenty-fou’…”
Huh?
Why did my speech sound so childish?
Panicked, I darted my eyes around.
Something’s wrong. What kind of dream is this?
Looking down, I saw the red cuffs sewn onto pale jade sleeves.
This is a court maid’s uniform.
And that wasn’t even the real problem.
The tiny hand poking out from the sleeve looked exactly like a toddler’s hand.
Only then did I realize—
It wasn’t that the women were tall.
I was the one trapped in a child’s body.
“Twenty-four? Hahaha. Since she’s still a child, she must not know numbers properly yet. She means four years old.”
“Yes, Your Ladyship. She is still three, but the new year is close, so calling her four would not be inaccurate.”
Even while I was spiraling in confusion, the royal consort and the court lady continued their conversation calmly.
None of this felt like a dream anymore.
A deeply unsettling feeling crept over me.
No. I needed to wake up somehow. Maybe if I pinched myself—
“Ow!”
“My dear child. What is it?”
My hand hurt so badly tears sprang to my eyes.
…What?
This really isn’t a dream?
Then the woman spoke again.
“I like this child. My heart has felt empty lately. Having a young child around my residence may cheer me somewhat.”
“I am certain it will, Your Ladyship. Though she is an orphan, she was born to a noble family, so she should already know proper etiquette.”
“An orphan? Oh dear. How pitiful.”
…Honestly, hearing them casually discuss that in front of a child shocked me more than the fact that I apparently was an orphan.
“This will be good for the child as well. Surely the Crown Prince will cherish her too.”
“Without question, Lady Huibin.”
Huibin…!
At that word, I froze.
Surely not that Huibin?
No way.
I calmed myself down.
There was nothing to worry about. This was a dream.
…No, it had to be a dream.
And besides, in Joseon history there had been more than one woman called “Huibin.”
“Then, Your Ladyship, I shall take the child to your residence.”
“Very well. Chwiseondang will feel a little less lonely.”
The moment I heard that—
“Wh-what?! Chwiseondang?!”
The words burst out of me before I could stop them.
Chwiseondang.
I was the baby court maid of Chwiseondang!
Chwiseondang was the residence of one of the most famous women in all of Joseon history.
Lady Jang Huibin.
Jang Hui-bin.
Which meant the woman standing before me right now was—
Really Jang Hui-bin?
The legendary beauty and seductress whose romance with King Sukjong left its mark on history.
The symbol of palace intrigue and one of Joseon’s most infamous villainesses.
But that wasn’t why I panicked.
Any true history nerd would know this:
Jang Hui-bin was executed for cursing Queen Inhyeon.
Whether she drank poison or was hanged wasn’t important right now.
Because if I really was a court maid serving Chwiseondang—
Then the court maids of Chwiseondang were mostly executed after Jang Hui-bin’s death!
“Ha…”
I stared up at the exposed rafters overhead—the kind you’d only see in a folk village museum—and let out a long, despairing sigh.
This was Changgyeong Palace.
The place where I was lying was the court maids’ quarters attached to Chwiseondang.
When I lifted my head, I saw antique-looking furniture straight out of a historical drama, all inside a warm ondol-heated room.
As I sat up, feeling like my back was being roasted alive, my eyes landed on a chamber pot sitting in the corner.
An object that nowadays could only be found in museums or antique stores.
That chamber pot made my reality unmistakably clear.
I’ve transmigrated.
Usually, transmigration protagonists get some kind of cheat ability or noble status.
But none of that had anything to do with me.
To summarize how absurd my situation was:
- I had been a graduate student majoring in Joseon history. In other words, I had transmigrated into the very era I studied.
- I had not become royalty, nobility, or someone with special powers. I had become an utterly ordinary court maid—worse, a tiny toddler court maid!
- I appeared to be a complete orphan. Which meant there was no hidden mastermind father, no secretive family members, no mysterious bloodline waiting to save me.
…But there’s an even bigger problem.
Honestly, the identity of some powerless baby court maid was irrelevant.
What truly mattered was this:
The ticking time bomb destined to drag the court maids of Chwiseondang to their deaths was already in motion.
Jang Hui-bin was executed in the 27th year of King Sukjong’s reign. But what year is it now?
I needed to know how much time remained before my death sentence kicked in.
At that moment, the door burst open.
“Hwang Bong-bong! Are you finally feeling better?”
“Yes, unni.”
Perhaps due to the shock of transmigration, I had been bedridden with fever for several days.
During that time, I learned only one thing about the child I’d possessed:
Her name was Hwang Bong-bong.
Naturally, this raised an important question.
Who names a child Hwang Bong-bong? What were her parents thinking?
Anyway, the court maid who entered was named Seolhyang.
She was a sort of senior maid who shared the room with baby maid Hwang Bong-bong.
Seolhyang was very kind to me and had taken excellent care of me while I was sick.
“Then hurry and get dressed, Bong-bong. Today is Ipchun—the beginning of spring. We’re hanging spring blessing papers today, and the youngest can’t skip out.”
If today was Ipchun, that meant it was the twelfth lunar month, not long before Lunar New Year.
A small clue, but enough to make my ears perk up.
As I struggled into my clothes with my stubby little limbs, a good idea suddenly came to me.
“Unni…”
“What is it?”
“How old is the Crown Prince?”
“The Crown Prince’s age? Why do you ask?”
“Just because.”
Fortunately, Seolhyang answered without suspicion.
“His Highness is twelve. After the New Year, he’ll turn thirteen.”
“Twelve… right now?”
“That’s right. But Bong-bong, why do you look like that? Are you sick again?”
I could hear Seolhyang speaking, but my head was spinning.
Jang Hui-bin was executed in the ninth month of Sukjong’s 27th year. At the time, the Crown Prince was fourteen.
The Crown Prince Yi Yun—the son of Jang Hui-bin and Sukjong, who would later become King Gyeongjong—was currently twelve years old.
And today was Ipchun.
Then this is the twelfth month of Sukjong’s 25th year.
Which meant—
One year and nine months…!
That was all the time left to save the life of Hwang Bong-bong, the baby court maid of Chwiseondang.
