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Chapter 25
“Goblin and clouds… yes, that’s right. A jade token. It’s about the same size as a jade token too.”
After hanging the cloth over the washbasin, Sorae formed a circle with both hands, roughly the size of a jade token.
“A jade token?”
“Yes. It looks like a tattoo.”
Youngwon, unable to understand what was going on, rubbed the area above her chest with her fingertips. Fortunately—or perhaps not—there was no particularly strange sensation.
“Miss, shall I try wiping it off?”
Seeing Youngwon look troubled, Sorae held out the damp cloth. Youngwon took it at once and rubbed her chest. However, aside from her pearl-white skin turning frighteningly red, there was no sign that the jade-token-shaped tattoo would fade.
“Does it hurt?”
Sorae asked, sounding distressed, and Youngwon shook her head. In her mind, she wondered why such a tattoo had suddenly appeared. But she didn’t ponder it for long.
The Curse of the Dreaming Soul!
Youngwon recalled fitting together the half jade token she had picked up with the one she already possessed. When she pressed the two together, a red heat spread from the overlapping area, like iron being heated in a brazier. Yet the moment she blinked, the marks of the split vanished as if nothing had happened, and it became a flawless jade token once more.
She also remembered what she had heard at Seonwondang about the Curse of the Dreaming Soul.
Could it be because of the curse?
Frowning, Youngwon gently patted Sorae’s arm, which still hadn’t moved from staring at her chest.
“Let’s finish up.”
“Yes, miss.”
After leaving the bathing room, Youngwon changed into a white inner robe, gathered her well-dried, lustrous black hair to one side, and sat atop a thick violet-colored quilt.
“Miss, please rest. If anything happens, shout. I’ll be in the side room and will come running right away.”
“What could possibly happen?”
“I thought nothing would, too. But do you know how shocked I was when I saw you this morning?”
At Sorae’s small complaint, Youngwon realized her mistake and nodded obediently.
“All right. You go and rest too.”
Once Sorae closed the door to the inner quarters and left, a soft light filtered through the paper covering of the lantern, quietly enveloping the room. Youngwon took out the dark jade token from inside her undergarment and turned toward the lantern light to examine it.
Ever since the two jade tokens had become one, she found herself scrutinizing it frequently. Aside from being made of dark jade, it didn’t seem to have any special features. And yet this seemingly unremarkable jade token had, for reasons unknown, engraved itself onto her body as a tattoo.
Youngwon absentmindedly touched the area near her chest, but since she couldn’t erase it herself, she could only sigh.
Everything had been moving too fast, changing with each passing hour. She had witnessed a horde of ghosts and thought she had met a grim reaper—only to find out he was the head of the Geom clan. She returned the clan’s heirloom and was about to manage part of the business her father once oversaw, when suddenly she became the Geom clan head’s betrothed. But before she even had time to reflect on that status, she was unilaterally rejected by Eosin.
And now she was going to die. The Curse of the Dreaming Soul.
The more she thought about it, the tighter her chest felt. Hugging the wooden headrest to her chest, Youngwon flopped backward onto the bed.
“What should I do…?”
—Who decided you’d take responsibility for me? Dream on, Ha Youngwon.
Even if there were no feelings involved, given the situation, she believed that marrying Eosin was the only way to survive the Curse of the Dreaming Soul—even if it meant marrying a man she barely knew and who even viewed her with hostility. Still, she hadn’t expected Eosin to refuse the marriage despite the condition that she would die otherwise.
“Am I really that undesirable? So much so that you’d rather let me die?”
Youngwon pouted her lower lip and let the corners of her eyes droop. There was still a year left before the curse took effect, but to her, it wasn’t a long time at all.
They said it wasn’t too late for a gentleman to seek revenge even after ten years. Suppressing her boiling emotions, Youngwon planned to build capital, grow her power, and investigate the calamity that had befallen the Ha family. Then she would identify the true object of her hatred and exact a thorough revenge—something she was prepared to dedicate her entire life to.
But from the very start, there were already so many twists and turns.
“Phew.”
Still hugging the headrest, she rolled onto her side and sighed again.
“I have to change his mind somehow.”
Every time she saw the man who resolutely rejected marrying her, even Youngwon couldn’t help but feel doubtful—but what choice did she have? The hungry person had to be the one to lift the spoon first.
Rolling onto her other side, she raised a hand to touch her own face. She had often been told she was quite beautiful in Hanseong, and she’d received many marriage proposals. Books said there was no man who disliked a beautiful woman. Yet with this face, she wouldn’t be able to change Eosin’s mind.
Why? Because he was even more beautiful.
It felt like she was losing somehow, but it was an undeniable fact. Then should she display her talents as a learned woman, showing off the poetry, calligraphy, and painting she had studied and practiced for eighteen years?
Youngwon pursed her lips again and shook her head. If she presented a painting or a poem, proclaiming her skill, wouldn’t he look at her as though she were lacking something? Wouldn’t he sneer, saying she was skilled in arts yet foolish enough to be bewitched by a dark spirit, talented yet stupid enough to merge the dark jade token?
No—maybe not that. Either way, she couldn’t imagine Eosin changing his mind about marriage just because the other party was a talented scholar.
Then what should she do? How could she change his thinking?
“I’m not even asking you to love me. I’m just asking you to marry me. I’m just asking you to let me live. Is that harder than dying?”
Ventilating her frustration in a mutter, Youngwon hesitated, then slightly lifted her head to look beyond the bed at the silent window and doorway. Once she was sure no one was there, she cursed firmly:
“Bastard.”
After saying it once, she felt unexpectedly refreshed. Murmuring “bastard” a few more times under her breath, she eventually fell asleep.
But even in her dreams, she found no peace.
In the dream, she was riding a horse. After receiving news from her maternal uncle that her father had been arrested and escorted to the magistrate’s office for smuggling, she was galloping toward Hanseong, barely able to control the horse. No matter how much she rode, she couldn’t reach the city walls, and it drove her mad.
She knew that inside those walls, her father’s head was mounted atop a pole.
Her face was drenched in tears as she whipped the horse, and the insides of her thighs, chafed by the saddle, were soaked with blood. Still, she had no choice but to go. Her father was inside those cold walls, and her mother—burned, with not even a whole body left—was waiting for her at their home.
Youngwon screamed madly atop the horse. Knowing what was happening within those massive walls yet being powerless to do anything made her blood boil and her heart feel as though it were being torn apart.
“Father…! No! No…! Please! Sob!”
Painful sobs poured endlessly from Youngwon’s mouth as her whole body was drenched in cold sweat. Tears streamed relentlessly from her tightly shut eyes.
“Sob… no…! No…! Mother…! Waaah! Aaaah! Please…!”
“No…! Please! Father! Mother! Don’t leave me behind…! Sob!”
Eosin, who had just lightly landed atop the roof of the guest hall’s plum garden, raised one eyebrow and looked down. All he could see were roof tiles faintly illuminated by moonlight, yet his gaze was sharp, as though it could pierce through them.
“Looks like she’s having a nightmare.”
A mist suddenly gathered in the air, and from within it emerged Unjeong, dressed in a white robe and wearing a wide-brimmed gat.
“Could the Curse of the Dreaming Soul have already begun? You confirmed the jade-token-shaped tattoo, right?”
The reason they had come to the guest hall’s plum garden so suddenly this night was none other than the jade-token-patterned tattoo that had abruptly appeared on Eosin’s chest.
“Not yet.”
“Well, if Lady Ha’s tattoo is in the same location as yours, I wouldn’t know how to check it either.”
