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Chapter 37
Yeongwon was usually calm and thoughtful, but when she got excited from time to time, she would lose the ability to think things through and reveal a bold, openhearted side that could put even the most manly of men to shame.
“I suppose I’ll need to raise some capital first.”
Muttering to herself, Yeongwon gazed over people’s shoulders at the ssangnyuk board with a look of regret.
“Do you really want to try it?”
“Isn’t everything an experience? I hear gambling houses are very good places to earn easy money.”
“Miss, you really seem possessed by something right now. Please come to your senses.”
In Yeongwon’s clear eyes, it was as if everything in this place appeared to be made of silver.
Moreover, there were not a few women in this gambling den—those around Yeongwon’s age as well as elderly women of considerable years.
They sat at various gambling tables suited to their tastes—tujeon, cheoksa, ssangnyuk, golpae—each deeply absorbed in their own game.
Although drunken curses were hurled from all sides, unlike the frenzied gambling dens of the Capital, Hanseong-bu, this place somehow felt cheerful.
From time to time, if someone spoiled the atmosphere with petty or vulgar behavior, they would be carried out by the burly men who managed the gambling house.
For Yeongwon, who had grown up deep inside a secluded household, such a sight felt extremely novel.
However, while Yeongwon was distracted by that novelty, Soræ was growing increasingly anxious.
“Miss, we came to see how much our straw sandals would sell for, so let’s head out for now.”
Soræ finally spoke urgently, hemmed in by the wall of men who were subtly gathering around Yeongwon like bees drawn to flowers.
According to Dallae, if someone caused pointless trouble at Jeojado, they would be thrown out immediately, so there was little chance of a serious incident—but Soræ did not think so.
What if some madman, blinded by the sight of a lady like a flower, like jade, like the moon, were to appear?
Yeongwon, now unlike before, quietly turned to follow Soræ, surrounded by the wall of people without saying anything.
“Did you really see that ghostlike fellow?”
“Yes! Didn’t he use illusion magic to summon a ghost? We have to take revenge on that bastard—otherwise, how could we face our big brother after we die?”
“That’s right! Even if it costs us our lives, we have to kill him. Everything turned out this way because of him!”
After walking only a few steps behind Soræ, Yeongwon turned around.
Not far from where she had been standing moments earlier, she saw two middle-aged men wearing completely worn-out and tattered jackets and trousers.
A ghost? Kill?
Weren’t the convicts living on Jeojado said to look fearsome but not to be people who committed acts that weighed on their conscience?
Yet the men Yeongwon saw had murderous intent gleaming in their eyes, and their expressions were utterly vile.
What was more, they somehow felt vaguely familiar.
“Miss? What’s wrong?”
“Hm? No, it’s just that I was thinking—you really can’t judge people by appearances alone.”
As Yeongwon stepped out of the gambling house, she looked back once more.
Inside the gambling den, built wide open on all sides, people packed it shoulder to shoulder, and the men who had caught her attention were swallowed up in the crowd, impossible to trace.
The words about revenge and killing lingered with her for a moment, but as she continued to stroll through the market streets, the thoughts were pushed from her mind.
The market of Jeojado was as abundant as that of Hanseong-bu.
Silk, medicinal herbs, grains, combs, hair oil, rouge, powder, incense, tofu, rice cakes, wooden bowls, shoes, leather goods—there was no end to them.
At the taverns, meals like gukbap and noodles were sold, and there were also plenty of street snacks such as taffy, yakgwa, and rice cakes.
Some people crossed the street carrying light sack bags, others with jige frames on their backs, and still others loaded with vegetables, as if on their way to set up stalls.
“A slice of rice cake! Try one!”
“Hot, golden hwajeon here! So good you wouldn’t notice even if one of two people eating it dropped dead!”
“Woof, woof!”
The lively voices of the vendors and the barking of a dog following children infused the street with a different kind of vitality from the gambling house.
After sightseeing for a while, Yeongwon and Soræ took seats at one side of a tavern to rest their legs and ordered some cool sujeonggwa.
It was then, as they kept glancing around restlessly and watching the people passing through the market, that—
“Miss, I heard from my mother—like she’s a kitchen maid at the guest hall—that the lady called Miss Ha, who came from outside, is said to be beautiful like a fairy.”
“A fairy? Since when do fairies show up dressed like beggars?”
Yeongwon flinched involuntarily.
The sharp voice coming from not far away was talking about her.
“She looked like a beggar at first, but once she was cleaned up, they say she was dazzling to behold.”
“What good is dazzling? Didn’t you hear that Lord Shin personally went to Hanseong-bu ten years ago and annulled the marriage agreement?”
Ten years ago?
Yeongwon, who had unconsciously been pricking up her ears, was stunned.
Of course, I-shin had already said long ago that he had concluded matters by saying the agreement with her father would not be considered valid.
But she hadn’t known that he had personally gone to the Ha household.
“From what I heard from the Seonwondang side, they say Lord Shin is going to marry that Miss Ha. What will you do if that really happens, Miss?”
Sensing something odd in the maid’s tone, Yeongwon rolled her eyes and glanced toward where the conversation was coming from.
There sat a maiden like a crimson azalea, wearing a pale cream-colored jacket, glaring down at her maid with upturned, catlike eyes.
“Do you think Shin oppa is that easy? Besides, to begin with, Miss Ha’s original betrothed wasn’t even Shin oppa! It was Myungsoo oppa!”
“Well… everyone thought Young Master Myungsoo would become the head. No one ever dreamed that the previous head had an illegitimate child.”
Though the voice had been lowered out of awareness of the surroundings, it was perfectly clear to Yeongwon, who had all her senses trained in that direction.
An illegitimate child?
So Geom I-shin—that man—was an illegitimate child?
Yeongwon went blank for a moment.
Come to think of it, she seemed to recall hearing elders and scholars alike refer to I-shin as an outsider.
Was that what they had meant by “outsider”?
“Miss, don’t worry. There’s no need for you to be upset because of that Miss Ha. Just as you say, would Lord Geom really be the sort of person to obediently do whatever others tell him?”
The maid was in the middle of trying to comfort her gloomy young lady.
At that moment, the eyes of Yeongwon—who had been staring blankly in that direction—and the maid met squarely.
Yeongwon hurriedly looked away, but it seemed it would not end there.
The azalea-like maiden’s maid approached her politely, greeted her, and spoke.
“Excuse me, miss. You seem to be someone I haven’t seen here before. May I ask who you are?”
“Our miss is Miss Ha, staying at the guest hall. Miss Ha who will marry Lord Geom, the head!”
Soræ, who had been listening alongside Yeongwon all along, puffed out her chest and answered clearly before Yeongwon could say anything.
At once, the surroundings fell silent, and not only the azalea-like young lady but also the people passing along the street turned their gazes toward Yeongwon.
“That Miss Ha… Miss Ha?”
The maid, looking flustered as if she hadn’t expected to run into her here, turned back to her young lady.
But once the azalea-like maiden realized who Yeongwon was, she rose from her seat and approached, slowly scanning Yeongwon from head to toe as if appraising merchandise.
“You’re Miss Ha?”
“Yes. May I ask who you are as well?”
No sooner had Yeongwon asked than the azalea maiden’s maid replied just as brightly, as if refusing to lose to Soræ.
“Our miss is the maternal niece of the madam who married Lord Choi, the son of Lord Geomga’s Elder Hwa’s cousin.”
Yeongwon briefly tried to trace the dizzyingly distant familial connection in her mind, then decided simply to remember the three characters of the azalea maiden’s own name.
“I’m Seo Jeong-in.”
“I’m Ha Yeongwon.”
As Yeongwon dipped her head lightly, Jeong-in’s maid added,
“Our miss only came to Jeojado briefly to get some fresh air. Ever since Lord Geom became the head ten years ago, she has been close with him, like an older brother and younger sister.”
Like brother and sister?
Yeongwon let out a small, involuntary laugh.
She simply could not imagine Geom I-shin calling someone “little sister” and treating them affectionately.
At the same time, she was somewhat surprised.
This was the first person on Jeojado she had encountered who spoke favorably of I-shin.
Perhaps irritated by Yeongwon’s laugh, Jeong-in frowned her pretty brow, then smoothed her expression and continued.
“Miss Ha, do you intend to marry Shin oppa?”
