"My Lady, how one earth have you pulled this off? This is incredible!" "Royal Family Members, for the past 2 months, I have been collecting donations from every single household in the palace, including many duchesses and noble families here in the kingdom have loosened their purse-strings quite generously for this cause. So I have created 'a palace-style market' that will be located in this part of the palace for a week only as a test-run for future activities. The attendees are all the high ministers who were willing to help us out on this experiment along with some palace personnel. And if this surpasses our expectations, then we can open the market to both merchants and our people to help them out during this time of war…and all of the profits will be donated to the people who are struggling to cope without their male relatives. But with the hundreds of goods that the place has stored, we should be good to open up maybe twice a month in the future. And as for the older goods, pardon my opinion, but the servants shouldn't spare them for their masters sake." "Very well Concubine Chung, it looks like you have done a far better job of this than I had expected, although I do remember putting your sister in charge of this duty to give your family a chance to repent for…" "Forgive me Your Majesty, but my sister and her children have taken ill as of late and so she entrusted me to carry out this task for her." "Very well, I only have a few moments to spare, so let us all take a walk around together."
I hadn't been this at ease for a very long time and now finally, I could bask in the praise of my effort that not even my more experienced older sister would have been able to pull off. It was a very risky plan to undertake that took up most of ur families savings, but to even have the Emperor himself praise my efforts meant that there surely was a chance for my family to redeem ourselves in the eyes of The Emperor and the entire Goreyo Dynasty that was slowly but surely coming to an end. Life had really become sweet without the presence of Seo Yeon, who would never miss the opportunity to steal everybody else's favour just because she could. "…I heard that there are a lot of imported western good here as well…" "Really? We must find them before anyone else does then…." "Quickly, I shall make my servant bring up a trolley of items…" "My Lady! Look at that! Who is that wine-peddler in the corner? Doesn't she look familiar to us? I could have sworn that I have seen her in the palace before…" "Is that not a wife of an important nobleman? I am also sure that I have seen her in the palace before…" I really could not believe this; I had barely gotten praised for 5 minutes before I saw the wife of Seo Hwi making her contributions to my market place that I had no idea how she found out about dressed as a wne peddling woman of all things! Why! Why couldn't The Seo family just leave me in peace! Why couldn't they let me just win at one thing for once! This was the very last opportunity that my family had to redeem ourselves! What if The Emperor decided to give her all of the credit for my hard work instead! The Seo's were forever favoured simply for showing up somewhere and they always got the best treatment everywhere that they went.
"Hey, isn't that Seo…." "My Ladies! Why don't you look at the enamel table up ahead? It really has quite a lot of.." "But…but isn't that the wife of…" "No, there is no mistress today, I am simply a wine-peddling woman to help out the unfortunate families that have been the victims of both The Choi and Chung families…" How dare she! She was publicly trying to tear my family down and make us take the blame for the war that I had been avoiding all along! How dare she undo months of efforts with use a few words…
"…these are all the best hand-made wines from the country that my husband roamed around for months to find. I took this as an option for this taste-test…" "So you actually dressed yourself as a wine-wedding woman? You really are dedicated to this cause, aren't you?" "I was an orphan before my husband took pity on me enough to marry me, so I do understand what it is like to some extent at least what it is like to be alone in this world…" "Concubine Chung, didn't your family grow up closer to her's? How comes her native accent is more profound than yours?" "I haven't been able to remember such things for decades now, Mistress Nam, although I am starting to wonder how exactly is it that she was able to acquire so much information about today! Just look at her! I set up the entire market and Seo Hyeon actually sets up her own stall! With workers and everything! She is instigating a war between our families with her comments alone and….her rags are the exact same colour as my outfit, which is the only one that Seo Yeon left behind in the palace!" "Concubine Chung! What is it exactly that you are accusing me of here?""Something very strange I obviously occurring since the night Seo Yeon was escorted out of the place and in 4th manner in which it was done! No, something is definitely wrong here…I thought I would find peace of mind if I provoked her out of the palace and now I am out of sorts and severely underprepared when she isn't in my line of sight." "I…I think that you are right, Concubine Chung. Look at how favoured she and her family is, how is it possible that Seo Yeon was just scored quietly out of the palace like that without hearing a single word about it afterwards? Think about it, nobody has mentioned her recovery process at all, have they?" "I have already tried to bribe The Imperial Physicians, but to no avail, they haven't the faintest clue where she is or how she is doing at all."
"My lady, where exactly does The Lord Nam reside? He hasn't got a residence in the kingdom yet, has he? Maybe he is hiding her somewhere and…" "And our families are enemies in this game, so I should have been prepared for something like this!" "My Lady! How on earth could I have predicted that…." "Protecting her like this means to defend her honour, and now that her brother's family is coming up with tactics like this to distract us from her absence, they surely must be up to something, but what is it!"
"Only Seo Yeon could think of herself as useless if she wasn't causing some mischief like this! But if she looses favour completely then it will effect her brother, which she will never let happen. And her brother…only her brother can take down my family if he wanted to….if he was the only viable pawn left to do it…my brother and husband have been continuously denounced recently, but there has never been any actual punishment carried out…yet. And I have been doing ok so far, considering everything that my family is going through…but rather than us sit here like open targets, it is best if you are with her to see what she is up to."
"Concubine Chung! Come over here and explain yourself immediately!" "Your Majesty?" "What exactly is here on this table in front of me?" "What else could it be…" "Your Majesty! Isn't this all the items that the palace have lost?" "My Lady, are you sure about that…" "Are you insinuating that I am lying, Widow Nam? You are nobody of importance, so I have no idea what you are even doing here! How would you know the importance of these jewellery accessories that are placed right in front of you? The jade ring, the jade ruyi, the flower pot right there and…wait a minute. Didn't you help the Concubine Chung into setting up this thieves nest in the first place? Who is to say that you are not involved in this scandal? We as Royal Family members have looked into these for years and we could never find anything….but you just happened to? In such a public space as well? Do you possess not a single ounce of shame at all? You hussy! You are linked to Nam-Jeon forever in the life, so only you could do something so blatantly disrespectful like that!" "That is not true! I am close to my brother-in-law, he looks after me!" "Is that so? So tell me why has he abandoned you from the moment that Seo Yeon was harmed! Or was that…because of you as well! Did you harm Seo Yeon after pulling this trick to supplement orphaned families? What a clever calculation indeed…"
"No! That isn't what happened at all! Everyone knows about this market place event that is happening today, and they must have mixed everything in on purpose…" "Who exactly? Mistress Nam?" "How on earth should I know who did this to sabotage me! I mean us!"
"Concubine Chung, I wonder what you have to say about this all?" "This market place is open o everyone in the palace Your Majesty, who knows what could have occurred…." "And yet you were the one in charge of overlooking everything, isn't that right? Not even your sister with children and a new one on the way would have been so lax abut such an important task, such as this one." "But Your Majesty…it is easily quite chaotic…I cannot oversee every single detail and someone must have found an opportunity to…" "To take advantage of your negligent attitude. I can now see that The Lord Nam was right, I should have just let Seo Yeon handle a task like this; although you are all roughly in the same age group, I can already see who is the maturer one. I am aware that eunuchs in the palace have untidy hands and feet, enough to monetise things behind our backs but that does not excuse this repulsive and lazy attitude that you have! No wonder that you are not favoured in your own household and that you only gave birth to a measly girl…" "But…Seo Yeon is a girl as well…" "Seo Yeon is the only girl I have ever met to use and expand her mind quite eloquently, unlike any woman I have ever come across. She may have been able to surpass her own father's achievements if she had been born a man, unlike her brother who has no wish to do the same in order to preserve his father's legacy. But her own achievements as a woman are still outstanding nonetheless, even more so considering her poverty-driven background, unlike yourself. For eunuchs to pull os such a brazen stunt like this; how should they transport these goods over the palace walls unnoticed, and even share the pilferage shouldn't you know better? Or has stewing in your noble status without any motivation to use your mind left you in this state?" "Your Majesty?" "The Goeryo Dynasty is over, The Goeryo Dynasty is over…there will be changes in the future and I shall be the one to make them. Servant! Call The Lord Nam to dine with me as soon as we can, for I can finally see the points that he has been trying to make for years now." "Your Majesty? What about…" Servant! Have The Mistress Nam and Concubine Chung detained in the palace under The Imperial Concubine Park! I shall interrogate them soon in the coming days." "Your Majesty! Please have mercy on me! And my family! I used up all of our family savings for this, please see that I have been set up and…" "You must have received quite a heavy payout to become one of the links in this nest of thieves! So that will cover you're lost money, will it not?" "Your Majesty…why won't anyone believe in me? Why? What misstep have I taken to fall into this trap! Mistress Nam, didn't you provide the servants to guard this place at night!" "My Lady…those guards were handed over to me by my brother-in-law…and now they are nowhere to be seen…"