"Madame Nam, there seems to be a kisaneg causing a scene right outside of this yangban for The Lord Nam…" "Is that so? I couldn't catch a break for a single day before The Nam Clan started their nonsense, isn't that right? And The Mistress Han? Where is she?" "She refuses to leave her chambers ever since you have arrived back here, and it is highly likely that she will try any means necessary to sneak into your own quarters to see The Lord Nam…." "She can see him all she wants to, but nothing will come of it, not in the mood that he is in now. Very well, let me deal with this issue first before meeting the family officially, take me to the front of the yangban." I was already too emotionally exhausted to do this, but I knew that were was no putting this off any longer, so what choice did I have? But apart from my husband who was dealing with the effects of his drug addiction that he didn't tell me about apart from last night, my child in me had to be as small as a pea at this point, but he was already draining the life from me and I was always tired, which was completely unlike me. Moonbok assured us that the baby had to be a boy; a boy who was already giving me trouble in my first trimester of pregnancy, but he was a very welcome surprise nonetheless. It was for him that I had to handle my husband's family affairs in a way that only a woman of a household could. It was for him that I was going to help his father clean up his act and leave my children a legacy that my father would have approved of. But now that I was back by his side and I was home and safe in my pregnancy and we were fighting a common enemy once again, I had finally realised that myself and my husband pretty much had the same goals all along. It hit me like a brick as I began to tend to him all over again, but I still stood by my choice in the past before he cornered The Third Prince himself to go up against him on my own in case my man got seriously hurt because of me, because I knew that The Third Prince wouldn't have hesitated to kill him once my brother distanced himself from the palace. But now that he had proven himself to me that he was close to carrying out his own dream and now that he was beaten down by false allegations against him as my father was, maybe it was time for me to finally surrender to him as he had always wanted me to and divulge everything to him. I didn't mean to take advantage of this opportunity on purpose, but from the moment I had become a mother, there was really nothing for me to do for the public anymore. My long awaited revenge still laid on the shoulders of The Third Prince, and only my husband could catch him if he was given the chance once again. And only I could help him get back to where he was in the peak of his career, if only he was willing to trust me fully. And how else could I gain his trust if I didn't give it to him first?
"…let me go! I wish to beg The Lord Nam for mercy! How could he possibly abandon me so quickly? I need a path to survival myself and only he can give it to me! Get out of my way and let me in! I can serve her tea and The Mistress Han can pity me to give her status! Or else I shall kneel forever outside of this yangban!" "The Mistress Han…servants! The Mistress Han has also fallen ill along with my husband and is therefore unable to visit any guests at all! Lock her in her chambers and burn mugwort outside her residence to make everyone else believe it. Since she refuses to leave her chambers, now I will really give her a reason to never come out of those chambers again. But as for this kisaeng, leaving her outside will only cause my husband shame when he needs to rise up more now than ever." "My Lady? What do you want us to do exactly?" "Bring her inside to face me for questioning." "Madame, we have already tried that, but she insists on you facing her outside in front of an audience in case you wish to harm her!" "What is she saying now?" "That we cannot snatch both her and her man as well." "Goodness, they really have chosen a feisty one for me to deal with, haven't they? Does she even have a tea to hand to me?" "I have observed her already Madame, she has a weak tea that is already stone cold in preparation for you in a faded teacup…" "…to make the growing audience outside pity her all the more, what a cunning woman indeed. Bring her in here by force, I shall spare 30 minutes for this girl before I wish to return to my chambers and take a nap." "Very well Madame Nam, I shall bring her here right away."
It took a team of servants to pry his woman from the pilar of the home and pretty much carry her to me. I could already tell that she was a young and inexperienced woman who was most likely being taught all of the tricks that HuiJae herself had used to seduce the men in power who were always against me at the time. She also looked quite young, as young as I was when I woke up in The Nam yangban with amnesia at a time where I didn't recognise anybody and I didn't know whom to trust, who my enemy was and who was laughing at the skills and status that I lacked at the time. Maybe it was because of the memory that her age carried for me that I found myself secretly panicking inside at the sight of her beauty and her height. She was very similar to me in every way, apart from the high cheekbones that myself and my brother inherited from our father. Wasn't she the type that my husband would like? What if he wanted to keep her if he saw her? My body was bound to change during my pregnancy and surely he will eventually want to have another younger prettier and and skinnier woman to play around with in his bed…
"…Your Ladyship, please accept me tea and give me a path to survival…wait, where is The Mistress Han…?" "The Mistress Han has taken ill and is unable to see to you today. I however, am the true and main wife of The Lord Nam, so you shall be dealing with me. An as for your tea, well we are complete strangers and just as you feared for your life outside of this yangban, I also have the right to fear for my own life when a strange woman who isn't afraid to draw a crowd around herself offers me something drink, don't you agree?" "What do you mean that we have no relation? The Lord Nam and I share a special relationship together, and now you are telling me that you are married to him? I am his mistress and you shall certainly be mine as his legal wife as you say. There is no place for me in his world without him and it is better for me just to die here rather to spare myself the humiliation of a rejection!" "My Lady, aren't you getting a little ahead of yourself? I have neither accepted or rejected you yet, and yet you yourself are almost acting off of a script like an opera actor who knows his lines off by heart." Luckily for me, my husband's aunt and her clan that included her elderly but opinionated parents, her sister and her children started to fill themselves into the hall where I was interrogating her to watch the show and surely chime in when it suited them.
"Well? Aren' you going to kill yourself to spare the humiliation? Very well then, you can get on with it in front of the entire Nam Clan here as your witnesses." "Mistress Seo! Do you hear the words coming out of your mouth! Why would you even say such a thing?" "Fear not Big Madame Nam; if the girl really had intentions of killing herself, then she would have done it already. Well, it seems that business is concluded here, so I cannot retire and…"
"No, wait! Please give me a path to survival for myself and The Lord Nam together! My maiden name is Choi and I was born to a bitter fate to pay off my parent's debt growing up in a brothel!" "I hardly think your fate is bitter at all if you are pretty and loud enough to call upon such attention wherever you go; you also seem to have enough energy with you to disobey mu orders when I asked you to leave earlier on and you just wouldn't comply at all."
"My Lady is noble and refined, whereas I am a foolish thing without any education or etiquette lessons to my name at all. I have never been inside of a yangban this big before, and I…" "If you have never been inside of this yangbna before, then how do you even know where The Lord Nam lived? The Emperor and his court have had him under strict surveillance for almost an entire year and there were not many places that he has been invited to, apart from the Ihwaru brothel that recently burnt down, so how did your relationship with him even come about? Because from what I can see, you just turned up out of nowhere without a hint of fear and with a really typical kisaeng love story and not much proof to back it up with." "My Lady…." "It is Madame Name to you." "Forgive me Madame Nam; I just…." "Let us start from the beginning; I need your entire clan name and information; what are their statuses, there whereabouts and their economic statuses?" "My Lady, does that mean that I have a stay in this home?" "No, my husband's paternal clan has rules against taking in concubines, I just want he informant so that I can refute your family if they ever come looking for you here once we turn you away and send you back to the brothel that you just came from. You have already made it clear to us that you have never lived with The Lord Nam; so if he didn't provide you with shelter before, then he certainly will not do so now." "But…I ran away from the brothel just to be with him! The Nam Clan dislikes my low birth and they will not take me in and…" "And how do you know this if you have never conversed with them before? And if my husband's family cannot accept you, then why must I?" "But…I mean, I…" "If you know that they will not accept you, then why make a scene here to force me to take you in against their wishes? Are you deliberately trying to sow discord between us all for your sake? A woman of unknown character and birth?" "No, please hear me out…my life is in your hands…"
"I think not; if you have survived up until now without my husband, then you can continue to do so after him. I promise to serve you with respect when I marry him…" "What marriage? What serving with respect? You haven't even brought a matchmaker over with you to start off the marriage process, you are just wasting our time here spewing nonsense with not a single piece of evidence to back up this secret romance that you have had with him at all!" "Will you really push me to have no path to survival at all?" "You should have thought about that before coming here with so little preparation and hardly and witnesses in your favour at all. You could have clearly married a patron of your brothel, but you were probably paid more to come up with this story that not even the children of this clan believe in at all. So you want to be an outside woman of a grand home? Very well, I shall gift you to the eldest man in this room who clearly has more wealth and respect than my husband currently. And since you are choosing to be a kept woman, then you must remain content at all times, since pretending to be a feeble and meek woman in this world of hardships hardly passes as a parlour trick anymore. This family will not be made out to be unrighteous for a woman with 2 faces who can slander at will and think that she can get away with it."