Surviving the Romance Fantasy

It was literally. I feel a sense of incongruity, as if the president is looking at the cleaning staff’s work schedule.

I still didn’t understand.

…Perhaps, the person with the greatest sense of guilt for Baekseon is Gongnyeo Cheondo. Because ringworm was the person who suffered the most as she got weaker.

“I heard that Princess Cheondo also wants to come to the condolences herself… I don’t know what will actually happen.”

I heard that Gongnyeo Cheondo did not go outside because she was in very poor condition.

All the crown princesses sent only the chief ladies-in-waiting, but actually, it doesn’t make sense that Princess Cheondo would personally go to the ceremony.

Still, does Gongnyeo Cheondo want to give Baekseon the utmost courtesy?

“If you want to come, today… or at the latest, early tomorrow morning, it would have been possible to pay proper condolences… It will probably be difficult.”

“…I guess so.”

Seolran put on a sad expression for a moment and then blankly looked at the night sky.

He slowly sorted out his thoughts about the white line that had left, then sighed deeply as if confused and spoke.

“What are you going to do now, Taepyung?”

“…”

“His Majesty Unseong must be thinking of picking the next 100 selections, but that’s not something that will be decided in a day or two.”

Seolran knew.

The reason why I have stayed in Baekseon Palace until now is to show respect to Baekseon.

Since he stayed by my side until he left the job, I had done everything I could. It is said that there is no need to remain in the Palace of the Baekseon Palace any longer.

If it was originally planned, I was going to leave Qingdao Palace and go on a tour of the world.

However, there are reasons not to do so. Like it or not, I was the one who should have stayed a little longer in this Qingdao palace.

If so… what should I do?

“If you want to go to the Red Palace, the future will give you a seat. Tae-pyeong, you… do you know what a great honor this is for a military officer?”

“It is, but…”

“Also, apart from that… I heard from Mr. Future, that Unbaek-nim, the leader of the nobles, also spoke up…”

In short, I seem to have become a free agent in the transfer market after leaving Baekseon Palace.

It seemed that he was keeping an eye on various places, such as the enemy palace that fosters first-class military officers, nobles who carry out royal orders, and personal escorts of high-ranking officials.

I lived in a way that I wanted to live by doing my duty, but… It seemed that my evaluation was put in this or that place.

“I will have to think about it once the funeral process is over. I want to ask where the others in Baekseon Palace are going.”

“huh. Still, I was seriously thinking about this next time. I was so worried that Tae-pyeong might be intimidated by your heartache.”

“hehehe, do you see me for a day or two? sister. My sister and I have said it… It’s just when the old man goes, so I don’t lament over the things I went to. I may have heard something… from an old man who was so vehement, but it’s not to the point of being greatly heartbroken.”

Having said that, I sipped my tea.

The scent of tea was always the same, but it was more special than I thought after drinking it for the first time in a while.

“But…if there’s something I’m concerned about…”

The night sky of Qingdao Palace is always beautiful as well.

The calm night air mixed with the sound of grass insects only tickled my mood.

“…the thing I received was Taesan, but I didn’t do anything in particular.”

“…”

“But that… it keeps bothering me…”

Saying that, I kept my head down for a while.

The toenmaru of Baekseon Palace, where the sound of grass insects looms.

Seolran sat quietly next to me and quietly wrapped her arms around my shoulders.

*

“Oh, Taiping. Have you finished cleaning up the condolences?”

“okay. Let’s get some rest.”

The next morning, after finishing the paperwork, Han entered the inner room and said.

With this, the official funeral process was finished, so it was only necessary to decide on the future.

Han probably came here because he was curious about those things.

“I think I will go to the post of secretary on the side of Jeonghwan-gung, which manages the household goods. I heard that if you get along well there and accumulate credits, you might be able to take the position of the lower official… I like to play with power, so it’s just my calling.”

“I see…”

“Taepyeong, what are you going to do? Will you go to the enemy palace? Success will be guaranteed, but I don’t think it’s likely because of your personality…”

“Hmm… Actually, I’m thinking about it too.”

As we drank a glass of rice wine side by side, Hani and I fell into silence for a moment.

First of all, I should stick to the Qingdao Palace all the time, but from my point of view, I prefer a Hanjik job, so heavy work would not be a joke anywhere.

After the main story of Love Story of the Celestial Dragon begins, the situation will change more rapidly than I thought, but there was too much work for me, so it didn’t seem like anything good.

To borrow the words of Princess Ahyeon, I still need to get ahead in order to preserve my life…

“Get ahead…”

While thinking about it, Han spoke first.

“In my opinion, the elderly have already set up their retirement plans. I heard that after this work is finished, tea will be cultivated in the Anhyang region… The person who performed the post of supervisor at the main palace returned home and started tea farming… I can’t imagine…”

“Do you say that the high-ranking officials of the main palace will allow it?”

“huh. I checked everything while I was handling the paperwork, but since he is of age, he seems to have been approved without any problems.”

He said that he would send tea every season so that he could know that. He was definitely a kind person.

“If Tae-pyeong doesn’t know what to do next, the palace will be noisy, right? There are many military officers who are frantic to catch you just because I secretly inquired. It’s difficult to think that there are only General Jeong or Captain Unbaek.”

“What do you think of Han?”

“Well… it’s up to you to decide. However… never lift near the concubine. Not to mention, never touch anything related to the safety of the four palaces…”

“…”

As I explained sometime ago… There are only three cases in which a man can become a concubine.

Either the royal family, or the eunuch, or… a military officer in charge of policing.

“… Yeon-ri?”

I suddenly remembered and asked about Yeon-ri’s whereabouts.

In fact, Yeon-ri was a person who was not strange no matter where she went.

Come to think of it, Yeon-ri hardly showed up after hearing Baek-seon’s death.

No matter what, I only heard that he was a sentimental person, so he couldn’t overcome his sadness and cried all day long.

Occasionally walking around the boudoir, I only saw him a couple of times sniffling with his head lowered beyond the paper screen.

I always felt confident and lively, but when I saw her sad for several days, my mood became very complicated.

“Come to think of it, I have to check Yeon-ri’s condition soon… He’s not even in the boudoir, so where did he go…”

“Okay, Taepyong. Still, while I was organizing the paperwork, I checked Yeon-ri’s whereabouts… It’s more unexpected than I thought.”

“okay? why? Where are you going?”

If you think about it.

I didn’t know anything about Yeon-ri’s past.

Even so, Baekseon personally felt the bowl and brought it to him, leaving him as a family member of Baekseongung.

My intuition had experience, Wang Han had resourcefulness, and I had brute force.

Everyone else managed to understand why Ringworm was with him.

However… I felt like I was bouncing around as much as Yeon-ri.

Any lady-in-waiting could bring it.

To put it bluntly, Yeon-ri is just on the side of being dexterous for her age. If you simply need a maid with good skills, older and more experienced maids are widely available in this Qingdao palace.

What in the world made Baekseon and Yeon-ri stay in this Baekseon Palace? Others did, but I didn’t know that much. I was just trying to do that.

Of course, Yeon-ri was a good colleague.

He was always confident, worried about me, and thought together about ways to save his life whenever the crown princess was entangled. As a person, there was no other colleague like this, and there was enough to build trust.

Now, the question of why Baekseon brought her into Baekseon Palace was not so important.

“I heard Yeon-ri is going to Cheonryongchae.”

However, Baekseon seemed to have a rough idea of something…

I couldn’t ask it to the end… It kept bothering me.

The day after Baekseon’s funeral.

When I entered the boudoir, Yeon-ri was not there.

However, only a small piece of writing was left on the tea table in the inner room.

– ‘If you see this bamboo stick, bring a wooden tablet and come to the Cheonryongchae.’

What was placed next to the bamboo stick was… a wooden shield the size of my fist.

The name of the wooden plaque engraved with a lot of large dragon patterns was…’Cheonryongpae’.

Only then do I realize It felt like scattered pieces of a puzzle coming together.

The reason why Ahyeon, Princess Cheondo, never came out from behind the paper.

The reason why he never stood on the podium of the Celestial Dragon Festival.

The reason why he never showed himself in front of people with the excuse of illness.

Why did Sukbi tear my pants off the day she came to the palace and tie them with a string with a jade plaque?

The reason why I was quietly bowing my head in front of the princess in Baekseon Palace.

Why did you dare to recommend me to join the Byeoldongdae in search of Hyeonbi?

Even the reason why he strongly insisted that he had to seduce Deokbi in order to survive.

What kind of person was the character of Gongnyeo Cheondo whom I saw only as a shadow behind the Jangjimun?

I thought that he was a weak, docile, and neat person like those rumors, but the truth is—

“…”

– ‘So… who is the woman who has that longing for you?’

I still remember the way Princess Cheondo’s arm trembled as she asked behind the paper gate of the inner chamber of the Cheonryongchae that day. His voice, which seemed to be strained and strained, also trembled.

I thought she was struggling with her illness, but…

In reality, I was holding back a smile that seemed to burst out with pleasure.

Princess Cheondo (5) (Paid from here on)

When I visited Cheonryongchae this time, I didn’t even tell Seolran.

He would not have even imagined that the person he would talk to and talk with whenever he came to Seon-Gung Paek would actually be the Princess Cheondo who never came out of the boudoir.

Anyway, if you go to Cheonryongchae, you can meet Seolran, but anyway, it didn’t seem like it would be a big problem to inform her after figuring out the circumstances.

“How did the warriors of Baek Seon-gung end up here…”

“…The princess told me to show you this wooden plaque.”

When she showed the Cheonryongpae to Lee Ryeong, the lady-in-waiting of the Cheonryongchae, her expression hardened in an instant.

Then he seemed to be lost in thought for a while… and then he bit all the nines around him.

When only the two of them were left at the front gate of the magnificent Cheonryongchae, the maid-servant nodded and began leading me to follow her.

Apparently… the lady-in-waiting seemed to know the circumstances to some extent.

“Right now, Gongnyeo is resting in the Cheonokjeong Pavilion behind the Cheonryongchae.”

“…Doesn’t the ablution have to be done?”

“It won’t matter.”

The last time I visited, I struggled for hours to get a look at the face, but this time the process was noticeably simplified.

After going around the Cheonryongchae for such a long time and crossing the backyard, the moth was sore that I had no choice but to ask first.

“…The state of the princess is…”

“Since you seem to know everything, I will tell you without hesitation.”

Lee Ryeong, the maid of honor, is someone who bows her head even to the maids of the four palaces. Among the court ladies, she was the one who could be said to have ascended to the highest authority.

In fact, I’m definitely not in a position where I can speak out like this, but after showing the Cheonryongpae, that attitude has completely changed.

“In the first place, the princess was rarely in the Cheonryongchae.”

Externally, it was said that even my body was in a difficult state to control as I lay down with illness, but that was only to cover up the state of being stuck inside the Cheonryongchae.

Except for the really important things that a princess cannot miss… Gongnyeo Ahyeon spent most of her time at Baekseon Palace.

“then…”

“As for the details, it would be better to hear directly from the princess.”

Saying that, I crossed the garden in the backyard, and I saw Cheonokjeong, which was built next to a small waterfall behind the Cheonryongchae in the distance.

The person drinking tea quietly while listening to the sound of the waterfall at the tea table prepared below is familiar.

Normally, the hair at the back of the head was tied up neatly, but now it is loose and worn in a gorgeous court attire.

From the outer jacket embroidered with the celestial dragon to the silk skirt and baeja, there was nothing that was not luxurious.

Opposite the tea table, there are several tea utensils and beautifully decorated wooden seats. It was a seat prepared for me to sit down.

“…”

Let’s go to the seat opposite it and sit down… First of all, cold sweat came out.

Yes. When a person is driven to an extreme situation, sweat comes out.

In the meantime, living in Baekseon Palace, he had lived all kinds of ugliness to Yeon-ri. Come to think of it now, he had done such a thing with Gongnyeo Cheondo in front of him.

A person… It is only when he has to confront his shameful past that he begins to ruminate on his ugliness.

Warrior Seol Tae-pyeong.

Indeed… it was ugly…

“Oh, Tae-pyeong.”

It was completely different from the voice I had heard from the other side of the Jangjimun a while ago. At that time, she was haggard and sickly… If it was said that she felt like a daffodil, it was only now that it was the tone of Yeon-ri that she was used to hearing. This is her tone, not acting at all.

Even so, it is hard to imagine that the princess beyond the Jangjimun was the same girl who had been involved in Baekseon Palace for several years.

Let’s listen to the voice while being aware of that fact… Only then do we recognize the strange similarity underlying it.

“I thought I was dying of waiting.”

However, from my point of view… I was just confused about how to deal with it.

-Shoot it

The sound of the waterfall next to Cheonokjeong.

While casually sipping on an enormous high-quality tea that each cup is worth a penny, Ahyeon, Princess Cheondo, who finally revealed herself, spoke happily.

“Ahahahaha. My prank was too much last time. Seeing how embarrassing he was, how much he tried to laugh.”

“…”

“I understand though. I didn’t want to tell you the exact inside story yet. Any doubts that may arise should be pruned. In fact, Tae-Pyeong, you couldn’t have imagined it, right?”

The fact that I didn’t show up behind the paper gate, the fact that I deliberately lowered my weak voice, the fact that I trembled and held back my laughter, and the fact that I took my reaction while talking about the crown princes.

“Taepyeong wanted you to focus on Baekseon’s funeral process. That’s all.”

“…”

“I know very well how much you cared for the old man with ringworm. Something like the identity of the middle school maid you’ve always been with… will only give you great confusion as you have to worry about letting go of Baekseon.”

Was it because of that that the Cheonryongpae was not handed over to the end until Baekseon’s funeral process was completed?

Without a place to go, I still had to fix my eyes on the teacup, thinking about what to say.

Gongnyeo Ahyeon’s chin rests on her chin and she laughs. It’s full of playfulness.

Yes.

From the beginning, Princess Ahyeon was not a weakling who could not overcome her illness and locked herself in her inner room.

Judging from the circumstances, it seems that only the head lady-in-waiting who was closest to him knew about the fact.

If it wasn’t for a really important position that she couldn’t miss as Princess Cheondo, she wouldn’t have entered Cheonryongchae in the first place… Even if there was such a position, the apprentices and the like would not have been able to have an audience with her.

When Seolran finds out about this fact, he falls backwards and it is not difficult to draw a surprised look.

“…Did you know about Ringworm?”

“Looks like you got the hang of it. It seems that he sensed the spirit of the Celestial Dragon in my body to some extent when I was brought into the Palace of the Baekseon in the first place. As far as the eyes that look at people… He was a person who could never be fooled.”

Even if it wasn’t certainty, it seemed that the heart was full.

However, as his death approached, he made me collect wooden tablets from the four palaces and go to Princess Cheondo.

it’s probably…

“It must have been something close to the message sent by Baekseon.”

Before I could ask, Lady Ahyeon answered first.

I still remember the look of that time.

Seeing the wooden tablets of the four palaces gathered in one place, Princess Ahyeon beyond the Jangjimun was silent for a moment.

It was… proof that his repeated efforts over the years were not in vain.

It must have been a message of consolation sent directly to Gongnyeo Cheondo by Baekseon, who was about to die.

It’s fine now. Your efforts were not in vain.

Even if you leave the world, there are many people who will protect you.

is it.

The day I met Princess Ahyeon beyond Jangjimun and returned to Baekseon Palace.

The reason Baekseon looked relieved as if he had just shaken off his burden was not because he was checking Princess Ahyeon’s health.

I. Warrior Seol Tae-pyeong. Gather all the wooden tablets of the four palaces.

Finally, I went to the place completely, and the fact that I had confirmed its existence… I was relieved and left the world.

After reaching the truth… I felt a strange sense of being strangled.

“Taepyung would have known that, too.”

Only then did she understand why Gongnyeo Cheondo, who must have seen Baekseon’s death several times, shed so many tears for several days.

“That old immortal… there is no law that moves as expected…”

Saying that, Lady Ahyeon smiled.

However, the very slight sadness at the corner of the raised mouth seemed… that it could not be erased even with his unique lively expression.

“…Then, was it all intentional that the crown princesses had decided on a policy whenever they were involved?”

“Hey, it feels so fresh to see Taepyung treat me with respect. I’m proud of myself for how I held back my laughter the other day.”

“…”

He put down the teacup with a smile on his face, and then continued the conversation with the lively tone he had seen in Baekseon Palace.

“why? Taepyong. I was born as a man, but at least I should dream of enjoying a Juicy training at least once! Isn’t that what you always say as if it’s stuck in your mouth! verve! The spirit of a man!”

“…”

“Of course, if the opponents are crown princesses, it is inevitable that life-threatening situations will come again and again… But, I am here.”

Gongnyeo Ahyeon laughed and said ahahahaha, but on the other hand, she spoke in earnest.

“Stop worrying. I know pretty much what will happen in the future.”

“If you say that, it’s safe from my point of view, but…”

“…But, Taiping, this is the first time you’ve really eaten all the masters of the four palaces and reached the Celestial Dragon’s Cai… There are parts that are unclear…”

“If you tell me such an unsettling story… I…”

Even with that said, the awkwardness doesn’t go away.

No matter how neatly she is dressed in court attire and dressed up splendidly, the girl in front of her has the appearance of a middle-class maid who has been protecting Baekseongung together.