Chapter 35

Bipaan’s eyebrows wiggled at that. He was the master who watched him grow for a long time. Accordingly, Bipaan could not avoid the master’s keen insight, even though he was pretty good at concealing his true intentions.

“It was three years as a whole. After returning from your three-year-trip to a foreign country, you attended a classical reading class for the first time. Of course, you attended it just one day, which was the first and last one for you. Since then, you have devoted yourself to studying again.”

“How come you still remember that?”

“Actually, I slept on it up to now. But today, right now, I suddenly remembered it as you seemed to be the same frame of mind at that time.”

The master looked at him silently. Picking up the book and the brush, the master stood up and closed his remarks fleetingly.

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“Sometimes it’s more important to listen for what you’re hearing in your heart than read classics and handle state affairs. If you have a deep-rooted mind disease, how can you cure the disease of others in this world?”

After the master left his study, Bipaan sat about 15 minutes before the desk =then left suddenly. Leaving the East Palace, he headed for the Dongbi Palace, Kyosul’s residence. He walked with big strides.

“Hey, you!”

While heading for the Dongbi Palace, he called a woman whose face was familiar to him and stopped her.

At his calling, the court lady turned around and hastily greeted, “Long live the Crown Prince! I’m honored to see Your Majesty.”

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“You must be Kyosul’s nanny, right?”

“Yes, this is Lady Yuon, the Crown Princess’s nanny.”

“Yeah, I think I saw you before.”

“I’m so honored as you remember me.”

She was Kyosul’s nanny. She was always seen serving Kyosul at her side, so it was rather strange today that she was walking alone in the Dongbi Palace. As if he felt something strange, Bipaan asked her, “Is the Crown Princess in?”

“No, sir,” she said hesitatingly.

Strange enough, he was a bit concerned.

Before asking her about Kyosul’s whereabouts, he tried to sound her out. “You told me you came here with Kyosul from the Hwa Kingdom, didn’t you?”

“Yes. I’ve been serving her since she was a baby.”

“Let me ask you a question then. Do you know the meaning of the stamp that she is using?”

“Pardon?”

When she deeply bowed to him for her ignorance, he didn’t care, to her surprise.

Then he presented a letter to her. It was one of the numerous letters he received from Kyosul. At the end of the letter was a red seal stamped, along with her signature.

Without examining it for long, the nanny answered as if she was already aware of it.

“Oh, that’s a seal that the Crown Princess has been using since her days in the Hwa Kingdom.”

“Are the letter ‘Woo’ for rain and the letter ‘rum’ for cold, correct?”

“No, Your Majesty.” Bipaan’s eyebrows narrowed at her reply. Did he really wish his educated guess was right? Momentarily, he got confused, but the nanny didn’t notice his troubled heart at the moment, and continued calmly, “As you guessed, ‘Woo’ means ‘rain,’ but the letter ‘rum’ is an archaic word derived from the old vocabulary of Hwa Kingdom, meaning ‘cold.’ As the original word derived from the Mok Kingdom was complicated, she preferred a simplified word with the same meaning.”

Bipaan recited the name unconsciously, “Cold rain….”

Cold rain. The cold rain of the Hwa Kingdom.

The nanny tilted her head. As she couldn’t believe her eyes, she was trying to check out whether she heard wrong, when Bipaan asked urgently, “Where is the Crown Princess now?”

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“Well, she went to the North Palace to send her congratulations to the princess who got pregnant.”

“So, where is she now?

“Probably she is still in the North Palace,” she said in a trembling voice.

She didn’t hide her nervousness, but ignoring her nervous look, he quickly turned around as soon as he heard her reply and headed for the North Palace.

“Your Majesty!” she dared to shout at him.

But he didn’t reproach her disrespectful act and quickened his steps. As he walked so fast, she couldn’t catch up.

“Oh my god! What should I do?”

She just looked at his back nervously, who was disappearing into the distance.

Stamping her feet repeatedly, she just prayed, “Please get out of that place right now, Your Highness Kyosul.”

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“Your Highness Kyousl!”

Her nanny came into her room, making a big fuss. When Kyosul complained she wanted some snacks a minute ago, the nanny went out to bring some, but she came back with nothing.

“Nanny, where are the snacks?”

“You can’t afford to talk about snacks idly right now!”

“What’s wrong? What’s the matter?”

“Did you know that?”

“What?”

When the nanny began to ask incoherently, Kyosul asked back with a curious look.

“I hear the due date of the princess in the North Palace is just around the corner.”

As if surprised, the nanny shouted. But Kyosul answered calmly with a smile.

“Really? I didn’t know that. What a happy occasion! I hear there is only one royal child at the moment. As there is only one royal son, I think the palace will be much brighter than now if she delivers a baby girl.”

Unlike the nanny making a fuss, Kyosul replied in a calm manner.

At her carefree attitude, the nanny pulled her arm, hitting her forehead with a hand.

“Your Highness, you can’t sit idle like this. Please go there.”

“Where?”

“I mean the North Palace. You haven’t seen her before. You should go and greet her with her due date fast approaching. This is against palace manners. Please visit the North Palace as soon as possible.”

“Really?”

“It’s been several months since you got here in the palace, but you haven’t yet said hello to the princess there. She got pregnant many months ago, and now her due date is fast approaching. How would she respond if you come to offer congratulations for her pregnancy only now?”

The nanny kept cajoling her into visiting the North Palace, but Kyosul tilted her head as if she couldn’t understand why it was so important to go and see that princess.

When the nanny urged her to put on the shoes on the porch, Kyosul clapped her hands and went back to her room suddenly.

Looking at her with a blank expression, the nanny asked, “Where are you going? You should visit the North Palace!”

At her nanny’s repeated pressing, Kyosul came out after a lapse of some time. She was holding a little box wrapped in silk.

“What is it?”

“It’s my gift congratulating her on her pregnancy.”

And then she put on her shoes and was ready to go.

“Isn’t this what you’re looking for urgently? Let’s go, nanny.”

“Oh, yes.”

As Kyosul didn’t know the way to the North Palace, her nanny guided her, walking ahead, followed by a group of court ladies.

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As Kyosul was heading for the North Palace in her capacity as the Crown Princess to congratulate for the princess’s pregnancy, it was natural that she was accompanied by the court ladies.

The North Palace located in the north of the imperial palace was far away. As the imperial palace was so large and as they had to go there from the other end of the palace, namely, the East Palace, it was quite a distance from the East to the North Palace. Entering the North Palace finally, they arrived at the Pukbi Palace, the princess’s residence.

As soon as they arrived, the nanny made the announcement in a loud voice, “The Crown Princess has just arrived!”

Her announcement was conveyed by the court ladies to the princess in the innermost room. When Kyosul took off her shoes and stepped into the porch, she noticed a thick golden string around it. It was set up to block the wicked spirit from going into her room. So, Kyosul was careful enough not to tread on it and entered her room when the court lady opened the door.

As it was the princess’s room, there were not as many doors leading to her room as Kyosul’s. A golden string was also around the top of her room.

When she came into the room, she noticed a dark-skinned woman lying on the bed.

She was Princess Heyjin, who was from a foreign country like Kyosul.

As a great empire, the Mok Kingdom had many vassals. One of them, called Jisungkuk, was located in the southwest of the Mok Kingdom. The skin of the Jinsungkuk people was rather dark compared with the white skin of the people in the Mok Kingdom.

As a weak and small country, Jinsungkuk was invaded by neighboring countries, so it sent its youngest princess to the Mok Kingdom for its protection.

Originally, the Mok Kingdom wanted to arrange her marriage with the weak prince living outside the imperial palace. As a princess from a small country, she stayed at the imperial palace for a while and came to bump into Prince Binsung by chance. She had blue eyes, dark yellow skin, and black hair shining like blue waves.