Chapter 78

She didn’t know how long she was sitting at the pavilion, but the sun was already setting. Against the background of the setting sun Ruhae walked up to her.

Her heart began to beat fast suddenly.

“I’ve just heard from Concubine Sassi that you are here.”

“Please don’t come near me,” she murmured to herself.

“What business brought you to the East Palace? I wonder if you…”

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“Don’t approach me!” she again murmured to herself.

“Did you come here to see the Crown Princess?”

Ruhae stood before Yomin as she smiled a sad smile.

It was the first time Kyomin had seen him in a while, and Ruhae cried.

“Why are you crying?”

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“Because I am afraid she might be hurt.”

Yomin felt as if he put a dagger in her heart because she instantly knew who he meant by ‘she.’

Yomin didn’t want to see his face at the moment. The thinking that she was not in genuine love with him made her shiver. Her heart pounded. And she also shed tears.

When she cried, Ruhae was embarrassed and stepped back. Coming down from the pavilion, she walked up to him. She extended her hand and wiped the tears running down his cheeks. He was embarrassed by her act like this. While wiping his tears, she didn’t care at all. And then she moved back, saying, “How are you, Prince Ruhae? The other day at the conference hall of the Central Palace you were absent from the banquet to celebrate Concubine Su’s birthday. Are you okay?”

“Princess Yomin…”

“Don’t beat around the bush, please. Just look at me when you’re alone with me like this.”

She turned her head. Her shoulders were shivering with fear. But he couldn’t comfort her by hugging her. In fact, he was firmly determined that he should not be kind to her. Though he felt sorry for her, he couldn’t treat her the same way as he used to.

And he couldn’t sit idle when his lover would be hurt. As he changed his mind, he couldn’t embrace Yomin who he thought was on good terms with him up to now. So far he tended to avoid her because he was at a loss how to end his relationship with her, but he couldn’t delay it any longer.

He took pains to ignore her trembling shoulders and opened his mouth.

“Just leave her alone. Instead, please blame and swear at me. I can’t continue–”

“You’re my husband, Prince Ruhae.”

She turned around with a confused look. Breaking a brief silence, he cautiously approached her and held her shoulders. Looking her in the face with his clear eyes, he tightened his grip. She avoided his eyes.

“Look at me!”

She didn’t.

“Prince Yomin, look at me!”

“Please stop it. Don’t call me the princess anymore. Why are you calling me like that as if I’m a strange woman?”

“Isn’t that true?”

She hardened her expression. She felt as if his voice, which seemed soft all the time, turned into a dagger and hacked up her heart.

‘What a cruel man!’

She kept crying, and looked him in the eye. Eyes never told lies.

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Eyes always told the truth, but Ruhae’s eyes never showed anything like affection for her. Though he smiled at her kindly, he had never expressed any words like ‘affection’ or ‘love’ to her. That was a really sad fact to her.

It was torture for her to stand before someone like Ruhae who had truthful eyes.

“I heard it from Concubine Sassi. So, did you give up on me?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Just go back today. Let me escort you back to the South Palace.”

“Why are there so many people blocking me from going to see the Crown Princess? Why are the palace people on her side? I really can’t understand that. Don’t you know that? She created immorality in the palace that goes against human morality and challenged the moral laws of the family relationship. She is such a wicked little woman from a foreign country who disturbes the imperial palace of the Mok Kingdom!”

At that moment, there was heard a sharp slapping.

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Yomin’s face was turned when he slapped her in the face.

It was the first time she was hit by somebody in her life.

And it was also the first time that he hit somebody.

But neither he nor she was embarrassed in this weird situation.

She was not foolish enough not to know why she got slapped in the face, and he didn’t regret having slapped her.

He, who beat her for the first time, blushed his face, but didn’t hide his anger. Feeling hot in his right palm, he was choked with tears and upset.

“Don’t curse her. She is precious to me. Go back to the South Palace now.”

Lowering her head, Yomin breathed out and said, “I just wish you went after women in the palace. Why did you choose the Crown Princess out of so many women in this palace? If you had been a womanizer, I wouldn’t have cared at all, thinking you still have affection for me.”

Her words were harsh and barbed words but he didn’t care.

“I’ve nothing more to say to you. I would rather think I didn’t hear your insulting language. Go back to the South Palace.”

“I really wish you took another concubine. Why did you choose the Crown Princess?”

She shouted at him, looking down on the ground. Her desperate shouting resonated throughout the quiet back garden of the East Palace, but Ruhae didn’t respond.

As she felt he was gone, leaving her alone miserably, she tried to raise her head when she heard his unique low voice in her ears.

“I’m in love with her because it’s her.”

She had never heard that kind of his voice before.

“I miss her and love her because she is really the one and only woman to me. The woman that I love is not the Crown Princess. The woman that I miss and love is Woorum Mokhwa.”

Ruhae was smiling now while speaking to her in a tone that he had never used with her before. Though she felt sad and terrible about his voice, she wasn’t hurt. She wished he had spoken to her with the same tone, but she didn’t expect it.

The moment she saw him face to face, she realized it.

When she raised her head, with her eyes closed, then opened her eyes, she regained composure. Even though she had been slapped in the face by the man she treated as her husband and she heard his confession of loving another woman, she had composed and calm expression. She looked like a totally different woman, given that she screamed and got upset about him a moment ago.

Even she was surprised to know that she was so composed and calm in this situation. She had to admit his relationship with Kyosul and recognize it. She knew that she didn’t genuinely love him, but she had been hiding it and disguising her feelings with feigned love.

“I’ve got a question.”

“What is that?”

Ruhae tilted his head when she asked suddenly. Even her voice was calm when she asked. She looked into his eyes. Her eyes were calm and peaceful.

“On that day when they had a banquet to celebrate Concubine Su’s birthday, why didn’t you attend?”

Though her question was totally out of context, given the nature of the topic that they brought up so far, he answered with a nod, “Well, I didn’t because I already felt something at the naming ceremony for Koryun.”

“Can I ask you what you felt?”

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“I felt I really couldn’t stand looking at Kyosul sitting next to Crown Prince Bipaan. That was excruciating to me. In fact, I felt I couldn’t control my strong urge to come close to her, so I decided not to go.”

“Please stop it.”

Yomin couldn’t hear his excuses anymore.

No matter what he said, she was legally his wife. So, she didn’t want to hear him talking about another woman compassionately.

“I’m going to see the Crown Princess. As your official wife, I’ve got something to tell her.”

He tried to stop her by all means until a few minutes ago, but her attitude was different now. So, he didn’t stop her anymore and let her go her way.

Yomin saw Kyosul in person in her room.

It was pretty rare that these two women were meeting like this. One of them had a disgruntled and sullen expression while the other was so calm and peaceful.

“Long live the Crown Princess! I’m honored to see you.”

Last spring she stepped back from the front gate of the East Palace even without raising her face back then. But she now entered the gate and offered greetings confidently. She told Kyosul at that time that she would no longer come here unless the Crown Princess called her first, but she couldn’t wait for her call anymore. She was determined to come and see her even without Kyosul’s call. She expected Kyosul would not call her anymore in the future.