Chapter 177: Kim Chun-Ae

My world came crumbling down when Seon-Ho burst in on me doing something gave me no choice but to do! He wouldn't touch me, he wouldn't see me, he wouldn't give me any provisions whatsoever. How else was I supposed to survive in the conditions how wife forced him to leave us in? And how else was I supposed to get a child to bind him with lie that bitch did? Idid everything I could; I snuck into his bed in the palace a few times, I've tried serving him, go out of my way to care for him up to her standard but he wasn't having any of it. I tired to seduce him to the best of my ability but he just laughed in my face. I will never forget the time he grabbed me by the arm after playing one of my tricks that the only woman he would ever be with was with Yeon...and if I did anything to her, that he would inflict the same pain on himself tenfold, before throwing me out of the room naked.

The look on his face was pure disgust and nothing else as he dragged me into a carriage full of guards still half-naked while the minister's son was screaming in the other carriage about how he had been set up. I just sighed; that bastard fulfilled his use a long time ago. I remembered finding him in the palace after I noticed how familiar he looked. I told him everything his father did to me; he was such a good kind man like Hyun-Ki used to be, so I know that information like this would surely play on his consciousness. He soon became my backer and gave me everything I needed; a high enough position with authority and power over the palace maids in a year or two, provisions I could take home with me, a few servants that were due to be locked up for punishments and the expensive care required to look like Yeon. But now that was all over...I was so close as well. I was going to frame the murder on Yeon and then he would finally be with me.

I was with him every day when she abandoned him and kept running away from him. She even had a hand in his great father's demise and he still chose her over everything and anyone. I learned how to cook, sew, and his military job just for him but she never let us be long enough for us to connect. Even when he was alone all he could do was mumble her name over and over again like he was in a damned trance without her. I used to watched them all night as I was sent to live in the maid's quarters. I watched them embrace each other, be affectionate with each other, and watch each other all day long like lustful animals. I couldn't fathom the idea of that tramp being attractive to anyone let alone him.

I had suffered humiliation at every point of my life, but being hauled half-naked for the King and Queen to see was the lowest point of my life. But it was nothing to how much humiliation I had given her in return; the King actually got so angry at this that he actually slapped the Queen full in the face before declaring that Seon-Ho will never again have to take in concubines by force. He stormed off, but not before telling him that he could punish me however he liked and that from this moment we were divorced! As for the minister; he was to give up all his titles and lands before becoming a eunuch! Before I could even openly mouth I was sent away...but before even the King could leave, Seon-Ho's son interrupted with a confused tone. "Father...what is this document saying? Who is Nam-Jeon? And why is your name connected to yours on the tree?"

I swear I could have felt my heart stop.. I found that document years ago, as soon as I entered the palace. But it...it couldn't be true, it just couldn't...and as long as nobody else found out then nobody needed to know. So when I heard that little brat mention it I couldn't risk letting Seon-Ho hear it no matter what; so I lunged towards the boy screaming with all my might as I had snatched the guard's sword ready to stab the boy if I had too...only to have all 3 little boys charge at me all at once to topple me over, and I somehow landed on the sword itself. I hear everyone screaming and shouting and waited...I finally waited for Seon-Ho who was free of his wife to final see my pain and rescue me. I looked over at him and I saw all the colour drained from his face and I waited for him to call out my name...but he didn't. Instead he almost screamed for his son as he rushed to his side. He was standing over me when he pulled his boy off of me...only for me to see the tip of the sword stab him in the chest...and with that I knew that my life was over. Hi son was hurt by me and...and he was about to find out our secret...and them my world turned dark.

I woke up in a cell with the feeling that I had been asleep for days if not hours...only to see him staring above me with a face full of thunder. I followed my instinct and I tried to kiss him but he literals threw me onto the ground. I started clutching onto his robes and begging him instantly "I do not care for my reputation! But I...I really cannot breathe without you in my life! Being with you was the biggest wish of my life! If you leave me...you will be taking away all of my reasons to breathe, of my potential happiness and my future! All I would be waiting for is death! All I wanted...when I met you was...to protect me from all the bad people in my life like you protect Yeon! If anyone even steps in her path you kill them but me? I took care of you for much longer than she has but you left me! You left me at every step of your path and you...you did everything possible to obtain her! You wouldn't touch me you would look at me or talk to me...so what other choice did I have but to commit adultery just to get you by my side! I love you...I love you so much..." he looked like he wanted to throw up when I said those words and I wondered why, why did he always reject me and my love...why didn't anyone want to love me?

"Why? Why do you always reject me? Why don't you want to love me? Look at me, I look like her, I walk like her, I talk like her so why? Why can't you love me?" He bent down to my eye-level and said the words that knocked all of the and out of me. "How could I love my own half-sister the way you think you love me?" He tried to leave without saying a word but as soon as his son's name left my lips, he turned around and he stabbed me, several times and left me bleeding onto the floor. It was hard to talk but I managed it somehow; I told him that I knew what he did to Yeon in his father's mansion when she would be asleep in her bed. I witnessed...the lengths he went through to make her his alone and what he would do to her even when she was unconscious. He could come across as a victim all he liked and I wasn't denying that he was one...but he knew exactly what to say or do to bind her to him, no matter what line he had to cross. He paused, only for a moment before walking away as if he hadn't heard a thing.

I took a long look at myself before deciding that I wasn't going to put up with his humiliation anymore. I was going to try one last time to have my rightful man by my side. They locked the door but I vowed to try my best to get out of here if it was the last thing I did whilst I thought about how on earth I ended up in this position. He moved into my neighbourhood but always ran to the poor girl and her brother. He was a boy fit for nobility; a bright future and an exceptional woman by his side and his life partner but he chose an epileptic lowborn vagrant to be his entertainment and she actually seduced him away from me after begging my father for years about our marriage. I sent him gifts that the tramp must have taken for herself to give to him, or how else could she have enticed him? She was talentless. She must have cast a spell on him to make him chase her ever since without taking a single look at me since childhood.

I called for him every single day, I waited for him every single day, I did everything I could possibly think of to get news from both other prisoners and the guards to get my hands on any piece of news I could with him...until I had an unexpected visitor. Just looking at her made my blood boil, and I finally confronted her about everything I had uncovered about my family and about my one true love that she thought I hadn't noticed genuinely wanted to take for herself, I was silenced with a gift from the Queen forever. But I couldn't...I couldn't go through with it...I wasn't ready to die yet. I started screaming and shouting for him to save me, only to have the prison guards hold me down and force poisonous wine down my throat before I could get my answers, or my revenge against these lowly bitches who had no right to claim my man at all...