“I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?”

“I should have called a court lady to change the bedding.”

“This is amazing! So Yeon can have a baby now.”

Ryu smiled brightly. His innocent expression was full of curiosity.

Yeon’s cheeks flushed red as she lowered her gaze. Suddenly, a small hand appeared, holding a soft towel.

She thought he was going to wipe the sweat from her forehead, but the young emperor’s hand moved elsewhere.

“Your Majesty! What are you—?”

“I’m going to wipe your legs.”

“I—I can do it myself.”

“I’ll do it for you.”

“Your Majesty, the Son of Heaven shouldn’t do such lowly things…”

Yeon tried to dissuade him, but Ryu was insistent. He lifted the hem of her stained skirt. Yeon feared he would get blood on his nightclothes.

Menstruation was natural, but staining the emperor’s golden bedding while lying next to him was not. And now to risk staining his robe as well? Such a thing was unthinkable.

Madam No, the senior court lady, would certainly sound the alarm. Yeon reached out to take the towel from Ryu’s hand.

“I can do it.”

“I said stay still.”

His voice now held a trace of anger. Yeon bit her lower lip. Ryu pulled her skirt all the way up to her thighs and began wiping away the blood that had stained her pale legs.

Yeon hastily turned her head and pulled the fabric over her inner thighs to shield them. Her eyes trembled with shame — it was unbearable.

He was only eight years old. Despite being the emperor, he was still like a baby brother that she had raised herself. There should have been no need for modesty between them. And yet, she was ashamed.

Yeon clenched her lips tightly and endured the moment until Ryu had finished his strange act of care.

After that night, Yeon did everything she could to leave Yanmyeong Hall. She felt it was time to put some distance between herself and Ryu.

However, he couldn’t understand why she had left his bedchamber in the first place. Yanmyeong Hall was spacious, with a large enough bed for two people to sleep comfortably together, so why did she need to go elsewhere?

Yeon tried to sit the young emperor down and explain things to him gently and carefully. She tried to explain that men and women should sleep separately. That she was a servant and he was the emperor. She also said that Ryu had grown up and could do everything on his own.

“Your Majesty is no longer a baby.”

“I know.”

“Then you can sleep alone, can’t you?”

“I can sleep alone just fine.”

“Exactly. That’s why I should move to another room.”

“What does my ability to sleep alone have to do with you moving out?”

“Your Majesty, men and women must be separate. That’s what Eunuch Bong always says.”

“But Yeon is my woman, isn’t she?”

Ryu looked up from the book he had been reading. His features were bright and refined — beautifully shaped, pale, and composed.

Yeon stared at his fine, delicate face for a moment, unable to believe what she was hearing. The hardness of his expression felt like an unscalable wall.

If she said anything more, Ryu would become angry. He wouldn’t throw inkstones or scream, but Yeon had once been confined to her quarters for several days because of a few careless words.

He was only eight years old, yet he was still the emperor. Yeon pressed her lips tightly together and lowered her gaze.

What frightened her most was hearing a boy, much younger than her, say: ‘You’re my woman. Why would you leave Yanmyeong Hall?’

“Even if men and women are different, you’re my favoured concubine, so you should stay by my side.”

Those were the last words Ryu spoke before turning his attention back to his book. Unable to keep looking at the child who had just called her his ‘favoured concubine’, Yeon turned her head away.

***

“I wish you would stop being so stubborn.”

The man murmured in a flat tone, his brows furrowing slightly as he looked at her. He had found out that she had skipped dinner.

Yeon, who had turned away to avoid looking at him, bit her lip. The fact that he saw her missing a meal and crying in shock in front of the elders as nothing more than ‘being defiant’ made her whole body tremble with suppressed anger.

“Do you really have a reason to reject me this much?”

Ryu’s voice was cold. That stern tone brought another wave of fury rising up in Yeon’s chest. She wanted to ask him the same thing.

How could he see her as a woman? How could he humiliate her like this?

“To me, Your Majesty has always been like a baby brother in need of care.”

“But now I’m a man who can impregnate you anytime.”

“Your Majesty.”

“So Song Yeong-ha is a man to you, but I’m just a suckling child? Even though you never nursed me?”

“That’s not what I meant…”

“Enough with the dramatics. I have limits to my patience.”

Those were the last words Ryu spoke before he rose from his seat. Yeon couldn’t stop the sting in her nose, and she felt tears welling in her eyes.

The man who turned his back on her was merciless.

Unable to hold back any longer, she reached out and grabbed the sleeve of his robe as he walked away.

Ryu looked down at her, her eyes filling with tears and her body trembling.

“Where… where are you going?”

She stepped in front of him, blocking his way, tears running down her cheeks.

Ryu looked down at her, his face devoid of emotion.

What terrified Yeon most was that she couldn’t read anything from his expression.

“Your Majesty.”

His long, elegant hand grasped her small face and gently tilted it upwards. Their eyes met, and she felt as if the air had been knocked from her lungs. Yeon looked up at him, completely frozen.

Song Yeong-ha underwent gung-hyeong. He was a married man.

Although his family were not among the highest ranks of the aristocracy, they had served as civil officials for many years and were renowned for their integrity.

Song Yeong-ha himself had been a tall, well-respected military officer. He was a man with a wife and had once fathered a child, although her wife later miscarried.

He had been reduced to such disgrace.

Song Yeong-ha had incurred the emperor’s wrath because of her. He had dared to covet the emperor’s favoured consort.

When Ryu was seventeen, the emperor stripped Song Yeong-ha of all his titles and had him castrated.

Song Yeong-ha begged to be given the death penalty instead. He asked the emperor to behead him and end his suffering. However, Ryu chose a different punishment.

Since then, Yeon had always been afraid of Ryu. Whenever he was in a bad mood, he would lock her in Yanmyeong Hall. However, he never imposed any other punishments.

When he was young, Ryu was mostly gentle and calm.

Though Ryu could be mischievous at times, he would never continue a prank that Yeon disliked for too long. Even when he teased her impulsively — calling her ‘my favoured consort’, kissing her unexpectedly or lifting her skirt — if she looked uncomfortable, he would quickly stop.

This didn’t change as he grew older. Ryu was always gentle with Yeon. In fact, ‘soft’ wasn’t enough. He was overly gentle, to the point of being indulgent.

Perhaps that’s why she forgot who he was. Maybe it was because she had spent too many years treating him like a clueless child.

When Yeon mentioned the possibility of becoming a concubine in Song Yeong-ha’s household, Ryu became terrifyingly furious.

He cornered her, showing no emotion.

That year, Yeon knelt before him. Although the emperor hadn’t issued any punishment, she realised that he was right as the emperor and that she had to acknowledge her wrongdoing.

Nevertheless, Ryu ignored her for a long time afterwards. Her hair was loose and she wasn’t wearing any make-up.

“Your Majesty.”

“Enough. Go back inside and sleep.”

“Your Majesty, I…”

Yeon grabbed his sleeve. Ryu pulled his hand away and led her back to Yanmyeong Hall.

There, he sat her down on the bed and lowered himself in front of her.

Yeon wasn’t particularly surprised. Ryu had always comforted her like this before.

She looked into his composed, elegant face. When she bit her lip and clenched her fists, he took her hands and brought them up to his face. Yeon instinctively curled her shoulders.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“Your Majesty…”

“I’ve waited a long time for this.”

The sound was like fallen leaves breaking apart at her ear.

***

Originally, serving the emperor began with eight selected women.

Then sixteen palace maids from the Ministry of Internal Affairs were chosen to share his bed, one after another.

They were categorised by their assigned roles — sa-ui (attendants), sa-jang (managers), sa-chim (bed attendants) and sa-mun (scholars) — and acted as the emperor’s partners in practising intercourse before his formal wedding (daehon).

In other words, they served as ‘sihon gungnyeo’ — ‘ceremonial concubines’ — to familiarise the emperor with the female body and prevent him from embarrassing or distressing his empress and consorts on their wedding night.

After spending a single night with the emperor, these ceremonial maids typically went on to live lives very different from those of ordinary palace women.

If they were fortunate, they might be granted a low-ranking concubine title, such as ‘Dabeung’, and enjoy the luxuries of becoming part of the imperial harem. But most of the time, they were simply forgotten.

However, unlike the other palace maids, they were exempt from menial labour and led a life quite different from that of an ordinary court lady. Most palace maids worked tirelessly in the hope of becoming a sihon gungnyeo, or ceremonial maiden, to serve the emperor.

But regardless of her circumstances, Yeon felt as if she wanted to die.

To have the child she had raised confess that he had admired her as a woman all this time…

“Get up now.”

Curled up in a corner of Yanmyeong Hall with nowhere else to go, Yeon slowly lifted her head at the sound of the old court lady’s voice.

Having cried since morning and spent the entire day in anguish, Yeon could only look up at the woman with a sense of hopeless resignation.