Her brutal master paid no attention to his slave girl’s condition. Pressing down upon Sehwa’s back, he released a long breath and carelessly groped along her leg.

Rip.

Before long, Sehwa’s skirt was dragged upward and torn open. Panting, she clawed at the wall. Because her nails had not grown back, the skin on her fingertips split open once more.

“Why don’t you continue? Go on. Hmm?”

Hwon held his slave girl firmly beneath him as he raised his left hand to stroke her cheek. He touched her gently, as though she were a fragile treasure.

However, her violent master soon changed his mind. He pressed her delicate cheek harshly against the wall. Then, with his right hand, he began to caress her bare leg as if it were his birthright. His hand stroked the outside of her leg before gradually moving inwards.

Sehwa twisted her body in silent resistance. Without so much as blinking, Hwon mocked her defiance. He hooked her slender leg — fragile enough to seem ready to break — over his arm and raised it.

Knowing what was about to happen, Sehwa’s eyes trembled as she struggled to escape. As always, her movements were futile. Hwon instantly restrained the squirming slave girl who was trying to resist him. Then he thr*st his hips forward in one short, forceful motion.

“Ah!”

He forced his way through her tender flesh in a single thr*st and plundered her dry interior. Overwhelmed by the familiar pain, his slave girl gasped and released a tearful m*an.

“Ah……! No! I-I don’t want this! Ugh……”

The irregular force striking her from behind was difficult to endure. She hiccupped and struggled to breathe as she leaned against the wall in front of her. Her breaths were damp with terror and tears.

As the man moved on, his neatly bound hair gradually came loose and fell into disarray. Hwon frowned when the loose strands began to irritate him, raising a hand to push them away. A moment later, his pitch-black hair fell like a waterfall.

He swept his now-loosened hair back, then abruptly took the slave girl’s breath away. She glanced nervously towards him. As he tilted his head diagonally, his hair spread out around them like a folding screen.

With her lips completely captured beneath his crimson mouth, her eyes widened and she could not breathe. But she soon surrendered to the sight of his face filling her entire vision and closed her eyes.

She could only endure it if she did not look at him.

If she met the man’s gaze, she would not be able to bear what he was doing to her.

Perhaps her master understood the meaning behind her expression. After releasing her lips, Hwon began moving even more violently.

The vibrations travelled through the wall, making the door rattle. Hearing such indecent sounds echoing from the room so early in the morning, the servants covered their ears.

“Ah……. Ngh! Ahh…… Mmph!”

Buyong, who had come to offer Hwon her morning greetings, also turned away upon hearing the slave girl’s m*ans. She began retracing the path she had just taken.

“My Lady……”

“……Yul has been asking for me as well. We shall return later.”

The servant beside her started to follow her mistress when she noticed the shadow passing over Buyong’s face, but then paused and cast a resentful glance towards the door.

But that was all she could do.

Who could possibly object?

Hwon, the master of this residence, was simply enjoying himself with one of his slaves.

***

As winter approached, the servants’ faces grew somber. Prince Yu’s residence provided its slaves with warm places to sleep, clothing, and meals sufficient to fill their stomachs. Nevertheless, working itself became an ordeal in the cold weather.

“How bitterly cold will this winter be if it is already like this?”

“Indeed. The wind is already making my hands stiff.”

The servants scrubbing fabric near the estate’s well frequently blew warm breaths onto their hands against the increasingly frigid wind. Their hands, immersed in water throughout the day, were rough and chapped.

“Still, life as a slave here is better than it is elsewhere. At least no one starves to death.”

“That’s true. Do you remember the young slave from the Seo household who was sent here before? The one with the big eyes who used to run errands? I recently heard that he fell ill and died. But when I learned that it was because the poor child had not been properly fed… Living here is a hundred—a thousand—times better than serving such a heartless master.”

After voicing their complaints, the servants remarked that their circumstances were still better than those of slaves in other households. They smiled bitterly.

“Such is the life of a slave. We simply have to live as though this life were already lost to us. What else can we do?”

Unless an extraordinary event freed them, their lives would be no different from what had come before for the rest of their lives. They would live this way until they died. Therefore, they decided it was wiser to find whatever happiness they could in their miserable circumstances.

They were laughing and exchanging idle gossip when So-ok, a slave girl who had recently joined the household, looked at the woman washing clothes alone a short distance away and asked her a question.

“But who is that woman? She looks dreadful……”

At the direction of her gaze, a talkative middle-aged servant beside the well clicked her tongue, shook her head, and whispered,

“Sehwa? Try not to look at her if you can. You will only invite trouble.”

“Pardon?”

“Can’t you tell just by looking at her how badly she has been tormented? What kind of master would leave a slave girl in that state?”

“Ah……”

So-ok nodded. Although she was standing some distance away, Sehwa, the slave girl, was unmistakably different from the others. Like the others, she wore shabby clothes and had been reduced to skin and bones, yet her natural beauty could not be concealed. Her delicate, sorrowful face and listless movements drew the attention of the other women, too. There was no chance that the men would leave her alone.

‘Tsk! She suffers the fate that inevitably befalls a beautiful slave girl.’

Every household had one or two women like her: slave girls who attended to the master and his sons in their bedrooms. Despite the jealousy they faced, such women usually led wretched lives.

Their lives might have been different if they had been elevated to the position of bicheop, or slave concubine, but most masters viewed lowly slave girls as nothing more than nighttime playthings. Meanwhile, mistresses resented the servants who shared their husbands’ beds, persecuting them both openly and discreetly.

But who was in any position to pity anyone else?

So-ok’s expression soon turned indifferent as she looked at Sehwa. Having been born a slave herself, she would rank near the top if they were comparing miserable lives. Seeing one more unfortunate slave girl did not move her greatly.

“How can you tell her only that? You ought to explain everything properly.”

“Oh, forget it. Sehwa has been like that for a long time now. It is not as though she can go from being a slave back to being a noble lady. She will remain that way for the rest of her life. Just accept that this household has a slave girl like her and leave it at that.”

At another servant’s remark, curiosity returned to So-ok’s face.

A noble lady?

Every slave had different circumstances, but few stories were more fascinating than those of someone who had fallen from a lofty position into slavery.

“You cannot make me this curious and then refuse to explain. Here, I will do some of this for you. So please continue.”

So-ok took some of the middle-aged servant’s laundry. Only then did the older woman open her mouth again.

“I do not know whether you heard about it. It has not quite been three years yet. The capital was thrown into chaos……”

“Ah, that incident……”

So-ok immediately nodded. It was something everyone who lived in the capital remembered.

That day, houses had burned while soldiers stormed in and out of great estates without restraint. Several prominent men had been arrested and dragged away, including the Second Prince—the second son of the now-deceased former emperor.

The following day, numerous heads had been hung and impaled upon spears in the marketplace.

The wooden placards beneath the decaying heads had borne the same words: Traitors to the realm.

So-ok shuddered as she silently recalled the terrifying crime of treason, which she hardly dared speak aloud.

“It seems her family was implicated in that affair. I heard she was originally the cherished daughter of some noble household.”

“Oh, heavens……”

So-ok unconsciously sighed at the all-too-familiar tale. The middle-aged servant lifted another piece of laundry and continued.

When the incident occurred, all of her blood relatives, including her older siblings, were killed. Perhaps it would have been better if she had died with them. Instead, she survived and ended up as a slave in this household.”

“……”

“With a face that beautiful, she likely could not have escaped such a fate in any household. Tsk! She even bore our master’s child, yet she is still here living no differently from the rest of us. What a wretched life. Her fate is truly cruel.”

“What?”

“Sehwa is the young master’s mother.”

So-ok looked astonished by the revelation. As far as she knew, this illustrious household had only one young master. Yet the birth mother of that precious child was crouching over there just like her, scrubbing filthy fabric.

“Why is someone like her living here? After bearing him a son, should she not at least have been given a secluded annex?”

“How could we possibly know what Master is thinking? We must not even dare to speculate.”

“……”

“Do not approach her merely out of curiosity. The mistresses are already displeased to see that slave girl wandering around like this. If you become entangled with her, you could find yourself in serious trouble.”

Even households known for treating their slaves harshly would usually grant a servant a room and make her a biyoch if she bore the master’s child. Some attractive female slaves would therefore try to ingratiate themselves with their masters in the hope of achieving such a status.

‘But she bore him a son…….’

In households where the wife held considerable sway, a slave who gave birth to the master’s child might remain in her original position and continue working as before. But this household was different. It belonged to Prince Yu, the emperor’s full brother and a man renowned for his immense power. In a prince’s residence, no matter how distinguished the wife’s family might be, they could never take precedence over the master.

Such was the power of imperial blood.