Bu-yeong headed to the Miscellaneous Duties Room. This was where the most difficult and unpleasant tasks, ones that nobody ever wanted to carry out, were performed. Washing the clothes of the court ladies and eunuchs, and cleaning the latrines, were just two of its responsibilities.

The moment she arrived in the courtyard, Bu-yeong grimaced sharply.

‘I still can’t get used to this smell.’

As she entered the yard, she was hit by a stench coming from over a hundred wooden buckets piled in one corner. At first glance, they appeared to be ordinary water pails, but they were actually chamber pots.

The palace was vast, but there were only a limited number of latrines. Unless they had urgent business, palace staff commonly kept chamber pots in their sleeping quarters and used those instead. During the day, it wasn’t too difficult to visit the latrine alone, but once night fell, they had no choice but to use the buckets.

Come morning, they would empty their buckets and take them to a designated spot. Eunuchs from the Miscellaneous Duties Room would then go around in carts collecting the buckets and delivering them to the backyard.

Bu-yeong was in charge of washing the buckets.

Bracing herself, Bu-yeong took a deep breath, exhaled and rolled up her sleeves. It was a task she performed every day, yet she still had to make a mental commitment each time. The shame had long since faded, but she simply couldn’t get used to the stench that had seeped into her bones.

Bu-yeong placed a long wooden pole, roughly her height, on the ground and hung a water pail on each end. Balancing the pole horizontally on her shoulders, she made her way to the well.

The laundry maids, who had been pounding clothes by the well, glanced at her briefly, then quietly returned to their own work.

Sometimes ill-natured court ladies would pick on Bu-yeong, but the laundry maids seemed to regard her as being in the same miserable position as them. They didn’t bother her, but nor did they help her. They simply acted as if she didn’t exist.

After drawing water from the well, Bu-yeong filled her pails to the brim and returned to the backyard.

“Well then, let’s get started.”

Bu-yeong grabbed one of the foul-smelling wooden buckets, tipped it over and emptied its stagnant contents into the drainage ditch. She poured in some fresh water, swirled it around to roughly rinse the inside, then began scrubbing it with a straw brush. Finally, she poured in another scoop of clean water, swirling it around to rinse the inside thoroughly. She then flipped the bucket over and set it aside.

It was when she had washed ten buckets.

Thud—

“Ah!”

Bu-yeong let out a short cry and clutched her right forehead. Something blunt had flown past and hit her.

When she turned her head in the direction it had come from, she saw three court ladies standing together and giggling.

‘It was them.’

Bu-yeong quickly scanned the ground. On the dirt lay a smooth stone, clearly out of place. It must have been picked up from some pondside.

One of the court ladies stepped forward, feigning an apologetic expression as she spoke.

“Forgive me. My hand must have slipped.”

It was a ridiculous excuse. However, Bu-yeong saw no reason to respond. She simply ignored them and got back to work. After all, even if she did get angry, they wouldn’t feel the slightest bit of remorse.

Initially, Bu-yeong couldn’t fathom why the court ladies were treating her so badly and resorting to cruel pranks. Wasn’t she still the empress, if only in name? Even if the Emperor turned a blind eye, they should show some respect.

But over time, she came to realise why.

When a laundry maid made a mistake, she was scolded by a court lady. When a court lady erred, she was punished by a senior attendant. But no matter what they did to the empress, no one reprimanded them.

To the court ladies, Bu-yeong was nothing more than a convenient scapegoat. There were no senior attendants left to punish her on the Empress’s behalf, and she had no natal family to protect her.

“You wretched brats!”

Bu-yeong turned her gaze toward the shout. In the distance, an elderly woman with graying hair came running.

Before long, she reached them and began thrashing the court ladies with the stick in her hand.

Thwack! Thwack!

The court ladies didn’t have time to take offence. They dropped to the ground, flat on their bellies, and begged desperately. The arrogance they had displayed just moments earlier had disappeared.

“Please forgive us!”

“This lowly maid has committed a grave sin!”

The old woman paid them no mind and swung the stick once more.

“Ah!”

“Eek!”

Such was the force behind her blows that the stick snapped clean in two. As she glanced around in search of a new branch, a middle-aged senior court lady came running over in a panic.

“Your Majesty the Queen Dowager! Please, calm yourself. You’ll harm your health like this.”

“Court Lady Hong! Those wenches tried to poison my food! There’s no doubt they’re after my position! I must kill them at once!”

With bloodshot eyes, the Queen Dowager glared down at the court ladies. She was panting heavily, ready to break their bones and gnaw on their flesh right then and there.

Court Lady Hong gently patted her on the back to calm her down.

“Your Majesty… no, Your Majesty the Empress. They’re merely maids working in the Miscellaneous Duties Room. If you truly suspect something, have them brought in and tested for poison.”

The Queen Dowager furrowed her brows in thought, then suddenly broke into a bright smile and looked up at the sky.

“There will be a full moon tonight, won’t there?”

“There will indeed. A very bright moon shall rise.”

Upon hearing her words, Court Lady Hong discreetly signalled to the maids prostrate on the ground, instructing them to leave. As if their skirts were on fire, the court ladies scurried away without delay.

“Will His Majesty visit my quarters tonight?”

“Do not worry, Your Majesty. Since it’s the night of the full moon, he will surely come.”

“What use is the full moon! He spends all his energy on other women, and in front of me, he merely shares a silent meal! Ah… Court Lady Hong, it has already been four months since I last served His Majesty.”

“Please calm yourself, Your Majesty. You’ll strain your body.”

“If only that lowborn wench Lady Ryeobi didn’t exist!”

The Queen Dowager’s wrinkled face twisted into a grotesque grimace, resembling a bear glaring at a deer.

“She bore one prince, and now she thinks she’s above everything. What a pathetic thing. In the end, they’re all my children as the Empress. How dare she try to rise above her station? No, Court Lady Hong. What if I become too complacent and she truly takes my place? I don’t want to be banished to the Cold Palace.”

“Your Majesty, you must return to your quarters now and prepare to receive His Majesty. We’ve filled the bath with dried rose petals. I’ve also brought new oil for your hair – it smells divine.”

The Queen Dowager nodded repeatedly as she listened to Court Lady Hong’s gentle words.

Just then, her eyes met those of Bu-yeong, who had been watching quietly from afar.

“You—? I feel like I’ve seen you before.”

“I pay my respects to Her Majesty the Empress.”

Sensing the mood, Bu-yeong immediately knelt and bowed low to the ground. The Queen Dowager gave her a curious glance before turning away and heading back to her quarters.

Bu-yeong watched her hunched figure grow smaller in the distance, eyes brimming with tears.

‘She doesn’t even recognize me anymore… Her condition must have worsened.’

The Queen Dowager had suffered from nervous breakdowns since her youth—all because of the late Emperor’s affairs with women.

The late Emperor had been indiscriminate in his lust, taking pleasure in the company of new women, be they noble ladies or mere maids. Aside from the one-night companions, he had formally installed forty-six concubines, and from them, twenty princes and eighteen princesses were born.

Despite such womanizing tendencies, the late Emperor had avoided sharing a bed with the Queen Dowager. She had been the exact opposite of his type.

With her pale skin, narrow eyes, and slender frame, the Queen Dowager had none of the qualities the Emperor preferred—he was drawn to women with darker skin, large, deer-like eyes, and voluptuous curves.

Rarely receiving his attention, the Queen Dowager lived in constant anxiety that she would one day be cast out. Even when she finally gave birth to a legitimate heir at a late age, her joy was overshadowed by deep, unrelenting fear.

The Queen Dowager was struck down by severe mental illness following childbirth, leaving her mind and body in ruins. Plagued by paranoid delusions, she was convinced that someone was trying to harm her. At the slightest provocation, she lashed out at her maids and the child she had borne.

“Did Her Majesty give you that wound again?”

“…I happened to greet her at the wrong time, when she was in a foul mood.”

“Prince Yeon.”

“Sister Bu-yeong, really now. Why do you still call me that? Just say Gok-woo, casually.”

Bu-yeong let out a dry laugh at the memory of her time with Yeon-wang. Once, they had been as close as siblings.

‘Then why—why did he…?’

Bu-yeong shook her head, brushing away the thoughts of the past. There were still mountains of wooden buckets left to scrub.

After hundreds—perhaps over a thousand—scrubs with the straw brush and endless trips carrying water, the sun had already begun to set. The sky grew dim and dusky, and just as the Queen Dowager had said earlier in the day, a bright full moon now hung in the heavens.

The day of the full moon.

That was the night the two rulers of the imperial palace were meant to share a bed.

Unless the Empress was in confinement, it was a ritual that had to be fulfilled.

♛༺═════༻♛

“How could you come so late, knowing what day it is? Do you have any idea how long it takes to get rid of that stench? Even if you bathed in water all day, it wouldn’t be enough!”

The court lady waiting outside the Cold Palace grumbled, giving Bu-yeong a sharp glare. Without waiting for a response, she grabbed Bu-yeong by the arm and pushed her into the waiting palanquin.

The four eunuchs carrying the palanquin didn’t spare Bu-yeong a thought as they broke into a run. Inside the jolting palanquin, Bu-yeong braced her hands against the wall, just managing to keep her balance.

About half an hour later, the palanquin finally stopped in front of a bathhouse near Gwanggeon Palace.

This was a place used by concubines or court ladies who were due to spend the night with the Emperor.