If You Claim the Fallen Heiress - Chapter 21

Mu-yeong’s gaze moved to her straw sandals. They must be new shoes she had recently received from Myoyeon, yet they looked shabby and worn. It seemed to show the time she had spent searching for the dog.

Mu-yeong asked, though he already knew.

“Why are your shoes in that state?”

She hadn’t expected him to find flaws in the darkness. Seeming flustered, she stammered before giving an unexpected answer.

“Because I only have one pair of flower shoes….”

“Flower shoes?”

“…Yes.”

She was more ashamed of wearing straw sandals at any time despite her yangban status than of the dirty sandals themselves. He asked coldly.

“Are flower shoes saved for important moments?”

“Just in case.”

This was tantamount to saying that potentially encountering Mu-yeong wasn’t important to her. Though he wasn’t one for large emotional fluctuations, his face colored with displeasure.

“I see.”

He gestured toward Yuseol’s room. It meant for her to go inside now.

She bashfully lowered her head covered with the sseugaechima and passed by Mu-yeong. Then for some reason she stopped briefly and began turning back.

Mu-yeong looked down at her as she approached right up to him. In the darkness, her pure white face radiated a poignant beauty. She was like a butterfly lost and wandering in winter. He thought that if he lured her with sweet honey, she would follow obediently. A secretive desire flickered in his subtly wavering pupils.

Though she should have sensed the danger, she was busy absorbed in her own thoughts. She hesitated as if about to bring up something difficult, then nodded. Soon, as if having made up her mind about something, she looked up at him clearly.

“If I were to repay it,”

“…….”

“What would I need to repay this favor you mentioned?”

His eyes sharpened as he looked at the woman waiting for an answer.

“Well. I don’t need anything at the moment.”

The sseugaechima sank down as if disappointed. Soon it repeatedly swelled large and shrank small in the wind, as if representing her desire to cry.

Her deer-like eyes began looking up at him resentfully. If left alone, she seemed ready to burst into tears.

Time passed vaguely. Contrary to his expectations, she didn’t cry. Feeling bored, Mu-yeong suddenly began searching for what he might need.

In truth, he had never worried about anything until now. He already possessed enough wealth that thousands of dependents could live like idle gentlemen without lack. Houses, livestock, land—all overflowed, and he could acquire more if he wanted.

Then he suddenly discovered something he lacked and colored his pupils with interest. He was very curious about her reaction.

“Come to think of it, I have no woman to warm my bedchamber.”

Her face hardened visibly even in the darkness. She eventually backed away as if fleeing from the unpleasant and troublesome situation.

It was the reaction he had wanted. From the beginning, Mu-yeong had no intention of conversing with her. When he talked with her, his mood became strange. He got a little angry and his heart beat fast. He couldn’t definitively identify what kind of feeling it was.

He passed by her as if nothing had happened and crossed the courtyard. Then the hesitating woman approached right up to him with a face that still had something to say.

“W-wait a moment.”

Mu-yeong looked down at her.

Just then, moonlight clearly fell on his eyes that had been hidden under his gat. His pupils, too mysterious in color to be called black, shone mystically.

The woman who had been about to say something began examining the color of his pupils. Her face that had seemed ready to cry began changing to an expression of wonder.

Then wind blew. The sound of insects under the wooden floor suddenly stopped.

Her soft pink sseugaechima fluttered and brushed against Mu-yeong’s index fingertip.

The man’s Adam’s apple trembled as he met those clear eyes. With a small sigh, he pulled away the hand the soft hem had touched and turned around.

“I’ll be going now.”

In the end, it was strangely him who fled as if running away.

***

The unusually long dawn passed.

Yuseol, who opened her eyes at daybreak, finished bathing and arranging her hair and sat blankly.

Somehow she felt as if she had been bewitched by some non-human being last night. Even sitting still, her heart kept beating and her chest ached with a sharp pain.

But she couldn’t understand exactly why this was happening. Had she really been bewitched by something non-human?

Come to think of it, everything about him didn’t seem human. His tall height and long legs, broad shoulders, and that face alone—wasn’t it like God’s design meant to make one realize the world’s unfair principles?

He was strange in himself, but his eye color was special. It was a melancholy green like a forest where no light enters. She wondered if she was dreaming, but the cold wind she felt yesterday and her heart’s pounding were certainly real.

Living in the world, one occasionally meets peculiar people. Those born with naturally light brown hair or unusually bright eye colors were like that. Yuseol thought their hair color had faded because they received too much of God’s light and blessing at birth.

Had the man called Mu-yeong also received God’s blessing at birth?

But if so, why was his personality so twisted?

“Now that I think about it, there’s no woman to warm my bed.”

Last night’s conversation wouldn’t leave her ears. Yuseol found the wooden stick she had brought for training and picked it up. Then she began swinging it until she was out of breath. His voice still circled in her ears.

“Haa… haa… Seriously…”