If You Claim the Fallen Heiress - Chapter 29

Two days had passed. The total solar eclipse that would occur in a few months had come two days closer.

Yuseol was curious about where Mu-yeong would head when he left Museolwon during the solar eclipse. If he planned to take Geon with him at that time, she wanted to chase after and stop him.

The weather that had been warm like spring for the past few days had suddenly turned chilly without warning. In the past, this level of cold wouldn’t have been cold at all, but her body shivered endlessly.

It seemed like her stamina changed daily due to the aftereffects of the extreme poison. Today, the fact that she had held a sword and trained felt like something from very long ago, and she couldn’t even muster the courage to start again.

She would have to continue building up her strength without overexerting herself to be able to hold a sword like before.

Yuseol suppressed her desire to burrow into her blankets and came out to the courtyard. Though she wore a jeogori with a vest and even arm warmers, her body froze in the cold wind and she couldn’t move at all.

Soon she clasped both hands together and stretched to overcome the cold. Breathing in the wind with all her strength seemed to make her feel a bit refreshed.

But suddenly looking up, there was a man sitting in the tree. It wasn’t even surprising anymore. Yuseol stepped back one pace from the tree and casually spoke to the man.

“Good morning, Lord Jiwoon.”

Jiwoon was reading something in his right hand with great interest. Judging by how the letters appeared reversed in the faint sunlight, it seemed to be a letter.

“Are you reading something interesting?”

Jiwoon’s eyes that had been looking at the letter fell to Yuseol. As if he had just noticed her presence, he smiled as if greeting her, then looked down at the letter again.

No….

Answering a question or greeting wasn’t such a difficult thing, yet how could he act like that with someone right in front of him?

Yuseol was about to turn around. At that moment, she suddenly remembered the letter she had lost a few days ago. She had asked Myoyeon for help, but there had been no real results. Thinking it might be mixed with the dirt on the ground, she was still searching while looking at the ground…

…Could it be.

Yuseol’s gaze, which had half-turned away from Jiwoon, reached the tree again.

In her urgency, she first bit her nails, then stood on tiptoes and spoke a bit louder than before.

“You look very interested. If it’s not rude, may I ask what you’re looking at?”

Since he was up high, she couldn’t even glance at it sideways, and her curiosity only grew. As if reading Yuseol’s heart, Jiwoon readily answered.

“If you’re curious, I could read it to you.”

He unfolded the top part of the letter that had been rolled up. Then he began to deliberately pause as if showing off to Yuseol.

“Where shall I start reading?”

Yuseol hid her rising irritation and tried to wait patiently. Soon she pressed the back of her hand against under her eyes, which seemed about to twitch, and answered.

“If you’re having trouble deciding, please read from the beginning.”

Jiwoon, who had been thinking, finally began reading the letter.

“To my youngest sister.”

“…….”

“This letter probably won’t reach the paradise where you are. Though we’ll meet again someday, I’m writing this letter because I already miss you.”

The smile on Yuseol’s face faded. Jiwoon glanced down at her briefly, then moved his lips again.

“Yesterday I was cast out and came up to the capital, where I’m hiding in the storage of the Yu family blacksmith. Having lived my whole life in warm and comfortable places, becoming like a storage mouse overnight feels utterly hollow.”

It was Jiwoon reading the letter, but somehow it felt like she could hear her eldest sister’s voice.

But her sister had said she was sick of father’s affairs and had married a mountain scholar to live with him. It was a moment when she hoped the sender of the letter wasn’t her eldest sister.

Jiwoon sighed as if for her to hear, then recited the next line.

“I heard that second sister Yusil eloped with our family’s Mansik during the chaos. There are limits to bringing shame to the family, but since there’s no honor left to shame, I’m not particularly embarrassed.”

Yuseol’s eyes, which had been focused on the letter’s contents, became murky.

Yusil was an extremely familiar name to her. Her eldest sister’s name was Yusik because father thought she was a son when he received her, then when another daughter was born and he lost his son, the second was Yusil, and the third was Yuseol because she was born on a snowy day.

She instinctively knew that the letter Jiwoon was reading had come to her.

She couldn’t suppress the blackness that swept over her vision in an instant. She couldn’t overcome the breath that rose up to her throat.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t dreamed that the Han family would be destroyed, since treason was punished by law with the annihilation of three generations.

But it hadn’t been actual treason plotting that was discovered, and her sisters, who were fed up with their loyal father, had no interest in court affairs. And she had believed that Kim Seon would show his last remaining affection and look after at least her sisters and family members.

…So this is what it feels like to watch family members destroyed by the hand of someone you trusted.