Princess of the lost Kingdom

Chapter 32

Third person's POV

Sana scans around the room and then stops when her eyes caught Mina, she smiles with a hard to read expression on her face, 'As usual, after the evaluation, if you can not pass, you will be demoted back to your previous role. If you were a slave, you will have to be back being a slave.' She announced to everyone, but her eyes are glaring right at Mina, as if that is the threatening message she wants to send directly to Mina.

Mina nervously gulps, at this point, she's sure that the reason Consort Sana wants to take charge of this evaluation is because of her, and she's also so so sure that the topic is going to be something that she's not familiar with,

And soon enough, the guards bring in many many trays of cooked chestnuts, then they place one tray next to each maid. Everyone is looking at each other in suprise, no one has ever thought there would be an evaluation related to chestnuts,

Sana smirks before announcing, 'In the duration of an incense being ignited until it all burnt out, you need to peel 10 chestnuts. Each of them needs to be perfectly peeled, holding its shape, no breaking, no damage even just a tiny bit.'

Mina bites her lips to calm down her nerves, how on earth is she going to peel chestnuts. Growing up as a royalty, she had never had to do anything by herself, all chestnuts that she had ever eaten, were all already peeled for her. Sana obviously knew that fact, and therefore she is now using it against Mina,

'Your Highness, stay calm, watch me and follow what I do.' JiHyo whispers to Mina,

But then Sana continues, 'No talking, no looking around is allowed. Alright, the time starts now.'

JiHyo worriedly sighs before sitting down and starts with the peeling. Meanwhile, before sitting down herself, Mina tries to look up to the front again to confirm that the Queen is indeed not here, 'Your Majesty, where are you?' She dejectedly thought to herself,

Mina has no choice but to brave herself for the job, she holds this small knife up, the one which is used to peel chestnuts, 'Mina, you can do it. How hard can this be?' She is encouraging herself,

But to her disappointment, it's a lot harder than she thought. The chestnut just keeps rolling away from the knife because of its hard, smooth and shiny outer shell, but even once Mina managed to cut through the shell, the inside flesh also got cut in half, 'Oh God, how am I going to get ten perfectly peeled chestnuts? This is impossible.' Mina mumbles to herself while wiping her own sweat from her forehead.

Meanwhile, Head Court Lady Nayeon can totally tell that Mina is struggling, she secretly writes a small note and gestures for a guard nearby to come over, 'Bring this to Her Majesty, she is at the training ground at the moment. Be quick!' She tells the guard,

With that, the guard runs straight to the training ground. From afar, he can see the Queen is practising archery with Vice Chief of royal guards Dahyun and Vice Minister of war JeongYeon, he wants to run inside but was stopped by some other guards, 'Where are you from and what are you doing here?' They ask to be sure of the safety for the Queen,

'Head Court Lady told me to deliver this note to Her Majesty.' He answers,

JeongYeon noticed the commotion, she walks over to check, 'What's happening?'

'Vice Minister, Head Court Lady Nayeon told me to deliver this note to Her Majesty.' The guard repeats,

'Give me, I will pass it on to Her Majesty.' JeongYeon tells him,

With that, he gives JeongYeon the note then bows his head before leaving,

JeongYeon opens the note to read, 'Your Majesty, Mina needs help at the evaluation.' After reading, instead of giving it to the Queen right away, JeongYeon crunches it up with her hand then puts it into her pocket. She has in fact been feeling very upset since Chaeyoung made Mina her personal maid. She lost the chance to see Mina whenever she wants, and therefore a selfish thought has come into her mind, that is if Mina comes back to being a slave, she will have more chances to get to meet Mina more often, and that there will be more chance for the girl to fall for her. Therefore, she won't let the Queen helps Mina this time.