Unmasking Souls

20. Loved Entirely

As her husband liked to explore the city, so did Kim Go Eun. She was allowed to take a walk around too, accompanied by her maid Eun Seung and several guards.

"Why do I need so many guards? This is Busan, My Lord, not Hanyang!"

"Either you obey or I'll lock you within this palace forever," he had said sternly.

Sighing, she agreed.

She decided to visit the clinic that day, she liked to help feed the sick or listen to the grandmothers' chatting about their big family.

The summer just started and it was a rather hot day. There had not been rain for a month, so the air was dry, the kind of temperature that made you rather thirsty all the time.

She had never used her palanquin again since she arrived in the city, and that afternoon too, she walked to the clinic, with her maid shading her figure with an umbrella of course, protecting her from the blazing sun.

While they got closer to the clinic, they saw someone approaching the place too from the direction of the city gate. She seemed to come to the city on foot, her clothes were dirty and her face was full with dust. She was staggering, as if she would fall sometime soon.

It was no surprise that she really swayed in front of the clinic front doors.

Go Eun was staring worriedly at the woman for several minutes, wondering what illness she could have had. When the woman truly swayed in front of them, without thinking, she ran to catch her fall, resulting her to sit on the road, the failing body of the woman on her lap, with the citizens of Busan as their spectators.

"Princess Kim! She's making you dirty!"

"I'm fine! Get her some water! She's feverish!"

"Busan........Busan Clinic? I must go there even if I die......." the woman told breathlessly.

"Ne, you have arrived. You will get help soon."

Eun Seung brought a cup of water and Go Eun helped the woman drank, wetting her chapped lips.

"Best.....water.....I've tasted in my life......."

Go Eun smiled.

"Yeppeuda..........Noble Lady.........who are you? Are you a human or have I arrived in the

afterlife?"

"I'm Kim Go Eun, the wife of Grand Prince Lee Min Ho of Joseon."

The woman let out a strangled gasp, like she choked from her own breath, before she grasped on Go Eun's blouse violently.

"Jeongmalyo? You're his.......wife?"

"YAH! LET YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF THE PRINCESS'S DRESS!" Eun Seung screamed angrily trying to take off the dirty hands that wrinkled the blouse of her lady.

"Yeoshin-nim (Goddess),.........mianhamnida..........jeongmal mianhamnida. I have sinned against you. Never again will I wish for someone that is too high for my reach! Let me live............please, let me live. I'll admire only from afar. Forgive me, forgive me! If you let me live, I'll be good, Yeoshin-nim. Jebalyo jebal........"

Go Eun was honestly afraid with the woman all of a sudden. Her first instinct was to push her away.

But when she suddenly rambled nonsense and wept so pitifully, she didn't have the heart to do that.

"LET THE PRINCESS GO, YOU PEASANT WOMAN!"

"Eun Seung-ah, don't! I think she's delirious. Her fever is really high. Tell the guards to bring her inside."