Secret of the Red Lotus Flower (빨간 연꽃의 비밀)

Chapter 30

For many people, walking around on a starry night with their husbands and reminiscing about their life might be considered romantic. Soo-yun looked around her family's compound, though, and thought about how much she hated her life there. If given a choice, she would leave it all behind and strive to forget about this unpleasant time in her life. However, Ha-neul wanted to know about her childhood home. Her husband probably thought it would be a good distraction, not realizing the number of painful memories that lurked around every corner.

She briefly thought about giving the Crown Prince a sanitized version of her upbringing before rejecting that thought. She needed to finally have an honest conversation with her husband, and it would only work if Ha-neul understood the full scope of what she was running away from. She balled her hands into fists and exhaled as she strengthened her resolve to do what needed to be done, no matter how much it hurt.

"There is no reason to talk too much about the main house. You have already spent some time there," she said. "Besides, I didn't spend much time there after my mother was banished, which I have previously told you all about. What little time not used for painting, eating, or sleeping was spent hiding in my room, hoping that my father would finally forget all about me and let me live my own life in peace."

Abruptly turning away from the main house, Soo-yun strode across the courtyard to the other side of the compound with Ha-neul dutifully trailing behind. She stopped in front of a smaller building near the kitchens. It was large enough to hold multiple rooms and the decorations were a little bit more lavish than the main house although it was clear that no one was currently in it. Han Tae-yeong and his men had been staying there but left shortly after lunch, despite the injuries to half of them, in order to continue their travels north.

"This is the guesthouse my family uses for important guests that they don't want to put up in the main house. It was also my classroom for my lessons as a child." Soo-yun ran a hand down the doorpost. She closed her eyes as she steeled herself for what she was about to reveal.

"In the winter, if my father was unhappy with the quality of my writing, he would have me stripped down to my undergarments and locked inside with a brush, inkstone, and a stack of papers. He would have the servants close the flues to the ondol underfloor heaters. He only let me out at night to keep me from freezing and had me return the next day until I could perfectly copy a page of his choosing without shaky brush strokes or any other errors."

Soo-yun opened her eyes to see Ha-neul looking at her in shock. It was clear that, whatever stories the Crown Prince had anticipated hearing, tales like this were not expected. She held up her right hand flat and gave Ha-neul a tight-lipped smile.

"I am still not a fan of the cold, but I can keep my hand steady under any circumstance now and my calligraphy is flawless," Soo-yun wryly joked.

"Uh, is that a neolttwigi?" Ha-neul asked, pointing to the large seesaw near the wall. "I remember seeing some of the yangban ladies jumping on them when I visited my aunt. They could get pretty high in the air, and it looked like a lot of fun."

She knew precisely what Ha-neul was trying to do. However, she wasn't going to let the Crown Prince deflect the conversation into something more safe and comfortable. Soo-yun could still use this shift to her advantage.

"It was fun. Yeo-jin and I used to jump on it when I was younger," Soo-yun said. "It was one of the few physical activities that my father thought was acceptable for women. I know I only got five or six feet in the air, but it was just enough for me to see over the walls. I got to see the outside world and dream about what it would be like to be out there. I stopped when I turned fifteen, though."

"Why?" Ha-neul asked. Soo-yun had hoped that the Crown Prince would ask that and was not disappointed.

"There used to be a girl my age that lived next to us. Her name was Dan-bi and, while she came from a noble family, they were not as prestigious as ours, so we weren't allowed to socialize. She got engaged to a young scholar and, even though she was technically marrying down, her father gave them his blessing. I was jumping here with Yeo-jin on Dan-bi's wedding day. She looked so happy and radiant in her wedding gown as she waited for her groom to arrive. I thought about the family and life that she would have with someone that she actually chose for herself. I knew I didn't have that freedom and just... never had the desire to jump anymore. These were the walls that I would see for the rest of my life, and I decided that I should get used to seeing them every day instead of dreaming about what was on the other side."