Chapter 46: The Shadow of the Unforgiven

Not long after their visit to the imperial palace, Court Lady Cho was summoned back to the Gyoyeong Palace. The last piece of news Anok received regarding her was that she had been reassigned to the royal laundry chambers . Now that she was reduced to nothing more than an insignificant, lowly laborer, Anok possessed zero desire to waste any further attention on her.

Meanwhile, the reception toward the return gifts and written greetings Anok had dispatched was quite favorable. A few prominent families who had been eagerly looking for an opportunity to forge a connection with the Myeong estate subtly hinted at their desire to cultivate closer ties, using Anok’s polite response as a convenient pretext.

While most of these could be easily brushed aside as standard social pleasantries, there was one particular invitation that absolutely could not be ignored. Holding the invitation tightly, Anok waited until the hour Yeo Jae-won typically returned from his official duties before making his way toward the main study.

“Your Highness, it is your bride. ……I am entering.”

Had it been like his past life, he would have stood frozen outside, meticulously waiting for a formal permission to cross the threshold. However, Anok recalled the casual remark Yeo Jae-won had thrown his way just a few days prior.

—You are the master of this estate, so feel free to come and go as you please.

The Prince had muttered those words in an entirely detached, indifferent tone while flipping through official reports sent from their fiefdom.

Though the declaration had been made primarily to set an example and solidify Anok’s authority in front of the servants following the incident with Court Lady Cho, there was zero reason for Anok to decline the leverage. Thus, he had merely put the advice into practice—yet the moment he swung the doors open and stepped inside, he instantly froze in his tracks.

“Ah……, well…….”

The very first thing that assaulted his vision was the broad, semi-naked torso of a man, his long black hair cascading all the way down his back. As the man turned his head, his sharp, elongated eyes confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was indisputably Yeo Jae-won.

“Would you mind closing the door first?”

Following the subtle nudge of that sharply defined jawline, Anok hurriedly stepped fully into the room and pulled the heavy doors shut, securing them tightly behind his back.

It appeared the Prince had been in the middle of removing his official headgear  to re-tie his topknot, leaving his long hair completely unbound. As he tilted his head slightly forward, a few shorter strands of hair slipped past his temples, framing his clean profile in a disorganized sprawl.

“…….”

“…….”

A suffocating, thick silence descended upon the room.

Anok kept his chin tucked firmly against his chest, his fingertips nervously tracing the crisp edges of the invitation in his hands. Seizing the interlude, Yeo Jae-won casually threw on an outer robe, and without bothering to fix his hair just yet, dismissively gestured for his remaining attendants to clear the room.

Standing rigidly against the tightly shut doors, Anok bit his lower lip as the massive shadow of the Prince slowly advanced toward him. They were standing so incredibly close that Anok felt as though the intricate floral lattices of the wooden doors would be permanently stamped into his spine if he backed up even a millimeter.

“So, what could possibly be of such terrifying urgency…….”

“…….”

“……that caused you to burst in so recklessly in broad daylight?”

Weren’t you the one who told me to come and go as I pleased? Flushed with a sudden surge of irritation, Anok snapped his head up. He was instantly taken aback by his own uncharacteristic boldness; changing his behavior a few times had apparently made him far too comfortable, but the action was already done.

Within those long, dark eyes, a quiet intensity burned as Yeo Jae-won stared down at him. Having been fixed strictly on the floorboards while the Prince dressed, Anok only now realized that the man’s inner robe ties  were completely undone.

The one acting indecently in broad daylight was not him, but this very man. Gathering his brows into a sharp, defensive frown, Anok prepared to counter.

“It is not that…….”

“It is not that?”

However, having been born with an inherently gentle disposition, the fierce momentum of his first words quickly crumbled, and his voice trailed off into a quiet murmur.

Amused by the sudden retreat, Yeo Jae-won let out a low, playful chuckle, deliberately mimicking his bride’s cadence like a predator toys with its prey.

“……Did you not instruct me to make myself at home?”

“At this rate, I suppose you will be making yourself entirely at home in my bedchambers as well.”

Anok’s lips parted in utter astonishment, a faint, breathless gasp slipping past his teeth.

The physical appearance of the man before him perfectly matched the husband he had known for seven years, yet the fluid, casual weight of his demeanor and the teasing nature of his words felt entirely alien.

Blinking his eyelids slowly to mask his mounting confusion, Anok anchored his gaze and looked up at Yeo Jae-won with renewed resolve. If he remained completely silent and let his flustered state show, he would only continue to be swept into the Prince’s playful rhythm.

“Is the esteemed Third Prince—a man who ought to stand as a paragon of virtue for the entire empire—truly going back on his word so ungentlemanly?”

At the sharp retort, the corners of Yeo Jae-won’s lips tugged even higher. While any other royal might have taken offense at having their conduct criticized, the Prince conceded with surprising ease, slowly stepping back to relieve the heavy shadow he had cast over Anok.

“My jest went too far.”

He offered a casual, half-hearted attempt to smooth down the collar of his innermost green silk tunic. While the layers beneath had been immaculately organized by his servants, the knot Yeo Jae-won had hastily tied himself was so loose it was practically non-existent.

He was a man who had spent his entire life receiving pristine wardrobe service from others. Anok, on the other hand, had spent his past life meticulously learning the precise art of dressing royal attire from senior eunuchs just to please this very man.

Unable to stomach the sight of the messy, unraveling fabric, Anok reflexively reached out his hands. He completely untied the loose, chaotic knot and began expertly weaving the silk into a pristine, tight finish.

“…….”

“…….”

In his past life, Yeo Jae-won never spared a single glance toward Anok’s hands whenever they brushed against his clothes. For Anok, assisting him with his robes had become a basic reflex, executed without a second thought.

But the Yeo Jae-won standing before him today was not the man who had shared those seven years. To a man who had never permitted anyone to enter his intimate perimeter so freely, a profoundly strange, unreadable expression flashed across his features.

Misinterpreting the sudden stiffness as a sign of royal displeasure, Anok quickly dropped his head and stepped back, offering a hurried apology.

“Forgive me, Your Highness. The knot looked as though it would unravel at any moment…….”

Before he could finish his sentence, he felt the heavy presence of the man shift away. When Anok lifted his eyes once more, he was met with the broad back of the Prince, now covered by the deep green, textured weave of his outer robe.

An intensely awkward silence filled the room. As Anok debated how to break the tension, Yeo Jae-won reached out, took the heavy formal overcoat  his eunuch had laid out, and slid his arms through the wide sleeves. He then questioned Anok in his usual, level tone.

“Are you going to keep me in suspense, or will you finally reveal what brought you all the way to my study?”

“Ah, the Princess of Jeongan  has sent an invitation.”

“My sister-in-law?”

The moment the title passed Anok’s lips, Yeo Jae-won referred to her as his sister-in-law without a shred of hesitation, making zero effort to conceal his profound affection for her.

Anok was already well aware of exactly what the late Crown Prince and his wife meant to Yeo Jae-won.

To him, they had been his true family. Following the early passing of the late Empress and given the reigning Emperor’s cold, calculating neglect, it was the late Crown Prince, Yeo Seo-won, who had fiercely protected and raised his younger brother. The Princess of Jeongan—a woman handpicked by the late Empress and profoundly cherished by the late Crown Prince—had extended that exact same fierce warmth to Yeo Jae-won.

They were his sanctuary. Following the late Crown Prince’s untimely death, Yeo Jae-won had spared absolutely nothing to protect the Princess of Jeongan and her young son, Yeo Song.

“Following our wedding, the Princess sent a handwritten letter along with a congratulatory gift. I sent a return gift to express our gratitude, and in response, she has extended an invitation to visit the Jeongan Palace.”

At those words, Yeo Jae-won recalled how, prior to Anok’s formal arrival at the capital’s estate, the Princess of Jeongan had personally visited him to hand over the late Empress’s personal jewelry as a wedding gift.

“May I send word that we will pay our respects shortly?”

Letters sent from noble ladies typically followed a rigid, uniform script—polished sentences expressing gratitude for the return gifts and a vague, polite wish to cross paths with the Grand Consort in the future.

But the Princess of Jeongan’s letter was vastly different. It was drenched in the sincere, profound warmth of an older sister worrying over her husband’s sole surviving brother, accompanied by genuine goodwill toward Anok, the person who had newly joined his family.

From what Anok remembered, the Princess had never harbored any hostility toward him. Following her husband’s sudden death, she had simply kept an incredibly low profile, doing everything in her power to ensure the survival of her infant son, Yeo Song.

Furthermore, Yeo Jae-won absolutely adored the child.

In his past life, there was a period when the Emperor completely ceased visiting the Gyoyeong Palace, leaving Anok unable to conceive an heir. During that time, the court officials clamored aggressively for the Emperor to take on noble concubines.

Looking back, it was highly probable that Hyun Sang-eun had been pulling the strings of the high ministers to push his own daughter into the inner palace, but there was a limit to how long the Emperor could completely ignore the desperate outcries of his cabinet regarding the imperial succession.

During that chaotic period, Yeo Jae-won had publicly declared before the court that if the Gyoyeong Palace could not produce a direct heir, he would legally adopt Yeo Song and name the boy his official successor.

“We shall visit her in two days,” Yeo Jae-won decided.

“Then I shall have the messengers coordinate the schedule.”

“……You will be coming with me.”

After skimming through the letter, Yeo Jae-won handed the invitation back to Anok, adding the final instruction. At his words, Anok’s expression subtly hardened.

He could not bring himself to offer a swift reply. Stepping into the Jeongan Palace meant he would inevitably come face-to-face not just with the Princess, but with young Yeo Song as well.

In his past life, watching Yeo Jae-won cradle his tiny nephew in his arms and play with him so gently had sparked a fragile, desperate shred of hope within Anok’s chest. He had believed that even though the Prince found the act of holding Anok utterly repulsive, he would at least show warmth and protection to a child born of his own blood.

Yet, during the agonizing span of less than a hundred days from their infant’s birth to its tragic demise, that single, fragile anchor of hope had been systematically crushed, broken, trampled upon, and ultimately reduced to absolute dust.

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