Chapter 119: Kang Da-In

I should have known all long that she was up to her tricks as always...but after so many years I saw a shadow of the old him that I fell in love with since childhood...how could I miss out on that opportunity to bring him back to me once and for all? And he was spending time with me, conversing with me, drinking, laughing and filly looked at me for the first time in such a long time...

My mind wondered back to that argument they had that day in the courtyard; that bitch was finally showing her true colours when she told him no less how jealous she was of all the kisengs that were way to talented and prettier than she could ever hope to be. But he was trying to appease her s as always and even told her that he would leave us alone if she wanted to, she only had to come back home to him. And in a fit of jealous rage, that was when she tried to make her own husband to be a monster. "I cannot believe this" she gasped, a little too dramatically in my opinion "so this is what you think? That have both been playing a game of release and then capture tougher? No! You've been playing it on your own. Unless...you have been using all of them as tools just to test me? I didn't think you could stoop that low. You must know how desperate they are to escape this life and you are the only once who can give them that chance? And if you loved me like you tell me all the time then you wouldn't test me to conquer me. And these are innocent women, so make your choice! If you are not sincere to them then stop talking to them1" and with that she left, walking past me and completely ignorant of my pain and my heartbreak that lay in her words, at least that was until..."fine! I choose them who choose to pamper me, unlike yourself! After everything I've done for you. I should never have fallen for a lowborn such as yourself!" He bellowed before stomping back into the gibang and he emptied her room out. She came back a few hours later as stoic as ever and locked herself in her room...until he appeared...the one man that got Yeon out of her room, the one that got her back to normal...while she left her so-called husband on his own for anyone to take....

After that night Seon-Ho came by to drink himself silly outside of Yeon's door every night. The kisengs crowded him as usual...but it was suddenly me he kept staring at. I jumped at this chance as I made my way next to him. He actually put his arm around me and I felt my heart beating out of my chest. I placed my head in his shoulders and I talked about how nice the atmosphere was without her before making a pitiful statement about what I heard from their argument and how she made him use us like chess pieces. I didn't look at him but I...I swear I nearly fell over in shock when he apologised to me and to the rest of the women he talked to. He asked me if I wanted anything I return for his rude behaviour and I...I finally got the courage to confess to him after all of these years. He was silent for a while before he asked me why I looked him so much, but when I told him that he was really the man his father brought him up to be he just went silent again before he told me that he always knew how I felt and that he needed me by his side now that Yeon had just left him alone. I leaned in to kiss him but unfortunately at that moment, he fell asleep on my lap drunk. I couldn't stop beaming as I managed to shyly stroke his hair and trace his face before he turned his face...he didn't confess his feelings back...but he was finally mine.

But oddly enough he made me play into the patriarchal rules since he was still only just married to Yeon. I had to greet her every morning on my hands and knees but she always walk past me, ignoring her husband's new concubine, which was against the rules itself. But soon there was another issue; a lot of the girls had started falling ill, to the point where they couldn't serve their clients anymore. All of this started to happen around the time they Yeon argued with her husband about them, so everyone started being wary of her. Their paranoia then slowly turned to anger when certain items started going missing, the girls either contracted hives or crashes that would sometimes even spread to their clients. The clients walking away was one problem, but having Seon-Ho turn them away practically broke their hearts; some even ended up crying for days on end. But something else started to happen; the clients striated requesting for Yeon, who was suddenly more than happy to oblige. When we heard this, no one was angrier that Seon-Ho who practically locked her up in her room so no one could call on her. One day; he caught a man trying to peek into her room while she was alone...that very same man was found dead outside the gibang barely an hour later when a very drunk and angry Seon-Ho barged his way into her room...and we all heard what happened next...although...it was different. In a place like this; even though women were meant to provide men with pleasure; all you could really hear were screams of pain. But with them...all you could hear was the opposite; something no women had heard come form another woman's mouth. The noises were so foreign to us that we actually gathered outside of her room until it stopped.

My mouth twisted in anger as I ran to my room and destroyed every luxury I had in sight; what exactly was it about that lowborn girl that enticed him so much? Right down to the point where they received genuine pleasure from each other instead of dutiful pains? I locked myself in my room all night waiting for him to come find me...it was only when I heard about what happened last night from the others that he stayed in that bitch's room all night long. That was when I finally had enough; Seon-Ho was looking at me for the first time and had even started sending me gifts and had reinstated my position to madame of the gibang whist being a kiseng myself. I wasn't going to loose the man who made all of this possible for me, and who finally started loving me back. It was high time I started fighting against that low-born common bitch who thought she could dare steal from a noble woman.