"My son! Where is my son! I have come to pick up my son and nephew…from…the dungeons…son? Is that you? Where are your teeth? Were you flogged? Why are you hunching over like that? And where is your cousin? How is his health? Did it get any better? Where is he?" "Mother, I think that I heard some pretty bad news about him…" "Was he starved? And tortured? Where you also….?" "How comes I got out and my cousin who is innocent got sent into exile instead? Mother?" "It is because of your upping marriage obviously! But why did he get sent into exile? Didn't his father make any sort of plea for him at all?" "It was his father who has implicated and he couldn't take it! He had a mental breakdown and he took his son along with him so that he wouldn't be exiled alone!" "What! What on earth…let us just focus on you and your upcoming marriage for now; your concubine has already been settled into the palace and I hear that she has been buried rather heavily unfortunately in your absence. But you just need to be on top of your studies now and look for a job to support your wife and concubine since they no longer will welcome you into the palace…" "What! What do you mean they will not welcome me into the palace! Where am I supposed to stay? And with what money! How am I supposed to support myself and 2 women at the same time! Nobody said that I would't be supported in the palace!" "Well what did you expect would happen after this public case! Don't you realise how lucky you are to get away with your life after this and still marry a Princess? Do you now understand why your father persistently nagged you to follow him in his work before he had that mental breakdown! But instead you just wasted your time in places of pleasure whilst leeching off of your father's wealth! Well now you have no father and no older brother's to support you! I have no home to go to and your grandparents are facing a mountain of debt, so much so that they cannot return to their home as well! As your uncle wants nothing to do with your aunt as well! We must secure the home we are in now for yourselves, although he we have to work for the upkeep and we need to look over the shops…but enough about that now! We must join your aunt in sending off to her son exile so we can focus on that since the shops are mostly in her name…"
"…if we still do not leave, we will miss the opening for the in on our way to the north!" "Mother! What have I done wrong! Why didn't ur using speak up for me! And why did father betray me like this when I had done nothing wrong at all! Why me? Why was I exiled! My cousin was the one who always stayed in those corrupt places, so why am I being punished? It is because of how all of you treated The Lord Nam in the past! And because our connections are now more inferior than his even during his demotion and humiliation! The very first time that I set foot in the brothel was because I was sent a letter by my cousin to celebrate his upcoming marriage with him!" "What! Did you tell this to the palace officials! Why wasn't this mentioned before! My son, my poor son, how can you endure such punishment like this! It simply isn't fair at all! I shall speak to your cousin for you and I will bring you back as soon as I can, just wait for me!"
"…so tell me again, why are you holding me accountable for your son being thrown int exile when I have already explained my position to you? I already told you that I hold enough power to pull out only one of my cousins and…" "And you couldn't save the innocent one! It had to be my clean son to serve this punishment!" "Aunt, your nephew was already chosen to be engaged to a Princess what exactly did you expect of me? Of course I had to choose him over my other cousin? Hw is it my fault that you have both spoiled your children so much so that you have rendered them useless and unfit for this had working and competitive society? Since when do fathers take such a gentle approach to parenting nowadays? You son has received such a light punishment, so what have you come to complain about now? I guess now that you have lost all of your sons's aunt, you must be seeking additional support? I suppose that I can help you out with that without it costing you that much at all." "What suggestion could you possibly have up your sleeve?" "Have you already forgotten that I have a nephew that you took from my custody once? What other choice do you have but to adopt him? I can support you for his sake at least now that you have no sons or husband to support you at all." "Aunt! Please agree with him for goodness sake so that he can help me find a job!" "What? Why are you still pinning your hopes on him for?" "What do you expect? I do not have a family anymore to help me out, do I? No father or brothers, who else can I turn to?" "Very well, I shall think about it and…" "Per our agreement aunt, you shall never darken my door again so you need to decide now and never bother me again! I will supply you with monthly dividends for him until he finds work and can support himself."
"…I heard that the couple were just recently conferred with new titles that was promulgated by The Empeoro himself for saving the marriage of his precious Princess. That was supposed to be given to you on your wedding day!" "I should be qualified enough to receive those titles; my cousin rose through military ranks and was once a powerful favoured official not that long ago and I am not the only one to remember that. He never even basted about his position, that is why people preferred to keep him in power rather than to elect someone else for his position! I heard that his wife was conferred with being virtuous and gentle in temperament, being graceful and even beautiful in appearance; that also should have gone to my concubine. Have you heard any news about her?" "Well…I didn't want to tell you this, but she has been bullied quite heavily in your absence and has had to bear the brunt of your wife's anger for the humiliation that your scandal has caused." "How so? Tell me everything mother?" "Well, she has beec made to kneel for hours in the morning when paying respect to the main wife, she has been left out when it comes to marital gifts to show marital affection and there…has been a little incident when your wife disciplined her…." "What incident? Please do not hold anything back from me mother!" "Someone may or may not have tampered with her face cream, resulting in some very unflattering botches on her face…" "What? How?" "For goodness sake son, do you now see why we were against you marrying that useless whore?" "What kind of concubine lets anything happen to her face at all? How do you know it was the face cream?" "Her diet was already investigated, but the Princess refuses to take any responsibility for the matter at all. It seems that there was some leadwort poisoning and they did try to pin the crime on someone else, but the maid they had in mind was coincidentally allergic to the poison herself and this matter comet quite openly, so…" "Is there anything else that happened to her?" "She has been getting the wrong portion of clothes and has been harassed and bullied by The Household Department in the palace. She was even made to kneel all night in the bitter winter night for being accused of stealing coal beyond her designated portions." "What a fearsome woman that I have to surrender to indeed, and to think that she maimed my concubine before I could even settle in with her as I promised? How can I possibly turn to her now if she is as scarred as you described her to be?"
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"Are you happy now husband? You have finally restored your mother to justice and you no longer have a grandmother for your children that you are ashamed of? You do not even have to tell them that she was a slave concubine at all." "It is something at least for my future family and…" "And your past childhood to heal as well husband, please do not forget to care for yourself as well, for there is no family that I can have without you." "I also brought up my uncle's shortcomings in his shops, so we will take that back as well." "What shortcomings?" "The endless complaints of working in bad weather conditions, working overtime and not getting paid for it, the materials are not meeting the required standard…" "Husband, they already handed you everything apart from those shops, do you really need those as well?" "My bloodline dies with me and that is exactly what I mean; I am taking back the shops as a penalty for their time in my home and do not fret, this will be a task for your embroidery business that your sister=in=law can help us with." "And what can we do to celebrate this small victory?" "We will null celebrate tonight since the wedding couple and their families will be busy with the marriage arrangements still; we will have new meals incorporated to our menu, and for your hard work I shall recite you with your kisaengs, but only briefly before we go to see your brother." "Really? How long can we stay there for?" "Just a day wife, maybe 2 maximum but that is it. We will do our best to promote your embroidery business so that tour shares will increase and we can live a comfortable life in that village when I retire soon." "Soon? Do you really mean it husband?" "Help me so that I can retire sooner and we can live out the peaceful lives we deserve to raise our children in." "Of course I will help you husband, as long as you can stick to your promise. But your cousin…he was innocent." "I didn't frame him into exile at all, that was the work of someone else." "Who?" "Why don't you ask my nephew about that? How else was he supposed to get formally adopted if he didn't use this method to rid himself of his rival?"