Chapter 87 (1/2)

Although Kyosul was excited, she tried her best to stay calm as she was walking with Bipaan. Following him silently, she folded her hands and walked along, with her head lowered.

‘I didn’t know there was a path here.’

While waking behind him, Kyosul took a walk in the untrodden path in the back of the East Palace for the first time. She always passed through the front and middle gates of the palace, but he took her down the secluded road. She heard the sound of the stream while walking down the road. As the road was adjacent to the wall of the palace, there was a stream leading into the outer castle. At that moment, she recalled what she heard from Kyoyoung, his second wife, when she first arrived in the Mok Kingdom.

‘Come to think of it, she told me that the Crown Prince enjoyed taking a stroll along the road near the stream.’

Kyosul suddenly felt that Bipaan might have intentionally decided to use this path to take her to the Dongbi Palace.

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She liked the secluded atmosphere around the path. Without feeling any fear of Bipaan. She enjoyed looking around.

“Ooops!”

At that moment she discovered something that caught her eyes. Forgetting even his presence, she walked up to it and bent down.

“I didn’t expect to see this here.”

She held out her hand out of excitement. There was a bunch of blue flowers blooming there. In fact, they were the same flowers that Ruhae used to place at her windowsill everyday. The little petals smaller than fingernails were thickly grouped together to protect the yellow stamen. Those little and lovely blue flowers made her heart thrilled.

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She instinctively squatted down before the flowers and looked at them.

“Cucumber herb.”

“Pardon?”

“They are called cucumber herb.”

While looking at the flowers with an innocent smile, she was surprised to hear his unexpected commentary and looked back at him. While she focused on the flowers, she forgot about him momentarily. He was now standing behind her.

She looked up at him with a curious look. She was surprised that he talked to her kindly and that he knew the name of this small flower on the road. Looking at the blue flowers, he said in a low voice, “They won’t bloom anymore.”

“Are they not blooming?”

“Because they bloom in the summer.”

“Ah…..”

She looked at the cucumber herb again.

Come to think of it, it was around the beginning of the summer when Ruhae started to put the blue flower on the windowsill of her room in the Dongbi Palace.

‘Would he continue to bring flowers when the summer was over? Can he place other flowers when the fall comes?’

She was innocently thinking of such questions.

She suddenly became curious about something, so she turned and asked Bipaan, “By the way, how do you know the name of this little flower?”

He didn’t reply. He briefly stood behind her and then turned back. With his back straight, he quickened his pace. She was looking at his back with a curious expression.

She was holding a small and cute blue flower that her lover used to bring to her windowsill every day.

***

The bathroom was covered with a long stretch of unobtrusive fabric. The jewelry hung in the cloudy moisture that filled the bathroom. The high table had vases, bottles of oil, and soaps. The humid air was filled with a gentle mixture of fresh scents.

This was the bathroom of the West Palace. In the middle of the bathroom was a large bath.

The bath was filled with water at a moderate temperature, and there were petals sprinkled on the water as decorations. Oran sat in the bath brimming over with water soaking, with only her shoulders bare.

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“Haaaa…”

Oran leaned back against the edge of the bath, leaned her head back fully and lay it on the floor outside the bath. Her mouth open in a gasp, she shook. Then she moaned.

“Ahhhh… . ”

Oran moaned. She closed her eyes as if she was savoring something. As if it wasn’t enough just to lower her eyelids, she wanted to bring her eyes down to a spot where she could not reached.

Oran shook her head. The bathtub water rippled around her fingertips. Some of the petals that floated in the bath sank down, succumbing to the ripples.

“Oh my god…”

Her coquettish voice sounded like a sob. She eventually couldn’t stand it and reached out to grab the railings of the bath tightly.