Empress Handbook

Chapter Thirty-Six | I Need You

Taehyung sprints to Yeoreum as soon as he arrives, just as if everyone else in the room is completely invisible.

"Are you all right, Yeoreum?" Taehyung cries. He clasps her ice-cold hands and gently squeezes them. The sight of her blanched profile wrenches his heart.

Yeoreum throws herself into his arms. "My stomach hurts," she says.

"What?" Taehyung says. He clutches Yeoreum tighter and turns to Nara. "Have the doctors been summoned yet?"

"Yes, Your Majesty, Doctor Lee has been told to come with an ultrasound machine."

"Tell them to hurry up."

A gut-wrenching bitterness gnaws at Yeoreum's chest. She wants to tell Taehyung with full honesty that their daughter Sowon has already left them because of her incompetency. But she can't, at least not now.

"You'll be fine, don't worry," Taehyung says gently.

Yunhee soon arrives with a frown. Her lips flutter, but she fails to force out any caring words. She eventually walks to Yeoreum, too awkward to even look at Yeoreum's pale face.

"Is the Empress all right?" Yunhee says, her voice hollow of any warmth.

Taehyung shifts his body, shielding Yeoreum away from his mother. "Her stomach hurts. There could be something wrong with the baby," he says.

Yunhee nods and walks to the lounge on the other side of the bamboo folding screens as if the ailing baby isn't related to her at all.

Following a busy series of footsteps, Doctor Lee stumbles into the room with a group of security guards following him. Two security guards set up an ultrasound machine beside Yeoreum.

Doctor Lee briefly greets Taehyung, Yeoreum and Yunhee before he starts the process. Nara rubs some gel across Yeoreum's stomach, and Doctor Lee glides the transducer over her flesh.

"Your Majesty," Doctor Lee stammers with shock-widened eyes like Yeoreum requested. "I do not have good news."

Taehyung's face immediately darkens with apprehension. "What is wrong?"

Doctor Lee bows down. "Unfortunately, the little princess' heartbeat can no longer be heard."

"What?" Yeoreum shrieks as if she had heard the news for the first time. Covertly, she begins to pick at the waistband of her hanbok with the corner of her sharpened acrylic nails.

Taehyung's mouth falls ajar. "But she was kicking Yeoreum's stomach yesterday," he cries, his voice cracking as he reaches the final syllables of his words.

Doctor Lee bows deeper. "I am sorry, Your Majesty, but these occasions are common. The only thing I can do now for Her Majesty is to induce labour to get the little princess out."

Taehyung's mind erupts into blankness. He draws in a deep breath to keep his practised tranquillity. The first thought he can process is that there must be some sort of mistake.

Yeoreum has diligently followed medical advice, and Sowon was moving around the womb yesterday. She can't die this soon. No way.

Taehyung raises his head, and the dreadful monitor screen glares the cruel reality back into his face—his daughter is dead, and nothing can change that. He can feel the cold touch of Yeoreum's tears stretch across his shirt. The numbing iciness pierces him with regret, self-hatred and a speck of relief.

"What is the cause, Doctor Lee?" Taehyung croaks.

"Her Majesty's health wasn't the best, and she also had emotional stress that burdened her health. But, the main cause is the trauma to her abdomen," Doctor Lee utters.