The Love They Never Had: The Nam Mansion

Chapter 3: Mul (Water)

The servants...the servants...of course, why hadn't I thought of this before? The servants of a yangban (noble home) were how my father collected information about everyone and anyone. The servants who acted like they ruled this home even above me were the ones who gave my father that extra layer of confidence about his position because in this corrupt land, if a person had power, than even his servants were seen as right hand men instead of conforming to their roles in this society that I longed to change. And it all started with Confucius. China, Japan and Korea were separate countries, so why were we believing the philosophical ideas of one man who wasn't even from our nation,? These ideas were constricting the lowborn but they didn't even touch the nobility class and even the Emperor and his Royal Family used these moral laws when it suited him. And ruined the lives of illegitimate children like myself and left us with no place in this world, no rights and our lives on the line if we ever displeased our legitimate and senior family members. And the fact that these servants kept coming for Yeon after I myself had repeatedly ordered them not to, and my father needed to keep Yeon alive for his grand plan...no harm could come to her. Not that I would allow it, but my father would be very angry indeed if she was hurt here. I still had the Liadong war that I was going to take part in and I knew that my father knew I was going to try my best to get out of his control by trying to impress General Yi Seong-Gye, who was going to ascend the throne and become the new ruler of our Goreyo dynasty that was slowly coming to and end. So I knew that she would try to do everything in his power to undermine that, even using the most humiliating methods to do so. But I couldn't do much myself since I was an illegitimate son living under his father's roof, and if I made a single mistake, my father was well in his right to kill me without so much as giving me a grave to put my body to rest. I wasn't going to use Yeon like I did to everyone else, but if these feuds continued under my father's roof, then I might need to give her a helping hand myself to encourage her position to rid us all of these people and maybe, just maybe I could find my own people to infiltrate into this home, his work, his personal life that he always lives as far away from me as possible...

"My Lord!" "Good god man, you almost gave me a heart attack! What is it?" "It is the Young Mistress! The servant that you punished, she is attempting to drown her in the washing area!" "What did you just say? Who pushed who where?" "The young woman that you took into this home, she is being drowned as we speak in the washing area! She will die if you do not do something..." I was on my feet and out of the door before my servant could finish his sentence. What was going on? Just when I was thinking about how to rid myself of these servants, they actually went that far to touch her? To harm here? I hadn't been this angry since her last fit and that was when she took us both to be registered to this stupid military exam that had ruined everything had...
"Young Master, she is still unconscious only due to water inhalation. I will have a write up a prescription for her to recover as quickly as she possibly can, but this is really unfortunate for this to happen to a girl as young and as pretty as her." Pretty? Pretty? Even this physician who had never met Yeon before managed to make the same mistake as I did and flatter Yeon excessively. She was completely soaking wet and her attire was a complete mess, so I couldn't make any such comment right now. Wait, just what the hell was I doing? Yeon had almost lost her life right now and the only two men in the room were sitting around and trying to compliment her looks?

"Young Master, the guards were inefficiently on patrol and they missed this entirely. This is due to my negligence in managing this household and I am wiling to be punished." "What are you talking about? You were with me in my study, why would I expect to you be anywhere near the washing area where the female servants work. So this is clearly their fault that his happened." "Young Master forgive me! Forgive us please! It wasn't us! It was..." "the guards patrol on schedule shifts, if they are to be punished, then that means my father should be held responsible as well. Nevertheless, they are most certainly inefficient, and they should be punished." "But young master..." "imagine if it was my father who 'slipped and fell' with no guards around. I really wonder why they couldn't hear anything at all when they were supposed to be guarding my quarters as well." I had Chun-Ae and all of the washing servants kneeling on the floor in front of Yeon as I took her in my arms and I placed her gently into her bed just as I did merely a few weeks ago. The washer woman had their own stations right near my quarters, but they also worked with the rest of the washing ladies from the other houses of nobility and I knew they were the ones who were responsible for gathering most of the information that my father collected whilst it was maids like Chun-Ae who made themselves at home in other people's homes and businesses and they demanded whatever it was that they wanted whenever they wanted it like thugs...