There was a chirping sound. Unlike when he first appeared, the Emperor walked away from her with footsteps. Eunseol, who was laying on the floor even though the footsteps had fallen away, barely raised her waist after a long time. Her bottom felt stiff.

"It's okay. It's okay,” Eunseol mumbled while stroking her stomach but it seems it was directed at herself, not at the child that was in her stomach. She reassured the child that nothing would happen and that Haewoon would be there soon.

Retreating was impossible and she had to stay at Yeoncheon Palace, the emperor’s private space. Her nerves were on edge and she was almost at her limit. The place where she was guided to rest was the emperor’s bedroom. She looked over the bed and she could only see one person in the middle.

".....There will be a scandal if it is revealed that His Majesty called the general's wife in his bedroom."

“So, have you decided to be my concubine?"

Eunseol didn't know how to get out of this situation. She became helpless as if a tremendous force was weighing her down.

Yoon gestured to Eun-seol with a sharp smile as if he was going to subdue her somehow.

Haewoon. 

She knew little about the emperor. She couldn’t guess whether this was a joke or not. He smiled all the time, but the way he looked at her gave her chills. With her mouth wide open, he felt like a flying animal standing in line, waiting for her to step on the wrong foot. Eunseol swallowed dry saliva.

She felt like he had a knife pointed at her, which gave her goosebumps.

"Why are you so scared?"

The fact that the Emperor and her were there together was a scandal in itself.

“You’ve changed your man once anyway, there’s no way you can’t do it twice.”

It was obvious what kind of rumors circulated in Hwangseong. Haewoon prevented bad stories from entering her ears but she knew what they were. 

"What say you, the woman of the general's successor, the woman of the general, and this time the woman of the emperor."

“You are very bold.”

“When you give birth…”

Eunseol covered her stomach without realizing it. She hoped that the life that had sprouted in her womb would be born healthy. Suddenly, the thought of the mother who had abandoned her came into her mind.

When she had learned about the life inside of her for the first time, she was anxious as if her tears were about to burst but at the same time she was very happy. She was often upset because she wondered if she could throw it away so easily.

"I'm leaving. So neither the Emperor nor the General should be embroiled in a scandal because of me."

Yoon looked at her as if she was interesting. "With a baby in your stomach? It sounded like you were going to abandon your child like your mother.”

Eunseol's face turned red. Looking at the tears in her blue eyes, Yoon’s eyes narrowed. Haewoon once said that he wanted to see her in tears.

"It sounds like the lake is filled with water on a clear day."

The tears persistently did not fall. Looking at her face, he wondered if the tears that would fall from there would be blue, and Yoon smacked his lips with such imagination.

"Come here."

“Your Majesty!”

"Do you think I'm going to eat you? Do you think I'm going to hug you like an animal?"

She opened her eyes wide. Yoon couldn't hold back his laughter because he was surprised to see that she thought so.

“I have two sons. Do I have to say that I never slept with the concubines while they were pregnant?”

Even if he didn't have to hold a pregnant woman, he had many women. Eunseol was surprised that the emperor had so many women in his harem.

“I’m going easy with your rudeness.” 

Eunseol's chin trembled.

It was evident that he hadn't told her that it was blasphemy for the emperor to say the same thing over and over again. However, giving and receiving like this was rarely enjoyable, and Yoon did not punish her. He slowly got up from his seat.

“Will you stay here comfortably this way?”

Eunseol couldn’t avoid the emperor as he approached her. When the emperor stood in front of her, she bowed her head. He raised her chin as he did in the garden.

“Make yourself at home.”

He was close enough that she could barely breathe. The moment she scrambled to step back, Yoon gently took her hand.