Chapter 26

Chapter 26

“Your Highness, so if that girl refuses to listen, please feel free to beat her black and blue. I truly don’t mind. They say that dried pollack and women both grow tender the more they are beaten, do they not? That girl is the sort who understands only when she is disciplined with the rod. She is no different from a beast.”

Ryu Hyeok’s hand, which had been bringing the teacup to his lips, stopped dead.

“…What did you say?”

“I mean that if she won’t listen, you need not mind me and may lay hands on her, Your Highness. That girl deserves every blow.”

He stared hard at Yu Hanshin to determine whether the man was in his right mind when he said such things.

“Oh, truly, it’s quite all right. Please don’t worry about me. If you wish, I shall give you the switch I used when disciplining her. Merely taking it out and showing it to her will frighten her into holding her tongue, at least for a while. Of course, using one’s hand is best, but on days when one’s strength is low, the rod is the proper tool.”

Ryu Hyeok looked at the teacup in Hanshin’s hand.

Could it be that the cup held not tea but liquor? Otherwise, how could he spout such words so smoothly without so much as blinking?

A person’s thinking shows in his words. If someone could say something so open to dispute as if it were nothing, it was because he sincerely believed it right.

“Is that how you handled Hwacheon?”

He asked it while keeping his composure. He judged that understanding the situation in detail came first.

“Yes. I am not by nature one to raise a hand against a woman, but that girl understands only when treated that way. Even after being beaten so badly she could not walk the next day, she would defy me again within a few days. She knows nothing but concern for her mother’s safety. A truly vicious wench.”

How far one extends the scope of discipline differs from household to household. And whatever discipline Hwacheon had endured while growing up, it fell under Yu Hanshin’s authority, so outsiders could not carelessly pass judgment on it.

“Then were you raised that way as well?”

When Ryu Hyeok asked Hwaryeong, Yu Hanshin waved his hands.

“Oh my, I have never once laid a hand on this child. She does everything well on her own without any need for my discipline, and you cannot imagine how she gladdens her father’s heart. She is a darling child.”

As he said so, he tenderly stroked Hwaryeong’s cheek. It was an affectionate air never once seen when Yu Hanshin mentioned Hwacheon.

It was not that he held back from warmth out of respect for a daughter who had risen to a noble position. His face showed that he truly wary of Hwacheon and hated her.

“So you discipline your legitimate daughter with the rod, while never once raising a hand against your concubine-born daughter?”

“Yes, that is right. Though they share the same seed, how their temperaments differ like heaven and earth. Your Highness will understand now, but that Hwacheon must be tamed by beating.”

“What am I supposed to understand?”

“Hwacheon, that wench’s temper, of course!”

Ryu Hyeok found the very situation before him so absurd that laughter burst out of him.

Yu Hanshin took that hollow laugh as agreement with his words and started babbling on again.

“The other day, I hear, she dared pour dumplings over Hwaryeong’s head in front of Your Highness? I heard all about it. I am deeply sorry to have married such a creature to you. I am the sinner here, I am.”

Ryu Hyeok looked at the kettle for a moment. Hot steam was curling from its spout.

If he lifted the lid of that scalding kettle and poured the whole thing over Yu Hanshin’s head, it would be quite a sight.

The urge was overwhelming, but Yu Hanshin was a retainer his imperial father favored.

Of course, he could have done it if he wished, but he did not want to respond with the same vulgarity merely because the other behaved vulgarly, so he let it go.

“Some day, pick a day and beat her like a dog on the hottest days of summer. I once beat her until my anger subsided, and the next day her face was so swollen she couldn’t even open her eyes.”

“…Why did you go that far?”

“They say she saw my concubine in the street and didn’t greet her. She ignored my concubine, so I taught her a lesson. After a beating like that, she stayed quiet for a month.”

To be swept away by rage was not like Prince Hye Ryu Hyeok. Even so, just this once he wanted to behave recklessly.

He wanted to break each of those slender finger joints that had beaten Hwacheon, one by one, crushing them so completely that they could never be used again.

“Lord Left Vice Minister.”

“Yes, please speak. Feel free to hurl curses at me.”

Was that true? The one cursing would not be Hwacheon, so he wondered whether that would be all right.

“However much a child goes astray, who beats a daughter like a dog on the hottest days of summer?”

His voice was thick with anger. Realizing that belatedly, Ryu Hyeok was briefly startled.

‘No wonder Hwacheon says she wants to die. How badly he must have tormented her, how coldly he must have treated her.’

How deep must that little one’s bitterness have run. How much must that frail, tender girl have hurt. How much must it have hurt for her to become so fierce.

Behind every hardened person’s life there is someone who gave them cause to harden. In Hwacheon’s case, that was her own father.

“Even a dog does not bite its own offspring to death, and you are worse than a dog.”

“Pardon…?”

Yu Hanshin looked flustered at the unexpected response.

“Who are you to say you permit or do not permit anyone to lay hands on her body? Every strand of her hair and every inch of her skin is already mine. Who are you, to pretend to bestow such unwarranted mercy…”

Ryu Hyeok longed desperately for the pipe he had given up long ago.

He had quit because he thought being excessively captivated by anything harmed a sovereign’s qualities, but facing a stifling moment like this, he could not help missing it.

“You said you wished to marry your concubine-born daughter to me?”

“Th-That is so.”

“Since you have given me leave to raise a hand against your daughter, if that girl were to marry me, would it be all right for me to strike her?”

“Pardon? Th-That is… I did not mean that…”

“What is it? You do not mind beating the legitimate daughter, but it pains you to hear that the concubine-born one would be beaten?”

Ryu Hyeok’s aura sank into a murderous stillness.

Yu Hanshin flailed about and could not produce an answer, and Hwaryeong’s expression also hardened at the talk of being beaten.

In truth, Ryu Hyeok had no intention of laying a hand on a woman, nor of taking Hwaryeong as a concubine. But was there not a saying, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth?

“To me, Hwacheon is that precious.”

“…Why…”

“The word ‘why’ should not come out. You should be glad. Where else is there a man like you who would answer ‘why’ when a son-in-law cherishes his daughter? How could you even think of laying a hand on your own child, and a woman at that?”

Of all that his mother, the Empress, had taught him, what he remembered best was that women are weaker than men and must be treated with consideration accordingly.

He had also been taught that though a woman’s body might lack a man’s strength, her spirit was tougher than a man’s.

So he had learned that when dealing with a woman’s spirit one might press hard, but when dealing with her body one must take the utmost care.

Yet Yu Hanshin was flatly denying the principle he had been taught.

‘Did Yu Hanshin’s parents not teach him even that?’

A child’s straying is the parents’ sin.

Beans sprout where beans are sown, and red beans where red beans are sown. Parents are a child’s mirror, the first world a child meets and the footing it stands on.

“How dare you.”

“…”

“How dare you boast so proudly of having raised a hand against my princess consort?”

“I-I did not say it to belittle Your Highness…”

If that footing failed to do its work properly, the child would grow into someone like Yu Hanshin.

A petty man who bullied the weak and groveled before the strong. This man’s roots were clearly rotten.

“Fine, suppose you did not say it to belittle me. Then are you not afraid of the day that child becomes the mother of this nation and rises to a lofty seat? How could you dare commit such folly, knowing the aftermath, the resentment you would face?”

“Your servant… never dreamed that she would marry Your Highness…”

“You wouldn’t have. But now you know, don’t you? Even belatedly, once you know, you should first think of how to dissolve the grudge lodged in that little one’s heart. Wouldn’t that be the better path for you, and for the concubine-born daughter you cherish so?”

Ryu Hyeok found Yu Hanshin so stupid that he no longer wished even to deal with him.

What use was it to have placed first in the examinations, what use to be quick at his work? He was nothing but a vicious father whose humanity had dried up.

One must know how to govern a household rightly in order to govern in politics.

It is the natural order to enter the political world only after establishing the foundation of one’s house. Yet Yu Hanshin was playing the grand official while unable to govern even a single household, which was truly lamentable.

“Yu Hanshin, I will remember your deficiency.”

He no longer wished to honor him even with the title of Lord Minister.

“When I ascend the throne someday, I will remember your insolence today very clearly.”

That declaration came down on Yu Hanshin as a calamity harsher than any curse.

***

Anna : I’m really happy to see the hero take a stand against her father and half-sister🥹