Chapter 30: Public Family Claim

Jinhae

We rode until the city walls showed as a darker bar against the dark.

We took the service roads. No sense announcing ourselves at the main gate with Minji in a stolen robe, Lady Seo in spare travel clothes, and a nameless swordsman at this hour. The western approach to the Kang estate was the same unmanned stretch we had used on the way out.

The side gate opened.

The central pavilion was dark when we first crossed the inner courts. Then a stable hand heard the hooves. Then another. Lanterns flared. A shout went up from the inner walk. Doors slid. Bare feet slapped stone. The household came out of sleep in pieces. Kitchen aunties in hastily tied wraps, junior guards with spears and bed-hair.

They stopped when they saw us.

Three horses. Seolhwa first. Me with Minji in my cloak. Ahyun with Lady Seo sitting rigid in front of her.

“The young miss. Lady Seo. They’re back.”

The noise built fast. A physician I recognized from Seojun’s collapse shoved through with a case under his arm. He saw the bloodless color of Minji’s face and started barking for hot water and clean cloth and a private room.

I swung down first, then lifted Minji after me. She refused to unhook her arms until her feet were on the ground. Even then she kept a fist in my sleeve.

Lady Seo dismounted without help. She stood in the spare travel clothes under a dozen staring faces and put the cold mask back on.

Kang Daewon arrived last.

He came from the main hall in inner robes and a heavy outer coat. He took in his wife, his daughter, the swordsman, Ahyun.

Then he looked at me.

He didn't speak.

Servants glanced between us.

Daewon’s gaze was an evaluation. The look a man gives a tool that has just performed a function he did not believe it possessed.

I met it.

I did not need his thanks. I had what I wanted from this night already. A pregnant stepmother on a leash.

“Physician,” Daewon said at last. “The ladies. Now.”

They moved.

Minji made a small sound when a senior maid tried to ease her off my sleeve. I nodded at her.

“Go. Let them look at you. I’ll be here.”

She went. Reluctantly. The maid wrapped her tighter and hurried her toward the inner rooms. Lady Seo followed without looking at me.

I turned to Seolhwa.

She had already handed her reins to a stunned groom. She looked like a young swordsman who had done a hard night’s work.

“Thank you,” I said.

The words were for the courtyard as much as for her.

Seolhwa left for my wing without waiting for a servant to guide her. A few of the watching household tracked her with new interest.

Ahyun was still at my shoulder.

“Young Master.” Her voice was wrecked from smoke and hours and everything I had made her do in that last room. “Do you… do you need me tonight?”

“I need you to sleep. Eat something. Wash. Bed.”

“Y-yes, Young Master.”

“Good girl.”

She bowed and went.

I stood in the courtyard a moment longer, then walked away.

The knock came late in the morning.

I pulled on inner robes, tied the sash, and opened the door.

Minji stood in the corridor.

Hair combed and pinned. Green robes that were not the ones she had lost. A faint shadow of bruise still showed along her jaw where someone had held her face.

Lady Seo stood half a step behind her.

The cold mask had been rebuilt overnight by maids and willpower and whatever tonic the physicians had poured down her. It almost worked. The part that failed was the eyes. She looked at the doorframe. The floor. The wall past my shoulder. Anywhere but my face.

“Hyung,” Minji said. “Can we… may we come in?”

I stepped aside.

“Of course.”

They entered. I shut the door. The latch clicked. Lady Seo’s shoulders twitched at the sound.

Minji did not sit. She walked straight to me and stopped an arm’s length away, hands twisting together in front of her sash.

“I came to thank you. Properly. I was. Last night I couldn’t say it right.” Her voice wobbled and she forced it steady. “You came when I thought no one would. I don’t have a gift. I don’t have anything that matches it. I just. Thank you. Thank you, Hyung.”

“You don’t owe me a gift.”

She turned and reached back. Her fingers closed on her mother’s sleeve and pulled.

Lady Seo resisted for half a heartbeat. Then she let herself be drawn forward.

“Mother,” Minji said. “You should thank him too.”

Silence.

I waited.

“…Thank you.” She spoke slowly. “For what you did on the road. I am… in your debt.”

Minji beamed and looked at me like I should be pleased.

I let a small, warm smile show.

“For my mother and my sister,” I said, “it was nothing.”

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KANG MINJI

Youngest Daughter of House Kang

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Affection ............... 81 → 92 / 100 ↑↑

Lust .................... 34 / 100

Trust ................... 91 → 97 / 100 ↑

Submission .............. 12 → 19 / 100 ↑

Fear .................... 41 / 100

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Relationship Status: Adoring Little Sister / Savior-Bonded

*— “Hyung came for me. Hyung called me his sister.”

*— Brother complex: Reinforced

*— Mountain residual (cage)

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Hidden Flags:

*— Birthday Kiss: Secured

*— First deep kiss: Secured

*— Mountain Rescue (personal): Secured

*— Public family claim: Heard / accepted

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LADY SEO YUNHEE

Stepmother — Matriarch Seat, House Kang

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Affection ............... 11 / 100

Lust .................... 91 → 74 / 100 ↓

Trust ................... 6 / 100

Submission .............. 63 → 71 / 100 ↑

Fear .................... 88 → 93 / 100 ↑

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Relationship Status: Captive (publicly restored)

*— “He said it in front of her. He will keep saying it.”

*— Condition: Pregnant (concealed)

*— “If I break, he talks. If I obey, I live in this.”

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