The mirror seldom lied. It told her that she was a beautiful woman. At twenty and four years of age, Soo Hyun was in full bloom. Few people could ignore the invite of her sultry eyes or the lure of her classically cut high cheekbones encased in petal-like flawless skin. The silk of the pink hanbok kissed her shoulders, flowing smoothly down her body. She knew how to move so that the hint of her voluptuous breasts beneath the shapeless hanbok bodice drew attention.

Or so she thought. Soo Hyun let out a long, puffy breath, waiving at the maid to leave her alone.

She had learned very early that sex could be used as a weapon. Men loved being drunk on power. If they thought they were in control of their environment, these men often became placid and easy to manipulate.

Soo Hyun had been born in plenty. She grew up surrounded by arrogance and domination stemming from wealth and power. She had been eleven years old when her father - the rebellious but corrupt Interior Minister - and her older brothers had been dragged out and butchered in the wake of the coup by King Injo and the scholars of the Western faction in April of sixteen-twenty-three. Her mother had been forced into becoming a government kiesang, while Soo Hyun had been sent to become a slave in Choi Si Wan's realm. She became an identity-less face among the hundreds of slaves in the far-flung properties of Choi Si Wan.

The first time she made her escape, she was able to hide for three days and realised she had been one of so many that no one even missed her. Those who kept track of her never reported her missing because they feared they would be punished for letting a mere eleven-year-old escape. However, just as soon, she learned that she could not survive alone. Chased by opportunistic lechers, she hid in a ditch for two days. Lack of food and shelter drove her back to Lord Choi's farm. Her supervisors pretended she had been lost in the woods and let it pass.

Soo Hyun was a little more prepared during her second escape. She stole money and clothes and escaped hidden in a rice cart.

Unfortunately, her supervisors were also better prepared. They caught her five days later. This time, they beat her and locked her up for a week in a cold, bug-infested hut. Undeterred, she again made an escape a few weeks later but was caught within a day. This time, they dragged her back, raped her, and made her their personal slave.

For the first six months, she was terrified of their footsteps. She begged them to stop, promising never to escape again, but it only seemed to excite them more. But then, she learned they didn't behave like monsters if she played along, and the encounters became short and painless. When she started her monthlies, they stopped bothering her altogether. Perhaps they got bored, or maybe they were too scared to make her pregnant.

It didn't matter. For the next two years, Soo Hyun observed and learned. Slave girls disappeared all the time. Sometimes, they were mourned. At other times, no one bothered. However, if a slave girl caught the eyes of their overseer manager, she became a part of the inner circle. No slave could ever escape after that. If they did, they would be hunted down like rabid dogs and punished brutally.

Soo Hyun kept her head down, learned to become invisible and worked diligently. She sniffed out men who yearned to feel powerful, even if it was fleetingly, and used her wiles to avail herself of things out of her reach - better food, warm clothes, shoes, bedding.

When she was fourteen, the Manchus invaded, and the country became even more rife with political machinations and corruption. One of the supervisors sold her to a commoner with a Yangban father, Sang Min, to settle a debt. Sang Min was a reasonably good-looking man in his mid-thirties who treated her with respect and offhand affection. He was a patient lover, and she was a quick learner. However, he was also someone to whom money mattered the most.

Soo Hyun struck a deal with Sang Min.

It worked like a charm. They became 'husband and wife,' a perfect facade for their schemes. Soo Hyun would honeytrap wealthy men, extracting information Sang Min could exploit to his advantage. Other times, they lured young, wayward Yangban into their web, especially those ensnared by illegal gambling.

Sang Min would join in the drinking and gambling and bring them home, eventually feigning unconsciousness. Soo Hyun then assumed the role of a sad and neglected wife, seducing the young man and initiating an "illicit affair." She would milk him for all he was worth before engineering a 'discovery'. Playing the aggrieved husband, Sang Min would blackmail the young lord and his family, leveraging the gambling habits as 'revenge' and threatening to expose everything to the magistrates for 'justice.' Desperate to avoid scandal, the fathers would pay handsomely to bury the sordid affair.

Slowly, they expanded their net. Sang Min and Soo Hyun moved towns frequently to evade attention. Targeting young gamblers in the new towns was the easiest. News of a young Yangban man embroiled in illegal gambling pits was a surefire way to get them expelled from prestigious schools, crippling their path to prosperity by making it nearly impossible to clear the state examinations. Panicked, they often paid generously to silence the 'husband', with the understanding that the couple would leave the town forever.

The deal proved lucrative beyond their wildest imagination. Soo Hyun planned to retire at some point and become a tradeswoman. In the next four years, she made a neat nest tucked away towards her eventual goal. Sang Min wanted to buy a house in Hanyang and live his life surrounded by the privileges the money would buy him that his Yangban family denied him for being born out of a maid.

As days passed, emboldened by their success, Sang Min became more audacious and greedier. He started taking shortcuts. Instead of going through elaborate channels, he simply picked on young gamblers and blackmailed the family. Soo Hyun, for her part, when not honey trapping a victim, took lovers she liked and exploited them for riches until it was time to move.

Avarice eventually brought them to Hanyang. The shiniest city of Joseon would provide them with easy picks and riches that they hoped would help them reach their goals much faster.

None of them realised that they had only been ensnaring small fish and were no match for the sharks that populated the buildings of Hanyang. And they made the mistake of trying to entrap the biggest one of them. Sang Min received a tip-off from two shady gamblers about a young Lord mired in the worst gambling habits. Immediately, he sent a missive to the family to pay.

They didn't even have a chance to collect the money. Captured, they were imprisoned in an underground chamber without food for two days. When Lord Choi Siwan entered the room, Sang Min first tried to brazen it out. Choi Siwan had only smiled, fed them, and then left them. This time, they were left with food but no water.

Two days later, just when they thought they would go mad with thirst, a tall man with a limp and a scar dragged in Soo Hyun's supervisor, who had sold her to Sang Min, followed by two fat, shaggy looking men carrying various tools. The gravity of their predicament finally dawned on them, but it was too late. The man was tortured slowly while Choi Si Wan sat, smiling through it. By the time the last breath left the mangled body of the supervisor, Sang Min had become unintelligible with fear, ready to do anything that Choi Siwan wanted him to do.

Soo Hyun sat through it all without blinking an eye. Strangely, she felt nothing when the supervisor who had violated her brutally was being tortured. She didn't enjoy it, but she didn't hate it either. More surprisingly, his screams had left her unmoved.

Soo Hyun never wasted her energy on vague concepts like revenge or emotions that caused attachment. In the world she inhabited, everyone did what they had to do because either circumstances forced them or they had made choices that led them to their current crossroad. However, she did feel something akin to sadness for the state Sang Min had been reduced to. The man had been good to her, and she hoped he would not meet the grisly end her unscrupulous rapist had met.

Choi Siwan had watched her closely. Sang Min was dragged away, incoherent, while Choi Siwan approached her, his gait controlled and graceful. He ordered her to rise from her kneeling position and offered her water.

"You are not afraid," he had observed thoughtfully. "Tell me why."

Soo Hyun had not hesitated. "Powerful men seldom kill women who are not a threat to them, Your Excellency. Either they want to bed her or put her to work where she would be useful."

"You tried to blackmail me," he said.

"As your slave, my words carry no weight, Your Excellency," she replied.

Choi Siwan smiled.

"Good. I have great use for you. You will erase everything you know about my son from your memory. Please harbour no misconceptions. One mistake and your limbs will be found scattered in every town you have lived in," Choi Siwan said.

Soo Hyun never heard from Sang Min again. She was taken to a secluded house surrounded by deep woods with a stream flowing behind it. Several maids were at her disposal who took care of her every request. She wondered if Choi Siwan wanted to make her his concubine. A few weeks later, a beautiful woman turned up at her doorstep, ordering Soo Hyun to address her as 'mother'. Yet, Soo Hyun received no warmth or love from the woman, only frigid vibes and a critical eye. Instead, she received a new name - Choi Jina. She was ordered to study books, paint, cook and, most importantly, learn embroidery.

However, none of it prepared her for the day when Choi Siwan entered the well-lit chamber of the receiving room and announced that she would be introduced to the King as his daughter, Choi Jina. She had a role to play, and her training would become even more rigorous.

She had been overjoyed and had cried happy tears into her pillow. Not in a million years had she imagined she would be adopted as a daughter into the most powerful family of Joseon and would be able to live the life her birth should have destined for her.

Choi Siwan was an angel the spirits had sent to her.

It was an entire year before she realised that she was not being adopted, but instead, she was replacing a missing daughter.

"How did she go missing, Your Excellency?" She could not contain her curiosity, and her fondness for Choi Siwan lowered her guard around him.

"My daughter displeased me greatly. So I killed her," Choi Siwan had answered her dispassionately.

For the first time in her life, naked fear had dried her blood.

A sudden noise pulled So Hyun back to the present with a thud. She went to a window and lifted the hanji curtain. A tall, familiar figure in the splendid red and yellow dongdari and plumed gnat exited the courtyard, the setting sun bouncing off his impressive shoulders. Soo Hyun caught her lower lip softly with her upper teeth as she watched Lee Seung's retreating back.

Lord Choi had prepared for every eventuality when he implemented his plan to plant Soo Hyun as Lee Seung's wife. From a list of people she would avoid meeting under any circumstances to narrating a story about getting carried away by a young lover and eloping with him so that the real Choi Jina and her story would line up, Lord Choi had all aspects covered.

Soo Hyun wondered if that might have been the reason for Lord Choi killing his daughter. However, she didn't ponder on it for long. All Choi Siwan needed was a grandchild and proof that Lee's household was prospering. It would be the easiest thing to achieve, Soo Hyun had thought with a smile. All she had to do was manipulate Lee Seung into her bed a couple of times, a task made much easier because Lee Seung turned out to be one of the most handsome and charismatic men she had ever laid her eyes on.

The night Seung first arrived at his ancestral home, her 'mother-in-law' and 'sister-in-law' helped Soo Hyun dress for their first official wedding night.

No one knew what had happened during the original wedding night of Choi Jina and Lee Seung. The information she had piecemealed from her faux stepmother was sketchy at best. There had been some kind of altercation, and Seung had left the room. Choi Jina had left a letter behind for him (a letter Soo Hyun had rehearsed by heart) and had run away but had turned up in a court to absolve Seung and his sister of all alleged crimes against her. Before dying, apparently, Choi Jina had confirmed Seung had never known what she looked like. Soo Hyun had been sceptical about it, and when Seung or his family members didn't refute her presence, she had been genuinely surprised. It seemed Choi Jina didn't leave any impressions on any of them at all.

Determined to set things right between her son and daughter-in-law, Lady Ryu left no stone unturned to celebrate the occasion. They had a formal drink exchange ceremony with the family before Soo Hyun was 'ushered' to the room where her wedding night would be held.

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Seung never came.

Experience taught her that men were most vulnerable and amorous in the early morning, so she had taken matters into her own hands. With padded footsteps, she made her way to Seung's room. She slid the heavy hanja door open with whisper-soft hands and stepped in, closing the door behind her just as softly. Her eyes tried adjusting to the inky blue haze of the room. A large mattress lay in the far corner, covered with a quilt.

A ghost smile played on her lips. Soo Hyun undid the ties of her gown and stepped forward.

Everything that happened next was a blur. A hand came down on her shoulder, and she was whipped around roughly. She was thrown against a wall, a hand clamping her mouth while the cold edge of a dagger pressed against her throat.

"Next time you try something like this, I will slit your throat," the giant figure holding her captive said in a tone dripping with ice, his face so close that she could see the blaze of his eyes in the dark. Soo Hyun felt the terror ball up in the triangle beneath her chest bone, the pain making it difficult to draw breath.

When he let her go, she slid against the wall. She gathered her scattered wits and fell to her trembling knees. Being scared never paid.

"I know I have wronged you, My Lord. I have seen the error of my ways, and I repent. I have thought long and hard and will do anything to compensate for my sins," she said, adding a dramatic flair to her tone.

"Will you now," Seung had emitted a throaty, sarcastic laugh. He sheathed his blade. "I wonder what brought this on after all these years. You got bored of the men you were fooling with? The key to your grandmother's mansion? Or the threat of finally being cut off from your father's infinite fortune?"

"I understand your anger. I am not the virginal wife you had hoped for, My Lord, and I regret my folly. I got carried away by youth and false words. I wish I could revert it somehow," Soo Hyun had said, and strangely, for one moment, she had even meant it. Had her father been alive, her family not butchered, could she too have been the wife of a nobleman, untouched, naive, with stars in her eyes? "If you accept me, I will do everything to make you happy."

"Your not being virginal has nothing to do with me not wanting to have you in my life, Choi Jina. I would be a hypocrite if I did that. I have had my fill of beautiful women in the last five years. I would have respected you if you had remained true to yourself." Seung haunched down before her. "You are different than I remember," he observed, sounding a little perplexed.

"I am?" He remembered Choi Jina?

"You are a fraud," he said softly.

Soo Hyun's head snapped up in fear. Had he figured it out? Soo Hyun's tongue felt thick with dread, the ghostly pressure of the blade lingering on her throat.

"You don't want to be here any more than I want you to be here, Choi Jina. I have seen cats out in the frozen mountains with more warmth in their tiny paws than you have in your entire body."

Soo Hyun released a panicked breath she didn't know she had been holding.

He was wrong. Soo Hyun wanted nothing more than to be the wife of Lee Seung. She had spent five long, hard years in captivity preparing for that. Her life depended on it.

He was only a man. How long would Lee Seung hold out?

For very long, it seemed.

Seung rose to his feet and towered over her. "Let's set some ground rules here. I will tolerate your presence for my mother's sake until the opportunity arises for me to get the divorce, with or without your consent. You are free to seek out pleasure in secret, but if anyone else even gets a whiff of it, I will bodily throw you out and castrate the man. And if you ever claim to carry my child, I will have you executed for infidelity."

Soo Hyun had never made a miscalculation of this proportion about a man. She had met many men across the country. All kinds of men, old, young, rich, poor, handsome, plain, intelligent, foolish, and everything in between. No one had ever left a lasting impression on her. Now she understood why Choi Siwan might have made the deadliest gamble of his life.

Lee Seung was as unyielding as granite, impossible to break. She had rarely encountered anyone, especially as young as Lee Seung, who was this immune to her beauty and the temptation in her enticing eyes. He saw through her, treating her like an unwanted weed he could not wait to rip out.

However, Soo Hyun was no fool. She would not let something as insignificant as a man's disinterest derail her plans.

It had been over a month since they were on the island, and she barely saw him. But then, patience was her strength, and fear was her drive. She was determined not to meet the fate of the real Choi Jina. Moreover, she could only gain by impersonating the dead woman. Lee Seung's disinterest did not bother her. In fact, it perfectly aligned with the expected social structure of their elite world. Husbands rarely cared for their wives, while the latter devoted themselves to furthering their husbands' interests by making meaningful social connections in the right circle. Soo Hyun had already started taking control of the social narrative in Ganghwa. Lee Seung held a unique position of power in the hierarchy of things, and as his wife, she benefitted greatly from it all. She fussed and fawned over his mother, even though the old woman always seemed wary of her. Perhaps because Soo Hyun ran the household with an iron fist. For people to never question her origins, she had to instil fear in them, a lesson Lord Choi Siwan had taught her and had taught her well.

However, to achieve her ultimate goal, she needed to either remove or neutralise the distracting object from Seung's orbit. Before coming to Ganghwa, Lord Choi had mentioned in passing that Seung might be interested in some low-class woman on the island, and she had to lure him away from her to secure the grandchild Lord Choi wanted.

The first night on the island, Soo Hyun had made the mistake of trying to dismiss the woman haughtily, not realising it was the physician attending to Lady Ryu that Seung was interested in. Soo Hyun had watched him give her a ride on his cherished horse that night. To confirm, she had put two of her trusted slaves to work.

Unfortunately, Seung had caught on to her servants, who tried to follow him almost immediately. The slaves had been removed from the island, and Seung had sent in a warning slip of paper that read:

"Do not let my eyes catch a person from your quarters doing anything but attending to you physically within the confines of this house. I shall not repeat it again."

Since arriving on the island, Soo Hyun's interactions with Lee Gil-ae grew colder. Both women tried to avoid each other, but it annoyed Soo Hyun to see how warm Gil-ae was to Kim Minjae. It was especially grating because Kim Minjae, while kind, remained aloof. Soo Hyun wondered if Gil-ae knew about her brother's interest in Kim Minjae. If she did, then his interest was far more serious than a passing fancy. Soo Hyun had tried to extract information from Gil-ae, but she had been non-committal.

She watched Kim Minjae closely whenever she visited Lady Ryu. Soo Hyun's critical eye for detail could detect the acute intelligence behind the woman's stunningly gorgeous face. Her demeanour was serene and professional to a fault. She confined herself to checking on Lady Ryu and departed as quietly as she would arrive. However, Seung always seemed to appear out of nowhere and be there. While Minjae would always treat him with the utmost politeness, Soo Hyun did not miss the longing in his eyes whenever he looked at her. Soo Hyun had caused many men to writhe in the throes of desire for her, but what she had seen in Seung's eyes for Minjae was different.

So, Soo Hyun changed track once more. She was good at cutting deals.

Three weeks ago, she called Minjae for a meeting under the pretext of discussing her mother-in-law's health.

Even though Kim Minjae was far beneath her rank, Soo Hyun decided to humour her and hopefully sweeten the deal. She had her maid offer tea to Kim Minjae.

"I cannot accept a drink in your presence, My Lady," Kim Minjae had politely refused to touch the cup.

Intrigued, Soo Hyun observed the young woman surreptitiously. Despite being a low-ranked commoner, Kim Minjae had a regal aura about her that was hard to miss. Her movements reminded Soo Hyun of a swan. Even more surprisingly, her speech was as refined as the royals. Anyone else would have fallen over in gratitude at being offered a drink at the same table, let alone go against a high-born Yangban woman's order without batting an eyelid.

Soo Hyun tucked the needle in the belly of the vibrant swan she was stitching on the canvas stand and turned to face Minaje.

"Let me cut to the chase, Kim Minjae. I need you to stop enticing my husband," Soo Hyun said.

Minjae barely raised her head.

"You vastly overrate my charms, My Lady. My wishes are hardly of any consequence," Kim Minjae replied.

Soo Hyun realised this was new to her; she had never cut a deal with a woman before. "I am not asking you to stay away forever. Rather, I am approaching you as a woman. Stay away from him until I get a child," Soo Hyun insisted.

"How will my staying away give you a child?" Minjae asked.

"Well, not stay away exactly, but I want you to encourage him to come to me. Then, I will bring you in as his concubine myself if that is what he wants," Soo Hyun proposed.

"Are you offering me a deal, My Lady?" Minjae inquired.

Soo Hyun smiled. She had managed to extract a reaction from the unflappable woman.

"You can think of it however you like," Soo Hyun replied. "I know my husband might take many concubines in the future, and I will welcome them all. You would be no different. But not before I become the mother of his child," Soo Hyun said firmly. "If my husband wants a woman to love, I will happily facilitate it as long as you do what I say," she added, trying to inject warmth into her voice but knowing that she sounded dry. Businesslike.

"You do not like him, do you?" Minjae asked softly. "Is that how you have lived your life, My Lady? Buying and selling emotions?"

Soo Hyun froze, her fingers tightly clasping the small loop of her teacup. She was struck by a reluctant admiration for the stunningly beautiful and intuitive woman sitting before her. She could see why Seung had fallen so deeply in love with her. In another world, they might even have become friends.

"You are too big for your boots, Kim Minjae," Soo Hyun said.

"I apologise, My Lady. Unfortunately, I cannot help you. My Lord Lee despises anything related to the Choi household," Kim Minjae said, a strange sadness lacing her voice.

"He has apprised you of things then?" Soo Hyun asked. It suddenly occurred to her that he might have told Minjae precisely what had happened between him and Choi Jina before Jina disappeared from his life.

Minjae nodded.

"Has he told you what happened on our wedding night?" Soo Hyun asked, feigning nonchalance.

She found Minjae looking back at her with an odd look in her eyes. It vanished before she could process it completely.

"You mean the night his wife wrote a letter and ran away?" Minjae asked.

Soo Hyun cleared her voice, giving a dry laugh. "Yes. Wasn't I foolish? Though I was glad I could come back to help him in the court," Soo Hyun said, hoping Minjae would add something she didn't yet know.

"Did you know Lord Choi had Lady Lee Gil-ae imprisoned, too?"

That was news to her, and her stunned reaction didn't surprise Kim Minjae at all.

"Obviously, it's inconsequential for someone like Lord Choi to ruin a young woman's future and never drop a sweat of remorse," Minjae said scathingly.

"I am sure something can be done about it," Soo Hyun said, completely taken aback at this new piece of information.

Minjae shrugged. "There is nothing for me to do here, My Lady. If Lord Lee wants me by his side, I will gladly take it," Minaje said, her chin angled challengingly.

Soo Hyun looked out of the ornate tearoom window adorned with intricate wooden latticework, her eyes lost like the sun's rays in the deep shadows of the trees swaying in the expansive courtyard; she knew she was on the back foot.

"I heard you are the best person with needles on this island. You have stitched thousands of wounds. However, have you ever wondered how it must feel when a man is skinned alive?"

Minjae's eyes narrowed. "Are you threatening me, My Lady?"

Soo Hyun shook her head. "Do you know how it feels to see a man you care for dragged away and wonder if he was tortured the same way and wished he died quickly instead?"

Minjae turned white, her fingers clutching her skirts. "You saw a man tortured?"

"My father is a ruthless man, Kim Minjae."

Minjae's face was white as a sheet.

"Who-who was the man?" She asked hoarsely.

"He was a slave who had displeased Father. He stops at nothing to achieve what he wants. And he wants me to have a baby with Lee Seung. He is obsessed with it. He took me to His Majesty, King Injo, and had me pledge my pious lifelong devotion to Lord Lee Seung."

Minjae reeled, her fingers pressing the sides of her temples. "Why are you telling these to me?"

"He knows about you," Soo Hyun said.

"What do you mean?" Minjae asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

Soo Hyun shrugged. "He told me that my husband was interested in some woman on the island. His tentacles spread very far. If he knows that you could be an obstacle to him having a grandchild, he might hurt you or your loved ones."

"Or, if you displease him, he could kill you too," Kim Minjae said, stunning Soo Hyun with the intensity of her hatred.

"You are running away with your imagination, Kim Minjae. I am sure he would never hurt me," Soo Hyun made light of it, even though her stomach emptied at the thought. "I am worried about you."

Minjae gave a choked laugh. Unseeingly, she reached for the teacup she had refused not too long ago and poured the hot liquid down her throat with trembling hands. She clutched the empty cup in her hands for a few minutes, lost in thoughts, and then placed it back on the table with control so firm that it felt like her bones would crack under pressure. Then, Minjae spoke with a rich clarity that Soo Hyun envied, conveying a finality that Soo Hyun knew even Seung might not be able to shake.

"Believe me when I say this, My Lady, I am the last person who could help you. I cannot convince Commander Lee to come to you. However, I give you my word. I will remove myself from his life."

True to her word, Minjae visited his mother only when there was no chance of Seung coming until Soo Hyun instructed Lady Ryu to stop Minjae's visits. Seung had seemed agitated lately, and he didn't object when she started taking care of his food routine when he was home. It was apparent he missed Minjae. Soo Hyun almost felt sorry for the handsome man people thought was her husband.

He still saw through her. His disinterest didn't even insult her any more.

Soo Hyun would sometimes get tempted to take Kim Minjae's last advice before she left the tearoom that day. "My Lady, if you want to win his affection, try coming clean to him." Minjae had looked straight into her eyes. "Tell him the truth," she had said. Soo Hyun had felt a tremor of apprehension pass through her, almost as if Kim Minjae knew her secret, which, of course, was impossible.

If only.

Seung might help her if he knew the truth. He might even agree to give her a child. But Soo Hyun could not take the risk. She was a slave, and she could never escape. Lord Choi Siwan was too powerful, and he could erase all of them from the face of this earth.

Soo Hyun took one last look at her reflection in the mirror.

Mirrors did lie sometimes, after all.