MW 1

Chapter 1. Wedding Night in Mourning Clothes

 

His bride was dressed in black mourning clothes.
It was their wedding night. The flame of the silver candlestick flickered eerily. The bride pressed her lips tightly together as she looked at the man. Her eyes shimmered with sorrow from losing her husband just days ago.

Yeon Woohee snuffed out the candle.
The light in the bridal chamber vanished. A faint trail of smoke rose where the flame had been, then disappeared into the thick darkness.
The gloom concealed the ecstasy in his eyes.

The acrid scent of burnt wax brushed the tip of the bride’s nose.
She swallowed back her tears with effort, determined not to cry. Woohee couldn’t see her expression.

“Master’s death is truly sorrowful.”

Woohee spoke. His condolences were not entirely false.
The bond between master and disciple had been deep—people often said his master was like a father to him, since Woohee had no parents of his own.

Even if that master had been the husband of his bride, Hae Jinya, it changed nothing.

“I cannot accept you as my husband.”

The bride—Hae Jinya—finally spoke. Her tone was calm and dignified. Her voice, soft like silk threads, was tranquil like a still lake on a windless day, yet it was merely the result of barely holding back the turmoil within.

“It hasn’t been long since Master passed. Of course your heart must be in disarray.”

Woohee replied.
There was something unsettling about the composure in his voice, especially coming from a twenty-one-year-old.

It had been the same when he was a child.
Within Yeon Woohee, there always seemed to swirl a darkness whose depth no one could measure.

“But this was inevitable.”

Woohee took a step closer to Jinya.

“To protect you.”

He murmured, his voice low. His heart throbbed with a sharp ache.

It was always like this. Whenever he drew near to Hae Jinya, he could even catch the faintest scent of the air around her.
From her came a subtle fragrance of spring blossoms.
The scent of spring wrapped around him like silk.

Jinya shut her eyes tightly.
Even if she said she couldn’t accept it, there was no longer any escape.
Both her family and Sun Jubyeol’s had agreed to this marriage. More than agreed—they had pushed it forward before she could even take off her mourning clothes.

“Do you feel guilty?”

Woohee asked.
Instead of answering, Jinya stared at him in pain.

Guilt.
That single syllable seemed to encapsulate everything about their current situation.

Yeon Woohee took another step forward.
Jinya’s fingers, resting limply on her thigh, flinched.

There were still several paces of distance between them.
Filling that space was nothing but a dense, suffocating darkness.

“What exactly are you guilty for?
For remarrying while in mourning for your husband?
Or for accepting your husband’s disciple as your second husband?”

A crooked smile tugged at Woohee’s lips.
Jinya didn’t answer.

“Or is it… because the child you raised as your own is now holding you?”

His words struck sharply at her core.
Each line was like a dagger—yet none of them stopped her heart.
If anything, with every painful stab at her soul, her heart pounded even harder.

“All of it… All of it is sinful.”

Jinya finally replied, her voice full of anguish.

“Poor thing.”

Woohee reached out his hand.
Jinya recoiled.

From the start, he was standing too far to actually touch her.
Even so, he reached—and she instinctively backed away.

“Why don’t you understand?
Even if it is a sin, it is not evil.”

Woohee said.
Jinya didn’t respond.
If this marriage wasn’t wicked, she wasn’t sure virtue even existed anymore.

Woohee stepped closer.
Now his hand could almost touch her shoulder.

He hadn’t stood this close to her since she turned twenty.
The distance allowed between them had always been several steps—just far enough that even if Woohee reached out, he couldn’t touch her.

The year Jinya turned twenty, and Woohee was fifteen.
When Woohee hugged her from behind like he used to as a child—
How had his master reacted then?

The master took Woohee behind the garden and slapped him.

Young Yeon Woohee clutched his stinging cheek and looked up at his master.
His eyes didn’t show fear, but rebellion.

“She is your stepmother,”
the master had said.

Woohee bit his lower lip so hard it bled, the metallic taste of blood filling his mouth.

Violence convinces no one.
It was something his master had always taught him.
That violence was only to be used against enemies.
So then, at that moment… was Woohee the enemy?

He said nothing.
Even after his master left, he sat there for a long time, deep in thought.
Brooding alone had always been Yeon Woohee’s habit.

Why did Master hit me?

Even as a child, he often embraced Jinya—but he had never been struck for it before.

 

Soon, Yeon Woohee realized what had changed. After turning twenty, Hae Jinya had moved her quarters to the main house’s marital bedroom. And every night, she fell asleep by Seon Jubyeol’s side.

 

Woohee understood well enough what that meant.

 

His master had begun to fully regard Jinya as his woman. Every night, their bodies would surely press against each other. It wouldn’t be long before a child was conceived between them.

 

The reason his master had struck Woohee wasn’t anything else. It was a stern warning directed at him.

 

The next day, his master commanded Woohee: stay more than four or five steps away from Hae Jinya.

 

That distance.

 

A distance far too great to convey heat or love. He lingered at that unbreakable boundary, orbiting around her. Yet every night, he imagined Jinya in her husband’s arms. It was a pain that cut through flesh and squeezed out blood.

 

But now, his master was dead. Hae Jinya, widowed, had fallen into Yeon Woohee’s hands.

 

The moment he broke the distance his master had set, a vile thrill surged within Woohee. Nothing could stop him now.

 

Woohee slowly touched Jinya’s cheek. Though years had passed, her skin remained as soft as it had been in childhood. This cheek, and the fragile body hidden beneath the pitiful mourning clothes, all belonged to Yeon Woohee now.

 

Perhaps his master had known back then that Woohee’s feelings weren’t mere familial affection. No, Woohee was certain he had known.

 

Familial affection? His emotions had never once been something so vague. They were carnal, earthly, beastly.

 

Woohee’s hand settled lightly on her shoulder. His gaze fixed on the collar of her mourning garb. His fingertips brushed the knot holding it closed. Jinya flinched and took half a step back.

 

“…I’ll take it off myself.”

 

Jinya spoke. She thought it better to undress herself than let Woohee strip her.

 

“Do as you wish.”

 

Woohee replied, his voice laced with the calm confidence of a predator who’d caught his prey.

 

Jinya lowered her head and fumbled with the knot of her mourning clothes. No matter how hard it was to accept, this was reality.

 

Her husband, Seon Jubyeol, was dead, and Yeon Woohee had become her new husband.

 

It was the day after she’d received news of her husband’s death in battle. Hae Jinya had been ordered by royal decree to marry Yeon Woohee. It was also the will of her natal family and her in-laws. The new groom arrived before her husband’s corpse.

 

All of this had happened in less than ten days since Seon Jubyeol left home. That a man so robust could vanish from the world in an instant, and that another man would now lie in her bed, were things Jinya couldn’t easily comprehend.

 

Yeon Woohee had said it.

 

That this was the best path.

 

Was it truly the best? Then why was her heart shrouded in such thick fog? The hazy mist sometimes took the shape of a ghost resembling Seon Jubyeol. As if telling her not to forget him. As if she were still his wife.

 

Tormented by these thoughts, she removed her mourning clothes with her own hands. Layer by layer, her grief for her dead husband peeled away, soon exposing her bare skin.

 

“It’s done.”

 

Jinya’s voice trembled faintly as she stood naked.

 

The room was dark, so Yeon Woohee could only make out her vague silhouette. Instead, he began running his rough palms down her body. Her slender neck, round shoulders, and the chest rising and falling rapidly.

 

Unable to hold back, Woohee pressed his face to her nape. The fragrant scent rising from her body clouded his mind. His hand gripped her breast. Even through her clothes, her breasts had stood out, but bare, they looked even more luscious. His large hand warmed her flesh.

 

Woohee slid his other hand down to her abdomen. His fingers lightly scratched her lower belly. From now on, Yeon Woohee would plant his seed here.

 

Right in this very place where her master’s seed had been sown hundreds, thousands of times.

 

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