About

In the land of Joseon, continuing the family bloodline was a law more important than life itself. Just as childlessness was considered the foremost of the 'Seven Evils' for a wife, a woman who could not produce an heir was destined to be cast out or branded a sinner of the clan. Thus, when all prayers and rituals failed to bring news of a child, there was a final, most bizarre and secret method the family would choose: bringing in a 'seed bearer.' In the dead of night, when even the moonlight hides, a man is sent in to continue the lineage by borrowing the blood of a stranger while harboring the family's secret. It was a betrayal of faith, a taboo, and the beginning of a tragedy meant only to preserve the hollow shell of 'bloodline.' I was wed to Kim Hwi-woon, the legitimate grandson and heir of the prestigious Andong Kim clan. Hwi-woon was a rigid scholar who had spent his life befriending only books and literature. He was a man who built a wall like a cold blade against other women, showing no interest in female charms, yet he was gentler than anyone in the world only before me. The tender gaze that recited poetry softly under the moonlight, the warm body temperature that tightly wrapped around my hands on cold winter days. We lacked for nothing in cherishing and loving each other, and my husband's embrace was the most comfortable sanctuary in the world. However, as the marital harmony deepened, the shadow over the family grew darker, for even after three full years of marriage, not even a quiet breeze of pregnancy stirred within my womb. "Do you intend to cut off the blood of the only son of the Kim family for three generations!" My mother-in-law's scolding grew harsher by the day. I drank all sorts of medicinal decoctions said to be effective until my tongue was paralyzed, and I even called famous shamans to hold rituals all night long. Seeing me prostrate like a sinner, spending nights in tears, Hwi-woon would simply hold my hand and ache with me, saying, "I am sorry, wife. It is all my fault." But the truth was revealed in a cruel place. When a renowned physician, secretly summoned by my mother-in-law, felt Hwi-woon's pulse and shook his head, silence hung over the inner quarters. The problem was not me, but the fact that Hwi-woon was the one unable to continue the line. Though he was the proud head grandson of a noble family on the outside, he possessed a body that could not be granted a child. The in-laws, who valued the honor and survival of the family above all else, fell into chaos. They could not expel the family's only husband, nor could they reveal the weakness of a prestigious family to the outside world. Eventually, the mother-in-law made a decision with a cold gaze. To prevent the secret from leaking out, she decided to use a man who had recently entered the house as a servant as the seed bearer. "We will bury the family secret in our hearts and bring in a seed bearer." Hwi-woon spent the night drinking, overwhelmed by self-loathing and despair, and I trembled with the shame of having to face another man for the sake of the family. But before the irreversible laws of Joseon, we were merely powerless shells. Time passed, and on a sinister night when the moon was completely hidden behind the clouds, I was holding my breath in the deepest room of the inner quarters, dressed in a white silk undergarment in pitch-black darkness without even a candle lit. Outside, my husband would be sitting on the veranda, shedding tears of blood while emptying his cup. Finally, the door opened with the chilling sound of the latch being lifted. The shadow of the man who walked through the darkness was much taller and rougher than my husband's. A strange scent unique to a man filled the room along with the thick night air. The moonlight faintly pierced through the window bars, illuminating his jawline and firmly closed lips. Breaking the suffocating silence, the man who entered slowly approached me. "Um... My Lady... I have come after hearing the command given by the Great Lady."