The Hunt ✓

👑51| Mistaken

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"Baek Sun Hee." Min Kyu mutters under his breath with a look of austere shock. His finger tips compress the edges of the scroll in his hands and crumple each part before he turns to his aunt.

"The late Queen denounced that right years ago! What authority does she have to call for this?!"

Another round of guards approach quickly from the main town square stomping their feet on the bare grass. They stop by the fence surrounding the whole house to the back. Withholding their swords in the air, they step into a formation.

One of them comes out from the formation and marches to the head commander to lower his head over his ear to whisper something. With a sharp nod, the guard steps back to the formation.

Seo Jin and his men step down quickly surrounding the other guards too, but the head commander scoffs seeing the protection they have in just an ordinary town house.

"She has the order signed by Minister Baek and the overseer Nam Ji Min. Kang Hye Ra has 24 hours to appear or else we'll have to arrest her."

Before he can retort further, they turn away in line as their formation disengages into a long queue marching away. With a last bow, the head commander twirls on a foot and moves away too.

His fingers mash the edge of the scroll before crumpling the whole scroll furiously in between his thoughts. Thrashing it behind him, he stumbles back against the wall.

Fear and despair draw all over her pale face. No one needs to warn her that she is in a hot soup this time and her sister isn't around to retract the decree from the palace.

Holding back her tears, she starts running to her room with her eyes welling in tears. His guards dash to the fence to guard as she slams the door to squat over a box under her bed. It is an old rickety box covered with dust right from the pages too. Its cover holds a few characters reading "Palace."

"Aunt." Min Kyu screams before he starts banging the door when she doesn't respond.

She passes her arm over the lower part of her eyes and wipes the surface of the box carefully with a duster her eyes meet on the window side. Seo Jin opens the door to their hall and taps Min Kyu's shoulders.

"You should hear what the townspeople are gossiping about." Min Kyu watches the door silently for a moment.

"Some are saying you're her son, and that she wanted to hide her betrayal by refusing Minister Baek."

With the last words he mutters, Min Kyu steps out angrily. "Min Kyu!" Seo Jin yells while chasing after him. The townspeople starts to murmur among themselves when they see Min Kyu stepping out of his house.

Hye Ra slowly cracks the seal she placed at the cover to encode the box. The inners of the box expose a lot of old pictures and a jade necklace . Her name is engraved at the center on the jade attached to the necklace.

"So Yeon...what happened to you!" Hye Ra exclaimed standing by the door step with her curious ogling eyes. A young woman stood still with tears running down her cheeks. She couldn't speak.

Hye Ra closed the door behind her and hugged her sister who was guarded by two men.

"I need you help. Can you help me?" Hye Ra nodded without a thought and followed her sister towards an abandoned house in the town.

It looked old from the outside, but immediately she entered she knew it was right not to judge a book by its cover. It was magnificent and huge. The walls were beautifully painted and furnished all around. The silent aura was disturbed by the cry of a little child.