Secret of the Red Lotus Flower (빨간 연꽃의 비밀)

Chapter 1

By the time the Crown Prince had turned 25, the King had grown tired of the Queen's coddling and the growing pressure from the Ministers had become increasingly insistent. Unable to resist any further, the Queen finally relented. However, she insisted that she would only allow a marriage if she found a candidate that met her exacting requirements. If none did, then any talks of marriage would be postponed for another year.

When the bongdanryeong invitations were sent out with submission details to all qualifying families, Soo-yun had been certain that she would have been exempt from the Royal Selection Process due to her age. However, the dormant desire of her father to have his daughter become the next Crown Princess had been reignited. He called in every favor he had accrued over the years to get her on the selection list.

Soo-yun had been terrified about going to the palace. She could feel the stares of everyone on the street as her palanquin was taken to get to the palace for chogantaek, the preliminary stage, and she tried not to hyper-ventilate. Things got worse after she entered the palace grounds and no longer had the silk curtain of the palanquin to shield her from the open gaze of both the servants and officials wandering about.

She did breathe a sigh of relief when she saw the other candidates. Soo-yun was by far the oldest applicant there. She was surrounded by refined, fresh-faced beauties that were certain to be picked by the senior female royal relatives over her since the candidates were so much younger than Soo-yun. However, she also knew that, if she didn't do her absolute best during the test, she would be severely punished by her father when she returned.

Like the rest of the girls, Soo-yun had foregone any makeup or jewelry so that the Queen and her retinue could evaluate her physical appearance. She was certain this would accentuate how much older she was compared to the other candidates.

Meanwhile, Soo-yun couldn't help but feel a little bit of pride in her calligraphy skills when she was asked to write her father's name or how flawlessly she served light refreshments to the senior female royal relatives. Basic manners and etiquette had been drilled into her since before she could even read and it all came naturally.

Imagine her surprise when it was announced that she was one of the six semi-finalists chosen for jaegantaek, the intermediate stage of the process. From the whispered exclamations from the other candidates, so were they. For the first time, after being dismissed by the other candidates as a non-threat, Soo-yun was the center of attention and she wanted to curl up and disappear.

For the next two weeks, while she waited for jaegantaek, the news spread through Hanseong about how the Left State Councilor's spinster daughter had passed the chogantaek. Many were convinced that the Left State Councilor had either used his influence or bribery to get her there, which was probably true. Others wanted to catch a glimpse of this beauty that somehow defied the odds to be chosen. Either way, her name was on everyone's lips.

To keep herself from having a full anxiety attack, Soo-yun decided to throw herself into her studies and preparation, both as a means to calm herself and to ward off her father's renewed focus. There was only one concession that she made for her peace of mind and she asked her maid Bak Yeo-jin to find out as much about Crown Prince Ha-neul as she could.

* * *

"They call him the 'Stone Prince'," Yeo-jin excitedly told her mistress upon returning.

"The Stone Prince?" Soo-yun asked, putting down her calligraphy brush. She had been in the middle of composing a sijo. Soo-yun had always found that poetry helped fight off panic attacks after a visit from her father. He assumed it was just another form of artistic expression that would gain the approval of the official overseeing the gantaek and Soo-yun needed it to merely breathe.