A/N:

Here to give y'all warnings: Death, tragedy, mentions of homophobia and mentions of rape in this chapter.

----------------------------------------------

The Wise Monkey's POV:

3!

2!

And 1!...

-

-

Soojin had finished reciting her tale of misery: for the first time since she had been unfairly taken by the State and put into the alms of the torment of eternal banishment from the earth, and for the last time as well.

The prisoner, Kang Yeosang as he had introduced himself, had his ears on her all the while. He did not utter a word, did not reciprocate a reaction or emotion, just the blank stare along her way as he heard it all. If he was feeling anything at all, he did not show, and it wasn't like any of the other two would notice anyway. Soojin had gently caressed her protruding abdomen as she told her tale, strangely no tears were shed as she reminisced( it was never predictable whether she would care to shed one at a particular moment in time). 

The executioner, Choi San, had regret crossed over his face. But he hadn't much choice; Just like Soojin had quoted moments ago: the lower class and the weak were denied numberless commodities in life, but freedom of choice would sit at the pinnacle of them all. San would feel the relentless urge to express his sympathies throughout her narration, but his words would never leave his mouth. He was to end her life, after all. How ironic! And did she know? Did she know yet that he himself were to bring an end to her as a puppet of the corrupt wealthy? She didn't!

"Bastards!" Yeosang said, his only remark to the tale he requested. But the single word carried more power than any wordy sentence either of the listeners would have spoken. He had gritted teeth and an intensely dark, unsettled, bottling whirlpool of anger in them. Genuine rage! Yet, the very next second, he had calmed his facial attributes, like he had accepted the fate and thus the injustice. There was no hope in his eyes too, just like Soojin.

Soojin bitterly smiled. "You seem to have a tale of your own," she said. "How did you end up here? I do not know why, but my heart tells me you have been wronged too, that you don't deserve to be here."

For a moment, a look of disbelief yet gratitude flashed in his cold eyes. But he replaced it with a cold, bitter, chuckle. "You wouldn't say that if you knew," he laughed out, clutching his aching jaws. "I deserve it! I do! You'd say so too!" And the laughs immediately came to a halt as he bit the inside of his lips and slowly gulped, his eyes now morbidly weary.

"Were you caught in between a spy mission?" Soojin asked, eyes roaming his womanly attire and then the bloodstains on it. "Were you wounded when you were caught?"

He sadly smirked, eyes not meeting hers or that of the executioner. "I wish I were a spy. I wish I had rather been punished like this for that. The only reason I'm here is because I have been myself. Because I was born. Because I existed."

Soojin didn't ask a word further because she sensed his replies shouldn't come forced. But when Yeosang swept his eyes up after the moments they spent in silence, he realized Soojin still looked at him. There was worry in her eyes, there was sympathy, curiosity, comfort and what his intuition recognized as kindness. His eyes widened just a fraction when he saw the pregnant woman getting up to slowly walk to his end. She then sat against the wall just beside him.

"It was your own suggestion, that's why I asked. I felt good telling my own story to have you believe in it, even if it was one person that I could tell, one person that believed me, I'm glad I could have this... before I-I'd leave... I have never had someone who could listen patiently to something I'd say for that long ever. Anyway, if you do not wish to tell me, that's fine. Maybe you should speak about something else, to forget about this tragedy for the few hours we can."

Yeosang shook his head. "Would you really care to listen? You wouldn't like it. Perhaps, you would stop talking to me if you knew."

"You can speak, I'm not certain if we have much time to even disregard each others' presence after you are to be done talking."

And so, Yeosang began speaking. "I'm not a spy. Or anyone whose daily wage would depend on dressing as a woman or someone or anyone if you think that is why I look like this. I just like to dress like this. Ever since I was young, I knew I would rather dress like a girl and grow my hair like them. But I am a man. A man who happens to only find interest in men," he paused to check for a reaction, but he only got blank but curious faces of the two. 

"I had nobody, people who were aware of my identity would turn their heads around when they would come across me. Some would say cruel words, some would threaten, some would resort to public violence. And yet many of these men who would spit or curse at me in the daylights would come seeking my door in the dark of the secretive nights. I would always refuse to sleep with them. It was hard finding a means to live for someone like me, but I had never turned to sell my body once. I would turn down these filthy men again and again until one day, one entire week ago, there was someone who I could not. This man didn't even offer any money and he didn't seem to faze with my rejection, he thought he didn't need to, he thought he had any and all control over me."

"I...I was taken against my will that night..." he choked on his voice. "It was hellish. It was.... I had decided to file a complaint against him to the State. But he had thought ahead of me. I was dragged out of my abode the next day for 'forcing myself on him and successfully attempting at it'. I was devastated. And when I was in confinement, only then did I come to know of his identity. T-The governor's son! He- He..."

Soojin gently held his hand in hers and rubbed it, shocking Yeosang into tears which he immediately wiped away.

"While I was in confinement this week, he requested the guards to escort me to his abode, and then.... while we were alone...it happened all over again. It was crueller this time, this time he used me for both his sexual satisfaction and as a means to let his violent frustrations out. I was physically and sexually abused for 11 hours. 11 hours!" he yelled out the last part, trying hard to stop the oncoming tears.

Soojin leaned closer to rub his shoulders. "You should let it out," she softly said. And the taken-aback man who wasn't the least expecting for anyone to ever be kind to him, wailed out the tears as the woman guided his head to her shoulder.

"A-And then..." he continued in between his cries of agony. "He had kept me confined there. And then used me again the next day, and again. And when he thought I was lifeless, he ordered the guards to bring me here. And even when my punishment was already decided by then, even with the knowledge I was to die today, the guards had beaten me like I was some rabid dog upon his orders, they did it till I was unconscious..."

Soojin angrily flashed the guard a look of rage and hatred. In the scrutiny of her eyes, the man stuttered out, "I wasn't here then, I did not know!" San had tears in his own eyes as he averted it from her to wipe them away. San knew he wouldn't ever be fit for this job. He had decided to quit it, he decided he wouldn't work from tomorrow onwards. But today, today he couldn't retract, he had no choice to. He wished he could. Hell, he even wished to save the two prisoners. But the three of them knew that what was to come was inevitable.

"Y-You are not disgusted by me?" Yeosang quietly asked Soojin in his broken voice, the kind stranger whose shoulder he was now resting his head upon.

Soojin did not understand a lot of things in the world, she did not understand the variety of people in the world, but she knew she didn't have to, she knew everyone was unique, she knew that even if she didn't understand or connect with them, they would still be humans who are still not much different. People who claimed they practised magic, people who would believe them, people who had strange preferences of food, flowers, fabrics, and many other people who she wouldn't understand. But she knew that as long as those people wouldn't actually harm or question the existence of others in the world, she wouldn't discriminate against them.

"And why should I be? You never did any wrong to me and you don't look like you did any wrong to anyone intentionally as well," she answered as she looked at the now fragile-looking man. Yet she thought he looked braver now that he let his emotions out.

Yeosang leaned closer into her with his weak body and grabbed her hand to clasp it in his. "I'm thankful that I met you, you're a kind woman. Even if it was for a short while... even if it was in the last hours of my life, I'm thankful I could spend it with a kind person like you." His eyes then fell on her stomach and his voice growing sadder at their fate, he asked. "I know I shouldn't remind you of this, but did you ever decide on a name for the child?"

Soojin looked at her stomach and hummed. "I have had a girl's name in mind...." And just as she was about to continue, a new person barged into the jail.

"It's time for the woman," the new man told a heavy-chested San.

"O-Ohhh... Alright," he weekly answered him and turned towards the cell. "Soojin-ssi..." he said.

"Don't have to be polite, rookie. You, get up, it's time for you!" the guard told Soojin as he snatched the cell key from San and began to open it. 

Soojin stood up submissively and Yeosang's eyes grew sadder than when she had first seen him.

"You somehow reminded me of my brother, Kang Yeosang," Soojin said. "If there's a God and an afterlife up there, I'd request to meet you in my next life, in better circumstances than this," she weekly put on a brave smile. "Goodbye! You are very kind too, remember that!"

And with that being said, she walked out of the jail with the guards.

.

.

.

Sour words of rage were what Soojin could hear as she was nearing the public execution ground; this piece of land that was once designated to take the life of heinous monsters in the public's presence, the land that would only be used for the same in the rarest occasions, now served the purpose once again, to end her life, and later, in hours' time, Yeosang's too. Public execution was assigned only to the highest punishable offences that could occur. Perhaps, the reason the crowd of civilians were so enraged at the mere sight of Soojin. They must've had assumed the most godforsaken, abominable crime to her head. Or it could have been a rumour. Perhaps, even the influence of the web of lies the royals and allies would have fed the public. 

Even though Soojin didn't know what more false accusations were added to her name, she knew it couldn't have had been anywhere as bad as mass murder, terrorism or rape. And in the same society, the rapist walked free putting all his blame on his victim who was assigned for the afterlife only hours after Soojin. Yet the crowd was more invested in the falsely accused Soojin, yet the crowd was the most aggravated that one ever saw in this town. 

Why? 

Because the wealthy class relished seeing the inferiors perish in the cruel game of life. Because the meagre class relished the doom of a compeer who stood out among them; And Soojin's extraordinary beauty, kindness, skills and bravado had always been a bane for her, the reality that she was a meagre class woman with the same capabilities a threat even toxic.

Soojin walked slower than usual. She didn't resist, she let the guards hold her arms, she let them take her to her doom, she wouldn't wriggle or struggle to run. She was deep in submission. She knew she was to die and she would. But she would subtly delay the event with the slow steps of her legs. She was not ready to face her brother yet. 

Choi San tried his hardest to maintain a sober man's face as he walked beside his victim with his weapon. He knew there was no turning back now, he must accomplish his task, hellishly hard as it might. Physically he was walking to the set up of his work, but mentally he was deviant and opposing, and even as he tried, his contorted facials betrayed him. When they reached the centre of the crowd, San's eyes fell on the pathetic man on the muddy ground as he wailed. A true friend and neighbour of his from his childhood days, Jung Wooyoung, screeching in a loud cry just as he saw his sister where no brother would want to see his sister standing. His old friend was in the arms of his equally broken cousin, Yunho, who was trying everything he could as a final plea for mercy.

San immediately turned his head from the sight, feeling his stomach turning at the sick plan of events. He tried to keep his shaking hands steady as he held his sword.

Soojin couldn't hold it in anymore. The sight of Wooyoung and Yunho and a restricted, enraged Mingi was hard enough for her. And she couldn't help but hate her for still having searched the face of Jisoo in the crowd, she hated that she still didn't hate him. She couldn't find Jisoo, but she could find the hazy figure of his behalf, Choi Jongho, looking at her with pity from the back of the crowd. Jisoo wanted to personally have an update on her execution? He could not even bother to show his face for even a cruel final apathetic gaze? That was when she couldn't hold it in anymore. She cried out, cupping her face, and let out all her final sobs, the final show of her weakness and fear and defeat. 

Soojin's hands were made to tie behind her back. 

"It's time, boy," the words of his superior rang on San's ear. His eyes moistened as he eyed Wooyoung and then the innocent Soojin beside him.

The siblings' eyes were on each other as the deed was about to be done, it was the only way they could connect before the eternal departure of one of them: Wooyoung's last sight of his living sister he loved and Soojin's last living sight and memory of her precious brother. And that was when Soojin remembered the last question posed to her, just minutes prior when she was with Kang Yeosang. She then broke the connection by looking at her stomach intentionally, indicating to Wooyoung what she wanted to relay further on. And then, with her fragile, weak voice, to the best of her abilities, she tried to yell out loud for it to reach Wooyoung's ear in the raging noise. "Sooyoung!" she had said when she reconnected the gaze with him. And Wooyoung fell to the ground in an agonizing cry.

When Wooyoung and Soojin had been young, Wooyoung's mother had once conceived a child. The siblings had then taken the task upon themselves to name their oncoming sibling, Wooyoung who insisted on a name that sounded similar to his, and Soojin on one that resembled hers. Soojin had managed to come up with something that she claimed would be perfect, something would resolve their problem, a girl child's name, as she told Wooyoung. But that name never had come to leave her lips, never had to because their mother ultimately had met with an unfortunate fate with the child that grew in her. 

But now, Wooyoung knew. He knew of the name she had back then come up with. He knew of the name she now again came up with. Now, he knew the name that he would assign to the one who he would also enact the funeral rite of as the responsible uncle: little Sooyoung. Wooyoung wailed out loud.

"Now!" an officer sternly ordered San and before the blade could slice her, Jongho had immediately turned around with eyes pressed shut from his place in the crowd as he walked away briskly.

When Soojin dropped to the ground with a clean horizontal bleeding slash across the front of her neck, Wooyoung ran to her body and the crying Yunho's face weekly found solace within his shaking palms. Mere seconds were what she lasted before she closed her eyes from the face of the earth, her very last vision, a crying, helpless brother and the bright colour of the sky in the tarnished, dull world.

The crowd immediately dispersed. Mingi hugged and comforted Wooyoung who himself held the dead body in his lap, Yunho watched his cousin cautiously for Wooyoung's bubbling eyes resembled that of a madman's and none of the other two wished craziness or mental derangement upon him. In a distance, some law enforcers waited with a carriage to ensure their further responsibilities as they watched the grieving family. But San stood aloof from either of the clusters, he had found solace underneath the shade of a tree as he faced the trunk with eyes set on the ground, his weapon still in his hands. His face was emotionless, he was trying very to keep it that way. He had to endure it, he had to, just until the few hours' time when it would be Yeosang's turn too. And only after that, he decided, he would come here again under this same shade to cry his eyes out after he would resign from his wretched post. 

Soojin and her child had ceased to exist, and so did the peace and happiness of her family. But time never did and never would cease. The world kept moving. Time kept ticking and the ones alive still breathed. But then it didn't mean that their individual quota of time on earth went peaceful. No.

Post Soojin's death, Wooyoung did not work at the palace anymore, he stayed with Yunho. Mingi after being released from the temporary custody of the State( for openly badmouthing the government and causing chaos at the execution grounds), resumed his work, almost all hours of his days completely and unhealthily engrossed in it. Prince Jisoo, after a while, came to realize the deceased Soojin's innocence after the conspiracies suddenly came to unravel one day. But before he could have had spent too much time in guilt and misery, he became one amongst the deceased too. On one casual but unfortunate day, he was found unmoving in his chamber by a servant. Poisoning had been the cause. Cruel timing it had been! Because just a night prior to the prince's death, Wooyoung had visited the palace for some purpose unrelating to any of it. 

But cruel timing and cruel destiny! Wooyoung was framed for the death of the prince and the innocent was once again asked of his life as a punishment. Wooyoung had been sent to the realm of his sister and her unborn child. Yunho, having no family left at all, spent the rest of his life unlike himself, with no one, no support at all to take care of his depressed mind and his life and weakening body as he grew old.

The heirless king and queen, after they lost their only son and successor, had married off their daughters to bring in the elder son in law as the new successor of the estate and titles. And that son-in-law had been Kim Jaejoong. Choi Jongho, having lost his friend and cousin, having seen the palace that he also grew up in curbed in the hands of a stranger, having already predicted its doom in Jaejoong's hands, left the palace to never return to it ever again.

And later when the deceiver and usurper of a Kim Jaejoong had been found murdered by someone in the same estate, the responsibility and ownership of the palace and estate had fallen in the hands of Kim Hongjoong, both as Jaejoong's brother and as the younger princess' husband, the younger son-in-law of the king and queen.

And Hongjoong had to guard and acknowledge the palace that he kept deeming cursed for the rest of his life. The palace, the secrets and many mishappenings of which only he could have had the chance to observe. The palace that resulted in the ill-life and sorrows and deaths of many, the palace that he thought habituated the souls of many innocents. The souls of the poor, the soul of the poisoned prince(whose death he had always suspected had hands of his deceased brother involved), and the soul of many royal usurpers. Hongjoong had to live his life knowing many unprepossessing things and keeping them heavy in his chest as he himself never found peace in his mind and heart. His meaningless life had to deteriorate in that cursed estate.

And in the stable of that same cursed estate, had stayed that white horse, heartbroken to never find his favourite human companion ever visit again, until it breathed its last breath there one day too.

-

-

...I'm back to normal now! That concludes the last of my client's— or at this point, clients'— previous life tales. 

Now, I don't really know what happened after Soojin's death in the afterlife, because that is never my business. Did Fate consult with her and took requests from her to craft her further destiny? Since she's a special soul, you know. Or Fate just judged and wrote it all himself? Either way, once she was within the life that he wrote—which is now— he had decided that it needed a correction. And now I'm here. 

I only made sense of why it needed a correction after I spied on her past life and whatever's going on with her now, basically I found out recently. And I don't know how accurate my theory is, but it makes sense to me for now, from an outsider's point of view. And since I practically showed you all the important bits of her past life, all of those bits from which I concluded myself, I'm assuming—scratch that— expecting that you figure it all out too. Spoon-feeding each and everything is labour I'm not willing to do. Anyway, remember how I told you I barely have any energy left after a session of summoning of my past self? Basically, I'm energyless. So......

It's a bye for now!

A/N:

I was asking for advice from my sister about some scene. I told her that the scene is set in past life and she started reading what was written on my screen, she got the 'royals' and 'maid' and stuff. When I told her MC and Yeo were gonna die in past life, she just went BUHAHAHAHAHA... She went nuts laughing out all long and loud, and even I myself couldn't help but laugh. It was ridiculous to her how this story went from a simple IdolxFan story(bcos she only read the 1st chap of Annyeond Daisy) to past life and royal shit. It was then that I knew: I FUCKED U—

Or maybe not! But it does sound very off, the plot that goes from IdolxFan to historic times, lmao. What am I doing with this series! *cries in a corner*

+ on a serious note, this story is not something that I want you to just read and finish. It's something that can be read, and then analysed and then understood. Even tho the narration is Wise Monkey's who basically recite to you everything he sees, this is not the type of story in which everything is 'told'. I'm following 'show' rather than 'tell' here. Even Wise Monkey has many times told you to figure out on your own(which I can manipulate as the author to hint and guide you to think). I would like you to think and analyze abt the human characters and their nature in this book. 'why was the past jisoo the way that he was?' 'why is soojin the way that she is?' To see some things in their pov is your task. The narration doesn't tell everything, but only a fragment that excite you to think and analyze and possibly be creative abt it thru ur imagination.

And that is what, folks, that I so love about reading or watching fiction!

P.S. only 4 chapters remaining.

P.P.S. pls listen to hehetmon and VOTE.