Yeonhwa

A maid serving in a government office bore an official's child and was cast out. With nowhere else to go, she gave birth in a back alley in Wolha Village.

The child's earliest memories were at her mother's side, begging alongside her just to survive, never once knowing the taste of a full meal. Her cries of hunger were met only with apathy and a frigid stare from her mother. Living in constant deprivation, the child unlearned her emotions. Crying did nothing; she could only remain silent and endure.

On the day she turned ten, the child was abandoned in the middle of the road. After days without food, her body freezing and her consciousness fading, her shadow began to waver beneath the pale moonlight, then scattered and disappeared.

When she came to, she was in a warm room. Her blurry eyes made out a woman with kind eyes, gently gazing back at her. The child simply looked up blankly, feeling no gratitude or reassurance, but felt vaguely that this woman's eyes were different.

The child would never forget the woman's name: "Jiwon."

Jiwon hadn't simply saved a life. She recognized the flicker in the child's shadow for what it was and knew that people would try to exploit her. So, to protect the child before the world could corrupt her, Jiwon took her in.

That day, the child became a guest of Dohwa Garden, and Jiwon named her "Yeonhwa."

Yeonhwa lived every day the same way. Wake up, eat, stare out the window or listen to music from beyond the walls, then wait for her next meal. After she recovered, she began serving food, and she was happy to be fed without having to beg.

Then, one sleepless night, as she gazed at the full moon, she heard something new: an ethereal melody playing on a pipa. As if bewitched, she slipped out the window and followed the sound.

In the courtyard of the great manor, Jiwon played the pipa with her eyes closed. As Yeonhwa approached, the music stopped. Jiwon was startled by the child's silent approach, but Yeonhwa just wanted to hear that music again.

For the first time, something gentle and warm stirred in Yeonhwa's hollow life.

Jiwon never intended for Yeonhwa to become a gisaeng. All she wanted was for the child to pursue her own desires. Though Yeonhwa's command over shadows could have made her a master assassin, Jiwon did not want her to go down such a road and didn't foster Yeonhwa's innate talent. Meanwhile, Yeonhwa wasn't particularly interested in anything. As long as she wasn't hungry, nothing else mattered.

Jiwon gave Yeonhwa one year to decide what she wanted for her future. Continuing her life doing the same daily routines, Yeonhwa pondered Jiwon's words but still didn't know what she wanted to do. She only knew one thing for certain: she wanted to stay by Jiwon's side and keep hearing her music.

Every full moon, Yeonhwa would quietly wander through the manor of Dohwa Garden, listening to Jiwon's music. To avoid being noticed by the gisaeng, she kept her steps light, unknowingly hiding in the shadows. Once she realized nobody could see her, she became more daring in her excursions.

One night, Yeonhwa was roaming familiar paths when she noticed an unfamiliar presence. Spotting men cloaked in black sneaking into Jiwon's manor, she followed them without giving it any thought. Gliding silently from shadow to shadow, she followed them as they entered Jiwon's room.

She finally realized that were these assassins that had come to kill Jiwon. For the first time in her life, she experienced fear. The possibility of Jiwon dying terrified her beyond imagination.

Acting before her thoughts could catch her, Yeonhwa seized a hair stick from a shelf and instinctively lunged at the assassins. Her hand and the hair stick it carried vanished into the darkness and reappeared elsewhere. When an assassin swung his sword, she was already beyond its reach. She didn't know that she'd left a shadow behind and traveled through it.

Yeonhwa fought the assassins using pure instinct, but the hair stick could not pierce their muscles, and they overpowered her. Thrown to the ground, she felt a cold blade tip against her throat. Then, she heard a delicate, but sharp, note from a pipa. The assassins froze, and Jiwon, no longer sleeping, gazed down at them with cold eyes and a pipa in hand.

She plucked a string, and the air chilled. Her next note made the assassins gasp for air. Another brought them to their knees. When Jiwon stopped playing, the room became completely quiet, except for her and Yeonhwa's breathing. Jiwon's usually beautiful music had become brutally frigid.

Watching her, Yeonhwa made up her mind. She would protect Jiwon no matter what, as even thinking of her death was unbearable.

With the sole goal of protecting Jiwon, Yeonhwa worked as hard as she could, and the result of innate talent and hard work was remarkable. After just one year, Yeonhwa had mastered the art of survival and intelligence-gathering from within the shadows.

When Yeonhwa offered to serve as Jiwon's personal bodyguard, Jiwon instead suggested that she join Dohwa Garden as a fourth-rate gisaeng. Unlike ordinary gisaeng, fourth-rate gisaeng are elite agents of Dohwa Garden who draw on innate talents like sharp hearing or keen insight to act as secret operatives. Since the position would keep her near Jiwon, Yeonhwa agreed.

Yeonhwa stands out even among the top ranks of the fourth-rate gisaeng and has earned Jiwon's deep trust. Other gisaeng of Dohwa Garden revere her, calling her the "Flower Blooming in Shadow."