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Her Tale of Shim Chong Manhwa Guide (Read All 100 Chapters of Seri's Yuri Folktale Free)
Read Her Tale of Shim Chong online, Seri's historical Korean yuri manhwa reimagining the Shim Cheong folktale as a love story between a blind man's beggar daughter and a trapped noblewoman. All 100 chapters including side stories, free in English on Yurivan.
Her Tale of Shim Chong (Geunyeoni Simcheong, 그녀가 심청) by Seri is the historical Korean yuri manhwa that takes one of the most famous folktales in Korea and finds a love story hiding inside it. Everyone in Korea knows the tale of Shim Cheong, the devoted daughter who sells herself and drowns in the Indangsu Sea to restore her blind father's sight. Seri's retelling keeps the beggar girl, the blind father, and the debt that sells her, then reroutes the rest into something the original never imagined: the person Shim Chong is sold to is a living, suffering noblewoman, and what grows between them rewrites both their fates. One hundred chapters of full-color webtoon art carry the complete run, including the side stories. Yurivan mirrors the entire series as a single continuous read.
Her Tale of Shim Chong
100 chapters · 834 pages
What is Her Tale of Shim Chong?
Her Tale of Shim Chong is a historical Korean yuri manhwa by Seri, serialized as a full-color webtoon and officially licensed in English. The series sits in the historical-drama corner of Korean GL, alongside titles like Lily of the Valley and Lady Black is Depressed, with a period setting, painterly art, and the emotional patience the genre rewards. What sets it apart on the shelf is its source: it is a direct, deliberate retelling of a canonical Korean folktale, which gives it a structural ambition most webtoon romances never attempt.
The premise opens on two women who have, separately, decided they are done with the world. Shim Chong is a beggar, the daughter of a blind man whose debt has come due. Jang is a noblewoman whose marriage is a slow suffocation. The folktale says Shim Chong is to be sold and sacrificed; the manhwa puts a real woman on the other end of that transaction, and the story becomes about what two people who expected to die do when they find a reason not to.
The Folktale It Reimagines
The original Tale of Shim Cheong is one of Korea's best-known pansori folktales, a Confucian parable about filial piety. In it, Shim Cheong is the devoted daughter of a blind man, Shim Hakgyu. Told that an offering of 300 sacks of rice to the Buddha will restore her father's sight, she sells herself to sailors who need a virgin sacrifice to calm the Indangsu Sea, and throws herself into the water. Her devotion moves the Dragon King, who returns her to the surface in a lotus flower; she becomes empress, and at a feast for the blind, her father's sight is restored at the sound of her voice.
Seri keeps the skeleton, the blind father, the crushing debt, the daughter sold to save him, and asks the question the parable never does: what did Shim Chong want? By replacing the sea sacrifice with a sale into a noble household, the manhwa turns a story about a daughter's duty to her father into a story about a woman's claim on her own life and heart. Recognizing the reroute is part of the pleasure, but the manhwa never requires it.
Story Overview
The early chapters establish both women's despair and the transaction that binds them. Shim Chong arrives in the noble household carrying the weight of her father's debt and the expectation that her life is no longer hers. Jang, the noblewoman, is introduced through the quiet violence of her marriage. The opening arc is patient about letting the reader feel why each of them has stopped hoping, so the first flickers of connection land as something genuinely dangerous to both of them.
The middle of the run develops the relationship inside the constraints of the period and the household. Servants, in-laws, and the rigid expectations of noble life are all obstacles, and the manhwa is honest about the danger two women in this position would face. Chapter titles across the run, from the early 'Beggar' and 'The Flower That Bloomed on the Water' to the later turns, trace Shim Chong's slow movement from a sold object to a person with desires of her own.
The back half brings the central relationship to its reckoning with the world that wants to keep the two women apart, and the main run resolves across chapters into the high 80s. The series then continues with side stories and author specials (the 81.x bonus chapters and side-story arcs) that give the central pair more time after the main drama settles. The complete 100-chapter run rewards binge-reading.
Main Characters
- Shim Chong: The protagonist and the folktale's namesake, reimagined. A beggar and the daughter of a blind man, sold to settle his debt. Where the folktale's Shim Cheong is defined entirely by devotion to her father, Seri's Shim Chong is given an interior, an anger, and eventually a want of her own. Her arc is the slow reclaiming of a life the story had already spent.
- Jang (the noblewoman): The woman Shim Chong is sold to, and the romantic lead. Trapped in a loveless, slowly suffocating marriage, she begins the story as worn-down as Shim Chong, just behind silk instead of rags. Her arc is the gradual return of a will to live, sparked by the one person in the household who sees her as a person rather than a wife.
- Shim Chong's father: The blind man whose debt sets the entire story in motion. The folktale frames him as the object of his daughter's sacrifice; the manhwa is more willing to sit with the cost of that sacrifice and what it asks of Shim Chong.
- The household: Jang's husband, the in-laws, and the servants who fill the noble estate. Seri uses them to keep the period stakes real, the constant surveillance, the rigid roles, and the danger that any deviation from them carries for two women in this world.
Why It Resonates
Historical Korean yuri is a crowded subgenre, and most entries invent their own period setting. Her Tale of Shim Chong does something riskier: it takes a story every Korean reader already knows and argues with it. The folktale is a parable about a daughter erasing herself for her father; the manhwa insists Shim Chong is allowed to want a life, and a person, of her own. That argument with a beloved source gives the romance a thematic spine most webtoons never reach for.
What sets it apart from the broader genre is the seriousness it brings to both women's despair. The 'two women who both want to die' setup could be melodrama; Seri writes it as two specific, particular kinds of hopelessness, the beggar's and the noblewoman's, and lets the romance grow as each becomes the other's reason to stay. The period constraints are never decorative; they are the thing the love has to survive.
The art is the third reason. Seri's full-color webtoon style renders the hanbok, the noble interiors, and the seasonal Korean landscape with care, and the long vertical strips give the quiet emotional beats room to breathe. The visual contrast between Shim Chong's world and Jang's, rags and silk, mud and lacquer, is used with intention throughout the run.
Art Style & Format
Her Tale of Shim Chong is a vertical-scroll Korean manhwa in full color. The art sits in the painterly historical-webtoon tradition, with detailed period costume and architecture, soft seasonal palettes, and the kind of facial expression work the emotionally heavy story needs. The Joseon-era setting is rendered with evident research, and the long-strip format suits the contemplative pacing.
Format-wise it is a full-color vertical webtoon designed for phone or desktop scrolling. Each chapter is delivered as a small number of very tall stitched strips rather than discrete pages, which is standard for the webtoon format. Yurivan's continuous reader stitches all 100 chapters, including the side stories and author specials, into a single uninterrupted vertical scroll with chapter markers preserved.
Read Her Tale of Shim Chong Online Free
Yurivan hosts all 100 chapters of Her Tale of Shim Chong in our continuous vertical reader. No account, no paywall, just an age check, then the entire complete series scrolls.
Her Tale of Shim Chong
100 chapters · 834 pages
Content Warnings
Her Tale of Shim Chong is a historical Korean yuri manhwa rated suggestive. Themes include suicidal ideation (both leads begin the story wishing to die), the sale of a woman to settle a debt, an abusive and suffocating marriage, and the constant danger two women face in a rigid feudal society. The series treats these themes with seriousness rather than shock value, but readers sensitive to depictions of despair, coercion, and period-typical misogyny should be aware before starting.
The romance itself is emotionally intense and physically tender, staying in suggestive territory rather than primarily-explicit. All romantic and sexual content is between adult women. Yurivan flags any chapter that crosses the explicit threshold with a heat indicator in the chapter list.
Is Her Tale of Shim Chong Finished?
Yes. The main run is complete through the high 80s, and the series is rounded out with side stories and author special chapters in the 81.x range. The full 100-chapter archive on Yurivan covers the complete story plus its bonus material. Completed-series binge-readers can start at the prologue and reach a real ending.
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Browse Historical Yuri →Similar Recommendations
If Her Tale of Shim Chong's historical setting, folktale ambition, and two-women-against-the-world romance work for you, these yuri titles share its DNA:
- Lily of the Valley. Korean GL manhwa about a noblewoman sold to a redheaded duchess to settle her father's debts. The closest comp on Yurivan for Shim Chong's sold-woman premise and painterly period aesthetic. Read on Yurivan →
- Lady Black is Depressed. Korean GL manhwa about a husband-murdering lady and her sister-in-law's gloomy maid. Same historical-coded setting and interest in women trapped by marriage and class. Read on Yurivan →
- Sherbet Above the Sea of Fog. Korean fantasy yuri about a runaway bride who boards a ghost ship. Different register, but the same interest in women fleeing the lives chosen for them. Read on Yurivan →
- Lilith. Korean BDSM yuri manhwa about a double life and a dangerous triangle. A darker, more explicit register for readers who want the intensity dialed up. Read on Yurivan →
For broader picks, our 2026 GL manhwa roundup and best lesbian manhwa guide sit alongside this one.
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Common questions about Her Tale of Shim Chong answered below.
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