Ch#3
“Waaah!”
All the way home, I repeated it to myself over and over again.
I can do this.
Jeok I-geon hasn’t revealed his true nature yet.
It’s only two months.
If I just keep my head down and play dead, it’ll pass in no time.
But that resolve vanished into thin air the moment I saw the sign for the noodle shop.
“Grandma!”
Seeing me burst into the shop sobbing, Madam Sin-geum threw down her ladle and came running over.
“What is it? Who made my baby cry like this? Huh?”
My grandmother’s plump hands cupped my cheeks.
She quickly scanned me from head to toe, as if worried someone had harmed me.
“You don’t look hurt anywhere…”
When I nodded in agreement, Madam Sin-geum’s brow furrowed.
“Then why are you crying? Did you lose your money or something?”
If only that were the case. If it were just money, I could always work and earn it back.
If it meant I didn’t have to become his personal maid, I would gladly give up my entire life savings.
“If it’s not money, then what’s making you weep so sorrowfully?”
As I shook my head, Madam Sin-geum sat me down in a chair and handed me some water.
“Calm down first. Crying too much takes a toll on the body!”
I hadn’t planned on crying this hard either. Strangely, the tears just kept flowing.
Was this what family felt like? Having grown up as an orphan without parents or siblings, this was a completely foreign emotion to me.
Even though she wasn’t my biological grandmother, the relief of finding my only ally in this world made me let my guard down, and I just lost control.
Just as Grandma said, crying so much had drained all my energy.
“Should I bring you some noodles?”
“…No.”
“How about dumplings?”
“It’s fine. I don’t have an appetite.”
Sniffling, I declined both. There was no way I could digest anything when my life might end tomorrow.
“Then what is it? You’ve got to tell me the reason now.”
Telling her wouldn’t change anything, but I had no other choice if I wanted to avoid a smack on the back from Grandma.
I calmly confessed that I had been assigned as the Second Young Master’s personal maid.
“So you’re crying just because you don’t want to be a personal maid?”
“I told you, it’s not just about not wanting to do it! One wrong move, and my head could literally fly off!”
“Oh, you silly girl! Is the Second Young Master some kind of butcher? Any mistake you make would be minor anyway, so why on earth would he chop your head off for that? Now, if it were the First Young Master, that might be a different story!”
“Grandma, to them, I’m not even a human being. They probably view a maid’s life as no better than a bug’s.”
“If you were that scared, you shouldn’t have gone in there in the first place! You never listen to your grandma, and now you’re making such a fuss!”
“That’s because…!”
Because the me back then wasn’t actually me.
“Sigh, yeah, who would believe me anyway? I’m just wasting my breath.”
Later on, everyone would tremble in terror once they realized Jeok I-geon’s true nature, but right now, he was merely the Cult Leader’s handsome second son.
“And here I thought some major disaster had struck!”
Grandma flicked my forehead and headed into the kitchen.
After the sound of clattering dishes, a steaming bowl of meat noodles was placed in front of my nose.
“Your stomach is empty, that’s why you’re having these silly thoughts. Eat up.”
“Ah, I really don’t have an appetite…”
“Tsk!”
Madam Sin-geum’s glare was fierce. At times like this, I had to at least pretend to pick at my food to protect my precious back.
Pouting, I listlessly picked up my chopsticks.
“By the way, why did the girl who worked before you quit?”
Madam Sin-geum, who had been glaring at my barely touched noodles, suddenly asked.
“The girl who worked before me?”
Lost in thought, it took me a moment to process her question.
“Ah, my predecessor?”
“Yes. She must have quit for your turn to come up.”
“Right.”
Holding the chopsticks in my mouth, I searched my memory.
‘Was there any mention of that in the original novel?’
No, there wasn’t. Maids weren’t even mentioned in the novel. But if I had to deduce…
“She must have died, of course.”
“Died?”
“Around this time, the First Young Master used to play around with poisons a lot. No doubt she got caught up in his pranks and died.”
What pitiful life. Losing a precious life just by being caught in the middle of a useless sibling rivalry.
There wasn’t a shred of confirmed proof, but I was absolutely sure.
“Seol-ha, what exactly do you know to make you say that?”
“Huh?”
“Are you absolutely sure that maid died?”
“Well, it’s not like I saw it myself, but that’s how poison works, isn’t it? She might have made a mistake while testing his food…”
Under my grandmother’s terrifying gaze, my voice trailed off into a barely audible whisper.
“But Grandma, are you finally worried about me? Are you scared you’ll have to hold a funeral for your only granddaughter?”
“Why on earth would we hold a funeral for you?! If you get poisoned, you just have to neutralize it!”
“…Huh?”
“That rascal Jeok Wi-baek is certainly capable of doing such a thing to his own brother. Tsk, tsk. Poison isn’t something to be handled so recklessly.”
Madam Sin-geum, who looked ready to stand guard until I finished every last strand of noodles, suddenly stood up and headed up the stairs.
Why was she going up to the second floor in the middle of our conversation?
Up there, we had only Grandma’s bedroom, my bedroom, and a tiny room that was basically a storage closet.
Since the outhouse was outside on the ground floor, she couldn’t be in a hurry to relieve herself.
“She could’ve at least steamed me a plate of dumplings,”
I grumbled, lifting a massive clump of noodles.
If anything happened to me, this bowl of noodles would be the last meal Madam Sin-geum ever made for me.
So, I was going to finish every single drop of broth without leaving a trace.
“And here you said you didn’t have an appetite! You’re practically inhaling those noodles!”
Just as I emptied the bowl, Grandma came back downstairs, carrying a box.
“What’s that?”
“Seol-ha, have you ever heard of a Poison-Evading Bead?”
Of course I had. A Poison-Evading Bead was a bead-shaped antidote that neutralized poison when held in the mouth.
If one was poisoned, holding the Poison-Evading Bead in their mouth and circulating their inner energy would trigger its detoxifying effects.
In short, as long as the bead was in one’s mouth, poison would have no effect.
The price of a Poison-Evading Bead varied wildly depending on its efficacy.
Since the beads themselves were incredibly rare to begin with, they naturally commanded high prices, and top-grade ones literally cost a fortune.
What the martial artists of the Murim—who lived by the blade—feared most of all was poison.
In this realm where those with stronger martial arts held all the power, poison was almost the sole means through which the weak could overcome the gap in martial skill and triumph.
Therefore, any martial artist could not help but covet a Poison-Evading Bead.
“Don’t tell me what’s inside that box is a Poison-Evading Bead?”
“Indeed. Your grandma prepared this in advance, just in case something like this happened.”
“And you expect me to believe that?”
As mentioned before, a Poison-Evading Bead was a rare and precious item. It wasn’t something just anyone could buy, even if they had the money.
Naturally, our household didn’t have the kind of money required to purchase a Poison-Evading Bead.
Unless Madam Sin-geum had secretly amassed a massive slush fund behind my back, that is.
“When has your grandma ever spoken nonsense?”
Well, true. Our Madam Sin-geum wasn’t the type to talk nonsense.
“Then this is a real Poison-Evading Bead? Grandma, just how much money have you been hiding?!”
I shrieked in a fit of betrayal. If she had told me sooner that we were rich, I would never have had to get a job as a maid in the first place!
“Why are you shouting all of a sudden and splitting my eardrums?! Where would this old woman get that kind of money? A customer left this behind.”
The story went like this.
A few years ago, a middle-aged man who came to eat noodles had left a box behind.
When running a shop, it wasn’t uncommon for customers to forget their belongings.
Most would return to the noodle shop to retrieve them, but some never did. The Poison-Evading Bead in question fell into the latter category.
“I didn’t even know it was there. I found it last month while cleaning out the closet. At first, I was just going to throw it away, but I got curious about what was inside. And that’s how I hit the jackpot.”
“Does that even make sense? What kind of crazy person leaves a Poison-Evading Bead at a noodle shop?”
He must have spent a fortune to acquire it, yet he never even came back for it?
Isn’t that a bit too hard to believe?
“There are all kinds of oddballs in this world, so why wouldn’t someone leave a Poison-Evading Bead behind? Besides, this isn’t an expensive one. It’s a low-grade item that won’t do a thing against deadly poisons like the Formless Poison or the Silver Firefly Poison Sand.”
Madam Sin-geum opened the box to show me its contents.
“Even so, it’ll still be useful to you. Most poisons within the First Young Master’s capability can be neutralized with this. You need real guts to handle lethal poisons, after all. Not just anyone can mess with them.”
Is my grandma a genius?
How does she know Jeok Wi-baek so well?
Compared to his greed, he was rather lacking in courage.
In order to rise to the position of Young Cult Leader, he used his power and wealth to torment his half-brother, Jeok I-geon, in various ways. Yet, because he was terrified of falling out of his father’s favor, he never dared to make any truly reckless moves.
Knowing this, Jeok I-geon would play along before revealing his true nature, even going so far as to deliberately let himself be poisoned.
Even though he was hardly impervious to all poisons.
Anyway, to these bastards, this was all just a game.
Realizing all over again that I was about to be dragged into this mess made my head throb.
Can I really survive this?
Now that I have a Poison-Evading Bead, surely I can survive safely for about two months, right?
“Grandma, thank you. You’re truly the only one I have, Madam Sin-geum!”
At the very least, I wouldn’t die while testing his food.
The original purpose of my visit today was to say my final goodbyes to Grandma, but I had ended up with an unexpected treasure.
I’ll make sure to come back alive.
And when I do, let’s leave this place and go far, far away.
I hugged my grandmother, murmuring the words I couldn’t bring myself to say out loud.
