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Chapter 9 …
“Ah!”
The moment Hari let out a short cry, she lost her balance and lurched violently.
I’m going to get seriously hurt!
Just as Hari squeezed her eyes shut, the scent of plum blossoms swept over her.
A moment later, Woon’s firm arm caught her around the waist.
“Ugh.”
Hari’s forehead slammed into Woon’s chest.
The force of her fall combined with the force of him pulling her in, making the impact surprisingly strong.
The jolt was so intense that it felt as if her entire head had been shaken, leaving Hari unable to catch her breath.
Because of that, Woon couldn’t let go of her right away.
Since he had already stepped in to help, wasn’t it only proper to continue supporting her until she recovered?
So he quietly held her.
Then, an improper thought suddenly crossed his mind.
Is that really the only reason I can’t let go of this small body?
Why is my mouth going dry just from feeling her warmth through the thin fabric of our clothes?
“Are you alright?”
Only after a long moment did Woon finally speak.
At his low voice brushing past her ear, Hari, who had been breathing heavily, slowly raised her head.
Woon was much closer than she had expected.
Their eyes met instantly.
For a brief moment, it felt as though time itself had stopped, and they simply gazed at one another.
“Mi-Miss?”
Only when Maldong called out from behind did the two hurriedly step apart.
Hari’s startled heart pounded wildly.
Woon’s wasn’t any different.
“Ahem.”
After clearing his throat, Woon said only one thing before turning away.
“Be careful.”
Before Hari even had the chance to thank him, he was already walking away.
The tips of his ears were bright red.
* * *
When Woon had told them to follow him closely, Hari had thought he was merely speaking casually.
Had they ignored his warning, however, they would certainly have become lost.
Hongyeongak’s buildings were tangled together like a maze.
“I don’t think I’d even be able to leave this place on my own.”
“That’s right, Miss.”
Just as Maldong agreed with Hari’s muttering, Woon stopped in front of a small pavilion.
The detached annex stood alone.
Unlike the other luxurious halls, it had the neat and refined atmosphere of a scholar’s residence.
“This is the place. The woman you’re looking for should be inside.”
Hari’s gaze dropped to the stepping stone.
There sat a pair of old, tattered silk shoes.
Just from looking at them, she could tell Yang Heoyeong’s life had not been an easy one.
She could have lived comfortably in Hanyang, yet she deliberately left and endured hardship…
“From here on, I’ll go in alone.”
Although Woon wanted to hear Yang Heoyeong’s story himself, he withdrew without complaint.
“Maldong, you wait here as well.”
Leaving even Maldong behind, Hari opened the door.
The instant the door cracked open, a desperate voice rang out.
“Please spare me! I’ve done wrong!”
Hari stopped in her tracks.
A woman with completely white hair had fallen to her knees, desperately pleading.
Hari’s first meeting with Yang Heoyeong was nothing like she had imagined.
* * *
“Have you calmed down a little now?”
At Hari’s question, Yang Heoyeong, who sat across from her, finally managed to speak.
“Yes… now… h-hic… I’m alright.”
Although her tears had stopped, Yang Heoyeong was still sniffling and struggling to catch her breath.
Still, she was at least capable of holding a conversation.
Compared to fifteen minutes earlier, when she had clung to Hari’s skirt and sobbed uncontrollably, she had calmed down considerably.
Hari quietly looked Yang Heoyeong over from head to toe.
The wrists and neck protruding from her loose clothing were as thin as branches.
She constantly picked at the skin around her fingernails, an anxious habit that looked almost painful.
Her pale face, as though it had not seen sunlight in years, was covered in patches of dry skin.
Whenever she moved her tightly coiled hair, which seemed to have been coated in old camellia oil, a stale odor drifted through the room.
She looks like someone who’s spent a long time hiding.
“You seem to have suffered quite a bit.”
Yang Heoyeong’s shoulders jerked violently.
“Wh-What do you mean by that…?”
“I meant that it must have been difficult coming all the way here.”
Hari had no idea where Woon had found Yang Heoyeong or how he had brought her here, so she deliberately spoke vaguely.
If she immediately asked whether she’d been hiding or running from someone, the woman would probably panic.
“Ah… yes. But… I heard you were looking for me. Why…? Why would the young lady of the Chief Censor’s household be searching for someone like me?”
Yang Heoyeong couldn’t even begin to imagine why she had been summoned to Hanyang.
She had only come because Woon said the young lady of the Chief Censor’s household urgently wished to see her…
…and because he had promised to fill her rice jar.
After ten days of digging up wild roots from the mountains because she had no rice left to eat, she had reached the point where she felt she would do anything for money.
But then the man who came for her headed toward Hongyeongak.
Hongyeongak was connected to the family that had driven Yang Heoyeong out of Hanyang.
Fear immediately seized her.
Had they tricked me into coming so they could capture me?
Wasn’t it really the young lady of the Chief Censor’s household who wanted me…? Was it the mistress of that household instead?
That was why, the moment the door opened, she had dropped to her knees and begged for mercy.
Fortunately, Woon had not lied.
The one seeking her really was the young lady of the Chief Censor’s household.
Which naturally led to another question.
Why is she looking for me?
“I have a few things I’d like to ask you. If you answer honestly, I’ll make sure your reward is more than satisfactory.”
Yang Heoyeong swallowed hard.
“H-How much… would you be willing to pay?”
“That depends on the answers you give me.”
“But I can promise you this.”
“Today will be the last chance you’ll ever have to turn the information you possess into money.”
It wasn’t merely a threat.
It was the truth.
No one besides Hari would have any interest in what had happened at the Choi Champhan household on the day of Nahee’s wedding.
Yang Heoyeong repeatedly pressed and released her dry lips.
Finally, after moistening them with her tongue, she gave Hari the answer she had been waiting for.
“What… would you like to know?”
“Do you remember the Second Young Master of the Choi Champhan household?”
“Don’t tell me you don’t. Wasn’t that the last family you arranged a marriage for before leaving Hanyang?”
“I want to know everything about that marriage.”
In an instant, every trace of color drained from Yang Heoyeong’s face.
The corners of her lips trembled.
Her unfocused eyes shook violently as though struck by an earthquake.
Suddenly, Yang Heoyeong dropped to her knees, pressed her forehead to the floor, and pleaded.
“Please spare me! If people find out I’m here, I’ll truly be killed! Someone like you wouldn’t understand, but to people like them… we’re no better than flies!”
She was utterly consumed by terror.
At that moment, Hari became certain that the theory she had only vaguely suspected was true.
The Second Young Master of the Choi Champhan household had not died from illness.
He had been murdered.
By the First Young Master of the Choi Champhan household.
* * *
Late that night, candlelight flickered inside Hari’s quarters.
“Miss, you still aren’t going to bed?”
After laying out Hari’s bedding, Maldong spoke cautiously.
Ever since meeting Yang Heoyeong, Hari had remained silent, and Maldong couldn’t help worrying.
“I’ll sleep in a little while. Don’t worry about me—go get some rest.”
“Did that woman say something rude to you? Should I go teach her a lesson?”
Maldong clenched her fists and threw several punches into the air.
Hari let out a weak laugh.
Only then did the dark cloud hanging over her expression lighten slightly.
“Our Miss looks so much better when she smiles. It feels like the sun has come out.”
“I’ll leave now, but you have to go to bed early, alright?”
“Alright. And you—stop reading those erotic picture books and go to sleep early.”
Maldong’s eyes widened.
She clamped her mouth shut before blurting out,
“I-I don’t read them!”
With that, she fled the room as though escaping for her life.
Still smiling faintly, Hari watched the candle flame sway in the breeze as the door opened and closed.
Gradually, the warmth disappeared from her expression.
A cold, rational look settled over her face.
Without even blinking, Hari carefully organized everything she had learned from Yang Heoyeong.
Convincing Yang Heoyeong had taken a great deal of both time and money.
But Hari didn’t regret it.
Yang Heoyeong’s testimony contained numerous pieces of information that could prove valuable in court.
“It is true that the Second Young Master of the Choi Champhan household had been sickly for a very long time. They also ordered us never to let anyone outside the family know.”
The Choi Champhan household had deliberately withheld information that the bride’s family absolutely had the right to know.
Since they had intentionally concealed it, Hari could argue that it constituted fraud.
“I became so curious that I asked what illness he actually had. But no one would answer me. Then… I saw it with my own eyes.”
According to Yang Heoyeong, she had witnessed the First Young Master of the Choi Champhan household locking his younger brother inside a storage room and beating him.
No one tried to stop him.
No one even brought the imprisoned Second Young Master a single cup of water.
Everyone merely watched with expressions that seemed to say,
“Again today…”
The violence and abuse had continued since childhood, and everyone around them had simply become accustomed to it.
Even if they hadn’t, what could servants possibly have done?
Even his own parents turned a blind eye.
Unable to stop her eldest son, the mistress of the Choi Champhan household had hurriedly arranged the younger son’s marriage so she could separate him from the family.
She searched for a humble family that wouldn’t provoke the eldest son’s jealousy…
…a family poor enough to hand over their daughter immediately without questioning the proposal.
That was how Nahee had been chosen.
On the wedding day, the eldest son killed my client’s future husband.
But the dead cannot speak… and every witness has disappeared.
Claiming the marriage was invalid simply because the illness had been concealed would be difficult.
There were no medical records showing that the Second Young Master had regularly received treatment.
Of course there weren’t.
They had to hide the beatings.
What should I do?
As the night deepened, so too did Hari’s worries.
