🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 10
“You borrowed money, so you should pay it back.”
“It wasn’t a debt. It was an investment.”
“That’s the same thing. You took money, didn’t you? If you take it, you pay it back. Isn’t that right, everyone?”
The man shouting toward the crowd wore luxurious silk robes and a jade ornament at his waist.
By now, even I could tell that outfit marked him as nobility.
Commoners like An Buja could wear silk, but they couldn’t wear jade pendants or golden hairpins like nobles and officials.
“My lady… it’s Young Master Han.”
Jeongo’s voice trembled.
I already knew who it was.
Because he had Kim Insu’s exact face.
How could this be possible?
I’d felt oddly familiar with him because of the name “Insu,” but I’d never imagined he might have transmigrated here just like me.
My heart began pounding wildly.
Was he really Kim Insu?
An Anyong and I looked completely different, so why did this boy look exactly the same?
Then… maybe the reason we fell into this world wasn’t because of me, but because of him.
That could be it.
I’d been clutching onto Insu’s ankle when we fell from the rooftop together.
Maybe that was what happened.
“My lady, what should we do?”
“Wait. Until they leave.”
Though they kicked him, they weren’t hitting him hard, and they carefully avoided his face.
They only wanted to humiliate him.
Eventually, the men stopped kicking Han Insu. Throwing out one last warning to repay the money, they finally left.
Han Insu sat there for a moment before staggering to his feet and dusting off his dirty gray robes.
Then he swaggered straight toward me.
He supposedly liked An Anyong, yet he came to see the woman he liked looking like that?
That shamelessness really did resemble modern-day Kim Insu.
But the way he walked felt different too.
“Anyong-ah.”
Twisting his dust-covered lips, Han Insu called my name.
The way he said it sounded completely natural.
If this were Kim Insu, he would’ve called me “Teacher.”
Did he possess Han Insu’s memories too?
Or was he truly Han Insu?
My anticipation spun wildly without direction.
“Young Master Han, how did this happen to you?”
Jeongo asked sympathetically.
Han Insu lowered his eyes in embarrassment.
“Insu.”
Are you Kim Insu?
Or Han Insu?
The man whose identity I couldn’t determine opened his mouth.
“I saw you enter the brush shop, so I waited.”
So he’d been waiting for me when those men spotted him and beat him.
“Have you eaten?”
Koreans say that as a greeting.
If you’re Korean, you’ll react to it.
I used to ask Kim Insu that all the time too.
One day after Insu started attending my academy, around 4:30 in the afternoon—
The underground parking lot had been full that day, so I parked in a nearby public lot and walked toward the front entrance of the building.
That was why I found him.
Kim Insu was sitting on the ground in front of the academy entrance, knees drawn up, staring at his phone with his long legs folded awkwardly.
“What are you doing here? Why are you so early? Class doesn’t start for another thirty minutes.”
Even though I wasn’t late, I suddenly felt guilty.
“Good thing I came early. Otherwise you would’ve had to wait here for thirty whole minutes.”
“Thirty minutes isn’t much.”
“Hm?”
“I’ve already been waiting three hours.”
Insu jumped to his feet and dusted off his pants.
The words “three hours” shocked me so much that the question slipped out automatically.
“Did you eat?”
“Lunch?”
….
Even though I’d never been married and didn’t have children, I’d taught so many students that sometimes I could understand things with just a few words.
This child hadn’t eaten lunch at all.
He’d just waited here for me the whole time.
He had nowhere else to go.
I pointed at the Chinese restaurant across the street and pulled out my card.
The signboard was easy to see from here.
“Go eat jjajangmyeon. You’ve got thirty minutes.”
“I have money.”
You have money, but you starved while waiting?
“…Let’s eat together.”
I’d already eaten a huge late lunch and early dinner, but I still sat across from Insu and ate jjajangmyeon with him again.
That was the first time in my life food refused to go down my throat.
After seeing him wait around like that several times, I finally decided something had to change and spoke to Insu’s mother.
We concluded it would be better to give him a key instead.
“At least it’s better than him wandering somewhere strange,” she’d said.
Insu would come early, eat cup noodles, order fried chicken—
Always alone.
I think he smoked too, but he never smelled like cigarettes at the academy.
Since his grades were improving rapidly, his parents tolerated those little acts of rebellion.
But after the March mock exam during his second year of high school…
everything changed.
Pulling myself out of my memories of Kim Insu, I looked up at Han Insu.
I searched his eyes desperately for even a trace of Kim Insu’s sad gaze.
Maybe, like me, he’d been given another chance at life.
I wanted to know so badly.
But the man before me felt completely unfamiliar.
Maybe because my stare was too intense, the man who looked like Kim Insu kept avoiding my eyes.
“Did you eat?”
“No.”
There weren’t any jjajangmyeon restaurants in this world, but surely there were restaurants somewhere nearby.
I looked around instinctively.
“My lady, we really should go now.”
Jeongo gently tugged on my sleeve.
“Jeongo, give me money.”
I took the jingling pouch of silver coins from Jeongo and shoved it into Han Insu’s hands.
“Eat something, buy clean clothes, and come to our house. Become my younger brothers’ teacher. I already spoke to my parents.”
Then it suddenly occurred to me—
If this person really was Kim Insu, he might not know where my house was.
The person who’d visited our house a few days ago might’ve been the original Han Insu.
“Do you know where my house is?”
Han Insu kept his gaze lowered and nodded.
Because I couldn’t see his eyes, his rank never appeared.
I pressed him for an answer.
“When will you come?”
“I’ll come soon.”
“You have to come.”
Jeongo tugged insistently at my arm.
After climbing into the carriage, I lifted the curtain and looked outside.
On the road shimmering with heat haze, a tall figure stood completely motionless.
Maybe it was the harsh sunlight—
but my eyes stung painfully.
My mind was so unsettled that I skipped the afternoon lesson.
After classes ended, Scholar Jeong sent a servant to summon me.
He said he had something to discuss.
Thinking my younger brothers had slacked off because I wasn’t there, I stormed toward the classroom—
only to find Scholar Jeong packing up a bundle of books in his scholar’s robes.
Surely he wasn’t already quitting because he’d gotten tired of teaching my siblings?
“I’m glad you came. Something came up at home, so I’ll be leaving for a while. I may return tomorrow morning, or it may take longer. I packed these books to exchange them for others at home on the way.”
I let out a sigh of relief at his words.
While teaching my utterly rankless brothers the equivalent of the alphabet-level basics of Chinese characters, he also studied diligently himself.
Even after lessons and dinner, he stayed up late reading books.
Whenever my siblings came to ask about characters they didn’t know, he patiently taught them.
He was confident and cheerful, making him incredibly easy to deal with.
I didn’t want to lose someone like this.
“Young Master, what happened?”
“It’s nothing serious. But if I’m late tomorrow, could you guide the young masters in my place? Just have them review.”
“Lord Mok is here, so I’ll ask him instead. Don’t worry and take care of your business first. But don’t stay away too long.”
Scholar Jeong muttered quietly,
“As if that person would ever do such a thing…”
Though he spoke softly, I heard it clearly.
“Why not? He’s not as difficult as you think. And he’s talented too—you probably already know that.”
Only after saying it did I realize that since Mok Seonhu had been famous as a child prodigy long ago, Scholar Jeong might not actually know much about him.
Just as I was about to explain, Scholar Jeong apologized.
“My apologies. I spoke carelessly.”
“It happens. Ah, by the way—do you know anyone who passed this recent provincial exam?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I want to meet them and ask how the exam was. I think it’ll help my younger brothers prepare.”
If I met someone who’d recently passed the exam, I could check their rank.
I didn’t know whether ranks changed over time, so now—while the exam was still recent—was the best opportunity.
“Do you really need to see them personally, my lady?”
Was that supposed to mean someone with my ability level wouldn’t understand anything?
People really looked down on me too much.
Ever since transmigrating, I’d been mocked so often for being uneducated that I was starting to forget I used to be a famous CSAT instructor.
No wonder An Anyong had been so desperate to study even the Thousand Character Classic.
“Yes. I need to see for myself.”
“On the twentieth of this month, there will be a poetry gathering at a pavilion called Cheongungak. Since it’s the first gathering after the provincial exam, many newly certified scholars will attend.”
As expected, asking him had been the right choice.
“The twentieth?”
I still hadn’t adjusted to the calendar system of this era.
At first, I even confused three days with four.
“That’s five days from now. Women aren’t allowed to attend poetry gatherings, so you should disguise yourself as a man.”
“Won’t I get caught?”
Wait—
did he actually think I could pass as a man?
Was I seriously being treated like this now too?
“It’s fine. Even if people notice, they pretend not to. Long ago, a certain princess often attended poetry gatherings disguised as a man, so it eventually became custom.”
That’s surprisingly flexible.
This world is better than I thought.
“I should go with Lord Mok, then.”
“As if he would go…”
There he goes again, repeating the same “slip of the tongue.”
At this point, it felt deliberate—like he wanted me to hear it.
Did he mean Mok Seonhu was a loner who never attended poetry gatherings?
Or that our marriage was so cold he’d never accompany me?
I couldn’t tell.
And I didn’t want to ask.
It annoyed me too much.
When Mok Seonhu looked down on me, strangely enough, it didn’t bother me that much.
Apparently my feelings discriminated between people too.
“He’ll definitely go.”
I declared confidently before leaving the classroom.
If he refused, I could always take my eldest brother, An Shin, instead.
After dinner, I lay on my bed staring blankly at the ceiling.
Insu, whom I met on those sunlit streets of this strange world—
the Insu I saw today kept overlapping with the Insu from the rooftop of my academy.
My thoughts spun endlessly in circles.
When I saw him today, we never made eye contact, so his rank never appeared.
If he was Kim Insu, I expected a Rank 1.
If he was Han Insu, maybe Rank 4 or 5.
But I couldn’t be certain.
I’d never seen the rank of someone who had transmigrated before.
I had transmigrated too, yet I couldn’t even see my own rank.
Thinking about Kim Insu, I tossed and turned until I finally couldn’t stand it anymore and sat upright.
I threw a cloak over my pajamas and stepped outside.
“Ah…”
Golden moonlight flooded the courtyard.
It was so beautiful my chest tightened.
You could never see a sight like this among tightly packed city buildings.
A sweet floral scent drifted through the air.
Walking across the moonlit courtyard, my steps eventually carried me past the study and stopped in front of Mok Seonhu’s room.
A faint light leaked through the cracks in the door.
He’s still awake?
Today, Mok Seonhu had gone out early in the morning and only returned after dinner, so I’d never had a chance to ask him to substitute for Scholar Jeong tomorrow.
Somehow, I hadn’t seen him even once today.
It absolutely wasn’t because I missed him that I wandered over here.
I turned to leave—
when a voice sounded behind me.
