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Chapter 2
I Thought the Youngest Daughter of the Sichuan Tang Family Was Hated
“……”
A chill ran down my spine.
A faint fragrance softly wrapped around my nose.
If I had never smelled the scent of the Silent Guest before, I would never have sensed anything strange.
The scent was that subtle and gentle.
Once again, Jinhwa’s voice echoed through my head.
“Drive it out. Immediately.”
Crash!
I threw open the incense burner and dumped its contents onto the floor.
A pile of incense sticks scattered across the wooden boards.
“Cough, cough!”
Covering my nose and mouth with my sleeve, I frantically searched through them.
“Baekjicho…”
Then Gakpyeon, Ohondeung…
I stuffed every herb I recognized into a small pouch.
After hiding the pouch inside a drawer, I hurriedly yanked aside the black cloth hanging over the wall.
Bright sunlight flooded in.
I flung the window open and leaned my whole body outside.
“Haaah!”
I inhaled the cool air deeply.
As I exhaled, it felt as though the smoke lingering inside my body was leaving with it.
“Hah… huuuff… achoo!”
My body shook from coughing, and tears nearly sprang from my eyes.
“Sniff…”
After standing by the window for quite a while, letting the wind wash over me, my body suddenly felt unbelievably light.
My head, which I hadn’t even realized had been heavy, now felt as though it were floating.
Even my vision seemed clearer.
Was my body this light when I was a child?
But strangely enough, that wasn’t all.
“Huh…?”
The moment I looked around the room, something felt completely different.
The gloomy black cloths that had covered the walls moments ago were gone.
Only ordinary brown curtains remained.
The room was far wider and brighter than before.
Not even a trace of that eerie atmosphere lingered.
“Don’t tell me… all of that was a hallucination…?”
Sunlight streamed through the window and quietly settled across the blankets.
I never knew sunlight could feel this warm.
Even though I’d lived in this room for so long.
My fingertips trembled faintly.
All this time, I had never noticed the Hallucination Grass.
I hadn’t even realized there was an incense burner in my room.
“…Then…”
How much of my memory was actually real?
In my memories, after my dantian was destroyed, I locked myself in this narrow room for an entire year.
My father and brothers abandoned me in my despair, and eventually they openly treated me with contempt.
“Useless thing. We can’t even throw her away anywhere.”
“She’ll probably die soon anyway. Just wait a little longer.”
At the end of that hatred came poison.
My father, deciding to discard his useless daughter, ordered my nanny to deliver poisoned wine to me.
“Young Miss… sob! My poor Young Miss… what do we do…? Hurry, please run away. You must survive…!”
I could still vividly remember my nanny crying as she hugged me tightly.
With her help, I escaped desperately and sought refuge with the Namgung Family.
After that, I served as a member of the Murim Alliance’s Medicine Hall.
That had been my previous life.
Could the poisoned wine itself have been fake?
No.
That day, I really did run away.
And my nanny wouldn’t have helped me escape for no reason.
“Then the Hallucination Grass too…?”
Was that also something my father arranged?
After thinking for a moment, I shook my head hard.
“No.”
If he truly thought I was useless and wanted to throw me away, there’d be no reason to go through such troublesome lengths.
There had to be someone else behind it.
So who was it?!
No matter how discarded I was, I was still a direct descendant of the Tang Family.
If someone got caught humiliating a direct descendant, the punishment was death at minimum.
At minimum!
And why does Jinhwa know about all this?
Questions only kept piling up.
Then suddenly, I heard a girl’s voice outside.
“She really won’t come out of her room, huh?”
Letting go of the hair I’d been clutching, I moved toward the door.
A shadow adorned with a flashy hairpin approached.
Who’s that all of a sudden?
Peeking through a slight crack in the door, I looked outside.
“Doesn’t she even think about the family worrying about her?”
The girl sighed dramatically with her cheek resting in her palm.
Her face looked familiar.
Tang Gyogyo.
A collateral relative three years older than me.
She had only recently been brought into the main residence by my father himself.
He brought her in to replace me after my dantian was destroyed.
I was just beginning to feel gloomy when another figure beside her came into view.
“Again today?”
He was about a head taller than Gyogyo, with curly hair tied tightly back.
“Yes, Brother Tang Rim.”
The boy glaring unhappily at my door was my older brother, Tang Rim.
Five years older than me.
Gyogyo grabbed his sleeve and sighed heavily.
“I’m worried people might completely forget about me at this rate.”
“Her?”
Tang Rim jerked his chin toward my room.
His brows lifted irritably, clearly displeased.
“Yes. The servants keep calling me the Third Young Miss.”
Gyogyo shyly covered her face as though embarrassed.
Tang Rim narrowed his eyes.
“They keep saying a direct descendant who can’t use martial arts is worthless. Honestly, it’s embarrassing…”
Tang Rim crossed his arms and glanced sideways at her before speaking.
“Quit talking nonsense and tell me how things went today.”
Gyogyo pressed her lips together.
Then she slowly made a tearful expression.
“…Just like I told you. Look.”
Pulling down her collar slightly, she revealed part of her neck.
“I tried talking to her earlier and ended up like this.”
Listening silently, I frowned.
Wait.
Were they talking about me?
“She must be venting her anger over losing her dantian on me…”
Yep.
Definitely me.
So according to her, I’d apparently clawed at her neck earlier.
Even though the only things in this room had been an incense burner and dust!
“Brother, please don’t be too angry…”
Bang!
I threw the door open forcefully.
Well, I tried to throw it open forcefully.
But since my strength didn’t cooperate, it ended up opening rather cheerfully instead.
“Hm?”
Gyogyo and Tang Rim both turned toward me.
“…Oh my.”
Their expressions stiffened instantly.
“Brother. Sister.”
I smiled brightly.
People always say you can’t spit on a smiling face.
“It’s been a while.”
I even bowed deeply at the waist before straightening up again.
“……!”
Tang Rim flinched visibly.
What’s with that reaction? Like he just saw a bug.
It annoyed me, but I continued smiling sweetly anyway.
“Yeon-ah. Did you come out to apologize?”
Gyogyo spoke first.
“Apologize?”
I tilted my head innocently.
“For what?”
“…That…”
As if wounded by my response, Gyogyo placed a hand dramatically over her chest.
She glanced at Tang Rim as though asking him to say something, but instead of scolding me, he simply stared silently.
“……”
Just staring at me intently.
“Sob… Yeon-ah!”
Since Tang Rim wasn’t helping, Gyogyo appeared to change strategies and wiped at fake tears.
“Even if I’m only from a collateral branch, we’re living under the same roof now… Can’t you treat me like a real older sister?”
She lowered her collar slightly again to reveal her neck.
“It’s wrong to leave wounds like this.”
A tear rolled delicately down her cheek.
To anyone else, she probably looked like a genuinely hurt girl.
She’s really acting right in front of me.
Maybe that worked on children.
But not on me.
One of the many things I learned while surviving outside the family was acting.
If someone told me to laugh while crying, I could sob like the world was ending.
And yet this pitiful fake crying…
I puffed my cheeks out sulkily.
“Big Sister, are you making fun of me?”
“Huh? What do you mean…?”
“You’re teasing me because I’m short for my age.”
I stretched my arm up high.
Ah.
My stomach puffed out a little.
That part was genuinely accidental.
Subtly sucking my stomach back in, I walked toward her naturally.
“If you look…”
I stretched out my tiny fingers.
I could barely reach part of the scratch along her jawline.
The rest was completely out of reach.
“I can’t even touch the rest of it, so how could I scratch you? You’re making fun of me, aren’t you?”
“……Ha, haha.”
Gyogyo laughed awkwardly and nervously glanced at Tang Rim.
Tang Rim was staring coldly at her through narrowed eyes.
“S-Sorry, Yeon-ah!”
Realizing things had gone badly, Gyogyo hurriedly patted my head.
“I lied because I thought this would finally make you come out! Hahaha…!”
Covering her neck with her hair, she hugged me.
“But I’m happy to finally see your face.”
“I’m so happy to see you too, Sister!”
I hugged her back while telling a complete lie.
Tang Rim still said nothing, so it seemed he intended to let the matter slide.
“Anyway, we were so worried about you. Brother here too…”
Gyogyo stood up and carefully grabbed Tang Rim’s sleeve.
Tang Rim brushed her hand away indifferently.
Still smiling awkwardly, Gyogyo continued.
“…Haha. He was very worried. You have no idea how hurt he was that you ignored his feelings.”
“I wasn’t hurt.”
Tang Rim corrected flatly.
Yeah, yeah. I know. You don’t care about me.
I grumbled inwardly.
Meanwhile, Gyogyo seemed delighted by his response and smiled brightly.
“Once I learn martial arts, I’ll teach you too! There must be at least a few things you can do even without a dantian.”
Oh?
So she just had to keep provoking me?
I smiled even more brightly.
I still didn’t fully understand what was happening.
Honestly, it still felt like a dream.
But I’d made up my mind.
Jinhwa. The incense. Everything else could wait.
For now—
I’m dealing with you first!
