CH 5.2

It happened when she was pregnant.

Ki Ha-jeong, who gave birth to a daughter by herself, passed on her surname and named her daughter. Even after the birth of her daughter, Ki Ha-jeong could not escape depression.

Wherever she went, she was surrounded by Myung Hwa and its success of a first-class conglomerate. She was the shadow of that bright light. And she couldn’t get out of that darkness for the rest of her life.

Deep in depression, she locked herself in her room and eventually committed suicide when Seha was in middle school.

Se-ha held her mother’s funeral alone. The day she returned from burying her mother in the ground was an extraordinary day. She let go of everything for the day as if she was drunk on something and steered off track.

And the day after that, she decided to avenge her grandfather and mother. She vowed to destroy Jang Ji-ho and return the Myung Hwa semiconductor that belonged to her mother in the first place.

Whatever it took.

After her father passed away, she went to her aunt’s house, whom she rarely associated with. She was an unwelcome guest, since her younger brother and his wife had even died.

Even though Se-ha was only in middle school then, the family blatantly treated her as baggage. Se-ha handed them something that would quiet them.

“It’s the insurance my mother left me.”

Her aunt and uncle’s mouths closed shut. Her inheritance was everything to her, but sometimes some things could be gained only by throwing everything away.

“Adopt me and I’ll give you this.”

“What…? Why would we adopt a middle school student like you?”

“The thought of being alone in this world without a family makes me feel so lonely. You don’t have to treat me the same as A-rin. I will not ask for anything.”

With her head lowered, her aunt looked at Se-ha with a sad expression.

Not long after, she received her uncle’s surname, ‘Hong’. She even changed her name just in case. She took the letter ‘Se’ from her father’s name, Sejun, and the letter ‘ha’ from her mother’s name.

“I want to be reborn with a new name.”

To those who asked the reason for the change of name, that was the answer she gave. She never told them the real reason.

Later, when she joined Myeong Hwa Group, what would she do if someone found out that she was Ki Young-tae’s granddaughter and Ki Ha-jeong’s daughter because of her unusual surname? Who could say, “In case I miss out on everything I’ve been preparing for a long time?”

Anyway, she got what she could get from her aunt and uncle, so she didn’t expect much. But the whole family was messed up.

“Shiiit, even you’re ignoring me now? Who put food on the table? Huh? And you can’t even treat me with any decent respect!”

Her uncle was a man who wielded violence when he drank. He was usually fine, but he would throw and destroy household items and furniture when he got drunk.

It was also common to see violence. Her uncle did not hit A-rin, his daughter, but hit Se-ha instead. He often grabbed hold of her hair when she was studying.

No one in her family or acquaintances was strong enough to stop her uncle. So when the whole family sensed that he was out drinking, they would hurriedly disperse and return wretchedly while walking on eggshells.

“Ah…Well, you have to take care of family issues amongst yourselves. Public authorities can’t interfere with household issues.”

Ironically, her uncle was a police. His father was a police officer before him. She tried once or twice to report him, but the police quietly covered it up or even made false evidence. Se-ha lost the will to fight back.

Recently, he was suspended after being reported to have committed corruption by taking bribes. Since then, the violence had only gotten worse.

So why did her aunt stay with him? The fact was that she had as many problems as him.

Her aunt fell deep into numerous superstitions, saying that Se-ha’s mother and father died at such a young age because they took the wrong tomb of their ancestors. She spent his entire fortune several times, pursuing shamanic beliefs such as pseudo-religion, pyramid schemes, and exorcism did by shamans daily.

“Se-ha…Who else would I come to for this? What would your uncle say if he found out? He’ll just take it out on you… Help me just this once. You’ll do it, right?”

Se-ha graduated from the Department of Business Administration and Economics at Korea University with the highest grades. The academic scholarships she received every semester, the scholarships sent by anonymous donors who said it was special to be so smart, and the money she earned through tutoring while splitting her time to study were all stolen by her aunt.

Immediately after graduating, she got a job at Korea’s highest-paying Myeong Hwa Group though the work was much harder than anywhere else, she worked day and night for five years as a secretary for the owner’s family, with twice the annual salary and an incentive of 1,000% of the base salary.

She couldn’t afford to spend any money, so of course she should have saved the money. If she had just let it pile up, the amount accumulated would have been equal to a deposit for a small apartment in Seoul.

But the aunt asked for money each time as if it were quite normal. “You are our daughter.” It was plain that she only said that when she asked for money, and did not think of her as family. In the end, there was not a single penny left. Sometimes when she refused to give money, her aunt’s eyes would blaze in anger and get worked up.

“Do you know how much I had to sacrifice for you? And you can’t even do this for me? Huh? Are you looking down on us, despite the fact that we’re the ones who paid for your education? You would have gotten nowhere without us.”

She would rather hand over the money than hear anything of the sort for days on end. It wouldn’t change a thing.

“Honestly, my mother ended up like that, it was when my uncle and aunt died. So Se-ha, you are responsible. It’s not wrong to say you’re their daughte