Vol. 1 - Ch. 6

Because it was so early in the morning, the only physician’s room in Jang-yang hadn’t opened yet.I explained the situation to the servant who was sweeping outside the door and entered the still-quiet physician room.

As the servant said, physician Noh had just completed his meal and was enjoying a fragrant cup of tea while relaxing in the backyard.

When he heard that the patient he was caring for had awakened, he happily packed his bags to visit the patient.

Indeed, he was the most personable person in the Jang-yang village, and I respected him.

When we arrived at the guesthouse, Ja-hyun was unconscious.

“He has a mild fever. It looks like the fever is rising again.”

“Uh? Again?”

“Yes, we will have to try waking him up first.”

Even though the physician forcibly woke him, Ja-hyun was so dazed that he couldn’t wake up.

While I looked at him with pity, I did feel relieved that he wouldn’t be able to harm me or the physician.

While the physician examined Ja-hyun on the second floor of the guestroom, I came to the first floor to handle the work that was pending.

I took a look around the dinner area, cooked broth for dinner, and prepared to serve the ingredients.

I didn’t forget to boil the porridge for the patient on the other stove.

Meanwhile, it seemed like quite a bit of time had passed.

Even now, as the sun rose in the sky, Wang Dae-geon didn’t show his face in the guesthouse.

‘Well, this was obvious.’

I stirred porridge and was lost in thought.

‘I guess he drank alcohol with Ju Cheol-rim all night and fell asleep somewhere.’

Actually, it seemed as though Wang Dae-geon was hired as Ju Cheol-rim's assistant rather than as a helper.

Ju Cheol-rim was also amazing.

In order to somehow get us to give up the guesthouse with our own hands, he scared people who were providing helpful assistance in the guesthouse and kicked them out, then took a person who was similar to him and sent him here.

If I wasn’t in a situation where I had to keep the original flow of the novel, I would have passed off this guesthouse long ago.

‘Sick of these people… It would be nice to at least drown myself in alcohol.’

Just thinking about it made me tremble, so I have to handle people I hate with a smile on my face for the next year or two because of the original work. Even when I thought of it, my situation was truly pitiful.

‘Of course, it got more and more complicated, but…’

I added a little more water to the less-loosened rice grains. Slowly stirring the rice over low heat to prevent them from sticking, I tried to recall the contents of < Return of the Heavenly Demon>.

To be precise, this is the scene where Ju Eun-ri appears for the last time in the < Return of Heavenly Demons>.

What appeared in the village were less than 10 knife-holding people.

The man in white, who was presumed to be their leader, was sitting on this black carriage, holding the baton in one hand.

Faced with unfamiliar faces, the villagers wondered if they had been dispatched from the main Blood Palace in Hangzhou to investigate the case, or maybe it’s Green Forest bandits, who had newly opened bandit troops in the nearby mountain.

Oh, it could be a ploy by a group of people who might think of taking control of Jang-yang by brandishing their knives.

In order to find out their identities and explain them orally, the village chief as well as three men from the village approached the group.

And not more than a couple words were said.

Crack. Four people were scattered on the ground.

…

What soon happened was a horrific carnage that I couldn’t bear to see with my eyes.

…

Cough!

Ju Eun-ri spit out dark red blood.

She thought. Ah, this is my time.

Her young sibling, Eun-young, dies of cracking her neck. Uncle dies with the chest cut open.

Although she couldn’t bear to see it, the situation of the other villagers wasn’t so different from hers.

The men in black had more unstoppable and determined hands than any other people she saw.

Ah, right.

I almost left out one person.

Ju Eun-ri suddenly remembered the face she missed.

Ja-hyun, the boy who stayed in the guesthouse and left without a word.

These people seemed somewhat similar to the boy she had yet to forget.

“Euk….”

Her life was clearly failing, so begging for her life was futile.

Ju Eun-ri glared at the opponent in front of her with red eyes.

Even though her body was on the ground, all that could be seen were the pitch-black shoes made of leather.

“I will ask you for the last time.”

The voice over the head felt as cold as ice.

“Where did he go?”

“…”

Ju Eun-ri doesn’t answer.

It was because she had already learned from her past experience that they wouldn’t believe her even if she told the truth.

She had already answered the question several times.

‘I don’t know.’

But each time she said that, the people around her began to die one after another, as if paying for their sins wasn’t giving them the answer they wanted.

First, Eun-young, then her uncle and aunt Sun Young, then Kyung-ju, Dong-man, uncle Jang, and more…

Turned into mere pieces of flesh in one go and on the ground.

Now all that was left was her.

Eun-ri mustered up her remaining strength and tried to spit at the man. S~ᴇaʀᴄh the ɴ0velFɪre.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.

In order to at least stain the polished shoes of the enemies in the final journey.

But before Ju Eun-ri could even push her lips, a kick fell on her head.

… Puak!

….

Finally, the fierce flame even took down the guesthouse. A man leisurely leaving the guesthouse wearing the white robe, without a single drop of blood, gave an order without even looking back.

“Continue tracking.”

The seven members shouted in unison, ‘Yes!’.

This was the end of Ju Eun-ri, as described in <Return of the Heavenly Demon>.

Wasn’t it vain?

As a reward for saving the MC through all the hardships, she was about to escape from the shadows of her uncle, who had been sucking her blood, and the guesthouse. New life, but the nemesis comes back after the MC leaves.

The entire village gets massacred.

It was the end of Ju Eun-ri, and at the same time, it was also a future predicted for me as Ju Eun-ri.

Naturally, I made changing this future a top priority.

It was all for him that I turned a blind eye to the atrocities committed for the guesthouse, and she ran around looking for a physician for Ja-hyun, who almost strangled me.

I am not a heartless person, so could it be because I like him? There was just one reason why I endured the humiliation. It was for the bright future of me and Eun-young.

If there is a problem, it is that there are dark clouds over a bright future.

‘Ja-hyun has changed from the original novel.’

That is what I decided, and that didn’t seem like good news for me.

The first meeting was different, but more than anything, the attitude of Ja-hyun towards me was very different from the original.

My guess is that the brief conversation I had with Mu Myung alerted him.

On the other hand, such a thing didn’t happen in the original novel, the attitude is different now.

Maybe Eun-ri in the original story didn’t go into the guesthouse’s room to see Ja-hyun at that point in time.

So I wouldn’t have encountered Mu Myung, and Ja-hyun wouldn’t have felt my presence until then or woke up to eavesdrop on our talks.

Of course, all of this was just a rough guess on my side, but there was no other way to explain it.

‘I am ruined.’

That was the only conclusion I came to in this situation.

‘I tried to continue the original plot to an extent… If this happens, I will have to win his favor all on my own.’

Unlike the first meeting in the story, which is heartbreaking, my current ties with Ja-hyun didn’t go well, and it began with a death threat.

Perhaps, in his eyes, last night, I looked close to Mu Myung? Or maybe there was another reason.

‘What was Eun-ri like in the original novel?’

Ju Eun-ri in the original novel.

As for her, she was a good person by all accounts.

Her relationship with Ja-hyun was good. Eun-ri fed and put Ja-hyun to sleep without a hint of displeasure till Ja-hyun left the guesthouse on his own.

And all of that is free.

Later on, Ja-hyun was asked to carry food, but since he was the type of person who was fortunate enough to have an accident, it was likely that he wouldn’t have been of help.

And yet, Eun-ri didn’t kick him out.

There was never a time when she told Ja-hyun to leave.

‘Umm. And…’

What else was there?

Between those two people, Ja-hyun and Eun-ri,.

Well, so…

‘Uh?’

I was shocked.

‘There was nothing?’

This was because I suddenly realized that there was no significant friendship between Ju Eun-ri and Ja-hyun.

If I look back on the contents of <Return of Heavenly Demon>, which stayed etched into my mind like an illusion for over 3 years, Eun-ri only cooked for him.

Is this a joke?

No, this isn’t a joke.

Eun-ri rarely appeared except where she was working in the scenes.

And usually, she just worked hard in the kitchen.

Rather, Eun-young chased after Ja-hyun and made an appearance.

Eun-ri does normal work; she was mistreated by Ju Cheol-rim, and suffered from the irritating remarks of Wang Dae-geon and other similar bullies.

The only scenes where the two of them were together with Ja-hyun were anything other than talking briefly to Ja-hyun, giving him something to eat, or protecting him from the bad guys.

‘Is it true that they were close friends?’

Doubt rose for me, but it was actually difficult to know by looking at the novel.

Although it didn’t appear in the novel, just as Mu Myung did something unexpected that no one knew, maybe these two also had some secret ties promoting friendship.

Looking at the fact that he went out of his way for Eun-ri in the novel, maybe Ja-hyun did have some affection for her.

But it was unclear if their ties were good enough for Eun-ri to stop Ja-hyun from moving.

Although he did have a softer personality compared to Jeok Mu-rin, as compared to the life previously lived by him or the latter half of the story and ‘Ja-hyun’ in the early part, who had a formidable nature.

Although he did look flexible in front of Eun-ri and Eun-young, his personality couldn’t go anywhere.

Will Ja-hyun listen to others even if they stop him? I wasn’t sure of it.

‘That means I have to become a person of influence over Ja-hyun to hold him here.’

The plan was to gain favor with him by following the original plot line to some extent. For some reason, the difficulty level rose sharply.

And I sighed in frustration.

To solve the important thing, I had to keep the MC’s character alive, captive in the guesthouse, until the killers came searching for him in Jang-yang village.

But it was unclear if he would be easily captured or if anything like that would happen with him keeping an eye on me. I have to build good ties that go beyond the original plot.

‘Is that possible, though?’

It was dark before the eyes, but what could be done?

The lives of the entire village, including Eun-young and mine, depend on it.

If it was a problem that could be solved on my own, or if it was a problem solved with my knowledge of novels by asking someone other than Ja-hyun for help, I would have done it.

But that wasn’t possible.

No matter what I did, I had no choice but to gently persuade Ja-hyun, who was still fine, to treat me like family and this guesthouse as his home.