Vol. 1 - Ch. 21

I was lost in thoughts.‘It is a little different from the original plot, but as long as Ja-hyun decides to stay here, conflict with the Evil Blood Clan is inevitable. Once the alliance issue gets sorted, Gyu-ho will appear in the guesthouse, and if I know Ja-hyun, Gyu-ho, who is violent in this place, wouldn’t be welcomed. Then he will take down not just the clan but fix that Gyu-ho bastard too.’

I believed Ja-hyun’s temperament to be so bad that it felt eccentric to me itself. And for his hands to work like his brain.

‘Just in case things didn’t go as planned, I can go ask Gyu-ho to be handled in return for Ja-hyun repaying the debt.’

Wait, then Ja-hyun will leave without regrets. If he leaves, the killers who come to the village in the future, um….

I don’t know. Originally, if things didn’t work out, I planned to run with the money and Eun-young. During the 3 years I spent as Eun-ri, I ended up attaching myself too much to the people around me.

“If only your father was alive.”

Not knowing what I was thinking now, Kyung-ju guessed from my darkened expression and repeated what she always said.

“Your uncle couldn’t have handled it like this. Then even the stupid bastard wouldn’t have been able to set his foot in the guesthouse. You would have been married to a decent man by now.”

“Probably so.”

“At that time, you would be looking for a marriage partner. He would have wanted to die after seeing your marriage before his health got any worse.”

Is what she said, and then her voice turned quieter.

‘…’

That was the story before I possessed this body.

I knew it intellectually, but since I had not experienced it, I had nothing to say.

I turned my gaze away from depressed Kyung-ju and looked at Eun-young sitting across me.

Eun-young, feeling the gloomy atmosphere that settled over, wanted to move, but she was trying not to notice it.

How do I know? It is obvious when I see that the hands, which were busy a moment ago, had stopped.

As the tip of the brush was constantly touching the cheap paper, I could see the black water seeping into the paper.

The gap between her eyebrows narrowed. She was going to wet the table.

“Ah, I am hungry.”

I jumped up from my place without warning to stop Kyung-ju from continuing the talk of old times. And she looked up at me with startled eyes.

“Enough of the past. Rather, aren’t you feeling hungry too? Eun-young and I didn’t have breakfast, so we are thinking of a big lunch. Will you join us?”

“Uh? I-I am not too sure.”

“Just eat and leave. Everyone is going to work at this time, so no one will be there.”

I will make something delicious. Eat and go. At those words, Kyung-ju nodded.

“I will help you.”

“Ehe, Kyung-ju, sit down there. I will handle it.”

“Wait, Eun-ri…!”

“If you have nothing else to do, why not play with Eun-young? Well, both of you wait for me!”

My pregnant buddy offered to help, but I couldn't honestly accept it, so I quickly left before Kyung-ju noticed.

I was about to pour water into a pot and start a flame in the furnace.

I remembered that I had used up all the soy sauce yesterday and hadn’t refilled it, so I held the jar in hand and headed out the back door.

Actually, it was just a matter of filling it up before the dinner service started, but since the dish I was planning to make required soy sauce, I decided to do it both ways.

On the way to the warehouse at a brisk pace, a few strands of hair came out of my loosely tied hair and were blowing in the wind due to the rush around.

I stopped for a moment under the shade of a tree, put the jar I had at my feet, and straightened my hair.

‘Woah, the weather is so nice.’

Suddenly, this clear sky without a single cloud came into view. It was something I hadn’t seen before when I was moving back and forth from the physician’s room because of Wang Dae-geon.

As a finishing touch, I tightened my hair tie, and before I even started walking, I looked at the tree, which was casting a shadow on my feet.

There was no particular reason. It was just to enjoy the bright blue summer sky visible through the branches, even if it was for a moment.

“…”

And my actions made me make eye contact with someone who was on a tree.

“What are you doing there?”

A shakey voice came out.

This was because none other than Ja-hyun, who had never been seen around, appeared here.

“No, rather, since when have you been there? I didn’t notice you at all.”

Ja-hyun answered my question in a sour voice.

“You can keep your eyes open and yet not see an inch in front of you.”

“….”

“Besides, the way you walked out the door was quite funny. Wasn’t it meant to please me? If not, why were you waddling like that?”

“…”

To my question, Ja-hyun answered, ‘I was here before you came.’

What? Even if I didn’t hear the sound, isn’t this too silent of a movement?

No. That is right. It could be it.

I nodded, pretending to understand, but something suddenly occurred to me, so I secretly took something out of the pocket of the apron-shaped overcoat I had sewn and made myself.

Anyway, it is best to tame animals with food. If one thinks about it, humans are no different from animals, and that guy there, Ja-hyun, was even more similar.

“Ja-hyun! You didn’t eat anything, right? You must be hungry!”

As I shouted, he looked down at me.

“We are going to eat now, but if you feel like it, come down to the table. I saw you yesterday, and it seemed like you were almost better. For now, I won't bring the meals to your room, so if you want to eat, you will have to come down! Okay?”

I declared a strike in a voice that echoed through the yard and rushed to the warehouse before he could even speak anything.

‘Ah, right!’

But then I remembered I left the jar down and had to go back. Before lifting the jar, I looked out of the corner of my eye at the top of the tree.

Ja-hyun was still sitting on the branch leisurely, taking a bite of a plum.

‘I won't mind if he was like that last night too. He looks so much like a cat.’

He didn’t seem to care about me, so I headed to the warehouse feeling bad.

And when I returned with the jar full, I couldn’t find him anywhere in the yard.

‘Where did he go now?’

I was surprised, but not heartbroken.

Because I never thought I would be able to catch him at all.

‘I should set food aside for Ja-hyun and give it to him when he comes down, unable to control his anger.’

I went straight through the back door and returned to the kitchen. Sᴇaʀch* Thᴇ ɴovᴇlꜰirᴇ.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.

First, I put down the jar from my hand, started a fire in the furnace, raised the pot, and at the same time, selected the ingredients to be added to the dish.

‘Ah, I am exhausted.’

I slowly closed my eyes to clear the blurry vision.

I wasn’t sure if it was because I couldn’t sleep well, thanks to someone or because I was sweating all morning while supporting a big man who was out of his mind, but my body barely responded to me.

There was no way lunch could be made by itself, so I opened my eyes and strengthened the hand holding the knife.

I put down the main ingredients, raw chicken, on the cutting board. The fur had been pulled out before, so all I had to do was groom.

First, the head and legs were cut, and then the stomach was cut open to pull out the internal organs.

As I was cleaning the second chicken, I started to feel drowsy, probably because of doing the same action.

I yawned loudly to shake it off and adjusted the knife in hand.

I finished the chicken preparation and was waiting for the water in the pot to boil. My eyes were so heavy that closing them for a second felt like closing them forever. And then…

“…!?”

I was grabbed by the shoulder by this rough hand and dragged.

I was startled and opened my closed eyes. Not far was the boiling water in the pot.

‘Uh? Why is the water already boiling?’

Before I realized what was happening, I looked confused as I realized that someone standing behind me with the shoulder grabbed.

Since my body was tilted back, I lifted my eyes up, and the slim jaw caught my eye. Next were the red lips, straight nose, and eyes with unusually clear color between the contrast of black and white.

A sigh escaped from the parted lips and tickled my ears.

“What are you planning to do?”

“Uh?’’

When I asked stupidly, Ja-hyun frowned.

"If two chickens weren’t enough, are you planning to boil your head?”

“What? No!”

I made this sound.

“Boiling the head? What kind of horrible thing are you saying?”

Ja-hyun answered my question with a question.

“Then why did you try to put your head in the boiling water?”

“I did?!”

When I asked in disbelief, Ja-hyun straightened his furrowed eyebrows and said,

“Right.”

“Uh…”

I paused, and before speaking the next words, I looked around to try and understand the situation.

The raw chicken, which I thought was perfectly done, was lying on the cutting board in a sloppy manner. The greasy tail as well as skin and fat had been rolled inside its stomach.

What is that? What about the water in the pot, which was boiling? The pot lid, which I thought had been put away, was hanging on the counter and was on the verge of failing, and the kitchen knife was lying flat on the floor for some reason.

Only then did I realize. The fact that I was dozing off the whole time I came into the kitchen.

‘I almost got into big trouble.’

Grabbing my cooled-down chest with one hand and pressing it.

Although I continued to feel dizzy and couldn’t believe it, I knew very well that I had come back from the dead.