Chapter 3
“Uwaaah!”
I repeated it to myself countless times on my way home.
You can do this.
Jeok I-geon hasn’t revealed his true nature yet.
It’s only for two months.
If I lie low and pretend to be invisible, it’ll pass quickly.
But all that determination vanished the moment I saw the signboard for the noodle shop.
“Grandmaaa!”
I burst into tears and ran into the shop. Shin Geum threw down her ladle and rushed to me.
“What’s this? Who made my baby cry like this? Huh?”
Her large hands cupped my cheeks. She quickly looked me over, trying to see if I’d been hurt by someone.
“You don’t seem to be injured?”
I nodded to confirm, and wrinkles formed on her brow.
“Then why are you crying? Did you lose some money?”
If only that were the case. Money can always be earned back.
I’d gladly give away all my possessions if it meant avoiding becoming an exclusive maid.
“If it’s not money, then what’s making you so upset?”
Grandma sat me down on a chair and gave me water to drink.
“Calm down first. Crying too much will exhaust you!”
I hadn’t meant to cry this much, but the tears wouldn’t stop.
Is this what having a family feels like?
It was a foreign emotion for me, having grown up an orphan without parents or siblings.
Though she wasn’t my biological grandmother, the relief of having someone on my side in this world made me relax and let my guard down.
Just as she said, I was completely drained from crying so much.
“Should I make you some noodles?”
“…No.”
“Dumplings, then?”
“No, thanks. I’m not hungry.”
I sniffled, declining both. With my life possibly ending tomorrow, how could I even think about digesting food?
“Then what is it? You need to tell me why you’re crying.”
Telling her wouldn’t change anything, but if I wanted to avoid getting smacked on the back, I had no choice.
I told her plainly that I’d been assigned as Second Young Master’s exclusive maid.
“So you cried because you don’t want to be an exclusive maid?”
“It’s not just that I don’t want to! If I make even one mistake, I could lose my head!”
“What are you saying? Do you think Second Young Master is some kind of butcher? Whatever mistakes you might make wouldn’t be serious enough for him to kill you. Now, if it were Eldest Young Master, that’d be a different story!”
“Grandma, to them, I’m not even a person. They’d probably think a maid’s life is worth less than a bug’s.”
“If you’re so scared, why did you even start working there in the first place? You never listened to me before, so why are you whining about it now?”
“Well, that’s because…”
Because back then, I wasn’t me.
“Haah, who’d believe me anyway? I might as well save my breath.”
Later, when everyone learned the truth about Jeok I-geon, they’d tremble in fear. But for now, he was just the handsome second son of the cult leader.
“So that’s all? I thought something really serious had happened!”
Grandma flicked my forehead and headed into the kitchen.
Soon, the sound of clattering reached my ears, and she placed a steaming bowl of meat noodles in front of me.
“When your stomach’s empty, you start having foolish thoughts. Eat up.”
“I really don’t feel like eating…”
“Tsk!”
Grandma’s sharp glare left no room for argument. At times like this, I knew better than to defy her. I weakly picked up my chopsticks and poked at the noodles.
“By the way, why did the maid before you quit?”
Grandma suddenly asked as she watched me glare at the never-ending noodles.
“The maid before me?”
It took me a moment to process her question.
“Oh, my predecessor?”
“Yes. She must have quit for you to get this assignment, right?”
“That’s true.”
I bit the end of my chopsticks, trying to recall.
‘Was there anything about that in the original story?’
No, there wasn’t. Maids weren’t even mentioned. But if I had to guess…
“She probably died.”
“Died?”
“Around this time, Eldest Young Master often played with poison. She probably got caught up in one of his games and died.”
A pitiful life. Another wasted life lost in the petty fights of the brothers.
I didn’t have any confirmed evidence, but I was sure of it.
“Seol-ha, do you know what you’re saying?”
“Huh?”
“Are you absolutely certain that maid is dead?”
“Well, no, I didn’t see it myself, but you know how poison works. A single mistake…”
Grandma’s fierce gaze silenced me, and I trailed off in a timid voice.
“Grandma, are you only worried about me now? Afraid you’ll have to hold a funeral for your only granddaughter?”
“Why would I hold a funeral for you? Poison can be cured, you know!”
“…Huh?”
“If it’s that Jeok Wi-baek, he wouldn’t hesitate to do such a thing to his brother. Tsk, tsk, poison is not something to be handled so carelessly.”
As if standing guard to make sure I finished my noodles, Shin Geum suddenly stood up and headed upstairs.
Why was she going upstairs in the middle of our conversation?
Up there was only our bedrooms—hers and mine—and a tiny room that served as storage.
The outhouse was outside the building on the ground floor, so it wasn’t like she needed to use the restroom urgently.
“Could she be steaming a batch of dumplings?”
I grumbled, shoveling another big forkful of noodles into my mouth.
If anything were to happen to me, this bowl of noodles might be the last thing Shin Geum ever made for me.
So, I decided to finish every last bit, even the broth.
“You said you didn’t feel like eating, but look at you inhaling those noodles!”
Just as I finished my bowl, Grandma returned downstairs holding a box.
“What’s that?”
“Have you ever heard of Poison-Bead Antidote?”
Of course, I had.
Poison-Bead Antidote was a type of antidote shaped like a bead. When poisoned, you’d hold the bead in your mouth and channel Inner Strength Techniques to neutralize the poison.
In short, as long as you held the bead, poisons couldn’t harm you.
The price of Poison-Bead Antidotes varied widely based on their quality.
The beads were inherently rare, making them expensive to begin with. For top-grade ones, the price could reach astronomical levels.
In the martial world, poison was the most feared weapon, even more so than swords.
Since martial arts dictated that the strong dominated the weak, poison was one of the few ways the weaker could overcome that disparity.
Naturally, every martial artist coveted Poison-Bead Antidotes.
“Are you telling me that box contains Poison-Bead Antidotes?”
“That’s right. This grandma of yours prepared it just in case something like this happened.”
“And you expect me to believe that?”
As I said earlier, Poison-Bead Antidotes were rare and expensive.
You couldn’t just buy them even if you had money.
Unless Grandma had secretly stashed away a fortune, there was no way our household could afford one.
“When have I ever lied to you?”
True, Shin Geum wasn’t the type to lie.
“So, this is really a Poison-Bead Antidote? Grandma, how much money have you been hiding?”
I yelled in betrayal. If she had told me earlier that we had money, I wouldn’t have had to become a maid in the first place!
“Why are you shouting so loud all of a sudden? I don’t have money! This was left behind by a customer.”
Here’s how it happened:
A few years ago, a middle-aged man came to the shop for noodles and left the box behind.
It wasn’t uncommon for customers to forget their belongings.
Most of the time, they came back for them, but sometimes they didn’t.
The Poison-Bead Antidote was one of those cases.
“I didn’t even know it was there. I found it last month while cleaning the cabinet. At first, I was going to throw it away, but then I got curious about what was inside. That’s when I hit the jackpot.”
“That doesn’t make any sense! What kind of lunatic leaves a Poison-Bead Antidote at a noodle shop?”
He must have spent a fortune acquiring it, so why wouldn’t he come back for it?
The story didn’t add up at all.
“There are all sorts of crazy people in the world. Why wouldn’t there be someone who’d leave a Poison-Bead Antidote behind? Besides, this isn’t even a high-quality one. It’s useless against deadly poisons like Formless Venom or Silver Fire Poison Sand.”
Shin Geum opened the box and showed me its contents.
“Still, it’ll be useful for you. Most poisons Eldest Young Master would use can be countered with this. Deadly poisons require boldness, and not just anyone can use them.”
My grandma’s a genius, isn’t she?
How does she know Eldest Young Master so well?
He was greedy but lacked courage.
To secure the position of successor, he often harassed his half-brother Jeok I-geon using his power and wealth, but he was too afraid of his father to escalate things.
Jeok I-geon, knowing this, played along before revealing his true nature, even allowing himself to be poisoned occasionally.
Not that he was immune to all poisons, but still.
For these guys, everything was just a game.
Realizing I’d been dragged into such a mess, my head throbbed.
Could I really survive this?
With a Poison-Bead Antidote, I might be able to endure for two months.
“Grandma, thank you. You really are my only ally!”
At least I wouldn’t die from accidental poisoning anymore.
My original purpose for visiting was to say goodbye, but I gained an unexpected gift instead.
I’ll make sure to survive.
Then we can leave this place together.
I whispered the words I couldn’t say aloud in my heart and hugged Grandma tightly.
—
Read More at – GENZNOVEL.COM!!
PLEASE JOIN OUR DISCORD AND SUBSCRIBE THE ROLE TO RECEIVE LATEST NOTIFICATIONS!!
Click here -> https://discord.gg/S8c2kGVr2g
Comment