I stared blankly at the man before me.

He was an incredibly handsome middle-aged man.

‘It’s surprising that face is considered elderly.’

I knew his real age.

Seeing his face, I tried to suppress the hiccup that was about to come out.

Even as a baby, I couldn’t show a foolish appearance in front of this person.

His sharp gaze, like a blade, was already unpleasant as he looked at me.

After staring at my raised hand blankly, I soon realized one thing.

‘Right, I’m a baby now.’

I couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity.

I had become a baby.

One that couldn’t even move its arms and legs properly.

“The young miss can’t sleep at all. She seems to be quite fussy.”

At Un Ryeong’s words, my maid, the man’s face hardened even more.

I suppressed a curse inwardly.

Un Ryeong was my great-uncle’s person. She wouldn’t say anything good about me.

I felt Nam Gung Jin Cheon’s cold gaze.

If I were an ordinary child, I would have burst into tears.

But knowing how heartless the person in front of me was, I did my best to hold back my tears.

Jeongpa.

The greatest under heaven.

Nam Gung Jin Cheon.

A living legend of the Nam Gung family and the ruler of the martial arts world.

And in this novel I was possessing, Cheonma Jijeon’s…

‘The greatest under heaven.’

I had become Nam Gung Lin, his granddaughter.

Grandfather stood up from his seat without saying a word.

Un Ryeong looked at me with mocking eyes at his cold reaction.

But I didn’t back down.

“Kyaa!”

When I looked at him with a bright smile, grandfather’s brow twitched.

The eyes looking at me were terribly cold.

‘Grandfather hates me after all.’

People in the family said I was born devouring my father.

Grandfather, who cherished my father, would surely hate me too.

‘What did I do wrong?’

The gaze, unimaginably cold for looking at a child, almost made me hiccup.

I truly felt killing intent, but I couldn’t back down here.

If I cried here, I might be branded useless by my cold grandfather.

“You have great courage.”

Fortunately, my efforts seemed to work as grandfather uttered those words and left the room.

I let out a sigh of relief.

‘Now I probably won’t see him for at least 8 years.’

My grandfather, Nam Gung Jin Cheon, was the leader of the Murim Alliance. Because of that, he would be leaving for the Murim Alliance for a while.

As the leader of the Murim Alliance, Nam Gung Jin Cheon had a lot to do, and in the process, he hardly paid attention to the Nam Gung family.

I felt someone pick me up with an irritated sigh.

“Ugh, useless thing. So annoying. Parents dead, not much time left to live, want to get rid of it quickly…”

“…”

“The family head doesn’t seem to care anyway…”

Un Ryeong’s eyes were full of annoyance as she looked at me.

She said that while hitting my head.

Tremendous pain rushed through my baby body, but I tried hard to hold back my tears.

Even if I cried my heart out here, it would only irritate Un Ryeong more.

Then Un Ryeong muttered with a dumbfounded face.

“What a tough one. Just like how it devoured its parents.”

As Un Ryeong said, Nam Gung Jin Cheon hadn’t shown any interest in me even when I was born.

There was a reason why he came to see me now.

My father, Nam Gung Hyun, had gone missing while fighting evil forces in the martial arts world.

Since then, people had been calling me a child who devoured its parents.

‘I heard my mother died while giving birth to me too.’

In the Nam Gung family, already full of conflicts, my life was now in a precarious state.

I sighed inwardly. My parents’ deaths were shocking, but I hadn’t met them more than a few times, so it wasn’t too devastating.

Being shocked is only possible if you’re alive, isn’t it?

‘My life is the problem.’

Thinking that, I turned my gaze to the door grandfather had left through.

Grandfather hadn’t shed a single tear even though his child had died.

Someone like that wouldn’t care about a granddaughter.

‘If time passes like this, I will die.’

The title of the novel I had possessed, “Cheonma Jijeon,” literally meant a story about Cheonma.

And the Nam Gung family would be annihilated by that Cheonma.

Of course, I wouldn’t make it that far and would die before that…

At the hands of the protagonist of this novel, no less. I would be the first victim of the protagonist’s bloody revenge.

‘Why did I have to possess such a role? To die at the hands of the protagonist after tormenting him.’

That’s right.

I had possessed a minor villain in “Cheonma Jijeon.”

If I were at least a top-tier villain, I might be able to wreak some havoc, but I was in a despised position even within the Nam Gung family.

‘My cousins will despise me, and grandfather won’t care about me.’

It seemed I had no luck with family in this life either.

Un Ryeong roughly put me down and left the room.

Only then did I quietly sniffle.

I stared at the ceiling, lost in thought.

Of course, to anyone else, it would just look like a baby staring blankly, but I couldn’t help it.

At first, I denied reality, but seeing grandfather made it even more certain.

‘The fact that I had been reincarnated into Cheonma Jijeon.’

Whether it was reincarnation or possession, either way.

It was clear that I had awakened in a novel, and it was equally clear that my future looked bleak.

The fact that my future was predetermined was a disgusting feeling.

‘What good is it to be the granddaughter of the greatest under heaven? Grandfather doesn’t even care about me.’

Not just lack of care?

There was no one in the Nam Gung family I could call an ally.

I wanted to sigh.

“Ow!”

But my body moved against my will.

A child’s body is definitely inconvenient. All I could do was think.

I frowned as I contemplated what to do next.

‘First, I need to survive.’

Although I had possessed Nam Gung Lin’s body, there were some good points because of it.

The Nam Gung family was where Ji Cheon Wu, the protagonist of Cheonma Jijeon, spent his childhood.

‘Ji Cheon Wu was a servant doing odd jobs in the Nam Gung family.’

As such, the Nam Gung family appeared quite frequently in the original Cheonma Jijeon.

True to being the protagonist of a martial arts novel, Ji Cheon Wu gained many fortuitous encounters here.

‘He really milked the Nam Gung family dry.’

I remembered cursing at the lack of plausibility while watching him gain countless fortuitous encounters.

It meant that if I stayed by Ji Cheon Wu’s side, I would have endless opportunities for fortuitous encounters too!

Therefore, I made a resolution.

‘I won’t play the role of an extra villainess!’

I’ll become friends with Ji Cheon Wu.

I won’t play the role of a villainess who torments Ji Cheon Wu and gets brutally killed in the original story.

My ultimate goal was to leave the Nam Gung family, but I had no intention of creating bad blood with Ji Cheon Wu before that.

‘Once I can move my body, let’s start looking for fortuitous encounters.’

I recalled the fortuitous encounter that should be closest to me.

It was to confirm if the contents of the novel were really the same.

Ji Cheon Wu gained so many fortuitous encounters that it wouldn’t be noticeable if I took a few for myself.

‘Alright, I need to live diligently.’

I didn’t want to die.

Now that I had become Nam Gung Lin, I planned to live long enough to see my hair turn white.

‘Ji Cheon Wu, let’s get along well.’

I made that resolution as I clenched my tiny fist.

Eight years had passed since then.

‘I can finally walk around freely now.’

I sniffled.

As I grew older, the sniffling decreased, but it was unavoidable when winter came.

The winter in the martial arts world was too harsh for me.

I thought I would grow up without any worries, being born into the prestigious ‘Nam Gung family’, but reality was different.

Every day, I had to struggle to survive.

I looked down at my hands.

They were black and calloused.

I turned my gaze to the mirror. A young child with a still youthful face looked back at me.

‘Your life is quite tragic too.’

Nam Gung Lin’s life was even more of a mess than what I had seen in the novel.

Living as Nam Gung Lin for 8 years, I came to understand why she became a villainess.

After my parents passed away, the person responsible for me was my great-uncle, Nam Gung Hyun Jong.

‘And great-uncle really hated me.’

He assigned people to my quarters, but they were all there to monitor and torment me.

One of them was Un Ryeong, the maid in front of me.

I looked at Un Ryeong, the maid before my eyes.

“It’s really annoying. You should handle something like a fever on your own.”

She looked at me as if looking at something bothersome.

I recalled the sorrowful 8 years.

Un Ryeong only took care of me just enough to keep me from dying.

Pinching me where it couldn’t be seen and verbal abuse were the norm.

‘She prevented me from learning martial arts and often starved me.’

As a result, I was smaller and thinner than the other Nam Gung family children.

Learning martial arts from a young age was important. Yet Nam Gung Hyun Jong said I wasn’t qualified yet and prevented me from learning.

Their torment was already severe, but it got worse as time passed.

“Sniff.”

I sniffled.

My head was dizzy, and cold sweat dripped from my forehead.

Un Ryeong tapped my forehead with her finger.

“What are you complaining about being cold? As a member of the Nam Gung family, you should be able to endure this much.”