At the tender age of seventeen, my mother had become the eldest daughterinlaw of a prestigious family.
The wedding had taken place without her even seeing her husband’s face once.
With eighteen ancestral rites a year, plus all the other family events. She had thought she was marrying into a family, but there was no day she didn’t work her fingers to the bone.
It was a time when Yoon Bokhee introduced the miniskirt, and stylish new women paraded around the streets.
The flowerlike maidservant of her age was stuck in the rural countryside, working for nothing and exploited laboriously.
From a certain day, the husband’s nights out increased. Turns out, he had already set up a separate household a while before the wedding.
One should look at the sky to pick stars. Even after three years, they had no child, so the elders of the family nagged and abused her day after day.
Time passed, and suddenly my mother was well over thirty. From then on, she only thought about running away from her marital home.
Reflecting on those days, my mother said,
“It’s strange, just when I was about to understand how the world works and was packing my bags, you suddenly appeared. What could I do? I just collapsed back down.”
Thus, my mother’s attempt to start a new life was halted by the sudden appearance of Dajung, her daughter.
In that moment, Dajung felt a sense of guilt. She felt as if she had ruined her mother’s life.
So, after sixteen years, my mother finally had a daughter. My mother, who had been living like a criminal without committing a crime, then became a real criminal.
When Dajung was around ten, her father, who had contracted an illness outside, returned home.
The husband, who had spent his time living with another woman, came home, and my mother took care of him devotedly, attending to even his waste.
The year Dajung turned thirteen, the family’s persecution of the widowed mother began.
On the surface, it was because she had no son, but in reality, she became a sacrifice in the struggle for family property.
When hard work was involved, they deemed it a maid’s duty, but they criticized everything else, these people who lived like it was the Joseon era.
The disgusting faces, unable to hide their sinister intentions, were still clear in Dajung’s memory to this day.
My mother was not such a harsh person from birth.
Being her only daughter, Dajung was the apple of her eye, a deephearted person who didn’t spare any pain or screaming.
It was just that the harsh trials of time had hardened her, and this hardened shell had locked my mother into a solitary and lonely wall.
Whenever Dajung thought of this, a part of her heart ached.
Even after she mechanically finished the housework and bathed Siwoo, Jeongae was still staring at the turnedoff TV screen.
“Please go to bed.”
“No, I should go.”
At the stubborn words, Dajung couldn’t hide her sigh.
“What’s the time now? Don’t be stubborn, go to sleep and go in the morning. I’ll take you to the terminal.”
“Ha, what’s the big deal about the time when I’m going home?”
She snapped, pretending to worry. Yet, Jeongae didn’t get up and kept an uncomfortable watch on the sofa.
Jeongae couldn’t understand. She didn’t know why she was here.
She had vowed countless times not to see her daughter ever again.
Even when she had received a call a few days prior, urging her to visit on the day her grandson was scheduled for ear piercing, she had scoffed at the absurd notion.
Wait as long as you like. See if I make an appearance.
Yet, there she was, late in the afternoon, slowly heading towards the terminal. Before she knew it, she found herself in front of her daughter’s house.
She refused to admit that she had willingly come to this place. She wanted to prove to her daughter that it wasn’t her intention to surrender like waving a white flag.
Regretting her decision more than a hundred times over, she wanted to leave the place immediately, but stubbornness and obstinacy held her back, much like the moment where she clung to Jeongae’s ankle.
Her grandson, Shiwoo, stood there silently, looking alternately at his grandmother and his mother, who were caught in a tense standoff.
Although he was most wary of his grandmother, being a kid with sharp intuition, he could easily gauge his mother’s feelings.
Seeming to think it was his turn to intervene, Shiwoo plucked up the courage to approach Jeongae.
“Grandma… play with Shiwoo, okay?”
Jeongae’s wrinkled eyes looked down. Her crumpled, shriveled hand, like a balledup plastic bag, was seen clutching the young, tiny finger.
Her harsh, extremely rugged and wrinkled hand, full of life’s hardships, was holding the soft, white, fernlike hand of her grandson, which was surprisingly beautiful.
She had raised her daughter through deathly hardships.
As a child without a father, she hoped her daughter would not live like her, enduring the long years of scorn and criticism.
An Indifferent Woman is the One Men Desire the Most
One-line summary: The female lead is actually cold-hearted and extremely rational. She has stage-by-stage relationships and won’t two-time, but there will always be someone who secretly likes her.
This novel has the following triggers, so if you’re sensitive to these, please don’t read:
1. The female lead has had many relationships, but she treated each one seriously and broke up properly.
It’s just that the men unilaterally pestered her incessantly. For the female lead, when she doesn’t like someone anymore, she simply doesn’t like them.
(This applies to her relationships with Male Lead 1, 2, 3, and 4 as well, but she’s loyal in each 1-on-1 relationship!)
2. In this novel, Male Lead 2 and the female lead kiss in a car, and Male Lead 1 sees it and beats up Male Lead 2.
The female lead calls the police and sends both Male Lead 1 and 2 to the police station! Male Lead 1 begs the female lead not to break up with him.
3. Male Lead 1 has a gentle appearance but an obsessive personality.
Male Lead 2 has a delicate and soft appearance, slightly green tea-like (two-faced).
Male Lead 3 is a youthful college student and a smart person who has secretly liked the female lead for a long time.
Male Lead 4 is the female lead’s father’s special assistant, a business elite with deep, hidden thoughts.
4. At the beginning of this novel, the female lead has already broken up with Male Lead 1 (Chapter 4) and gotten back together with Male Lead 2 (ex-boyfriend).
5. Enter with caution if you have triggers!!!
