From the morning, there was a huge commotion. The unexpected appearance of Young Hee was like a tsunami.

Surprised by her loud voice, Woo Jin ran out with sleepy eyes and Tae Eun froze on the spot. Young Hee didn’t even ask who she was, as if she already knew her. She just raised her voice, saying it shouldn’t be like this.

After barely calming down the agitated Young Hee and sending her back to the main house, Woo Jin had to soothe the frozen Tae Eun and head to the main house as well.

But for her, every step felt like a thousand pounds. Even with a determined heart, facing the women of the Jang estate was not an easy task. Especially for Tae Eun, who was not ready in this embarrassing situation, it was even more difficult.

“If you don’t want to go, should we not go?”

At the sudden question, she raised her head to look at Woo Jin. Unlike her trembling self, his eyes were very calm. As if this was nothing to him.

“Can we… not go?”

“If Tae Eun doesn’t want to, we don’t have to go. I’ll take care of the rest.”

Listening to his comforting voice, Tae Eun lowered her gaze to her toes. Then she pondered for a moment.

Yes, as he said, maybe she didn’t have to go right now. But having decided to marry him, it was something she couldn’t avoid forever. And if she ran away from this meeting now, future encounters might become even harder. Even to herself, a woman who ran away without a word in this situation would never look good.

There were no points to lose, but she didn’t want to create minuses either. So Tae Eun made up her mind.

“No. I’ll go and meet them. I think it will be more embarrassing for me if I meet them later.”

And so, she had to directly face the Jang family women, whom she had only seen on TV or in the business section of the news, and greet them. It was an unprepared encounter.

“Hello. I’m Min Tae Eun.”

Fortunately, despite her uncontrollably pounding heart, her voice came out quite stable. But the Jang family women she faced were more formidable than she thought.

First, even at over eighty years old, Chairman Jung, with her sharp eyes no less than the younger ones, felt like a giant despite her small stature. It was clear where Woo Jin’s aura came from, the resemblance in charisma was striking.

“You must have been quite startled. Because of Woo Jin’s aunt.”

“No, Mom! I was more startled! More than her!”

Young Hee raised her voice as if she felt wronged and glared at Tae Eun. Of course, starting with Chairman Jung who spoke softly, there was no one sending a friendly gaze. Young Hee’s stare was just the most blatant among them.

Tae Eun took slow, deep breaths to stay alert. If she couldn’t endure this moment, forget marriage, it could end right here.

“Then why did you come barging in without notice like that?”

Woo Jin’s dark eyes coldly looked at Young Hee after making sure Tae Eun was seated. He usually hated his privacy being invaded, so not only his aunts but even the servants couldn’t freely enter his separate residence without his permission. But today, of all days, Young Hee had barged in without notice.

Woo Jin was quietly reprimanding her for that.

“I went because I had something to say too! But who would have known? That I would face a sly fox there!”

Young Hee openly criticized Tae Eun, calling her a sly fox. But she had nothing to say right now even if she had ten mouths. It was a situation that could easily be misunderstood.

“Auntie, please mind your manners in front of others.”

“Manners? What manners? Manners are for people!”

“I know what misunderstanding you have. But we slept separately. She’s not a woman I brought as a one-night stand.”

“Do you think I’m naive enough to believe that?”

“If you doubt it that much, go back to the separate residence. We haven’t cleaned up yet, so if you go into the bedroom, you’ll know. I slept in my room, and this person slept in another room.”

At his firm tone that left no room for argument, Young Hee pursed her lips.

“There were circumstances. So I couldn’t let this person go, and I thought home would be safer than a hotel. Hotels have more prying eyes. And the eyes of an unspecified crowd are hard to control.”

“What circumstances? What circumstances to come to a man’s house you met the other day and even sleep over?”

“It’s privacy. It’s not something you need to know.”

“What?”

“And judging from what you’re saying, you seem to know who this person is, so you should show even more courtesy, Auntie.”

A low voice that couldn’t be defied despite his much younger age warned Young Hee. Then Young Sook, unable to stand it any longer, added.

“Woo Jin, your second aunt is saying this for your sake. Even if it was a blind date, there are lines to keep. It’s not even marriage, just a blind date.”

But that became the trigger. Woo Jin drove in the wedge at Young Sook’s words, which were meant to clearly distinguish the boundary between marriage and a blind date.

“It’s not a blind date, it’s marriage.”

“What?”

“I said it’s not a blind date, it’s marriage. The woman I’m going to marry. So even if she came and slept with me for a night, what’s the problem in this day and age?”

“Oh my, Woo Jin!”

“And I don’t think my aunts need to concern themselves with my sex life.”

Young Sook, who had brought it up, blushed at the blunt choice of words. Her face, rolling her eyes as if dumbfounded, was full of resentment. But Young Sook’s embarrassment was really nothing compared to the word ‘marriage’ that Woo Jin had dropped.

A moment of silence followed.

Chairman Jung’s inscrutable eyes alternated between Woo Jin and Tae Eun.

Amidst the bone-chilling bleakness, Tae Eun gradually regained her composure. The shock she felt when she first faced the screaming Young Hee had subsided, and the tension she felt when facing the Jang women all at once had somewhat eased.

Of course, the gazes of the aunts sitting in front of her had become even sharper, but Tae Eun was no longer shaken. She had lived receiving worse looks than this all her life. Eun sometimes shook her and looked down on her like the dirtiest maggot in the world when she showed no reaction.

She remembered those eyes clearly. It was a moment more humiliating than being hit. Eyes that thoroughly looked down on a person, as if trying to make her recognize her incompetence and miserable life. Compared to Eun’s gaze, their eyes were kind.

So she was also able to quickly pull herself together. No, perhaps her desperation for this marriage overcame all these situations. The thought that if she didn’t stay alert today, the marriage could fall through, pushed everything else to the back and erased it. Thanks to that, Tae Eun could muster up the courage to open her mouth.

“I’m really sorry to meet you like this. It’s not Woo Jin’s fault at all. It’s all my negligence.”

At the neat voice matching her appearance, everyone’s eyes were drawn. Even Chairman Jung’s eyes on her narrowed.

“I see. So you’re saying you’re going to get married?”

Woo Jin nodded at Chairman Jung’s question.

“Yes, Grandmother. I’m going to marry Min Tae Eun. I was going to introduce her to you anyway. Of course, not like this.”

“I see. How old are you?”

“I’m twenty-eight.”

Tae Eun smiled at Chairman Jung, who was showing interest. At this, the aunts’ eyes became even fiercer, but her smile blooming like a flower amidst those thorn-like gazes was still dazzlingly pretty. An average woman would have already lost spirit and wouldn’t have been able to smile so charmingly with such cold eyes on her. She wouldn’t have had the leisure to smile.

But this child was smiling. And prettily enough to draw people’s hearts.

Chairman Jung watched that sight with great impression.

No matter how advanced technology developed and how much the quality of human life improved, conflicts between humans remained an eternal homework. A fundamentally human problem that even artificial intelligence couldn’t solve, which humans with emotions inevitably had to face.

Among them, the conflict between in-laws could be said to be the most difficult challenge.

Woo Jin didn’t have such a mother, but he had three aunts with strong personalities that made people uncomfortable just by being still. Moreover, the three aunts were always a concern for Chairman Jung as they were overly attached to Woo Jin, who had lost his parents. She felt like she was just making someone else’s precious daughter suffer as a daughter-in-law for no reason.

But Tae Eun was not affected at all by the blatant gazes of such aunts-in-law. She even looked firm with that delicate body, which was just surprising.

“I see, what do your parents do?”

It was such an unexpected meeting that Chairman Jung had no information about her at all. Of course, judging from how much her three daughters were foaming at the mouth, she could tell Tae Eun’s profile was poor. But how could a person’s life be replaced by a few sheets of paper?

“My father is a lawyer, and my stepmother is a housewife.”

“Stepmother? Then your birth mother?”

“She passed away from cancer when I was young.”

“Oh my. It must have been hard. I see. How did you cope?”

“Just as you had your grandmother for Woo Jin, I had my grandmother for me.”

Chairman Jung deeply empathized with those words. So much meaning was condensed in that one sentence.

Usually, when a mother passes away, one relies on the father. But the fact that Tae Eun’s grandmother, not her father, was such a presence for her allowed a guess of the circumstances before and after without even asking. A poignant feeling came first. It was an emotion she could relate to because she had Woo Jin, who had lost his parents in an instant.

And Tae Eun’s situation somewhat softened even the aunts who had been sharp all along. After all, it wasn’t someone else’s story for them who had watched Woo Jin, who had lost his parents.

“Hmm… Our Woo Jin was like that too.”

In particular, Young Sook nodded in agreement. Belatedly realizing her actions, she tried to harden her softening eyes by widening them, but it wasn’t very effective.

At this moment, the only person with no change in expression was Young Ja. She had maintained the same expression from the moment Tae Eun first entered until now. So it was impossible to know what she was thinking.

“Still, isn’t it a bit much to frequent his house within a few days of meeting? It’s not Woo Jin’s house where he lives alone, Grandmother and eldest sister are there too.”

Young Hee, who had somewhat come to her senses, started to pick on her again. Then the tip of Woo Jin’s eyebrow slightly furrowed.

“Auntie, that’s…”

Just as he was about to argue, a warm touch settled on his clenched fist on his knee. It was Tae Eun. As if trying to stop him, that touch that soothed him was far too small to cover his large fist, but the effect was outstanding. The rage that had been surging up like a fit instantly subsided.

Having calmed Woo Jin’s anger like that, Tae Eun quietly opened her mouth.

“Auntie is right. It’s my mistake. I should have gone home no matter what.”

“Y-yes. But at least she’s not completely unreasonable.”

Even Young Hee, who had been sharp, showed signs of softening at Tae Eun’s attitude of easily admitting her fault while saving face for Woo Jin in front of him.

But at this moment, Chairman Jung’s gaze had been continuously fixed on Woo Jin and Tae Eun. More precisely, on Tae Eun’s hand gently patting Woo Jin’s hand.

The more she thought about it, the more astounding the sight was. If she hadn’t seen it with her own two eyes, she never would have believed it.

That’s because Woo Jin had such a great temper that once he exploded, even Chairman Jung couldn’t stop him. Of course, he usually controlled himself well, and when he occasionally snapped, there were valid reasons, so it might be more accurate to say Chairman Jung didn’t stop him rather than couldn’t.

It was the same just now. Even if not a huge volcanic eruption, it was a situation where Woo Jin could have sufficiently verbally cut Young Hee down. Then Young Hee also had a tough personality, so a fight could have broken out.

But Tae Eun had quietly defused that situation. With just that small action of carefully patting Woo Jin’s hand.

A small chuckle escaped Chairman Jung’s mouth.

Did this child even realize how incredible a thing she had just done?

She had never seen anyone control Woo Jin so well like that. Even Young Ja, famous for being formidable, often ended up being led by Woo Jin at crucial moments.

But that child was doing that extremely difficult task.

With that delicate body of hers, that task no one else could do, so easily at that.

With just that one fact, this child was,

“I see. So when are you going to have the wedding?”

more qualified than anyone.