“These are pictures you must see.”
Ju Hwan pushed the envelope with the photos towards Eun Soo. The corner of the envelope jabbed her knee, and she momentarily scrunched her forehead.
The corner was not sharp enough to cause pain. It was her heart that was hurting, causing her to feel pain at the slightest touch.
Eun Soo picked up the envelope and rose from her seat.
“I’ll look at it later.”
“Look at it here.”
“Later.”
“Don’t you have to see that for me to say what’s next?”
Ju Hwan snatched the envelope from Eun Soo’s hand. He then pulled out the photos from the envelope and spread them out on the table like a display.
Eun Soo looked at the photos laid out on the table.
They were pictures of Seo Yeon Ji standing in front of the gynecologist’s office.
She didn’t know who had been asked to take these photos, but even the face of Seo Yeon Ji sitting in the waiting room was captured.
Eun Soo closed her eyes briefly and then opened them again.
She knew what the photos meant without having to think hard.
Seo Yeon Ji was pregnant.
Eun Soo felt nothing. She should have felt sad or angry, but her mind was just blank.
‘We can’t have a child.’
It was a forced statement, knowing that Hyuk Joo wouldn’t listen to her.
Her eyes felt hot.
Tears began to well up in her eyes.
Not wanting to show herself crying, Eun Soo rubbed her eyes with her palm before the tears could fall.
“Sit down.”
“……”
“I said sit.”
Eun Soo bit her lip.
Her head throbbed. If she didn’t sit down, her father looked like he would grab her by the hair.
What kind of deal was he trying to make with Moon Hyuk Joo using this as an excuse?
Eun Soo sighed and sat down.
“It turns out this woman hasn’t been back in Korea for long, what have you been doing all this time until things got this bad?”
“……”
“You’ve been married for 2 years and you haven’t won over Moon’s heart at all! If you couldn’t win his heart, you should have had a child before this woman!”
She had no energy to respond to the barrage of words.
Eun Soo, who had been blankly looking at the photos, started to put them back into the envelope one by one.
“What are you doing?”
“I have to tell Mr. Hyuk Joo.”
“What?”
“What we should do from now on.”
“What do you plan to do from now on?”
“I guess we should get a divorce.”
Eun Soo felt it might be for the best.
Did Hyuk Joo still not know about this? That must be why things were still quiet.
If he found out that Seo Yeon Ji was carrying his child, he would immediately persuade his aunt.
Then, she would have no place in his life.
So, is this how it ends?
Perhaps it was a good thing for Eun Soo. She could extract as much as possible from Hyuk Joo asking for a divorce.
She would be able to receive enough alimony to cover her mother’s medical expenses for the next few decades.
“Why are you getting a divorce? For whom?”
“……”
“Have a baby. And you raise that baby. As far as I know, Chairman Moon Young Ran wouldn’t accept this girl just because she had a baby.”
“……Father?”
“If you have a baby, then you can reconsider at that time, but right now the best thing you can do is to raise that child.”
“I don’t want to.”
Eun Soo responded firmly.
It was an absurd suggestion.
“Why don’t you want to? Why?”
“Why should I raise the child that woman gave birth to?”
“Because it’s Moon’s child.”
“……”
Eun Soo shook her head at the shocking story. She desperately wanted to scream.
“Raise the child.”
“I don’t want to. I won’t.”
Eun Soo responded without backing down.
It was an unacceptable proposition. She had made it clear to Hyuk Joo in the past.
She wasn’t generous enough to raise a child born by another woman.
“I’m still your mother’s guardian.”
“……What are you talking about?”
“It’s no big deal to pressure a primary doctor into taking off her respirator.”
“Hah.”
Eun Soo felt as if all the blood in her body had been drained in an instant. She couldn’t even move her fingers.
“Right now, I’m leaving your mother alone because I have to be considerate of Mr. Moon, but once that’s not necessary, I’ll have no choice but to handle things my way.”
After speaking such chilling words nonchalantly, Oh Joo Hwan left the room.
Eun Soo, left alone, sat for a long while with empty eyes.
The phone rang and the vibration alert for incoming messages sounded several times. But Eun Soo ignored them completely, as if she had lost her hearing.
Before she knew it, it was dark outside.
She had a baseless thought that the darkness would be able to hide her pitiful state. Eun Soo, who had taken the photos, went out and took a taxi to her mother’s hospital.
She bought a lighter from the convenience store on the first floor of the ward. There was a smoking room near the frequent zelkova bench.
When she opened the door to the smoking room and entered, it smelled horribly of recently burnt tobacco. The terrible smell stung her throat and eyes.
Coughing.
Coughing, Eun Soo took the envelope with the photos out of her bag.
“I don’t know anything. Nothing…… I didn’t see anything.”
As if to shake off the confusing memories, Eun Soo vigorously shook her head.
Tears fell drop by drop on the envelope in her hand.
It shouldn’t get wet.
She had to burn this without a trace.
Eun Soo wiped away her tears by rubbing her eyes with her hand.
She set fire to the photos one by one with a lighter. The heavily coated photos didn’t burn easily. But Eun Soo kept burning the photos.
Looking at the photos turning into ashes and disappearing, Eun Soo let out a hollow laugh.
She had dreamed of gaining a moment of freedom.
She thought she could go back to the time before her marriage to Hyuk Joo, when she and her mother had only each other to rely on.
But now, she couldn’t.
The wings she was struggling to spread disappeared before she could even move them.
The thought of possibly having to continue living trapped in the cruel wall of loneliness made Eun Soo miserable.
“……”
Eun Soo looked down at the thinning envelope. She burned the crumpled envelope that no longer contained any photos, and went outside.
The darkness had descended so heavily that she couldn’t even guess the time.
Was it because she was harboring an unresolved problem in her head?
Her head hurt as if it was going to split apart.
With her small, clenched fist, she lightly hit her head, and Eun Soo headed towards her mother’s hospital room.
The nighttime caregiver’s eyes widened at the sight of the disheveled Eun Soo. Eun Soo told her that she would be there and she could leave for the day.
Without a word, the nighttime caregiver, noticing Eun Soo’s unusual tone, packed her belongings and left the hospital room.
Eun Soo looked at her mother’s face, who was peacefully asleep.
The graph in the monitor indicating the heartbeat was moving at a steady pace.
“Mom……”
With a sigh mixed in, Eun Soo called her mother.
“Is it okay?”
She asked a question that would not receive any answer.
“What would it have been like if I had died when I was young? Then, both mom and I wouldn’t have had to live in this hell……”
Tears poured down ceaselessly from under Eun Soo’s closed eyes. She wiped her wet face with her hand. Maybe because she had burned the photos, her hand smelled terribly of smoke.
“I’m, I’m so tired.”
It seemed as if everyone had conspired to push me towards the cliff. Otherwise, there was no way to drive a person to such an extreme.
Was there a way to escape from the edge of the cliff?
There wasn’t.
Either she was pushed as she was being pushed, or she had to fall on her own.
If the conclusion was to fall anyway, it was right to prepare for the end with her own hands.
Eun Soo raised her dry hand with difficulty.
“Mom, let’s stop now.”
The hand of Eun Soo, who was holding the respirator covering her mother’s face, trembled mercilessly.
lu lu lo la ▪️ net (lululola.net)
After Being Cheated On, She Picked Up a Treasure (Female-dominant)
One-line summary: The husband I married on a whim had been secretly in love with me for a long time.
On the day when Jun Shao finally obtained the imperial decree for her marriage, Lan Qu, the person she had admired for six years, defied the decree and ran away.
Her gentleness and devotion, her promise of a lifetime together, were all disregarded by him. Instead, he dreamed of entering the palace to serve the Emperor’s sister as a sixth-rank attendant.
News of this incident spread throughout the capital, and the alleys in front of and behind the Lan mansion were crowded with people who came to watch the commotion.
Jun Shao should have been embarrassed and angry.
But someone stepped in to protect her dignity.
The figure was in a miserable state, yet still possessed an undeniable elegance and handsomeness.
The young lord struggled to climb the wall of the Lan mansion and shouted to her, “If he won’t marry you, I will!”
So, Jun Shao took advantage of the situation and married the person.
She thought the young lord did it to save the Lan family from the crime of defying the imperial decree, but never imagined that from beginning to end, what he coveted was her.
*
After the wedding, Jun Shao felt like she was living in a dream.
Her Wife-master was as beautiful as a fairy in a painting, skilled in the six arts, well-versed in poetry and literature, capable of being gentle and attentive, and also grand and dignified. Most importantly, she was the only one in his heart and eyes.
Jun Shao didn’t know how Lan Shiwu, as a illegitimate son without a father and blessed with beauty, had managed to preserve his purity, recklessly escape, and use his last ounce of strength to ruin his own reputation, all because of his love for her, just to stand before her.
She could only see him gazing at her with eyes full of love, and when she bestowed a name upon him, his eyes shone like stars.
“You have come to me like a weary bird perching on a branch. I shall call you A Qi.”
