“….”
“Denying it like this doesn’t make your past disappear.”
“It was just for a short time. Because I had nothing else to do… I did it to survive.”
Embarrassment seeped into Yeon Ji’s voice. The ends of her words, spat out as excuses, trembled uncontrollably.
“Yeon Ji.”
“….Yes.”
“If you leave now, you can at least remain as his first love in Hyuk Joo’s memory. But if you keep sticking around, ignorant like now, what do you think will happen?”
Young Ran reached out to hold the envelope, then spread its opening to scatter the photos on the floor.
“Do you want him to see you like this, our Hyuk Joo?”
Yeon Ji knelt on the floor and started gathering the photos.
She hadn’t wanted to do it. She did it to live, to survive. If she had been born to upright parents like Oh Eun Soo, she wouldn’t have had to do this.
With a sense of injustice, thick tears fell from her eyes, one after another.
“Don’t disturb a happy child anymore.”
“I’m not living happily!”
Rising from the floor, Yeon Ji clenched her fists and shouted.
There was no love between the couple.
If they were a couple who couldn’t live without each other, Oh Eun Soo should have grabbed her by the hair. But the Oh Eun Soo who came looking for her didn’t do that.
She said it wasn’t a marriage without knowledge of my existence. And she told me indifferently, who was begging to be allowed to stay by Hyuk Joo’s side, to do so.
If they were a happy couple, if Oh Eun Soo loved Moon Hyuk Joo, they wouldn’t have been like that.
It was clear that they were a couple who started in an already broken state.
So Yeon Ji was confident that she could easily win back Hyuk Joo, who was clinging to Eun Soo’s hand.
“What?”
“Your wife knows it too.”
“….”
Young Ran struggled to steady her trembling breath.
Eun Soo knew about it.
Come to think of it, Eun Soo’s face seemed to have darkened in the recent months. As the girl hardly ever smiled even under the normal worry for her mother, Young Ran hadn’t thought it serious.
If she had asked about what had happened first, it wouldn’t have come to this point.
Having caught her breath, Young Ran asked the Yeon Ji standing before her.
“Did you contact Eun Soo?”
“….No.”
“Then?”
“Eun Soo came to me first.”
She was the one who suggested to meet first. But Yeon Ji lied that it was Eun Soo.
Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a lie.
Eun Soo already knew about her existence.
Even if she hadn’t done it, Eun Soo would have found her eventually.
“….So what did she say?”
“She said that it wasn’t a marriage without knowing about my existence, so it didn’t matter.”
“Ha….”
Young Ran rubbed her forehead with her hand. Then she glared at Yeon Ji, who was standing brazenly as if she had done nothing wrong.
“Nothing changes because of that.”
“Nothing changes?”
“Leave.”
“…What do you mean, leave?”
“Decide your destination and let me know. Once I confirm your name on the departure list, I’ll match the same amount as before.”
“I refuse.”
“You refuse?”
Young Ran asked with a hollow laugh.
It seemed impossible to end the conversation nicely.
Maybe she should have taken a harder stance from the beginning.
Recalling Yeon Ji’s words, which greedily claimed Hyuk Joo with no regard for others, Young Ran sighed.
Rising from her seat, she checked the partition installed in front of the flower shop at her instruction. It was a partition set up so that no matter what happened here, it could never be seen from the outside.
Young Ran flipped the table with her hand.
The flowers that were on the table rolled onto the floor.
“Would you say you’ll leave if I make a mess?”
Young Ran touched the small pots neatly arranged on the shelf, dropping them one by one onto the floor.
The pots fell onto the cold floor, shattering with a loud noise.
The shards of the broken pots and the soil splashed messily in all directions.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Why do you think?”
“….”
“I’m doing this to scare you. Today it ends with ruining the pots and flowers, but next time…”
Young Ran purposely left her sentence hanging. Instead, she slowly scanned Yeon Ji, who was looking at her with resentful eyes, from top to bottom.
Overwhelmed by the icy gaze that seemed to freeze her, Yeon Ji bit her lip.
Why did Hyuk Joo have to be on a business trip now of all times?
Yeon Ji resented Hyuk Joo inwardly.
No.
It wasn’t because of Hyuk Joo, it was all because of Eun Soo.
If Eun Soo’s mother hadn’t died, Hyuk Joo wouldn’t have postponed his business trip.
Then Hyuk Joo would be in Korea now, and he would have come running to the flower shop at her call and rescued her from Young Ran…
Yeon Ji felt numb with fear at the icy gaze of Young Ran, which made it seem like she could really harm her.
“I’m going to tell everything to Hyuk Joo.”
“You’re going to tell Hyuk Joo?”
“….Yes.”
“You must be really stupid to act this way.”
Young Ran clenched her lips and approached Yeon Ji, who was glaring at her. She then scraped at the scattered photos on the floor with the tip of her shoe.
“If so, I have no choice but to show this to Hyuk Joo.”
“….”
“Do you think Hyuk Joo would still have tender feelings for you after seeing this? I don’t think so.”
Yeon Ji’s momentum crumbled in an instant.
If Hyuk Joo were to learn about her past…
Yeon Ji became desperate. Not wanting to lose Hyuk Joo, she decided to cling to him.
“I’ll just stay by your side like now. I won’t be greedy, I’ll be quiet. Eun Soo even said it’s okay….”
“Eun Soo may be kind enough to do so, but I’m not.”
Her subdued voice was filled with anger.
“I can’t tolerate a stranger intruding into family matters.”
“….”
“Come to think of it, our Eun Soo must have been quite hurt because of you. A baby comes when the heart is at peace, and you don’t even know that.”
Young Ran shook her head.
She had only urged Eun Soo to have a baby without even realizing that Eun Soo was distressed. Apologizing inwardly, Young Ran frowned.
“A baby comes when the heart is at peace?”
What nonsense.
At Yeon Ji’s muttering, Young Ran narrowed her eyes.
“She said that woman might be infertile.”
“Infertile?”
“She had been very ill when she was young.”
“Our Eun Soo?”
Looking at Young Ran questioning herself with a cocked head, Yeon Ji was certain.
She didn’t know Eun Soo had been sick.
That was odd.
It was unlikely that Young Ran would have readily accepted such a sick woman as her nieceinlaw.
Perhaps Eun Soo had lied, but seeing Young Ran’s reaction, it seemed to be true.
Yeon Ji wanted to take revenge on the woman who had taken her place. No, she wanted to oust the woman who had taken over what had originally been her position.
Yeon Ji picked up her cell phone that had fallen to the floor and turned on the screen. Then, she showed the medical record of Eun Soo, which she had taken a picture of just in case.
“Look at this.”
“….”
“I asked at the obstetrics and gynecology department a while ago, and they said it could be infertility due to side effects of cancer treatment.”
Upon seeing the medical record on the cell phone screen, a big wave surged in Young Ran’s eyes.
lu lu lo la ▪️ net (lululola.net)
The Villainous Demon Lord Laid an Egg for Her (Female-Dominated)
Several months after transmigrating into a book, Yu Wu found herself facing the demon lord Li You, who could no longer conceal his dragon horns. With one hand on her aching waist and the other gripping a sharp sword, she stared at him.
The demon lord’s eyes were red with fury:
“This is all your doing! Today, I won’t rest until I kill you!”
Yu Wu rubbed her temples. Putting aside the taboo against bloodshed during pregnancy, wasn’t it this very man who willingly walked into her trap that day?!
Warnings:
- Male pregnancy.
- Height ratios are set to mirror typical male-female height proportions.
- Characters include a foot-loving demon lord and an eldest daughter from an immortal family’s concubine lineage.
