The Day I Quit Being a Wife (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 4
Eun Soo had never heard that woman’s voice before. But she knew instantly.
The voice filling the car made Eun Soo fiddle with her seatbelt.
She felt as if she were sitting somewhere that wasn’t hers. Overwhelmed by a crushing sense of despair, Eun Soo bit down on her lips.
Her eyes began to burn.
In just a few seconds, she realized who owned the voice that had reduced her to nothing.
After all, only that woman could call her husband “Oppa” in such an intimate tone.
Hearing the woman’s voice plunged Eun Soo into heavy silence.
― I think I hurt my leg.
Her voice ended with a childish whine, like a petulant child.
“What happened?”
― I twisted my ankle while organizing the closet.
“……Did you go to the hospital?”
― I can’t even take a single step right now. Can you come over, Oppa?
“…….”
Eun Soo turned to look at her husband.
At least he has some conscience.
Watching him hesitate instead of immediately agreeing to go, Eun Soo muttered inwardly. Yet, she disliked him even more for that hesitation.
She had already told him he could see that woman anytime, that if he wanted to help her, he should just do it.
Now, seeing him struggle after informing her of the woman’s existence—as if seeking her permission—made Eun Soo furious.
She felt like the villain wedged between them.
Eun Soo turned back to face forward.
The sun, which had just begun to dip below the horizon, had completely vanished in the blink of an eye.
The beautiful sunset disappeared in an instant—
just like her fleeting hope for Hyuk Joo.
Frustrated, Eun Soo clenched her fist tightly.
The traffic light remained red. In the meantime, the crosswalk signal had turned green for pedestrians.
If she was the villain stuck between them, stepping offstage was the right thing to do.
Staring blankly at the people crossing the street, Eun Soo unbuckled her seatbelt before it got any later.
“I’ll go in first.”
She shot her husband a quick glance and opened the car door.
“Eun Soo.”
She heard his voice but stepped out of the car anyway and crossed the street with the crowd.
Not long after crossing the intersection, a loud honk blared from behind her.
Despite the noise, Eun Soo didn’t look back.
She walked for a while.
“……It’s cold.”
She realized she was cold.
Looking down, she saw the buttons on her coat hadn’t been fastened.
“No wonder I’m cold.”
Of course the biting wind pierced right through her—she hadn’t buttoned her coat.
Laughing bitterly at herself for realizing something so obvious so late, Eun Soo let out a hollow chuckle.
How long had she walked?
She had nowhere to go.
Nowhere except home.
Eun Soo raised her hand and hailed a taxi.
“Home.”
The taxi driver glanced at her through the rearview mirror as she bluntly said “home.”
“Which home?”
“My home, so……”
Hesitating, Eun Soo finally said the address in Samsung-dong.
For a moment, she couldn’t immediately recall where Oh Eun Soo’s home even was.
Hyuk Joo called Eun Soo several times, but there was no answer.
“…….”
Feeling suffocated, he grabbed his tie knot and loosened it with his hand.
His phone buzzed briefly.
It was a message from his secretary.
Still holding the phone, Hyuk Joo leaned his forehead against the steering wheel.
He shouldn’t have answered Seo Yeon Ji’s call earlier.
Thinking she’d just offer a casual thank-you, he’d pressed the button without a second thought.
He never expected her to ask him to come over because she was hurt.
“Sigh……”
Letting out a soft sigh, Hyuk Joo lifted his head and splashed cold water on his face with his dry hands.
Where had things gone wrong?
His vague, undefined relationship with Seo Yeon Ji stemmed from deep-seated guilt buried within him.
He’d lived as if nothing were wrong, completely unaware that his only mother was gravely ill.
Only when her death drew near did his relatives finally reveal the truth to him.
More than being angry they’d kept it from him, Hyuk Joo was furious at himself for never noticing, even after hearing his mother’s feeble voice so many times.
“That child…… gave this to me.”
Struggling to catch her breath, his mother handed him a handkerchief she’d been clutching tightly.
She said it was a farewell gift from a child who’d made her smile throughout the past year of her hospitalization.
She asked him to find that child and thank them on her behalf.
It was practically her dying wish.
He tried to find that child but couldn’t.
There was no patient in the hospital records matching the age his mother had described.
Then, years later, he finally met her.
“Are you okay?”
Someone had tapped his shoulder as he sat dazed, completely drunk.
It was a petite woman.
“This……”
The moment Hyuk Joo saw the handkerchief she offered, his drunkenness vanished instantly.
It was identical to the one his mother had given him before she passed away.
Thus, by a miracle of fate, Hyuk Joo met Seo Yeon Ji—the very person he’d been searching for—on the anniversary of his mother’s death.
Wanting to atone for his past indifference toward his mother, Hyuk Joo gave Seo Yeon Ji everything he could offer.
“Guilt, responsibility, pity……”
These were the feelings he held toward Seo Yeon Ji.
At one point, he’d even confused his sympathy and desire to help her with love.
After all, he wanted to give her everything she wished for.
But in truth, it was all just an attempt to wash away the sin of having ignored his mother in her final days.
If it had truly been love—if those feelings had been love—then seeing her should have made his heart race the way it did when he was with Eun Soo. Yet not once had that ever happened with Seo Yeon Ji.
Whenever he thought of Eun Soo, Hyuk Joo felt uncharacteristic urges.
Dozens of times a day, he longed to hold her close and whisper words of love.
Even now, as he redialed the unanswered call.
“Aren’t you coming in with Hyuk Joo?”
Her aunt tilted her head, puzzled to see Eun Soo entering alone.
“……He had an urgent matter and went back to the office.”
“Work isn’t something he handles alone, tsk tsk tsk.”
Her aunt clicked her tongue, closed the book in her hand, stood up, and asked Eun Soo,
“Have you had dinner?”
“……Yes.”
“Go change your clothes and come down. Let’s have some tea.”
“Yes, Aunt.”
Eun Soo went upstairs to change. When she came back down, she saw a housekeeper emerging from the kitchen with a tray of tea.
“I’ll take that.”
“Yes, Mrs. Moon.”
Eun Soo carefully carried the tray to her aunt’s room.
After knocking, she heard a voice from inside say, “Come in.”
She opened the door and entered. Her aunt was seated by the window overlooking the garden.
“Sit down.”
“Yes.”
Eun Soo placed the tea tray on the table and sat. The cup was filled with quince tea, its sweet, rich aroma wafting through the air.
They’d picked the quinces together from the garden in late autumn and made the tea themselves.
Eun Soo took a sip.
The sweet, fragrant flavor made her lips curl upward involuntarily.
“It turned out well.”
“……Yes, it did.”
“Even quinces, which are so astringent on their own, become delicious when you put care into making syrup. If even tea is like this, what about people? Don’t you agree?”
Eun Soo offered only a faint smile in response.
She understood exactly what her aunt meant by talking about quince tea.
It was a veiled message: try harder, so that Hyuk Joo would forget that woman completely.
Though her mother-in-law seemed to care for her, she was also stricter with Eun Soo than anyone else.
Afraid Eun Soo might cause some scandal if she let her guard down, her aunt alternated between praise and criticism—so much so that even subtle, seemingly kind remarks like this put Eun Soo on edge.
It was only natural she wondered what kind of pressure her aunt was trying to exert now.
“From what I can see, Hyuk Joo seems to have settled down. Is that right?”
Eun Soo almost answered “No,” but instead closed her mouth and lifted her gaze.
Hyuk Joo having “settled down”?
She nearly let out a hollow laugh.
Her husband wasn’t settled—he was just happy because the woman he’d been waiting for had finally returned.
His recent attentiveness toward her stemmed only from guilt.
Everything he did was just to ease his own conscience.
Yet to her aunt, who noticed even Hyuk Joo’s subtlest changes better than Eun Soo herself, it must have looked like he was finally being faithful to his family.
“I was so relieved the other day when he spoke up for you.”
“…….”
“I thought, ‘Finally.’ He even told me not to make things more uncomfortable for you over the child issue. You’ve really been through a lot.”
Eun Soo quietly gazed at her aunt, who was holding her hand.
She wanted to say, “That’s not it—you’ve misunderstood,” but the words wouldn’t come out.
All she could do was smile silently.
For a moment, she considered telling her aunt that Hyuk Joo had met that woman again.
Her aunt would immediately go confront her, and then Moon Hyuk Joo would……
“He’d despise me.”
Eun Soo bit her lip.
She’d become his wife out of pity. To keep this position, she had no choice but to live pitifully.
“Eun Soo.”
“Yes, Aunt?”
“A couple’s bond deepens when they have a child. With a child, you can overcome any crisis.”
Hearing her aunt’s words, Eun Soo lowered her gaze.
Moon Young Ran, Hyuk Joo’s aunt, had been practically cast out by her politically powerful in-laws because she couldn’t bear children. Back then, her in-laws were so influential that she couldn’t even protest the unfair divorce.
Perhaps because of her own past,
Moon Young Ran was especially sensitive about the issue of children between Hyuk Joo and Eun Soo.
Of course, part of her worry was also that Hyuk Joo might waver because of that woman.
“Just to be sure…”
Her aunt hesitated before continuing.
“You’re not deliberately avoiding pregnancy, are you?”
“What?”
“I suddenly wondered… is Hyuk Joo the one preventing it?”
“……No, it’s not like that.”
Eun Soo shook her head firmly.
They’d never used contraception—not even once since their wedding night.
Nor had they been distant physically; their intimacy wasn’t rare at all.
Yet, she too wondered why she still hadn’t gotten pregnant.
“Then that’s good.”
“……I’ll try harder.”
“Alright. Go upstairs and rest now.”
“Yes.”
Eun Soo picked up her empty teacup and left her aunt’s room. The housekeeper waiting in the living room took the tray and headed back to the kitchen.
Standing in the middle of the living room, Eun Soo looked up at the clock on the wall.
10 p.m.
Would he even come home tonight?
“I twisted my ankle while organizing the closet.”
The woman’s pitiful voice, claiming a twisted ankle, echoed in her mind.
Eun Soo clenched her fist tightly.
Because of you, I’ve never had a moment of peace—but you act as if the world’s ending over a mere sprained ankle and use that voice to call my husband……
“How foolish.”
Eun Soo let out a bitter laugh.
She was the one wedged between them. Whether that woman called Hyuk Joo or not, it wasn’t her place to say anything.
Just as she ran a hand through her tousled hair and turned to head upstairs,
she heard the front door open and turned her head.
Hyuk Joo was walking in.
“……You’re here now?”
“Yeah.”
“Father said he’ll sleep over in Sokcho and come back later.”
“I heard.”
He looked utterly exhausted.
His ever-neat tie was nowhere to be seen. With a couple of shirt buttons undone, his Adam’s apple bobbed as he let out a quiet sigh.
She almost asked if he’d like to soak in a bath to ease his fatigue. But Hyuk Joo walked straight toward her aunt’s room.
Eun Soo watched his retreating back for a moment before heading upstairs first.
Perhaps because she’d skipped dinner,
her stomach felt sour.
Maybe she should’ve had at least a glass of water before coming up.
Thinking it best to go to bed early since she was tired, Eun Soo went into the bathroom to brush her teeth.
“Sigh……”
She couldn’t understand why she kept sighing like this.
Just as she finished brushing and stepped into the bedroom, she stopped in her tracks at the sight of Hyuk Joo staring out the window.
He seemed burdened, his shoulders heavy with thought.
Was it guilt for leaving that hurt woman behind?
“You’re pitiful too.”
She almost called out to him but closed her lips instead.
It seemed that even if she lived her whole life as his wife, she’d never be able to call out to Hyuk Joo when he stood there with his back turned.
Perhaps sensing her presence,
Hyuk Joo turned around.
When the male lead is punished by carrying the female lead’s child and having periods like a woman
“I’ve given birth to two children for you, yet you still think about him.
Was I nothing but his substitute to you from beginning to end?”
Synopsis:
Meng Huan, a scumbag who has dated countless girlfriends, transmigrates to a female-dominated country.
Day 1: Whether it’s female dominance or not doesn’t matter. The beauties here are passionate and amorous. Isn’t it easier to date them than in modern times?
Day 2: After a night, Meng Huan discovers the differences in the female-dominated world. Men here actually have chastity locks and menstrual cycles. This hinders his ability to perform, damn it!
Day 3: What’s wrong with sleeping around? I don’t want you to marry me. I’m meant to be a playboy. I don’t care about male virtues… What? You want to drown me in a pig cage? Marry, I’ll marry!
Day N: Meng Huan inexplicably vomits and receives the shocking news of his life… He’s pregnant.
_____
Please help me, I want to bring you the best possible things.
If you find any chapter or novel with poor translation and editing quality, let me know by commenting directly under that novel or chapter. I will retranslate it as soon as possible.
[Touch the gear icon in the bottom right corner of the screen to move to the next chapter if you want.]
The extreme miscommunication is getting on my nerves now.
I wish he could actually say what he fully means for once
Hyuk Joo does not mess around. When dealing with someone like this you have to be direct!