Whispers of Autumn Wind (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 43

Though the sun had set, Ga Eul was briskly walking down a rural road still blazing with summer sunlight. Her back was already drenched in sweat. She had eaten an early dinner and was now on her way to the Village Chief’s house.

Hong Su Jin couldn’t come along. She’d said she and her husband had been invited together to a dinner party hosted by Jung Mi Oh’s father, the president of the resort. Though Hong Su Jin suggested meeting the Village Chief together next time, Ga Eul chose to go alone.

After all, she didn’t know what fragment of her father’s past might slip out from the Village Chief’s lips. By now, she dreaded sharing her father’s past with others.

Lately, Ga Eul had been precariously balancing on a tightrope—between people’s condemnation of her father and her own unwavering belief that he could never have done such things.

She also felt a twinge of self-consciousness about not being invited to the party attended by Gi Dae Woong, Jeong Se Hyun, and Jung Mi Oh. She had always treated them as equals, but now it was clear there existed a definite, unmistakable divide between her and them.

She thought she finally understood how Cinderella must have felt—left out of the ball.

“So, I’m Cinderella—the girl covered in ashes!”

She sank into self-loathing for a moment,

“But this isn’t about entertainment or amusement—it’s about discrimination and opportunity!”

Then she’d be swept up again by a passionate urge for reform.

Yet Ga Eul knew the truth: that wasn’t really the issue at all.

What gnawed at her heart was the thought of Gi Dae Woong spending a pleasant time with that beautiful woman he’d just seen.

“Turns out Pyeongan Group isn’t all that impressive after all. Chairman Oh—just a loudmouth within his own household, completely unrecognized outside of it.”

That explained why I, his granddaughter, wasn’t even invited to some dinner party. Even Sung Mok’s father—the director of a small hospital on the outskirts—was invited.

The cake she’d bought from the resort bakery and carried along now felt awkwardly bulky. She’d bought it as a courtesy gift for the Village Chief, but in hindsight, she should’ve chosen something smaller and lighter.

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