She greeted them warmly as she entered the elevator, but her face quickly clouded with concern.
Before Kang could respond, Jane, who had approached without warning, suddenly hugged her tightly.
“I saw the news, Kang. I saw the pictures of you looking sad after your loved one left.”
“Ah…”
“I’m sorry. I can only say this, I’m sorry.”
“Thank you for your comforting words.”
Kang, tightly held in place, finally replied.
And as she stood there, San’s gaze soon shifted to Jane’s neck.
More precisely, just below her hair.
Six numbers etched on her cervical spine.
Sensing the gaze, Jane turned and whispered to Kang.
“But who’s that sexy and intimidating guy?”
“He’s my bodyguard.”
“Your bodyguard? Do you live together?”
“No. Due to some circumstances, he lives on the floor above…”
Before she could finish her sentence, San greeted them.
“Pleased to meet you.”
“Hi, handsome. Nice to meet you too.”
She immediately responded with a flirtatious tone while tapping her fingers one by one.
“Your tattoo is unique.”
Jane quickly brought up the topic of tattoos and lightly traced the back of her neck.
“Oh, this one? It’s for my mom’s birthday. Mrs. Park Mang-geum was born in the year of the pig, 1959. November 11th. It’s Goraettok Day.”
Not quite sure what Goraettok meant, Jane was deep in thought, but the cheerful woman continued.
“It’s just the two of us in the family, me and our mom. She’s the most important person in my life, so I got it tattooed.”
“I see.”
San replied plainly without much emotion.
However, Jane didn’t stop there. She pointed to her forearm and thigh and added, “I have a lot of tattoos on my body. Tattoos are a fashion statement these days.”
This time, he responded not with words but by slightly tugging at the corners of his mouth, forming a smile.
Meanwhile, the elevator arrived, and she patted Kang’s shoulder a couple of times.
“Well, I’ll go ahead then. If you ever find it tough, feel free to contact me.”
“I will.”
“Bye, honey.”
Jane, who had greeted Kang first, winked at San.
“Bye, hot guy.”
Their exit was as noisy as their entrance.
As they stepped out of the elevator, they walked towards the lobby entrance where Jane had left first.
“I’m the neighbor I mentioned last time. Jane, remember?”
“Yeah.”
San nodded lightly in response to Kang’s words and continued.
“It might be hard to recognize me properly.”
“Huh?”
“Be cautious of people with numbers tattooed on their bodies.”
“Why?”
“Mongma’s numbers are tattooed on their bodies in the order of their birth. That’s their real names.”
…’They’?
The nuance was as if he was explaining about another existence even though he was a Mongma himself.
Kang became curious about what the numbers tattooed on San’s body meant, and what his real name was. However, she didn’t ask, thinking that if there was a place he could show it, he would have shown and explained it earlier.
And so, she continued the conversation without mentioning it.
“The numbers tattooed on their bodies can shine like sparks, but when they mingle among humans, they can easily disguise themselves as ordinary tattoos.”
“I see.”
She nodded, then asked again.
“What do you think of San?”
“What do you mean?”
“Does he seem like a Mongma to you?”
In response to Kang’s question, he turned his head to meet her gaze.
And without any hesitation, he replied.
“Yeah.”
His answer came so quickly that it actually surprised Kang a little.
“Why do you think that?”
“Just.”
“Just?”
“It’s just a feeling.”
There was still no concrete evidence, and it was purely a gut feeling, but he answered that way for now.
Even if the feeling wasn’t great, it was a time to lower their guard since there was nothing good about being constantly on edge.
So occasionally reminding each other like this wasn’t a bad idea.
She was silent for a moment but then chuckled and said jokingly.
“Well, I guess so. It’s not every day I make a new friend.”
Even though there was no certainty, they couldn’t ignore San’s warning for now.
Danger always came when their guard was down.
“It seems like I don’t have any same-sex friends in my fate.”
It came when their guard was down.
Kang met Jane again a few days later.
They were reviewing the script for the upcoming project, and it was the time when she started getting into serious bodybuilding for her comeback.
She increased the intensity of her workouts, and due to dietary adjustments, she had to stay away from rooftop pork belly for a while.
“Haah, haah!”
Ragged breath escaped her lips as she jogged along the Han River.
She did her weight training at the gym, but she preferred doing cardio outdoors whenever possible.
Above all, after Yeonghee’s incident, Kang consciously immersed herself in more physical activity.
She tried to move as much as possible, keeping herself busy with work, to avoid giving room for deep contemplation.
♩♬♪♩♬♪♬♪
Then, in a moment of climax, cheerful music streamed through her earphones.
“Hey.”
Someone grabbed her shoulder.
“Mom!”
Startled, Kang’s foot got tangled, and she almost fell over.
However, the person who had grabbed her shoulder quickly caught her arm, preventing her from hitting the back of her head.
When she raised her head, she saw Jane looking just as surprised.
“…Honey, are you okay?”
“Oh, yes.”
“I’ve been calling you, but it seems you couldn’t hear because of the music… Anyway, sorry for scaring you.”
“It’s okay. I’m not hurt, so it’s fine.”
She was pretending to be nonchalant, but in reality, she was quite surprised.
Friday evening by the Han River.
Amidst this ant-like crowd, she wondered how he had recognized her with just her eyes visible.
Male lead is a Divorced Husband
She said to him: “Tell me, what makes you like me? I’ll change it!”
Liu Changning transmigrated into a female cannon fodder character in a female-dominant novel.
After reading the first half of the novel’s plot, the first thing she did upon transmigration was to divorce the Pan Jinlian-style male protagonist she had just married.
She indulged herself, pretending to be ugly and poor.
But as time passed, the way that man looked at her became more and more unusual…
Liu Changning was dumbfounded: Tell me, what makes you like me? I’ll change!
――
This lifetime, Pei Yuanshao was rejected by the same woman twice!
The first time, she drove him away. Forced by the situation, he endured the waves of anger in his heart, yielding and humbling himself.
That person lay slanted on a rocking chair, her sallow face emotionless: “If you don’t want a divorce, go cook!”
Pei Yuanshao’s face was dark and gloomy: “You!”
The second time, after the crisis in Jinling City was resolved, the new emperor sent someone to pick him up. He turned around, stammering: “I… I have to go. If you keep me…”
That person lay on the kang bed, her back to him, as if she had long anticipated this day, crisp and clear: “Goodbye!”
Pei Yuanshao was so angry his fingers trembled: “You… you!”
The mission of family and country made him restrain himself, averting his eyes and turning to leave this broken household.
Two years later, they met again. Seeing her ethereal face, his body shook like a sieve.
“She was originally a ‘she’!”
At the Qionglin Banquet, the top scholar of the imperial examination, a talented person with exceptional speech and conduct, all the unmarried young gentlemen from aristocratic families looked at her with shy and timid eyes.
The peerless imperial official Pei Yuanshao felt the anger in his heart erupt. He pointed at the woman surrounded by the crowd at the Qionglin Banquet, his thin lips slightly curled: “Little sister, I wants that person to be the wife-master of my Mingde Prince Manor.”
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