She forced a smile as she answered my question.
“I know what my fate is. I won’t live long. So…”
She can’t live long because that’s her fate?
There’s no such thing.
If I go by what the young lady says, then in my previous life, being miserably killed by Merchant Lord Namgoong Gang would have been my fate.
But I believe that kind of fate can be changed as much as you want.
Take me, for example. It’s only thanks to the Patriarch’s sacrifice, but I’m living a second life that goes against fate.
And there are others whose fates have changed because of me.
I reached out and wrote Lady Jaryeong’s name in the snow. Honestly, it was a bit of an impulsive thing to do.
“This snow won’t melt until the New Year. So you’ll live to be over a hundred, my lady.”
She gave a gentle smile as she spoke.
“Thank you for saying that.”
As she said that, she reached out and lightly touched her name carved in the snow.
I could see the longing in her eyes.
It was a longing for life.
Even while believing death was her fate, she still didn’t want to die – a desperate longing to keep living.
So, for her sake, I spoke up.
“My lady, I think fate changes depending on what a person does. Who knows? Just by me writing your name in the snow like this, your fate might change so you live past a hundred.”
“I want to change my fate too. But if no matter what I do it won’t change, then what am I supposed to do?”
Her question was laced with resignation.
I answered with firm conviction.
“Even then, I won’t give up on changing fate. It’s not over until it’s really over.”
Right then, her mother walked up behind us.
“Isn’t it too hard on you? Want to stop and rest now?”
But she lightly shook her head.
“I’m fine, Mother. Maybe because I’m looking at snow like this, today doesn’t feel that hard.”
Her face really did have a hint of color to it.
Wait, her complexion… looks better?
“This is all the snow, isn’t it?”
“No, it isn’t!”
I hurriedly shook my head.
“There are five more boxes just like this. Should I bring you a fresh one?”
“Yes. This time, I’d like to try packing the snow into a ball.”
I carefully placed the first tray I’d shown her back into the box.
Then I took out another tray and set it down in front of her.
“Forming snowballs can make your hands colder than you think.”
“All right, I’ll keep that in mind.”
She gathered the snow in both hands and firmly packed it together.
“Ah! The snow really packs together!”
Lady Jaryeong’s eyes widened and sparkled. She gave a shy little smile and said,
“Father. Thank you so much for giving me this snow as a gift.”
Her smile was unbelievably beautiful.
Beautiful enough to leave even me dazed.
And it wasn’t because her features were especially pretty.
It was the sincere gratitude welling up from inside her that made her shine.
“My lady, no matter how beautiful and amazing it is, you shouldn’t hold it for too long. Frostbite hurts quite a bit.”
“It’s really hard to hold myself back.”
Even as she said that, she quickly took her hands off the snow.
“I’ll leave the box with the snow and the cold–imbued vessel here, so you can touch snow whenever you like.”
“Thank you.”
She gave a small smile and bowed her head.
Her complexion definitely looked better than when I’d first seen her.
She’d collapsed while poisoned and just woken up, so why did she look healthier?
Is that even possible?
After Eun Seo-ho withdrew, Dong Jaryeong watched the attendants carry away the boxes filled with snow.
“Jaryeong, aren’t you overdoing it?”
Her mother, standing beside her, wore a worried expression. In truth, Dong Jaryeong couldn’t even stand for fifteen minutes.
A year ago, she could at least walk a little around the garden, but now even taking five steps away from her bed was a struggle.
Honestly, the fact that she’d been standing for more than fifteen minutes right now was nothing short of a miracle.
“I’m all right.”
Realizing her condition had improved, her mother let out a sigh of relief.
“You must really like seeing the snow.”
“Yes, Mother.”
She tilted her head slightly.
“Strangely, I feel energized. Just a moment ago, I was exhausted.”
It was a deeply strange sensation even for Dong Jaryeong herself.
Her chest had been growing tighter and breathing had been getting harder by the day, yet now, as if it were a lie, even breathing felt easy.
After chatting with her for a while, her mother left the room to attend to the household duties of the lady of the house.
Left alone again, she sat on her bed and gazed out at the rear garden.
As befitted a place arranged for her sake, the garden was filled with countless beautiful flowers in bloom.
“Ah!”
Right then, something appeared before her eyes.
It was…
Spring? White petals were drifting through the air…
No, that wasn’t it.
They were whiter and more sparkling than any petals, and they were piling up thick on the ground.
She was standing there with snow falling down on her.
In a place that wasn’t here, and behind her stood her father, dressed in winter clothes.
Her father was facing the handsome young man she’d seen earlier today.
With an extremely awkward look on his face, at that.
That expression somehow made her want to laugh.
A moment later, her vision returned to the rear garden.
A single tear slipped down from her eye.
“My fate… changed? How?”
In truth, Dong Jaryeong had the ability to see the future.
Only for the briefest of instants.
Through it, she had been helping her father.
She also knew that the future changed whenever she intervened.
But she had never been able to change the fate of her own illness.
No matter what she tried, the fate that she would die this autumn never changed.
That was why she had let go of all hope.
“I want to change my fate too. But if it won’t change no matter what I do, what am I supposed to do?”
The question she’d asked Eun Seo-ho earlier had been a petulant complaint, full of resignation toward the fate she couldn’t change.
At some point, a thought like that had even crossed her mind.
Maybe she would die young precisely because she had the power to see the future…
And yet, that very fate of hers had changed.
Snowfall meant winter.
And it meant she would be able to go north, to where the snow lay piled up.
In other words, it meant she would recover her health.
Realizing that, she was so happy that tears began to fall.
Honestly, who would ever want to die sick like this!
She wanted to live. She wanted it so desperately that the change in her fate filled her with indescribable joy.
At that moment, the words of that handsome young man named Eun Seo-ho echoed in her mind.
“My lady, I think fate changes depending on what a person does. Who knows? Just by me writing your name in the snow like this, your fate might change so you live past a hundred.”
And that line about how it wasn’t over until it was really over.
She found herself smiling without realizing it.
“I guess he was right. But why did my fate change? I didn’t do anything.”
She had no idea how her fate had changed.
But she was certain that the turning point of that change was Eun Seo-ho.
Two days passed after that.
During that time, I carefully observed everyone in this residence, trying to find someone from the Murim Alliance.
But I couldn’t find anyone who looked like they were from the Murim Alliance.
Did they maybe already run away?
Judging from Lady Jaryeong’s condition, she would die sooner or later even without them lifting another finger, so they might have just vanished.
To cool my tangled thoughts, I was in my quarters reading a book.
It was also to have something to talk about naturally when I met other people.
People naturally feel drawn to those they can talk easily with.
And that goodwill is the most important factor in closing a deal.
Just then, the Commissioner of Land Affairs’s attendant came looking for me.
“Young Merchant Lord, the Lord Commissioner is calling for you.”
“Understood.”
I followed the attendant toward where the Commissioner of Land Affairs was, but the place he led me to wasn’t the Commissioner of Land Affairs’s office.
It was the inner quarters.
“Am I really allowed to go in there?”
“Yes. I was ordered to escort you inside.”
Tilting my head in puzzlement, I stepped inside and soon spotted the Commissioner standing in the rear garden.
“I heard you called for me.”
“Come on in. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to look after you properly.”
“Not at all. Thanks to you, I’ve been staying here very comfortably.”
These days, the Commissioner was extremely busy cracking down on the Five Stars Merchant Group.
Even just the bribery case exposed by the item theft incident I’d set up as a precaution was no small matter, and on top of that, actual document forgery had been uncovered, so right now the Five Stars Merchant Group was being shaken down to the core.
I wondered what would happen to the Five Stars Merchant Group.
Would they go completely bankrupt like in my previous life?
But with a group as big as the Five Stars Merchant Group, they had probably prepared countermeasures for situations like this.
If things went as I expected, it would probably end with only a few people being punished, like Mae Yeom, who often spent time with Pyeong Tak, and a few others.
As long as nothing bigger than what they’d already found came to light.
“Are you busy today?”
At the Commissioner’s question, I smiled and replied.
“No, I’m not.”
“Good. Then would you have a cup of tea with my daughter?”
“Huh?”
Wait, what was he saying right now?
In the martial world or the merchant world, people didn’t nitpick much over such things, but it was different among officials.
The Commissioner of Land Affairs was even of imperial blood.
In circles like that, they strongly disliked unmarried women getting close to men outside the family.
Knowing that, I had no idea what he was getting at.
When I looked at the Commissioner with a puzzled expression, he waved a hand and said,
“There’s nothing in particular behind it.”
“I see…”
“It’s just that my daughter asked if she could see you once more, so I’m simply granting her request.”
Just then, a maid came out from inside.
“The refreshments are ready.”
The Commissioner nodded and said to me,
“You can just follow that maid.”
“All right.”
“Ah, and about the tea and the jujubes… that’s a secret.”
So he really had decided to keep it a secret.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
With that, I followed the maid inside.
This was the reception room, quite a distance from Lady Jaryeong’s quarters from earlier.
Could Lady Jaryeong even walk all the way here?
Just as I was thinking that, a familiar sound reached my ears.
Rattle, rattle.
That was the sound of the wheelchair’s wheels turning.
Soon, Lady Jaryeong entered the reception room seated in the wheelchair. Seeing the wheelchair here felt oddly welcome.
It made me strangely proud to see the wheelchair Gong Mil and I had made proving useful in a place like this.
“Please, have a seat.”
“Thank you.”
Once I’d taken my seat, she gently asked,
“Does the tea suit your taste?”
“It’s an excellent tea.”
“The physician said the tea I had been drinking seemed to be harming my health, so I’m drinking a different kind now.”
“I see.”
The Commissioner had just told me to keep the matter of the tea and the jujubes secret.
Well…
Sometimes not knowing really is better.
If she realized she had been poisoned, she might torment herself wondering who had poisoned her, and her condition could worsen.
“I heard your merchant group is famous for its tea, Young Merchant Lord.”
“Ah, that’s right.”
We chatted about this and that as we drank, and before long our conversation shifted to the journey I’d taken to bring the snow.
“Then did you really go all the way to the North Sea to bring back that snow?”
“Yes, I did.”
“That’s amazing!”
I gave an embarrassed laugh and glanced toward one side.
Good grief…
The Commissioner really was an incorrigible doting fool.
I’d figured that out back when he requested snow in the middle of summer for his daughter.
I held back my laughter and only chuckled inwardly.
Right now, there was a hidden space in this reception room that couldn’t be seen from inside, and the Commissioner was secretly listening to our conversation from there.
Imagining him crammed into that narrow space, straining to catch every word we said, made me want to laugh.
Our little tea time didn’t last very long.
Maybe about an hour?
After that, I returned to my quarters.
After Eun Seo-ho went back to his quarters, Dong Jaryeong returned to her own room and took off her veil.
There was a faint flush of life in her face.
Just like when she had met Eun Seo-ho two days ago.
“Jaryeong.”
Just then, the Commissioner came into the room and asked her,
“I granted your request because you asked, but what exactly were you thinking?”
“Father. My fate has changed.”
“What?”
Her words startled the Commissioner. Her fate was something that hadn’t changed no matter what treatment they tried.
And now she was saying that fate had changed!
‘So is the reason my daughter is sick really was poisoning, just like Young Merchant Lord Eun Seo-ho said?’
He carefully studied Dong Jaryeong’s complexion.
It definitely looked better than before.
She still seemed unaware that she had been poisoned.
He’d ordered everyone around her to keep quiet about it, and it seemed that order was being followed.
Dong Jaryeong’s ability to see the future was extremely fragmentary and lasted only for an instant beyond her control, which was why keeping her ignorant was possible.
Even just that much had been a great help to him.
Of course, the Commissioner loved Dong Jaryeong not because of that ability, but because she was his daughter.
“I think the reason my fate changed is without a doubt Young Merchant Lord Eun Seo-ho.”
She went on.
“That’s not something I’m seeing with my ability, I’m feeling it directly. Strangely, when I’m with him, the pain eases.”
“I see.”
“And Father, I just saw another future.”
She spoke with a serious expression.
“I think we need to stay on good terms with Young Merchant Lord Eun Seo-ho.”
–TL Notes–
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