At my question, Young Master Yu-jin looked troubled and answered with another question.
“What do you mean?”
“Pardon?”
“I’m not really sure which of the things I saw was something I wasn’t supposed to see.”
“Ah…”
Well, even if Young Master Yu-jin seemed mature for his age, he was still only ten years old.
He was still too young to judge what, among everything he had seen, counted as something he was not supposed to see.
There was no way they did not know that.
Then what they were wary of right now was something suspicious enough that even a ten-year-old child would notice it and mention it to his parents or someone else.
I smiled and said,
“Just tell me anything you remember clearly from recently. Something that left an impression on you, or something you found strange or interesting.”
At my words, Young Master Yu-jin groaned and racked his brain, but it looked like nothing was coming to mind.
At this rate, he might start crying.
As someone who had no hobby of making children cry, this put me in a difficult position.
Most likely, he had sensed danger and instinctively buried the memory.
Was it really right to dig it back up?
But letting this pass would be even more dangerous.
Then a thought flashed through my mind.
They had said he saw something he should not have seen.
In other words, I had to focus on sight, not touch, smell, or hearing.
A person’s memory was better than most people realized.
Because of that, once something became a trigger, the memories connected to it would start surfacing.
Even memories that had been buried.
And what sight reacted to most sensitively was color.
“Please wait here for a moment.”
I left the annex. As it happened, Uncle was on his way over.
“Ah, Uncle!”
“Yes. Are the Young Master and Jeong-ho all right?”
“Yes, everyone is safe.”
“That is a relief. The Merchant Lord of the Myeongmyeong Merchant Group has returned to the Merchant Group.”
It seemed Uncle had seen the Merchant Lord off.
“And he told me to hear the details from you.”
“Because the situation is quite urgent.”
The reason the Merchant Lord had said that to Uncle was probably because he knew this was no longer a situation where he could hide the Myeongmyeong Merchant Group’s disgrace.
After all, an assassin had infiltrated another Merchant Group, targeted his own grandson, and our Merchant Group’s Escort Guards had been mobilized to stop it.
Not only was it impossible to hide, but hiding it would also be disrespectful to the other party.
“The truth is…”
I explained the whole situation to Uncle from beginning to end.
“Hah! How could something like that happen?”
After hearing my explanation, Uncle let out a deep sigh. It was only natural.
“Um, Uncle, I have one favor to ask.”
“A favor?”
“May I borrow the silk samples for a moment?”
I borrowed the silk samples from Uncle’s office.
They were small cut pieces of silk, each with different colors and textures, numbered and bound together like a booklet.
They were used to place orders for exactly the type and amount of silk needed.
When I returned to the annex, Young Master Yu-jin was sitting with his head lowered, looking dejected.
“I’m sorry. No matter how much I think, I really don’t know.”
“It’s all right. That’s why I brought this.”
I placed the silk sample booklet on the bed and said,
“When you look at the colors of these silks, something connected to that color may come to mind. Shall we begin?”
“Yes.”
I slowly turned through the silks while talking with Young Master Yu-jin.
Blue…
“A lot of people in Beijing wore clothes in this color.”
“This color is fashionable right now.”
“This green…”
“It’s also called jade green.”
“My mother’s hair ornament is this color too.”
Like that, I helped Young Master Yu-jin relax while gently unraveling his memories.
Several colors came and went, but nothing particularly significant had come out yet.
At last, we reached red.
Not the bright red favored by women, but a slightly murky red.
Should I call it blood-colored?
The moment he saw it, Young Master Yu-jin’s face stiffened. There was something.
“This… I’ve seen this color before.”
He slowly explained.
“When I went to Beijing with my parents this time, I was bored, so I begged Nanny to play hide-and-seek with me. I hid somewhere secluded in the residence, and then a man came there. Then a woman came over too, and they started talking.”
There was nothing especially unusual up to that point.
In a large residence, men and women sometimes met in secluded places to share a private moment.
“Then the woman turned her head, and she looked right at the place where I was hiding. So our eyes met.”
“Oh no.”
“But… that woman’s eyes…”
Young Master Yu-jin pointed at the blood-colored silk sample I had opened in front of him and said,
“They changed to this color.”
What?
Young Master Yu-jin continued.
“I was so startled that I got caught… The man shouted and asked who was there, so I came out… but by then, the woman’s eyes weren’t that color anymore.”
“I see.”
That was what Young Master Yu-jin had not been supposed to see.
“Huh? But why couldn’t I remember that until now?”
“Because you were scared.”
I gently stroked Young Master Yu-jin’s head.
“Because you were frightened, your unconscious mind hid it deep inside.”
“…”
At my words, tears streamed from Young Master Yu-jin’s eyes.
“Y-Yes. I was scared. I thought she was going to tear me apart and kill me.”
Damn it. I really did not have a hobby of making children cry…
But right now, letting Young Master Yu-jin cry was the right answer.
No matter how deeply a memory like that was buried, it would not disappear forever.
Rather than letting it cause problems later, it was better to resolve it ahead of time.
Then how could it be resolved?
The method was simple.
I had to turn that terrifying experience into a good experience, or at least into an experience that meant nothing.
“Thank you. Thanks to your memory, we will be able to protect the Myeongmyeong Merchant Group.”
I continued.
“You said you saw that woman at the residence in Beijing, correct?”
“But I know who she is.”
“You know who she is?”
“Yes. She’s Uncle Jun-min’s maid.”
“…Pardon?”
“And I heard people talking. They said she’s going to become Uncle Jun-min’s concubine this time.”
I recalled the memories of my previous life.
At the time, Seong Jun-min, who had been the Deputy Merchant Lord of the Myeongmyeong Merchant Group, inherited the position of Merchant Lord, and he had a First Wife.
But not long afterward, his First Wife died, and the concubine who had once been a maid became his First Wife.
Hah. That aside, her eyes turned red and then went back to normal…
I did not know why, but it was certainly strange.
From their perspective, they had a reason to kill Yu-jin.
But that absolutely did not mean I sympathized with them. Whatever their reason, killing an innocent child for their own purpose was never something that could be tolerated.
It was the kind of act that deserved heavenly punishment.
When I returned to my quarters, I stopped short.
Young Lady Seohyang was asleep with both arms folded on the wide tea table as a pillow.
Come to think of it, it was already almost 3:00 a.m.
She should have been sound asleep at this hour, but it seemed she had fallen asleep here while waiting for me.
Still, if she slept like that, her whole body would ache tomorrow.
I pulled back the blanket on my bed, carried her over, and laid her down there.
Then I covered her with the blanket.
I could have taken her back to her own quarters, but it was winter, so the weather outside was colder than usual.
I did not want to wake Young Lady Seohyang.
I was always grateful to her.
If it had not been for her help, someone might have been killed or injured long before now.
This time was no different.
The fact that she, with her Ice Crystal Eyes that could see the future, was by my side made me wonder if perhaps the heavens wanted something from me.
Was saving her the will of heaven?
Or was finishing my revenge with her help the will of heaven?
Perhaps it was both.
I turned away from the bed, sat in the chair by the writing desk, and recalled what Young Master Yu-jin had told me.
A woman whose eyes had turned blood-red…
It seemed I would have to ask Master about this.
It was clear that woman had approached Young Lord Seong Jun-min of the Myeongmyeong Merchant Group with the intention of causing trouble.
Then there was one question here.
Was that woman the one giving Young Lord Seong Jun-min orders? Or was she cooperating with him?
Either way, from her perspective, Young Lord Seong Jun-min being interrogated by the Merchant Lord was probably not a welcome situation.
There were only two actions she could take. Either save Young Lord Seong Jun-min, or kill him and silence him.
In my view, the latter was more likely.
The faint Unorthodox Sect presence I had sensed when I saved Deputy Merchant Lord Seong Cheong-min had been Sleep Incense.
And it was the especially malicious kind of Sleep Incense that weakened a person’s will.
I had encountered similar things before, and every one of them had been connected to incidents involving the Murim Alliance.
In any case, the fact that they had provided something like that to make Young Lord Seong Jun-min the Merchant Lord meant, conversely, that if he was cast out of the Myeongmyeong Merchant Group, he would no longer have any value to them.
Would people who ordered him to murder his own nephew to silence him leave Young Lord Seong Jun-min, who knew so much about them, alive?
Of course not.
In other words, if I wanted to catch their tail, I had to move now.
I rose from my seat.
Hah. So much for sleeping tonight.
The only reason I could endure pulling all-nighters like this was probably because Master had knocked me unconscious not long ago and let me sleep deeply.
Though I did not want to admit it.
Suddenly, I froze.
Wait. Then didn’t that mean the woman whose eyes turned red had some kind of connection to the Murim Alliance?
Seong Jun-min, the Myeongmyeong Merchant Group’s fourth son, had been dragged into the underground prison.
He had been sleeping peacefully when this sudden situation unfolded, so he was dumbfounded at first, but soon came back to his senses and shouted furiously.
“You bastards! How dare you do this to me?”
“We are merely following the Merchant Lord’s orders.”
“What? There is no way Father would do this!”
He grabbed the iron bars of the underground prison and protested, but the Escort Guards who had brought him there had already left, and the Escort Guards standing watch simply ignored his words.
Then, a voice came from beside him.
“It seems Yeom Cheon has already confessed everything.”
The voice was terribly hoarse, but familiar.
When he turned his head, he saw Song Pyeong, the man he had sent to kill his nephew Seong Yu-jin and his elder brother Seong Cheong-min, only to fail.
The man who had once been his personal bodyguard.
With both hands bound to the wall of the underground prison, Song Pyeong looked toward Seong Jun-min and said,
“I saw Yeom Cheon being dragged to the torture chamber earlier.”
“What? Yeom Cheon? That’s absurd… There shouldn’t be anyone Yeom Cheon can’t kill…”
Yeom Cheon was a Peak warrior sent by the people supporting him.
He had sent him because he judged there could not possibly be a warrior of a higher realm present.
For someone to be stronger than Yeom Cheon, they would have to be Profound or Transcendent. There was no way a person like that would be at a mere branch of the Eunhae Merchant Group, not even the Headquarters.
In any case, if Yeom Cheon had failed, that meant Seong Yu-jin was still alive.
Rage surged through him, and he exploded at Song Pyeong.
“Damn it! This is all because of you! If you hadn’t failed! If you had at least handled the first matter properly!”
Even while hearing that venomous resentment, Song Pyeong merely looked at him bitterly.
When had it begun? Since when had his lord turned into such a person?
“But Father believed me. Even though you named me as the one behind it, Father believed I was being wronged. He’ll believe me again this time. Yes! Father! Father!”
Song Pyeong watched Seong Jun-min shouting at the top of his lungs with a bitter expression.
Even after suffering every kind of agonizing torture, he had never once opened his mouth about who was behind it, so how had they known so clearly?
That was when it happened.
Thud.
The people standing watch suddenly collapsed as if their strength had given out. Then the one who emerged from the darkness was a woman dressed in a maid’s clothing.
The moment Seong Jun-min saw her, his face brightened.
“Hwang Min! Is that you, Hwang Min?”
“Yes. Lord Seong.”
“How did you get here?”
“The man I love is locked up here. How could I do nothing?”
She cupped Seong Jun-min’s face in her hands and said,
“Look how gaunt your face has gotten. My goodness…”
“Min…”
“We have to run. Your elder brother is trying to kill you right now. But your father is on your side, so just hide for a little while. Then everything will return to its proper place.”
“That sounds good.”
A key appeared from the sleeve of the woman called Hwang Min, and she used it to open the locked door of the underground prison.
Seeing this, Song Pyeong furrowed his brow and shouted,
“No matter how I look at it, something is wrong. Hwang Min! What the hell are you?”
“Pardon?”
“You are absolutely not an ordinary maid! And my lord started changing from the moment you appeared.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That’s right, Song Pyeong! Shut your mouth! Hwang Min is a good woman!”
“Lord Seong, hurry and follow me!”
Song Pyeong violently shook his head and shouted,
“You must not follow her! My lord!”
But ignoring that desperate voice, Seong Jun-min followed Hwang Min out of the underground prison.
Everyone guarding the underground prison entrance had collapsed.
Was it because the air was colder than usual?
After leaving the underground prison, Seong Jun-min felt as though his mind was gradually clearing.
‘Huh?’
For an instant, it felt as if he had awakened from a dream. Then he realized something was strange.
Hwang Min was an ordinary maid.
How could a woman like her have knocked down all those Escort Guards?
Even more strange was the fact that he had never once doubted her.
And then…
When he remembered all the things he had done until now, chills ran down his spine.
‘D-Did I really do all that?’
When he stopped walking, Hwang Min turned back and urged him on.
“Lord Seong! We don’t have time. Hurry and follow me.”
“Min.”
“Yes?”
“You… who are you? And what the hell did you make me do?”
“What are you talking about? I only did this for the man I love…”
“I asked who you are.”
–TL Notes–
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