HSM 3

Chapter 3

“Waaaah!”

All the way home, I repeated the same words over and over countless times.

You can do this.

Eok I-geon hasn’t revealed his true nature yet.

It’s only two months.

If I just lie low and stay quiet like I’m dead, it’ll pass quickly.

But such resolve vanished the moment I saw the Noodle Shop sign.

“Grandmother!”

Seeing me enter the shop while sobbing, Shin Geum threw down her ladle and rushed over.

“What’s wrong? Who made my child cry like this? Huh?”

Grandmother’s thick hands cupped both my cheeks.

Wondering if someone had harmed me, she quickly looked me over from head to toe.

“You don’t seem to be hurt anywhere?”

When I nodded in agreement, Shin Geum’s brow furrowed.

“Then why are you crying? Did you lose money or something?”

That would have been a relief instead. Money is just money – I could earn it back by working.

If only I didn’t have to be a personal maid, I would have been willing to give up my entire fortune.

“If it’s not money, then what’s making you cry so sadly?”

As I shook my head, Shin Geum sat me down in a chair and gave me water.

“First, calm down a bit. When a person cries too much, that’s exhausting too!”

I hadn’t planned to cry this much either. Strangely, the tears just came.

Is this what family feels like? For me, who grew up as an orphan without parents or siblings, it was an unfamiliar emotion.

She wasn’t even my real grandmother, but perhaps it was the relief of meeting my only ally in this world that made me unconsciously relax and end up like this.

As grandmother said, I had cried too much and had no energy left.

“Should I bring you some noodles?”

“…No.”

“How about dumplings?”

“No thanks. I have no appetite.”

I sniffled and declined both. When my life might end tomorrow, there was no way I could digest anything.

“Then what? You need to tell me the reason now.”

Telling her wouldn’t change anything, but there was no other way to avoid grandmother’s back-smacking.

I calmly confessed the fact that I had been assigned as Prince Lee’s personal maid.

“So you cried because you don’t want to be a personal maid?”

“It’s not simply that I don’t want to! If I make even the slightest mistake, I could lose my head!”

“Child! Is Prince Lee some kind of human butcher? Whatever mistakes you could make would be minor things, so why would he cut off your head for that? Now if it were the First Prince, maybe!”

“Grandmother, to them I’m not even human. They’d think of a maid’s life like that of a bug!”

“If you’re so scared, you shouldn’t have entered in the first place! You never listened to this old woman’s words, so why are you being such a crybaby now!”

“That’s because…!”

Because back then, it wasn’t me.

“Hah, well, who would believe what I say? I’m just wasting my breath.”

Later everyone would tremble in fear knowing Eok I-geon’s true nature, but right now he was just the cult leader’s handsome second son.

“I thought something truly terrible had happened!”

Grandmother flicked my forehead and went into the kitchen.

I heard some clattering sounds, and soon a bowl of steaming meat noodles was placed in front of me.

“You’re having empty thoughts because your stomach is empty. Hurry up and eat.”

“Ah, I really have no appetite…”

“Tsk!”

Shin Geum’s glare was fierce. At times like this, I had to at least pretend to nibble to protect my precious back.

I pouted and listlessly picked up my chopsticks.

“But tell me, why did the girl who worked there before you quit?”

Shin Geum, who had been glaring at the amount of noodles that wasn’t decreasing, suddenly asked.

“The girl who worked there before?”

I was lost in other thoughts, so it took me a moment to understand.

“Oh, my predecessor?”

“Right. She must have quit for you to get the position.”

“That’s right.”

I tried to recall while holding chopsticks in my mouth.

‘Was there such a story in the original work?’

No, there wasn’t. Things like maids weren’t even mentioned in the novel. But if I had to deduce…

“She obviously died.”

“Died?”

“Around this time, the First Prince was frequently playing pranks with poison. She probably got caught up in those pranks and died.”

Poor soul. She lost her precious life getting caught up in the brothers’ pointless fighting.

Though I had no confirmed facts, I was certain.

“Seolha, do you know what you’re saying right now?”

“Huh?”

“Are you really sure that maid died?”

“Well, I didn’t see it myself, but poison is like that. She might have died while testing food…”

Under grandmother’s terrifying gaze, I barely managed to answer in a shrinking voice.

“But grandmother, are you only worried about me now? Scared you might have to hold a funeral for your only granddaughter?”

“Why would you need a funeral! Poison can just be detoxified!”

“…Huh?”

“That bastard Jeok Wi-baek would definitely do such things to his younger brother. Tsk tsk, poison shouldn’t be handled so carelessly.”

Shin Geum, who had seemed ready to stand guard until I finished my noodles, suddenly got up and headed up the Stairs.

Why is she going upstairs in the middle of our conversation?

Up there were just grandmother’s and my bedrooms, and one small room that was nothing more than a storage space.

The Outhouse was outside the building on the lower floor, so it wasn’t an urgent bathroom need either.

“I should steam some dumplings.”

I grumbled and lifted up a big portion of noodles.

If anything happened to me, these noodles would be the last meal Shin Geum made for me.

So I would eat everything without leaving anything, even the broth.

“You said you had no appetite, but you’re practically drinking those noodles!”

Just as I emptied my bowl, grandmother came back downstairs. Carrying some kind of box.

“What’s that?”

“Seolha, have you ever heard of a Poison-Repelling Bead?”

Of course I had heard of it. A Poison-Repelling Bead was a type of antidote shaped like a bead.

When poisoned, you could achieve detoxification by holding the Poison-Repelling Bead in your mouth and circulating your internal energy cultivation method.

In other words, while holding the bead in your mouth, poison couldn’t affect you.

Poison-Repelling Beads varied greatly in price depending on their performance.

Since Poison-Repelling Beads were rare items to begin with, they were basically traded at high prices, and the higher the quality, the more astronomical the cost.

What people in the Martial Arts World who lived by the sword feared most was poison.

In this world where those with strong martial arts held power, poison was almost the only means for the weak to overcome the gap in martial arts and win.

Therefore, anyone in the Martial Arts World couldn’t help but covet Poison-Repelling Beads.

“Don’t tell me what’s in that box is a Poison-Repelling Bead?”

“That’s right. This old woman prepared it in advance just in case of a situation like this.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

As I mentioned earlier, Poison-Repelling Beads were precious items that were difficult to obtain. You couldn’t just buy them if you had money.

Naturally, our family didn’t have the money to buy a Poison-Repelling Bead.

Unless Shin Geum had secretly stashed away a huge slush fund without my knowledge.

“When has this old woman ever spoken nonsense?”

No, our Shin Geum isn’t that type either.

“Then this is really poison antidote? Grandmother, just how much money have you been hiding away!”

I screamed in betrayal. If she had told me she had money from the beginning, I wouldn’t have had to get a job as a maid!

“Why are you suddenly yelling so loud it’s bursting my eardrums! Where would this old woman have money? This was left behind by a customer.”

The story went like this.

A few years ago, some middle-aged man who came to eat noodles left behind a box.

When running a shop, customers who leave things behind aren’t uncommon.

Most come back to the noodle shop to retrieve them, but some don’t. The poison antidote in question was exactly that kind of case.

“I didn’t even know this existed. I discovered it last month while cleaning the closet, and at first I was just going to throw it away. But I got curious about what was inside. That’s how I struck it big.”

“Does that make sense? What crazy person leaves poison antidote at a noodle shop?”

It must have cost a fortune to acquire, yet they don’t even come back to get it?

Isn’t this lacking plausibility way too much?

“There are all kinds of people in this world, so why wouldn’t there be someone who leaves poison antidote behind? And this isn’t even that expensive. It’s low-grade stuff that’s useless against extreme poisons like Formless Poison or Silver Firefly Poison Sand.”

Shin Geum opened the box to show me the contents.

“But it’ll be useful to you. For poisons at the Junior Patriarch level, this should solve most problems. You need guts to handle deadly poison – not just anyone can touch it.”

Is our grandmother a genius?

How does she know Jeok Wi-baek so well?

He had insufficient boldness compared to his greed.

To rise to the Junior Patriarch position, he used his power and wealth to torment his half-brother Eok I-geon in various ways, but he was too afraid of falling out of his father’s favor to make any big moves.

Knowing this, Eok I-geon would play along before revealing his true nature, even deliberately enduring poisoning.

It’s not like he was immune to all poisons or anything.

Anyway, to these bastards, all of this was just like child’s play.

Realizing anew that I was about to get caught up in this kind of mess made my head throb.

Could I really survive?

Now that I even have poison antidote, I should be able to get through two months safely, right?

“Grandmother, thank you. As expected, I only have our Shin Geum!”

At least I won’t die from being poisoned.

The original purpose of today’s visit was to say my final goodbye to grandmother, but I gained an unexpected harvest.

I will definitely come back alive.

Then let’s go far away together.

I hugged grandmother while muttering words I couldn’t bring myself to say aloud.