"Waaaaah!"
All the way home, I repeated the same words to myself over and over again.
I can do this.
Jeok Igeon hasn’t revealed his true nature yet.
It’s only two months.
If I keep my head down and stay as quiet as a corpse, time will fly by.
However, those resolutions vanished the moment I saw the sign for the noodle shop.
"Grandmaaa!"
As I burst into the shop wailing, Ms. Shin Geum, who saw me, threw her ladle aside and came running.
"What in the world? Who made my baby cry like this? Hmm?"
Grandma’s thick hands cupped my cheeks. Fearing I had been harmed by someone, she quickly scanned my entire body.
"You don't look hurt anywhere?"
When I nodded in agreement, a frown formed on Ms. Shin Geum’s brow.
"Then why are you crying? Did you lose your money or something?"
If only that were the case. Money can be earned back by working. If I could avoid becoming a personal maid, I was willing to give up my entire life savings.
"If it’s not money, then what's making you so sorrowful?"
She shook her head at me, sat me down in a chair, and made me drink some water.
"Calm down for a moment. Crying excessively takes a toll on a person!"
I hadn't intended to cry this much. Strangely, the tears just kept coming. Is this what it feels like to have family? It was a foreign emotion to me, having grown up as an orphan without parents or siblings.
Even though she wasn't my biological grandmother, the relief of meeting the only person on my side in this world caused my tension to snap, leading to this outburst. As Grandma said, I had cried so much I felt completely drained of energy.
"Should I bring you some noodles?"
"...No."
"How about dumplings?"
"It’s fine. I have no appetite."
I declined both while sniffing. With the prospect of my life potentially ending tomorrow, there was no way I could digest anything.
"Then what is it? It's time to tell me the reason."
Even if telling her wouldn't change anything, there was no other way to avoid a stinging smack on the back from Grandma. I calmly confessed the fact that I had been assigned as the personal maid for the Second Young Lord.
"So, you're crying because you don't want to be a personal maid?"
"I told you, it's not just that I don't want to. One small mistake and my head could be sent flying!"
"You brat! Is the Second Young Lord some kind of human butcher? Any mistake you’d make would be trivial at best, so why would he take your head for that? Maybe if it were the First Young Lord, but him!"
"Grandma, to them, I’m not even a human being. They probably view a maid's life as no more than a bug's."
"If you're that scared, you shouldn't have gone in there in the first place! You never listened to your grandmother's words, so why all this fuss now?"
"That’s because...!"
Because back then, I wasn't me.
"Haah, fine. Who would believe me anyway? I’m just wasting my breath."
Later on, everyone would tremble in fear once they learned of Jeok Igeon’s true nature, but for now, he was merely the Cult Leader's handsome second son.
"And here I thought something truly terrible had happened!"
Grandma gave me a playful flick on the forehead and went into the kitchen. After a few clattering sounds, a steaming bowl of meat noodles was placed in front of me.
"You're having these nonsense thoughts because your stomach is empty. Eat up."
"Ah, I really don't have an appetite..."
"Zip it!"
Ms. Shin Geum’s gaze was sharp. In times like these, I had to at least pretend to eat if I wanted to protect my precious back. I pouted and listlessly picked up my chopsticks.
"By the way, why did the girl working before you quit?" Ms. Shin Geum suddenly asked, glaring at the noodles that weren't disappearing.
"The girl before me?"
It took a moment to process the question as I was lost in thought.
"Ah, my predecessor?"
"Yeah. She must have quit for the turn to come to you."
"Right."
I chewed on my chopsticks and scoured my memory.
Was there any mention of that in the original work?
No, there wasn't. Maids weren't even mentioned in the novel. But if I were to deduce...
"She probably died."
"Died?"
"Around this time, the First Young Lord used to play around with poisons a lot. She likely got caught up in those pranks and died."
What a pitiful life. Losing a precious life just by being caught between siblings' useless bickering. There was no confirmed evidence, but I was certain.
"Seolha, do you know what you're saying right now?"
"Huh?"
"Are you absolutely sure that maid died?"
"Well, I didn't see it myself, but that’s how poison is. She might have collapsed while tasting the food..."
I barely managed to answer in a small voice under Grandma’s terrifying gaze.
"But Grandma, are you finally worrying about me? Are you scared you'll have to hold a funeral for your only granddaughter?"
"Why would I hold a funeral! If it’s poison, you just have to detoxify it!"
"...Eh?"
"That Jeok Wibaek fellow is more than capable of doing such a thing to his brother. Tsk, tsk. Poison isn't something to be handled so carelessly."
Ms. Shin Geum, who looked ready to stand guard until I finished the noodles, suddenly stood up and headed for the stairs. Why go to the second floor in the middle of our conversation?
Up there were only Grandma’s and my bedrooms, plus a small room that was basically a storage closet. The latrine was outside on the ground floor, so it wasn't an urgent call of nature.
"She could have at least steamed a plate of dumplings," I grumbled, lifting a large clump of noodles.
If anything were to happen to me, these noodles would be the last meal Ms. Shin Geum ever made for me. Therefore, I would finish every last drop of the broth.
"You said you had no appetite, yet you’re practically inhaling them!"
Just as I emptied the bowl, Grandma came back downstairs holding a box.
"What’s that?"
"Seolha, have you ever heard of a Poison-Resisting Bead?"
Of course I had. A Poison-Resisting Bead was a type of antidote shaped like a marble. If poisoned, one could achieve a detoxification effect by holding the bead in their mouth and circulating their internal energy. Simply put, poison wouldn't work while the bead was in the mouth.
The price of these beads varied wildly depending on their quality. Since the items themselves were rare, they generally traded for high prices, and top-grade ones were worth whatever the seller demanded.
The thing martial artists—who lived by the sword—feared most was poison. In a world where those with strong martial arts held the upper hand, poison was almost the only way for the weak to overcome a gap in skill and win. Naturally, any martial artist would covet a Poison-Resisting Bead.
"Are you saying what's in that box is a Poison-Resisting Bead?"
"Indeed. Your grandmother prepared this in advance just in case something like this happened."
"You expect me to believe that?"
As I said, these were rare items. You couldn't just buy one even if you had the money. And we certainly didn't have the money to afford a Poison-Resisting Bead. Unless, of course, Ms. Shin Geum had been hiding a massive slush fund from me.
"When has your grandmother ever told an empty lie?"
True, Ms. Shin Geum wasn't that type of person.
"Then this is a real Poison-Resisting Bead? Grandma, just how much money have you been hoarding!"
I yelled out in a sense of betrayal. If you had told me sooner that we were rich, I wouldn't have taken a job as a maid in the first place!
"Why are you shouting all of a sudden? You're hurting my ears! Where would I get that kind of money? A customer left this behind."
The story went like this:
A few years ago, a middle-aged man who came in for noodles left a box behind. It wasn't uncommon for customers to leave things in the shop. Most returned to claim them, but some didn't. The Poison-Resisting Bead in question was one of the latter.
"I didn't even know it was there. I found it while cleaning the closet last month. At first, I was going to throw it away, but I got curious about what was inside. That’s when I hit the jackpot."
"Does that make sense? What kind of crazy person leaves a Poison-Resisting Bead at a noodle shop?"
They probably spent a fortune to get it, and they didn't come back for it? The plot holes were just too big.
"There are all sorts of people in the world; why wouldn't there be someone who leaves a Poison-Resisting Bead behind? Besides, this isn't an incredibly expensive one. It's low-grade stuff, useless against extreme poisons like Formless Poison or Silver Fire Poison Sand."
Ms. Shin Geum opened the box to show me the contents.
"Still, it’ll be useful for you. Most poisons used at Jeok Wibaek's level can be handled with this. Even with deadly poison, you need guts to use it; it's not something just anyone touches."
Is my grandmother a genius?
How did she know Jeok Wibaek so well? He was a man who lacked boldness despite his greed. To claim the position of Young Cult Leader, he used his power and wealth to torment his half-brother, Jeok Igeon, in various ways, but he never dared to cause a major incident for fear of falling out of favor with his father.
Knowing this, Jeok Igeon would go along with it before revealing his true nature, even intentionally enduring being poisoned. As if he were some master of ten thousand poisons.
Regardless, to these bastards, this was all just a game. My head throbbed as I realized once again that I was about to be dragged into this mess.
Can I survive?
Now that I have a Poison-Resisting Bead, surely I can last two months safely?
"Grandma, thank you. You're the only one I have, Ms. Shin Geum!"
At the very least, the risk of dying while tasting food was gone. The original purpose of today’s visit was to say a final goodbye, but I had gained an unexpected harvest.
I will definitely come back alive.
And then, let’s leave this place together.
I hugged Grandma, murmuring the words I couldn't bring myself to say out loud.