The Baengri Clan’s Unwanted Granddaughter

Chapter 9

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After Administrator Ko left, Father rummaged through the medicinal herbs with a beaming smile, but my own heart was heavy in my chest. Grandfather gave me the Divine Decree Suppression Pill. Even though it wouldn’t even help me. I didn’t know how to feel about this. Is he testing me?

And oddly enough, though I thought Father would urge me to take the pill immediately, he hardly seemed to be interested in it now. Still, the sight of his joy lifted my spirits. Does this really make him that happy?

It was such a change from before. He’d tried to hide it, but every time my father had visited me, his face had been full of worry. In my last life, I took the solemn, gloomy expression he wore whenever he saw me to mean that he disliked me.

The whole house had been full of whispers that I had tainted his honor and that I was only a burden upon him, that he had only brought me home out of obligation and never came home in order to avoid me. At first, I was purely grateful that he had brought me here, but as time passed, I began to resent my ever-absent father.

Just then, a disturbance among the servants interrupted my thoughts.

“I said, hand it over.” It was Danggeum.

“No,” another servant replied. “Can’t you see I’m organizing these? What’s wrong with you? Hey, I said no!”

Danggeum tore something out of the hands of a maidservant who’d been busy organizing the gifts.

The maid looked pleadingly in my father’s direction, but Danggeum shouted at her, “Why not? Geez, am I not allowed to take a peek? That’s allowed, isn’t it, young miss?” she asked, turning to me.

I glanced at my father. He was much too preoccupied with the medicinal herbs to notice anything else going on. I didn’t want to cause a fuss when he seemed so happy for once, so I nodded halfheartedly, figuring there were enough eyes around to prevent her from stirring up any real trouble. “Do whatever you want.”

Danggeum scoffed triumphantly at the other maid before beginning to examine the trinket she’d snatched.

It was Danggeum who’d most often told me that my father hated me. She’d had the largest hand of all in souring my relationship with my father.

On top of that, she was a thief. Though she hadn’t stolen anything from me yet, since I didn’t own anything of value, in my last life, my father had given me many gifts as I grew older. As a son of a noble family, he only knew a life of luxury and refinement. It only made sense that his gifts were no different. They had all been valuable, and some of them were quite rare.

But Danggeum had lied to me, telling me that they were practically worthless and that my father must have thought lowly of me to have sent such things, only to go and steal these “worthless” gifts from me later on. Then one day, she had been caught red-handed by my father showing off one of the ornaments that she had stolen.

When confronted, she told him that I’d given it to her, and then came running to me to save her skin, crying and begging.

“He’ll kill me!”

“N-no way. Why would he kill you over one stolen item? You said yourself that it wasn’t worth much.”

“Do you think that’s what’s important right now?!”

“N-no, I just meant, it isn’t valuable, so he probably won’t be too upset—”

“This is a martial family! You wouldn’t know, young miss, but the punishments here are much more severe!”

I realize now that it was nonsense, but back then I’d trusted every word that came out of her mouth, thinking she must know better than me since she’d been living in the Baengri estate longer than I had.

“Save me, miss. Please, save me. I was wrong.”

“What do I need to do...?”

Danggeum immediately stopped spilling her crocodile tears and coached me on what to tell my father. When Father approached me about the matter, I said, “I gave that to Danggeum as a gift, Father.”

“I’ve learned she’s been selling your things left and right. Are you telling me you gave all of those to her?”

“Oh...”

It hadn’t been the first time? I hadn’t heard anything about that. When I looked at Danggeum, panicking and not knowing what to say, she glared at me.

“Yes... I gave them all to her,” I said.

“Very well...”

I still remember the disappointment that filled Father’s eyes.

“From now on, if you don’t like the gifts, just— Never mind. I gave them to you, so they’re yours to do with as you see fit.”

It was another moment in which our relationship deteriorated just a bit more. After that, Danggeum went on to spread rumors that I had thrown Father’s gifts away because I hadn’t liked them.

The memory filled me with hot rage. No, stop, that hasn’t happened yet. She hadn’t stolen anything yet, and I couldn’t throw her out for being a future thief. But I wouldn’t just stand uselessly by this time, either.

“Wait, give me that jade ornament. Wow, it’s really nice,” Danggeum said, snatching another trinket from the maid’s grasp. It was white as moonlight and uniform in its luster, signifying it was made of the highest-quality mutton fat jade. Danggeum caressed the ornament for a while before suddenly turning to me, her eyes glistening with greed. “Miss, give me this jade ornament.”

I was at a loss for words. Even the maidservant who’d been organizing the gifts looked at her as if she’d lost her mind, but Danggeum continued to look at me with shameless anticipation.

“You’ve got so many gifts here, surely you can spare me one? After all, I was whipped because of you!” she said.

It seemed that Grandfather’s statement had fallen on deaf ears. Then again, she thinks it was my fault she was whipped, so it’s really no surprise.

In my last life, left alone in the Baengri clan compound, I’d always been lonely. I naively trusted Danggeum and distanced myself from Father. She took me for a sucker.

“Just one moment,” I said, purposefully making my voice sound weak and helpless.

Danggeum giggled as she cleaned the jade with the end of her sleeve, acting like it was already hers. The other servants looked on like a pack of hyenas, hoping that they, too, would be “gifted” something as Danggeum had been. I left their greedy faces behind and waited.

Sure enough, Father had just finished examining the herbs and the ledger of gifts. “Yeon, Yeon! The herbs Father sent really are better than ours. We’ll use them for your medicine. Would that be all right?”

“Of course, Father. You don’t need my permission to use anything,” I said.

“But these are yours.”

“Please, Father. What’s mine is yours. But Father?”I looked away from his expectant gaze and toward Danggeum. “Danggeum asked for that jade ornament. Would it be all right to give it to her?”

“What?” Father asked, looking as though he could not have possibly heard me correctly.

Danggeum, who was busy showing off her gift to the other servants, turned around in shock.

“She said I owe her this gift since she was whipped because of me. But these are gifts from Grandfather, so I thought that I maybe shouldn’t give them away so lightly.”

“What are you talking about? Whipped because of you?” Father stared at Danggeum, doubting his own ears.

Her face paled, and the servants who’d been fawning over her just a moment before all scrambled to distance themselves from her. “Wh-what are you saying, miss? I never said that!”

I looked back at her, feigning surprise. “What? But you just did. You said I had so many, so I could spare one. And that you were whipped because of me... This morning you said you were in so much pain you needed to rest...”

“Young miss!” Danggeum shrieked.

My father’s face immediately cooled, and he quietly stepped in front of me so that I no longer had a view of my maidservant. “How dare you raise your voice.” Father’s words were cold as ice. “Yeon might be young, but she is your mistress to be served with the utmost respect, and yet you dare to speak to her in such a way?”

“M-master, th-that’s—”

“Not only do you have the audacity to bear dissatisfaction with Mother’s punishment, but to dare covet your mistress’s property... Are you really Yeon’s handmaid? If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought you were her mistress instead!”

Danggeum cowered at my father’s roar. The other servants who’d been passive bystanders to Danggeum’s bullying lowered their heads in fear of being scolded alongside her, but this sight only made Father angrier.

“This is unbelievable. I refuse to let this go. You will kneel and repent where you are until the sun sets! And you, keep watch to ensure this handmaid carries out her punishment properly!” As soon as he finished speaking, Father lifted me up with a single hand and carried me off, leaving nothing but frosty silence in our wake.