Master Villainess the Invincible!

Chapter 2

When I regained consciousness, a girl with a soft face was wiping the sweat off my brow. I could tell that I was still in the novel; I was in the same room as before.

“My lady.”

The young girl was trembling and had tears in her eyes.

“Who are you?”

“What? My lady, what are you saying...?”

“Who are you?”

I had to know who she was. The only good news was that I had taken my colleague’s advice to analyze a best seller to heart, so I knew the story and the characters of The Heir to the Namgung Clan intimately.

That knowledge would be useful in surviving this foreign world.

“My lady, it’s Shinah. You’re beginning to scare me.”

That wasn’t a name among the list of character names that I knew.

She’s an extra.

I quickly used my headache as an excuse and asked her what was going on.

Next, I had to know what point in the story I was in. I was told that my attempt to poison Hee Zhuge was discovered by Jiha Namgung, and that I went unconscious for five days due to the sheer pressure of his murderous intent.

It had only been a few hours since I had lost consciousness again as I bled from my nose.

Murderous intent alone is enough to make a person go unconscious?

It sounded ridiculous, but it was possible in the novel, considering Jiha Namgung’s power.

He was a genius and the strongest of all the heirs from the Five Clans, after all.

“The Namgung Clan sent a letter nullifying the marriage, but the clan head has yet to make a response. The Zhuge Clan also sent an envoy, and Officer Chen is currently in negotiations.”

Shinah also let me know that Haewon Tang was currently eighteen years of age and that the man who was scolding me earlier was none other than Officer Chen.

While I was still lost in thought, the door to the room burst open.

“Haewon!” A beautiful woman jumped into my arms. “I heard you have come to. Are you feeling well? As your mother, I couldn’t sleep with all this worry!”

The face of the woman who burst into tears as she embraced me was at once both familiar and foreign to me.

She was far too young to be the mother of an eighteen-year-old daughter.

The woman was quite the beauty with a wrinkle-free face, long slanting eyes, and red lips.

“Mother?”

“Yes, it’s mother! Can’t you recognize me?”

To be precise, she was Haewon Tang’s step mother, Bi Murong. Haewon’s birth mother had died as she gave birth, after all.

Bi Murong was a kind mother to her step daughter, and Haewon Tang trusted her like she was her actual mother.

“I was so worried about what would happen while you were unconscious in bed,” she said before bursting into tears.

I stared at Bi Murong as she cried.

If I didn’t know what her true intentions were from reading the novel, I would have been convinced that she was truly sick with worry.

But Bi Murong doesn’t actually care for Haewon Tang.

Haewon Tang’s father, Moojin Tang, remarried the daughter of the Murong Clan, and the two had a son by the name of Haejoon Tang. And contrary to the traditions that say the child of the first wife should be named as heir, Haejoon Tang would become the heir of the Sichuan Tang Clan.

Haewon Tang being a woman wasn’t the only reason for this. Bi Murong wished dearly for her son to be the next clan head, and Haewon Tang wasn’t a practitioner of martial arts herself.

In fact, Haewon Tang didn’t know anything about martial arts.

The heir of a martial arts family not knowing martial arts was a big flaw.

And so, Haewon Tang wasn’t considered for the heir.

The only reason that she was still treated like the precious first-daughter of the family was because her father loved her so much.

Meanwhile Bi Murong wanted nothing more than to remove Haewon from the family. Later in the story, Haewon Tang’s deplorable actions isolated her from everyone in the clan except for Moojin Tang.

“How are you feeling? I brought you some more medicine. It’s the same one you always drink.”

As if she had been waiting, Bi Murong brought out a new infusion.

“Being unconscious and bedridden for ten days has made your complexion look so sickly.”

I knew what was really inside of that steaming concoction.

The Shigum Plant. It blocks the flow of life energy in the body.

It was usually used as a medicinal herb to stall the spread of disease, but it was poisonous for practitioners of martial arts due to the plant’s secondary effect that blocks the body’s energy flow.

One or two roots didn’t have much effect, but ingest enough over time and it would block all of the points that control energy flow.

What made the Shigum Plant even more terrifying was that the symptoms would be difficult to detect unless a skilled doctor monitored the patient’s energy flow over a long period of time.

As a plant that grew in the cold barren plains of Manchuria, not many knew of it.

And that was thanks to the Murong Clan, which blocked the plant from getting anywhere near the greater world as the de facto rulers of Liaoning and the surrounding Manchuria region.

Bi Murong must have gone through a lot of trouble to bring such a rare plant to Sichuan City just so I could ingest it.

I’m eighteen now... which means I’ve been drinking this for about ten years.

That was why, despite being the first daughter of the Sichuan Tang Clan, Haewon Tang was never able to properly use poison or the clan’s secret techniques.

“I already drank something that Officer Chen brought me earlier. I can have this later.” I eyed the empty bowl that was placed on the nearby table.

“Officer Chen... was already here?” Bi Murong showed a glimpse of discontent, but she pressed it down with her usual beautiful smile.

“Very well. You’re such a sweet child. Please make sure to drink it tomorrow, for me.”

“Of course.”

“You do know how much I care for you, don’t you?”

When I nodded with a bitter face, she quickly embraced me.

The scent of her embrace made me feel like I was being smothered in a field of flowers.

“Don’t pay any mind to the annulment with the young master of Namgung. Young men always say things that are the exact opposite of what they want. I’m sure all of this is a ploy to meet you in person,” she whispered ever so sweetly into my ear.

Oh. So this is why Haewon Tang was putty in her hands.

I realized it at that moment, and so I teared up as if I knew nothing.

“But doesn’t he already have Hee Zhuge? He will never want to see me again.”

“Now you leave it all to mother. Just trust me. I will place the young master of Namgung by your side.”

“But...”

“Hush now. Don’t you believe me? I’ve raised you like you were my own flesh and blood but you must not feel the same way.”

Bi Murong had taken on a very hurt tone. I quickly shook my head.

“Of course I do.”

“Good. I know exactly how you must be feeling right now. So just wait and mother will take care of this too. Do you understand?”

Take care of this too?

It looked like Haewon Tang hadn’t acted alone in this attempted poisoning.

Bi Murong squeezed me once more, went on and on about how much she cared about me for a while longer, and finally left.

You know, when I’m on the receiving end, this doesn’t feel that great.

Haewon Tang’s unfortunate family history also played a part in her twisted obsession towards her beloved Jiha Namgung. Between losing her mother during her birth and having such a busy father, Haewon Tang was desperate for affection.

So Bi Murong knew exactly what to do to control her new stepdaughter.

“My lady! You need to be more careful.” Shinah caught me as I stumbled to get to my feet. “Where do you intend to go?”

Her voice was full of nothing but concern for me. Yet I wasn’t that happy to have her here. Shinah was nothing more than Bi Murong’s pawn to keep an eye on me.

Scraping through Haewon Tang’s memories, I remembered that it was this girl who’d delivered the same solution to me for the past ten years.

“I wanted to get some fresh air.”

I struggled to stand up from my bed. Haewon Tang’s body was in shambles, perhaps due to being bedridden for so long, or maybe she had always been this weak.

When I looked in the mirror, it was a pale, sickly, but still beautiful face that stared back at me.

A pale face, two large eyes, and red lips that didn’t need any makeup. Two thin and elegant eyebrows.

The girl in the mirror was a greater beauty than even Bi Murong.

Yep. As expected of Haewon’s beauty.

It was her beauty that had seduced many of the heirs and later one of the strongest people in the world, after all.

“I want to walk alone. Please don’t follow me,” I commanded curtly before leaving the room.

I felt like some fresh air should help the tangled mess that was my head.