GTHWCS~10

CHAPTER~10

Lee Shin’s sharp gaze fixed on the black Ink Jade Medallion that the elders were passing between themselves.

And suddenly, he remembered—the unease he’d felt a few days ago.

Now it all made sense.

The reason that beggar girl had been able to stand unharmed among a swarm of spirits… was because of that very medallion—one of the Geom Clan’s sacred relics.

That was also why she hadn’t been ensnared by the mist, and how she’d managed to reach Jejado’s market unharmed.

“I should’ve gone to that cave that day,” Lee Shin murmured, his voice cold, eyes narrowing to thin slits. “Then she wouldn’t have even set foot on Jejado.”

Though his tone remained lazy and indifferent, his face carried a chill sharp enough to freeze air.

Betrothal?

Who decided that?

He remembered clearly.

Not long after becoming the head of the clan, he had personally visited Ha Sun-yang of the Ha family in Hanseong and brought that matter to an end himself.

Any engagement bound by the Ink Jade Medallion was nullified in this lifetime—he had made certain of it.

He had struck a deal with Ha Sun-yang, and the man had agreed.

A melon twisted from its vine tastes bitter, Ha Sun-yang had said.

If his daughter was not cherished, marriage would only bring her misery. And misery was something even Ha Sun-yang did not wish upon her.

And yet, here the medallion had returned—along with the supposed fiancée.

“Fiancée, my foot.”

A faint image surfaced in his mind—ten years ago, a pale, round-faced child staring at him with wide, curious eyes.

That odd little girl… turned out to be that beggar.

‘My daughter’s name is Ha Yeong-won. Should she ever face hardship, and come to seek out the Patriarch of the Geom Clan, I ask that you protect her.’

He could still recall every word of Ha Sun-yang’s solemn promise, made in exchange for dissolving the engagement.

Unfortunately, the man was still alive when that vow was made.

Which meant it had to be honored.

“Protect her, huh?” Lee Shin muttered, his lips twisting into a faint, cruel smile. “That just means I have to keep her alive, right? For as long as she’s on Jejado.”

In the grand hall of Seonwon Hall, the headquarters of the Geom Clan—

Following Elder Hwa’s lead, Yeong-won stepped into the hall and found herself facing eight elders seated at the upper dais.

A heavy silence filled the chamber. No one dared to speak first, their gazes shifting warily from one another.

After some time, one elder—a large man with a ruddy face—finally spoke.

“So, young lady… you’ve come here to fulfill the vow of the jade medallion, have you not?”

Yeong-won lifted her brows slightly at the phrase vow of the jade medallion, but her tangled hair and dirt-streaked face hid the expression well.

“Elder Mok,” another elder said gruffly. “No need to ask—the medallion speaks for itself.”

“But this young lady…” Elder Mok hesitated, frowning.

Yeong-won pressed her lips together, trying to suppress the sting of humiliation.

The elders’ curious, almost disapproving stares were hard to ignore.

“I verified it on the way here,” said Elder Hwa, who had escorted her. “She is indeed the daughter of Ha Sun-yang, master of the Ha Trading Company.”

Another elder spoke, his voice puzzled. “Then why does she look like this? Has the Ha Trading Company fallen so low that they must send their daughter looking like a beggar?”

“No, that’s not it,” Elder Hwa replied quietly. “Ha Sun-yang has passed away. This young lady came here alone, with no one left to depend on.”

“What? Ha Sun-yang is dead? How?”

“And what of his business?”

Their questions tangled over one another, until one elder raised his voice to cut through the chatter.

“Gentlemen, that isn’t the issue here. The important thing is that we can now finally fulfill the vow. The Patriarch is already twenty-five, after all.”

Another elder frowned. “But surely you haven’t forgotten—didn’t the Patriarch himself declare the engagement void?”

“Could there have been a misunderstanding? The girl brought the medallion herself, didn’t she?”

Yeong-won, listening in silence as the word vow repeated again and again, felt a strange sense of unease growing inside her.

Finally, she spoke cautiously.

“Elders… forgive my interruption, but may I ask—what exactly is this vow of the jade medallion you speak of?”

Her words silenced the room once more.

After a moment, Elder Mok spoke. “You mean, you don’t know what the medallion is?”

Yeong-won looked down at the black piece of jade in her hands. “I was told it was a treasured heirloom of the Geom Clan.”

“And that’s all?”

Elder Hwa’s brow furrowed. “You don’t know its true meaning?”

Yeong-won blinked, confused. “True meaning…?”

“Good heavens!” Elder Mok exclaimed, throwing his hands up. “Young lady, that medallion is the token of betrothal of our clan’s Patriarch!”

“…I beg your pardon?”

Yeong-won tightened her grip on the medallion, staring blankly at Elder Hwa.

“The token of engagement,” Elder Mok explained. “You, my dear, came all this way to fulfill the marriage contract between your family and our Patriarch.”

Betrothal token?

Marriage?

Yeong-won stared at the elder, dazed.

She was eighteen this year.

In Hanseong, most young women were betrothed by fifteen and married by seventeen or eighteen.

She, too, had received several proposals after turning fifteen—but her father had rejected them all.

She’d assumed he simply didn’t want to part with her yet, or perhaps planned to bring a husband into their household instead.

But now, hearing talk of a betrothal she had never even known about—here, of all places—her thoughts spun wildly.

Could her father’s dying instruction—to go to the Geom Clan on Jejado if anything ever happened—have been because of this engagement?

Then why hadn’t he ever spoken a word of it?

Gathering herself, Yeong-won looked around at the elders’ wary faces and spoke again.

“I… never once heard my father mention this engagement. Not a single word. If it truly existed, why would he have hidden it from me?”

Her question made the elders exchange uneasy glances.

There was a reason, certainly—but none of them seemed eager to say it aloud.

She waited, hoping one of them would explain, but the silence stretched long and heavy.

“Elders,” she tried again, “if you say this medallion is proof of engagement, do you have anything to confirm it?”

The elders hesitated. Finally, one of them spoke. “Well… yes, there is something.”

Another elder raised a hand sharply. “Wait. Did you say Ha Sun-yang never mentioned it to her?”

“She said he didn’t,” the first replied.

A tense pause followed as glances flickered around the room.

Yeong-won couldn’t know it, but the elders did.

Five years ago, when they had brought up the engagement to Lee Shin, he had declared that the matter had long been settled and would never be revived—unless he died.

He had even produced a written statement from Ha Sun-yang himself, confirming that the engagement was null.

The elders had been left speechless.

For generations, the Ink Jade Medallion had served as the betrothal token of the Geom Clan’s heirs.

Not once in history had an engagement sealed with that medallion failed to culminate in marriage—

Until Lee Shin, the anomaly of their clan, appeared.

At the time, he claimed that the medallion he had returned to the Ha family was lost on the way back to Jejado.

Later, word came from the Ha family that the medallion had somehow “found its way back” to them.

Ha Sun-yang had then declared that no one would ever carry it to Jejado again for the sake of that engagement.

The elders had quietly assumed that either the girl or Lee Shin would have to die before the medallion ever returned to them.

Yet here she was—Ha Yeong-won, alive, holding the Ink Jade Medallion in her hands.

“Elders?” Yeong-won called softly, puzzled by the long silence.

Elder Mok cleared his throat and stood. “If the young lady needs proof, we have something that will suffice.”

He crossed the hall, disappeared briefly into the adjoining room, and returned holding a small wooden box.

“Miss Ha,” he said, opening it carefully, “you’ll recognize your father’s handwriting, won’t you?”

Inside lay a folded piece of paper.

Yeong-won slipped the medallion into her robes and accepted the document with both hands.

Year 471 of the Zhao Calendar.

The houses of Geom and Ha hereby agree to the following marriage contract.

Groom: The 108th Patriarch of the Geom Clan.

Bride: Ha Yeong-won, daughter of Ha Sun-yang, head of the Ha Trading Company.

The two houses shall use the Ink Jade Medallion of the Geom Clan as the token of engagement. One year after the divided halves of the medallion are reunited, the wedding shall be held.

Yeong-won read the words over and over again.

The handwriting—unmistakably her father’s. His personal seal was pressed at the bottom of the page.

Her lips went dry. She licked them unconsciously.

Year 471…

She would’ve been only three years old

.

An engagement decided when I was three?

Her mind reeled.

For a long moment, she couldn’t speak at all.