Chapter 4
When I opened my eyes, the previously sickly impression had vanished, replaced with a sharp and irritable aura.
“Do you have a death wish?”
To quote a friend, “She’s ridiculously pretty but talks like trash.” True to that description, her tone was anything but kind.
“Sukpoo! Me, me! Heuk Biyu!”
I desperately tried to introduce myself. Or rather, I tried.
I wanted to show off my genius through polite and articulate speech as a smart infant!
But I couldn’t breathe!
All I managed to say was my name.
“So what. Like you’re the only one with the surname Heuk here?”
“Uu, uuu, Jo—”
“Jo?”
“Niece! Niece!”
“‘Jokka’? Did she just curse?”
Seriously? The kid’s dad doesn’t even understand baby talk? He can’t even tell the difference between a curse and baby-speak?
“Niece! Jokka! Jokka! Hyungnim’s ddang!”
Honestly, even I cursed a bit in the middle.
“Huh?”
Heuk Birang paused and pulled me closer, scrutinizing my face at close range. Up close, his pale complexion was even more apparent.
“Ah… You’re… that, Heuk Bibi?”
“Biyu!”
“Right. That one. You’re the second brother’s daughter, huh?”
At this rate, I’m going to die young.
I glared at Heuk Birang while kicking him in the chest with all my might.
I can’t breathe!
“Geez, what a temper.”
Finally, he set me down on the floor.
“Keh-rok, keh-rok! Cough, cough!”
He’d grabbed the back of my neck so tightly that I was choking.
I’m only three years old, you know! Is this treatment even real?
I started to hate this childcare story 20% more. It’s all because of that Heuk Birang. Childcare stories really don’t suit me.
Still coughing, I looked up at him with a red face.
‘Damn, he’s tall.’
I thought he was tall before, but from below, he looked even taller. Though his build seemed lean compared to his height.
‘Of course he’d be thin if he can’t eat properly.’
“You look just like your mother-in-law.”
Heuk Birang said indifferently, arms crossed.
“So you’re the baby ‘Nabi’?”
“Nabi?”
I looked up at him while coughing.
What’s a ‘Nabi’ now?
My friend used to call me, ‘Heuk Biyu,’ the ‘Nabi’ as well… Maybe it’s related?
‘Nothing comes to mind though.’
I knew the overall plot, but I was fuzzy on a few details.
Understandable, really.
‘I can’t be expected to remember things unrelated to survival.’
I grabbed the hem of Heuk Birang’s clothes. I didn’t know where he was going, so for now, I held on and talked.
“Why were you sleeping alone in the bokddo?”
“Enunciate properly, kid. I can’t understand you.”
“You understood me just fine…”
“……”
“Why were you sleeping alone?”
His eyebrow twitched briefly before he answered with a detached tone.
“The weather was nice.”
Liar.
He didn’t lie down there just because he liked sleeping anywhere.
He actually had something close to a cleanliness obsession.
That’s why he was even more stressed about his condition, and why his face looked like that.
The three men confined to the East Wing all suffered from serious illnesses.
Among them, my uncle’s illness was severe narcolepsy.
And somnambulism—sleepwalking.
Narcolepsy was a disorder where uncontrollable sleep episodes occurred.
My uncle would collapse without warning.
Sometimes, he even fell asleep while eating.
Sleep had taken many things from his life. Even the ability to properly love his only daughter.
‘And because of the sleepwalking, he sent the heroine to the safe West Wing and locked himself up here.’
Men of the Heuk family, suffering from serious illnesses.
And me, the daughter of one of them.
Plus my cousin brother—this was our East Wing household.
My father must be somewhere around here too.
About ten years from now, the heroine was only going to treat one of them.
The other two would die before that.
And one of them was my father.
‘Still a long way off though.’
Yeah, that’s the problem.
The heroine’s soft mochi-like growth was still far away.
In the meantime, not just her father but many others who she would eventually save would suffer.
And what about me?
I need to get my hands on the Imperial treasure as soon as possible.
Then I need to join forces with those who share my interests.
‘Uncle, I’m going to help you live a happy life—just a little earlier than planned.’
So please, help me out.
“Uncuu, are you sick?”
“What are you talking about, kid? Did you just call me a patient?”
He squatted down and glared at me like a gangster.
The more he slept, the smaller Heuk Birang’s world became.
Even though he sent his daughter away for her safety, he still mourned that she was out of reach.
I tapped his knee a couple of times.
“Uncuu, I’m going to tell you a secret just for you.”
“What kind of nonsense… Wait, seeing you here in the East Wing—are you crazy too, like your dad?”
“My, my. What an emotionally inappropriate man for kids.”
“…Huh?”
His handsome face tilted.
He sensed something was off.
Heuk Birang stared blankly down at the tiny toddler before him.
When he first opened his eyes, all he felt was a wave of irritation and fatigue.
Unlike normal people who felt refreshed after sleep, he experienced paralysis, hallucinations, sleep seizures, and more.
His mental state was a wreck.
Every time he woke up, despair set in.
‘How much time passed this time?’
His time was wasted like trash.
His body, blessed by the dragon, was more durable than a normal person’s.
He didn’t need to eat or sleep to survive—but that was it.
No one knew how to treat him.
Even the family’s best talents and famous doctors had given up. It was a curse in all but name.
This time, when he woke up, he felt numbness in his hands. He had instinctively grabbed onto something.
But he wasn’t mentally capable of adjusting his strength.
“Listen carefully, Uncuu.”
The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was a soft violet head of hair.
A tiny baby.
With chubby cheeks and shockingly thin arms.
Even though he didn’t care about the world, he could still recognize that this tiny baby was stunningly pretty.
‘Well, not as pretty as my daughter.’
It was a familiar face. She looked exactly like her mother.
‘Did my brother even have the mental state to care for this child?’
A flicker of pity passed his cold face.
He recalled the correlation between his brother’s illness and the neglect of his niece.
It was the bare minimum of sympathy he could muster.
“You listening, Uncuu?”
“What.”
He furrowed his brow to hide his pity.
“Actually, I’m a genius.”
Heuk Birang blinked, dumbfounded at his niece’s unexpected confession.
“…So what?”
Not a warm reaction.
And he didn’t plan to change.
It was enough if he was kind only to his daughter.
Why should he care about a niece when he couldn’t even take care of his own kid?
But the niece didn’t seem fazed at all. In fact, her eyes seemed to sparkle.
“I can cure your disease.”
“…What?”
“I said I can cure that disease.”
With her tiny hands on her hips, the three-year-old declared boldly.
“That’s what being a genius means!”
What the—was this kid a patient too?
Heuk Birang was just about to say something when the girl grinned and lifted a water bottle.
“Guess I’ll have to show you! Watch carefully!”
Drip drip drip…
…What. What am I supposed to watch? Pouring water?
She poured water into the bottle cap, then dipped her finger into it.
FWOOSH!
Incredibly, an overwhelming amount of water poured out—way more than should have fit in the bottle cap—and drenched Heuk Birang.
He was stunned for a moment.
But then—
‘I… I can breathe?’
