GKMS 2

Chapter 2

The first sense to return was hearing.

Somewhere nearby, I heard the sound of quiet sobbing.

“Oh dear… what are we going to do…?”

“You’ll wake her if you’re this loud. Keep it down.”

“But still… our young lady is just so pitiful…”

I was certain I had died.

Still, if there were people crying for me like this, perhaps my life hadn’t been entirely wrong.

But that’s strange. There shouldn’t be anyone who would cry for me…

I had been the sole survivor of the Eunri Escort Agency. After that, I deliberately kept my distance from others and lived only for revenge.

There was no way anyone would mourn my death.

Wait.

Now that I thought about it, the women’s voices sounded familiar.

“Yesol, go bring a warm wet cloth.”

“Okay, Yeohong-unnie!”

Yesol.

Yeohong.

I repeated the names in my head, then stiffened in shock.

Those are the names of my maids who died eight years ago…?

Was I experiencing some kind of deathbed vision? Even so, the sound of Yesol running away felt far too vivid.

This time, a scent reached my nose—a fragrance mixed with pine needles. My sense of smell seemed to have returned.

It was similar to the scent sachets Hong-a—no, Yeohong—used to give me often to calm my mind.

So even a deathbed vision feels this real…

As I let out a dry chuckle at the thought, I felt the corner of my mouth twitch.

A dead person shouldn’t be able to feel that.

“Young lady!”

At that voice, I opened my eyes.

Light streaming in from outside the window dazzled me. My eyelids were so swollen—as if I’d cried for three days and nights straight—that it was hard to open my eyes fully.

“Young lady, are you all right?”

My vision was blurry, and I couldn’t make out her figure clearly.

“Ah…”

So my voice comes out now too?

Through the haze, I saw the shape of a woman. It was Hong-a, the maid four years older than me.

“Hong-a…”

She was looking at me with eyes thick with worry.

“Yes, young lady. I’m right here. You cried and then fainted last night—I was so shocked…”

Hong-a was trembling as she spoke.

On the day Eunri Escort Agency was attacked, I had assumed Hong-a died as well…

“Hong-a, you… you were alive!”

“…Pardon?”

“You were pretending to be dead too?”

“…What?”

Hong-a stared at me in bewilderment.

Even the way she looks startled hasn’t changed. Just like before.

A smile escaped me without my realizing it.

Hong-a looked at me as if I’d lost my mind, then gently wiped my forehead with a wet cloth.

“Oh dear, look at all this sweat. You must’ve been terribly frightened—talking nonsense like this.”

She pressed me back down, insisting I lie still.

“Please rest a bit more. It’s your birthday, young lady… how could something so horrible happen…”

She trailed off and wiped away her tears.

My birthday? Something horrible?

The moment I heard that, my mind turned ice-cold.

A few days before my eighteenth birthday, I had received news that the carriage carrying my parents had slipped off a cliff on a rain-soaked road.

For days, I had refused food and water, desperately searching for news of their survival.

What returned to me on my birthday were only my parents’ cold, lifeless bodies.

After that, I collapsed and lost consciousness for quite some time.

“Yesol will bring a warm cloth soon. At least let me wipe you down.”

An overwhelming sense of déjà vu washed over me, as if I had lived through this exact moment before.

Past Hong-a, I spotted the dressing table—one my parents had given me as a gift after much begging.

I staggered to my feet and headed toward it.

“Ah—young lady!”

Ignoring Hong-a’s cry, I looked at my reflection in the mirror.

A youthful face standing at the threshold of adulthood, carefully raised without knowing hardship.

Sharp-looking eyes, a rounded forehead, a slender face.

Aside from eyes swollen from crying, it was the flawless face of a perfect beauty.

Skin not roughened by storms, but smooth and soft, without a single blemish.

The hideous scar that once cut across my face was gone.

So were the vivid scars etched into both my arms.

It was me—nine years ago.

“…Am I dreaming right now?”

To confirm the situation, I took a deep breath. It was the first step of the mental technique used to examine one’s danjeon.

As I circulated my energy, I felt solid inner power firmly settled in my core.

I clearly exhausted all my inner energy and died…!

And yet, astonishingly, my danjeon held more inner power than I’d had just before death—over two gapja’s worth.

This meant I wasn’t simply dreaming of the past.

Did I… return to nine years ago?

A folktale I had once told Euna came to mind.

A story about a man infamous as a wastrel who lost his parents and sibling, borrowed the power of a spiritual being, and returned to the past to save them.

Did something like that really happen to me?

It was absurd.

It felt more realistic to think I was dreaming—or seeing a final vision before death.

Then, a single desire struck my mind like lightning.

…Euna!

My wish—to see my younger sister, even if only in a dream.

I hurriedly tried to get up.

I might be able to meet Euna!

I heard Hong-a calling out to me in panic, but I ignored her and rushed out of my quarters.

The Sohyang Hall (笑響殿), where I had lived with my parents, lay in the most secluded part of Eunri Escort Agency. Euna’s quarters were in the quietest spot of all, closest to the mountains.

Will Euna be there?

What if everyone is here—Hong-a, Yesol—but Euna isn’t?

Please. Please. Please…!

The cold composure of the Bloodsound Witch vanished. My chest boiled like magma in an active volcano.

When I reached the area near Euna’s quarters, I saw a small child crossing the rear garden, holding a nursemaid’s hand.

A shiver ran through me.

…That’s Euna!

My sister’s eyes were rounder than I remembered, her face smaller and paler. Her neatly trimmed hair resembled a polished chestnut.

She looked frail and delicate—hardly like a seven-year-old child.

Euna noticed me, her eyes widening. Normally, her face would have brightened at the sight of me—but now, it drained of color instead.

She lowered her gaze, as if she’d done something wrong.

Why is Euna acting like that?

In the past, my relationship with Euna hadn’t been warm from the beginning.

She had been weak since birth.

When the physician examined newborn Euna, he said her meridians were damaged—Gu-eum Jeolmaek—and that she likely wouldn’t live past twenty.

Because her meridians were severed from birth, her metabolism was poor, and her innate energy leaned heavily toward yin.

With her internal balance broken, her body was cold while her forehead burned with heat. She could barely even open her eyes.

The physician said that for her condition to improve, she needed elixirs that replenished yang energy.

My parents gave up living independently and returned to the main family home in Jiangsu Province—Eunri Escort Agency.

I was eleven years old then.

“Father, can’t we just stay in Honam Province? All my friends are here.”

“Your sister Euna is ill, so we have no choice. We must go to Eunri Escort Agency, where your grandfather is.”

“If we go there, will the baby stop being sick?”

“It’ll be easier to obtain medicine. You want Euna to be healthy too, don’t you, Seha?”

“Yes… I hope she gets better soon.”

After my sister was born, my life began to revolve around her.

I had to be a good older sister—one who knew how to be considerate of a sick sibling.

At first, I tried to understand my parents’ devotion to Euna. But after we moved to Eunri Escort Agency, they only became busier.

Back then, I felt as though I had been abandoned in an unfamiliar place.

Euna’s illness wasn’t something that improved quickly with medicine. And the elixirs she needed were outrageously expensive.

Father worked tirelessly at the escort agency to pay for them, while Mother spent every day searching for remedies suited to Euna’s body—medicines gentle enough even for a child.

Even after Euna opened her eyes, grew from a baby into a child, nothing changed.

“Seha-unnie, can you play with me today?”

Because I was her older sister, Euna adored me. Even when I said no, even when I told her I was busy, she always smiled brightly at me.

“I want to study with you, unnie, go see the streets, and go to festivals too.”

“You can barely stay awake for half a shijin. What playing? Just lie down and sleep.”

“…Mm.”

One sharp remark from me was enough to make her shrink back—yet she never once snapped at me.

If she had been selfish or cruel, I might have found it easier to hate her.

But unlike me, rough around the edges, Euna was a child who seemed to be made from all the good qualities in the world.

“Unnie, Soeun doesn’t have a fever now, so hurry and go study.”

“Okay. But if you lie down quietly, I’ll secretly buy you sweets later.”

“Really? Soeun likes the sweets unnie buys the most!”