Chapter 7
After leaving the Chief’s office, I returned straight to my quarters.
Hong-a and Yesol hurried over to me, their faces tense.
“Miss, are you all right?”
Grandfather was infamous for his eccentric temper, so they must have been worried.
“What wouldn’t be all right?”
When I answered as if nothing had happened, Hong-a’s eyes widened.
The other maid, Yesol, tilted her head and asked,
“Then why did you meet with the Chief?”
“Well… I had something to ask him, and it was convenient.”
“So? Did the Chief grant your request?”
Yesol asked with sparkling eyes. Now that I thought about it, she seemed unusually interested in my affairs.
“Of course. I’m the Chief’s granddaughter.”
I replied indifferently while looking into the mirror.
“Really?”
Yesol covered her mouth in surprise, as if she thought I was boasting.
But it was the truth.
In my previous life, when I knelt before my grandfather in the Eunri Hall—
That day, my grandfather had said the same thing.
Back then, I had barged into a regular meeting of the Eunri Hall.
I knelt before my grandfather and made my bold demand.
“I want to become an escort. Please give me a chance.”
I wanted to save Euna, even if I had to do it this way.
“Seha has never learned escort work. And her martial arts are seriously lacking.”
The first to speak was my eldest uncle.
“That’s right. Even if she tried to handle escort missions, she wouldn’t be of any help right now. It would be better for her to marry instead—”
My second uncle added.
“Hmm. Do you truly want to become an escort?”
Grandfather, seated in the grand master’s chair, stared at me with his chin propped on his hand.
“Yes. I want to do something that will help the Eunri Escort Agency.”
He stroked his beard with his left hand and nodded.
“Very well. Then you should do it.”
“Father!”
“Chief!”
My uncles cried out in shock at his response.
“A grandchild of the escort agency wants to do escort work. Should I stop her?”
“But… there’s very little Seha can do.”
“That’s right. She’ll only get in the way.”
Despite their protests, my grandfather did not even blink.
“She’s my grandchild. If I, the Chief, say she can, then she can.”
Though he had retired from the front lines due to injury, he was still a master once hailed as the greatest escort under heaven.
Faced with my grandfather’s commanding presence, my uncles fell silent.
“So, where do you want to work?”
“I’ll do anything, but if possible… I’d like to work in the White Tiger Hall, where my father served.”
I answered while almost glaring at him.
“Hah. You’ve got good eyes, at least.”
My grandfather clicked his tongue as he looked at me.
“Fine. I’ll give you two years.”
“What?”
“If you manage to carry your own weight as an escort during that time, I’ll personally take responsibility for your sister.”
“…!”
My eyes widened at the completely unexpected response.
“It means that as long as you keep the conditions, this old man will provide the expensive medicines your sister needs, even after you marry.”
“…F-Forever? Those costly elixirs?”
“Hmph. Are you really worrying about money in front of the Chief of Jiangsu’s greatest escort agency?”
He frowned deeply once more.
His decision was so generous it left me dazed.
“Chief, isn’t that against the rules of our escort agency? Once Seha marries and leaves, she’ll belong to another family—”
“Enough! Do my words sound like a joke to you? If you don’t like it, then you become the Chief yourselves!”
At my grandfather’s bullheaded retort, my uncles clammed up like oysters.
They had no desire to fall out of favor with him, especially since he had yet to name a successor.
Grandfather then snorted as he looked at me.
“Hmph. If you don’t do well, I’ll kick you out without exception.”
With that, he turned his back on Euna and me and returned to his quarters.
Why had he made such a generous decision for a grandchild he supposedly disliked?
After becoming an escort, I had to learn everything about the job from scratch.
Time flew by as I was busy mastering all of it.
When I finally had a little breathing room, I happened to get the chance to speak with my grandfather.
“Chief, why did you give an immature person like me a chance? You don’t like Euna and me, do you?”
“Huh? Why do you think I dislike you two?”
“Because our mother was from the underworld. And Grandmother was killed by the hands of the underworld…”
I hunched my shoulders as I spoke, but my grandfather snorted.
“You’ve got it wrong. I simply have no interest in incompetent people.”
It wasn’t that he disliked Euna and me for having underworld blood.
“And both of you are of the Eunri Escort Agency’s blood. If you say you want to work with your own hands, isn’t it only natural to give you a chance?”
He answered with a frown, as if telling me not to waste his time. It was his usual expression, leaving no room for doubt.
And in this life as well, the fact that I was the Chief’s granddaughter had not changed.
Based on that past experience, I had gone to him and asked to become the acting head of the White Tiger Hall.
‘This time, he attached the condition of a smooth annulment…’
But I had obtained the opportunity to become acting hall head. My goal was achieved.
‘I’d like nothing more than to overpower Baek Gyuho and force him to annul the engagement immediately, but…’
My grandfather’s eyes would surely be watching both Baek Gyuho and me.
‘I’ll set the Baek Gyuho matter aside for now…’
There was something far more important at hand.
“Go tell Chief Steward Jang that I wish to discuss my parents’ funeral.”
At my order, Yesol’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Surely you’re not planning to preside over it yourself, Miss?”
“As the eldest, shouldn’t I handle the funeral? Would you have me leave it to Euna, who’s sick?”
“That’s not what I meant… Wouldn’t it be better to leave such matters to the elders of the family?”
Yesol asked carefully, gauging my mood.
“It’s my parents’ funeral. Why should I ask other relatives to handle it?”
“Ah… I was just worried because you seem to be having a hard time, Miss…”
At my words, Yesol trailed off.
“I’ll rest for a bit until Chief Steward Jang arrives.”
When I pressed my fingers against my temples and gestured, Hong-a quickly took Yesol by the arm and withdrew.
“If anything happens, please call for us, Miss.”
They must have thought I was drowning in grief, having just lost my parents.
But to me now, my parents’ deaths felt like something from the distant past. That didn’t mean I didn’t miss them, but…
‘For now, I’ll focus only on what I can do for Euna.’
Once the maids left, silence settled over the room.
Yet my ears captured everything—the chirping of birds, the sound of water dripping in the rear garden, the careful footsteps of the maids.
I had infused my inner energy into my senses, sharpening my hearing to an extreme degree.
Huff.
I released a short gust of wind from my mouth, laced with inner energy.
It was an auditory technique called Empty Resonance—a sound-based martial art.
The sound, mixed with inner energy, spread through the air, allowing me to detect living beings. When used near people, it could even gauge the level of their inner energy.
Using Empty Resonance, I pinpointed the locations of Hong-a and Yesol.
Hong-a was not far from my quarters—close enough to come if I called.
But Yesol was heading in the opposite direction, not toward the steward’s residence I had instructed her to visit.
‘A maid who shows excessive interest in my affairs, yet doesn’t carry out what she’s told…’
My palate felt rough, as if I had swallowed sand.
‘When did that girl start serving me…?’
If I recalled correctly, she had first come to my quarters when I turned fifteen.
Now that I thought about it, one thing stood out.
‘That’s when the malicious rumors about me started to increase.’
Was that really a coincidence?
If I had to guess, Yesol was likely someone my aunts had planted by my side.
‘Still, she’s useful for now, so I’ll let her be…’
I scanned my surroundings for any other suspicious presences.
Fortunately, only those without martial training were nearby.
Which meant no one was suspecting me yet.
Relieved, I climbed onto the bed and sat in the lotus position.
I needed to draw up the inner energy that still remained in this life and open the meridians throughout my body.
‘My inner energy is abundant, but my external martial arts are pitifully lacking.’
Training external arts changes the bones and muscles.
Perhaps it was inevitable—if I was to return to this body at this age, my physical frame had to remain the same.
In terms of external martial arts, I probably wasn’t even third-rate right now.
Still, I wasn’t anxious.
As someone with innate martial talent, I had already opened the Ren and Du meridians in my previous life. For the time being, as long as I balanced my inner energy and gradually built up my external arts, there would be no problem.
Moreover, all the secret manuals I had mastered as the Blood-Yin Witch—at the cost of carving my own bones—were still etched in my mind.
Given time, I could systematically engrave them into this body as well.
‘Then what about my constitution?’
The reason I had been able to roam the martial world in pursuit of vengeance for Euna… was thanks to the uniquely altered constitution I possessed.
