Yeon Joo remained alone inside the dark monastery room after everyone had left, while the thin cloth wrapped around her body did little to protect her from the cold air entering through the wooden walls, and the exhaustion from the drug, the journey and the humiliation made even sitting upright feel difficult.
She had not received a proper meal since the previous morning, and although one attendant had left a small bowl of water near the door, Yeon Joo was too weak and angry to crawl across the room to reach it.
Her entire body trembled as she leaned against the wall and pulled the cloth more tightly around herself.
"Lee Yeong will look for me," she whispered, although her voice no longer sounded confident. "He will not stop until he finds this place."
However, the Grand-Aunt had already ordered everyone to stay away until the day after tomorrow, when Yeon Joo's hair would be shaved and she would be forced to enter the monastery permanently.
