I had just about enough of this ghost of a woman who kept haunting us from the moment that I had returned from the Liadong war so many years ago. I knew that I owed her a lot from the moment I unwillingly abandoned her, but she didn't give me a chance to catch my breathe, either. I was being used by my best friend's father to carry out his dirty political deeds when my sister Yeon lost her memory when Seon-Ho set me up to go to war after he cheated on the military exam. I had to do his bidding to keep my sister alive even when she couldn't remember me and she just kept popping up everywhere I went after that when I had just so much to do with keeping the prince happy so he wouldn't kill me or my sister. And then there were the crimes that she committed against myself, by best friend and most importantly my sister, which I would never forgive her for in my entire life. I still didn't know if she was here for myself or Seon-Ho, and I really didn't care at all. I only cared about the well-being of my sons, who grew up to make me prouder than they knew. Chul has always had a military personality and talked about nothing else, apart from the cousin that he grew obsessed with at a young age. He had inherited my father's determination and sword skills, as did Hyuk, who had the common sense to hide his skills. Geom was a very simple person like myself and didn't want for much at all. He had always followed his big brother everywhere he went, and was looking for a position as a scholar just like his uncle. He was the only one of the children who was not looking for a position in the palace at all and wanted to stay far away from it as possible, but he didn't want to miss out on anything either. They were all living in the city under the watchful eye of my sister and brother-in-law, and as far as I knew, Geom spent quite a lot of time with his cousins and was constantly pampered between his sister-in-law and my own sister. But he had a stronger connection to this village than anyone and had managed to help me develop it as much as he possibly could at such a young age. Just last night I had written up my final will and testament, and I was going to leave this village to Geom in my own age. How pitiful was it for him, that his my old flame was the cause of the ruin of all of our hard work with her own selfishness and greed? Didn't she already abandon her family for a prince? Didn't she thing about how much this village meant to all of us, especially our sons? What about all the handwork we had put in to distribute food, bring in basic equipment and utensils, bringing clothes, proving jobs in nearby villages and remodelling homes to keep out the rain and snow in winter? I had to get rid of this woman and quickly, before she brought ruin to us all and before my sickly wife found out about what had just occurred.
I was just about to step out and find her when I noticed Seon-Ho of all people, coming out in front of me and on his way to meet the girl who had ruined his life in more ways than one in the past. I was going to call out to him, but the way he approached her changed my mind. He had been my best friend since we were no more than 8 years old, and I knew from the moment I met him that he had a horrible temper which nobody was able to tame, except my sister. But I had never in my life witnessed him being aggressive to a woman ever, I thought he had better sense than that.
"Just what the hell are you doing here? How dare you come here and face me like…" she didn't even get to finish off that sentence as I witnessed my best friend who I had married off my most precious being to practically throw The Mistress Han against a wall with his hand around her throat in an empty street. "How dare you show your face in front of my wife whom you ruined, my best friend whom you abandoned and myself whom you treated worse than a dog!" "You deserved it! You chased your best friend's woman!" "Because you manipulated me into thinking that I had a chance! You knew what I was going through, everyone knew what I was going through with that man and I was desperate! I was so desperate for an escape that I crossed all boundaries and I hurt the people that I loved the most because you gave me false hope!" "You took me away from Hwi! You told everyone that he was dead! I was going through a hard time myself and you were my only way out!" "If that was the case, then didn't you at least have the common sense no to bite the hand that feeds you! I did everything for you! And you treated me worse than rubbish that is littered all over the streets! You didn't know how to appreciate anything I did for you! You were so ungrateful and you made me regret living at all! I would have killed myself if I hadn't reconnected with Yeon!" "Are you being serious? Are you really going to blame everything on me! Do you know why I treated you worse than a dog?" "Go on then, I might as well hear this excuse." "It was because you lied to me from the start!" "What the hell are you talking about?" "You told me you loved me over and over again; you used to shower me with gifts and wait for me outside of Ihwaru. But do you know what you did to me!" "I gave you everything!" "From the minute you finally had me by your side, I meant nothing to you!" "That is a lie!" "No! It isn't! From the moment I finally agreed to give you a chance, your obsession with Yeon started out of nowhere! The gifts you gave me? Those are items you secretly watched Yeon look at in the market place behind her back! The clothes you gave me? It was all in Yeon's taste! The food you gave me? Out of the four of us, only Yeon has a sweet tooth and you gave me enough desserts to induce diabetes in me! And only Yeon likes perfumes made out of fruit and not flowers!"
I had to admit, that I didn't have the faintest idea how their relationship started and to be honest I wasn't interested at all. It was during a dark time for me, and after everything that I had been forced to do and all the sins I had committed, I just wanted to be left alone and this damned Mistress Han wasn't getting the hint. Throughout my time with the prince and the fact that I was separated from my sister for the very first time, I didn't cope at all and Seon-Ho made it known that I had died in the war so there was no chance of anyone looking for me whilst I did what I had to do to keep my sister alive. And even though my best friend and my woman hurt me, I knew that I had brought that pain onto myself and only my sister could sort me out for good. So I had no idea about the details of their relationship, but honestly it did make me feel better that it was bad from the start. Because like my sister, even I had doubts sometimes about his so-called devotion to her. But after hearing about how he really was in love with my sister, I could finally rest easy with the decision that I made to marry her off to the only person in this world that I could still trust despite the constant betrayals that had gone on between us. And my supposition was only set in stone more when I saw how pale Seon-Ho's face went, it was like he himself could not believe it after all his years of marriage that he didn't know his own heart. Now I understood why my sister didn't believe his feelings towards her in the beginning, but she didn't know him like I did. When he was like this, she saw hesitancy, but I know it was guilt, and that must have been why he treated my sister the way he did when she was his unwitting hostage.
"…you were always in love with Yeon before you even knew it, and you just used me to copy your feelings about her since you felt too guilty at the time to fight for her. We both knew that I was always in love with Hwi, but I at least thought that I had a safe future with you! And you couldn't have let me down any more than you did back then! So is it any wonder why I treated you so badly!" "So is that why you let me go?" "That is not why I let you go." "What was it then?" "I was because I knew all about your plan against Yeon, for your little petty revenge against her!"
The silence that cam after she had uttered that sentence was completely deafening to me, and it had put me in such a state of shock that I couldn't move even if I wanted to. Revenge? What revenge? Against who? My sister?
"So you knew all along, I guess that was why you kept sneaking around my home every time I was at work in the palace. And your heart was black enough to let me go ahead with it without warning Hwi, right?" "I didn't warn Hwi because I wanted to get my own revenge on him." "For what?" "For cheating on me!" "What?" "Don't act like you do not know what I am talking about! After everything you have both done to each other, you are still the closest person to him. You know that he had another lover, right? The one he was sneaking out of the village to meet!"