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The destination wasn’t far. The car, driving along the winding country roads, soon entered an unusually well-maintained road. Both sides of the road were lawns that clearly bore the touch of a diligent gardener.
A moment later, a grand mansion on a hill appeared. Yoon Tae-ha, carefully watching the sky, realized that what looked like migratory birds flying in formation were actually drones.
“You use expensive ones,” she remarked subtly. The driver chuckled softly.
“You have keen eyes.”
Nox had been staring straight ahead the whole time. He seemed worried that a stranger’s facade might suddenly melt away, and Kali would jump out.
The car continued further up. Finally, they arrived at the main gate, guarded by four security personnel.
Only after the driver authenticated his fingerprint and iris information on the machine to the left of the gate did the doors swing open. It took a few more minutes to reach the building’s entrance.
Yoon Tae-ha, feeling a slight weariness, finally got out of the car, now able to see the true entrance of the mansion. Just then, the mansion’s dark brown door smoothly opened, and a woman and six black-clad employees appeared.
Jeon Ye-rim, dressed in an elegant green dress and a knee-length cream cardigan, gracefully descended the fan-shaped staircase and stood before her. Her face hadn’t changed much from the last photo Yoon Tae-ha had seen.
“Tae-ha.”
Yoon Tae-ha looked down at the woman, who was shorter than her. Her mother on paper smiled and spread her arms, then looked disheartened by her daughter’s ambiguous reaction.
“Don’t you recognize me?”
“I didn’t expect you to even use a stand-in for a moment like this.”
“...”
“You invited me, Mother.”
Jeon Ye-rim’s eyelashes fluttered for a moment. As she defensively crossed her arms and hesitated, one of the employees standing behind her stepped forward. An old man, much older than Jeon Ye-rim, suddenly pinched the area where his ear connected to his jaw with his finger, then removed a mask.
As the old man pulled off the mask, a middle-aged woman’s face appeared underneath.
Having removed the mask, she placed the flimsy, peeling thing into the hand of the woman who had been impersonating the mansion’s owner just seconds ago. The stand-in, holding the mask, bowed respectfully and retreated.
“What a spectacle in front of a child who can tell the difference between drones and migratory birds?”
The sharp-featured beauty swept her hair back and glared at the women on either side. They maintained their initial, polite posture.
“Follow me.”
Jeon Ye-rim, dressed as an employee, gestured with her hand as she headed into the building. Following her, Yoon Tae-ha and Nox successively ascended the stairs, which had not a single blade of grass clinging to them. As they all entered the mansion, the door closed silently.
“How did you spot the subordinate’s disguise? Was the mask that obvious? It was quite expensive. If I paid a high price for a product relative to its performance, you definitely owe me for this debt.”
The main hall’s chandelier sparkled above their heads. For a heavily guarded mansion, it had many windows. An Esper could easily get in this way. Do they have a separate wizard? Yoon Tae-ha calmly answered, tilting her head internally.
“The perfume.”
Jeon Ye-rim whipped off her apron, turned halfway, and scoffed in disbelief. “Perfume?”
“The scent of bonfire and leather. A slightly bitter grassy scent mixed in. It’s not a scent someone working for others would wear. Especially not an employee preparing for the visit of a psychic with sensitive senses.”
“Plausible. Wait, are you serious?”
“Should I tell you the brand and name?”
“I sprayed it two days ago. That’s incredible. You also recognized the drones disguised as migratory birds, didn’t you? Is it difficult to live normally with such developed senses?”
She spoke to Yoon Tae-ha as if she were the daughter she had greeted just yesterday, without any reservation. For Yoon Tae-ha, who lacked the energy to initiate conversation, this was at least somewhat welcoming.
“If I don’t focus, I see and feel things similarly to others. Living every day with birds flying around and meeting their eyes would be exhausting.”
“Just imagining it is tiresome.”
The mansion owner led the two into a long, rectangular dining room.
“It’ll be dinner time soon. I consider eating on time very important.”
Guests invited to the mansion had to sit at the seats designated by the owner. As the two sat down, Jeon Ye-rim snapped her fingers, ordering the prepared food to be brought out.
Watching white wine being poured into the glass placed before her, she cast an intrigued glance at Nox.
“Lover?”
“No.”
“Why deny only one side? Does that mean the other side is open to it?”
Nox, who had been looking down at the garden connected to the dining room, did not respond to the light provocation.
“Personally, I don’t like this type. When you poke them, they should yield a bit to seem more human. You have unique tastes, just like your mother.”
“We’re not like that.”
“Are you serious? This person is truly nothing to you? But Yoon Seo-hyun said that if someone came with you, they would definitely be close. She even advised me not to casually poison them, didn’t she?”
Well, they were close enough to try to physically shorten the distance to kill each other once. When Yoon Tae-ha denied it again, only then did Jeon Ye-rim accept it as it was. She seemed to be simply throwing out various topics, wanting to continue the conversation with her daughter.
Soon, food began to arrive in sequence, starting with a light soup. Yoon Tae-ha’s expectation of formal dishes was disproven from the start. Dishes rarely seen in other regions, beginning with Tteokgalbi (grilled short rib patties) and Gamjajeon (potato pancakes), appeared one after another.
“Eat without complaining. If you pick at your food, there’ll be no secret stories.”
Jeon Ye-rim, who had scooped clear beef and radish soup from her own bowl, gestured for her to pick up her spoon.
“If you suspect poison, I can bring you a silver spoon.”
Only after hearing that did Yoon Tae-ha begin her meal. She first bit into a warm-looking piece of Tteokgalbi and gave Nox a signal with her eyes. You can eat. Nox then picked up his chopsticks.
“Your chopstick skills are quite good for a foreigner. Was the teacher you met during adaptation training strict?”
“That man isn’t registered in the system.”
“Oh, my mistake.”
Nox casually picked up the beef and vegetable stir-fry placed in front of him. He eats too, then. It was a novel thought.
There were many delicious-looking dishes, but Yoon Tae-ha couldn’t eat her fill. Although every single dish was her favorite, for some strange reason, she couldn’t bring herself to eat. It wasn’t because she perceived danger; rather, some premonition she couldn’t understand made her forget her hunger.
Noticing that the amount of food placed in front of her seemed untouched, Jeon Ye-rim asked,
“Is your sense of taste still not good?”
“No. More than that, don’t you have something to tell me?”
Jeon Ye-rim raised her hand, cutting off Yoon Tae-ha. A moment later, having finished her meal, she wiped her mouth and rose from her seat. Then, a neatly dressed man opened the door leading to the garden.
“Come outside.”
The sunset began to gently settle over the mansion. Jeon Ye-rim leaned back in a comfortable-looking white outdoor chair. Nox stood a few steps away from them, gazing at the garden. Yoon Tae-ha sat obliquely, in a position where she didn’t have to directly meet Jeon Ye-rim’s gaze.
“Since you ate your meal quietly, I suppose I should do my part.”
“What exactly did Ms. Yoon Seo-hyun ask you to do?”
Jeon Ye-rim, resting her chin on the table, wore a faint smile.
“To play the role of a mother.”
“...”
“When I first found you, the first thing was to give you a meal. She even gave me a meal plan. It seems like it was the food you liked when you were little.”
She found the source of the strange feeling she’d had at the dinner table. Yoon Tae-ha felt utterly deflated.
“That’s the look of someone who’s just remembering. For all you know, I’m older than you.”
“Were you close with Ms. Yoon Seo-hyun? That fact didn’t come up when I investigated you before.”
“Of course it wouldn’t have. Yoon Seo-hyun is a person who doesn’t exist in this world. Only Hyeon Yi-jeong, who died devoted to her father, remains.”
“Did you know she died because of Yoon Jung-hoon?”
“If you’re asking if there’s direct evidence of his involvement, no. But when she entrusted me with the items for you, she named Yoon Jung-hoon as the first person to be wary of. A few days later, Hyeon Yi-jeong died in an explosion. How do you think I felt then?”
“That you got involved with the wrong person?”
During their conversation, a man approached and set up a small refreshment table on the outdoor table. Jeon Ye-rim gently pushed a plate of colorful desserts towards Yoon Tae-ha.
“To think so coldly, I was close with Seo-hyun. Close enough to keep my promise to her until now, even though my marriage went to ruin. Who do you think cultivated the flower field and prevented anyone from coming near the house?”
Jeon Ye-rim, stirring her coffee with a small, dainty teaspoon, read the hesitation in Yoon Tae-ha’s expression. She spoke gently.
“Let’s start with my husband’s story. I wanted to tell you about the situation when Yoon Jung-hoon pushed you on me. When I hadn’t met you, I could fully rationalize my cowardice, but facing such a pitifully thin girl directly...”
Jeon Ye-rim put down her teaspoon and took a sip of her moderately cooled coffee.
“I feel guilty.”
As the surroundings grew darker, the circular lights installed along the path leading down to the garden turned on. The soft light cast shadows on Jeon Ye-rim’s face. She parted her lips dramatically, like someone on the verge of fulfilling a long-cherished wish.
“Yoon Han-oh, Yoon Jung-hoon’s proud eldest son, my husband, and currently your father on paper, had no reproductive ability. None at all.”
Yoon Tae-ha quickly covered her mouth with her hand and coughed. Even Nox, who had been paying attention to the trees in the garden, subtly turned his head towards them.
“He didn’t get sick as an aftereffect of being bitten by a monster; he died of a sexually transmitted disease after fooling around with women. He was a man who sought out fields of all kinds, even though he had no seed. Yoon Jung-hoon loved such a son terribly, yet at the same time, he hated him.”
The story was so strange, so bizarre, that Yoon Tae-ha was speechless.
“Can you imagine how much a researcher revered as a saint outside suffered over his son’s problem?”
“...No.”
“I also didn’t know Yoon Han-oh was so despicable. I only knew him as the son of Professor Yoon, a man of noble character. He was handsome, polite, diligent, and kind. It was me who fell head over heels for my friend’s older brother and begged him to marry me. Seo-hyun didn’t know much about her brother either. If she had, she wouldn’t have let me marry him.”
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