Sadly, she ends up with Tushan Jing. There are no secondary couples. This is not a typical romance.
Don't forget, Kokuto, CX ends up with Ah Nian and Xing Yue as his two empresses, plus a full harem. Practically every available noblewoman in the kingdom except the one he loved!
He can't return Ah Nian's feelings, he can't love Xing Yue the way she wants to be loved, and he has to treat Xing Yue as his honourable empress (even after finding out that she tried to murder XY) because of the promise he made to Feng Long when Feng Long was dying in his arms.
Xiang Liu uses poison to train/increase his power. The excerpts below are from a fan translation of the novel…
Another part of chapter 19 very explicitly conjured up the image of XY's poison-making being like "cooking" in her own medicine / poison-making "kitchen"! ^^
-----
Chapter 19:
Zhi Jin Peak, a bright and glorious morning.
Xiao Yao was tending to the fire pit and her face was bright red with sweat dotting her forehead.
She felt the time was right and put on her gloves before opening the cover of the pot to take out the mold. She put it inside a pail of ice water until the mold solidified. Xiao Yao poured the mold out and individual mold pieces tumbled on the table, some pink, others green, and even yellow.
Zhuan Xu walked into this “medicine making room” and saw Xiao Yao intent on her work. He said nothing and stood in the corner to watch quietly. There were colorful molds strewn all over the table but the shapes were odd. Some looked like flower petals, others like leaves, he really couldn’t figure out what she was making.
Xiao Yao took out a rectangular glass plate, it was dark on both ends and white in the middle like the backdrop of an ink portrait with nothing on it.
Xiao Yao used a brush and covered the white part once with a liquid.
Xiao Yao washed her hands and then put it in the ice water for some time before wiping it with a clean cloth. She then picked up the molds from earlier and used a small paring knife to start carving the molds. She finished one and would put it on the plate as if she was painting on it.
Zhuan Xu was curious so walked over and he saw Xiao Yao’s slender fingers expertly at work and gradually the white plate was covered with a green lily frond and there was dew on it that appeared like it was about to slide off. A pink lily appeared and the yellow nectar inside formed. Within the lilies two salmon peeked out from under the water shyly.
The entire morning passed and an entire salmon frolicking in a lily pond tableau was created. Other than having no sound, everything was there, even the scent of the lilies.
Xiao Yao stared at it intently and then smiled in satisfaction.
Zhuan Xu clapped. “Scent, visuals, and taste – it’s all there. Makes me want to take a bite.”
Xiao Yao made a face at him. “It’s all poison.”
Zhuan Xu shook his head. “Can’t figure out what this weird hobby of yours is. Who makes poisons into a delicacy. Your poison making room is pretty much a kitchen.”
Xiao Yao carefully picked up the plate and put it inside a box before shutting it and wrapping it up in a cloth.
Zhuan Xu asked warily, “You can’t be giving that to someone?”
Xiao Yao laughed. “Secret.”
Zhuan Xu sighed. “I can’t decide if you like this person, or hate this person.”
After a morning of sitting Xiao Yao’s back ached and she rubbed her back and asked, “How come you have time to come watch me make poisons?”
Zhuan Xu said, “I have something to discuss with you.”
Xiao Yao got serious. “Go ahead.”
“Feng Long invited you out a couple of times and you turned him down every time?”
“Yup.” Xiao Yao’s eyes twirled and she asked, “You want me to say yes?”
Zhuan Xu nodded. Xiao Yao didn’t understand “Isn’t there Xing Yue? If you want to announce a marriage alliance, it’s enough for you to marry Xing Yue!”
“Xing Yue is Xing Yue, her last name is Sheng Nong. Feng Long is Feng Long, his last name is Chi Sui and he’s the next Chi Sui clan leader. You are you, carrying the bloodlines of the Yellow Emperor and the Grand Emperor.”
Xiao Yao furrowed her brows “You can’t be wanting me to marry Feng Long?”
“What’s wrong with Feng Long?” Zhuan Xu was confused now – Tu Shan Jing was engaged, Fang Feng Bei was a profligate spare son, compared to both guys Feng Long was so much better. He was powerful and talented with a great family background. Yet Xiao Yas would rather spend all her time with Fang Feng Bei wandering the desolate mountainside looking at wild flowers instead of going with Feng Long to regal Sheng Nong mountain to view the famed peonies.
[...]
Xiao Yao pushed Zhuan Xu out the door. “This ‘kitchen’ of mine is full of poison so when I’m not here don’t go in.”
______________________________
A dance hall, a dancer was gracefully dancing.
Xiao Yao smiled and placed a white wrapped box in front of Fang Feng Bei.
Bei glanced over it and drawled, “What’s that?”
Xiao Yao said, “You open it.”
Bei shook his cup, “I’m drinking right now.”
Xiao Yao clenched her fist – be patient, be patient, be patient! She released her fist and opened the cloth cover over the box.
Bei was still uninterested and continued drinking his wine and watching the dancer dancing.
Xiao Yao had no choice but to open the box herself. When she made it, to create the scent of the lilies she spent a lot of time on it. Right now the scent of the lilies were lost in the pungent odor of the food and the perfumes around them so it wasn’t noticeable anymore.
Xiao Yao rushed here excitedly with a whole bellyful of things she wanted to say to him. She wanted to boast about how she made the poison lilies, how she made the leaf covers, but now the entire salmon frolicking in the lilies tableau turned dim and she didn’t feel like saying anything anymore. She picked up her wine and started drinking and pouting.
Bei finally turned his gaze from the dancer to the table and checked out the tableau on the glass plate. It was delicate and full of life, the colors vibrant and the items exquisitely rendered.
Bei stared for some time before picking up a chopstick and eating a lily frond.
One bite after another, one lily frond, one salmon, one lily…..slowly he ate the entire salmon frolicking in lilies tableau.
Xiao Yao gaped at him. “You….don’t stuff yourself silly.”
Bei shot her a look and she immediately shut up.
Bei ate the final bite and put down his chopstick. He took a sip of wine and casually said, “Not bad.”
Xiao Yao stared at the empty plate and her heart soared. “The only person who can make poisons this tasty in the entire world is me!”
Bei laughed back, “And the only person in the entire world who can appreciate your great “cooking” talents is me!”
Xiao Yao sassed back, “It’s enough to have a true [zhi yin (知音)].”
Bei gave her a half-smile but said nothing.
Xiao Yao asked, “Can you continue teaching me archery now?” What she really meant to ask was – are you not angry at me anymore?
Bei finished his wine. “I need to leave for a bit, wait for me to come back.”
Xiao Yao figured he was going back to Qing Shui town. Even if there was no active warfare, he was still the General of the Sheng Nong resistance army and there was much he had to do.
Xiao Yao couldn’t help it and sighed loudly and murmured, “If only you could forever be Fang Feng Bei, that would be so great.”
Bei appeared not to have heard her as he set down his wine cup and got up to leave, his form disappearing in the layers of curtains.
I still don't understand why Xiangliu keeps asking for and eating Xiayao's poison? Is he addicted to the poison…
Xiang Liu uses poison to train/increase his power.
The excerpts below are from a fan translation of the novel that the drama is based on.
---
Chapter 2:
A month later, under Lao Mu’s arrangement, Ma Zhi and the daughter of Butcher Gao got engaged. Everything returned to normal and every day was just like before – it was so calm it was boring, it was so boring it was peaceful, it was so peaceful it was happy.
Except occasionally a mall-white condor would come find Xiao Liu, bringing something and taking away something. Xiao Liu made the poison for Xiang Liu but always held something back. Each poison was beyond deadly and it fit his requirement, but then it would have an odd color or smell. Whatever the reason, it was impossible to use it to kill a powerful person under tight protection.
Xiao Liu thought that, as time passed, Xiang Liu would come and raise a fuss but Xiang Liu appeared to not care about “color, smell, and taste” and as long as the poison met his specifications he accepted it all.
Xiao Liu used his haphazard medical and poison skills to deduce that Xiang Liu was a very unique being and his power came from using poison to train. All the poison that Xiao Liu produced was likely consumed by him.
After he figured it out, Xiao Liu breathed a sigh of relief, and then proceeded to make the most horrible tasting poison ever.
---
Eventually, the poison takes on additional meaning, as Xiao Yao puts a great deal of effort and all of her feelings into her poison creations and Xiang Liu is the only person in the world who can appreciate her skills.
---
Chapter 16:
Xiao Yao started spending more time developing her poisons. Late into the night, she would lay on the pallet playing with her poisons and thinking of how to make it even better in terms of prettier and not necessarily more poisonous.
She had memorized the Sheng Nong Herb Manuel left by the Flame Emperor, who the entire world regarded as the progenitor of medicine. She also flipped through all the Gao Xing and Xuan Yuan medical books. She didn’t doubt her poison's ability to be deadly, she just wanted to make it look pretty. She stared at the phoenix flower and researched a few days and worked a few nights and finally created a perfect replica of the small red phoenix flower with the same intoxicating fragrance. She made the poison layered on it like the morning dew.
Every one of her poisons was one of her longing, one of her missing, one of her feelings. She created it and watched it come to life in her hands, and then carefully put it away to send out.
Xiao Yao wondered what Xiang Liu would think when he saw the poisons? Would he call her a weirdo pervert?
Xiao Yao put the finished poisons in boxes and went to the messenger service run by the Tu Shan clan and handed it to them. “Deliver this to the Qing Shui Town brothel.”
Xiao Yao paid the expensive price to deliver it to the edge of Xuan Yuan and didn’t blink an eye since it wasn’t her money.
This was Xiao Yao’s solution to deal with Xiang Liu. The entire world was covered with the Tu Shan messenger network so if Xiao Yao had money then she could send it to Qing Shui Town. She had been sending him poisons every 3-4 months, the last time sent from Gao Xing. She wondered if Xiang Liu got it? He ought to, otherwise with his petty personality, no matter how busy he was he would find time to cause her trouble.
---
Chapter 19:
Bei ate the final bite and put down his chopstick. He took a sip of wine and casually said, “Not bad.”
Xiao Yao stared at the empty plate and her heart soared, “The only person who can make poisons this tasty in the entire world is me!”
Bei laughed back, “And the only person in the entire world who can appreciate your great “cooking” talents is me!”
Xiao Yao sassed back, “It’s enough to have a true [zhi yin (知音)*].”
Bei gave her a half-smile but said nothing.
Xiao Yao asked, “Can you continue teaching me archery now?” What she really meant to ask was – are you not angry at me anymore?
Bei finished his wine. “I need to leave for a bit, wait for me to come back.”
Xiao Yao figured he was going back to Qing Shui town. Even if there was no active warfare, he was still the General of the Sheng Nong resistance army and there was much he had to do.
Xiao Yao couldn’t help it and sighed loudly and murmured, “If only you can forever be Fang Feng Bei, that would be so great.”
Bei appeared not to have heard her as he set down his wine cup and got up to leave, his form disappearing in the layers of curtains.
---
* This phrase alludes to a Chinese fable about Boya and Ziqi. It literally translates as "know sound" but is used to convey a particular kind of relationship between two people, such as soulmates, bosom friends, or people who are completely on the same wavelength.
The translator who translated that word for the subtitles for the corresponding scene in the drama (S1 ep 27) chose to translate it as "confidant". The fan who translated the novel chose to translate that word as "soulmate".
“Xiang Liu’s powers come from ingesting all types of poisons to train. There is no poison in the world that can take him down, so his blood is now the world’s most poisonous thing.”
Zhuan Xu’s heart sank and his face turned ashen.
Feng Long forced a smile at Xiao Yao. “So even you can’t find an antidote for it?”
For the past hundred years she tried every method to fell Xiang Liu with poison, giving him the hardest to find poisons to take him down. If she could counter his blood poison then Xiang Liu would have already been poisoned by her. Xiao Yao’s face was stark white and her voice shook. “I…..I….I’ll do my best!” She claimed to have top medical skills, but who knew the day would come that she would have to watch a friend die.
The scene where KJY sat on the bench and watched YEH scoop JSY up in his arms and twirl her around with both of them smiling at each other was so emotional. I felt like KJY was simultaneously happy and grateful that those two wonderful people were alive and able to love each other and share such joy with each other (thanks to her father's sacrifice), and yet also so painfully reminded of how (because of that sacrifice) she was deprived at such a young age of the opportunity to ever be scooped up in her own father's arms again or to have that kind of close, loving and supportive relationship with him. She'd never get to smile at him ever again. Never get to laugh with him ever again. Never get to feel his love, and give him love in return, ever again. Never get to speak with him or see him at all, ever again. So utterly heartbreaking.
With that intense combination of emotions, I couldn't help but cry. Dramas don't get me like that very often.
Because Xiang Liu IS Xiao Yao's soulmate, in both Western and the Eastern sense. They couldn't have shared the…
You're welcome. Yes, good times. Those discussions added so much to the reading / viewing experience.
As much as I love the term zhiji and the way it recognizes how valuable it is to have a person who gets / understands you, the extra levels of meaning behind zhiyin and the way it fits XY and XL is just... chef's kiss.
Because Xiang Liu IS Xiao Yao's soulmate, in both Western and the Eastern sense. They couldn't have shared the…
A minor point of clarification on that, since it was something that I mixed up too, H19279 pointed out last year that the term that XY used in both the LYF drama and the LYF novel is zhiyin, not zhiji (a very similar term).
did I miss the part in the novel where Xiang Liu had a woman form for that boat scene? or was that something entirely…
You're welcome!
I'm very attached to the novel version of events and for the most part I dislike instances where the drama departs from it, but I really did appreciate that the boat scene gave XL the opportunity to hear WXL say "他很好" about XL in a context where WXL didn't know she was speaking to XL so XL could believe that she genuinely meant what she said and she really did think of him in a positive light.
The main reason the male lead kept his wife's identity hidden was not for "his political stand". It was to protect…
Agreed. The way that was handled in the drama really didn't feel logical or consistent with the build up that happened in the preceding episodes.
Like, HHJ directly told the male lead that him disappearing was her nightmare. And she and the male lead confessed their feelings for each other and agreed to have a real marriage with new terms in their marriage contract. And HIA told the male lead that HHJ knew that he was not the real Baek Sa Eon and that Baek Jang Ho arranged the car crash to keep that secret hidden, and HHJ didn't care about it. She knew everything and still risked her life to save the male lead.
With all of those changes in the drama, it really didn't make sense for the male lead to still run away to Argan (without saying anything to HHJ!) like he did in the novel.
Novel spoilers ahead. In the novel at least, it seemed like the fisherman was a somewhat harsh man. From chapter…
Novel spoilers ahead.
Yes, in the novel, HIA knew what the original Baek Sa Eon looked like and after the male lead replaced him she could tell that he was a different person (i.e., that he wasn't the real Baek Sa Eon). She made the mistake of saying something about it in front of Baek Jang Ho. After the car crash, HIA was smart enough to realize that the car crash was orchestrated to kill her or scare her into silence. So she knew that the male lead was not the real male lead and she also knew how far the Baek family was willing to go to keep the secret from the beginning, and that was why she didn't want to marry the male lead and tried to call off the long-planned wedding when it became imminent.
HIA in the novel is pretty similar to HIA in the drama in terms of her ambiguous vibes and the scale of her role. I never felt like she was potential competition for the female lead role. But the two main differences were that novel!HIA knew the male lead wasn't the real Baek Sa Eon from the beginning and when she returned to South Korea (after getting ear surgery abroad) she took a job as a reporter for a rival news agency (not her family's agency).
In the drama, it looked like they made Hong Yu Jin (the half brother) older than he was in the novel when he died. In the novel, his first birthday party was celebrated in the Hong family household some time after HHJ's mother married Chairman Hong and she and HHJ joined the household. It seemed implied that Chairman Hong married HHJ's mother because she had (or was pregnant with) his son. HHJ had at least one birthday (that went uncelebrated, as HHJ's mother didn't want to call attention to the fact that she was not Chairman Hong's biological daughter) in the Hong household before the accident, but it seemed like the accident happened not that long after HHJ joined the Hong household, and the accident occurred on her birthday (her ninth or tenth birthday*). So presumably it occurred on the day of the second birthday that she had after she joined the Hong household. So Hong Yu Jin was most likely either 1 (if his birthday comes after HHJ's, and he was less than 1 at the time of her uncelebrated 9th birthday and then turned 1 between her 9th and 10th birthdays and died on her 10th birthday) or 2 (if Hong Yu Jin's birthday comes before HHJ's, and he was already 1 at the time of her 9th birthday and turned 2 before he died on her 10th birthday) when he was killed in the car crash in the novel.
* The novel is a bit confusing on this point, because HHJ still had her voice / wasn't pretending to be mute yet the first time she met the male lead (she sang for him) and she told the male lead that she was nine at that time. But the novel also says that HHJ was nine when she first started going to the sign language centre, which presumably happened after the accident, even though the accident (and her half-brother's death) occurred on her birthday, so HHJ should have been at least 10 when she went to the sign language centre for the first time.
I assume the drama writers decided to age up Hong Yu Jin and have him be the one who saw the real Baek Sa Eon (instead of HIA) so that they could have HIA discover the truth more gradually and then build HHJ's discovery of the truth on top of HIA's discovery. Because in the novel, HHJ doesn't find out anything about the male lead's true identity until he reveals everything to the world in one go, right before faking his death and disappearing.
As for Baek Jang Ho and the male lead's mother... I think it would be possible for Baek Jang Ho to get the mother safely out of the picture without murdering her. She might've died in childbirth or from some other natural cause. Or, if she didn't die, she might not have wanted to raise the unacknowledged secret baby of a 70 year old man. She might've been perfectly willing to take a huge payoff to walk away, without knowing where the baby ended up. If that was the case, she wouldn't really have posed much of a threat as a loose end, because she likely would not have had enough information to expose his lies when it came to the swap. To protect himself, Baek Jang Ho might even have made her sign an NDA in exchange for her hush money payment, so that she would be financially ruined if she exposed the fact that she gave birth to his illegitimate son. That was the only info she would've had that could have posed any kind of threat to Baek Jang Ho.
Also, Baek Jang Ho did not personally drive the truck that caused the car crash that killed Hong Yu Jin and caused HIA's deafness. He paid for another man to drive the truck. In the drama, Chairman Hong told Baek Jang Ho that he personally chased that man (the hired assassin / driver) all the way to the Philippines, where the man finally confessed that Baek Jang Ho was the one who paid him to do it.
I'm not saying I think Baek Jang Ho is not capable of killing a woman. I'm saying he likely would not have felt that killing the male lead's mother was necessary / the right choice to serve his needs in the circumstances and he's not the type of person who would kill her unless he felt it was necessary.
I hope you enjoy the novel! There are many steamy scenes to look forward to. ^^
Novel spoilers ahead. In the novel at least, it seemed like the fisherman was a somewhat harsh man. From chapter…
You're welcome!
Yes, it's hard to picture Sang-Hoon with a baby or a toddler. I also find it hard to imagine him raising the real Baek Sa Eon when he was a teenager. Imagine how difficult it would be to deal with an extremely moody 17 year old version of the kidnapper.
Hmm. Baek Jang Ho tried to murder his grandson and didn't seem to feel any remorse after he thought he succeeded, because he felt that Baek Sa Eon posed a threat to the Baek family's reputation and killing him was necessary to protect himself, his legacy and the family. He also orchestrated the car crash that caused HIA's deafness and killed Hong Yu Jin (HHJ and HIA's half brother) for similar reasons (i.e., to silence the Hong sibling that knew too much about what the real Baek Sa Eon looked like to the point of being able to recognize that the male lead was a different person - in the novel that was HIA and in the drama that was Hong Yu Jin).
To be honest, I can't really picture Baek Jang Ho murdering the male lead's mother unless she posed some kind of threat to him / his reputation, similar to how the real Baek Sa Eon's issues and murder spree posed a threat to him and his family's reputation and the Hong sibling who saw the real Baek Sa Eon posed a threat because they would be able to reveal the swap. It didn't seem like Baek Jang Ho killed because he wanted to kill or because he felt driven to kill, the way Baek Sa Eon did. When Baek Jang Ho killed, he did it for a reason and he did it carefully.
Yes, the novel is definitely darker than the drama, and I do think the characters are a bit more complex in the novel.
Really!! Did we need the first 30 minutes of the 12th episode? The story was going so well.. would have great,…
The main reason the male lead kept his wife's identity hidden was not for "his political stand". It was to protect her from his critics and enemies, as well as the backlash that he and those connected to him would face after the truth about his identity was finally revealed. He always intended to reveal that secret and the Baek family's other lies and misdeeds. But protecting HHJ from those things wouldn't serve much of a purpose if she was dead, so finding her after her disappearance was more important than keeping her identity a secret.
Separately, the male lead's parents wanted to keep the identity of the male lead's wife a secret because the public originally was told that he would be marrying the Hong family's eldest daughter, HIA. It would be scandalous if the public found out that he swapped out the bride and actually married the Hong family's youngest daughter, and that scandal might hurt the male lead's father's political campaign to become the next president of South Korea.
I didn't understand why the fisherman forbade young Sa Eon to call him dad. At that time, I found his words harsh…
Novel spoilers ahead.
In the novel at least, it seemed like the fisherman was a somewhat harsh man.
From chapter 58 (which includes a flashback to three years after the male lead took over the real BSE's identity, when he would've been about 15), we know that the fisherman's name is Sang-Hoon.
In chapter 56 (which includes a flashback to when the male lead was 12 and still living with Sang-Hoon), Sang-Hoon is described as "reticent" and in chapter 58 he is described as "cold" and "indifferent". In chapter 56, it sounded like Baek Jang Ho considered Sang-Hoon to be the kind of man who could easily get his fingers cut off because he chased after the wrong woman.
From chapter 56, we know that Baek Jang Ho was the only customer of Sang-Hoon's fish farm / fishing grounds and that, as far as the male lead can remember, the male lead first met Baek Jang Ho when Baek Jang Ho visited Sang-Hoon's fishing grounds when the male lead was 12 years old. It sounded like it was around this time that the real BSE's troubling behaviour began to escalate up to murder, and Baek Jang Ho soon started using the fishing grounds as a place to dump the bodies. Based on how he looked at the male lead, this is also around the time that Baek Jang Ho started to seriously think about using the male lead as a replacement for his grandson.
Perhaps Baek Jang Ho paid Sang-Hoon to help him dispose of things (like evidence from his own crimes / illegal dealings) long before he needed to dispose of the bodies of his grandson's murder victims? So when he had an illegitimate son, perhaps he felt that Sang-Hoon was someone with whom he could safely leave the boy and that Sang-Hoon (someone who was effectively his employee who lived alone and didn't normally interact with others) could be trusted to keep the secret. As Baek Jang Ho already visited that area to go fishing regularly, if he decided that he wanted to visit / check up on his illegitimate son at some point, it would be easy for him to do so during a fishing trip without raising anyone's suspicion about where he was or who he was meeting with.
It's a little hard to picture Sang-Hoon dealing with a newborn though. Maybe the male lead was initially raised by his mother as an infant, but then she left the picture for some reason when he was too young for him to remember her (maybe she died, maybe Baek Jang Ho bribed her to leave the country, maybe she wanted to start a relationship with someone else) and Baek Jang Ho transferred the male lead to Sang-Hoon's care at that point. If that was the case, it definitely would have been very early in the male lead's life, because he had no memory of living anywhere else before he lived with Sang-Hoon and he believed that Sang-Hoon was his father for a long time. He only figured out the truth shortly before Baek Jang Ho's death.
Or maybe Sang-Hoon did raise the male lead from infancy. Perhaps the male lead's mother was Sang-Hoon's sister, who became Baek Jang Ho's mistress after he started visiting the fishing grounds. And perhaps she died in childbirth, at which point Baek Jang Ho decided to leave the child unnamed and in Sang-Hoon's care.
----- ----- -----
Chapter 56:
The first time he met the white-haired Representative Baek Jang-ho was when he was twelve, during a day spent in silent company with his reticent father.
The boy had no name. He was born near the water, where his father, a fisherman, lived in a shabby shack by the fishing grounds. The place reeked of fish.
By the lake in the early morning, his father spent his days meticulously cleaning his fishing rods, threading wriggling worms onto hooks—day after day. The fishing grounds had only one customer: Representative Baek Jang-ho.
Every time Baek Jang-ho came, he would scrutinize the boy’s body and face, as if measuring how much he’d grown. Although his face remained expressionless, the boy, with his sharp intuition, could sense a strange mixture of satisfaction and unease beneath the old man’s gaze. At first, he didn’t understand what it meant.
Nevertheless, his father always bowed his head first and occasionally joined Baek Jang-ho on a boat for long trips.
“Father, did you and that old man throw something into the river?”
“...!”
Under his father’s silent gaze, the boy added, “I saw it. You threw something in.”
“Don’t ask questions.”
“But Father—”
“I’m not your father. Don’t call me that.”
“……”
His father mechanically continued to thread worms onto hooks.
I’m just a fisherman, nothing more.
Even if he was a discarded child, it was likely he would grow up to be just like this man—thick-bearded, broad-built, threading worms onto hooks at the water’s edge.
---
One day, Baek Jang-ho brought another boy, an upper elementary student.
“This is my grandson.”
The boy, about the same age as him, smiled brightly.
“I’ll steer the boat today. Can I borrow one?”
His father nodded silently.
As the boat drifted across the water, the boy ran along the hill. It was a circular lake, so no matter how far he went, the water’s path was the same.
Plop—!
He saw a large bag sink into the river. Once it submerged, it never resurfaced.
Is it filled with rocks?
After that, the grandfather and grandson came every weekend. Each time, they tossed a heavy bag into the water. The grandson always laughed cheerfully, while Baek Jang-ho’s expression grew darker and darker.
Over time, the boy grew accustomed to their strange behavior.
----- ----- -----
Chapter 58:
One day, he overheard a conversation while Baek Jang-ho was on the phone.
"Close the fishing ground now."
"…!"
He paused mid-step as he descended the stairs.
"There’s no more evidence to discard there, and the people living there are gone. Reclaim it as private property. By the way, has Sang-hoon been found yet?"
Sang-hoon—he was the cold, indifferent caretaker of the fishing ground.
"Sigh… Forget it. He probably lost his fingers chasing after some woman he loved. No need to track him down anymore."
A flicker of unease appeared in the boy’s eyes.
Since entering adolescence, his emotions often surged like tides, and today was no different. But why was it so unbearable this time? His chest felt as though it were being crushed, making it impossible to breathe.
The boy bolted out the back door, walking aimlessly, guided only by instinct to a place he knew all too well.
Dark. Damp.
As though searching for the origin of his life, he hid in the shadows.
And then, an epiphany struck.
"I always knew I’d come back one day."
His heart pounded violently, the sound reverberating in his ears. He had always vaguely thought he’d return to his hometown someday. Yes, his hometown—the place where he truly lived.
But there was nothing left of it now.
The place, the people—they were all gone, leaving him hollow inside.
Finally, he became aware of the shell he was wrapped in.
Fake.
Everything was a lie.
The past three years came flooding back like an avalanche. He wanted to scream until his throat bled but could only clench his fists tightly.
His mind roiled, his eyes cold as winter, unsure of how to deal with the feelings surging within him. He simply stood there, powerless.
3 
1 
1 
He can't return Ah Nian's feelings, he can't love Xing Yue the way she wants to be loved, and he has to treat Xing Yue as his honourable empress (even after finding out that she tried to murder XY) because of the promise he made to Feng Long when Feng Long was dying in his arms.
Tragic. Tragic. Tragic.
-----
Chapter 19:
Zhi Jin Peak, a bright and glorious morning.
Xiao Yao was tending to the fire pit and her face was bright red with sweat dotting her forehead.
She felt the time was right and put on her gloves before opening the cover of the pot to take out the mold. She put it inside a pail of ice water until the mold solidified. Xiao Yao poured the mold out and individual mold pieces tumbled on the table, some pink, others green, and even yellow.
Zhuan Xu walked into this “medicine making room” and saw Xiao Yao intent on her work. He said nothing and stood in the corner to watch quietly. There were colorful molds strewn all over the table but the shapes were odd. Some looked like flower petals, others like leaves, he really couldn’t figure out what she was making.
Xiao Yao took out a rectangular glass plate, it was dark on both ends and white in the middle like the backdrop of an ink portrait with nothing on it.
Xiao Yao used a brush and covered the white part once with a liquid.
Xiao Yao washed her hands and then put it in the ice water for some time before wiping it with a clean cloth. She then picked up the molds from earlier and used a small paring knife to start carving the molds. She finished one and would put it on the plate as if she was painting on it.
Zhuan Xu was curious so walked over and he saw Xiao Yao’s slender fingers expertly at work and gradually the white plate was covered with a green lily frond and there was dew on it that appeared like it was about to slide off. A pink lily appeared and the yellow nectar inside formed. Within the lilies two salmon peeked out from under the water shyly.
The entire morning passed and an entire salmon frolicking in a lily pond tableau was created. Other than having no sound, everything was there, even the scent of the lilies.
Xiao Yao stared at it intently and then smiled in satisfaction.
Zhuan Xu clapped. “Scent, visuals, and taste – it’s all there. Makes me want to take a bite.”
Xiao Yao made a face at him. “It’s all poison.”
Zhuan Xu shook his head. “Can’t figure out what this weird hobby of yours is. Who makes poisons into a delicacy. Your poison making room is pretty much a kitchen.”
Xiao Yao carefully picked up the plate and put it inside a box before shutting it and wrapping it up in a cloth.
Zhuan Xu asked warily, “You can’t be giving that to someone?”
Xiao Yao laughed. “Secret.”
Zhuan Xu sighed. “I can’t decide if you like this person, or hate this person.”
After a morning of sitting Xiao Yao’s back ached and she rubbed her back and asked, “How come you have time to come watch me make poisons?”
Zhuan Xu said, “I have something to discuss with you.”
Xiao Yao got serious. “Go ahead.”
“Feng Long invited you out a couple of times and you turned him down every time?”
“Yup.” Xiao Yao’s eyes twirled and she asked, “You want me to say yes?”
Zhuan Xu nodded. Xiao Yao didn’t understand “Isn’t there Xing Yue? If you want to announce a marriage alliance, it’s enough for you to marry Xing Yue!”
“Xing Yue is Xing Yue, her last name is Sheng Nong. Feng Long is Feng Long, his last name is Chi Sui and he’s the next Chi Sui clan leader. You are you, carrying the bloodlines of the Yellow Emperor and the Grand Emperor.”
Xiao Yao furrowed her brows “You can’t be wanting me to marry Feng Long?”
“What’s wrong with Feng Long?” Zhuan Xu was confused now – Tu Shan Jing was engaged, Fang Feng Bei was a profligate spare son, compared to both guys Feng Long was so much better. He was powerful and talented with a great family background. Yet Xiao Yas would rather spend all her time with Fang Feng Bei wandering the desolate mountainside looking at wild flowers instead of going with Feng Long to regal Sheng Nong mountain to view the famed peonies.
[...]
Xiao Yao pushed Zhuan Xu out the door. “This ‘kitchen’ of mine is full of poison so when I’m not here don’t go in.”
______________________________
A dance hall, a dancer was gracefully dancing.
Xiao Yao smiled and placed a white wrapped box in front of Fang Feng Bei.
Bei glanced over it and drawled, “What’s that?”
Xiao Yao said, “You open it.”
Bei shook his cup, “I’m drinking right now.”
Xiao Yao clenched her fist – be patient, be patient, be patient! She released her fist and opened the cloth cover over the box.
Bei was still uninterested and continued drinking his wine and watching the dancer dancing.
Xiao Yao had no choice but to open the box herself. When she made it, to create the scent of the lilies she spent a lot of time on it. Right now the scent of the lilies were lost in the pungent odor of the food and the perfumes around them so it wasn’t noticeable anymore.
Xiao Yao rushed here excitedly with a whole bellyful of things she wanted to say to him. She wanted to boast about how she made the poison lilies, how she made the leaf covers, but now the entire salmon frolicking in the lilies tableau turned dim and she didn’t feel like saying anything anymore. She picked up her wine and started drinking and pouting.
Bei finally turned his gaze from the dancer to the table and checked out the tableau on the glass plate. It was delicate and full of life, the colors vibrant and the items exquisitely rendered.
Bei stared for some time before picking up a chopstick and eating a lily frond.
One bite after another, one lily frond, one salmon, one lily…..slowly he ate the entire salmon frolicking in lilies tableau.
Xiao Yao gaped at him. “You….don’t stuff yourself silly.”
Bei shot her a look and she immediately shut up.
Bei ate the final bite and put down his chopstick. He took a sip of wine and casually said, “Not bad.”
Xiao Yao stared at the empty plate and her heart soared. “The only person who can make poisons this tasty in the entire world is me!”
Bei laughed back, “And the only person in the entire world who can appreciate your great “cooking” talents is me!”
Xiao Yao sassed back, “It’s enough to have a true [zhi yin (知音)].”
Bei gave her a half-smile but said nothing.
Xiao Yao asked, “Can you continue teaching me archery now?” What she really meant to ask was – are you not angry at me anymore?
Bei finished his wine. “I need to leave for a bit, wait for me to come back.”
Xiao Yao figured he was going back to Qing Shui town. Even if there was no active warfare, he was still the General of the Sheng Nong resistance army and there was much he had to do.
Xiao Yao couldn’t help it and sighed loudly and murmured, “If only you could forever be Fang Feng Bei, that would be so great.”
Bei appeared not to have heard her as he set down his wine cup and got up to leave, his form disappearing in the layers of curtains.
The excerpts below are from a fan translation of the novel that the drama is based on.
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Chapter 2:
A month later, under Lao Mu’s arrangement, Ma Zhi and the daughter of Butcher Gao got engaged. Everything returned to normal and every day was just like before – it was so calm it was boring, it was so boring it was peaceful, it was so peaceful it was happy.
Except occasionally a mall-white condor would come find Xiao Liu, bringing something and taking away something. Xiao Liu made the poison for Xiang Liu but always held something back. Each poison was beyond deadly and it fit his requirement, but then it would have an odd color or smell. Whatever the reason, it was impossible to use it to kill a powerful person under tight protection.
Xiao Liu thought that, as time passed, Xiang Liu would come and raise a fuss but Xiang Liu appeared to not care about “color, smell, and taste” and as long as the poison met his specifications he accepted it all.
Xiao Liu used his haphazard medical and poison skills to deduce that Xiang Liu was a very unique being and his power came from using poison to train. All the poison that Xiao Liu produced was likely consumed by him.
After he figured it out, Xiao Liu breathed a sigh of relief, and then proceeded to make the most horrible tasting poison ever.
---
Eventually, the poison takes on additional meaning, as Xiao Yao puts a great deal of effort and all of her feelings into her poison creations and Xiang Liu is the only person in the world who can appreciate her skills.
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Chapter 16:
Xiao Yao started spending more time developing her poisons. Late into the night, she would lay on the pallet playing with her poisons and thinking of how to make it even better in terms of prettier and not necessarily more poisonous.
She had memorized the Sheng Nong Herb Manuel left by the Flame Emperor, who the entire world regarded as the progenitor of medicine. She also flipped through all the Gao Xing and Xuan Yuan medical books. She didn’t doubt her poison's ability to be deadly, she just wanted to make it look pretty. She stared at the phoenix flower and researched a few days and worked a few nights and finally created a perfect replica of the small red phoenix flower with the same intoxicating fragrance. She made the poison layered on it like the morning dew.
Every one of her poisons was one of her longing, one of her missing, one of her feelings. She created it and watched it come to life in her hands, and then carefully put it away to send out.
Xiao Yao wondered what Xiang Liu would think when he saw the poisons? Would he call her a weirdo pervert?
Xiao Yao put the finished poisons in boxes and went to the messenger service run by the Tu Shan clan and handed it to them. “Deliver this to the Qing Shui Town brothel.”
Xiao Yao paid the expensive price to deliver it to the edge of Xuan Yuan and didn’t blink an eye since it wasn’t her money.
This was Xiao Yao’s solution to deal with Xiang Liu. The entire world was covered with the Tu Shan messenger network so if Xiao Yao had money then she could send it to Qing Shui Town. She had been sending him poisons every 3-4 months, the last time sent from Gao Xing. She wondered if Xiang Liu got it? He ought to, otherwise with his petty personality, no matter how busy he was he would find time to cause her trouble.
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Chapter 19:
Bei ate the final bite and put down his chopstick. He took a sip of wine and casually said, “Not bad.”
Xiao Yao stared at the empty plate and her heart soared, “The only person who can make poisons this tasty in the entire world is me!”
Bei laughed back, “And the only person in the entire world who can appreciate your great “cooking” talents is me!”
Xiao Yao sassed back, “It’s enough to have a true [zhi yin (知音)*].”
Bei gave her a half-smile but said nothing.
Xiao Yao asked, “Can you continue teaching me archery now?” What she really meant to ask was – are you not angry at me anymore?
Bei finished his wine. “I need to leave for a bit, wait for me to come back.”
Xiao Yao figured he was going back to Qing Shui town. Even if there was no active warfare, he was still the General of the Sheng Nong resistance army and there was much he had to do.
Xiao Yao couldn’t help it and sighed loudly and murmured, “If only you can forever be Fang Feng Bei, that would be so great.”
Bei appeared not to have heard her as he set down his wine cup and got up to leave, his form disappearing in the layers of curtains.
---
* This phrase alludes to a Chinese fable about Boya and Ziqi. It literally translates as "know sound" but is used to convey a particular kind of relationship between two people, such as soulmates, bosom friends, or people who are completely on the same wavelength.
The translator who translated that word for the subtitles for the corresponding scene in the drama (S1 ep 27) chose to translate it as "confidant". The fan who translated the novel chose to translate that word as "soulmate".
Fans have discussed the meaning of this phrase in more detail here: https://mydramalist.com/discussions/lost-you-forever/110123-xl-and-xy-story-and-romance-warning-spoilers?pid=2939211&page=453#p2939211
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Chapter 46:
“Xiang Liu’s powers come from ingesting all types of poisons to train. There is no poison in the world that can take him down, so his blood is now the world’s most poisonous thing.”
Zhuan Xu’s heart sank and his face turned ashen.
Feng Long forced a smile at Xiao Yao. “So even you can’t find an antidote for it?”
For the past hundred years she tried every method to fell Xiang Liu with poison, giving him the hardest to find poisons to take him down. If she could counter his blood poison then Xiang Liu would have already been poisoned by her. Xiao Yao’s face was stark white and her voice shook. “I…..I….I’ll do my best!” She claimed to have top medical skills, but who knew the day would come that she would have to watch a friend die.
With that intense combination of emotions, I couldn't help but cry. Dramas don't get me like that very often.
As much as I love the term zhiji and the way it recognizes how valuable it is to have a person who gets / understands you, the extra levels of meaning behind zhiyin and the way it fits XY and XL is just... chef's kiss.
She posted about it here: https://mydramalist.com/discussions/lost-you-forever/110123-xl-and-xy-story-and-romance-warning-spoilers?pid=2938615&page=453#p2938615
And I posted more about it (and the legend of Boya and Ziqi) here: https://mydramalist.com/discussions/lost-you-forever/110123-xl-and-xy-story-and-romance-warning-spoilers?pid=2939211&page=453#p2939211
I'm very attached to the novel version of events and for the most part I dislike instances where the drama departs from it, but I really did appreciate that the boat scene gave XL the opportunity to hear WXL say "他很好" about XL in a context where WXL didn't know she was speaking to XL so XL could believe that she genuinely meant what she said and she really did think of him in a positive light.
Like, HHJ directly told the male lead that him disappearing was her nightmare. And she and the male lead confessed their feelings for each other and agreed to have a real marriage with new terms in their marriage contract. And HIA told the male lead that HHJ knew that he was not the real Baek Sa Eon and that Baek Jang Ho arranged the car crash to keep that secret hidden, and HHJ didn't care about it. She knew everything and still risked her life to save the male lead.
With all of those changes in the drama, it really didn't make sense for the male lead to still run away to Argan (without saying anything to HHJ!) like he did in the novel.
Yes, in the novel, HIA knew what the original Baek Sa Eon looked like and after the male lead replaced him she could tell that he was a different person (i.e., that he wasn't the real Baek Sa Eon). She made the mistake of saying something about it in front of Baek Jang Ho. After the car crash, HIA was smart enough to realize that the car crash was orchestrated to kill her or scare her into silence. So she knew that the male lead was not the real male lead and she also knew how far the Baek family was willing to go to keep the secret from the beginning, and that was why she didn't want to marry the male lead and tried to call off the long-planned wedding when it became imminent.
HIA in the novel is pretty similar to HIA in the drama in terms of her ambiguous vibes and the scale of her role. I never felt like she was potential competition for the female lead role. But the two main differences were that novel!HIA knew the male lead wasn't the real Baek Sa Eon from the beginning and when she returned to South Korea (after getting ear surgery abroad) she took a job as a reporter for a rival news agency (not her family's agency).
In the drama, it looked like they made Hong Yu Jin (the half brother) older than he was in the novel when he died. In the novel, his first birthday party was celebrated in the Hong family household some time after HHJ's mother married Chairman Hong and she and HHJ joined the household. It seemed implied that Chairman Hong married HHJ's mother because she had (or was pregnant with) his son. HHJ had at least one birthday (that went uncelebrated, as HHJ's mother didn't want to call attention to the fact that she was not Chairman Hong's biological daughter) in the Hong household before the accident, but it seemed like the accident happened not that long after HHJ joined the Hong household, and the accident occurred on her birthday (her ninth or tenth birthday*). So presumably it occurred on the day of the second birthday that she had after she joined the Hong household. So Hong Yu Jin was most likely either 1 (if his birthday comes after HHJ's, and he was less than 1 at the time of her uncelebrated 9th birthday and then turned 1 between her 9th and 10th birthdays and died on her 10th birthday) or 2 (if Hong Yu Jin's birthday comes before HHJ's, and he was already 1 at the time of her 9th birthday and turned 2 before he died on her 10th birthday) when he was killed in the car crash in the novel.
* The novel is a bit confusing on this point, because HHJ still had her voice / wasn't pretending to be mute yet the first time she met the male lead (she sang for him) and she told the male lead that she was nine at that time. But the novel also says that HHJ was nine when she first started going to the sign language centre, which presumably happened after the accident, even though the accident (and her half-brother's death) occurred on her birthday, so HHJ should have been at least 10 when she went to the sign language centre for the first time.
I assume the drama writers decided to age up Hong Yu Jin and have him be the one who saw the real Baek Sa Eon (instead of HIA) so that they could have HIA discover the truth more gradually and then build HHJ's discovery of the truth on top of HIA's discovery. Because in the novel, HHJ doesn't find out anything about the male lead's true identity until he reveals everything to the world in one go, right before faking his death and disappearing.
As for Baek Jang Ho and the male lead's mother... I think it would be possible for Baek Jang Ho to get the mother safely out of the picture without murdering her. She might've died in childbirth or from some other natural cause. Or, if she didn't die, she might not have wanted to raise the unacknowledged secret baby of a 70 year old man. She might've been perfectly willing to take a huge payoff to walk away, without knowing where the baby ended up. If that was the case, she wouldn't really have posed much of a threat as a loose end, because she likely would not have had enough information to expose his lies when it came to the swap. To protect himself, Baek Jang Ho might even have made her sign an NDA in exchange for her hush money payment, so that she would be financially ruined if she exposed the fact that she gave birth to his illegitimate son. That was the only info she would've had that could have posed any kind of threat to Baek Jang Ho.
Also, Baek Jang Ho did not personally drive the truck that caused the car crash that killed Hong Yu Jin and caused HIA's deafness. He paid for another man to drive the truck. In the drama, Chairman Hong told Baek Jang Ho that he personally chased that man (the hired assassin / driver) all the way to the Philippines, where the man finally confessed that Baek Jang Ho was the one who paid him to do it.
I'm not saying I think Baek Jang Ho is not capable of killing a woman. I'm saying he likely would not have felt that killing the male lead's mother was necessary / the right choice to serve his needs in the circumstances and he's not the type of person who would kill her unless he felt it was necessary.
I hope you enjoy the novel! There are many steamy scenes to look forward to. ^^
Yes, it's hard to picture Sang-Hoon with a baby or a toddler. I also find it hard to imagine him raising the real Baek Sa Eon when he was a teenager. Imagine how difficult it would be to deal with an extremely moody 17 year old version of the kidnapper.
Hmm. Baek Jang Ho tried to murder his grandson and didn't seem to feel any remorse after he thought he succeeded, because he felt that Baek Sa Eon posed a threat to the Baek family's reputation and killing him was necessary to protect himself, his legacy and the family. He also orchestrated the car crash that caused HIA's deafness and killed Hong Yu Jin (HHJ and HIA's half brother) for similar reasons (i.e., to silence the Hong sibling that knew too much about what the real Baek Sa Eon looked like to the point of being able to recognize that the male lead was a different person - in the novel that was HIA and in the drama that was Hong Yu Jin).
To be honest, I can't really picture Baek Jang Ho murdering the male lead's mother unless she posed some kind of threat to him / his reputation, similar to how the real Baek Sa Eon's issues and murder spree posed a threat to him and his family's reputation and the Hong sibling who saw the real Baek Sa Eon posed a threat because they would be able to reveal the swap. It didn't seem like Baek Jang Ho killed because he wanted to kill or because he felt driven to kill, the way Baek Sa Eon did. When Baek Jang Ho killed, he did it for a reason and he did it carefully.
Yes, the novel is definitely darker than the drama, and I do think the characters are a bit more complex in the novel.
Separately, the male lead's parents wanted to keep the identity of the male lead's wife a secret because the public originally was told that he would be marrying the Hong family's eldest daughter, HIA. It would be scandalous if the public found out that he swapped out the bride and actually married the Hong family's youngest daughter, and that scandal might hurt the male lead's father's political campaign to become the next president of South Korea.
In the novel at least, it seemed like the fisherman was a somewhat harsh man.
From chapter 58 (which includes a flashback to three years after the male lead took over the real BSE's identity, when he would've been about 15), we know that the fisherman's name is Sang-Hoon.
In chapter 56 (which includes a flashback to when the male lead was 12 and still living with Sang-Hoon), Sang-Hoon is described as "reticent" and in chapter 58 he is described as "cold" and "indifferent". In chapter 56, it sounded like Baek Jang Ho considered Sang-Hoon to be the kind of man who could easily get his fingers cut off because he chased after the wrong woman.
From chapter 56, we know that Baek Jang Ho was the only customer of Sang-Hoon's fish farm / fishing grounds and that, as far as the male lead can remember, the male lead first met Baek Jang Ho when Baek Jang Ho visited Sang-Hoon's fishing grounds when the male lead was 12 years old. It sounded like it was around this time that the real BSE's troubling behaviour began to escalate up to murder, and Baek Jang Ho soon started using the fishing grounds as a place to dump the bodies. Based on how he looked at the male lead, this is also around the time that Baek Jang Ho started to seriously think about using the male lead as a replacement for his grandson.
Perhaps Baek Jang Ho paid Sang-Hoon to help him dispose of things (like evidence from his own crimes / illegal dealings) long before he needed to dispose of the bodies of his grandson's murder victims? So when he had an illegitimate son, perhaps he felt that Sang-Hoon was someone with whom he could safely leave the boy and that Sang-Hoon (someone who was effectively his employee who lived alone and didn't normally interact with others) could be trusted to keep the secret. As Baek Jang Ho already visited that area to go fishing regularly, if he decided that he wanted to visit / check up on his illegitimate son at some point, it would be easy for him to do so during a fishing trip without raising anyone's suspicion about where he was or who he was meeting with.
It's a little hard to picture Sang-Hoon dealing with a newborn though. Maybe the male lead was initially raised by his mother as an infant, but then she left the picture for some reason when he was too young for him to remember her (maybe she died, maybe Baek Jang Ho bribed her to leave the country, maybe she wanted to start a relationship with someone else) and Baek Jang Ho transferred the male lead to Sang-Hoon's care at that point. If that was the case, it definitely would have been very early in the male lead's life, because he had no memory of living anywhere else before he lived with Sang-Hoon and he believed that Sang-Hoon was his father for a long time. He only figured out the truth shortly before Baek Jang Ho's death.
Or maybe Sang-Hoon did raise the male lead from infancy. Perhaps the male lead's mother was Sang-Hoon's sister, who became Baek Jang Ho's mistress after he started visiting the fishing grounds. And perhaps she died in childbirth, at which point Baek Jang Ho decided to leave the child unnamed and in Sang-Hoon's care.
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Chapter 56:
The first time he met the white-haired Representative Baek Jang-ho was when he was twelve, during a day spent in silent company with his reticent father.
The boy had no name. He was born near the water, where his father, a fisherman, lived in a shabby shack by the fishing grounds. The place reeked of fish.
By the lake in the early morning, his father spent his days meticulously cleaning his fishing rods, threading wriggling worms onto hooks—day after day. The fishing grounds had only one customer: Representative Baek Jang-ho.
Every time Baek Jang-ho came, he would scrutinize the boy’s body and face, as if measuring how much he’d grown. Although his face remained expressionless, the boy, with his sharp intuition, could sense a strange mixture of satisfaction and unease beneath the old man’s gaze. At first, he didn’t understand what it meant.
Nevertheless, his father always bowed his head first and occasionally joined Baek Jang-ho on a boat for long trips.
“Father, did you and that old man throw something into the river?”
“...!”
Under his father’s silent gaze, the boy added, “I saw it. You threw something in.”
“Don’t ask questions.”
“But Father—”
“I’m not your father. Don’t call me that.”
“……”
His father mechanically continued to thread worms onto hooks.
I’m just a fisherman, nothing more.
Even if he was a discarded child, it was likely he would grow up to be just like this man—thick-bearded, broad-built, threading worms onto hooks at the water’s edge.
---
One day, Baek Jang-ho brought another boy, an upper elementary student.
“This is my grandson.”
The boy, about the same age as him, smiled brightly.
“I’ll steer the boat today. Can I borrow one?”
His father nodded silently.
As the boat drifted across the water, the boy ran along the hill. It was a circular lake, so no matter how far he went, the water’s path was the same.
Plop—!
He saw a large bag sink into the river. Once it submerged, it never resurfaced.
Is it filled with rocks?
After that, the grandfather and grandson came every weekend. Each time, they tossed a heavy bag into the water. The grandson always laughed cheerfully, while Baek Jang-ho’s expression grew darker and darker.
Over time, the boy grew accustomed to their strange behavior.
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Chapter 58:
One day, he overheard a conversation while Baek Jang-ho was on the phone.
"Close the fishing ground now."
"…!"
He paused mid-step as he descended the stairs.
"There’s no more evidence to discard there, and the people living there are gone. Reclaim it as private property. By the way, has Sang-hoon been found yet?"
Sang-hoon—he was the cold, indifferent caretaker of the fishing ground.
"Sigh… Forget it. He probably lost his fingers chasing after some woman he loved. No need to track him down anymore."
A flicker of unease appeared in the boy’s eyes.
Since entering adolescence, his emotions often surged like tides, and today was no different. But why was it so unbearable this time? His chest felt as though it were being crushed, making it impossible to breathe.
The boy bolted out the back door, walking aimlessly, guided only by instinct to a place he knew all too well.
Dark. Damp.
As though searching for the origin of his life, he hid in the shadows.
And then, an epiphany struck.
"I always knew I’d come back one day."
His heart pounded violently, the sound reverberating in his ears. He had always vaguely thought he’d return to his hometown someday. Yes, his hometown—the place where he truly lived.
But there was nothing left of it now.
The place, the people—they were all gone, leaving him hollow inside.
Finally, he became aware of the shell he was wrapped in.
Fake.
Everything was a lie.
The past three years came flooding back like an avalanche. He wanted to scream until his throat bled but could only clench his fists tightly.
His mind roiled, his eyes cold as winter, unsure of how to deal with the feelings surging within him. He simply stood there, powerless.