There Is No Hidden Villain in This Novel Chapter 60

When the medical professor, who had been looking down at me with a troubled expression, stepped out for a moment, Ryuseong asked.

“Is this a situation where you can’t trust the butler?”

Uh, Ryuseong makes it sound like the situation is really serious, but there’s nothing serious going on. It’s just that I simply can’t trust the butler anymore. It’s because of the pharmacist behind that talisman I learned about through the butler.

No, it’s just unsettling. Why would he disguise a restorative tonic as an antidote and make me take it?

‘If he keeps doing that, couldn’t he also secretly mix in poison and make me take it?’

At this rate, the medical professor, whom Ryuseong said was a trustworthy person, seemed more reliable. The lawful good protagonist has certified him?

‘Ah, I have to believe this.’

That was just the conclusion I came to, but when I told him calmly, Ryuseong made a strange face. He looked, perhaps, sad.

‘…Why?’

What, what’s the problem?

‘Am I being stupid and not getting it again today?’

…I am, in fact, a little stupid. I’m the destroyer who came to shatter the myth of credentialism, personally proving that not everyone who got into Korea University is smart. But you know. That doesn’t mean I’m very stupid.

It’s something I felt even when I was living as Jung Ian. It’s not that I’m unperceptive, but I can’t say I’ve never felt that I’m strangely out of sync with people.

I’m someone who enjoys laughing and chatting with people, so there’s no way I wouldn’t notice the foreignness that creeps into the texture of conversations or the momentary, ambiguous silences. So, what’s clear is that I’m not very stupid.

The problem is that it’s not that I’m not stupid either, so I don’t know what to say to avoid facing situations like this.

If I opened my mouth wrong or reacted wrongly, everyone would give an ambiguous smile or a sad expression. They probably thought I was miserable.

‘I’m not.’

I’m fucking happy. I said I’m happy. Not only is there no reason for me not to be happy, but every day is fun. It’s enjoyable and funny. Can’t you see just by looking at how I pursue pleasure with all my might? Can’t you just think that I’m just unperceptive and make a misstep sometimes? Do you have to pity me like I’m some pathetic creature?

‘I have my fucking pride.’

I’m not going to be a pitiful human trapped in tragedy. I’m fine. I’m perfectly fine. I’m not hurt, and I’m not bad. This is about average. Even if it’s not, so what? Don’t look down on me. Don’t underestimate me either…

Still, you know, a person. I think it’s irresistible that a heart that was unexpectedly about to bristle would be calmed by a hand patting my chest…

The way the fingers run through my hair, or the way the hand pats slowly in time with my breathing. There’s nothing awkward about any of it, so it’s hard to even get angry, you know.

I stared back at the deep blue eyes looking down at me in the stillness for a long time. I wanted to dig out the deep-seated pity in your pupils with my fingernails and sever your optic nerves, but then I thought that if your eyes, sparkling like a will-o’-the-wisp, were no longer brilliant, from that point on, I might become a little sad. Such thoughts made me drift off into an uncomfortable sleep even while getting an IV, forcing my drowsy eyes open. And then I ended up having a fucking dream again. Haha.

‘Fuck…’

As I took a breath, I felt like I was falling into a soft cloud. Unlike the thought that it would catch me softly like a cotton quilt, I plummeted as if jelly were crumbling. Isn’t there an illusion of falling endlessly when you miss a step on the stairs? That sensation sent a chill down my spine and made the bones in my whole body rattle, then scattered in an instant and invited me into a new space.

It was easy to realize it was a dream. Unlike the first dream, this dream unfolded in a field I was familiar with.

For instance, the mansion from my current life, when I lived as Jung Ian, shall we say?

“Hyung! Over here. Come here!”

…I can hear the laughter of children. It’s the scent of spring, with the sun shining down comfortably. As I stood still and watched them, a smile formed on my lips without me realizing.

Bright and healthy. As if it had never been otherwise, they were full.

That was right. I knew what a happy family was.

‘Just as the first sentence of the book Anna Karenina was this.’

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Tolstoy is a genius. A great author’s insight. That’s right. Happy families are alike. They fulfill at least all three conditions.

‘First, money.’

It’s a chaebol family. Do I need to say more? The entrepreneur who had accumulated prosperous wealth and honor was passing down the business through generations and expanding it. The mansion was as rich and luxurious as any palace, but at the same time, it was classy and elegant. It was a crystallization of aesthetics, where a discerning eye had consistently worked in the design and management process.

My mother, who had been the head designer of a luxury brand in her youth, did not allow even the slightest deviation in her command of the employees, but at the same time, she was benevolent. Even if someone tearfully requested a sudden leave of absence on the same day, saying they had to go down to the countryside because a parent had fallen ill, she would first hold the person’s dirty hands and say this. Calm down. Of course, I’ll give you leave, but which hospital is your father in? Then she would send up her own helicopter to transport the group’s family doctor and the employee together. It was news that could not fail to bring tears to anyone’s eyes. When she heard the news of his recovery, she patted her chest in relief, and when he said he would return to work immediately, she was strict.

‘The place you need to be right now is not my house, but by your father’s side.’

My mother always said that if you have money, taking care of your own people is what having face is all about. She said she felt sorry for the world sometimes because she wasn’t good-natured enough to take care of things beyond her reach, but treating the people she hired poorly was something only a nouveau riche bastard who didn’t deserve to have money would do. My mother, who married into our group that sways the Republic of Korea, was from an old British noble family, and perhaps because of that, she firmly instilled the concept of noblesse oblige in her children.

Therefore, the second condition is this.

‘Correct values.’

It’s unsightly for someone who has a lot of money not to realize it and claim to be poor. But a person who acknowledges they have a lot of money and takes responsibility for their people accordingly is cool. My mother showed that, and my father introduced another kind of adult figure to his children.

My father was a remarkably capable entrepreneur. He introduced his children to how far they could develop and advance. He showed them the foundation he had built and told them the directions they would advance in the future.

If my mother taught them generosity, my father cultivated their ambition.

Parents who show the power their children will gradually come to have as they grow up, and therefore also tell them the reason why they must be generous.

Therefore, the third condition is…

‘Love.’

…It can only be that.

There is no way they could pour out the values and concepts they believe to be right, precious, and important without loving them.

They always whispered love in sweet words, and their gazes were so tender they could melt. As if it were a waste to even take a bite of something soft and sweet, they would put it whole in their mouths and gently roll it around, that’s how they poured out their love. The children were no different; even after fighting and bickering, they would eventually put forth consideration. If someone fell and scraped their knee, it was their life to burst into tears along with them. A kind and gentle warmth was the share of those who cared for each other. This must be the model of a happy family. The peace of the home was always warm.

I wished time and again for it to last forever. It didn’t matter if I wasn’t there.

No, rather, I had to be gone.

The scene of the sunlight sparkling like gold was so beautiful, no impurities should be allowed to get in. Just by looking at them, I could be filled with joy as if I had tasted sweet honey. So the answer was set.

If it’s a family where peace comes only when I’m gone.

Then I just have to disappear.

“…Hah!”

I opened my eyes with a suppressed scream.

To be precise, my eyelids went up. My vision was still white, and after my shoulders twitched as if I were having a seizure and I realized my limbs were moving, only then did my vision slowly return.

What was in front of me was not the ceiling of the nurse’s office. It looked like the dormitory room. An IV was connected to my arm, and when I turned my head, the view outside the window was filled with twilight.

It was dawn. The darkest sky just before the break of dawn was greeting me.

The air was chilly, and there was no one beside me. It was just like my life, and it gave me a sense of stability. Come to think of it, isn’t Cassis de Millang’s life like that too? The body I came to possess was also living a life with no one by its side, just like me.

Just that realization alone made me feel somewhat stable, but of all times, at that very moment.

In that instant.

“You’re awake?”

As if it were nothing, Ryuseong got up.

He wasn’t in his own bed, but had lined up four chairs next to my bed, and he was rubbing his eyes with his hair all messy as if he had woken up from dozing off under a blanket…

It makes me feel like I’m going to fucking waver.