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She was a smart girl from an early age. Therefore, she quickly realized that in her family she was destined to marry an influential man in order to strengthen her family’s position in society even more. There was nothing unusual about this, but such management of her own life did not satisfy her ambitions that accumulated every year.
She didn't want to get married. She didn't need a family hearth to keep warm, no screaming children, no husband with whom she had to share a bed. But there was no other choice to escape from the rules, from that cage that was suffocating her. If she was lucky, as she thought, her husband would not prevent her from pursuing her own ideas, but try to find a man for whom the daughter of the lord of the Tang family would not simply be the best deal of his life.
No, Soso was sure that her father would make sure that her future husband respected her as a woman, but the elders... Her voice did not matter to them.
So cruel.
If she had been born a boy, she would not have had to endure so many things. There would be no tired rules of etiquette, there would not be so many layers of heavy multi-layered dresses and the same jewellery, there would not be that attitude on the part of other people who saw in her only a pretty doll that could be dressed the way they wanted.
Soso did not want to spend her life locked up. Her heart was screaming for something more.
And she first saw this more in Cheong Myeong, a handsome young man, albeit several years younger than her. But his status, his result of sparring with her father, gave her hope to change everything in her life.
She will force him to take her as his wife. She will wear her best dress, put on her best jewellery, make herself even more beautiful with makeup and hairstyle, and strictly follow the rules of etiquette in order to gain his attention.
But he did not see her as a lover or a wife.
She beat herself over the head for so long, thought for so long, but no more ideas came to her. She did not want to lift the hem of her dress with her own hands alone with him, she did not intend to lose her self-esteem.
When the light of hope seemed to fade, Yoo Iseol, so strong and confident, gave her another idea. And Soso took up this thread.
And she learned what freedom is.
There were no servants running around, no etiquette teachers who could hit her with a pointer either on her incorrectly folded hands or on her slightly hunched back, no heavy dresses, no similar decorations, no prohibitions.
She could finally do what she wanted, she could become strong.
And so it was. Her strength grew, her character became stronger.
But one thing did not change, it would be more accurate to say, the person. Her sahyeon did not change at all, he behaved like some kind of robber, but still worked hard for several dozen people in the sect.
Soso, as a doctor, sighed quietly, but could not resist anything, because even the sect leader and elders did not come up with anything to ease his burden in the near future.
One late night, having finished several jars of ointments, she left the medical hall and, out of pure curiosity, headed to the financial hall to see who had been sitting so long on the documents. Perhaps this “someone” managed to fall asleep at the table, which was not very good for the back.
Creeping up to the door, the girl looked through a small crack and saw the back of a familiar man who was reading something out of ledgers, then writing something on a separate piece of paper and reading again, but this time from another ledger that lay open on the table. There, a white marten was curled up in a ball, which, apparently, was deeply asleep and did not disturb its owner in any way. It didn't take a genius to figure out who was so diligently poring over the documents.
Soso knocked on the door even though she knew that Jun Myung had long ago learned that she was standing there. This weirdo had extreme sensitivity to the energies around him.
“Why are not you sleeping?” he asked her the question first, without looking up from his notes when the girl entered the room and closed the door behind her. “Don’t think that I’ll be lenient during morning training just because you went to bed late.”
“I needed to finish preparing the ointments,” Soso answered and sat down on a chair that stood against the wall. After her words, the young man did not reproach her, because he understood the importance of medicine. He understood this all too well. “Staying so long on documents so that you can then go to your training is not good for you, sahyeon.”
The girl sighed, and he put another completely filled sheet of paper into a high pile, and two ledgers into another.
“How long do you sleep now? An hour or two?” he silently continued his work. Even the marten raised her head and sleepily looked at two people, but at one person with great reproach. “Sahyeon.”
“Soso, go to sleep,” he said in a stern tone, but did not turn to face her.
“Can’t the finance room take care of the ledgers?!” she couldn’t resist and raised her voice, jumping up from her chair, almost knocking it over onto the floor. “Sahyeon! You..! I treat every scratch so that infection does not penetrate there, but... what can I do if you yourself create the conditions for illness?!”
“Soso...”
“Shut up!” she interrupted him and only then realized that tears were streaming down her cheeks, and a quiet sob, to which the surprised Jun Myung finally turned to her, escaped from her clenched throat. She did not look him in the eye, but stared at her clenched white fists. “You know?! I lived like a doll in the Tang estate! Everyone talked to me about my life as if everything was already planned out. But! Suddenly you, sago and other guys came. They... You have changed both mine and the lives of others in my family.”
Soso wiped away her snot with her sleeve, not worrying about manners or etiquette.
“You were even able to revive my father! You have no idea how much this means to me. But! What will we all do if your life suddenly ends?! Or will you become deathly ill?! Not all diseases can be cured! And you..!”
“Tang Soso,” Cheong Myeong, who was already standing in front of her at full height, firmly called her. For some reason, his figure was more impressive than during the day. The girl heard him sigh softly before she felt a scarred and calloused hand pat her by the hair on the top of her head. “There’s a reason why... I do this. It's just better that none of you know this. For your safety, for your lives, for your well-being.”
“Are we really that unreliable for you?!” she muttered through tightly clenched teeth, and a new wave of tears rolled down her cheeks.
“No, I trust and appreciate you all,” he wouldn’t have said these words if he hadn’t seen how the girl in front of him was shaking and shedding waves of tears that had accumulated over a long time. “And that’s why... I’m afraid. I have no desire to see you die simply for what you found out.”
He ran his hand over the top of her head once more soothingly and returned to the table.
“Perhaps the time will come and you will find out everything. Or it will stay with me until I die.”
“Sahyeon...”
“Go to sleep, Soso. Tomorrow will be a hard day.”
As the door slowly closed behind her, Soso wiped the remaining tears and snot on her face with her sleeves and ran towards the dorm.
Perhaps if she tells everything to the sago, sasuks and sahyeons, then Cheong Myeong will at least listen to her and the others a little?