I Became the Eldest Daughter of a Fallen Family - Chapter 70

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 70. Have You Ever Heard of Patent Rights? (1)
Perhaps there existed in this world talents of such desperate magnitude that no amount of effort could overcome them.
It had been about a week since So Yeon-hui arrived at this new understanding.
Jang tapped So Yeon-hui on the shoulder as she hoisted the rice pot onto the broad table.
“Leave the table setting to me today, child. You go ahead and show our new guests to their quarters. We can hardly have such distinguished visitors dining alongside the laborers, now can we?”
As if a minor official’s rank was so consequential that commoners couldn’t share a meal with them.
Her modern sensibilities—those of someone raised in an egalitarian society—bristled at the thought, but when she glanced around, she saw that Hong held the same view, her distinctive raspy voice already chiming in agreement.
“Quite right! The Rules of Social Hierarchy exist for a reason. How could laborers and the gentry dine together? Such a thing is absolutely unthinkable!”
Yet hadn’t the So Household’s own family been sharing meals with other commoners far too often already?
So Yeon-hui tilted her head thoughtfully, then lowered her voice to speak.
“But we’ve been eating together with others without distinction all this time. If we prepare separate tables just for them, won’t they feel excluded instead? It might seem as though we’re trying to exclude them.”
“Ex-exclude them? What a strange way to put it! I’m merely trying to uphold the proper order of things.”
Hong faltered, her voice dropping to a murmur.
Jang’s eyes went wide as she stared at So Yeon-hui, her expression asking plainly: ‘Are you in your right mind?’
But So Yeon-hui’s mouth, once opened to speak the truth, could not easily be closed.
She glanced toward where Ju Ha-yoon sat, tilting her chin in that direction, and continued.
“But look at how they’re dressed. If they wanted to reveal their Royal Family status, they’d have arrived surrounded by attendants, all pomp and circumstance. From the looks of it, today they wanted to play at being common folk, to blend in. Wouldn’t special treatment offend them more than simply sharing a meal would?”
The bluntness—bordering on rudeness—of her words left both women staring at her in slack-jawed silence.
Yet So Yeon-hui remained unflinching.
She wasn’t wrong, after all.
What she meant was something like this:
“Haha! Our company values a very young, horizontal working relationship! Don’t worry too much about me being your superior—relax, all of you. Relax, yes? You understand, right?”
This was the sort of middle-aged company president, freshly graduated young employees just entering society, who desperately wanted to fit in with them.
Of course, this talk of “valuing a young, horizontal relationship” didn’t mean the president was permitting overtime work.
But treating the president as someone frighteningly formal and showering them with special treatment was its own path to being disliked.
In other words: ‘Include me like a regular employee at company dinners and leisure outings, but treat me with proper respect at all other times.’
It was the kind of contradictory demand—like ordering a hot iced Americano—that made no sense. But what could one do?
Such was the psychology of the privileged.
“So let’s not invite trouble. We’ll share the meal, but our family keeps close watch. Or rather, observation, shall we say?”
“Close… observation?”
“Yes. We dine together at the same table, but we subtly protect them from the middle, ensuring the others—who don’t know their status—don’t commit any rudeness toward them.”
It was rather like providing security so discreet that even the protected wouldn’t notice.
It sounded exhausting—the kind of plan that made you forget whether rice was going into your mouth or your nose—but what choice did they have?
Better to manage this than have the neighbors arrested for insulting the Royal Family.
Perhaps So Yeon-hui’s words had held enough merit?
Jang and Hong exchanged determined glances, their eyes gleaming, before slowly nodding their agreement.
“Very well. We’ll lay out seating in the center of the courtyard. The two guests will sit on the east side, and the neighbors—including the Shim family—on the west.”
“And our family will sit in the middle?”
“Yes. Ideally, I’d like you, So Yeon-su, and So Yeon-u to sit on the Shim family side.”
Jang explained the seating strategy to So Yeon-hui with the grave expression of someone planning a top-secret operation.
So Yeon-hui was about to adopt an equally serious demeanor when—
The twins, apparently tired of watching the chicken coop, came racing over with flushed cheeks and grabbed at Jang’s skirts, shouting.
“Grandmother, Mother! Isn’t lunch coming yet? We’re so hungry!”
“If there’s anything to help with, I can do it! I’m really good at setting the table!”
As if those small frames could actually help anyone.
But before such cheerful innocence, all tension dissolved. Jang finally relaxed and laughed, shaking her head.
“Go lay out the straw mats and bamboo compartmented trays in the courtyard first. The food comes after.”
“Yay! I’ll be right back!”
“So Yeon-u, don’t run! You’ll fall and hurt yourself!”
So Yeon-su’s sharp voice called after her twin, but So Yeon-u was already far ahead, racing away.
Soon after, So Yeon-su’s skirts billowed in the wind as she chased her twin.
Heedless of her leggings showing, she tore across the courtyard like any careless child.
‘Really, if I just watch those two, I can’t stop smiling.’
Without those two, how desolate this remote mountain village exile would have been.
So Yeon-hui realized anew how much her family owed to the twins’ innocent charm.
And perhaps, she thought, her own mother had felt something similar about her long ago.
‘She must have sought what comfort she could find in watching a child grow as a child should.’
Though her body suffered, she had wished for at least her heart to be at peace, and so had shouldered everything alone.
‘How foolish. She could have chosen an easier path for both body and heart. Why was she so stubborn about suffering?’
Watching her mother hoist entire containers of side dishes onto the table after the rice pot, So Yeon-hui felt something tighten in her chest and forced it down.
Jang lifted the heavy pot lid without a single complaint.
Sweat trickled down her neck, but she didn’t even pause to wipe it with her sleeve, as though she couldn’t afford to waste a moment’s rest.
Looking at her much longer would make So Yeon-hui cry for no good reason.
So she turned away and walked toward the cart parked in front of the barn, finally retrieving the second secret weapon she had hidden there.
“What? What is that metal dish? It looks like a tray, but with so many ridges—it’s quite unusual.”
Jang, who had grown anxious watching her daughter struggling with the heavy metal object, squinted—then her eyes flew wide open as she saw what So Yeon-hui was holding, and she gasped.
How could her mood not lift at such a vivid reaction? So Yeon-hui straightened her shoulders and answered proudly.
“This is what I call a compartmented tray. It’s a very precious plate that will cut dishwashing dramatically!”
It could hold rice, soup, and four side dishes all at once?
Her mother left a handprint on So Yeon-hui’s back for buying such an expensive metal dish for such a reason, but So Yeon-hui didn’t mind.
Wasn’t it far better to have these shiny compartmented trays piled up at home than to watch her mother bent over the water well every day, too busy scrubbing endless mountains of dishes to stand up straight?
“Just try it for a week. Your whole quality of life will change, I promise.”
With just rice and soup, each person needed two bowls—that was at least twelve bowls total.
During the construction work, they had to prepare at least nine, sometimes twelve servings, and with side dishes included, the number of dishes to wash often exceeded twenty.
She didn’t even want to think about the evening after the roof-raising ceremony.
Without a dishwasher, they’d foolishly used so many dishes that her mother had crouched by the water well washing them until sunset.
So she had made a firm decision and purchased the compartmented tray to avoid such suffering in the future.
“Wh-what exactly is that thing?”
The intended recipient of the compartmented tray—her mother—seemed rather unimpressed, but curiously, someone else had begun to show interest.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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