I’m a Mother-in-Law, but I Dislike Conflict with My Daughter-in-Law - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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I’m a Mother-in-Law, But I Don’t Want Family Conflicts Episode 1

0. Prologue

The first banquet after her debutante ball.

Ilina, the proud young lady of the Millize Family, was fully prepared to attract more attention than anyone else.

She tightened her corset with all her might, pinned her hair up firmly, and hung a gold necklace studded with jewels around her exposed nape.

Ruby-studded hairpins, large pearl earrings, high and slender stiletto heels… there wasn’t a single detail from head to toe that she hadn’t carefully attended to.

Ilina was confident. No, she had to be.

Her fiancé Hans was also attending today’s banquet.

She recalled her father’s sharp voice reminding her not to bring shame to her fiancé’s family.

She also remembered her mother’s admiring gaze when looking at Hans’s mother, Baroness Chaser’s slender figure.

So Ilina endured three days drinking only water.

For a slimmer waist, she drank herbal concoctions said to be effective for weight loss three times a day, and covered herself from scalp to armpits with white powder.

‘It’s okay. I’m beautiful today.’

Only after dozens of self-hypnotic affirmations did her legs finally start moving.

As befitting a ducal banquet, the banquet hall was filled with dazzling liquors and appetizing banquet foods.

She deliberately averted her gaze to prevent her lipstick from smudging due to drooling, and walked toward the ducal family.

She could hear her father whispering beside her to behave properly, but maintaining her composure was already taking all her strength.

Her ankles ached and her stomach throbbed.

Perhaps due to hunger, she felt even colder than usual. She tried to calm her shivering shoulders and stood before the ducal family.

Among the beautiful blonde family members, a young woman with distinctly unique coloring stood beside the duke.

She wasn’t his wife. The duchess was said to be absent today, so that person must be the famous…

‘The Late Duke’s wife. And the fifth one at that.’

A young lady sold from a fallen family to the ducal house.

A widow whose husband (the Late Duke) died right after she married into the family.

A stepmother younger than the current duke (her stepson).

She was Wilhelmina Layton, the Grand Duchess, the subject of rumors circulating in the Western Social Circle.

“I greet Your Grace, Duke Layton.”

When her father offered his greeting, Ilina, who had been captivated by Wilhelmina, hurriedly bowed as well.

She tried to cross her legs and lift her skirt hem to curtsy elegantly, but the moment she bent her waist, nausea struck.

The tightly laced corset was irritating her stomach.

Feeling stomach acid rising, she covered her mouth instead of holding her fan.

“Ilina!”

She couldn’t even respond to her father’s scolding.

At this rate, she would become the rude person who dry-heaved in front of the ducal family!

Just as she desperately covered her mouth and tried to offer an apology.

“Why are these kids so skinny?”

She felt warm hands wrapping around her stomach.

“What’s this, these thin arms. Nothing but bones and skin left.”

“Huh, Mother?”

The person who embraced the collapsing Ilina was Grand Duchess Wilhelmina.

The Duke tried to stop her with a surprised expression, but she clicked her tongue and pulled out a strangely tacky handkerchief from her pocket. Then she covered Ilina’s mouth with it.

Thanks to the handkerchief scented with fresh peppermint, the dry heaving stopped.

Wilhelmina whispered in a small voice that only Ilina could hear.

“Why are you showing your shoulders when it’s cold? You’re already thin, and with a corset and high heels too… Hey, do you even eat? You need to eat something.”

A lively way of speaking that didn’t suit a noblewoman, and the strange kindness contained within it.

Looking at her furrowed brow showing displeasure and mysterious navy blue eyes filled with worry, Ilina unconsciously spoke the word that came to mind.

“Gr, Grand… moni?”

Wilhelmina looked like she was about to say something like ‘Look how thin our granddaughter is!’ any moment now.

For some reason, she was reminded of her maternal grandmother in the countryside.

At twenty-five, she had married an old duke and become a widow.

Wilhelmina frowned as if she couldn’t understand modern noble culture.

“I don’t know why everyone lives so stuffily.”

Wilhelmina’s past life was Kim Hana, a school teacher. She died at thirty-two.

Having become seven years younger, the social circles of the fantasy world were full of incomprehensible things to her.

1. Becoming a Mother-in-Law

“Madam, I’ve brought your breakfast.”

“…Yeah.”

When I sit on the bed blankly looking out the window, a servant brings breakfast on a fine tray.

On the tray are freshly baked bread from dawn, black tea, and a handful of fruit.

Without going to the dining hall, I eat alone in my bedroom while looking out the window.

When I had taken about two sips of black tea, Anna, my personal maid, muttered with a sympathetic expression.

“It would be nice if Madam could dine in the castle too.”

“This is enough for me.”

“Madam…”

Anna lowered her head with an expression that looked like she might cry.

‘But I’m being sincere.’

It’s been almost two months since I came here, but I still can’t get used to the servants’ excessive reactions.

“Do I have any schedule with the main family today?”

“No. Since last week was the coronation ceremony, they’re still busy… Plus, there’s the year-end party coming up soon. They say an honored guest from the Imperial Family is coming then…”

Anna continued speaking with apologetic eyes, trailing off.

The busy people here refer not to me, but to my son and daughter-in-law – that is, the ducal couple.

‘Well, they did say the Late Duke died suddenly. Just the handover alone would keep them busy. But an honored guest…’

Meaninglessly recalling information that was useless to hear, I tore off a piece of butter roll, dipped it in jam, and took a bite.

The taste was perfect. It was on a completely different level from the black bread I had eaten when I lived in the Capital.

‘To be able to eat breakfast so leisurely every day like this, I’m happy.’

Anna seemed to feel sorry that I didn’t eat meals with my family in the main castle, but I was happiest eating and sleeping in my room without stepping even one foot outside.

This was a luxury I hadn’t even enjoyed in my previous life.

‘Besides, it takes 30 minutes to walk from here to the castle. There are too many stairs too.’

For me, who walked slowly and detested stairs, the castle’s dining hall was too distant a place.

After leaving the Annex Building, crossing the garden to head to the castle, then climbing stairs again to reach the dining hall… Since elevators obviously didn’t exist in this fantasy world, just thinking about the stairs was horrifying.

“I’d rather not eat at all.”

“Pardon?”

“It’s nothing.”

No matter what the servants of the Annex Building said, I was satisfied with this lifestyle.

The fact that I couldn’t meet with my son’s family was particularly good.

I was confident I wouldn’t complain even if I lived like this for the rest of my life.

‘Of course, it was a bit uncomfortable at first.’

I suddenly recalled the time when I had arrived here, at Layton Territory.

The castle was in chaos after the Late Duke died of a heart attack, the day when wedding preparations had turned into funeral preparations.

I, who had been sold off as the Late Duke’s wife, became the duchess of a Ducal House I had never seen before in my life, without even getting to see my husband’s face.

I was even a widow with a son older than me.

‘My past was quite eventful too.’

Sip, I took another sip of black tea and looked up at the blue sky outside the window.

Along with this body, Wilhelmina’s past, memories of my previous life as ‘Kim Hana’ began to resurface as well.

…Whether it was reincarnation or possession, I thought life would unfold after experiencing such things.

Having died at the young age of thirty-two, I opened my eyes in a fantasy world and expected to live a more luxurious life than my previous one.

That expectation crumbled in an instant.

I had barely graduated from the Academy with poor grades and was struggling to make ends meet after getting a job at a trading company, thinking I’d finally earn some money, when memories of my previous life surfaced.

Just when I had resolved to use these memories to live life comfortably, my family, which had never helped me, suddenly went bankrupt.

It was already a family drowning in debt, but apparently my father’s relative had even stolen the family seal and used it for gambling.

Since there was no sophisticated system like inheritance renunciation in this world, my body was sold off like confiscated property.

In this world where the concept of human rights was dim, the treatment a debtor would receive was miserable.

As they say, even a rotten fish has some value – being a noble lady, I was sold off as a bride to an old nobleman who had already lost four wives.

They said he had “lost” them, but it was obvious they were women who had taken their own lives due to domestic violence or harsh in-law treatment.

I had been selected as their successor.

Since there were no more bride candidates left, his plan was probably to just buy someone suitable to fill the position.

‘She’s decent-looking. I’ll take this woman.’

The man who appeared to be the old nobleman’s retainer evaluated my appearance as if buying a doll, then purchased me from the creditor without hesitation.

And so I headed to the old nobleman with an ill-fitting, tacky wedding dress and a dowry that would have been fashionable twenty years ago.

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