I’m an Unknown Actress, But Everyone Knows Me - Chapter 167
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————
Episode 167
“Come on, let’s do a fighting cheer once more to ease our nerves before we go!”
Jjang Director extended his hand. Other hands stacked on top of it one by one.
Jeongan, Yunhui, Seonghui, Myeongdo, and even Yeomga. My hand went on top of the hands of the people who created together.
“Alright, on the count of one, two, three, we’ll say ‘Strange Tales, it’s a huge hit!'”
One, two, three! Everyone shouted in unison and pressed their hands down as if stamping their pride into their palms.
“!”
“It’s a huge hit!”
Hands shot up powerfully toward the sky.
Let’s go. After saying that, Jjang Director was the first to stride ahead. Someone pushed me from behind. The protagonist should go after the director! I moved forward with a bewildered feeling.
With shutters flashing blindingly at the Photo Wall, everyone calling out for Seoryeong, and all eyes focused on us.
I spotted my fan in the distance. Without realizing it, I waved my hand.
It felt so unreal.
* * *
Aetami felt her whole body stiffen as she headed toward the movie theater. It wasn’t simply due to nervousness.
She had spent all dawn making memes, posting concept posts, and watching the name ‘Seoryeong’ and the work title rise on real-time searches.
People who followed the drama from episode 1 to the finale know.
That unique joy you feel when a work you love achieves perfect success in the end.
That inexplicable sense of achievement from being with an excellent work from the beginning.
This subtle feeling of enjoying yet regretting the perfect conclusion of a story.
“Wow, they really broke through 20% viewership ratings.”
“At first everyone was saying Jegal Rok was crazy. But at this point, that man must have divine inspiration, right?”
Listening to the conversation of reporters who had arrived early, Aetami smiled. There were quite a few people waiting for the team amid the bustling noise.
“But Han Yeoreum is insane. Look at yesterday’s clip views.”
“Over a million again… But this one deserved it.”
Aetami smiled with a proud expression.
‘Yeoreum isn’t just good at acting, she’s incredible in person too.’
She felt an itch to jump in and say something. Aetami forcefully suppressed the corners of her mouth that kept trying to rise.
Words about how she was the perfect Seoryeong could be heard here and there. No one would be able to argue against it.
Seoryeong was Han Yeoreum, and Han Yeoreum was Seoryeong.
“Oh!”
“They’re coming out!”
The surroundings instantly became noisy. Yeoreum was entering the Photo Wall area.
People with cameras pressed their shutters non-stop. Flashes burst out brilliantly. Everyone pushed forward wanting to get even a little closer, so Aetami couldn’t get a good view of Yeoreum.
That’s when it happened.
In a moment when she had the illusion that their eyes briefly met, Yeoreum smiled and waved in this direction.
‘…Did she see me?’
Aetami stared at Yeoreum in a daze. Yeoreum was already being guided into the screening room.
It was okay even if the greeting wasn’t meant for her.
Someday, Yeoreum would probably go to award ceremonies held in places so distant that Aetami wouldn’t even think of following.
She was certain that Han Yeoreum would definitely make it that far.
Finally, the path into the screening room opened.
* * *
Chapter 16
Final Destination
Before long, the evil spirits and Seonghui had reached the front of the King’s office. Clang-! Seonghui roughly opened the door with both hands and panted with excitement.
“How do you feel?”
However, the King didn’t even glance at Seonghui. He was only looking at the documents in his hands. As if Seonghui’s existence was invisible.
“Now your days of looking down at me haughtily from that position are over.”
Seonghui smiled and walked with a swagger. He giggled as if recalling the day he had begged for his position back from beneath the King. Rustle-. The King silently picked up the next document.
“Don’t act arrogant! You’re not the king! The highest position is mine now!”
At Seonghui’s words, the King raised his head. He looked down at Seonghui and shouted sternly.
“You fool!”
The tiger embroidered on his robes moved as if roaring.
“The highest position belongs to the people, not to any individual! Those who don’t understand this have no right to sit in this seat!”
Seonghui gritted his teeth at the fierce expression. That’s when footsteps rushed in. It was Yunhui and the guards.
“Brother. Please stop here.”
“You…”
Seonghui’s eyes shook violently.
The King, whom he thought had collapsed, was alive and healthy, and his brother, whom he thought had lost his mind, was perfectly fine.
From beginning to end, Seonghui had been deceived.
“Hahaha! Hahahaha! So that’s how it was. From the beginning… From the beginning I was just like a norigae! Useless and sickly eldest son!”
Filled with resentment, Seonghui pointed his sword at Yunhui.
“Kill them all here!”
Then he commanded the evil spirits. Yunhui and Seonghui’s swords clashed fiercely. The guards had to keep fighting the evil spirits.
Things that wouldn’t be cut no matter how much you slashed them, wouldn’t die no matter how much you killed them.
“Your Majesty! There is a way to dispel the curse!”
Myeongdo slashed the evil spirits repeatedly while shouting toward Yunhui, who was confronting Seonghui. At the mention of a dispelling method, Seonghui hesitated momentarily.
“What is it!”
“I don’t know yet! But I will definitely find it!”
Slashing away an evil spirit that was struggling to bite his neck, Myeongdo saved one of the nearby guards. The guard who had been pinned under the evil spirits barely managed to stand up. Yunhui glanced at Myeongdo.
“You should focus on me. Hmm?”
At that moment, Seonghui’s sharp sword grazed past Yunhui’s cheek. Red blood flowed. With a mocking voice mixed with laughter, Seonghui moved his arm again. Yunhui deflected the sword flying toward his neck.
“The shaman named Yeomga is behind everything!”
“I know that! Is there nothing else!”
Myeongdo and Yunhui had somehow ended up back-to-back, confronting the enemies before them.
Things that were human yet not human.
Seonghui was the same. Having abandoned his brother, abandoned his father, abandoned the people, having thrown away everything like that, though Seonghui was alive, it was hard to consider him truly living.
“The name Yeomga…! That’s not the shaman’s name!”
Yunhui, who had clashed with Seonghui’s sword again, slashed at him. Due to the sword that narrowly grazed his abdomen, Seonghui gritted his teeth.
“It’s the name of her child who couldn’t be born!”
A child who couldn’t be born.
Myeongdo flinched momentarily at this new information. However, he couldn’t afford to relax. The evil spirit he had slashed came back to life and lunged at Myeongdo again.
“Grrrr…!”
The undead spirit with rolled-back white eyes and blood streaming from its mouth was threatening by its very existence.
The evil spirit tried to bite his wrist. Myeongdo hurriedly slashed the evil spirit away.
He felt around his wrist with his eyes, worried that the five-blessing cord Seoryeong had tied might have come loose.
A shaman who uses her child’s name. The five-blessing cord. Seoryeong who had briefly stayed with Yeomga. And then Jeongan again. With his complicated thoughts, he recalled a moment from the past.
Seoryeong stared intently at the five-blessing cords spread throughout the marketplace.
“Do you want a new five-blessing cord?”
“No… What for.”
“Because you can’t take your eyes off it.”
“I just… it reminds me of the old days.”
Seoryeong couldn’t resist expensive things. Seoryeong’s teaching that the shinier and prettier something was, the more expensive it would be, had been drilled into Myeongdo’s ears constantly.
But why had she worn that plain Five Blessings Cord tied around her wrist for so long? He had been secretly curious about it.
“Jeongan originally didn’t buy me things like this. She believed that money should only be earned honestly. So there was never any money left over. Whenever we had some spare money, she’d help those beggars again. Really.”
Seoryeong smiled softly as she fingered the Five Blessings Cords scattered around the marketplace. She seemed to be recalling her time with Jeongan.
There were various kinds of Five Blessings Cords. Turtles representing longevity, yellow butterflies representing wealth, tigers representing well-being, water lilies representing virtue, and white chrysanthemums representing peaceful death.
“As for me… I didn’t have a Five Blessings Cord. There was no one to buy it for me. Actually, I could have bought one with the money I earned while wandering around, but I just didn’t want to buy it with my own money. Actually, before that… I had asked someone to buy me one once…”
Seoryeong trailed off. It was easy to guess who she had begged to buy it from. It must have been the Yeom Family.
Near Seoryeong, people were contemplating for a long time over the various embroidered cords. It was a custom in the Yeomho Kingdom to tie at least one around a child before they came of age.
“Well, anyway. I went to the marketplace with Jeongan, and it happened to be spring festival time. The merchant asked me how about a turtle, and I said I’d die early anyway so I didn’t need such a thing, and asked for a yellow butterfly instead.”
Loneliness showed in Seoryeong’s eyes.
“But what do you think Jeongan said? She just told me to come along first. So I threw a tantrum right there. I asked her who she was to not buy me even this little thing, until Jeongan couldn’t stand it anymore and pulled me up. Even while going to the cabin, I cried asking her to buy it, and Jeongan quietly dragged me along…”
The reason why Seoryeong had a cheap Five Blessings Cord tied around her wrist, despite having all sorts of expensive things.
“But what do you know. When I woke up, there was a Five Blessings Cord in front of me. At the time, I wondered why she acted like that if she was going to buy it anyway.”
Because Jeongan truly loved Seoryeong. Because Seoryeong knew that too, even without being told.
“I found out later. That she didn’t have money to buy even that one Five Blessings Cord at the time. So while I was sleeping, Jeongan spent the whole night wandering the mountain gathering wild vegetables, and went to the dawn market to trade those vegetables for one Five Blessings Cord…”
Throughout the dawn of that spring day when the late cold snap hadn’t yet passed, Jeongan must have gathered wild vegetables.
While wondering which blessing she should prioritize for Seoryeong. Not even feeling the pain in her hands as she dug through the frozen solid ground.
The Five Blessings Cord that poor Jeongan had worked so hard to buy.
But why hadn’t the Yeom Family, despite being so wealthy, bought even that one cord that Seoryeong had begged for?
It would have been more effective to feed her good things, dress her in good things, let her enjoy all kinds of happiness, and then turn her into a salt medium.
That’s when it happened.
Something caught Myeongdo’s vision.
What he glimpsed every time the evil thing moved its arm was definitely…
“A Five Blessings Cord!”
Myeongdo swung his arm wide.
As he swung his sword, three fell away at once. He cut down the evil things that were desperately trying to grab him like he was moving freely in all directions.
Myeongdo grabbed the wrist of the evil thing that had a Five Blessings Cord tied around its wrist. The evil things that instinctively sensed annihilation swarmed toward Myeongdo all at once.
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————