The Ignored Granddaughter of a Murim Family - Chapter 3

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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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Chapter 3
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Medicine, then meals, then consultations with the physician, treatments, more medicine, sleep, and medicine again.
I felt as though I had consumed every precious remedy in existence.
Have you ever seen a wild ginseng root as thick as a forearm? I have. It’s in my stomach now.
I rubbed my eyes, struggling to gather my senses.
‘I fell asleep during treatment.’
As I sat up, only the family physician remained beside my bed, tidying his instruments.
Throughout my treatment, Father had always stayed by my side—something I once mistook for surveillance in my previous life, but now understood was born of genuine concern.
I turned to the physician and asked, “Where is Father?”
“Where is Father?”
“Tsk, the Fourth Young Master really does waste time on useless things.”
“…?”
The physician clicked his tongue and offered no real answer before sweeping from the room.
By the time I rose and stepped outside the Residence Quarter, the physician had already vanished.
“What was that about?”
The Inner Courtyard was eerily quiet.
My residence and Father’s were situated at the far western edge of the Baek Li Family Estate—modest and remote for a direct line of the family.
‘Though I suppose it’s convenient that I rarely encounter the other relatives.’
Father’s residence had originally been elsewhere, but after he registered me into the family, Grandfather found the sight of us so distasteful that he banished us here.
I crossed the sparse, unadorned Inner Courtyard toward the servants’ quarters, intending to inquire about Father’s whereabouts.
‘That explains it.’
No one was there. That accounted for the unnatural silence.
The servants always hurried off to rest whenever Father left the residence.
‘Where could he have gone?’
I was deliberating whether to wait here or venture out to search for him when—
“Everyone, hurry! Come quickly!”
A commotion erupted near the white-washed wall behind the building. The servants who had vanished earlier were returning.
A servant of apparent high rank was urging them on.
“Move, move, move! Is everyone here?”
“Ah, we were sleeping so well. What’s all this about?”
“Ugh, you sleep through the afternoon and miss everything. The Family Head just returned!”
“What? The Family Head?”
“There’s to be a banquet this evening, so the Mistress ordered half the staff to remain here and the other half to report to the main residence. Who’s going?”
Even as I listened quietly to their conversation, my eyes widened.
My grandfather, the Family Head of the Baek Li Family, was an enigmatic man whose thoughts were impossible to fathom.
He was a capable administrator who had elevated the once-ordinary Baek Li Family to prominence among the ten greatest families in a single generation, yet he would sequester himself for entire years claiming to train, or leave on journeys the moment he stepped outside, insisting he needed fresh air.
In the novel, he served as an ally to the protagonist, though he appeared infrequently—only a handful of times, each occasion showcasing the formidable martial prowess befitting one of the “Ten Strongest Under Heaven.”
‘And I’ve seen him even fewer times than that.’
Despite living under the same roof for years, I could count our encounters on one hand.
Even when I fell into demonic cultivation, Grandfather was away traveling. But now he had returned….
My eyes snapped wide open as I bolted from the Residence Quarter in a panic.
‘Damn it, it was today!’
Today. It was precisely today that Father and I would make a proper impression on Grandfather!
* * *
In a novel told from the protagonist’s perspective, the childhood of a minor villain like me was never covered.
Yet I possessed a rather plausible backstory that would inevitably make me a villain. And this very moment was adding credence to that inevitability!
‘I have to stop this.’
I walked forward without hesitation.
The servants and warriors I passed on the way exchanged peculiar glances and whispered among themselves.
By the time I arrived, my breath came in ragged gasps and sweat drenched my back.
The elderly servant guarding the door looked startled.
“Young Miss?”
My ashen complexion and pallid lips made it seem as though I might collapse at any moment, prompting the old servant to ask without thinking.
“Are you well?”
I tried to answer that I was fine, but a cough erupted instead.
Witnessing this, the old servant recalled that Baek Li-yeon had only recently recovered from her collapse due to demonic cultivation.
Sympathy flickered instantly in his eyes.
“You’re not even well, yet what brings you here?”
“Ha, ha, Father, Father is here….”
I barely managed to speak before my words trailed off.
“Don’t speak such nonsense!”
A thunderous voice erupted from within the room.
“Ui-gang! Will you continue to disappoint me like this! When will you finally come to your senses and…!”
It was Grandfather’s voice.
The old servant glanced at me and spoke.
“He came seeking the Fourth Young Master. However, as you’ve heard, this is not a time to relay messages.”
I clenched my fists tightly.
Only those whom Grandfather permitted could enter this room. Those holding important positions within the family or recognized direct descendants.
I naturally could not enter.
I was nervously biting my lip when—
“What is it, Baek Li-yeon?”
The moment I heard that voice, my neck stiffened.
The old servant bowed toward the figure behind me.
“Young Miss Ui-ran, you’ve arrived.”
Baek Li-ui-ran.
Father’s half-sister, making her my aunt.
My aunt asked the old servant sharply.
“Why is she here? Did Ui-gang bring her?”
“No. She came alone.”
“…Alone?”
My aunt looked between the door and me, letting out a scoff.
“How dare you show your face here? This is no place for someone like you!”
The two maidservants behind my aunt openly sneered at me as well.
I regarded them quietly.
In those days of the past, I had been terrified of encountering my aunt. Whenever she happened to cross paths with me, she would seize upon any pretext to torment me.
If our eyes met, she’d accuse me of daring to look at her; if I lowered my gaze, she’d say I refused to acknowledge her; if I greeted her, she’d ask what right I had to speak; if I didn’t, she’d claim I was being disrespectful….
No matter what I did, she conjured creative ways to demean me.
In this manner, her verbal abuse gradually escalated until one day she began striking me.
“How dare you soil the Baek Li Family with your filthy presence…!”
I would shrink back, not even understanding what I had done wrong, and simply apologize profusely.
Of course, my aunt tormented me with calculated precision—only when no one was watching, only in places where marks wouldn’t show. She was especially careful that my father never learned of it.
In the beginning, my father was rarely home; later, as our relationship deteriorated, I couldn’t bring myself to tell him.
‘How foolish I was.’
The past version of me had accepted that my aunt’s hatred was natural—I was a useless cripple of the Baek Li Family who couldn’t even practice martial arts.
But I learned the truth at my father’s funeral.
“That bastard Ui-gang, swaggering about the moment he learned to swing a sword! How pathetic!”
My aunt had been jealous of my father. She envied his skill and reputation, but she couldn’t touch him directly.
Yet when his daughter turned out to be someone with no standing in the family, no martial prowess, and rather simple-minded besides, I must have seemed like perfect prey to her.
“Why are you just staring like that? Now that your father has returned, you think you can ignore me?”
A subtle insinuation that I was disrespecting her because my father was home—if anyone overheard, they would think me arrogant.
I hurried to greet her properly.
“I apologize. It’s been so long since I’ve seen you, Aunt.”
Then I added, as though truly ashamed.
“I’ve been unwell and haven’t been able to pay my respects.”
Just as I finished speaking, a cough seized me, and my aunt’s expression hardened.
The situation was indeed awkward—she had just finished scolding a sickly niece the moment we met.
My aunt seemed to want to say more, but with people watching, she couldn’t bring herself to open her mouth.
My cough was genuine enough.
‘My fever seems to be rising again.’
The moment my coughing subsided, my aunt spoke in a gentle tone, as though she had never tormented me at all.
“It seems your health has improved considerably, coming all this way alone.”
If I said I was fine now, my aunt would appear to have merely scolded me a little; if I said I was still ill, she would immediately chase me back to the Residence Quarter.
“Well…that is….”
As I hesitated, my aunt spoke.
“It’s alright. Speak freely.”
“…There was no one at the Residence Quarter. When I looked around, everyone seemed busy and had gone somewhere. So I had no choice but to come alone.”
“…!”
My aunt’s eyes widened.
The household affairs and management of servants fell under the purview of my grandmother—my grandfather’s wife and my aunt’s own mother.
I searched for the servants of the Residence Quarter, but there was no one to be found?
This made no sense whatsoever. Aunt had at least two attendants trailing behind her at all times, did she not?
Yet the laziness of Father’s household servants was nothing new—it had been going on for days, perhaps longer. Especially before me, they made no effort to hide it. All of it occurred with Grandmother’s tacit approval.
‘As long as Grandfather doesn’t hear of it, that’s all that matters. But what do I do about this?’
By then, the shouting inside the room had ceased entirely.
Grandfather was among the most formidable martial masters. Most of the people within that room had cultivated martial prowess. They were the sort who could effortlessly overhear a conversation a hundred paces away if they concentrated.
‘They’ve all heard it.’
A mere door—and one right before them at that—would not have stopped them from catching every syllable of our exchange.
From the start, Aunt’s accusation that I was being arrogant because Father had returned was itself a calculated move.
‘She never expected this turn of events, though.’
Aunt’s lips trembled as she hastily spoke.
“You must be mistaken about something. The servants would never—stop spouting nonsense and come back inside…”
But Grandfather’s furious voice cut through her words.
“Baek Li-ui-ran! Get in here at once! And you too, Baek Li-yeon!”

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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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