The Regressed Chaebol Grandson Finds It Hard to Forgive - Chapter 72

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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 72. Whiskey Bar J&W (3)

“A major incident has erupted among the upper echelon today.”
“What happened?”
“It concerns an outcast currently enrolled at Cheonghwa High School.”
“Why should I concern myself with an outcast incident?”
“That outcast is Ha Tae-ung.”
“Who? Ha Tae-ung?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do I know him?”
“……Yes.”
“Who is he? Someone from our family?”
“Yes.”
“Really? I’ve never heard that name before.”
“Well…….”

A premier villa located in Cheongdam-dong.

The original sale price alone was eight billion won.

Recent market estimates had climbed to around thirteen billion, drawing attention as a sought-after residence.

This was the home of Ha Eun-hee, the youngest daughter of Chairman Ha Cheol-gon.

She, currently separated from her husband, was receiving a report from her secretary.

She had two children with her husband — a son and a daughter.

The eldest was currently employed as a new hire at a subsidiary of Ha Ryun Group.
The second was studying abroad in America.

Given how sprawling the estate was, the sole person she could converse with was the employee she’d hired as both butler and secretary for its upkeep.

Ha Eun-hee, freshly returned from the sauna and about to sip a glass of wine, listened as her secretary, who had been waiting for the opportune moment, carefully gauged her mood while relaying the situation.

“What? Tell me. Is Father’s late-born child showing up or something?”

Ha Eun-hee’s tone revealed neither respect nor affection toward her father, Chairman Ha Cheol-gon.

She too was a victim — her life mortgaged by a marriage she never wanted.

She was barely past university graduation when it happened.

Forced by her father to go on a formal meeting, she’d married almost immediately afterward and established a household.

She’d spent her entire youth in hell.
Everything in the family flowed according to her father, Chairman Ha Cheol-gon’s, design.

Her father-in-law had been a Chief Justice.
Her husband was a rigidly principled judge.

While her friends enjoyed overseas trips, clubs, and parties, she lived in hell.

Once she gave birth to her first child, she threw herself fully into childcare.

Her judge husband offered no help, pleading the demands of his work.

Due to his profession and its unspoken rule against strangers entering the home, she had to manage everything alone.

Her mother-in-law, who involved herself in every trifle, made her life no easier.

She, who had lived like a princess before marriage, became nothing short of a servant.

Unable to manage a household she was unprepared for, she even attended cooking academy.

The constant criticism — “Can’t you even cook?” — was the least of it.

Because her husband was the eldest son, all family matters fell to her.

Her marriage had been a transaction between her father and her father-in-law.
Naturally, she had no voice in the matter.

At the time, her father was directly benefiting from her father-in-law’s influence in settling the group’s illegal cases.

So Ha Eun-hee could only resent her father, Ha Cheol-gon, endlessly.

Years passed. Her in-laws died.

With that shadow gone, her husband received an appointment as an appellate judge in a provincial court, and around then, they naturally drifted into separation.

Ha Eun-hee’s maternal instinct was not particularly strong.

“What? Dong-hui’s son??”

“What kind of rumors?”
“That the outcast was the hidden heir of Ha Ryun Group…….”
“Sigh…….”

Suddenly, a distant memory surfaced.

The day Dong-hui, who had been cast out and gone silent, came looking for them.

He couldn’t even cross the threshold of the gate.

He was turned away without ceremony.
Ha Eun-hee could only watch.

Unlike her other siblings, she had been close to Dong-hui.

He had followed her devotedly, calling her “sister, sister,” and they’d grown up in mutual affection.

Kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, high school — they’d even graduated from the same university.

To her younger brother, Ha Eun-hee had been family, school senior, and life mentor all at once.

‘My brothers would lose their minds if they found out.’

The title of Hidden Crown Prince wasn’t something everyone heard.
In the Ha family, it was only ever granted to direct bloodline heirs.

So there was no way her brothers would show him any mercy, cast-out heir and rival that he was.

This was why Ha Eun-hee kept her distance from them and held her breath.

Even now, she was careful not to fall out of her father’s favor.

“What should we do?”

Her secretary asked quietly.

“……Watch and see.”

There was nothing Ha Eun-hee could actually do.

She issued a nominal instruction and fell quiet, closing her eyes.

Long-buried memories of her younger brother resurfaced in her mind.

Gulp.

Red wine, the color of blood.
She drained it in one swallow.

* * *

‘Tarot…… Cards?’

What the bartender had produced were Tarot Cards.

‘A shaman, but with Tarot Cards of all things…….’

A-yu-ra thought it absurd.

A proper shaman carried a fan or a bell!
But Tarot Cards? Seriously?

“I understand that expression. Release your preconceptions.”
“……?”
“Tarot is simply another means through which the divine conveys its message.”
“I see…….”

A-yu-ra shrugged and drew in her neck.

“Your name is…….”
“Ha Tae-ung.”
“When did you first visit my shop?”
“If you say I came, then I did; if you say I didn’t, then that’s true too.”
“……I see.”

‘What are these two even saying?’

The bartender and the Hidden Crown Prince exchanged something between riddle and nonsense.

Goosebumps rippled across her skin.

She could feel it — the faint, eerie collision of their energies.

“Hmm……My spiritual master says it’s good to see you again.”
“……??”
“He says he’s glad to see you once more.”
“……!!”

‘Wait, didn’t you say it was your first time? What do you mean, glad to see him again?’

A-yu-ra found this situation deeply confusing.
She couldn’t follow their exchange at all.

When he gave her the location, the Hidden Crown Prince had clearly said it was a whiskey bar he knew.

Yet in reality, it was his first time here.

The bartender claimed no prior acquaintance, and the deity he served knew the Hidden Crown Prince?

“…….”

A-yu-ra — a lawyer with a higher education, who prided herself on being a scientifically minded intellectual of the twenty-first century.

This setting confused her greatly.

As an attorney, she knew the world was complex and varied, but she’d never encountered anything like this.

“Thank you for remembering me.”

The Hidden Crown Prince smiled.
It was the first genuine, unguarded smile she’d seen from him since they’d met as acquaintances.

Thump.

A-yu-ra’s heart jumped, responding before her mind could catch up.

Despite his being a high school student, she suddenly felt as though she were facing a real man.

“The past does not dominate the present or future, nor does the future govern the present and past……but those who don’t exist would never understand that. Haha.”

‘Casual speech?’

The bartender suddenly shifted to a familiar, informal tone.

Gone was the polite, respectful demeanor he’d shown toward the Hidden Crown Prince at first.

As if an entirely different being had emerged…….

“……!!”

In that instant, A-yu-ra’s mind snapped into focus.

The bartender before her was a shaman who served a deity!

The shift in his eyes and speech could only mean one thing…….

“May I pour you a drink?”
“Haha, I’d love one! I really like this place. The aroma of alcohol drifts so sweetly here. And those stringed instruments make such pleasant music~”

Ha Tae-ung casually reached for the 30-Year-Old Whiskey.

The bartender produced a fresh glass and slid it over.

Glug-glug-glug.

Everything unfolded with utter naturalness.

The two figures moved as though they inhabited another world entirely.

A-yu-ra, holding her breath as she watched, felt her mind go blank.

They’d crossed the threshold of imagination by a landslide.

Clink!

The two raised their glasses in a toast.
And then——

“Ahh! This deer-spirit liquor is like velvet antler to me. In the old days, people often made their own distilled spirits as an offering. Nowadays, I see precious little of such devotion. There are droves who won’t even spare a roasted pork head and a bottle of rice wine. And still they wonder why fortune eludes them. Tsk.”

The bartender’s words carried both admiration and regret.

‘Roasted pork head? Rice wine?’

From the bartender’s words, the pairing was clear enough — and it pointed to a very particular type of entity.

“Your Excellency, shall I draw the cards now?”
“Yes, draw them! Let her draw too. The Wheel of Fate has begun to turn. At times like this, you must choose wisely.”
“……??”

She’d only wanted to have a drink.

To cement ties with the Hidden Crown Prince, a potentially valuable client, had been the true purpose of her visit.

But now the Wheel of Fate was turning?

A-yu-ra hesitated for a moment.

Then, gathering her courage under their gazes, she reached out and carefully selected one card from the dozens spread before the bartender.

“Turn it over. It’s your destiny.”
“Yes…….”

She grasped the card her finger had touched and flipped it.

The moment it turned——

“Oh!”

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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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