Three days had already passed since she met the mysterious man.
Soye drew dirty looks from her nanny for sneaking away during hide-and-seek.
After being stuck in her pavilion unable to move an inch, she went right back as soon as she was able to slip out.
She felt there was a lot she could learn from the masked man.
But he wasn't there.
Sitting on the wooden porch, she kicked her legs back and forth.
Just then, the Poison King came to see her.
"Don't you want to meet your father?"
Yiseo's question made Soye blink.
Parents had never existed in her life to begin with. So she hadn't looked for them either.
Rolling the words father or mother over her tongue brought no real emotion.
In the past—meaning a really, really long time ago—those words might have stung her heart a bit.
Back when she actually needed them.
Instead, Soye had no guardian, and her life had been quite tough.
Whether a father appeared out of nowhere now or not made little difference to her.
I'm not really sure.
That was how Soye truly felt.
A sandbag strapped on from the start didn't feel all that heavy.
However, a typical child would react differently.
"Nanny said I could see him if I slept a hundred nights."
In moments like these, she just needed to copy Socheong's model answer.
"I already slept one night, two nights… three times ten nights. I only need to sleep seven more nights!"
She held up seven fingers, pretending to fumble the math.
At her innocent response, the wrinkles around Yiseo's eyes deepened.
Her expression was filled with heavy worry.
"Is that so… your nanny said that?"
"Yes."
Soye answered like a good girl.
Yiseo furrowed her brows.
Unable to tell what it meant, Soye waited quietly.
"Where is your nanny right now?"
"She went to get Soye's snacks."
She answered dutifully.
Not long after returning to the main family residence, the nanny had begun quietly sneaking away. Mostly during the hours Soye took her afternoon nap.
With other servant girls handling her duties now, the nanny was likely just slacking off.
There must still be eyes watching, so it won't be easy for her to move recklessly.
"Shall we sneak off to take a look at your father?"
Yiseo's gaze was quite serious.
Soye hesitated for a second.
She couldn't grasp the mindset of a father who intentionally kept his daughter away, nor that of the Poison King, who nevertheless wanted her granddaughter to meet her son.
"Is it a secret from the nanny?"
At that question, Yiseo laughed awkwardly.
Having the Poison King as a grandmother yet feeling the need to hide from a nanny made her granddaughter seem cute, but also sad.
More so because her foolish son wouldn't even be able to witness this.
"Yes. It's a secret."
Yiseo simply intended to show Woohyun from a distance for a brief moment.
Though the poison qi had cleared after his seizure, her son would cause a massive scene if he saw Soye.
And yet.
.
.
.
"Wait, where did this rascal go!"
The Poison King gnashed her teeth.
She stamped her feet, looking ready to slam whatever she was holding to the ground—if it weren't her own granddaughter tucked under her arm.
"Woah!"
Soye cheered as if excited by her body swaying around, but her mind was tangled.
Wow. This was my father's pavilion?
This was the exact pavilion she had visited just a few days ago during hide-and-seek.
That masked man was my dad?
She hadn't had a clue who he was when she first saw him, but what a sheer coincidence!
A thief without quick wits ought to retire from the trade.
To be honest, it was a bit shocking.
Soye had no memories, so she didn't know who he was, but shouldn't he have recognized her?
So why, instead of greeting his own daughter, did he tell her never to come back?
Even for Soye, it was hard to view him as a father after that kind of behavior. She had just assumed he was some eccentric elder relative.
He even went so far as to abandon the pavilion entirely just because of that single meeting.
No matter how she looked at it, this was far from normal.
"Running away from home at his age. Oh, my head…"
In that short span, Yiseo was groaning in frustration.
She probably figured her young granddaughter wouldn't understand what those words meant anyway.
However, the shock was so great that she couldn't help muttering aloud.
I guess even the Poison King can't control her own child.
Soye clicked her tongue softly and looked around the empty pavilion alongside Yiseo.
It doesn't look like a place where people live.
It was well-maintained, but there was no sense of warmth or human presence.
Even a temple where monks stayed would be messier than this.
Why was the Poison King's son living in a place like this?
The more she saw and experienced, the weirder the situation became.
An ordinary child would just be mildly puzzled.
However, Soye was an adult pretending to be a child.
"Is anyone out there!"
After turning the place upside down and still failing to find a trace of her son, Yiseo summoned her subordinates.
"Find that wild foal right this instant!"
Soye felt a little sorry for the Poison King's son, who was treated like a wild foal even though he was all grown up.
Her subordinates scattered in every direction to locate the vanished Woohyun.
Only then was Yiseo left alone with Soye, sinking down onto the wooden porch.
Still tucked under her grandmother's arm like a rolled-up straw mat, Soye looked up at her side profile.
Her wrinkled face was shadowed with deep worry.
Well, whatever the reason, she was clearly worried sick about her son who had suddenly vanished into thin air.
Was the Poison Demon telling the truth whenever he said his little sister was softhearted?
Back when the Divine Moonshadow Thief roamed the Jianghu, the Poison King's reputation was terrifying.
At that time, she crushed the Sun Beast Palace of the Southern Barbarians, which was challenging the dominance of the Sichuan Tang Clan, suppressed the momentum of the Emei and Qingcheng sects, and reigned as the ruler of Sichuan.
So Soye hadn't believed a word the Poison Demon said.
Whatever his sister's personality was like when they parted in their youth, ten years was long enough to change everything.
"…I'm sorry."
The old woman let out a deep sigh.
Soye looked up at Yiseo with puzzled eyes at the sudden apology.
"I raised your hopes for nothing… promising I would let you see your father. If I hadn't kept nagging him, he wouldn't have disappeared like this."
The Poison King clenched her teeth.
She had planned today ever since hearing that her granddaughter had completely lost her memories from the side effects of poison ingestion.
Still, shouldn't she see Woohyun's face at least once?
A child knowing nothing of her father's face was completely different from having even a faint memory of him.
Not to mention no one knows where this child's mother went either…
Woohyun had claimed his wife would return.
However, Yiseo never treated future events as a certainty.That was the responsibility of running a clan.
One had to prepare for any scenario.
Always.
"Ah."
Soye flinched as the weight in the Poison King's expression registered.
It seemed she thought her son had run away because of her.
That wasn't it.
A drop of cold sweat broke out on her neck.
He had run off because he ran into her while she was roaming around the Tang Clan grounds under the pretext of hide-and-seek.
She touched the back of Yiseo's hand with her tiny hand.
Not expecting any comfort from her young granddaughter, Yiseo met the child's eyes.
"If Soye… has already seen the pretty mister who lives here, will that make grandmother feel okay?"
Lowering her voice softly as if sharing a deep secret, Soye spoke with extreme caution.
"What?"
The Poison King couldn't hide her shock.
The child met the fool whom even I failed to see eight out of ten times?
Meanwhile, Soye calmly continued her explanation.
"I came here before while playing hide-and-seek. There was a pretty mister."
When Soye pointed to the ground, saying he was planting flowers, Yiseo burst out in a hollow chuckle.
It wasn't a normal laugh, but an expression of utter disbelief.
Yet blood must have drawn to blood, seeing as they somehow managed to meet.
"The mister told me never to come back, but Soye came anyway… So isn't that why he left?"
As she looked down at the little child gazing up at her with big, wide eyes, the Poison King's face crumpled.
"It feels like grandmother is upset because of Soye."
Her acting, laced with genuine distress because she felt half-responsible for the trouble, completely fooled even the Poison King.
When the child hung her head low, the old woman panicked, at a loss for how to comfort her granddaughter.
"I should have waited until I slept ten times ten nights before meeting him."
"That mister—no, your father—no…"
Yiseo stumbled over her words repeatedly before swallowing a groan.
A fierce rage blazed in her chest.
After letting out a few deep sighs to cool her boiling temper, Yiseo roughly patted Soye's hair.
Her hand was rough, like petting a puppy rather than a granddaughter, but it was filled with deep tenderness.
"How could it be your fault? A young child is never to blame. This is all because of foolish adults."
Soye's eyes widened.
Because it was the first time in her life she had ever heard such words.
"Your grandmother will give that rascal a scolding he'll weep tears over."
Soye asked cautiously.
"…To make him come meet Soye?"
"Yes."
Yiseo pulled Soye into a tight embrace.
Her hands were rough, and the hug was awkwardly tight to the point of being suffocating.
Yet a warmth completely different from Gong-hui's embrace seeped into her heart.
"I'll tell him to come meet our pretty granddaughter."
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