WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 466: That Woman C III
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Time slipped by fast. When people threw themselves into something they loved, the hours just deleted themselves.
In that sense, Cheon Yo-hwa had discovered a new hobby. Filial piety.
She racked her brains day and night over how to serve her father as devotedly as humanly possible, and, well, goodness. A few years had simply flowed past, hadn't they?
With the big day approaching, Cheon Yo-hwa launched into a final inspection alongside her beloved younger sister.
"How many of the executives have crossed over to our side?"
"Forty percent. But most of them are from HR and finance, so the losses are basically nothing. If anything, this makes the organization healthier."
"Don't get cocky! Keep checking the police and prosecution sections all the way to the end."
"It's fine, unni. We routed sixty billion won through Japan and fed it to them, so do you really think they'd betray us? If the bribery scandal blows up, they'll be the ones ruined first. I'm actually more suspicious of those people over there, what was it, Yu Ji-won, Go Yuir, whatever their names are. Can we really trust them?"
"Now of all times? And if we can't trust them, then what? Without the materials they handed over, forget forty percent, we'd be lucky to scrape twenty."
"Hmm..."
Her sister tilted her head.
'Ugh.'
At moments like this, Cheon Yo-hwa felt a little stifled.
'Whether or not we trust them, the hilt of the knife is in their hands anyway, so what's the point of debating this, little sister.'
But she didn't bother letting any of it show on her face.
Hadn't she known since they were children that her twin's intelligence lagged a step behind her own?
And besides, her sister sometimes flashed an intuition that surpassed her. Well, everyone had their own specialty.
"But unni."
"What?"
"We've ended up in a relationship that shares a secret this enormous. Even if he's Go Yuri's brother and all, you can't just hand out trust to anyone."
No, it isn't a matter of trust, it's a matter of power, she was about to answer, when her sister's lips moved first.
"I really think it's better to bind them through marriage. Unni."
...?
"Huh?"
The voice that leaked out after a brief silence sounded, even to Cheon Yo-hwa's own ears, thoroughly stupefied.
Her sister stared at that face of hers like it was strange.
"Why are you making that face? We're allies, but the collateral is uncertain so we're uneasy. In a case like that, there's no method more orthodox and efficient than marriage."
"...Uh, uh-huh?"
"You said he's a university student. Hasn't done his military service. So compared to those decrepit old men they tried to set up marriage talks with when we were little, he's way better. Oh, is his face just really ugly?"
"That, no, it's not. But still."
"Huh? Then what's actually the problem?"
"..."
Wee-woo wee-woo wee-woo wee-woo.
Cheon Yo-hwa's head, which only moments ago had been ice cold while discussing the power structure inside the Cult, was instantly thrown into an uproar of red sirens.
But say what you would, she was the puppet master daughter of the Cult. When had she never had an experience of panicking like this?
Cheon Yo-hwa held on to extreme composure and, to all outward appearances, kept talking to her sister without a hitch.
"Eh... come on! Marriage is a bit much. Yo-hwa. Think about what kind of house our family is. Ahaha, that guy's dirt poor. Total dirt spoon[1]! The standing of his household just doesn't match, not at all."
"Hm? What's the problem? Bring him in as a live-in son-in-law."
Wee-woo wee-woo wee-woo.
"Family standing and all that nonsense, the only ones who ever cared about it were father and the elders. We're going to lop off all the old men's necks with this very opportunity, aren't we. Unni's going to seize complete power over the Cult. So the more humble our marriage partner's household, the better, no? If the partner's family had high standing, in this case it'd just mean more meddling."
"..."
"Huh?! Or unni, don't tell me, do you actually have a man you've got your heart set on? S-sorry. I just could never picture you dating in a normal, human kind of way, so I went and assumed...!"
Her sister put on a solemn expression.
"It can't be helped, then. In that case I'll get engaged to him in your place, so that..."
"That is absolutely not allowed!!"
Her sister Yo-hwa jumped at the sudden shout.
"Why are you yelling all of a sudden?"
"T-that's, that. That's..."
"If you don't want to get married, unni, then I'll just marry him. Of course, it's a little odd since he's someone you've never once introduced to me, but."
Her sister smiled, as if to reassure her.
"You don't have to worry about me, unni. A political marriage is something I've been prepared for since I was seven, so it doesn't bother me."
"..."
That wasn't the problem!
The truth was... exactly as she'd just said, Cheon Yo-hwa had never once let her sister meet Go Yuir face to face. Deliberately!
"Why are you hiding him away so tightly," "Aren't we comrades who planned the big day together," "Shouldn't we at least see each other's faces and have a self-introduction time," and so on, no matter how reasonable the opinions her sister put forward, she'd kept ignoring them all.
There was an extremely rational reason for this.
'It's a guarantee! My taste in men and Yo-hwa's taste are guaranteed to overlap...!'
Cold sweat trickled down the back of her neck.
It was broth wrung out not by the body but by the DNA itself.
Why else would Go Yuri have gone out of her way to choose Go Yuir as her successor in the first place?
Wasn't it a scheme to hook and devour both twin sisters, noble daughters of the Korean Peninsula, all the way down to the marrow?
Was it even possible to escape a honey trap plotted by a reincarnator?
'And this is purely my hunch, but...'
Cheon Yo-hwa shot her sister a glance.
"?"
Her sister was tilting her head with an utterly innocent face.
'That girl is the type who's terrifying when it comes to love!'
Cheon Yo-hwa, who knew exactly what kind of violence hid behind her sister's purity, could only shudder.
'There's a goalkeeper, so she'll cleanly give up? No way, no way, absolutely no way.'
'She'll murder the goalkeeper and then say, "Oh, it's stained red with blood, so this is a human red card, right? Hurry up and process the sending-off"!'
'This coin's already crashed as it is, and I can't let you, Yo-hwa, get trapped holding the bag too...!'
Having reached her judgment at light speed, Cheon Yo-hwa began reciting her lines like a robot.
"That guy already has a girlfriend."
"Eh? Really?"
"Yeah. And she's seven years younger."
"What?!"
"Apparently he's been seeing her since she was a middle schooler."
"That's insane. He's a complete psycho, isn't he?!"
Her sister was horrified. Just as expected.
Of course, she herself knew perfectly well that the relationship between Go Yuir and Yu Ji-won wasn't "a dating thing." Well. Even rating it as generously as possible, it was platonic love at most.
But for the sake of her beloved sister... Cheon Yo-hwa was happy to sacrifice a thing like Go Yuir's reputation (she'd never exactly sought his consent).
"On top of that, before he started dating his current girlfriend, he and Go Yuri were in that kind of relationship."
"Eek?! Uh, uh-huh. Wait. Hold on, unni. That guy named Go Yuir. Didn't you clearly say he and Go Yuri were siblings...?"
"That's right."
Cheon Yo-hwa's expression turned exceedingly dark.
"In other words, this man named Go Yuir enjoyed the depravity of incest from a young age, and then after murdering Go Yuri, he gaslit the girl seven years his junior who'd taken part in the killing with him and made her his new lover."
"He's a total full-blown psycho, isn't he?!"
"Right?"
"At that level he's the trash of all trash, more questionable as a human being than even our father?!"
"No, that's... right. Yeah, yeah."
Cheon Yo-hwa barely managed to compose the emotion that nearly burst up out of her chest.
Composure. Composure and nothing else.
"And even though he already has a girlfriend, the way he looks at me is clearly suggestive."
Cheon Yo-hwa's gaze went wistful.
"I think he's probably coveting my exceptional looks. And my young age and status."
"Eeeeek..."
"But trash though he is, he's competent. No. Maybe it's precisely because he's trash that he's competent. Little sister. There's a saying, fight poison with poison, isn't there? For us to defeat the great evil that is our father... we have no choice but to join hands with the devil that is Go Yuir too."
Cheon Yo-hwa smiled.
"Even so, I don't want to watch my lovely little sister tie herself to a devil like that."
"Ah..."
"Even if a marriage does happen, it's right that I, the elder sister and the official heir, take responsibility for it. You, Yo-hwa, go live a happy life unbound by anything."
"Unni..."
Her sister's eyes went wistful too.
The two sisters laced their fingers together tightly. Performing all sorts of rituals together in the Cult had made them used to a posture like this. Through their cool body heat, the sisters' warm affection passed between them.
Then, right in front of her, her sister grinned brightly.
"Hey, Cheon Yo-hwa. I'm just asking in case, but you're not pulling some dirty trick to keep that guy named Go Yuir all for yourself, are you?"
Sharp as hell. Scary little thing.
The elder sister grinned right back, perfectly unfazed.
"Aw, Cheon Yo-hwa. As if that could ever happen. You don't trust me? Trusting yourself is trusting me, and trusting me is trusting you. Because the two of us together are Cheon Yo-hwa..."
"If I catch you lying, I'll kill you. Unni?"
"I swear it. On your life and mine."
"Hmm."
Her sister gave a smiling-eyed look and released her grip. The brief squeeze had left Cheon Yo-hwa's fingers tingling.
"Well, fine. I'll trust you."
Cheon Yo-hwa felt like she'd shaved ten years off her life.
The next day, the big day finally went ahead. They raided the executive meeting and harvested the executives of their father's faction as easily as popping the heads off Lego figures.
They didn't pop off their father's neck. They made a special request to Yu Ji-won and had only his limbs trimmed up nice and pretty.
"Yo-hwa, how dare you... To forget the grace of raising you, the grace of bringing you up! How dare you!"
Their father resisted to the very end, summoning his divine power, but it was useless.
The moment they ambushed him, they'd already cut off both his arms, sealing away most of his rituals. On top of that, the favor of "god-nim" had long since shifted from their father to the two sisters.
In less than three minutes the cult leader was completely subdued. Hearts pounding like mad, the twin sisters personally escorted their father to the underground torture chamber.
Flame Filial Piety. ON.
Since providing audiovisual material would violate moral restrictions on several fronts, only noise-cleaned audio will be attached here.
"Wait, unni! Ah! Ah, come on! How can you stab father like that! Have a conscience and leave somewhere for me to stab too!"
"Oops. Sorry, sorry. Whoa, looking at it like this, I think I get why humans are born with two eyes and two kidneys. God-nim must have arranged it all so that close sisters like us could split everything fifty-fifty and tear him apart. Yeah, yeah."
"Whoaaa. Look at how pitch-black the bone is. How much offering did he give god-nim to boast a 100 percent pure black like this?"
"Now then, father. I'll trim off the bits that are sticking out. Don't worry! They say when parents get old, the children clip their fingernails and toenails and all that for them."
"Snip-snip, snip-snip."
"Snippity-snip, snippity-snip♪"
"Wow, father's diet was a success!"
"That's our father. A middle-aged man of willpower! I never once doubted that father could shed the flab any time he set his mind to it!"
"My goodness. What kind of child runs the diet automatically on their father's behalf? We really are dutiful daughters, unni."
"Of course. If we put up a memorial gate for dutiful daughters, we'd have to put up a thousand of them, like the torii at the Fushimi Inari Shrine over in Kyoto[2]."
"Wow! A human tourism and culture festival!"
"Do you understand, little sister? In the modern age, filial piety has become a truly intricate problem. Beyond serving father in life, ensuring that even in death he enjoys eternal, immortal fame. This, truly, is what we can call the true pinnacle of filial devotion..."
Over a full two hours, the twin sisters dissolved a lifetime of grudges.
"Hwaaah."
It had been a deeply rewarding stretch of time.
A slight post-high comedown. Feeling a deep satisfaction, Cheon Yo-hwa stretched out wiiide.
Ah. What would have become of her if she'd never had a time like this?
She probably would have grown into the kind of person who, forever unable to embrace her childhood trauma, dragged it around behind her like a shadow with every step...
Wasn't it truly fortunate? Finally able to be reborn as a normal person, Cheon Yo-hwa felt very proud of herself...
"Hm?"
The Lego heads still lay strewn about the scene. As Cheon Yo-hwa looked around to check she hadn't slipped up anywhere, something caught her eye.
Someone's right hand. The wrist that had run away from her father's arm of its own accord a little while ago.
"..."
She whipped her head around.
Cheon Yo-hwa glanced around. There was no one. Naturally, since for the sake of this day she had manipulated the followers' schedules and movement routes several times over.
Worried someone might be peeking, Cheon Yo-hwa quickly snatched up her father's severed hand.
Just as one prefers the drumstick when eating chicken, the part that monopolized her interest was limited to only a portion even of that severed hand.
'Fingerprint seal...'
Cheon Yo-hwa looked down at the fingers bearing her father's prints and gulped.
'With this, hmm. I can smoothly alter or draw up all sorts of documents.'
'For example, an engagement document... or a prenuptial agreement?'
Kyaaaaaaaaaa!
Cheon Yo-hwa's face turned red and she squirmed.
To someone, it might have been a cute little motion.
But given that a severed hand gushing blood currently sat in her arms, to most people of sound common sense it could only be a somewhat terrifying scene.
'I'm insane, insane, insane!'
'But my sister's suggestion to bring him in as a live-in son-in-law is rather reasonable. Even judging by my cool, clear-headed brain, it's a very scientific proposal.'
'Live-in son-in-law... Wouldn't it also look good to have one upstanding man standing beside me, now that I'm about to ascend as head of the house?'
'Oh, wait. Why not change his surname while we're at it? Legally he'd keep the name Go Yuir, but we all have separate names that we go by inside the Cult anyway.'
'Then...'
Cheon Yo-hwa muttered under her breath.
"Cheo... Cheon Yuir?"[3]
Kyaaaaaaaaaaa!
Cheon Yo-hwa couldn't take it anymore and threw herself face down on the floor, rolling around and around.
Her clothes got dirty from the various byproducts that had burst out of the corpse, but since she'd just finished showering in her father's flesh scraps anyway, it didn't matter.
'Insane. Insane, insane, insane!'
'Cheon Yuir... Cheon Yuir! My goodness! It's so destined! I'm Cheon Yo-hwa! And my husband is Cheon Yuir!'
'If this isn't a couple the heavens ordained, then what is it? Like, seriously, what?'
'The real trend isn't Yuir-Yuri or Yuir-Ji-won, it's Yuir-Yo-hwa. I mean, just from how it sounds it's an absolute curb-stomp...'
'Cheon Yuir. Yuir oppa? Yuir Oraboni? Yuir-ah.'
Tap.
In the middle of rolling all over the floor, Cheon Yo-hwa's shoulder bumped into something. Thinking it might be a chair leg, she looked up, and it was a leg, all right, but not a chair's.
It was Yu Ji-won.
The expressionless girl was staring down at her flatly.
"..."
"..."
Cheon Yo-hwa slowly got to her feet.
"Ahem, ahem."
She forced a cough into her own throat, all while keeping up, to the very end, the dignity of a cold, lofty, supremely confident puppet master daughter.
"Ah, you worked hard today, Miss Yu Ji-won."
"Not at all. The honor's yours, my lady."
"Thanks to you, Miss Ji-won, we don't even need to go to the trouble of disposing of the corpses, which is such a relief. I'll have you know I'm a person who remembers a kindness. I'll make sure you never have to worry about money for the rest of your life."
"I am most humbled, my lady."
Thump. Thump.
Behind the facial mask Cheon Yo-hwa had built through years of practice, a small heart was pattering away.
Cheon Yo-hwa anxiously wondered whether she had been heard. She had whispered it so quietly that there was no way, surely.
"Just in case, leave all the right and left wrists here and dispose of everything else, please. Oh, and the Cult has a method for making human-skin masks, so I'll ask you for the facial skin too."
"But of course."
The other girl's face still didn't waver in the slightest.
Only then could Cheon Yo-hwa let out a sigh of relief in her heart. Right. Thank goodness. She didn't hear.
"By the way, my lady."
"Yes?"
"Mr. Matiz's real name is not Cheon Yuir but Go Yuir. In case you'd misunderstood..."
"Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak!!"
Puppet master daughter.
Dark history, deposited.
Footnotes:
[1] From Korean "spoon class" internet slang, which ranks people by inherited wealth: a "dirt spoon" is someone born poor, the opposite of a "gold spoon" born into riches.
[2] Fushimi Inari is a major Shinto shrine in Kyoto, Japan, famous for the Senbon Torii, thousands of densely packed vermilion torii gates forming long tunnels up the mountain.
[3] The Korean names Cheon Yo-hwa and Cheon Yuir share the surname Cheon and rhyme, making them sound like a neatly matched couple.
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