IWTSDLPF 1

                                                        <1>

“Wake up, Woo Seol-hee.”

The two hands holding the steering wheel would not listen to her.

Her fingertips were trembling and numb, and cold sweat covered her palms.

When she tightly gripped the steering wheel, the wounds on her wrists became more visible.

Seol-hee took a deep breath and looked at the rearview mirror and side mirrors again and again.

She kept checking if any car was following her or if she could see a familiar license plate.

I can’t stop.

If she stopped now, she felt like they would drag her back to that house.

Bzz— Bzz—

The phone she had thrown onto the passenger seat rang loudly.

[Mother-in-law]

[Husband]

And one unknown number.

She didn’t know the number.

But strangely, the last few numbers looked familiar. She felt like she had seen them somewhere before.

However, she had no time to think about it.

Seol-hee clenched her teeth and stepped harder on the gas.

As the car became faster, her hands did not stop shaking. In fact, they shook even more.

Where did everything go wrong?

Suddenly, she remembered the time right after her wedding.

Before they left for their honeymoon, her mother-in-law took Seol-hee to a shaman’s house.

Seol-hee stood in front of an old wooden gate, feeling confused.

Beyond the closed gate, faded flags of five colors moved in the wind like they were alive.

The smell of incense was strong and unpleasant. It reached all the way outside the gate.

She immediately felt uncomfortable.

“She is a very important person who looks after our family. You must treat her well.”

After her mother-in-law said this, her husband, Jin Dong-chan, naturally went inside.

But when Seol-hee tried to follow them into the shrine, her mother-in-law stopped her.

“You stay here.”

Seol-hee was left alone in the yard.

She stood at the edge of the wooden floor and looked suspiciously at the door. Smoke from the incense was coming through the small opening.

“Dear, come here for a moment.”

A little later, her mother-in-law came out and called her in a kind voice.

She was holding a broken bowl.

It looked like someone had forced the cracked pieces back together. The bowl was already useless.

“You take care of this now, dear.”

Seol-hee hesitated before nodding.

She thought her mother-in-law was simply asking her to clean up a broken bowl.

Following her instructions, Seol-hee wrapped the bowl tightly in newspaper and put it in a garbage bag.

Then she threw it outside the shaman’s house.

She did not know that it was part of a ritual.

She never imagined that this small event would completely change her life for the next ten years.

I have to run. If I don’t leave now, I may never get another chance…

Seol-hee bit her trembling lower lip.

Her married life had always felt wrong.

Dong-chan had once acted as if he would give her the whole world.

But whenever his mother said something, his attitude changed.

Important decisions were always made by his mother.

Dong-chan simply stood behind her and never argued.

It was a lonely and sad marriage.

On top of that, her husband and mother-in-law often went to the shaman’s house whenever something important happened.

After that, Seol-hee began having all kinds of accidents.

She suddenly lost her balance and fell down the stairs.

Sometimes she suffered sudden pain and could not sleep at night.

Even when she went to the hospital, the doctors could not find the reason.

She discovered the truth after losing her baby.

It was the first child she had gotten after ten years of marriage.

She had just passed three months of pregnancy.

One day, she suddenly began bleeding.

She was more afraid than she was in pain.

And the baby inside her, the place where it should have been safest, was lost.

Seol-hee cried so much that she could barely breathe.

She cried in the hospital room.

She cried at home.

She even cried alone in the bathroom.

But on her mother-in-law and husband’s faces, she saw something strange.

Instead of sadness, there was relief.

Her doubts about their strange behavior became stronger.

They lost their child and grandchild. Why aren’t they sad?

Her doubts grew into something bigger.

Then, on the day of the ceremony held for her baby’s spirit, she finally learned the truth.

“You stay here.”

“Stay in the yard.”

As always, the two of them left Seol-hee behind and went inside the shrine.

But this time, for the first time in ten years, Seol-hee did not obey.

Something was definitely happening.

She was simply the only one who didn’t know about it.

More importantly—

That was my baby.

She could not understand why the baby’s own mother was not allowed to attend the ceremony.

Seol-hee walked toward the house where the shrine was.

She wanted to talk to her baby.

She wanted to say that she loved the baby.

She wanted to say that she was sorry she could not protect them.

There was no sound coming from inside the room.

She was just about to knock when she heard the shaman’s confident voice.

“Good. When the child left this world, the child became a support for his father so that the father could become a great man.”

Seol-hee felt like all the air had been knocked out of her.

The shaman’s cold voice made the whole room feel frozen.

After a short silence, her mother-in-law and Dong-chan let out relieved sighs.

They even sounded happy.

“It’s all thanks to the talisman you gave us.”

“Thanks to you, we were able to use the bowl properly.”

“If you use a person to take away bad luck, you should get the proper benefit from it.”

Seol-hee’s eyes began to tremble.

All the words suddenly connected in her mind.

The broken bowl.

The baby.

The support.

The scapegoat.

All the bad luck that had fallen on her.

And the two people smiling.

Then Dong-chan turned his head toward the open door.

Seol-hee quickly stepped backward.

Her heart was beating wildly, and cold sweat ran down her back.

After that day, she was not allowed to leave the house.

Her husband and mother-in-law watched her all day.

For several days, Seol-hee held onto her phone and searched for answers.

The results were cruel.

Everything matched her situation.

The more she read, the colder her fingers and toes became.

She was not really their wife.

She was not really their daughter-in-law.

They did not even see her as a person.

She was only a scapegoat who would take the bad luck meant for Jin Dong-chan.

That was her role.

That was the reason they had kept her.

When she realized that they had even used her baby, she became furious.

She did not want to stay with them for even one more second.

And next time, her own life could be in danger.

She calmly thought about her situation.

Finally, she made her decision.

Late at night, when everyone was asleep, Seol-hee left the house.

She had no intention of ever going back.

The ground was still wet from the rain.

The air was damp and cold.

Her family might have put a tracking device on her own car.

So Seol-hee used her late father’s car, which was parked in a nearby parking lot.

She thought they would not realize she was gone until morning.

But she was completely wrong.

Bzz—

Her phone rang again.

This time, it was her father-in-law, Jin Su-seong.

Could she trust him?

He was the only person in the family who had ever listened to her.

When she secretly wiped away her tears, he had comforted her.

He had also taken her side in front of her mother-in-law and husband.

But right now, she had no time to explain everything.

“First, I need to get out of Seoul.”

She could call him after that.

There would still be time.

Just as she pressed the gas pedal—

A huge tanker truck coming from the opposite lane suddenly turned its steering wheel and crossed the center line.

Seol-hee frowned because of the bright headlights.

Then, with a terrible engine sound, a motorcycle suddenly appeared and passed in front of her car.

Seol-hee reacted without thinking and turned the steering wheel.

BANG—!

But it was too late.

The motorcycle was pulled underneath the tanker truck.

A huge sound shook the ground.

Then—

FLASH!

A bright light filled her vision.

The next moment, the world turned upside down.

A sharp ringing sound filled her ears.

Inside the overturned car, Seol-hee was held in place by her seat belt.

Through her blurry eyes, she saw a puddle on the dark road.

The flames rising from the accident were reflected clearly in the water.

Her eyes slowly moved around.

She saw someone wearing a helmet lying on the road.

Then she heard the voices of the men who had barely escaped from the tanker truck.

Their voices pulled Seol-hee back from death for a moment.

“Looks like she’s dead.”

“Fuck. We were told not to kill her.”

At that moment, the world flashed.

And—

I died.

I had been used as my husband’s scapegoat.

A terrible dizziness filled her head.

Then a familiar voice reached her ears.

“Dear, Seol-hee?”

She slowly came back to her senses.

Seol-hee opened her heavy eyes.

“Oh, my dear. You must have stayed awake all night because of the wedding.”

Her mother-in-law, Yeo In-ok, suddenly appeared in front of her face.

Seol-hee was shocked and held her breath.

It was too clear to be a dream.

It was frightening.

“Seol-hee, look in the mirror. Look how beautiful you are today. There is no bride more beautiful than you.”

Seol-hee looked at In-ok.

Then she slowly moved her eyes toward the mirror.

Her eyes shook in shock.

The woman in the mirror was wearing a pure white wedding dress.

That woman was herself.

She looked exactly as she had ten years ago.

It felt like a very distant memory.

In-ok gently placed both hands on Seol-hee’s shoulders and whispered,

“From now on, you only need to listen to your mother. You understand?”

A chill went down Seol-hee’s back.

Seol-hee had lost her own mother when she was young.

In-ok had used those words to get close to her.

“Think of me as your real mother.”

Twenty-four-year-old Seol-hee had believed her words innocently.

She did not know that In-ok really meant:

Obey me and become a quiet, obedient daughter-in-law.

Seol-hee tightly held the calla bouquet in her hands.

“Wow, our Seol-hee. Why are you so beautiful?”

At that moment, the door of the bridal waiting room opened.

A man wearing a bow tie stuck his face through the door.

It was Jin Dong-chan.

In-ok’s face, which had just been wearing a cold smile, suddenly became bright.

“Son, are you already saying your wife is pretty in front of your mother?”

“Oh, Mother Yeo In-ok, why are you like this? I love both women.”

Seol-hee’s closed lips slowly opened.

She let out a tired breath.

She remembered.

Yes. That annoying line.

His stupid and selfish words about loving both women.

It was not a flashback.

Everything was too clear.

And it was not a dream either.

Her memories of the past ten years were too real.

The moment she saw Dong-chan’s face, everything became clear.

Seol-hee knew for sure.

She could not believe it, but—

She had returned ten years into the past.

Instead of dying as a ghost because of the Jin family, someone had brought her back to the past.

Perhaps she had been given another chance to destroy this horrible family.

Seol-hee looked down at the calla bouquet in her hands.

Wasn’t the meaning of a calla lily “a new beginning”?

She quietly swallowed.

A smile kept appearing on her lips.

“A new beginning…”

Her heart began beating strongly.

It felt as if she had been given a new life and a new heart.

Slowly, she stood up.

She took off the uncomfortable satin gloves.

Then she pulled the tiara from her head.

She removed the pins holding her veil in place.

“Ah… Dear?”

“Seol-hee?”

Seol-hee looked directly at the two of them.

Her eyes were firm.

Then, in a clear voice, she made the first declaration that would change her destiny.

“I can’t marry him. I’m not going to be a fool for the Jin family!”