Chapter 01

The sky was slowly brightening with a bluish tint. White frost had settled over the grass in the yard visible through the window.

It was still early, but the sound of her husband’s footsteps echoed through the bedroom. Jaye took her eyes off the view outside.

A little while later, she heard the sound of a door opening and closing.

Looking at the freezing dawn outside, Jaye worried about her husband’s commute to work. She wanted to tell him to be careful on his way to work, but as always, she swallowed the words she wanted to say.

Her husband had made it very clear before that there was no need to see him off.

The reason was that, if the two of them, who were only a show-window couple, wanted other people to believe they were a married couple who stayed together late into the night before falling asleep, it would look more convincing if she slept in.

Jaye thought her husband’s reasoning was correct, so she followed his wishes exactly.

About thirty minutes after her husband left for work, yellow light spilled over the frost-covered lawn.

At six in the morning, Unamjae began its day by turning on all the lights in the house.

Jaye got out of bed, washed her face, and put on a loose skirt that fell below her knees and a light-colored sweater.

After neatly tying her long hair into a single ponytail, she headed to her mother-in-law’s room.

“Mother, did you sleep well?”

Although the widespread use of boilers had done away with the old distinction between the warmer and cooler parts of a traditional room, Okhyeon had laid a cushion mat in the innermost part of the master bedroom and arranged a place to sit with cushions and a long bolster. She received all reports there.

“All right. Come sit here.”

Jaye carefully walked over and sat in front of Okhyeon.

Nearly seventy years old, Okhyeon looked at Jaye with sharp, piercing eyes.

“How was Sunwoo’s condition last night?”

Deeply devoted to her son, Okhyeon called her daughter-in-law in every morning and asked about her son’s condition.

What she was asking about wasn’t his general physical condition. It was about their marital relations. Jaye knew exactly what her mother-in-law wanted to hear, so she gave her the answer she expected.

“Yes. Vice President, yesterday he had relations with me for even longer than usual.”

“I told you that you should press your bodies together and unite as much as possible. Did you do that?”

It was an embarrassing thing for a twenty-three-year-old woman to talk about, but this had been going on for more than two years, so Jaye could now answer calmly.

“Yes. We had relations face-to-face.”

The first time her mother-in-law had questioned her about their bed life, Jaye had only blinked repeatedly. Compared to then, this was considerable progress.

“Good. For the time being, pay even more attention and make sure you follow Madam’s instructions when you lie together.”

Jaye and Sunwoo’s intimate life was carried out according to the instructions of a gifted shaman named Yonghwa.

“Oh, right. Madam said that going on for too long wasn’t good. She said it would disrupt your yang energy. It also means you should let any bad energy flow out quickly.”

“Yes, Mother.”

Whenever Jaye and Sunwoo were supposed to sleep together, her mother-in-law, Okhyeon, always checked whether they had done things according to Yonghwa’s instructions.

“If Sunwoo is full of energy and wants to go on for a long time, you need to make sure you can finish quickly.”

“Yes. I always keep that in mind.”

“All right. That’s enough. You’re doing well. I’ll see you at mealtime.”

After leaving Okhyeon’s room, Jaye let out a sigh of relief, thinking that she had safely gotten through her morning report.

Back in the bedroom, she untied her neatly bound hair.

Whenever she tied her hair tightly and then let it down like this, the area around the part on the crown of her head always felt sore and tight.

Jaye sat in front of the vanity and pressed down on her roots with her fingertips while looking at the reflection of the bedroom in the mirror.

There were two beds placed side by side in the bedroom.

Of the two beds, the one with clear signs that someone had gotten out from under the covers was Jaye’s. The bed beside it, neatly made with no sign that anyone had slept in it, was her husband’s.

On days when her husband came home late because he was busy, like last night, there were many times when they didn’t exchange a single word until morning.

The only evidence that he had come and gone from the bedroom was the faint trace of his scent left behind in the bedding.

Even after living together for nearly three years, Jaye and her husband were still awkward and distant with each other.

“I hope he got to work safely.”

Her husband, Jung Sunwoo, was the only son of Chairman Jung of Samjeong Group, who had passed away ten years ago. He was the heir to Samjeong Group, the third-largest conglomerate in the business world.

He had not yet stepped into the forefront of management, but he was thirty-one this year, and the prevailing opinion was that he would take the helm of the group’s management within a few years.

The moment Sunwoo made his move, the enormous controlling stake in Samjeong Group would move with him, and the entire country would be shaken.

Samjeong Group’s total annual revenue was nearly one and a half times the national annual budget.

The man who was expected to become the chairman of such a massive group was Jaye’s husband.

By the time Jaye finished breakfast and came out into the garden of Unamjae, it was past eight.

The morning sunlight poured down on Unamjae, which stood on one of the higher elevations in Seoul.

Because this area was considered prime land inside the old Four Gates of Seoul, many political and business figures had lived here since ancient times.

Now, as their second- and third-generation heirs had begun taking over management in earnest, most of them had moved south, but Samjeong Group was still holding on to this land.

They said that a rock towering so high that it seemed to pierce the sky was called Unam (雲巖). People had called the father-in-law of the Amsool, who had once possessed such overwhelming influence that he seemed capable of reaching the heavens, Unam, and because this was his residence, the place came to be called Unamjae.

From Unamjae, one could see the residential areas of Seoul spread out below as though the entire city lay at one’s feet.

During the construction boom, Chairman Jung was said to have carried his only son on his shoulders here and told him where apartments would be built, where department stores would go, and where factories would be constructed.

“Little Madam, the temperature has dropped quite a bit. I’ll drive you to the bus stop.”

“It’s okay, Mr. Kang. I’ll walk like I usually do.”

The live-in driver offered to take her by car, but Jaye declined and stepped outside the main gate.

A bitter wind seeped through the collar of her coat. It was late November. Until yesterday, the weather had been warm at around ten degrees Celsius, but the temperature had suddenly dropped since dawn.

Jaye was the only one who hadn’t checked the weather and was still wearing a thin trench coat.

She considered going back inside to change into something thicker, even now, but when she thought of her mother-in-law, she gave up on the idea.

It would be around this time that her mother-in-law, Madam Ji Okhyeon, would be sitting in the living room reading the newspaper.

Okhyeon had had her son relatively late in life, so there was such a large age gap between her and Jaye that they were almost like grandmother and granddaughter.

Jaye found her intimidating. And it wasn’t simply because of their age difference.

After Chairman Jung Geun-cheol of Samjeong Group passed away, Okhyeon had become the power behind the scenes of Samjeong Group. Sitting here, she made all the decisions concerning the group.

The five holding companies of Samjeong Group and its more than sixty affiliated companies were practically all in the palm of Okhyeon’s hand.

“She’ll probably scold me for being a woman who doesn’t even know what the weather is like…”

Crossing her arms over the front of her coat, she hunched her neck like a frightened turtle and began walking down the hill.

“Why does the bus stop seem so far away today…?”

She was hurrying toward the bus stop when a high-class sedan that had driven up the hill and was now coming back down slowed beside Jaye.

Beep, beep.

At the short, repeated honks, Jaye stopped walking.

“?”

The black sedan came to a complete stop beside her.

A moment later, the rear window rolled down, and her husband, Jung Sunwoo, appeared inside.

Jaye hadn’t seen her husband’s company car go back up the hill, so she widened her eyes, wondering why he was coming back down from the house.

“On your way to school?”

“Ah, yes.”

“Get in.”

“No, it’s okay. I’m almost at the bus stop.”

Today, he was wearing a dark navy suit with an even darker tie. The blue tones made his already slightly upturned eyes look even colder.

He wasn’t normally an easy person to approach, but perhaps because of the cold colors of his clothes, he seemed even more difficult to get close to today.

“I’m going that way anyway.”

“No, I’m fine.”

“I said get in.”

Jaye considered refusing one more time, but when she saw the slight crease between his brows, she quickly changed her mind.

“Yes.”

She reached for the door handle to get into the passenger seat, but the locked door wouldn’t open.

Instead, the passenger-side window rolled down, and her husband’s secretary appeared.

“The passenger seat is mine, Madam.”

“Oh, oh, yes.”

Jaye hurriedly opened the rear door. The secretary, who had gotten out of the passenger seat, closed the rear door for her before she could even shut it herself.

She had wanted to avoid sitting beside her husband, but before she knew it, she had ended up right next to him.

The car smoothly began moving down the hill.

If she had taken the bus, it would have stopped and started more than ten times along the way, but her husband’s company car glided through the streets of Seoul.

Every now and then, she could hear her husband turning the pages of his documents, but the car remained silent all the way to school.

Uncomfortable with the awkward silence, Jaye could only pick at her fingertips. This was exactly why she had tried not to sit beside her husband.

“How’s school? Managing your studies okay?”

The unexpected question came just as the university gates began to come into view.

“Ah, yes. Thanks to your help.”

“When did I ever help you with your studies?”

There was a hint of laughter in Sunwoo’s voice.

Jaye, who had spent virtually no time with him except when they shared a room at night, looked at her husband with a flustered expression.

“Well, I mean… you helped me get into the university.”

At her rather anticlimactic answer, her husband nodded and turned his gaze away. Only then did Jaye feel as though she could finally breathe again.

Meanwhile, the black sedan passed through the gates of Dangun University and headed toward the engineering building.

Jaye had missed her chance to ask him to drop her off at the main gate, so she stared helplessly at the campus.

She had no intention of riding her husband’s car all the way to the engineering building.

She didn’t want people’s attention to be drawn to her husband.

“Please let me get off here.”

“Yes, Madam. Please wait a moment. I’ll pull over.”

The car stopped in front of the engineering building. Jaye pulled on the door handle, but the door didn’t open.

“Madam, I’ll open the door for you.”

With a click, her husband’s secretary, who had been sitting in the front seat, got out of the car and opened the door.

Jaye held onto the car door and gave her husband’s secretary an awkward nod before stepping onto campus.

“Have a good day, Madam.”

“Ah, yes. You too, Executive Yoon.”

As she hurried to leave after watching him bow deeply and politely, she heard a short voice from behind her.

“Jaye.”

She stopped.

“Come here for a moment.”

Her husband had called her back.

Sunwoo got out of the car and gestured toward the trunk while looking at Executive Yoon.

“Executive Yoon.”

“Yes. You mean the scarf?”

Sunwoo attended many business and social gatherings, so his car was stocked with items such as the latest smartphones released by Samjeong Electronics and fur scarves from Samjeong Fur, a subsidiary of Samjeong Trading.

It had been a tradition since his father’s time to hand out gifts bearing the Samjeong brand after luncheon gatherings or meetings.

Sunwoo took the box from Executive Yoon, pulled out a fur scarf, and approached Jaye.

“It’s cold.”

He wrapped the thick scarf twice around Jaye’s neck, then tucked one end inside the scarf and secured it.

“Ah…”

Caught completely off guard by his unexpected action, Jaye couldn’t move.

“You should dress warmly.”

Although they had been married for nearly three years, the two of them were not close enough to take care of each other’s clothes.

As if to prove how awkward it was for her to stand so close to him, Jaye’s face trembled slightly as she looked up at Sunwoo.

She was still wondering why he was acting so unlike himself when he spoke again.

“Oh, right, Jaye.”

“?”

“I left something behind when I went to work, so I stopped by the house.”

“Yes.”

“Mother saw me in the living room and said I was doing a good job.”

Not knowing what he meant, Jaye stared at Sunwoo with wide eyes.

“Yeah. She said I was doing well. She said it would all be over in two months, so I should hang in there and treat it as a way of taking care of my health.”

“……”

“That thing in bed, or whatever you call it. I guess you’re still doing it?”