Chapter 18
Jang Un-chu lay on the bed, but she wasn't asleep.
Her body felt so exhausted that it seemed ready to collapse at any moment, yet her mind was unusually active.
No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't fall asleep.
She couldn't stop thinking about the life that had originally belonged to her.
After marrying Zhao Yongchang, she had lived a fairly decent life in the Zhao household.
Her mother-in-law and sisters-in-law were somewhat difficult to deal with, but Jang Un-chu was accustomed to working hard.
She was quick with her hands and didn't mind doing a little more than everyone else.
Because of that, the Zhao family had all been satisfied with her.
Zhao Yongchang himself was somewhat ignorant of worldly matters, but he wasn't a bad person.
After getting married, he focused entirely on his studies.
The two of them treated each other with courtesy and respect.
As the years passed, affection naturally grew between them.
Later, Zhao Yongchang became a xiucai.
After even more effort, he eventually became a juren as well.
He later opened a private school in the village and taught students.
With the prestige of being a juren, he never lacked pupils.
Jang Un-chu's life improved even further.
The entire Zhao family also prospered along with him.
The life in those dreams had been a good one.
But to the current Jang Un-chu, it honestly didn't seem all that special.
She didn't feel as though she had suffered a terrible loss merely because someone else had taken her "husband from a previous life."
She preferred her current life with Gang Jo-hang and Gang Gye.
But liking her current life didn't mean she felt nothing about having her original fate stolen from her.
Before finally finding peace and stability in the Gang family, she had endured constant beatings.
And the violence had only become worse with each passing year.
All of it had happened because of Jang Un-mo.
If her life really should have followed the path shown in those dreams, then Jang Un-mo's sudden change back then could only mean one thing.
She had known the future.
Perhaps she had learned it through dreams, just as Jang Un-chu had.
Or perhaps there had been some other way.
Jang Un-chu remained lying on the bed with her eyes open, continuously recalling the past.
The Jang family had only two branches beneath her grandparents: the eldest branch and the second branch.
Jang Un-chu and her younger cousin Jang Un-mo were only half a year apart in age.
Jang Un-mo was the daughter of the eldest branch.
Jang Un-chu was the daughter of the second branch.
Among the girls of their generation, there were only the two of them.
In fact, Jang Un-chu's marriage arrangement with Zhao Yongchang had existed since before she was five years old.
Her grandfather had verbally agreed on the marriage with the Zhao family.
When her grandfather was still alive, the atmosphere in the household had been relatively normal.
He was a carpenter and often earned some extra money from outside work.
But when Jang Un-chu was five, her grandfather passed away.
Once her grandmother took control of the household, the family's balance gradually began to tilt.
Her grandmother had always favored the eldest branch.
Without her grandfather there to restrain her, she became even more blatant.
On top of that, Jang Un-chu's father was the kind of man people called "too good-natured."
He followed whatever his mother and elder brother said.
His favorite phrase was always,
"We're all one family. Why should family members keep score?"
With someone like her father constantly enabling everyone else, it was easy to imagine how the household would eventually change.
As the daughter of the eldest branch, Jang Un-mo was deeply loved by their grandmother.
Zhao Yongchang, meanwhile, was the youngest son of the Zhao family and was adored by Old Master Zhao and Old Madam Zhao.
He had studied from childhood and had been considered a promising talent.
His teacher at the private school constantly praised him.
How could Jang Un-chu, the unloved daughter of the Jang family's second branch, possibly deserve such an excellent fiancé?
Her grandmother wanted to transfer the marriage arrangement to Jang Un-mo.
The Zhao family quietly accepted the idea as well.
Why would they choose a daughter-in-law ignored by her own family when they could marry the favored one instead?
In any case, Jang Un-chu's grandfather had only promised one of his granddaughters to the Zhao family's youngest son.
He had never specifically named which granddaughter.
So Jang Un-mo also fit the condition.
As Zhao Yongchang grew older, he also began to favor Jang Un-mo more.
The two seemed like a naturally matched pair.
Everything appeared to fit perfectly.
The only problem was that Zhao Yongchang took the examinations several times without achieving much.
The Zhao family was also rather poor.
So Jang Un-mo wasn't especially eager to marry into their household.
And after she met that scumbag, her heart changed completely.
That scumbag, Jang Un-chu's former husband Yang Ze, had a face made for deceiving people.
His features were clear and refined, almost like morning dew.
He even carried an air of elegance.
Nothing about his appearance revealed the filth inside him.
The Yang family had once been prosperous.
As the saying went, even a fallen wealthy family could survive for three generations.
There was still a fair amount of property left.
The problem was that Yang Ze loved gambling.
His parents had died early, and he had already squandered all the property assigned to him.
So shamelessly, he moved into his second uncle's household and lived off them.
His second uncle still possessed some wealth.
Even the Yang family's main residence was under his control.
That uncle didn't know what to do with a thick-skinned parasite like Yang Ze, so he simply allowed him to continue eating at the family's expense.
Secretly, however, he hoped Yang Ze would marry quickly and move out.
That was why, even when Yang Ze used the Yang family's name and status to deceive others, his second uncle's household pretended not to notice.
But all the respectable families in town knew the truth about the Yang family.
Otherwise, Yang Ze would never have had to look for a bride from the countryside.
Part of the reason things ended up this way was that Yang Ze couldn't find anyone else willing to marry him.
Another reason was that Jang Un-chu was easy to control.
She had nowhere else to go.
Wouldn't that make it easy to work her like an ox or horse?
