Chapter 2

However, thoughts are only thoughts.

It was after three days and then two more that Jaheon finally rose from his sickbed.

“Brother!”

As the hollow‑cheeked Jaheon sat up, Choseon, who had been warming medicine, rushed over in a flurry to support him.

“I’m fine. I can walk at least this much.”

Refusing Choseon’s support, Jaheon walked slowly to the door and opened it. Fresh air touched his skin. And before him spread the late Eastern Han world he was seeing for the first time in a full five days.

Wide rice fields and a blue sky.

It was the same village scenery as always, but perhaps because the memories of the 21st century had surged in, it felt like a landscape he was seeing after a long absence.

“Only five days, yet nothing has chan—”

Immersed in feeling as he gazed at the scene, Jaheon blinked.

“Wait, five days?”

Jaheon had been bedridden for five days. Which meant that for five days, Jaheon had not been by Choseon’s side. Choseon had been alone that whole time! Eyes widening, Jaheon gripped Choseon’s shoulders and asked:

“No one came and went while I was down, did they?”

His voice was gentle, but his eyes were grim. Even in his gaunt state, the killing aura emanating from Jaheon’s body could not be concealed.

He looked like a specter.

Choseon, amused by the sight, replied,

“Would anyone dare?”

It was the brother she always saw. Relieved to find Jaheon unchanged, Choseon said,

“In this village, the only person who isn’t afraid of you is Suni.”

“…”

Go Sun.

A child living on the outskirts of the village with his widowed mother, a child of a rather fierce temperament. Of course, nowhere near Jaheon’s level. Even so, he was steadfast enough to keep visiting Jaheon’s house despite Jaheon’s biting tongue.

“Other than Suni coming by to check on your face every day, no one came.”

No one had come to see Choseon, aside from Go Sun. At that, Jaheon felt relief. Seeing this, Choseon spoke softly.

“Still, please don’t be too harsh with the villagers.”

There wasn’t a soul in the village who didn’t know how much Jaheon cherished Choseon. Not just cherished, but cherished to excess—so much so that everyone feared Jaheon.

Of course, Jaheon had his reasons.

“There’s no need to be kind to that trash.”

Choseon was only thirteen.

Ridiculous by 21st‑century standards, but in this era, it was about the age when talk of betrothals and marriage began to circulate. Yet even before his modern memories resurfaced, Jaheon vehemently opposed any early marriage for Choseon.

He simply hated it.

The thought of Choseon marrying off to some good‑for‑nothing she didn’t even know was more hateful to him than death. So Jaheon rolled his eyes and practically turned the village upside down, declaring that there would be absolutely no marriage until Choseon turned eighteen.

And that wasn’t all, was it?

He broadcast the disgraceful secrets of the families proposing marriage far and wide. Tales like the husband who had offered ten silver taels at a pleasure house, or the son who had staked the family fortune to cover gambling debts, or the existence of an illegitimate child. After a few such incidents, Jaheon became the village byword for terror.

In the end, every family proposing matches for Choseon disappeared, and no one sought to be personally close with Jaheon either.

“Brother.”

Of course, Choseon did not dislike Jaheon’s excessive love. She knew full well that he did it all out of concern for her.

She was merely worried.

“But we can’t live just the two of us like this forever.”

Choseon always worried that her brother might end up lacking in social graces at this rate. At her words, Jaheon pouted and abruptly asked,

“…Do you dislike living with this brother?”

With a vaguely dejected face, Jaheon cut his eyes sideways at her. Because her brother, who had been ill for five days, looked so pitiable, Choseon, still smiling, reluctantly replied,

“Of course not. I like living with you.”

At that, Jaheon stuck out his lips and asked,

“Then why… why say such things?”

“Because someday, we may have to live apart.”

At the mature answer, Jaheon’s lips trembled silently. It was overwhelming enough to accept the memories of the 21st century, and now he had to prepare for the day he would be separated from Choseon. A shadow passed over his face. Seeing him so crushed, Choseon thought hard, smiling. She needed to steer the conversation elsewhere. If she could distract her brother, his mood might lift. He had only just shaken off his illness; she could not let him relapse.

“Ah.”

As she pondered, something came to mind. Something that might draw Jaheon’s interest.

“Come to think of it, something arrived for you.”

“Something arrived for me?”

At Jaheon’s puzzled question, Choseon nodded.

“It wasn’t a person, so I forgot….”

Busy caring for Jaheon, Choseon had forgotten to bring it out.

“This.”

It was a bamboo slip bound by woven strips.

In this era, bamboo slips are used in place of paper.

Thus, a bamboo slip arriving for Jaheon meant someone had written him a letter.

“…Why?”

But there was something strange.

“Who would send a letter to me?”

There was no one who would send a letter to Jaheon. Their hometown had been burned by bandits. That was why Jaheon and Choseon had left. On the way, they had lost their parents, and communication with relatives had been cut off. One could search with eyes peeled and still find no one to send Jaheon a letter.

While turning the matter over, Jaheon gripped the bamboo slip.

“…?”

At that moment, the intuition that sparked only in matters concerning Choseon tingled.

“Don’t tell me—”

Startled, Jaheon hastily unfolded the bamboo slip and read. And then he understood. Why Go Sun had brought this letter. Go Sun was the only one sturdy enough to withstand Jaheon going berserk upon seeing this!

Bang!

In fury, Jaheon slammed the table.

The sender was the village headman, and the contents were simple.

A high official was looking for a young girl suitable to take as an adopted daughter. The headman could recommend Choseon as such an adopted daughter. The letter also described in detail the amount of wealth Jaheon would gain if he sent Choseon to be adopted.

There was a line saying that if this wealth were received, it would greatly benefit the village as well. One could clearly see the headman’s mood. His handwriting was on the verge of flying off the page.

“Right now….”

But Jaheon was different.

He wanted to storm into the village that very moment and grab the headman by the collar.

“You’re telling me to sell off Choseon?”

Adopted daughter? They might call it that, but damn those illustrious clans—there were countless cases where an “adopted daughter” was taken into the household as a concubine or kept effectively as a house courtesan.

And they say adopted daughter?

Moreover, he knew all too well what would happen to Choseon once she became an adopted daughter, and they dared call it that? Jaheon felt as though his vitals were twisting. There could be no letter more insulting in all the world. No matter how vast the wealth promised within, to Jaheon this was the most insulting letter in existence.

He could not stand idle.

He felt he would not be satisfied until he had planted a fist in the headman’s face. In a blaze of anger, Jaheon sprang to his feet, flinging aside the bamboo slip before he had finished reading it.

[The Registrar Wang is seeking a child suitable to take as an adopted daughter….]

Suddenly one word entered Jaheon’s eyes.

Registrar Wang.

Jaheon rolled the term on his tongue. Somehow the word felt familiar. More precisely, the surname felt familiar.

“Registrar Wang, Wang…? A Wang?”

And then Jaheon realized.

“Don’t tell me….”

Among the memories of the 21st century that had flooded into Jaheon’s mind was a name he could never forget.

Wang Yun.

The man who took Choseon as an adopted daughter and used her bore the same surname—Wang.

Footnotes:

1. “Bamboo slip” refers to 죽간, the pre‑paper writing medium made of bamboo strips bound together; although paper existed in the Han, bamboo and wood slips were still widely used, especially outside court or in lower‑resource contexts.

2. “Adopted daughter” in elite households of the period could mask arrangements akin to concubinage or using the girl within the household’s inner quarters; the term could be socially respectable while functioning exploitatively depending on the clan’s intent.

3. “Registrar Wang” renders 왕 종사, indicating an official post in the bureaucracy; the surname “Wang” flags the figure as potentially connected in narrative to Wang Yun, the official who, in Three Kingdoms lore, adopts Diao Chan (Choseon) to deploy her in a political stratagem.

4. Choseon is using Oraboni(Modern day = Oppa) for now im gonna use Brother if you want me to use Og title pls letme know