He told me to undress earlier, and now he wanted me to put on clothes.
I sat in heavy silence, blinking in confusion, until Iheon turned and walked out of the room entirely.
...Had he planned to make me change from the start?
I stared blankly at the door before slowly raising my arm and sniffing my sleeve.
Sure enough, the damp, musty smell of the underground cell clung stubbornly to the fabric. It was unpleasant.
The tension drained from my body.
I had been convinced he was going to force himself on me and ended up sobbing like a child. Now, I just felt embarrassed.
Even though my real age was twenty-one, “Seo Heemin” was already thirty. From his perspective, I must have looked utterly pathetic.
I changed into the loose-fitting clothes—an oversized shirt that didn’t quite sit on my shoulders and shorts that barely clung to my waist.
Then, cautiously, I opened the door and stepped into the living room.
A sharp scent of alcohol filled my nostrils.
Turning my head, I saw him.
Cha Iheon sat on the couch, pouring himself a glass of whiskey.
The bloodstains smeared across his hand—whether they were his own or someone else’s, I couldn’t tell—caught my attention.
He was drinking with a wounded hand, wearing the kind of expression that suggested he had taken offense over something.
Even though he had been the one to lash out first.
I hesitated for a moment before walking toward the living room table.
Opening the drawer, I pulled out a first-aid kit.
Iheon’s sharp gaze followed my movements, landing briefly on my tear-streaked face before narrowing slightly.
"Give me your hand."
"Fuck off."
The cold words rang through the room.
His eyes—half-lidded, red-rimmed—looked like those of a coiled serpent.
The first-aid kit trembled slightly in my grasp.
He really didn’t know how to say a single thing kindly.
Even though I knew he didn’t mean it.
"Just give it to me. I’ll treat it."
I barely managed to force out the words.
He continued to stare at me in silence.
"Didn’t you hear me? I said fuck off."
"You bought me for fifty billion, didn’t you? I should at least be worth that much."
He scoffed in disbelief.
Even if I couldn’t give him my body, I could still do other things.
Ignoring his reaction, I opened the first-aid kit and took out what I needed.
He shot me a pointed glare, as if wondering how the hell I knew where the supplies were.
"Dr. Hwang told me."
A lie.
The truth was, I had read it in the novel.
"Give me your hand."
"......"
"Hurry up."
When I reached out and grabbed his wrist, he let himself be pulled forward with minimal resistance.
He might have acted reluctant, but he wasn’t completely unwilling.
His expression remained rigid, but I caught the faint tremble in his eyelashes.
...What a child.
Not long ago, I had been terrified of him.
But now, I wasn’t.
Maybe it was because I had finally realized—
For all his hatred toward "Seo Heemin," he couldn’t stand the idea of being hated in return.
A coward, really.
A small smile crept onto my lips as I gently dabbed at his wounds with a cotton pad soaked in antiseptic.
"You’re so damn slow. Are you planning to do this all night?"
This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.
As I carefully wiped away the dried blood, he grew impatient and poured the antiseptic directly onto his hand.
It had to sting, but he didn’t flinch.
Of course, he didn’t.
His pride wouldn’t allow him to.
How very Cha Iheon.
"Uh..."
"What."
His indifferent response made me glance up.
His expression was still stiff, but he didn’t seem as angry as he had been when he first walked in.
Fanning his hand to dry the antiseptic, I finally asked the question that had been on my mind.
Bluntly.
"Did you kill someone?"
His head tilted slightly.
His eyes, narrowed and calculating, studied me for a long moment.
Then, without hesitation, he answered—
"No."
"Then why is there so much blood on your clothes?"
"Because I beat them to the brink of death."
"Who?"
"The bastard who stuck that syringe in your arm."
"From what I remember, 'Seo Heemin' wasn’t actually injected with drugs multiple times. The swelling was just a side effect of an intravenous injection, which required them to administer additional shots in different areas.
Still, I couldn’t help but feel a little bad for the guy who got beaten into a pulp over it. Then again, he was just a character in this world. And since he wasn’t a medical professional yet still gave me an illegal injection, I figured he deserved it.
After all, Cha Iheon was a man known as a ruthless butcher. The fact that he let the guy live at all was already surprising.
He had spent fifty billion won on me, not just five billion. The damage to his 'property' was undeniable, but it didn’t seem like this incident would escalate into something larger.
Phew...
I let out a sigh of relief. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about getting stabbed to death by a Bukseong Group thug anytime soon.
"I’m going to apply some ointment now."
The scraped area was larger than I had thought. I carefully spread the ointment across the back of his hand before wrapping a bandage around it.
The result looked so clumsy that I debated unwrapping it and trying again, but before I could, Iheon—who had been sitting quietly until now—spoke.
"Why do you keep talking to me formally? Seeing you after so long, it feels like you’re treating me like a complete stranger."
"Well... there’s a nine-year age gap..."
I spoke without thinking, then immediately regretted it.
I glanced at him cautiously, but his expression remained unreadable as he brought the glass to his lips.
The twenty-one-year-old Cha Iheon I knew in reality preferred soju over whiskey. He also wasn’t the type to drink without food. Whenever we went to a bar together, he insisted on ordering at least three different snacks, stuffing me to the point of bursting.
This man shared his face, but nothing else.
If he had acted like my friend, I probably would have spoken casually to him, regardless of our age difference.
But his overwhelming presence, his oppressive aura, and the weight of his years made it impossible.
"I don’t know what you’re scheming."
Iheon, now holding a fully bandaged hand, drained the rest of his glass in one go.
Then, like a child who had just discovered a new toy, he grinned—eyes lighting up with amusement.
"But keep going. It’s entertaining."
His pupils darkened, like water slowly seeping into the earth. Deep and inescapable.
Updated from freewёbnoνel.com.
He was the one drinking, yet my head was the one spinning.
I felt like I had stepped into a swamp—one that would only pull me in the more I struggled.
Iheon studied my face for a long time before finally standing, taking the empty glass and whiskey bottle with him.
I quickly packed up the first-aid kit and returned it to the drawer.
"You have three older sisters, and you’re nine years younger than me, Seo Heemin."
"...What?"
"I’m leaving early tomorrow morning. Just be aware of that."
"Leaving? Where?"
"You don’t need to know."
"Oh, come on. Just tell me."
"Go to bed."
He gestured toward the glass-walled bedroom with a tilt of his chin, making it clear the conversation was over.
"Goodnight."
Like Secretary Jung had done earlier, I bowed politely before heading into the room.
I could feel his eyes burning into the back of my head, but I ignored it and lay down on the bed.
I heard the lights in the kitchen and living room switch off, and soon after, Iheon entered his own bedroom.
He left the door wide open.
So he could monitor me at all times.
Despite the soft blanket and the pillow that felt like it could swallow my head whole, sleep wouldn’t come.
I had woken up only a few hours ago, after all.
I stared at the dark ceiling, a black void stretching above me.
The long night was finally ending.
At least I survived the day.
Unlike 'Seo Heemin,' who spent every moment plotting his escape, I had no intention of running.
I had no money.
I had nowhere to go.
The world outside these walls was dangerous—a place where Omegas were kidnapped and sold like commodities.
This place was safe.
There was good food.
If I stayed quiet, if I played my cards right, I might even be able to live comfortably here.
When I treated his wounds instead of lashing out, he had responded not with anger but with amusement.
"You have three older sisters, and you’re nine years younger than me, Seo Heemin."
To him, it had been a joke.
To me, it was the truth.
Pointless resistance would only wear me out.
If I moved carefully, if I handled him well—
Maybe this wouldn’t be a cage.
Maybe this could be a sanctuary.
Unlike 'Seo Heemin,' I refused to be a helpless bird trapped in a cage.
It didn’t matter if I felt sympathy for him.
I needed to survive.
But...
If I remembered correctly, tomorrow was the day 'Seo Heemin' found out that Cha Iheon was the president of Wushin Capital.
And in the original story, he had a full-blown panic attack over it.
Seo Jae-han, 'Seo Heemin’s' father, had struggled with extreme financial troubles due to reckless business expansion.
Desperate for funds, he had borrowed money from Wushin Capital, taking out high-interest loans to cover expiring corporate bonds.
But in the end, he had failed to repay them.
His company had collapsed.
And the man who had swooped in like a savior, the man who had bought up his father’s ruined empire—
Was Cha Iheon.
The son of the man Seo Jae-han had once destroyed.
The past had returned like a blade to his throat."