"What?"
Lee Seul-ah blinked slowly in a daze. Phantom pain spread through her body; both hot and cold assaulted her spine and jolted her brain awake. Her eyes were still blurry with tears, but she could see enough to know that she wasn't in the warehouse. There was no one but her there--her and a shelf of dead people's urns.
As the phantom pain receded from her body, her mind cleared up. She remembered this scene, what she saw in front of her. How could she not? She only went once in the past, before she was trapped in that damn mansion.
So...why? How could she was there? If it was a dream, or a vision as she was dying, why not just let her meet her mother instead of her mother's remains?
Was this...punishment?
Was it because she was in hell while her mother was in heaven? Was that why they could meet?
"Ah..."
Seul-ah grimaced as her leg throbbing slightly. What? How could she feel pain inside a dream? And the pain...it did not come from the leg that was shot before.
Still in a daze, she looked down. She was in a suit, all black--even the turtleneck despite the summer's humidity.
...summer. Ah, it was summer when she placed her mother's urn in the columbarium, as if mocking how she died in the cold of winter.
At least...she died, right?
But the pain, the humidity...it all felt so real. Seul-ah reached out to her suit pocket, taking out her phone. Even the phone was the exact same model she had six years ago; the date was confirmed across the screen.
As she frowned in confusion, her eyes caught something on the ground between her feet, which sent cold along her spine and had her clutching her chest.
Of course, there was nothing there. What used to hung around her neck for six years was there laying on the ground; the green stone cracked.
With trembling fingers, Seul-ah knelt to pick the broken necklace her mother gave her. The last birthday present she received, only hours before the car she drove crashed and her mother was killed in it. Why...did it break? She remembered wearing it even on the night of her death, as the bullet went through the pendant...
She rubbed the broken jade, eyes flickering as her mind registering what might happen.
'Seul-ah, Mom had a renowned priest blessed this stone, which had been given to my family for generation' her mother said that night as they dine together for her birthday--one of the time they could spend together after the divorced. 'Now that you're an adult, Mom hope this can protect you.'
She could remember those words even after years.
Was this...was this what it meant by protecting her?
She cupped the pendant inside her trembling hands, tightening them and let the sharp edges dug into her palm. The stinging pain, along with the pain on her just healed broken leg, told her that it wasn't a dream. Her younger, healthier appearance reflected on the glass shelf told her that she was really in the past.
Somehow, this blessed stone her mother gave her had rewind her clock for six years.
"But...why?" she whispered with choked breath. Tears rolled down her cheeks and dripping to the her trembling hands. "Why now? Why this point? Why..."
Her eyes got even more blurry as tears streamed down her face and she cried desperately with a hunched back.
"Why can't you return me to the night when I received this? Why can't you return me to when Mom was still alive?!"
The desperate, miserable wailing filled the columbarium, blending with the sound of water falling from the gray sky. The cry she let go after being told to be quiet for six years was so heartbreaking that the staff had to peek into the room to see if she was alright. But even then, the staff didn't think they could come closer, as if there was a despairing barrier around her.
So they merely closed the door and let Seul-ah had her mourning in peace. It was the least they could do for someone who had to bury her mother alone without any of her other family members attending.
Not even the father.
The sorrowful weep soon turned into a frustrated howl. The sadness inside her heart gradually shifted into fury, fueling the last spark of fight she had before she returned to the past. Everything played in her mind so clearly; much clearer than the six years she had spent after the accident.
She remembered how much she was drowned in sorrow when she woke up from the car crash, finding out that her mother had died. How alone she had felt when she knew that no one took care of her mother, and she had to take care of her cremation while she was still in a wheelchair with a broken leg. It took her nine weeks before she could put her mother's urn in the columbarium.
And even then, she was still alone.
Of course she knew that her other half-siblings and her father's other wives had no interest to pay her mother any respect, but at the very least...at the very least she was hoping her father would show his face.
No such thing.
She remembered how depressed she was at that time, so much that when her oldest brother reached out to her with his sweet tongue, she mistakenly taking it as honey instead of poison. His existence became the only rope she could hold into, thinking she had no one else on her side. His words became a gospel she had to revere, and thus began her slavery inside her own home and family.
Seul-ah, who had been educated as a competent daughter and an heir candidate for HS Group, had to work for the sake of the company. Her brilliant ideas became her oldest brother's, and any mishaps became her fault. That would be fine, honestly, if only he gave her the benefit of protection. But he didn't, because he hated the thought of giving her a semblance of power or comfort.
He did nothing when the eldest daughter brought Seul-ah out to be humiliated in front of her circle, or when the youngest siblings physically assaulted her. After all, the more her self-esteem pushed to the ground, the more he could control her.
Stupid! She berated herself as he slammed her fist against the cold floor. What a stupid girl!
How saddened must her mother had felt when she watch Seul-ah from up there. The daughter she raised to be kind and beautiful and strong, ended up getting manipulated so easily into a pathetic state of a stupid cattle.
Unforgivable! She gripped the broken jade tightly until her palm drew blood.
She couldn't forgive herself for what happened, but above everything, she couldn't forgive those scums she was once called a family. Above all else...she remembered that she was 'taken care' off right after finding out that the car crash that killed her mother and broke her leg might be orchestrated by someone.
Everything returned to her with clarity, crystallizing into unleashed fury.
Perhaps this was why she returned to the past; to find out what truly happened and who was responsible for her mother's death. And if she could return every pain and torment she experienced to those who inflicted it. Wouldn't that be a nice bonus?
Seul-ah raised her head and wiped her cheeks, eyes blazing with cold fury.
"I'm sorry, Mother," she whispered with a shaky voice but firm resolution. "Please wait for me a bit longer."
Yes. She had no idea why she was returned to the past, but she knew she couldn't live without avenging her mother. Placing the broken necklace back around her neck, she took a deep breath and opened the shelf containing the urns of her mother and her stillbirth sister.
How stupid of her. She was so exhausted and depressed in the past that she didn't even remember her mother's wish.
"You wanted to hold Sister, weren't you?" Seul-ah smiled bitterly in regret. This might also be the reason why she was returned to this moment. Her stupid self forgetting that her mother wanted the fetus's ashes to be placed in her urn so they would be together in the afterlife.
Sighing in disappointment at her past self who couldn't even do this little thing right, Seul-ah took out her mother's urn first before reaching for her unborn sister's. Frowning, she was surprised at its weight, which was heavier than she thought. Placing the urn carefully on the floor, she only then realized that the urn seemed to big to be used for a baby's ashes. She remembered that her sister's ashes was placed inside a pouch, quite small at that. Certainly, there was no need for the vessel to be as big as one used for an adult.
Well...perhaps her mother just wanted it to not look like a child's urn? Seul-ah shook her head and proceeded with her mission. She opened the smaller urn and put her hand inside to take out the pouch containing her sister's ash.
Only for her hand to touch something else inside. Something firm and hard that was definitely not a pouch of ashes. When she took it out curiously, it was something like a purse. Inside, nestled quietly since who knows when, were glittering jewelry and gold bullion bars.