Chapter 5: Maeneoui Gyohun (A Lesson in Manners)

Every single morning, Nam Jeon made Yeon pay her respects to him as if they were really a family, but I couldn't help noticing that she hadn't been coming in to see him ever since she had gained pity from the Young Master and forced him to buy her a bunch of ugly flowers. But what was even more unusual about this situation was the fact that Nam-Jeon himself wasn't saying anything about it at all. Ever since that jinx woke up here, he had been usually stressed out, short tempered and just distracted overall, and that was not like him at all. I had no idea what was going on in his work life, but even if I was humiliatingly demoted to kitchen services, I wasn't going to give Yeon a chance to let her walk all over us and forget her place. Even though she had made me loose the trust of the Nam's and I had also unexpectedly lost some very important people who worked under me. But I didn't loose everyone as I still had power over the rest of the maids that I had hired and they knew better than to go against me.

So I made my way over to her as soon as I woke up later on that week when I was finally able to walk again with the events of his so-called flower gifting even hitting me in the heart more painfully than any punishment I had suffered from recently. But if I thought I was angry at her then, one could only imagine what went through my head when I saw this 'guest' actually reading the book of housekeeping skills that I went through so much just to get my hands on when I was first brought here. Yeon was extremely spoiled due to her disability and she didn't know the meaning of hard work, so she had everything handed to her by the men that she forced to worship the ground that she walked on. Her brother had probably never put her in her place before, but he wasn't around to protect her right now and I wasn't afraid to discipline his sister as he should have a long time ago.

"You seem to be enjoying a walk after your scarlet red punishment. But do you really have so much spare time? Aren't you wanted in the kitchens?" It had been a very long time since I had been disrespected like this and it was taking all of my strength not to put my hands on her again. "Why haven't you been paying your respects to the Lord of this manor?" "Why is a mere kitchen maid worried about my movements in her master's house? The young master and even the Lord himself hasn't said anything about it, so who are you to challenge me?" This rude bitch didn't even have the nerve to look up from her book and look me in the eyes as she barely came up with an excuse for her aloof nature, at least that hadn't changed about her despite her memory loss. "Aren't you going to leave? You are blocking the sunlight for my flowers." "You haven't answered me!" "Since you do not have the common courtesy to leave me alone when I am clearly reading, the young master has waived this formally for me when he made me sit here and read this book for him." "It was the young master who gave you that book? What on earth for?" "I know that you are uneducated, but even you must know what the purpose is for me to read this book." "You bitch!" "Be careful, you do not wish to be punished again, do you?" She got me there and she knew it, so I tried to assert my dominance again by teaching his lowborn woman a few manners. "Even if you once again have the young master wrapped around your little finger, you should still have the common decency to respect the man who is housing and feeding you for free. So don't you dare be late next time." "I shouldn't be late, and yet here you are, late to her own job in the kitchen. If you want to be a role model to the people in this household, then the kitchen is right behind you." "The Lord of this manner allows me to wake up when I wish, since I am the one who has special privileges in this household and nobody else! And I...where are you going! I am still talking to you!" "I am still tired after that failed attempt of an ambush, and the young master always encourages me to sleep in for a bit to speed up my recovery. And as the young master of this household, I have to obey his wish."

The nerve...the sheer nerve of this woman. She defied her social status time and time again it was just because she had a different relationship with the young master that I could not severe, no matter how hard I had tried to already. Every single time that I tried to do something to this girl, it would always backfire on me. I could not break the spell that she cast on the young master on my own and I could not risk another demotion. So I had to think of a plan and fast, before she found a way to kick me out of the Nam's life. So what other choice did I have in that moment but to walk away back to the kitchens and do my job to the best of my abilities and try to figure out how to please the young master. He wasn't stupid, he knew that he had my loyalty and I was capable of doing more for him than that epileptic mutt could ever do for him apart from reading some books that were never going to come into use for her. But it turns out that I wasn't as good as this job as I was directing other maids in their jobs. Because just like Yeon, I had lost my mother at a young age and I had no female education at all. I didn't know how to cook, clean, sew, embroider and I always had somebody else to make my teas and snacks for me. But those were the orders that I was getting from the young master every 10 minutes and it was enough to almost pull my hair out and lock myself somewhere in the corner and cry from sheer humiliation that I was being put through. It was starting to put me in a really dark place that I was determine not to visit again. But after an entire day of me being tortured with these requests, I had a very clear idea of who was making the young master turn against me when Yeon of all people to come strolling in with her fancy new outfit and just take whatever I was making out of my hands and just throw it in the bin! She didn't even have the decency to warn me first before she started making a mess in the kitchen for me to clean up.

"You should stay in your place if you are still recovering from your cold. It is unsanitary to spread your sickness here where the food is." "Says the little girl who is holding raw chicken in one hand and cooked beef in the other. Put them down and wash your hands.""Who are you to tell me what to do!" "I am the Young Mistress of this household since both the Nam men refuse to let me leave their home." "You..." "...so you need to start treating me as such. Men as refined as the Nam's can only endure well mannered and productive people around them, and yet you haven't greeted me properly yet even once." "I have been serving the Nam's..." "...and yet you are still unfamiliar with your social rank and the etiquette that comes with it. How about I make my new servant show you how to greet me properly, with a bow. You can actually learn something this time instead of having to collect bad food that you can barely cook properly." "How dare you? How dare you! With your rank..." "...as a lowborn? That is correct, I am a lowborn, but a lowborn who is favoured by a family of nobility." "You are only a single rank above me, how dare you tell me what to do!" "Because you clearly are unaware of the rank differences, so I might as well educate you."

I was just about to loose my temper again and throw something at her when the young master appeared out of nowhere with a small smirk on his face and his eyes as wide as anything when he saw what she was making for him. "What are you making Yeon?" "What does it look like I am making, brother?" "What are you doing with those eggs in your hands?" "What does it look like I am doing with these eggs, young master? Everything that the new kitchen maid has attempted to cook for you is inedible, and you need to eat more after your training lessons." Once again, she had managed to find a way to provoke his emotions without even trying when he instantly planted his eyes on the floor just as she sat him down and cooked a few eggy dishes for him before she retreated to her quarters for another nap. I thought she couldn't cook because she was motherless, but it looked like she was a lot more capable than I thought.

**************

She left the room before I could even thank her properly, but she left my mouth hanging open with the sheer amount of rice that she had cooked...just for me. I couldn't help but feel grateful to Yeon that she had done that for me, even though I could not even express that to her. But I had been on a strict diet from the moment that I entered this household, and I was never allowed to eat even a grain more of what was allocated to me. I wasn't even allowed to eat the rich foods that other people of my....my father's class got to consume on a daily even hourly basis. And yet Yeon had just cooked me a very big bowl of bap with what was the biggest fried egg I have ever seen in my life just siting on top of the dish glistening in the sunlight that was reflecting through the paper windows. I had been so engrossed in my books for weeks now in preparation of my very first war that I was going to participate in that I hadn't even realised how tired or hungry I was. Did I always live my life this way? Was I always going to nod my head like a dog and just focus on my father's bidding? And was I always going to starve myself like this? The dish in front of me was smothered in butter, which I suspect was deliberate. And it smelt sweet, so sweet that my mouth was watering before I knew it. My father had always forbidden sugar in our diets, and Min-Ho...he suffered because of it. Min-Ho...my brother....

I never used the servants here because I simply did not trust them at all, because as far as I was concerned, they were my father's people and very capable of messing around with me as my father himself constantly did on a daily basis. So I had to get used to doing mundane tasks myself and I had to admit that after all these years I still wasn't very good at it. But having someone do this for me and monitor my movements for the first time was a little overwhelming for me and honestly did not know how else to react apart from keeping my face on the floor to hide the tears that would not stop leaking from my eyes and finish every single grain of rice and every noodle that she cooked just for me. I then went back to my quarters that looked a whole lot bigger without her in it. I had asked her to keep me company today and to help grind my ink-stones just to aggravate Chun-Ae even more and provoke her into doing something stupid once again that would backfire onto her so I could finally get rid of her once and for all. But of course, I couldn't even have 5 minutes to myself before my servant Dal had something to report to me, something that I had been waiting for a long time now.

"Young master, how should we proceed?" "I will have the various punishments waiting for her, but I have to admit that I am curious to see what this new Yeon is capable of doing..." "Young Master?" "Give Yeon hints and let me see how she will handle it. If she cannot, then you let me know and I will most certainly help her out."