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October 1994. Danwon-gu, Ansan-si, South Korea
What makes the World go round?
"Money, fame, power," Lee Jinhyung sneered down at the young lady begging at his doorstep. "Which do you have now?"
Her legs were numb. Both from the cold and kneeling helplessly for so long in front of the gate. She clutched the wrapped bundle in one of her arms closer to her chest pitifully.
"Please, be merciful. I have a child-"
He clicked his tongue in annoyance. "Many peasants have come to my door with their children in the past. Never have I opened my gates," the man cocked his head. "Why should I start doing so now?" With a final demeaning smile, he turned and walked away, taking every bit of false, tiny hope the young mother had with each step he retreated.
Her breath hitched. "Please! The child is a Lee!" the woman screamed after him, desperate now. "He is going to die if he goes another day without food! Do you have no heart? He is of your blood!"
She gripped the cold metal gates of the Lee Mansion with a hand, the other rocking her trembling yet silent child. "The Kims opened our doors to you and your family when the Lee Clan lost everything! And this is how you repay us? Curse you! Your bloodline would diminish in flame and taint!" Her lip curled in contempt. "Watch yourself, Lee. I'll put a bullet in that skull of yours one day."
The Lee Clan leader smiled, the pearly whites of his teeth gleaming like the silver of a polished knife. "Bold words for someone who's pretty much already dead." Without so much so of a look back at her, he entered his mansion, shutting the door behind him.
Kim Taeyeon's outstretched arm dropped to her side weakly and her flaking lips trembled. A hot burning sensation pricked the back of her eyes.
Winter was coming and she had nowhere to go.
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November, 1994 Nam-gu, Busan, South Korea
It had grown late, and Jessica Jung's eyelids were drooping with exhaustion. She set the book she was reading down upon the end table and gazed out at the rain-streaked windows that looked out onto an eery burial ground.
She had seen this coming since she married into the household, but why did she feel so disappointed? She was a Jung, not a Lee, and this was it. Her fate was already cast in stone the moment she was born. She was never meant to be with him and that was it. But her poor baby boy, her poor Taeyong... What would happen to him?
A knock on the door jolted her out of her reverie. Slowly, she drew the knife in her boot and crept to the door. Have the hired killers finally found her? Was this how she was going to die-
