How Could That Girl's Name Be... (2)
Nah. I must have misheard.
"Kongji!!"
"……."
……No. That woman had absolutely, unmistakably called the girl Kongji.
And given that she was built like a small mountain, her voice was every bit as enormous and precise—there was simply no way to hear it as anything else.
Which meant this girl really was Kongji.
I looked at her again.
Now that I was paying attention… she was terribly young. Fourteen, give or take, in a shabby, threadbare outfit, quietly clutching a broken wooden hoe.
……This is identical to the Kongji and Patji story.
Whatever else I might doubt, the name Kongji, and the sight of her tilling a gravel field with a wooden hoe, left no room for skepticism.
The girl standing before me was that Kongji.
Then the woman in front of me is…
"……Are you this girl's mother?"
"……?! What did you just say?!"
"S-Scholar-nim. This is my older sister……"
"……."
You've got to be kidding me.
No wonder Kongji was so frail.
Patji—now her older sister—had been eating everything in sight!
No, even their bone structure looks completely different.
It was an easy mistake to make. That woman's bulk was several times Kongji's. The thick belly alone made her look every bit the greedy stepmother from the old tale.
Then again, Patji had been plenty greedy in her own right……
The appearance of Kongji and Patji—famous figures from a traditional folktale—left my head swimming.
……I knew this didn't feel like ordinary Joseon.
Could it actually be the Joseon of the folktales?
If so, was Kongji the protagonist of this world?
By my reckoning, she had to be.
"More importantly—who are you, sir? You don't look like anyone from our village."
"Unnie, that's……"
"Kongji! I wasn't asking you! I was asking the scholar here!"
"Y-yes……"
As she barked at Kongji and turned her questions on me, Patji's gaze… lingered on me with a curious intensity.
Apparently she was wary of me as an outsider.
"Forgive the intrusion. I stopped here on my way to Hanyang. My name is Kim Shin-ryong."
"You were headed there for the civil service examination?"
"I was. While taking the mountain road I spotted the village, came down, and happened upon your younger sister, Kongji."
"Hmph……"
Ugh, damn.
Patji was looking at me the way a miser eyes a jewel locked inside her own vault. A chill ran down my spine.
Imagine a woman who looked ready to swallow a wild boar whole staring at you like that.
It would have made a horror story all by itself.
Wait—wasn't Patji supposed to be the younger sister?
Everything I remembered said Patji was the younger one. In this world, though, she was clearly the older sister.
What was I supposed to do now?
The original plan had been simple: ask for directions and head straight for Hanyang.
But now that I knew Kongji was here……
If this were a fantasy world, it would feel like stumbling into the hero's hometown.
I didn't expect Kongji to reshape the world the way a fantasy hero would—but something still nagged at me.
However happy the ending of Kongji and Patji might be for Kongji, she still had to endure every kind of torment from Patji and the stepmother before she got there.
"Well then—are you planning to leave now?"
I made my decision.
I shook my head at Patji's question.
I'd like to see Kongji's happy ending before I go.
"No. I was thinking of staying in this village a little while."
"My, is that so? In that case…… would you care to stay at our house?"
At my words, Patji suddenly shifted into a soft, coquettish tone.
……She was interested in me, apparently.
Unfortunately for her, I was sharp enough in that department to catch it immediately.
"Your house? But for a stranger to impose so freely……"
"Oh, come now. There's only Mother, myself, and Kongji at home. Three women alone—we get frightened at night sometimes. If you would stay with us, sir, it would be a great help."
So, just as Kongji had mentioned earlier, their father was already dead.
I turned to look at Kongji.
"And you—what do you think?"
"Eh—m-my opinion doesn't matter, please don't trouble yourself……"
"How could it not? You are a member of the household as well. Of course the final decision rests with your mother, and I will need her permission… but I am curious about your thoughts too."
"Sir, there's really no need to worry about what my little sister Kongji thinks. The child hasn't been taught anything—she can hardly think for herself."
"Then I want to ask all the more. Do you want me to stay at your house? Or would you rather I didn't?"
"I—I……"
Under my persistent questioning, Kongji bowed her head even lower, while Patji—clearly affronted at being sidelined—glared at me from behind.
With a face like a predator's, even a glare from behind was impossible to miss.
"…I would like it as well, if Scholar-nim stayed."
In the end, Kongji agreed too.
Of course, it wasn't as if she genuinely wanted me in the house.
I'd caught her glance sliding past me toward something behind me halfway through.
"Thank you. I will be sure to repay the kindness."
"Oh my, you needn't go that far."
I spoke as though addressing both Kongji and Patji—but I was looking only at Kongji.
Whether she noticed or not, Kongji lifted her head a fraction, then immediately ducked it again.
"This way. I'm sure Mother will be delighted by your visit, sir."
"I hope so."
And so I walked deeper into the village to meet the last major player—Kongji's stepmother.
The house Kongji and Patji shared turned out to be a surprisingly large tile-roofed residence.
Given that Kongji's late father had been a retired official, it made a certain amount of sense.
Even in a house that grand, though, one room stood out as conspicuously neglected.
"Mother~! We have a guest~!"
As Patji bellowed at the top of her lungs, Kongji slipped naturally into that shabby room.
As expected—that was Kongji's room.
Clack.
"A guest? Who on earth are you talking about?"
And then the stepmother appeared…… Unlike Patji, she looked like an ordinary middle-aged woman, exactly her age.
"……And you are?"
I dipped my head slightly at her question.
"I am Kim Shin-ryong, on my way to Hanyang for the civil service examination. I had only meant to rest a while in this village, but your daughter was kind enough to offer me hospitality, so I came here."
"Hospitality……?"
"Mother! Please allow the young master to stay at our house!"
"What? Patji, what are you talking about?"
"He's a hardworking scholar! If we help him just a little, won't good fortune find its way back to us later? Please!"
"Lady Patji insisted on granting me permission on the spot, but when I heard that her mother was present, I came to seek leave from the head of the household. If you will permit it, I will help however I am able."
"The head of the household……"
The phrase seemed to catch her attention.
However much she was mother to both daughters and the de facto head of the house, she surely knew—deep down—that she fell short of truly owning the role. So when an outsider appeared and said, You seemed to be the master of this house, so I came to ask your leave, bolstering her pride, of course she would be pleased.
It would feel as though the outside world had finally acknowledged her as the rightful mistress.
"If I can be of even the smallest help to a gentleman destined for the affairs of the state, then of course I must. And my daughter wants this so badly—how could a mother ignore her?"
"Thank you, madam."
"I should mention I have another daughter……"
"Ah, I am aware. She came with Lady Patji."
With the stepmother and Patji both standing right there, there was no need to say anything kind about Kongji.
It wouldn't have made things harder for me—only for her.
For now, earning a moderate amount of goodwill from the two of them was the best approach.
"Waaaaah!! Thank you, Mother!!"
Thud. Thud.
……Of course, Patji's goodwill needed careful management.
Otherwise…… I might find myself, frankly speaking, ambushed in the middle of the night.
Shortly after, the stepmother assigned me a decent guest room.
Perhaps because the house had belonged to Kongji's father, a former official, there was no shortage of space for visitors.
And even that guest room was better than Kongji's.
Alone at last, I unpacked my bundle and took out a book.
It was a kind of Reincarnation Note—a place to jot down information I needed to remember, in a mix of Korean and English.
Writing everything in Korean alone ran too high a risk of someone else reading it, so I mixed in English as best I could, clumsy though it was.
"All right… how did Kongji and Patji go again……"
I'd read the fairy tale so young that I couldn't remember the whole thing.
What stuck with me was that a cow, a toad, a Seonnyeo, and the like had helped the abused Kongji, and that she found her happy ending at the village feast.
……Plus, if you counted the quietly brutal true ending, that made three versions in all.
"We'll skip the true ending for now…… So does that mean I might actually see the toad and the cow?"
In a Joseon where yokai genuinely existed, the odds of them showing up for real were high.
In that case, even without my interference, Kongji would likely drift toward a happy ending on her own.
Even so, I had decided to intervene—to shorten the stretch of time she spent being tormented.
If I can keep the stepmother and Patji a little less focused on her, and help her indirectly, that should do it.
I was still sorting through everything I remembered about Kongji and Patji when someone knocked outside.
Knock, knock.
"Who is it?"
"I-it's Kongji…… Mother sent me with something……"
Kongji?
Startled by her unexpected appearance, I quickly hid the Reincarnation Note back in my pack.
Clack.
"M-Mother told me to bring you a light meal……"
"Ah—come in."
At my permission, Kongji carefully entered carrying a small tray table.
She had lived in this house since she was small, and yet she moved as if she didn't quite belong.
"Thank you."
"Um……"
But something was still on her mind. Instead of leaving at once, she stood fidgeting, toes wriggling inside her worn socks.
"Is something the matter?"
"Well……"
When I finally asked, unable to wait any longer, Kongji carefully opened her mouth.
"Please… would you leave the village before dawn tomorrow……?"