Translator and Editor: Effe and Nabi

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Chapter 2 – Princess From Today

Hye Soo opened her eyes with a tremendous headache.

“Princess! Are you awake? Benny! Come on, call the doctor! Oh my God, princess, do you recognize me?”

The surroundings were noisy, but Hye Soo seemed to be submerged, and everything felt so far distant. However, slowly, she realized something was off.

‘Am I dreaming…?’

Memories that were not hers, flooded into her mind, and it was overwhelming. Her thoughts and actions stopped as though something inside her was broken. Only then, Anna noticed her abnormality. She grabbed her shoulder tightly then shook her worriedly.

“…Princess?”

Hye Soo suddenly removed her blanket and hurried to the dressing vanity. Surprised, Anna ran after her with her slippers.

Standing in front of the mirror, she couldn’t find her words.

“No way… this- what is this?”

The reflection in the mirror was a small, fragile girl with bright red hair and a pale face.

“This is not me. It’s not me!” She threw the mirror as soon as she saw the reflection for a split second.

“Princess!”

Despite Anna’s desperate cries, Hye Soo fell asleep only after destroying all the mirrors in the room.

***

There were times when she naively believed that she was the main lead of this world.

The only daughter of a wealthy family who couldn’t be sad, a harmonious family, and a pretty face as she was going to study ballet soon.

It was Hye Soo who was born with all the good things in the world like the Samsin Halmoni exploded all the random jackpot.

[ T/N: Samsin Halmoni, the goddesses of childbirth and protector of children. ]

However, at the age of seventeen, her life was overturned.

The year she entered high school, her father’s business failure shattered her world. The two-story house, which was like a palace, became a semi-basement rent room and her family had to wander around to places every year. Studying abroad was out of the question.

Of course, she had to quit ballet, which she had been learning for over ten years. The ballet shoes and trophies were now just items kept in a one room house with no separate room.

The harmonious family quickly collapsed, and the reality was too bitter for the seventeen-year-old.

The good news was that she quickly adapted to all of these situations.

Hye Soo quickly realized how kind and delightful the world she had lived in was and how many things she used to be able to do, which were such cruel facts for her now. The fence that guarded her was broken, but she had to live on.

And so, ten years have passed.

Now, she was a second-year contract employee for a small advertising company. Even today, she was working overtime. Hye Soo, who was left behind alone and typed in anger, waltzed to the window with half a cup of coffee in her hand.

There was something dizzy flying in the street lit by orange lights.

“…Eye.”

A dry voice leaked out without her knowledge. At one point, she was treated like a favorite, but now she was treated like a troublemaker.

“You’re old, Ji Hye Soo.”

She hated snowy days as she became an adult. Somehow, it felt quite bitter.

“Let’s get to work.”

Hye Soo stretched a couple of times before going back to her seat.

It was two o’clock in the morning that she finished the work.

“Oh, it’s chilly.”

A snowy Friday night. Unfortunately, the subway stopped running a while ago, and taxis were not in sight at all. The cheap woolen coat wasn’t enough to prevent the winter winds, and she tried eagerly to find taxis on her way to a nearby convenience store.

The traffic light turned green, and Hye Soo looked left and right and crossed the path.

Although the car, which seemed to be slowing down, suddenly began to speed up, then crossed the lane and rushed towards her with a fearful momentum.

Hit!

The moment she frowned at the headlight, her body floated up, and Hye Soo fell in an instant. The car that hit her didn’t stop, ran down the road, and disappeared from sight.

It was strange.

The scene in front of her played very slowly. She didn’t feel any pain. ‘Is this a dream?’ However, the flowing hot blood behind her neck and her lips which were ice cold, says otherwise.

‘What am I going to do now?’

It was getting more difficult to move her eyelids as time passed.

‘Am I dying? Am I really dying?’

When faced with death, what came to mind were surprisingly trivial and useless things. ‘Oh, I didn’t clean the room, how was my room? What about my things? I wasn’t ready for the presentation on Monday. Oh my, the novel I was reading yesterday, so who was the culprit? To die while working. …This is so unfair.’

All kinds of thoughts came to mind in the loitering playing scenery.

Hye Soo shouted endlessly inside her head, even though she could barely gasp for breath.

‘I don’t want to die. Help me.’

She muttered those two words repeatedly, ‘I want to live,’ and eventually, she passed away.

***

‘It would have been better if something like you were not born.’

Hye Soo woke up and closed her eyes with the back of her hand.

‘The same scene again…’

When she closed her eyes, the same dream continued to play. It was so vivid that she cried every time she woke up. Hye Soo wanted to sew the lips that spit out those hurtful words, but her body seldom moved.

She was confused.

This was absolutely not her memory, but her heart crumbled as if she had actually been through this before. Only after her feelings subsided, Hye Soo looked around.

‘This is the same, too…’

Confused, she was still wondering if everything was just a dream. However, when she opened her eyes, it was always the same scenery repeated, and another memory became clearer day by day. She tried to turn away, but in the end, she was forced to accept.

This… was after death.

“I… have been reborned.”

Landlord, landladies.

Not so long ago, there were many so-called ‘lords’ in Hye Soo’s life, though this time, she also joined the ranks of the Lord as well.

In this life, she was Sienna Stern, the Princess of the Stern kingdom in the novel Stern’s Bells.

Of course, she was not the main character.

The main characters of the novel are Pierre Stern, her half-brother, and Eleanor Watson, the illegitimate son of the Watson family.

Pierre was the crown prince of Stern, with bright blue eyes and dazzling blonde hair as if melted gold. At first glance, Pierre’s seemingly perfect weakness was birth. It was because he was a prince born to a lover of the king, not the formal queen.

And Sienna was born to a queen a few years later.

In short, it was a case where the genealogy was twisted because a child was born from the concubine rather than the original wife.

His anxiety about her birth, feelings of inferiority, and the stress from her mother’s presence have haunted Pierre. Ironically, however, it was the birth that made Pierre close to the female lead Eleanor, a public figure.

The illegitimate children of the king and the duke feel a sense of sympathy and compassion for each other and are strongly attracted to each other. Of course, that was why there were many supporting characters for conflict since it wouldn’t be interesting if the love was easily achieved.

Grita Winslet, the only daughter of Marquisate Winslet, competes with Eleanor in the future competition for the Crown Prince. She was the villain of this novel who harassed Eleanor.

And Jad Valencia.

Jad was a loyal servant of the Stern Kingdom, the successor of Marquisate Valencia, and a long-time unrequited partner of Sienna.

Thus, the fragile princess, who has had unrequited love for her whole life, had also been persecuted for her whole life by her half-brother. Her narrative was the mistress of misery, but the worst has yet to come.

Sienna died on her twentieth birthday in a mysterious accident.

“Haha.”

Hye Soo faintly smiled.

「 Stern’s Bells 」 was discontinued due to the writer’s circumstances. So, the death of Sienna was the ending of this incomplete novel.

“Why…”

There was no middle ground in this life. At best, she possessed a princess, but she was short-lived. She begged for life and was handed a chance to die again.

‘How much time has passed?’

Hye Soo decided to get out of bed and stroll towards the terrace. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment as the sunshine poured in, but soon the vibrant spring garden was caught in her eyes.

“The weather is so good.”

Even though it was a little chilly, it was a sunny spring with moderate sunlight and wind. Hye Soo closed her eyes and repeated her name.

“I’m Sienna. Sienna Stern.”

It wasn’t as strange as she thought. Moreover, there was no particular lingering regret in Ji Hye Soo’s life. She couldn’t settle anywhere.

There was nothing precious there.

So, nothing was very different for Hye Soo.

“It smells good.”

As she smelled the flowers hanging from the railing, she heard the noise of the attendants who were working in the garden.

“Ah, poor princess. I think she went totally crazy. She threw things and broke all the mirrors in the room.”

“What happened to that gentle girl? Well, Lord Pierre came and scared her so much.”

“I heard she was dumped by Lord Valencia.”

“But why isn’t His Majesty visiting?”

Even though the princess in the country was sick, the castle was peaceful. The king did not come to find her, nor offered her any good medicine.

‘So, this is my situation?’

As they were finishing their work, the voices of the attendants gradually faded, and the sound of laughter mixed with compassion and ridicule also went away. Sienna, watching the situation, gently raised her mouth.

“Huh…”

Like the vast garden, her head was in the flower garden.

“I’m a princess and have a lot of money, plus nobody cares about me…”

Folding her fingers one by one, she grasped her current situation.

“It’s the best!”

Sienna jumped back into bed. The softness, which seemed to melt her body, wrapped around her.

“Ah, good.”

It didn’t matter what others said or the family’s indifference. ‘Say whatever you want.’ The humiliation was painful, and the loneliness was a luxury. The only worry she had was the scheduled death.

“My birthday is in winter, the day when the first snow blew. The horse-drawn carriage on its way to the temple at dawn and the news of the death of the princess who came to the Royal Palace…”

She recalled the last days of Sienna that were mentioned in the book.

Poor Sienna dies on her birthday. Though in other words, she was alive until at least before her birthday. What would happen in the future was in Hye Soo’s mind, and there was plenty of time left until then.

She hugged the large pillow tightly.

Sienna was now the only princess in the kingdom.

In other words, no overtime, no weekend work, no hell hours on the way to work, and not crowded buses. Instead, there was a fluffy bed, a large room with good light, and an endless garden.

That was the most important to her right now.

“Ah, what should I do. I love this!”

Thinking about all the things she had now, Sienna was excited and rolled her feet with her face on the pillow.

“It’s the best to have a lot of money.”

She decided to put off worrying about the future for now.

“I’m just staying here for a while. So, let’s just enjoy it while I can.”

She reached out her hand and waved the bell on her table. A clear sound rang, but there was no answer. So, She rang the bell again, and after a while, the door carefully opened, and Anna called Sienna with a suspicious face.

“Just in case, the princess called me, right? I’m not mistaken, am I?”

Well, it wasn’t unreasonable that Anna was surprised. Everyone said that the princess was crazy, so she wouldn’t have thought that the princess was sane. Sienna decided to clarify the week she was weird and bizarre.

“Anna. Was I a little weird before?”

“Well, that’s…”

“I guess I was sensitive because I wasn’t feeling well.”

It was a lax excuse, but this was the best she could come up with at the moment. Fortunately, Anna had no doubts at all.

“If the princess is okay, I’m okay.”

“Thank you, Anna.”

“Don’t say that. It’s natural for me. How do you feel now?”

“Very good.”

Sienna laughed brightly, deliberately trying to reassure Anna.

“I want to take a bath. Please prepare it.”

“Yes, I’ll prepare right away.”

She beckoned the maids and soaked in the bath filled with bath salt. The pleasant air and warm water quickly made her mind drowsy and her whole body tired. The wind blew the aromatic scent lightly over her head.

At this fantastic moment, Sienna made a pledge.

‘I’m going to live happily for a long time.’

The princess play started now.

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