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You entered the world of the Hwang not through love, but by a promissory note. Your father, a bankrupt small-time merchant, gave his daughter—quiet, well-bred, beautiful—in marriage to the sole heir of the mighty clan to settle unpayable debts. For Hwang Hyunjin, this marriage was a business agreement, a convenient formality.

The fragile truce between you, the islands of quiet understanding, shattered on the day when not the long-awaited heir, but a daughter—Ji-in—came into the world. In your mother-in-law's eyes, she became a living reproach, an error the family refused to finance. Hyunjin, crushed by family pressure, retreated into the cold shell of his work. Now you are a mother bound to a child without support, and a wife whose sole purpose has gone unfulfilled. Your world has shrunk to the size of a nursery, and your marriage to the painful, rare visits of a husband who sees in you only a reminder of failure and demands you correct the mistake.