The Eldest Daughter Walks the Flower Path 005
[Arc 02. The Eldest Daughter's Second Life]
Hot tears streamed down Radis's cheeks.
She could feel death's shadow looming over her bedside, waiting for its chance to devour her.
She had never felt alive before, but now she was about to die.
Was she really going to die now?
Just like this?
She had been thrown onto the thorny path when she was born, and ever since, she had only been trying to survive. She endured so much pain that she forgot what pain felt like.
All the while, she only believed that happiness would come someday.
But at the end of the path... there was a death like this.
At that moment, Radis felt a violent emotion settle in her heart, something she had never felt before.
Why must she die after everything she went through on that thorny path?
She couldn't accept that she would only find peace after death.
Time and time again, she believed that happiness would come someday... So she simply endured, endured, and endured.
"It was all just an impossible dream."
Radis's lips trembled.
"I should never have lived for my parents, for my brother... for my family. I should have lived only for myself...!"
Radis was devastated.
She couldn't believe she was realizing something so important at the very end of her life!
Gradually, it became difficult for her to breathe.
Her heart ached so much.
She couldn't tell if it was from physical pain or from grief because the pain she felt for herself was so great that it was indistinguishable from her fatal wounds.
Light began to leave her blurred vision.
Radis could no longer move.
Then, a colorful light enveloped her. And the pain was gone.
Sensing that this was the end of her life, she slowly closed her eyes.
Radis died with no one by her side.
***
Radis Tilrod was the eldest daughter of the Tilrod family.
Known as the daughter no one wanted.
Her parents, Zade and Margaret, were a typical couple, bound by an arranged marriage.
Zade had a wife he loved before they married: Flora, who worked at the village flower shop.
Margaret didn't love Zade either.
He was much older than her, and his leg had been crippled by a past accident. Margaret detested Zade because he was far from her ideal husband.
However, despite not being an affectionate couple, they at least agreed to respect each other as business partners...
"If only the firstborn were a boy.
" "A daughter?"
If only Zade hadn't reacted that way when he heard the baby was a girl.
"For God's sake, a daughter? Damn it, so this is all I got out of the hellish marriage I've endured so far?!"
If only Margaret, who had just given birth, hadn't found out about this.
"Get rid of it."
Margaret shoved the baby in her arms away as if it were a giant leech.
"Get rid of this damned child right now!"
And so, the baby was abandoned, and the relationship between Zade and Margaret was irrevocably broken.
* * *
The baby was raised by a maid who repaired worn-out chores in the servants' quarters.
Whenever she was hungry, the baby would crawl under a goat, which grazed regularly in the backyard, and then drink its milk. Whenever she was sleepy, she would simply curl up and fall asleep anywhere.
For her, the warmth of the sun was her blanket and the whistling of the wind her lullaby.
The baby then grew like one of the tall, sword-shaped flowers in the backyard.
The baby was given a name only after she turned two, and that was only because the maids began calling her "Radis," after the gladioli in that backyard.
When the girl began to walk on her own two feet, Margaret could no longer turn a blind eye to her daughter because of the pressure of public attention, so she summoned her to the manor.
However, the fact that there was a closer physical distance between them didn't mean that affection would naturally blossom if there wasn't a seed to nurture in the first place.
Margaret couldn't understand the child. In her eyes, Radis was like a strange animal.
So Margaret would scream hysterically every time she saw the child.
"Why are you eating so rudely?"
"Why are your clothes always so dirty? Why, why, why do you urinate in your clothes like that! Ah! I can't stand it!"
Radis was terrified of his own mother.
He was so intimidated that he couldn't even leave his room, which was as small as a closet. When the maid brought him his food, Radis would cling desperately to her apron.
"I think my mother hates me," he thought.
The maid didn't know what to do. She hadn't been trained to be a nanny; she was simply a servant who did the housework. She didn't know how to deal with the lady's child who kept clinging to her.
The maid gently removed Radis's hands from under her apron.
"No, my lady. The lady doesn't hate you. She's the mother who carried you. No father in the world hates his child. If she's angry with you, perhaps you did something wrong. You'll have to make it up to her. You have to try."
The girl believed the maid's words.
In fact, she believed them with all her heart.
That's why it took Radis a long time to realize that this was wrong.