No one paid attention to Kevin anymore. Ginny’s fist landed on Kevin’s face with the force of a thunderbolt.
“G-Ginny…!?”
Kevin, who had been knocked to the ground, clutched his burning face. He could feel the flesh on his cheek swelling up high.
“How dare you hit me…?!”
“Shut your mouth, Kevin! If you say one more word about destroying this village, try it! Next time, I’ll knock your teeth out!!”
Though Ginny looked ferocious, she wasn’t actually good at using violence. Moreover, unlike ordinary village women, she didn’t have great stamina or endurance. After just that one punch on Kevin, her fist already hurt badly.
Ye Tang glanced at Ginny and noticed her raised fist trembling slightly.
To be punched to the ground by a woman—and his own wife, no less—left Kevin looking utterly wretched, like an overturned turtle. He tried to get up, but Ginny advanced step by step, forcing him to fall back down.
Propping himself up with one hand on his now-weakened waist as he sat on the ground, Kevin blustered cowardly and pointed at Ginny. “Ginny, you’re my wife. You should obey me! Why are you taking Mary’s side!? Didn’t you hate—despise—Mary the most?!”
“Am I talking to you about Mary right now?!”
Ginny took another step forward. Her right foot stomped viciously between Kevin’s legs, as if to crush his manhood.
Did she hate Rosemary Jennings?
Of course she did!
From childhood onward, no matter which boy she liked, no matter which man she felt affection for, the one they admired was always that Mary! Even her parents, who had passed away early, had more than once sighed in front of her young self about Mary’s natural beauty, marveling at Mary’s blue eyes like glass beads, her long hair like golden silk, and her skin as white, tender, and smooth as frozen milk.
Yes, yes, sorry about that. Though Ginny ate better than Mary and used better things, she just didn’t have Mary’s beauty. Compared to her, this earthy village girl, Mary seemed more like the village head’s daughter. It was only natural that every man she cared for ended up falling for Mary.
…Even Kevin, who had pursued her first, couldn’t help glancing at Mary when she was with Henry during their dates, forgetting Ginny was right there beside him.
But in the end, her resentment toward Mary was nothing more than petty jealousy.
She was Ginny, the village head’s granddaughter.
The village head’s family had generation after generation taken protecting Abe Village as their duty. When her parents died, she had sworn to replace them, to replace her grandfather who would one day grow old, and protect Abe Village. Every year on her parents’ death anniversary, she reported the village’s situation at their graves.
If asked whether revenge on Mary was more important or protecting Abe Village well, her answer was—and would forever be—only one:
“Whoever brings disaster to Abe Village is my enemy! Kevin! Even if you’re my husband, the village head of Abe Village, as long as you intend to harm Abe Village, I won’t spare you!!”
Ginny’s words made the villagers see the shadows of past village heads in her. Many older villagers were filled with emotion for a moment, their gazes toward Ginny carrying a touch more nostalgia.
However, Kevin didn’t believe Ginny’s words. “…Ha, haha! Why say such high-sounding nonsense? Ginny! Or is it because so many people are watching that you’re being this hypocritical?”
Malice curled at his lips, forming a disgusting, venomous smile on Kevin’s face. The man scrambled to his feet on all fours and pointed at Ginny’s nose. “A narrow-minded woman like you couldn’t possibly have such noble sentiments! You won’t spare me? I think you’re just unable to forgive me for cheating with Nora?!”
Ginny’s shoulders shook, and she froze for an instant. Seizing the moment as boldness surged, Kevin grabbed at Ginny to drag her away. “Get over here!”
In that instant of being grabbed by Kevin, Ginny’s mind went blank.
Kevin was right; she really was narrow-minded. When Jasmine cursed Kevin as an adulterous bastard, she had indeed thought about dealing with that little vixen who seduced her husband later.
But Kevin was wrong about one thing.
The moment she heard Kevin say he would burn down Abe Village, she forgot about his affair, forgot the 108 ways she had mentally tortured the cheating cat in her head.
All she felt was regret.
She regretted being born a daughter, unable to directly inherit the village head position. She also regretted being blind and choosing Kevin to be Abe Village’s village head.
…She should have realized it, right? A man who couldn’t be faithful to his wife, who couldn’t even cherish his own little family, how could he truly love and protect a small mountain village that wasn’t even his hometown?
It was because she wanted to be loved so badly, wanted to be someone’s one and only special person, that she stupidly fell for someone like Kevin.
Seeing Ginny rooted to the spot and unwilling to follow, Kevin flew into a rage and swung his fist at her head.
Ginny snapped back to reality. An arm appeared out of nowhere, and Kevin, who had raised his fist, was thrown away with a back throw.
It was Ye Tang.
In the original host Mary’s memories, Ginny was truly a very annoying woman. Her showing off and picking fights had exasperated the original host endlessly, but there was one thing the original host never doubted about Ginny: her love for the village.
Ginny had inherited the will from her ancestors; she always put Abe Village first. That was why, even knowing Ye Tang had made a fortune at Lem Mine, Ginny never troubled her or tripped her up behind her back—Ye Tang had not only filled their family’s coffers but brought benefits and vitality to the whole village. And as long as Ye Tang continued bringing benefits and vitality to Abe Village, Ginny would unconditionally set aside her personal grudges.
The villagers all had eyes; they could see Ginny’s dislike for Mary, but they also saw how Ginny stopped troubling Mary for the village’s sake.
Influenced by the original host’s memories, Ye Tang had no fondness for Ginny before and never deeply considered why the villagers supported her.
But hearing what Ginny said just now made it click for her: It was precisely because Ginny put Abe Village first in her heart, unwaveringly, that the villagers followed her. Even if she had a bad temper, picked fights with people she disliked now and then, the villagers were willing to treat her as the village’s living law. And willing to accept her husband—a man not born and raised in Abe Village—as the village head.
At this moment, Ye Tang couldn’t say she viewed Ginny in a new light. But she couldn’t just stand by and watch Ginny get beaten. Kevin, smashed to the ground by her back throw, scrambled away in terror and fainted with his head lolling to the side.
Ginny, who hadn’t expected Ye Tang to help her, stood stunned in place. She looked Ye Tang up and down like she’d seen a ghost—in her memories, Mary wasn’t such a fierce woman.
Meeting Ginny’s scrutinizing gaze, Ye Tang flexed her arm, bulging her bicep as if explaining her strange strength, and cursed at Kevin on the ground. “Don’t underestimate a woman who climbs mountains and ridges every day.”
“Oh my god! Mary, you’re amazing!”
“How did you do that move just now?! I only saw ‘whoosh—’ like that!”
The villagers surrounded Ye Tang, several young people gesticulating to recreate Ye Tang’s back throw.
Ginny came back to herself and looked at Ye Tang, surrounded by the crowd, fussed over and praised endlessly. Her inferiority and jealousy surged up again like filthy, muddy sludge.
“…Why did you help me? Wasn’t watching my joke enough? Now you want to use me to make yourself look better?!”
Ginny couldn’t control her mouth. Hearing her own voice, she wanted to ask herself: What are you saying to Mary, who just helped you?
She felt ashamed of her unreasonable outburst, ashamed that within one day her husband’s affair had been exposed, that he didn’t love her but was just using her, that he was a total scum. Unable to bear the thought that she, who swore to protect the village in place of her parents and ancestors, had blindly let a wolf into the house because of her poor judgment, nearly letting a little villain like Kevin take full control of the village. Unable to face the crowd’s gazes, Ginny hiked up her skirt and fled the crowd, running toward the forest behind the village.
Ye Tang’s reaction was quick too. As soon as Ginny ran, she chased after. But Ye Tang deliberately didn’t chase too fast, letting Ginny reach the empty area behind the village before accelerating and grabbing Ginny’s wrist.
“What are you doing?! If you want to mock me, just mock me directly!”
Tears of humiliation rolled from her eyes, and once Ginny’s tear glands opened, they wouldn’t stop.
“Anyway, I’m such a failure! I can’t even tell good men from bad, got completely fooled by that scum Kevin! Used! Cheated on! Publicly humiliated! Anyway, I’m hopeless! I can’t even say thank you when you help me! I just spout crap even I can’t stand…!”
“Someone like me, someone like me—”
Might as well die and be done with it!
“Someone like you? What kind of person are you?”
No matter how hard Ginny struggled, Ye Tang didn’t let go. “Do you want to be mocked, Ginny? Then I will mock you. Properly, thoroughly mock you. But I won’t mock you today, nor for the reasons you said.”
“Kevin really is scum, and you haven’t fully seen his true face yet, so you’re indeed muddled. But he is him, and you are you. He doesn’t care about Abe Village, but didn’t you just uphold your will to protect the village right in front of him?”
“Ginny, you’re not as bad as you think.”
Perhaps because this was the first time in Ginny’s life someone affirmed her not as ‘the village head’s granddaughter,’ she couldn’t help lifting her head, snot and tears streaming as she looked at Ye Tang’s face.
The woman in front of her differed so much from the ‘Mary’ in her memories. Mary was a gentle, virtuous woman who knew how to win people over. But the Mary she knew absolutely couldn’t say words like these that seeped into the heart.
“…Who are you? You’re not Mary…”