I Became the Mother-in-law of the Regretful Female Lead

“Call for Doctor Zitmin! Now!”

“My lady! Please, please wake up!”

The once quiet dining room was now crowded with more than ten servants.

Their faces were filled with despair as they looked at the collapsed Vanessa. Instead of rejoicing at the fall of the empire’s most notorious figure, they appeared genuinely worried.

“…I’ve brought Doctor Zitmin!”

One servant, clutching the doctor’s sleeve, was panting heavily, clearly alarmed by the situation.

In contrast, Zitmin maintained a calm expression as he reassured the servants.

“Everyone, please step aside. Let me check her condition.”

He slowly approached the lifeless Vanessa lying on the floor.

Though he appeared to be a concerned physician, his inner thoughts were far from it.

Zitmin could barely suppress the laughter threatening to escape.

Vanessa, collapsed on the floor. How long he had longed to see this sight!

All that remained was to confirm that her heart had stopped and officially declare her death.

Brimming with anticipation, Zitmin knelt beside her and checked her pulse.

Something was strange.

‘She should be dead after consuming that poison…?’

For some reason, Vanessa was still alive.

‘Could it be that she consumed less than a lethal dose…?’

She truly was a woman with an annoyingly persistent life force. If another doctor saw her in this condition, she might recover.

‘I need to kill her quickly. I need to make sure she’s dead before anyone else comes.’

But there were too many eyes on him.

Thinking quickly, Zitmin devised a way to get rid of the servants.

He put on a shocked expression and then said, “Her… her heart has stopped! She’s been poisoned! Someone must have poisoned the lady!”

The servants trembled in despair upon hearing the news of their mistress’s death. Zitmin continued his act.

“We need to call an investigator immediately! And seal off the mansion so the culprit can’t escape! In the meantime, I’ll stay here to tend to the lady. I trust all of you to act quickly.”

The servants hurriedly left the dining room. At last, only Vanessa and Zitmin remained.

Once he confirmed that everyone had left, Zitmin quickly rummaged through his bag.

‘I need to give her more poison. That’s the only way this plan will work!’

The bag was too large, and the poison he had prepared was hard to find. He needed to hurry before any other servant returned.

“Just a little more, and I’ll succeed…!”

Poisoning an already unconscious woman would be an easy task.

Soon she would die, and Zitmin could beg for forgiveness from the master who had once discarded him.

Filled with anticipation, Zitmin continued searching his bag until he finally found the vial of poison.

And then—

“So? What exactly are you trying to succeed at?”

“What do you mean, what? Of course, getting rid of that cursed woman…! Huh? Who are you…?!”

Zitmin had been answering naturally, but he realized something was wrong when he heard the voice.

He quickly turned around, and standing there was none other than…

“Doctor Zitmin. There’s only you and me in this room. Was it so hard to guess who I was? I thought doctors were supposed to be clever, but apparently, that’s not always the case.”

It was Vanessa, whom he thought had lost consciousness.

She looked down at Zitmin with a calm expression, as if she had never collapsed. Then she pointed to something in his hand.

“Hmm. So, was this what you were planning to feed me while I was passed out? I’ve heard that the antidote for Boglinus requires the Sananita flower. I take it you weren’t trying to save me, were you?”

Zitmin’s pupils dilated at the mention of “Boglinus.”

‘How on earth does Vanessa Winder know the name of the poison I used?’

His mind was racing in confusion.

He couldn’t even form proper words, only stammering, “Wh-what… what…!”

“If you had truly meant to save me, you wouldn’t have put poison in my wine in the first place.”

With that, Vanessa flashed a sinister smile.

Her blood-red eyes gleamed menacingly, as if saying she had seen through all of his schemes.

“How… how did you know?” Zitmin asked, his voice trembling.

“Do you think that’s all I know, Doctor Zitmin?”

“Wh-what…?”

“Did you really think I wreaked havoc all these years for no reason?”

So, there had been a reason for her tyranny?

Zitmin had tried to assassinate her countless times, but each time, Vanessa had miraculously survived by sheer luck, or so he thought. Could it be that she had known about his assassination attempts all along and had acted out deliberately?

‘Has she been aware of my plans from the beginning? Was she acting out on purpose…?’

Zitmin, utterly bewildered, asked, “Since when…? Since when did you know?”

“Since the day you killed my husband. That’s when I realized everything.”

With those words, Vanessa fell into a moment of recollection.

“That was… seven years ago.”

On the day my husband died, I immediately realized the culprit was among his distant relatives.

‘How could I not, when they were already coveting his wealth before the funeral was even over?’

Count Winder had been one of the wealthiest men in the empire.

From the day he died, his relatives slandered me and Jeremyon, eager to get their hands on his fortune.

‘Vanessa Winder is nothing more than a false wife who never consummated her marriage. And Jeremyon, despite being the heir, doesn’t even carry Winder blood. Neither of them should inherit the Winder estate!’

They labeled Jeremyon and me as imposters, insulting us in front of everyone.

Though their claims were baseless, Jeremyon and I were, by law, the legitimate family of the deceased.

But in the eyes of others, Jeremyon was just a boy too young to understand the world, and I was a foreign princess unfamiliar with the empire’s laws.

‘We must have looked so easy to deal with.’

The distant relatives charged at us like a pack of wolves, and by the time I regained my senses, it was clear that I was in a situation where I would be caught off guard.

‘I need to find a way. To protect myself and Jeremyon…’

After much contemplation, the decision I made was none other than…

‘Let’s become the Villain instead.’

So that no one would dare to underestimate me. So that they wouldn’t even think of laying a hand on the Windor family.

I decided to position myself as the most ruthless person in the Empire to protect this place.

Fortunately, my judgment was correct.

The distant relatives, who had been barging into the mansion at will, gradually stopped coming when I started to act out.

The insults claiming Jeremyon and I were fakes also began to decrease. They were afraid of what I might do in a fit of rage.

‘Well, the biggest reason might be that I eliminated my political rivals one by one.’

While they were quiet, I quickly devised a plan to ensure that Jeremyon could inherit the title of Count.

Even after that, I diligently continued to act so that the distant relatives wouldn’t dare to speak nonsense in meetings.

It seemed like I had successfully protected the Winder family, but… the situation changed rapidly.

Perhaps realizing that I, whom they had underestimated, was actually a formidable opponent, the culprits began to target me this time. Several assassination attempts were proof of that.

‘They must have thought that if they killed me, they could finally take the Winder family.’

Coincidentally, Jeremyon and I had a very bad relationship. This meant that after killing me, it would be possible to pin the crime on Jeremyon.

By killing me, they could eliminate two troublesome people, so there was no reason for the culprits to hesitate.

It wasn’t difficult to notice all of this.

‘The problem is not knowing exactly who is targeting me.’

I narrowed it down to three of the most likely suspects among the distant relatives, but without further clues, I couldn’t catch the culprit.

So I waited, on guard against assassination, hoping the culprit would reveal themselves with decisive evidence…

‘Thanks to recalling the original story, I no longer needed to wait.’

In the story, Vanessa ultimately dies at Jeremyon’s hands without ever catching the culprit who killed her husband.

However, after a while, Jeremyon discovers the truth of the incident… and having read the original text thoroughly, I too learned who the real culprit was.

In other words, this was the moment to utilize that knowledge.

I looked down at the trembling Zitmin and smiled maliciously.

“You must be in quite a predicament, Zitmin, having been caught trying to poison a noble lady. With a crime like this, it should definitely be a death sentence. Right?”

As I spoke, Zitmin seemed to realize the situation late and trembled all over. Then, as if searching for an escape route, he rolled his eyes around.

“It’s already too late. I have knights waiting outside. Even if you try to run, you’ll just die at their hands.”

“Ugh, damn…!”

Zitmin appeared noticeably anxious, as if afraid of death.

How amusing it was that he was scared of dying despite having tried to kill me.

I scoffed at his contradictory attitude.

Then, I uttered my final words to conclude my plan.

“Do you want to live?”

“Y-Yes…?”

“If you wish, I could personally show you a way to preserve that worthless life of yours.”

Zitmin’s eyes lit up as if he had found hope.