Episode 1
“Oh my, look over there. It’s the Duchess.”
“Isn’t that the sooo elegant duchess?”
The maids gathered in groups of three or five whispered to each other. Chloe, the mistress of the Duke of Battenberg, who was walking down the hall without a single maid, did not even raise an eyebrow at their voices. The giggling maids spoke as if to tell Chloe to listen as the distance between them and Chloe grew closer.
“Let’s get out of the way so we don’t block the road.”
Then they burst out laughing and ran away. The maids who were running away shouted at one of them who was left behind.
“Ellie, what are you doing! Run!”
If it were the previous Chloe, she would have tried to catch the disappearing maids by saying something like, ‘Ah, ah… Over there. Can I get some water?’
But now Chloe knew it was meaningless. Truly Meaningless. It would just give more pleasure to them. As the maids completely disappeared, Chloe frowned.
She returned to her room. Although it was clearly a duchess’ room, it was in a mess. The cabinets were not cleaned properly, and there was white dust on them. The bed she had woken up in the morning was still unmade. The tulips in the vase on the table had long since turned yellow and withered.
Chloe made her own bed.
‘It’s time to start putting new flowers in the vase.’
Things like changing the flowers in a vase were chores that should be done by maids. It wasn’t something that a duchess, who already had a lot to do, would do.
Nevertheless, Chloe was thinking of getting the flowers herself. She had long since become accustomed to this kind of life.
A life of being ignored by maids and servants. A life of being a duchess but not being treated as one.
‘It’s been several days already.’
Chloe sighed, flipping through the calendar next to the desk.
At first, I was confused by this new world. Then I was surprised by the attitudes of the people around me, then I was angry, and then I finally adapted.
‘It’s been a week.’
Chloe circled the date on her calendar, marking how many days had passed since she had fallen into ‘this world’.
Chloe put the calendar down. Then she wrapped her head.
“Ugh…”
This world was not her home. She was born and raised in a place called the Republic of Korea on Earth.
However, she was stuck in this situation out of the blue as a Duchess named Chloe Battenberg who was shunned by her maids and servants.
“Ugh! What a shitty life!!”
It was Chloe’s… No, it was the biggest crisis in Park Hajeong’s 28-year life.
***
Park Hajeong had lived her life only caring about what other people think.
Like everyone else, she received 12 years of formal education and took the CSAT. Like everyone else, she went to a university that matched her CSAT score, and like everyone else, she got a job in the accounting team at a certain company.
In her 28 years of life, the thing that Park Hajeong feared the most in the world was that. Being out of favor with others. That’s why she worked hard at work to avoid being out of favor with others.
No matter what the boss threw at her, she did it silently without complaining. It was always Park Hajeong who worked on the projects that her greedy colleagues couldn’t handle. However, when Park Hajeong finished the work even after working hours, the credit always went to the colleagues who had received the project.
She was confident in her abilities in her field. Her efforts alone could build her an office, if not a whole floor of a building.
However, Park Hajeong’s efforts were rewarded with a recommendation to resign.
A project that everyone was avoiding because it was risky and had little prospects was naturally assigned to Park Hajeong. As always, she did her best, but this was something that even her abilities could not do. The project failed miserably and the company suffered a huge loss.
Of course, the responsibility fell entirely on Park Hajeong.
On the day she submitted her resignation, Park Hajeong cried in her studio apartment, pouring down an uncountable number of bottles of soju.
At that moment, when she was exhausted from crying and fell asleep between the bags of snacks and bottles of alcohol that covered the floor, she made a firm resolution in a state of consciousness between dreaming and reality. She would no longer live her life worrying about what other people thought.
And when she opened her eyes, it was here.
***
Chloe looked down at the cold basin of water with a cold face.
The maid had left it behind, saying it was wash water. She dipped her fingertips in it. The water was as cold as ice.
Of course, the wash water usually served to nobles was lukewarm water. Chloe knew from her experience that the maids who brought in cold water as wash water did not mean that she should wash with cold water to have a refreshing morning.
The face of the maid who had been squirming on the other side of the wall was vivid in her eyes. Chloe frowned briefly and then poured cold water on her face with a bland expression.
‘At least I was finally able to catch some sleep.’
Chloe wiped the moisture from her face with a towel and combed her own hair and put on a dress. Normally, this would have been the maids’ job, but Chloe’s personal maids were probably loitering around somewhere today as well.
Although she had been dropped into a place like this, there was one fortunate thing. That is, the memories of this body’s original owner, Chloe, had entered Park Hajeong’s head as if it were natural. Thanks to that, she was able to quickly learn the lifestyles, manners, and etiquette of this world.
Chloe looked at herself in the full-length mirror, dressed in clothes that were difficult to put on by herself, so she wasn’t perfectly neat or flawless, but she wasn’t at the point where people would point at her, a police car would come by, or a silver bracelet would be worn.1Wearing a silver bracelet in Korea is done as protection from negative energy or dark spirits, while the police car only stops if someone’s clothes are vulgar enough to require questioning.
Besides, Chloe was beautiful. Not even her imperfect outfit was a flaw. Chloe touched her face, which still felt a little like someone else’s face, not fully acclimated even after eight days.
Her dark brown hair fell in waves. She had smooth white skin, large, cool eyes the color of ripe green olives, and a beautifully curved body. She may not have been a peerless beauty, but she was enough to make anyone turn around when they walked down the street.
Park Hajeong had an average face for a woman in her 20s in South Korea, neither pretty or ugly. How wonderful it was that she suddenly acquired such beauty.
But Chloe sighed deeply.
‘What good is being pretty when your personality is like this?’
In her memory, Chloe was someone who didn’t live up to her title. No, to say she didn’t live up to her title was an extremely mild way to put it.
Chloe’s original personality was… enough to stimulate Park Hajeong’s trauma. In other words, she was a personality that was extremely concerned about what other people thought!
The moment she looked into Chloe’s memories, Park Hajeong realized that her personality, which had led to her being recommended to resign from the company she had devoted herself to for several years, was extremely ordinary.
Chloe was five times, no, twenty times more conscious of what others thought than Park Hajeong. All of her actions were based on the idea that she did not want to be hated by others.
She was mild and timid. Her shoulders and eyes were always hunched over, and they were not corrected despite the manners she had learned since young. Because of this, her natural beauty and the knowledge she had cultivated as an aristocrat did not shine at all. Instead of being clear and firm, her speech was always mumbled to herself, and she was always a laughing stock in high society. As if she had no sense of self, she was always eager to follow trends in her tastes and fashion. Once, she bragged about her interest and knowledge in wine, a popular hobby among young gentlemen and ladies, only to be revealed to have no knowledge of it, causing her great embarrassment.
The personality that was formed because she didn’t want to be hated by others, paradoxically, only earned her hatred and ridicule.
‘She had so much natural charm, but she hadn’t been able to use any of it. What a pity.’
Chloe stood in front of the mirror, trying to politely bow while holding onto the hem of her skirt. A charming smile appeared on her pretty face.
It was then.
The sound of women laughing and talking happily outside the door and the sound of footsteps could be heard, and then the door opened wide without a knock.
“I’m sorry, Madam!”
The maids spoke with an attitude and expression that showed no apology at all.
“We were late because something came up… Oh my, you finished preparing everything, right?”
What happened? Chloe thought. Judging from their attitudes and the excited faces that looked like they had just come back from a fun time, she was sure of it. They must have been holed up somewhere, chatting away, and only came now.
The original Chloe was a high-born noblewoman who had never dressed herself since she was young. On top of that, if she had always been this timid, she would never have dreamed of getting dressed herself if the maids came late, so she would have just waited in a negligee, shivering.
Oh. They must have been expecting something like that too.
Chloe crossed her arms and scanned the maids’ faces. Then she opened her mouth.
“Yes, I’ve prepared everything. But just because I can prepare myself doesn’t mean you can be negligent.”
The maids’ faces instantly hardened at Chloe’s confident attitude. Just looking at their expressions, it seemed like they were saying, “Huh? Why is she like this? Did she eat something wrong?” and Chloe felt inwardly astonished.
These were the faces of people who completely looked down on her. Like a cat looking at a mouse, like someone who you have always considered infinitely easy and inferior to you had bitten your nose.
Besides, Chloe… no, Park Hajeong had already seen that ‘face of a person who looks down on others’ before. It was the expression that her former bosses and colleagues often made when they pushed work onto her.
“Make sure to come on time tomorrow. Otherwise, there is no forgiveness.”
“I… Madam?”
The one standing at the front of the women intervened. Chloe knew who she was. It was Mrs Colin, the head maid.
“What? Colin.”
“You seem a little different today than usual.”
Mrs. Colin was clearly mocking her. Her face seemed to say, ‘what should I do with you?’. It was the face of a cat who thought even the mouse could bite its nose when using all its courage.
If it was understandable for anyone to do this, it would be Mrs. Colin. And it would be so, because although most of the servants in this mansion looked down on Chloe, Mrs. Colin stood out among them.
She took advantage of the fact that she was Chloe’s direct maid, and the head maid in charge of the maids, to harass her from time to time.
It was commonplace to make everyone laugh by making her wear a dress with spilled drinks on it as a dressing gown. She even conspired with all of Chloe’s maids to fake a meal with the Duke and make her wait two hours. Disobeying orders, making fun of her, and nitpicking every word she said were things she did three times a day as if it were nothing more than a meal.
Even though it wasn’t something she had experienced herself, but something that had happened to the original body owner, Chloe was extremely angry at Mrs. Colin.
And of all the things, that time was the most unforgivable. One day, Chloe’s personal maids suddenly became kind to her. They smiled kindly like ordinary maids, helped Chloe, and even spoke to her in a friendly manner.
Chloe was delighted at that. She was almost alone in the duke’s mansion, starved for human kindness, and so she didn’t even think that the sudden change in circumstances was suspicious. She just assumed that her personal maids had changed their minds.
She clung to the maids and Mrs. Colin for kindness and affection, and the next day, she was abandoned as if nothing had happened. And before she knew it, the harassment had begun again.
Chloe had heard through hearsay that it was all Mrs. Colin’s plan.
She glared at Mrs. Colin, who had a mocking smile on her face.
“Colin.”
“Yes.”
“Come closer to me.”
Mrs. Colin flinched as if she was going to disobey orders again, but she soon came over with a mocking face. She was just curious about what Chloe was going to do.
Chloe looked at Mrs. Colin, who was coming closer to her, for a moment then…
Slap!
She slapped her cheek with all her might.
Hello, dear readers. I am Alaa, the translator of this work. I would like to inform you about some of this novel’s content…
The title of this novel isn’t for show. It really talks about tea with lots of details and recipes. The author even took his references from more than ten real tea books. Consider this as a warning, so please don’t complain about it later as I think it’s remarkable for the author to take all that effort to create a genuine personality for the female lead.
I hope you liked the start though ( ◜‿◝ )♡
