At the end of my five months in the maternity ward, some men and woman in black suits came to pick me up. A female bodyguard held me like I was some precious porcelain dish, she looked so nervous it was laughable.
I decided to play a game on her and started crying. She immediately became flustered and more panicked. Even though I was an illegitimate bastard child, I was still a member of the KangMung group, if she dropped me she could easily lose her job.
The thought gave me delight. I wanted to continue crying but to my surprise, the Female bodyguard regained her composure rather quickly, and before I could squeeze out more tears she had taken out a syringe and injected me with something.
The plain-looking nurse jumped up "How can you sedate a baby!" she yelled. I didn't get to hear the rest of the conversation before I passed out.
Well damn, I guess the bodyguards were given permission to do whatever they wanted, that meant my status of being a child from KangMung meant nothing, they didn't care about me.
I woke up in a cot, the room was big, spacious, luxurious even but it was rather empty. There were no toys at all. Other than myself there was no one in the room.
I cried out a little, but no one came. It seemed to be just me.
It took a whole hour for one maid to visit. The moment she saw me she sighed. She changed my nappy and gave me some milk, and then she just left. This same process repeated every hour for five minutes, no one ever visited me outside of that timeslot no matter how much noise I made.
In the novel, it had simply said: "Kang Ho was ignored in the KangMung Group, as a child he was tucked away in a building and forgotten about."
It had been a single line in the novel but what an impact it made. They really straight up forgot about the baby. It made sense why they did, no one supported the child.
His mother was dead and his father was so riddled with the guilt he didn't even want to see him. Additionally, the novel mentioned that only 3 months after Kang Ho was born, his Father Kang Joon-Ki had entered an arrangement with the Dragon Group and married Yong Myeong, the only daughter of Yong Bon-Hwa, the leader of the Dragon Group. Since it had been five months since my birth it meant she was probably living with him in a nearby building by now.
If I was seen it would only cause issues, it was easier for them to lock me in a room and close the door.
I understood why they did this, but I didn't get it. If they didn't like Kang Ho so much, why not just kill the eyesore, that's what I'd do. Killing a baby is so easy and a powerful group like them could blame it on anything and easily cover-up.
But I guess even though they endorsed child abuse, murder was a bit too much for these people, but by not killing me they were instead raising someone that would grow up to hate them, making their own enemy.
Well, I say that, but the Kang Ho in the novel never rebelled. He was starved for affection and was a fool for his family, doing anything they wanted, no matter how much they ignored him or even beat him. He never even thought of hating them let alone being their enemy. However, I'm not the Kang Ho from the novel and I have a tendency to hold grudges, nobody had lived a good life after insulting me when I was Daniel Slade, and I aimed to keep up that same energy in this life.
These people would regret ignoring me.
At that point, a maid came in and began to change my nappy. After the last twelve rotations, I realised there were only three servants that came regularly.
A young 20-something maid with a sullen face who was constantly sighing, a young 20-something butler who was handsome and polite, and an older more grumpy woman.
It seemed that if I wanted anything beyond this room I needed to get these people on my side. The first order of business was to make these people fall for me.
It would be a piece of cake, not to brag but I had seduced a good 30% of my victims to lure them in.
As the maid changed my nappy I decided to mimic cute babies that I had seen on TV, woman always seemed to fawn after them. I started to giggle a bit, I 'cooed' and 'ahhhed'. The maid looked at me in surprise. I took advantage of this eye contact and stretched my arm over to hold her hand. My hand was only big enough to wrap around her finger.
I squeezed her finger tighter and giggled. The sullen faced maid's expression became brighter, her eyes widened and a goofy grin had appeared.
"Do you like me little guy?" she asked, "Babies tend to always cry at me or go really quiet, I've never had a baby laugh at me before."
That was relatable, children used to always cry when they saw me too, especially babies. They somehow instinctively knew what I was, and knew that they should be scared. A survival instinct most likely.
She began pinching my cheeks softly, I continued to giggle as if I really liked what she was doing. The maid got more excited by my reactions. She then started playing peek-a-boo with me. I reacted as I should and filled the room with explosive laughter.
I could tell by her big smile that I had won her over, she picked me up and threw me in the air a few times. "You're so cute Kang Ho" she laughed.
At that point the door to the room opened, it was the other attendant, the young handsome man. He was surprised to see the maid twirling around the room with me in her arms.
"Kim Bora, what are you doing?" he asked.
"Lee Min-Ki, the young master is too cute!" Bora squealed as she showered me with small kisses on my cheeks.
Min-Ki looked uneasy, "he may be cute but you shouldn't really be handling him like that. He's still a member of the Kang family."
"O'come on, he's barely a member. Madame Kang simply told us to look after him like some thrown away toy, she even put us on hourly rotations instead of hiring a full-time nanny. They don't care about him. Plus there are no cameras here anyway." Bora argued.
"But still-"
"Just hold him, he's so cute!" She then preceded to shove me into Min-Ki's arms. At first, he held me uncomfortably, but when I giggled a bit and put my small fingers on his face and squished his cheeks, immediately I saw the hesitation disappear and a big goofy grin grow on his face.
"Oh, he is rather cute."
"I told you" Bora giggled.
They both then began to play with me.
"We should definitely bring some toys and books here" Min-Ki announced, "A baby shouldn't grow up with nothing, this is bad for his development."
"Definitely" Bora agreed. Min-Ki and her high-fived and smiled like a bunch of jelly beans. It was so easy winning them over, it was almost funny.
2/3 were on my side, now I just had to get that old one on my team.
As I thought this, the grumpy old maid came into the room. She was shaped like the hunchback of Notre Dame, thick and stout with a mean expression on her face. "Lee Min-Ki and Kim Bora, why are you still here, you should be attending to the main mansion."
Immediately upon hearing her voice they both froze and then preceded to bow deeply. "We apologise head maid. We'll be off."
In the blink of an eye, they had both ran away leaving me alone with the woman. It seemed they were her subordinates.
As she came up to me I proceeded to smile and giggle as I had done with the other two. Her hand reached for me and I expected her to fawn over me like the others, but instead... she slapped me.
I felt my small body fall to the side from the shock, it wasn't a small slap either, she had really hit me. "I can see your Gold-digger mother in your face." she snarled.