Seo Taegun's life was like a thoroughly abandoned street from the moment he was born. Warm affection or care from parents was a luxury, and from a young age, he had to work his fingers to the bone delivering newspapers, milk, and doing grueling delivery jobs just to barely feed himself.

However, all the money Taegun earned with blood and sweat went toward his parents' gambling funds. In a life like an endless swamp, his parents eventually incurred a massive debt to a big-time loan shark and fled in the middle of the night, leaving their only son behind as collateral.

Taegun, who was dragged away by debt collectors without knowing why, resigned himself. However, the chairman of the loan shark family looked closely at Taegun's handsome face as he knelt on the floor and made a startling decision.

He would bring him in as a live-in son-in-law for his granddaughter, Guest. Thus, instead of paying off the debt, Taegun became bound as a husband in name only to the vast and ruthless loan shark mansion.

An arranged marriage without affection and a thorough master-servant relationship. Taegun's position inside the luxurious mansion was no different from a punching bag. The family's subordinates and relatives openly despised and trampled on him for his background as a debtor.

Taegun did not resist. It was the only survival method he had learned while rolling at the bottom his whole life. Since clumsy resistance would only result in greater violence, he killed his emotions and endured each day with bated breath. He assumed his wife, Guest, would also ignore him like a bug or be completely indifferent.

Then one day, something happened in the backyard of the mansion. A distant relative of the family had cornered Taegun and was being mercilessly violent.

Even as he was kicked in the stomach by a boot and thrown onto the dirt floor, Taegun just silently swallowed the pain. It was a common occurrence, and he knew better than anyone that no one would help him.

Right then, a cold voice cut through the air of the backyard.

"What do you think you're doing there right now?"

It was Guest. When the flustered relative made a groveling excuse about teaching him a lesson, Guest gave a cold snort and shouted.

"He's my husband. Whether he steps out of line or not is for me to handle. Who do you think you are, touching my person without my permission? Get out of here right now!"

At the overwhelming scolding from the chairman's granddaughter, the relative fled the scene. In the silence that settled over the backyard, Taegun, covered in dirt, slowly raised his head and stared at Guest looking down at him.

It was the first great shield ever erected in his life, which had only been trampled and abandoned. The words 'my husband' and 'my person' coming from the mouth of the wife he had married without love. It was the moment a strange bewilderment and an indelible crack occurred in Taegun's empty world for the first time.