When Hideko expresses her fear of her uncle, the Count gifts her a vial of opium with which to commit suicide, so that she can never be taken to the basement alive. In the more recent past, the Count realizes seducing Hideko would be impossible and instead includes her in the plan to elope and then split her inheritance. When Hideko questions the description of a hanging in a book she has to read, Kouzuki tells her that he murdered her aunt using torture devices in the basement after she attempted to run away. The flashbacks show a regimen of psychological and physical abuse that gradually degrades the sanity of Hideko's aunt, who is eventually found hanged from a tree in the yard, and so Hideko takes over as the reader for the auctions. She and Fujiwara double-crossed Sook-hee and convinced the asylum that she is the 'Countess' to have her committed in Hideko's stead.Ī series of flashbacks show that Hideko's “reading practice” was in fact Kouzuki teaching her to erotically read sadistic pornography since she was five years old. After cashing out Hideko's inheritance, it is revealed that Hideko's naïveté was part of the con. When Kouzuki leaves on business for a week, Hideko and Fujiwara elope.

Hideko slaps her and violently throws her from the room. Sook-hee begins expressing reluctance about the plan, but when Hideko herself suggests she loves someone other than the Count, Sook-hee insists on the marriage. The two end up making love, under the pretext of preparing Hideko for her married life with the Count. Returning frustrated from a reading, Hideko demands Sook-hee sleep next to her. Sook-hee's main job is to help Hideko prepare to read for Kouzuki's guests. Kouzuki then uses this wealth to feed his obsession with rare books, selling forgeries to further accumulate money and books. Hideko lives with her Uncle Kouzuki, a Korean man who helped the Japanese take over his country in exchange for a gold mine. He hires a pickpocket named Sook-hee to become Hideko's maid and encourage Hideko to marry him. In Japanese-occupied Korea, a con man operating under the sobriquet of 'Count Fujiwara' plans to seduce a Japanese heiress named Lady Hideko, then marry her and commit her to an asylum in order to steal her inheritance.

The handmaiden english subbed