1440 - Chapter 37

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 37
At last, the man’s fingertips made contact. Warmth radiated from his hand as it settled over the bandage. He traced slowly across the wound with his fingertips, channeling healing power into it—but soon, embarrassed by the faintness of his own strength, he withdrew his hand.
Watching him, Yeonsu reflected: his intellect was not lacking after all. The faint Holy Power he wielded was no trick of his own imagination either.
How many centuries had this man been confined to the grounds of Baek Estate? What manner of being was he, truly?
“Is that man even human?”
Deok-woo’s question echoed in his mind. And just as quickly, Yeonsu answered it himself.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
The answer came without hesitation, without space for doubt. He resisted the urge to collapse entirely into the man’s embrace, to surrender to it completely.
Glancing idly around the room, Yeonsu spotted a Korean Hangul Book wedged in a corner and retrieved it eagerly.
“Have you studied a great deal?”
Yeonsu asked playfully, smiling. The man’s clear reluctance to discuss either his wounds or the act of self-harm drew a short sigh from him. Then, as though wounded, he turned his head away.
That very human reaction startled Yeonsu inwardly. And delighted him. He felt the urge to tease.
“Do you dislike studying?”
At the second question, the man retrieved the book, as if to correct him—turning page after page before Yeonsu’s eyes. The margins were dense with careful handwriting practice, already filling half the book.
So it wasn’t dislike at all. Yeonsu felt warmth watching the man’s neat penmanship. He ran his finger across the pages, feeling how the paper was slightly indented where the unfamiliar pencil had pressed hard—the trace of someone still learning the tool’s weight.
Seeing Yeonsu’s pleasure as he examined the book, the man’s displeasure softened. He gently covered Yeonsu’s hand with his own as it moved across the pages.
The man’s hand moved slowly over the bandage—a wordless caution against further injury. Yeonsu watched it in silence.
Though the same intensity of power he’d felt before wasn’t there now, the mere brush of fingertips made Yeonsu feel as though his wound were already healing.
“When I was young and afflicted with Divine Illness, you touched my forehead like this.”
At those words, the man’s hand stilled. Yeonsu clasped it firmly, keeping it from pulling away.
“I survived because of that touch.”
He rubbed the small, thin hand with his thumb, then slowly lifted his gaze. The man was already staring directly at him.
“Do you remember how I used to sneak into the Annex whenever I fell ill?”
The man nodded slowly. Yeonsu’s joy at learning this memory belonged to them both, not to him alone, made him pause to gather his words.
“Perhaps because of that, a lock was eventually placed on the Annex door. From that day forward, I worked to see you again. When I learned what humiliations you were suffering in this place, I swore—absolutely swore—that I would never leave you here.”
He’d learned the true meaning of “Scapegoat” before high school.
More than the shock of learning the man had been confined for sexual purposes, Yeonsu had burned with fury at how casually, how brutally they had treated him.
That was when it began. He started praying to the gods for time—endless time—to satisfy their appetites, began building his own meager body into something strong and capable. He’d realized then that only strength would allow him to tear this man from this hell.
Though preparation took longer than expected, he’d been all the more meticulous for it. Yeonsu would extract the man from their grasp, place him somewhere safe, and let him walk free.
Yeonsu pulled the man close, drawing his bare upper body against him in a tight embrace. Startled, the man tensed briefly. Yeonsu pretended not to notice and held him tighter still.
Slowly, the man’s muscles relaxed. As tension melted from his frame against Yeonsu’s chest, his slight body grew lighter, and Yeonsu wrapped him in warmth and security.
“Would it be all right if we slept together again tonight?”
At Yeonsu’s careful question, the man lifted his head from the embrace. The motion caused his smooth forehead to brush gently against Yeonsu’s jaw and cheek before drawing back.
Yeonsu’s breath caught, though the man, unaware, withdrew his arms. With the care of an elder tending a child, the man patted the pillow into shape and made a place for Yeonsu to lie.
He drew Yeonsu’s body into position deeper into the bed, then lay himself down beside him on his side, and pulled the thick, warm quilt over them both.
A slender hand came to rest on Yeonsu’s bare chest, patting slowly, like soothing a child to sleep. Yeonsu felt a flutter of complicated emotion stir within him.
Didn’t this man care that Yeonsu lay exposed like this? Yeonsu himself had never dared to touch or even look when the man wore only translucent garments, afraid he might lose control.
During the healing, he’d opened the man’s clothes and touched his skin directly—a detail Yeonsu somehow forgot entirely, only to feel vaguely slighted at his own oversight. Yet even as his eyes closed, he felt only happiness at that tender touch, unchanged in fifteen years.
Tomorrow would bring many decisions about how to navigate that terrible commission. But he decided to postpone it all until morning.
For now, he would think only of sinking deep into sleep within this man’s warm embrace.
***
Jayoon opened her eyes with a thought: *Again. Damn it.*
She’d fallen asleep without noticing, only to wake around three in the morning—a bad habit she’d picked up recently.
Having slept fully clothed, her back ached heavily. She rubbed her waist and rose groggily, yawning with irritation.
“God, I’m exhausted. So much work left to do.”
Mountains of data needed compiling immediately. With a new informant having come forward, she also needed to verify their testimony.
When she thought about it, this bad sleep habit of hers—and the piling work that kept slipping through her fingers—was all the fault of that madman Gu Won-deuk.
What the hell had he seen in her to become so fixated? No—that wasn’t love. It was a lecherous old man with an appetite for young women, plain and simple.
Thirty-six.
A man nearly thirty years her senior had come to her workplace, fallen to his knees, and thrust a bouquet at her. She’d genuinely wanted to kill him in that moment.
But that wasn’t even the worst of it. Gu Won-deuk was a married man. He had a wife. And that wife happened to be Cha Ji-hee, the chairwoman of Maximode, a massive fashion conglomerate—the very same woman Jayoon had been investigating for misconduct.
Cha Ji-hee had settled sexual harassment and assault cases with money; what the company called “recommended resignations” were nothing but unjust terminations. And the victims—there were many—all had connections to Gu Won-deuk.
At first, Jayoon had been almost grateful for his pestering. It was an opportunity to extract information from the source himself. She’d thought it harmless enough to play along for a while.
Journalism couldn’t be conducted with clean hands alone. And since she was spending her own time on this, not anyone else’s—what did it matter?
But Gu Won-deuk’s feelings had exceeded her expectations entirely. She’d thought if she pushed back hard enough, his pride would be wounded and he’d back off. Instead, he’d clung even more tenaciously. It had culminated in that damned proposal outside her office building.
Jayoon felt like she was losing her mind. Her senior colleagues had been relentless in their teasing. Until that point, Jayoon’s only concern had been: how do I get rid of this stubborn old bastard? In a way, those early days seemed better now.
Then came the real problem. When Cha Ji-hee, the chairwoman of Maximode, learned about Gu Won-deuk’s proposal, she began sending people.
Jayoon faced threats constantly. Some were mild intimidation; others came as accidents designed to harm her. The most recent car crash had nearly killed her—by inches.
“This is going to kill me. I’m going to die like this.”
From the constant tension of near-accidents and threats, she’d developed splitting headaches and sudden paralysis in her lower body. She’d collapse without warning. The doctors found nothing wrong, so it had to be stress from Gu Won-deuk and his wife.
I need to compile the evidence and blow this wide open. Every second felt like torture—I wanted revenge on that couple as soon as possible, my palms itching with the urge to act. Jayoon pushed herself up from the chair to turn on her laptop and review the court documents.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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