A Baby Cat Who Commands the Dog Clan - Chapter 216

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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 216
Hong Seol’s mind held but a single thought: presenting fireflies to Baek Elder Brother as a gift.
‘Such beautiful creatures—surely Baek Elder Brother will adore them!’
Perhaps the coldness with which her brother had pushed her away might finally thaw.
She yearned to share this enchanting spectacle with Baek Elder Brother as well.
It never occurred to Hong Seol that fireflies might exist in Anhui too.
“Huh?”
Dang Yi Woon blinked, caught off guard by the sudden wager proposal.
“We’re betting on who can catch more fireflies.”
“Fireflies? Where would we even put them?”
“Um… here!”
Hong Seol rose onto her tiptoes, plucked several bamboo leaves, and worked them deftly between her fingers.
In moments, two adorable little bamboo baskets materialized in her palm.
“Where on earth did you learn to do that?”
“Mae Ran is quite skilled. I learned it alongside knot-tying techniques.”
Dang Yi Woon sighed inwardly.
‘The mood was just right, and now she wants to play some firefly-catching game.’
But refusing outright would only disappoint her—he could see it plainly.
Instead, Dang Yi Woon decided to exploit something else.
That small cat, despite appearances, could not abide losing.
‘If I explain convincingly why I’m bound to win, perhaps she’ll concede.’
Dang Yi Woon cleared his throat and declared:
“Of course I’ll win the wager—I’m taller, so my hands reach farther.”
Pfft.
Hong Seol laughed as though the notion were absurd.
That little cat!
Seeing Hong Seol’s expression—one he’d never witnessed before—Dang Yi Woon felt heat flood his face.
‘Did she just… mock me?’
His face burned with embarrassment.
Hong Seol spoke with exaggerated pity:
“Brother, have you forgotten again that I’m a cat?”
He’d been outmaneuvered.
“The loser buys meat at the Inn!”
Dang Yi Woon, who had been sighing, quickly reconsidered.
‘Grandfather once said that a wise serpent digs three burrows.’
The original proverb spoke of the cunning hare’s three warrens, though the hare was the protagonist.
But the Sichuan Tang Family had always adapted such sayings to suit their purposes.
It was much like how the Sword King Nam Goong Ho was known in Sichuan as a subordinate of the Poison King Dang Yi Mu.
In any case, Dang Yi Woon was already sketching another scenario in his mind.
‘What if, in the darkness of the Bamboo Forest, we both chase fireflies frantically, only to suddenly find ourselves face to face?’
The breeze swept gently across the bamboo leaves.
When the soft fireflies cast their delicate glow upon his face.
Dang Yi Woon found himself unconsciously touching his cheek with his fingertips.
This was a face he had cultivated his entire life for this very moment.
He was certain that in this instant, he would captivate Hong Seol.
And right then, Dang Yi Woon intended to speak.
Words he had harbored in his heart for so long.
“Elder Brother, let’s go!”
Hong Seol’s sharp voice rang out.
Soon after, two silhouettes began parting through the Bamboo Forest.
* * *
Nam Goong Baek gazed down at his hand, ensnared in the Ghost Hand Elder’s grip.
A crackling sound.
He could see the horrifying sight of his hand being stained with a ghastly blue chill.
Yet Nam Goong Baek remained composed.
“As expected of Elder Brother!”
“We believed in you, Brother!”
“Please avenge us!”
Seeing those fools with their heads barely above water raising their arms in encouragement was infuriating.
To make matters worse, they were swimming back toward the raft.
‘A coordinated attack is not an option.’
Then!
Nam Goong Baek drew the sword from his waist.
The Ghost Hand Elder, who had sworn just moments before that he would never wield a blade again, cried out in shock.
“Blast it, you mad whelp! How are you even moving!”
Yet the Nam Goong Family’s blade was fearsome enough that he leaped back with a start.
It was truly lightning-swift technique.
Nam Goong Baek brought his sword down without reply.
A sharp whistle.
But what Nam Goong Baek had cut was not the old man’s body.
The raft itself.
A splintering crack.
The sturdy raft, which had only been scratched by curved blades, was cleaved in two like tofu.
The water bandits watching the scene cried out.
“No, what foolish madness!”
“How will we return to shore now!”
Their words were true.
Whether to return to shore or to the Bamboo Forest where Hong Seol was, they needed the raft.
Yet Nam Goong Baek’s expression remained serene.
A sharp sound.
As Nam Goong Baek surged powerfully into the air, the raft beneath shattered into fragments.
By then, only a few scraps of wood remained beneath the Ghost Hand Elder’s feet, barely spanning a few hand-widths.
“Damn it all!”
The enraged Ghost Hand Elder launched himself upward toward Nam Goong Baek.
It was a precisely calculated move—Nam Goong Baek had already leaped first, timing his descent perfectly.
“Take this, whelp!”
The Ghost Hand Elder unleashed the Nine Yin Cold Bone Palm with every ounce of his strength.
Yet strangely, he felt nothing beneath his fingertips.
The Ghost Hand Elder faltered.
‘Still suspended in mid-air? Has the Nam Goong Family brat truly reached the realm of hovering in emptiness?’
In that instant, an answer came as if reading his very thoughts.
“…Not quite hovering in emptiness.”
The moment the Ghost Hand Elder looked upward.
A shoe sole filled his dimming vision.
Thwack!
Nam Goong Baek’s heel struck the Ghost Hand Elder’s face a beat later than expected.
“Aaaargh!”
The Ghost Hand Elder gurgled in his throat as he began to plummet.
“You… it was an umbrella all along!”
Nam Goong Baek had unfurled the paper umbrella tucked at his waist to slow his descent.
“My apologies, Elder. This isn’t over yet.”
But Nam Goong Baek had another trick in reserve.
He swiftly collapsed the umbrella and caught up to the Ghost Hand Elder’s fall.
“Hah!”
The Ghost Hand Elder, refusing to yield, gritted his teeth and thrust out a palm strike.
Yet his movements had noticeably slowed from the earlier blow to his shoulder.
“Pardon me!”
Nam Goong Baek twisted his waist and reached upward from below.
He seized the Ghost Hand Elder’s armpit with one hand and his skeletal wrist with the other.
A sickening crack.
One shoulder dislocated, and the Ghost Hand Elder’s left arm hung limp.
Yet his remaining right hand still crackled with the icy energy of the Nine Yin Cold Bone Palm.
The Ghost Hand Elder, fury blazing to his very crown, brought the palm down toward the back of Nam Goong Baek’s neck.
Nam Goong Baek caught that wrist and hurled it over his shoulder.
The two figures, locked together, spun once through the air before plummeting downward, ever downward.
“If you do this, you’ll be dragged into the water with me!”
“The sea is what I wanted.”
A faint smile played at Nam Goong Baek’s lips.
The next moment.
The Nine Yin Cold Bone Palm’s energy, gathered densely in the Ghost Hand Elder’s hands, touched the water’s surface.
Then an astonishing sight unfolded.
Crack, crackle!
The water spray that had been surging upward froze solid in that very shape.
The ones who suffered were the water bandits still submerged below.
“Aaaagh!”
“B-Brother! What are you doing!”
“Save us!”
In an instant, the water bandits found themselves with only their heads above the ice, their entire bodies trapped within.
Thud.
Nam Goong Baek’s black hat, knocked loose in the chaos, settled gently onto the ice that gleamed like the depths of midsummer frost.
The water bandits’ eyes widened like lanterns when they beheld Nam Goong Baek’s revealed face.
“…Silver hair and blue eyes?”
“I am Nam Goong Baek, young master! Brother!”
“What?”
“The firstborn young master of the Nam Goong Family! Bing Yu Hua, who abandoned her martial arts at the Northern Sea Ice Palace, is this man’s mother!”
The Ghost Hand Elder, with one arm now trapped in ice, blinked rapidly.
“So that’s why you could withstand my Yin Cold Bone Strike!”
Nam Goong Baek’s voice remained as composed as when he’d blocked the Yin Cold Ice Bone Strike head-on.
“Mother has drilled the methods to counter ice techniques into me until I was sick of hearing them.”
The Northern Sea Ice Palace was the very source of ice techniques.
Thus, he possessed extensive knowledge of how to counter them.
The most orthodox method among them was to channel one’s qi to the affected area as quickly as possible.
“But I don’t understand….”
The Ghost Hand Elder tilted his head in confusion.
His Yin Cold Bone Strike was no cheap technique that could be endured by such temporary measures.
“Without yang qi, no method should work against the Yin Cold Bone Strike, should it?”
Could he have possibly mastered the Solar Divine Art?
The Ghost Hand Elder drew in a sharp breath and shook his head.
The young master before him had eyes that were far too cold.
The atmosphere was entirely different from the Solar Divine Art, which wielded tremendous yang qi.
“…I have certain circumstances regarding my body.”
Nam Goong Baek, who had suffered from pain and consumed elixirs his entire life thanks to his mother being a physician.
And among those elixirs were the inner cores of Fire Carp—creatures possessing yang qi.
Though not the inner cores of such legendary beings as the Ten-Thousand-Year Fire Carp or the Thousand-Year Fire Carp.
‘Keeping one near my dantian and drawing upon it when needed is more than sufficient.’
Nam Goong Baek surveyed the Dengfeng Seven Oddities, who knew nothing of his circumstances.
“Well then. You’re all completely bound by the ice.”
Whoosh.
As Nam Goong Baek pointed his sword, inscribed with cloud patterns, the water bandits with only their heads above the ice felt terror grip their hearts.
One swing would be enough to end every life here.
“Then let’s hear the behind-the-scenes details of Fei Lu Zhai from now on. Speak quickly and concisely.”
Nam Goong Baek’s gaze remained fixed on the Bamboo Forest shrouded in darkness.
‘I must go to Seol.’
Fortunately, with the water frozen over, I could walk across without needing a raft!

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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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