A Baby Cat Who Commands the Dog Clan - Chapter 232

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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 232
* * *
I walked alone across white snowfields for three years.
Sometimes that place became scorching sand beneath my feet, and occasionally thorny brambles that tore my skin raw.
A lonely path where, no matter how I looked back, I saw only my own footprints.
Nam Goong Baek walked that path in silence, without a single complaint.
For Seol Ah.
To gain the strength to protect Seol Ah.
For that, it mattered not if I could never truly have her.
My resolve first wavered on the day the green light extinguished completely.
“Fireflies…?”
I lifted my hand and weakly swept through the dark air.
There was nothing.
“I suppose it was time for them to vanish….”
As I let my hand fall, my silver eyelashes lowered.
Even with dozens of precious night-luminous pearls embedded in the walls, they could not match that single tiny firefly.
Like stars vanishing from the night sky, I had nowhere left to turn my gaze.
It was around then.
The light footsteps that came daily to the sealed Training Cave ceased.
Would Elder Brother emerge today, or tomorrow?
Those small footsteps that pattered anxiously before the firmly closed door.
When I gathered all my focus and strained my ears, I could hear that pitter-pattering sound.
It was an incomparable comfort to me during my seclusion.
Sometimes I deliberately lingered near the stone sealing the entrance.
‘Here I am, supposedly in seclusion, and yet… how pathetic.’
I laughed bitterly at myself many times, desperately straining to catch any sign of Seol Ah.
But eventually, even that sound disappeared.
Now I had nowhere to look, nowhere to listen.
I could only endlessly cultivate in darkness and think.
‘Did Seol Ah finally leave for Sichuan….’
Three years.
Time enough not only for a coming-of-age ceremony, but for a marriage as well.
In that span, I achieved great progress in both the Bright Mirror Sword and the Vast Sky Great Flame Sword Technique.
‘Perhaps now I can end my seclusion and emerge.’
I wanted to confirm it.
Whether that small child had truly gone to Sichuan forever.
Whether she had become someone I could never touch—another’s person.
But I soon abandoned that thought.
‘It is already too late.’
If she had not departed for Sichuan, there would be no reason for her footsteps to have ceased.
And once things have come to this point, nothing changes whether I leave or not.
‘Then it would be right to hone my skills further here.’
Even if he were to emerge from seclusion now….
Seol Ah is no longer at the Nam Goong Family Estate.
So that place had become a moonless night for him.
Perhaps from now on, his entire life would be the same.
* * *
Then one day.
A familiar presence caught in Nam Goong Baek’s keenly honed spiritual sense.
‘…Nam Goong Do?’
A name he had forgotten for years surfaced in his mind.
His only cousin and the son of the traitor Nam Goong Yeol.
‘Why is Nam Goong Do, who should have been expelled after his dantian was sealed, here?’
Nam Goong Baek listened quietly.
Despite the boulder sealing the entrance, the outside was in great turmoil.
‘Something has definitely happened!’
Nam Goong Baek’s pace, which had been slow, gradually quickened as he walked toward the outside.
Mixed with the crackling sound of something burning, he could hear the shouts of warriors running about frantically.
“Ha!”
With a shout, he swung his blade.
Crack.
The massive boulder blocking the entrance to the Training Cave split like tofu.
Whoosh!
Crimson flames licked the air before his eyes.
The thick scent of pine resin made it clear that someone had deliberately set the fire.
Nam Goong Baek clenched his teeth.
“Nam Goong Do…!”
But now was not the time to pursue his presence.
Smoke was so thick he couldn’t see an inch ahead.
‘If the fire didn’t start here…!’
The Nam Goong Family was in danger.
Those who had learned martial arts would be fine, but there were many at the Nam Goong Family Estate who hadn’t.
Young servants and innkeepers, and….
“Mother…!”
The moment he covered his mouth with his sleeve and tried to break through the flames.
Whoosh!
As if by a lie, the crimson flames surrounding Nam Goong Baek vanished.
Nam Goong Baek’s eyes widened in surprise.
Where the fire had been extinguished, white frost clung to the blackened grass.
“This is… ice technique…!”
There is only one person in the Nam Goong Family Estate who could possibly manifest the ice technique.
“Elder Brother!”
The moment Nam Goong Baek heard that voice, his mind went blank white.
‘Is this a dream?’
For three years, he had yearned for that voice every night in his dreams.
‘There’s no way she could appear here. This must be a dream.’
Hope breeds disappointment.
Nam Goong Baek deliberately closed his eyes and steadied his breathing.
It was to suppress the baseless expectations rising within him.
‘Seol must be in Sichuan by now. Besides, it’s been a long time since I last heard her footsteps.’
Yet his heart, beating wildly of its own accord, insisted that the voice he had heard was undoubtedly real.
Thump, thump.
The Nam Goong Estate Manor that might be burning, the other family members, even Nam Goong Do who set the fire—
None of it held any meaning for Nam Goong Baek in this moment.
Only one person mattered.
Nam Goong Baek quietly opened his eyes.
“Baek Elder Brother!”
It was Seol Ah.
She stood there just as she had on the day they parted.
She had run here with such urgency that her shoulders heaved with labored breath.
Her large eyes brimmed with tears, and soot was smudged across her face in places.
“Seol Ah, why are you here? Weren’t you supposed to go to Sichuan?”
“Why would I go to Sichuan!”
“Sichuan has Xiong Miao, whom you like, and besides….”
Dang Yi Woon would be there too.
Nam Goong Baek could not bring himself to finish that sentence.
Hong Seol raised the corners of her lips slightly as she asked. Yet her voice carried a tremor of moisture.
“Elder Brother, do you really wish I had gone to Sichuan?”
“….”
Nam Goong Baek’s words caught in his throat.
And in that moment, he suddenly understood.
‘Ah, I cannot live without this girl.’
Even if I were to spend my entire life relying on this unremarkable body before her.
Now I cannot breathe without her.
Simultaneously, countless moments when he had pushed her away came crashing down like waves.
Nam Goong Baek felt his breath catch as if he were drowning in a massive tidal wave.
The moment he told her to leave the Nam Goong Family Estate, and even when he urged her to marry Dang Yi Woon.
He wanted to erase all those memories and start anew.
‘What do I do now…?’
Hong Seol whispered softly to the dazed Nam Goong Baek with a gentle smile.
“I-I’ve completed the Yin-Yang Divine Art!”
“…What?”
“While Baek Elder Brother was in seclusion, I worked desperately hard and achieved mastery of the Yin-Yang Divine Art!”
“Then that means….”
“Yes! Now I can retrieve the Golden Dragon Jade Blood Pill and heal Baek Elder Brother’s body!”
“…!”
“And…. there’s something I really want to tell Baek Elder Brother!”
Nam Goong Baek’s face showed confusion.
“To me…? What is it?”
“Truth be told, I didn’t want to say this looking like this….”
Hong Seol spoke with a hint of melancholy.
The clothes she’d received from the Northern Sea Ice Palace Master were so white that the soot clinging to various spots stood out all the more.
It had been so long since she’d seen Baek Elder Brother again.
And now, just before fulfilling that childhood promise to heal his body.
‘Today, I really want to bare my heart to Baek Elder Brother.’
She wanted to show the boldness of a Northern Sea Ice Palace woman—inherited from her mother and taught by the Medicine Master.
“First, let me confirm the Golden Dragon Jade Blood Pill with my own eyes, then I’ll tell you! Was the Ancestral Shrine this way?”
Hong Seol turned to the side with a clear shout.
From afar, she could still hear the sounds of efforts to extinguish the flames.
But in this vicinity, the fire had long since died down thanks to Hong Seol’s ice technique.
Instead, thick smoke filled all directions.
“Ha-whoosh!”
Hong Seol swept her sleeve and unleashed a palm strike. The brisk motion sent forth a wind that swept the smoke away.
“Huh…?”
In that instant, Hong Seol’s face turned deathly pale.
Her trembling gaze was fixed upon the cave entrance.
The cave where the Ancestral Shrine holding the Golden Dragon Jade Blood Pill was sealed.
The golden ropes that had clearly blocked the entrance in multiple layers were now completely charred black and gone.
“No, this can’t be…!”
Hong Seol rushed into the smoldering cave.
The heat still lingered oppressively, but it didn’t matter. She had to confirm the existence of the Golden Dragon Jade Blood Pill as quickly as possible.
“Seol Ah!”
When Nam Goong Baek followed a step behind.
Hong Seol stood motionless amid swirling white ash.
“….”
Inside, there was no trace of the Ancestral Shrine left.
The Golden Dragon Jade Blood Pill had been completely incinerated.
* * *
Deep Cave in Anhui.
This was one of the hideouts the Demonic Cult had carefully prepared over a long period of time.
Someone lay sprawled on the cold cave floor, drool trickling from their mouth.
“Ugh….”
Nam Goong Do let out a thin whimper.
Then someone abruptly splashed cold water across his face.
Splash!
“Pfft!”
Nam Goong Do, who had been lying prone, suddenly jolted upright.
Despite his long confinement, he showed no remorse for his transgressions—his murderous aura still burned with vivid intensity.
“Who dares…!”
“Are you the rat who incinerated my Golden Dragon Jade Blood Pill?”
A languid voice echoed through the darkness.
Nam Goong Do, whose dantian had shattered and left him with nothing but instinctive perception of qi,
could still sense it.
The being who had just spoken to him was no ordinary existence.

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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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