A Baby Cat Who Commands the Dog Clan - Chapter 44

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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 44
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The next day.
From morning, Hong Seol received a summons from Bing Yu Hua.
“Y-you called for me…?”
Hong Seol asked with downcast eyes. She had only just arrived at the entrance of Yi Yak Hall.
Though I knew I should enter, my dispirited feet seemed reluctant to cross the threshold.
‘The Medicine Master is so frightening!’
I gathered my courage and lifted my gaze, but immediately had to lower it again.
Bing Yu Hua, seated in the center of Yi Yak Hall, possessed an aura as formidable as a tiger prowling through a snowy wasteland.
‘And the Medicine Master dislikes me…’
She despises that I come from Myo Ga Jang.
And she despises me even more for wearing the clothes of the child she lost.
‘This… this is simply my role…’
I had merely forgotten this truth, blinded by the warmth and affection I received at Nam Goong Family Estate.
To be scorned and diminished—this was the burden left for me to bear.
Hong Seol’s thick lashes grew heavy with unshed tears.
“Sigh.”
Bing Yu Hua, discerning Hong Seol’s thoughts from her expression, exhaled quietly.
Startled by the sound, Hong Seol clenched her lips, desperately holding back her tears.
“Come closer.”
Her tone was gentler than yesterday, but the kitten with the sorrowful expression failed to notice.
Hong Seol hurried toward her with trembling lips, fighting to suppress the sobs threatening to spill forth.
“You said you were eight years old.”
“Yes? Yes, ma’am.”
The frightened child flinched at even this simple question.
“Sigh.”
Bing Yu Hua felt a dull ache beginning to throb in her head.
‘This child… she is exactly as I was in my youth…’
Bing Yu Hua had not been born in the Northern Sea Ice Palace.
A memory surfaced in her mind—a bitterly cold day from her distant past.
“I will return for you soon, so count to one hundred while you wait here. If Mother has not come back by then, count to one hundred again, and then once more. Then Mother will be here.”
The innocent young Bing Yu Hua nodded and began counting on her fingers.
“One, two…”
Mother’s silhouette grew ever more distant, and falling snowflakes gradually covered even her footprints.
“Ninety-nine, one hundred… Starting again, one, two…”
My fingers turned red and cracked from the cold, and even after counting to one hundred a hundred times, Mother never appeared.
Fortunately, the Bing clan of the Northern Sea Ice Palace took me in afterward, but…
‘I was just like her. Startled by the smallest sound, constantly watching for signs of rejection…’
The small kitten before her eyes was the mirror image of her former self.
“I have a question for you.”
I could see Hong Seol’s eyes trembling with tension.
“Is it true that you helped Lady Hong from the Fabric Shop?”
“Yes? Yes, it is.”
Hong Seol nodded her head.
It was true, but she couldn’t fathom why Bing Yu Hua would ask such a thing.
“Why did you help her?”
Hong Seol’s expression showed she couldn’t understand the question.
“Because it’s righteousness and benevolence…?”
At those words, Bing Yu Hua let out a small sigh.
After all, this child too seemed to be acting according to the grand cause that the Nam Goong Family proclaimed.
A spy would do the same, pretending such things.
They would do anything to please the adults.
Bing Yu Hua asked once more because she wanted to give Hong Seol another chance.
“Do you truly say you did this for righteousness and benevolence?”
“A-actually! It was because of me!”
At those words spoken in an ant-like whisper, Bing Yu Hua looked at Hong Seol.
The child kept her head bowed low, biting her cherry-like lips.
“The story of homeless little girls sounded just like my own story. You might have already heard, but….”
The last words were barely audible, so Bing Yu Hua had to strain her ears.
“I was abandoned by my mother….”
Seeing the trembling child, her image overlapped with Bing Yu Hua’s own childhood self, and she couldn’t speak for a moment.
Moreover, the reason Hong Seol helped Lady Hong was the same as hers.
‘I too began helping the Weaving Workshop because I saw myself in those girls….’
She opened her mouth after some time had passed.
“I hear you suffer from Yin-Yang Severed Pulse. If you don’t mind, may I examine your body a little?”
“Pardon?”
Hong Seol, who had been staring blankly at the ground, lifted her round eyes.
“It will only take a moment. Extend your arm.”
Hong Seol hesitantly extended her arm.
Bing Yu Hua grasped it gently, as if it might break.
‘It’s warm.’
Under Bing Yu Hua’s tender and delicate touch, Hong Seol’s heart began to melt away.
Hong Seol opened her heart so easily because she had received boundless love from the Nam Goong Family all this time.
‘Of course the mother of Heuk, Jeok, and Jeok couldn’t be a bad person! She has such warm hands.’
She felt sorry for having been so afraid beforehand.
Hong Seol quietly offered an apology in her heart.
“Oh, I’m sorry for the misunderstanding.”
“What?”
Oh!
Hong Seol was startled and tried to clap her hand over her mouth—or rather, she attempted to.
But Bing Yu Hua held her arm steady to take her pulse, leaving her utterly unable to move.
“What did you just say? You misunderstood me?”
“Yes, I… well, you see…”
Hong Seol’s cheeks flushed crimson in an instant, impossible to conceal.
With her face burning red, Hong Seol bowed her head deeply.
She looked just like a perfectly ripe peach, and Bing Yu Hua found herself smiling without thinking.
It was a smile she hadn’t worn in a very long time.
“It’s alright. Most people are frightened when they first see me.”
“Really? Truly?”
“Yes. I come from the Northern Sea Ice Palace. Do you know where that is?”
“A place far to the north where it’s bitterly cold, where blizzards rage eternally…”
Hong Seol answered, recalling what she had learned from Changcheon Master Nam Goong Ui Gyeol about the martial arts sects.
“You speak truly. That’s why people say my temperament is as cold as the blizzards of those snowy peaks. Well, there’s some truth to it, I suppose.”
“That’s not true!”
Hong Seol sprang to her feet and shook her head so vigorously that Bing Yu Hua was taken aback.
“What?”
The child clenched her small fists tightly as she spoke.
“The Medicine Master is absolutely not a cold person like a blizzard!”
Bing Yu Hua was startled by these words.
Adults, and especially children, invariably grew fearful upon seeing her cold exterior and piercing gaze.
She had sensed the same fear in Hong Seol as well.
Yet here the child was, speaking words that seemed to see so deeply into her heart.
It was just like what her mother-in-law, Lady Wi, used to say to her.
Moreover, the child’s eyes seemed almost indignant, as if she had heard such slander before.
“I… I heard rumors. They say the Medicine Master came all this way from the distant Northern Sea Ice Palace because you love the Family Head. And that too…”
While renouncing martial arts.
The words caught in her throat, and she could only manage a whisper.
‘Destroying one’s dantian, losing the ability to use inner energy forever—how immense that suffering must be!’
Hong Seol, unable to use her own inner energy, understood that sorrow better than anyone.
“Someone capable of such resolve cannot possibly have a cold heart. Moreover…”
Hong Seol steadied her voice and spoke with quiet dignity.
“Lady Hong told me that the Medicine Master has been helping the women of the Weaving Workshop for years now.”
Spending her own personal fortune to do so.
“So I will tell anyone who speaks such things: the Medicine Master is absolutely not cold. She possesses a warmer heart than anyone here!”
Bing Yu Hua sat frozen, forgetting even to continue taking the pulse.
In that moment, the eternal frost that had lodged in her chest shattered with a sound like breaking ice.
For the first time in ages, she felt tears threatening to spill over.
“…Thank you. Now, shall I take your pulse?”
“Oh! Yes, yes!”
Flustered, I quickly settled back into the chair and extended my arm.
Bing Yu Hua’s fingers, which had been tracing down my wrist, came to an abrupt halt.
She had discovered two crimson marks shaped like snow flowers adorning my skin.

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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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