I Possessed a Cultivator Destined to Die at the Hands of the Protagonist - Chapter 84

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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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84.
My vision cleared, and I found myself back in the forest.
The woman’s face, which had been obscured before, was now strikingly vivid.
She was beautiful.
Beautiful enough to be called a peerless beauty.
The moment I faced her again, I understood instinctively.
Just as my gaze upon her had changed, so too had her gaze upon me.
‘Ah.’
She had seen it.
Just as I had glimpsed fragments of her memories, she had glimpsed mine.
And those memories were surely not from Yoo Yeon-seo, but from Lee Seo-hee.
I could not discern which of my memories she had witnessed.
Ha Gyeong-un lay quietly upon her lap, the tree roots still binding his limbs.
The woman’s hand, which had been brushing Ha Gyeong-un’s cheek, stilled, and her head turned toward me.
“…You too.”
She opened her mouth slowly.
“Did you see?”
There was no need to ask what she meant.
Her question was the very thing I wished to ask her.
“…Yes.”
I answered after a long silence.
The taste of flower petals and blood still lingered in my mouth.
The sound of a teacup falling, a man’s laughter, the tender affection directed toward him, and the anguish before an overwhelming force—all of it.
As vivid as if it were my own experience.
The woman remained motionless for a time.
In the clearing where no wind blew, her white robes fluttered faintly.
The woman lowered her gaze to Ha Gyeong-un.
“Why can I not let go of this child, when he resembles someone so?”
“….”
I looked at Ha Gyeong-un in surprise.
He was not the man from her memories, yet now I saw how much he resembled him.
Only then did I understand why Ha Gyeong-un, unlike the other monks who came to Unbyek Rim, had sought this place with such obsessive persistence.
Ha Gyeong-un believed he had come of his own will, but that was not the truth.
Her longing had summoned him here.
“That child is not the man Yeon-poong Senior yearned for.”
Ha Gyeong-un merely resembled the man from Yeon-poong’s memories—he was an entirely different person.
At my words, the woman’s shoulders trembled slightly.
“Just now.”
“Yes?”
“What did you call me?”
“Yeon-poong.”
I answered her deliberately, word by word.
In the memory I witnessed, the man called the woman Yeon-poong.
“That is your name.”
“….”
“In that place I saw, the person you loved called you that. The one you called Elder Brother—he called you Yeon-poong.”
Yeon-poong remained motionless for a long time.
The hem of her white robes trembled ever so slightly.
After a considerable pause, Yeon-poong finally opened her mouth.
“…Yeon-poong. Yeon… poong.”
She recited the name softly, syllable by syllable.
As though discovering something long lost.
“Yes. That was my name.”
Yeon-poong’s hand slowly withdrew from Ha Gyeong-un’s cheek.
She gazed upward at the windless sky.
After a long moment, she looked back at me.
“You are not a child of this world, are you?”
I did not answer her readily.
No—I could not answer.
Though by the measure of years I have lived far longer as Yoo Yeon-seo, I knew my soul still dwelled within Lee Seo-hee.
Yeon-poong did not demand an answer from me.
She merely smiled, her expression heavy with thought.
“Do I not frighten you?”
“You do frighten me.”
Though her face remained serene, countless monks had fallen by Yeon-poong’s hand.
“What you showed me, I will never forget for as long as I live. The one who knelt before the Master and begged alongside you, the senior disciples who came to stop you—I witnessed all of it. And not one of them harbored resentment or hatred toward you until the very end.”
What Yeon-poong had shown me was not merely one-sided—it was a merciless massacre.
Those emotions surged back, piercing my chest repeatedly.
“And yet you do not fear me?”
“I do fear you. I just said so.”
I stepped forward.
Yeon-poong merely looked down at Ha Gyeong-un without moving.
“But I think you fear me as well.”
“….”
“If I take that child away, you will be alone again.”
Yeon-poong’s fear was loneliness.
Unable to bear her power, she had sealed herself within the Forest, choosing the path of imprisonment—yet she had endured over a thousand years in solitude, a pain beyond measure.
Yeon-poong must have known that Ha Gyeong-un was not the person she yearned for.
But ancient memory, and the wood-natured spiritual essence identical to his, had overcome her longing.
Yeon-poong spoke, her voice fractured.
“…That’s right. I’m afraid of you. If I let go of this child, I’ll be alone again. I’ve been alone for so long, for such a very long time.”
The air in the Clearing grew heavy, pressing down in layers.
I approached the two of them and knelt before Yeon-poong and Ha Gyeong-un.
Ha Gyeong-un’s sleeping face was right before my eyes.
Upon the woman’s lap, his eyelashes trembled faintly as he slept.
Cold sweat dripped from the wrist bound by roots.
I placed my hand upon the roots encircling the wrist.
“This child is my friend. And he is someone’s disciple and fellow student. There are people waiting for him to return.”
“….”
“His master is weeping outside the Forest right now, waiting for Ha Susa.”
The woman’s head, which had been looking down at Ha Gyeong-un, tilted toward me.
“Weeping. Right now.”
“Yes.”
“…Is someone crying because they fear losing this child?”
“Yes. So please return Ha Susa to his master.”
I channeled my dharmic force and severed the roots binding Ha Gyeong-un’s wrist.
“Senior Yeon-poong. Please return this child to his master.”
“….”
“I promise you something instead.”
The woman’s gaze slowly rose from the ground toward me.
“I will come back.”
“…Come back. You?”
“Yes. So that you remember everything about who you are, Senior. What kind of person your Elder Brother was, what your relationship was with your fellow disciples, which Seonmun you belonged to. I may not know everything, but I’ll help you recover whatever memories I can.”
“Why would you do such a thing? I don’t know you. I may be the one who killed those you cherish. I…have already killed so many.”
“I know.”
The hand that had severed Ha Gyeong-un’s roots grasped Yeon-poong’s hand.
“I know.”
The Seonmun that Yeon-poong had annihilated was not a small sect even by the standards of a thousand years ago.
There may have been more slaughter in her memories than what I had witnessed.
“Yet you never hated anyone for it.”
“….”
“Those you killed were the people you loved, those who rushed forward risking their lives to protect you. You harbored no malice toward any of them.”
I do not know why Yeon-poong went berserk.
But she certainly did not massacre the monks of her own will.
If she had, she would not have remained trapped alone in this Forest for a thousand years in solitude.
This place is not a space Yeon-poong created to protect herself.
It was created so she would not wound others.
“I cannot leave someone like you alone beneath this Forest. To know and do so anyway would be far too cruel.”
I have never been alone for a thousand years as Yeon-poong has.
But I knew better than anyone how lonely, how arduous, how exhausting and difficult it was to be alone in a world where no one affirmed your existence.
“You are….”
“….”
“What a peculiar child you are.”
The woman slowly raised her hand and placed her palm upon Ha Gyeong-un’s forehead.
“Release.”
The roots binding Ha Gyeong-un’s limbs began to unwind gradually, one strand at a time.
The roots coiled around his other wrist and the nape of his neck slipped away smoothly.
His body rose slowly from the woman’s lap and drifted gently through the air toward me.
I spread my arms wide and caught him in my embrace.
“I hope the Master does not grieve.”
“Thank you for returning Ha to me.”
I bowed deeply toward Yeon-poong.
“Yeon-seo.”
Yeon-poong called my name with careful deliberation.
“There are eyes watching. You would do well to be cautious.”
“…What? Who is watching me?”
I started at her unexpected words.

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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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