I Thought the Youngest Daughter of the Sichuan Tang Family Was Hated - Chapter 2

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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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“….”
Goosebumps prickled across my skin.
A subtle fragrance enveloped my nose with gentle softness.
Had I never encountered the scent of that silent visitor before, I would have noticed nothing amiss. The aroma was so delicate, so faint.
Once more, Jin Hwa’s voice echoed through my mind.
“Cast it out. Now.”
Crash!
I overturned the incense burner, scattering its contents across the floor. A heap of incense sticks tumbled onto the mat.
“Cough, cough!”
I covered my nose and mouth with my sleeve, sifting through the scattered sticks.
“White Paper Incense….”
Beneath it, Bone Fragments and Five-Soul Lantern as well.
I hastily gathered them all into a pouch from the side table.
I hid the pouch in a drawer and rushed to pull the black cloth from the wall aside.
I threw open the window, revealing the bright sky, and leaned far out into the fresh air.
“Ahhhh!”
I drew in a deep breath of cool air. As I exhaled, the incense smoke trapped within my body seemed to escape with it.
“Ha, huuuu… achoo!”
My body convulsed with coughing, and tears nearly spilled from my eyes.
“Gulp.”
After breathing in the fresh air from the window for some time, my body felt impossibly light.
My head, which I hadn’t realized was so heavy, seemed to float weightlessly, and my vision cleared brilliantly.
‘Was my body this light when I was young?’
But the strangeness didn’t end there.
“Huh…?”
The moment I looked around the room, something had changed unfamiliarly.
The dingy black cloth that had been haphazardly draped across the walls until moments ago was gone. Only an ordinary brown curtain remained.
My room was far wider now, far brighter than before.
Not a trace of that eerie, oppressive atmosphere lingered.
“Could it all have been… an illusion?”
Sunlight filtered through the window, settling gently upon the bedding.
I had never realized, despite spending so long in this room, how warm the sunlight could be.
My fingertips trembled slightly.
Until now, I had been completely unaware of the hallucinogenic incense.
I hadn’t even known my room contained an incense burner.
“…Then….”
How much of my memory is real?
According to my recollection, after my dantian shattered, I had been confined to this cramped room for a year.
Father and my brothers had simply abandoned me to my despair, and eventually began to openly regard me with contempt.
“Useless thing. Can’t even throw it away anywhere….”
“She’ll end up a corpse soon enough. It won’t be long. Just wait a little.”
The culmination of that hatred was poison.
My father, having decided I was worthless, ordered the Nanny to administer the poison to me.
“Miss… sob! Our young miss, what shall we do…. Please, you must escape. You have to drink this…!”
The Nanny’s face, tear-stricken as she held me close, remains vivid even now.
With the Nanny’s help, I fled for my life and entrusted myself to the Namgung Clan.
And my work as a member of the Murim Alliance Medicine King Faction after that—that was my past life….
‘Was the poison itself a lie?’
No, it couldn’t be. I did escape that day, after all.
The Nanny wouldn’t have helped me flee without good reason.
“Then the hallucinogenic flower too…?”
Did Father orchestrate the hallucinogenic flower incident as well?
I paused to consider, then shook my head firmly.
“No.”
If he’d wanted to discard me for being useless, he wouldn’t go to such troublesome lengths.
It must be someone else entirely.
‘So then, who!’
No matter how much I was abandoned, I’m still of the direct line.
If caught, they’d face punishment for defiling the direct line. At minimum, death. At minimum!
‘And why does Jin Hwa know all of this?’
As questions continued to pile up, a girl’s voice drifted in from outside.
“She really won’t come out of that room.”
I released the hair I’d been pulling at and approached the door.
A shadow adorned with an ornate hairpin drew closer.
‘Who is this, all of a sudden?’
I peered out through the narrow gap.
“Does she not even think of the family that worries for her?”
The girl’s face, hand pressed to her cheek as she sighed deeply, was familiar.
Dang Gyo-gyo, a collateral branch member three years my senior.
She was someone Father had summoned to the Joongyeon Dang not long ago.
‘He called her to replace me, whose dantian is ruined.’
Just as I was about to feel dejected, I noticed another person standing beside her.
“Again today?”
A boy a head taller than Gyo-gyo, with coarse hair tied tightly up.
“Yes, Brother Dang Lim.”
The boy glaring at the door with displeasure was my older brother, five years my senior—Dang Lim.
Gyo-gyo clutched at Dang Lim’s sleeve and sighed so heavily the earth seemed to crack beneath it.
“I’m worried she’ll be forgotten like this.”
“Her?”
Dang Lim gestured with his chin toward the room.
She seemed displeased by the way I raised my eyebrows sharply.
“Yes, well… the household staff keep calling me the Third Young Lady, you see.”
Dang Gyo-gyo pretended to be embarrassed, shyly covering her face.
Dang Lim’s eyes narrowed.
“A direct descendant who can’t even use martial arts—what good is that? They say. I’m so mortified by it all, truly….”
Dang Lim, who had been watching Dang Gyo-gyo with his arms crossed, tilted his chin up and spoke.
“Stop spouting nonsense. Tell me what happened today.”
Dang Gyo-gyo pressed her lips firmly shut.
Then her expression crumpled into tears.
“…It’s exactly as I told you? Look at this.”
Dang Gyo-gyo whimpered as she pulled back her collar to reveal her neck slightly.
“I was just trying to approach and speak when this happened to me.”
Listening quietly, I furrowed my brow.
Wait—are they talking about me?
“Taking out the anger from losing their dantian on me….”
Yes, it’s definitely about me.
So I just scratched your neck a moment ago.
There was nothing in that room but an insect at most—just some strange incense burner!
“Brother, please don’t be so angry….”
Thud!
I pushed the door open with force.
I had intended to burst it open violently, but lacking the strength, it simply swung open rather cheerfully instead.
“Huh?”
Both Dang Gyo-gyo and Dang Lim’s gazes turned toward me.
“…Oh my.”
Their faces instantly stiffened.
“Brother. Sister.”
I smiled broadly. They say you can’t spit on a smiling face, after all.
“It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other.”
I bowed deeply at the waist, then straightened back up.
“…!”
Dang Lim flinched, his shoulders trembling.
‘What is this? Like he’s seen an insect.’
Though displeased, I paid it no mind and continued smiling brightly.
“Yeon-ah. Have you come to apologize?”
It was Dang Gyo-gyo who spoke first.
“Apologize?”
I tilted my head as if I had no idea what she meant.
“What apology?”
“…Well….”
As if wounded by my words, Dang Gyo-gyo placed a hand over her chest.
She looked up at Dang Lim as if pleading for him to say something, but he offered no response—no reproach, nothing at all.
“….”
He simply stared at me with an unwavering gaze.
“Hic. Yeon-ah!”
When Dang Lim remained silent, Dang Gyo-gyo shifted tactics, wiping away tears.
“Even if I’m from a branch family, now that we live under the same roof…. Can’t you treat me like an older sister?”
She pulled down her collar slightly to expose her neck as she continued.
“It’s not right to give me wounds like this.”
A tear fell pitifully, drop by drop.
At first glance, she truly appeared to be a wounded girl.
‘She’s actually acting. Right in front of me.’
This sort of thing only works on children—not on me.
Having left the clan and lived through countless hardships, one skill I’d honed was the art of performance.
I could weep as if the world were crumbling, even if moments before I’d been laughing….
‘And yet her tearful act is so pathetically unconvincing.’
I puffed out my lips and adopted a pouty expression.
“Sister, you’re making fun of me, aren’t you?”
“Huh? What do you….”
“You’re mocking me because I’m shorter than others my age.”
I stretched my arms upward.
Oh. My belly protruded slightly. This was a genuine mistake.
I quickly tucked it in and approached Dang Gyo-gyo as if nothing had happened.
“If you look at it this way….”
I extended my short arms fully.
My fingertips barely reached part of the wound that extended to her jawline, but fell short of the rest.
“I can’t even reach it—so how could I have scratched you? You’re the one making fun of me, aren’t you?”
“…Ha, haha.”
Dang Gyo-gyo laughed awkwardly, her eyes darting toward Dang Lim standing beside her.
Dang Lim was glaring at Dang Gyo-gyo with narrowed eyes.
“S-sorry! Yeon-ah.”
Then, as if to salvage the situation, Dang Gyo-gyo hastily patted my head.
“I told such an obvious lie because I was afraid you’d come out! Hahaha…!”
She pulled her hair forward to hide her neck and embraced me.
“Still, it’s so good to see your face like this.”
“I love you so much too, sister!”
I returned her embrace while speaking words I didn’t mean.
Since Dang Lim said nothing, it seemed he intended to let the matter pass.
“Anyway, I was so worried about you. And your older brother here was also….”
Dang Gyo-gyo stood and carefully grasped Dang Lim’s sleeve.
Dang Lim brushed her hand away dismissively. Dang Gyo-gyo laughed awkwardly and continued speaking.
“…Haha. You’ve worried so much about me. You have no idea how hurt I felt that you didn’t understand my heart.”
“I wasn’t hurt.”
Dang Lim corrected her.
‘Right, right. I know. You have no interest in me.’
I grumbled inwardly. Meanwhile, Dang Gyo-gyo seemed delighted by his words and beamed brightly.
“Once I master martial arts, I’ll teach you too! There must be some techniques that don’t require a dantian, right?”
Ugh, is she going to keep needling me like this?
I smiled even more brightly.
I still don’t understand what’s happening, and I wonder if this is all a dream.
But I’ve made a decision.
Jin Hwa, Initial Fragrance, whatever—all of that can wait for now.
For now…
‘I’m going to train you first!’

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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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