I Thought the Youngest Daughter of the Sichuan Tang Family Was Hated - Chapter 6

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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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After entrusting the Hallucination Grass to Dang Lim, I focused on my recovery for a while.
I ventured out for fresh air and constantly checked the incense burner, extinguishing it whenever necessary.
The toxins already accumulated in my body, I detoxified using the nourishing medicinal broth sent by the Medicine Master.
The very broth I hadn’t touched recently.
Within it lay a faint antidote specifically formulated for me—someone living in the Dang Household without any natural toxin resistance.
The efficacy was weak; had I continued drinking it while the Hallucination Grass burned, detoxification would have been impossible.
In any case, after four days passed, my head felt considerably clearer.
“Sigh.”
I leaned my head out the window and took a deep breath.
“….”
Despite my body’s considerable improvement, my mood showed no signs of lifting.
My mind kept circling back to Gyo-gyo’s gleaming hairpin and Dang Lim’s strange behavior that day.
When I peered into the pouch Dang Lim had given me, the candied fruit sparkled brilliantly in the sunlight.
I stared at it blankly before popping one into my mouth and chewing slowly.
“So sweet….”
Dang Lim seemed to care for me more than I’d thought, and Gyo-gyo was far worse than my memories of her.
The cruel words my brothers had spoken to me—those were Gyo-gyo’s fabrications.
I’d nearly allowed myself to harbor hope without realizing it, but I forced myself to regain composure.
‘Still, nothing changes.’
I chewed the innocent candied fruit unnecessarily hard.
I mustn’t expect affection carelessly. Disappointment would always be mine to bear.
Would the six-year-old me—devastated and dazed after my dantian shattered—have longed for sweet candied fruit and expensive gifts?
I needed neither sweet candied fruit nor expensive gifts.
I simply wanted my family.
Trembling without the courage to step outside my room, I waited every day for someone—anyone—to come find me….
But no one came.
After more than a year of waiting, all I received was poison.
‘That wasn’t the Hallucination Grass’s doing.’
My fingertips went numb as I clenched the pouch with all my strength.
‘They couldn’t possibly care for me. If they did, why not even once….’
My vision blurred.
“…Enough. This isn’t the time for this.”
I wiped my tears away with the back of my hand.
I had work to do now. Finding the one who had harmed me.
I couldn’t afford to be distracted.
“Right. I can’t afford this.”
“Can’t afford what?”
“Eek?!”
I jumped!
“O-Older brother!”
Dang Lim slipped into the room without a sound, poking his head around from behind my back.
“There’s nothing there?”
He tilted his head, gazing out the window toward the back garden.
“There isn’t. I didn’t say anything!”
“Hmm.”
Dang Lim shrugged and averted his gaze.
In that moment, I hastily wiped my face to erase any traces of tears. Fortunately, Dang Lim seemed not to have noticed.
“Ahem. Nothing unusual happened, right?”
Dang Lim asked, hands clasped behind his back as he wandered casually around the room.
“Yes…”
I answered, steadying my startled nerves.
Four days had passed since I took the Hallucinogenic Herb, and now Dang Lim appeared—right in my room, no less.
‘Did he find out something?’
I stared intently at his back as he traced the dust on the desk with his fingertips.
Sensing my gaze, he turned sharply and approached me with long strides.
“….”
Dang Lim tilted his chin up, his lips moving slightly.
“I brought something you’d like.”
“!”
As expected.
‘He found out about the Hallucinogenic Herb.’
Four days was probably enough for him to uncover everything. With the Dang Family’s intelligence network, such a task would be child’s play.
“Here.”
Dang Lim thrust something toward me, my eyes gleaming with anticipation.
“Thank you…! Eh…?”
It wasn’t a ledger of visitors to Joongyeon Dang or a transaction certificate for the Hallucinogenic Herb.
“A wooden doll…?”
It was a carved wooden figurine.
And grotesquely ugly at that.
Three nostrils, one eye, four ears.
‘What’s his intention in showing me this?’
Was he boasting? That this was the ugliest doll in Sichuan?
As I accepted the doll in bewilderment, Dang Lim nodded with satisfaction.
“Keep it with you always. It’s your older brother’s avatar.”
‘Ah.’
Only then did I understand what this doll truly was.
A gift. Dang Lim had given me a gift.
“….”
The crude surface suddenly came into focus. He had clearly made it himself.
My throat tightened unexpectedly, and I pressed my lips firmly shut.
My heart swelled even as a pang of sorrow pierced through it.
‘When did I stop visiting for a whole year…?’
What wind of fate had blown through to change things?
In that bitter moment, Dang Lim’s hand rose above my head.
“!”
I startled and squeezed my eyes shut.
“Heh. Scared, are you? Who’s hitting you?”
I heard Dang Lim’s hollow laugh.
When I cautiously opened my eyes, I saw a jade hairpin before me.
“Older brother… what is this?”
I extended both hands to receive it, and Dang Lim turned his head away, looking embarrassed.
“It’s a hairpin. Can’t you tell by looking?”
“….”
The hairpin gleamed with lustre, and it was light enough that I could hold it in one hand.
The delicate leaf engravings dotted across its surface looked quite endearing.
“What? Don’t you like it?”
When I said nothing, Dang Lim tilted his head inquisitively.
I shook my head firmly in response.
“No. I like it very much.”
Then Dang Lim broke into a bright smile and spoke.
“Really? Then I’ll bring you another tomorrow. And the day after, and the day after that!”
In that instant, my heart sank deeply, and a warmth I had forgotten spread through me.
‘This is what it felt like to be loved.’
It was the feeling I had yearned for so desperately—that cruel sensation of wanting something but being unable to have it simply by wishing.
The restlessness that had filled me moments before now began to bubble and surge.
Like a swollen bubble finally bursting.
“…Then, how long will you keep coming?”
“Huh?”
“Will you really come tomorrow and the day after?”
At my sudden question, Dang Lim blinked. He seemed to think he’d misheard.
I wanted to brush it off as nothing important.
“So when will you stop coming?”
But the words kept tumbling out. It felt as though I had to ask this.
“…Why? Do you not want me to come?”
Dang Lim’s expression grew serious all at once. I could see his eyes trembling.
“No. I do want you to.”
I shook my head firmly again, my lips threatening to pout, so I bowed my head low.
“Then, if you want me to, that’s enough….”
“No. That’s not how it works for me.”
I fidgeted with the doll’s outer surface—neat but with rough, unfinished seams—turning it over in my hands.
For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to meet Dang Lim’s gaze directly.
“I can’t get used to it. I don’t know how long you’ll come. I’ll wait only until you tell me, and starting the next day, I won’t wait anymore.”
Memories of the past kept surfacing. Perhaps my older brother would visit me again someday, just like before.
Those were the days I held onto such hope.
“Otherwise, it would be too lonely….”
But even after ten nights, even after a hundred nights, Dang Lim never came.
“….”
Only an awkward silence lingered in the room.
Unable to find the courage to look at Dang Lim’s face, I could only tap the floor with the tip of my foot.
Just as regret for my careless words began to wash over me, Dang Lim stepped forward.
Then he knelt on one knee and met my eyes.
“Have you been… waiting for me all this time?”
Dang Lim’s face had turned pale, as if he were only now realizing this truth.
My eyes began to sting.
As I slowly nodded, Dang Lim spoke in a strained voice.
“I just… didn’t want to show my face until you forgave me.”
Forgive?
I blinked. What wrong had Dang Lim ever committed against me?
No matter how hard I searched my memory, nothing came to mind.
“But when you greeted me first, I thought you had forgiven me—.”
“Why would I need to forgive my older brother?”
It was a simple question.
Pure curiosity, with no intent to attack or accuse.
Yet Dang Lim’s lips began to tremble as if I had torn open a wound.
“Ah, no. I’m not asking for forgiveness… ugh.”
Dang Lim hung his head and bit his lip.
“You don’t have to do it for life, but I just…!”
His voice wavered—he was clearly holding back tears.
“I was afraid you’d find me repulsive. Because of me, your dantian….”
A single tear, large as a grain of rice, rolled down Dang Lim’s cheek and fell.
‘My dantian?’
How had I lost my dantian a year ago?
Honestly, I had no memory of it at all.
It seemed the unbearable pain had made me forget everything.
‘I was probably in the middle of cultivating a heart technique.’
Even through that hazy recollection, one thing remained certain.
‘That day, Dang Lim stood guard beside me.’
Dang Lim had protected me while I was vulnerable to external attacks.
But that was all.
No one could save me back then. So how could I blame only Dang Lim?
“I should have protected you. I’m your older brother!”
Dang Lim believed it was entirely his fault.
Even though he had been only ten years old then.
“I’m sorry. I was… afraid you would hate me… ugh.”
He bit his lip, barely holding back tears. Blood welled from his lower lip.
‘Then when I first saw him after regressing, why did he react that way…?’
I had thought he was startled and couldn’t meet my eyes, as if he were frightened—and that assessment had been correct.
He had been afraid I would resent him.
“I’ll come every day. Not a single day will I skip, so please don’t hate me. Okay?”
Holding my hand precious in both of his, Dang Lim’s shoulders trembled as he kept his head bowed.
“I just… *sniff*… I love you so much…!”
My mind, which had felt numb as if struck, returned to clarity. Only the warmth of his hands transmitted through.
My chest swelled with emotion.
‘Dang Lim, so… he loves me….’
My tangled thoughts began to clear.
Since leaving the clan until now, my heart had felt hollow.
As if something precious had been stolen. Wherever I belonged, it was never truly home.
The vast emptiness of family that had made me feel vacant.
That void was now….
‘I was never hated.’
It fills completely.
My vision blurred and my throat ached.
“…Older brother.”
Suppressing the turbulent emotions, I knelt facing him and bowed far deeper than he had.
“I just… I…”
And then I found myself enfolded in Dang Lim’s embrace. He wrapped his arms around my waist.
“I missed you so, so much.”
“…!”
Dang Lim flinched for a moment, then suddenly pulled me close.
“I missed you too, so much…!”
His shoulder grew damp where tears fell.
A pleasant fragrance emanated from him. Clean and transparent, the scent of poison I hadn’t smelled up close in so long. To some it might seem unsettling, but….
“*Sniff*, my little sibling….”
Still, it felt wonderful.
Because he was my older brother.

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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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