I Thought the Youngest Daughter of the Sichuan Tang Family Was Hated - Chapter 60

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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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About ten days had passed since I boarded the carriage.
“Waaah! Sob, sob! Mommy….”
“Huh. Hmm?”
The sudden sound of a child crying jolted me awake.
A child’s wails on a forest path outside Yunnan? What was this?
I wiped the sleep from my mouth and glanced around.
“Mommy, sob! Waaah!”
When I opened the window at the sound of renewed crying, I saw a small child standing on the roadside.
A Young Boy who appeared to be around five years old was walking toward us, weeping bitterly.
His knees were scraped raw, and his entire body was caked in dirt.
‘Where are his parents? Why is he alone?’
“Grandfather? Grandfather!”
I shook Dang Mu-seon awake beside me.
He slowly furrowed his brow before opening his eyes.
His eyelids were creased, as though he’d been in a deep sleep.
“…Why? Do you need to relieve yourself?”
I pointed out the window and cried out to him in his drowsy voice.
“Look out there! A child is crying!”
“Hmm? That can’t be right.”
Dang Mu-seon tilted his head, removing his feet from the window sill.
“If a child were alone in a place like this, wild beasts wouldn’t have left him untouched….”
“Oh!”
Suddenly, Baek-i leaped out the window.
By the way, Baek-i was the name of the lizard Song Hak had given me. I had named it.
In an instant, the creature scrambled up onto the Young Boy’s head.
“Mew-!”
The creature cried out adorably as it looked at us.
“Kyaaaah!”
…Of course, it only seemed adorable to my eyes, not to the Young Boy.
“Ahhh! What, what is this!”
The Young Boy shrieked in surprise and began tousling his hair frantically.
“Mew-ow? Mew! Mew-ow!”
Baek-i seemed to think this was a game.
The creature maintained its balance with annoying precision, standing firm atop the Young Boy’s head.
I hastily threw open the door and shouted.
“Over here! Come inside!”
“!”
The moment our eyes met, the Young Boy urgently scrambled into the carriage.
“Got it…!”
I carefully caught Baek-i with both hands, and the creature smoothly slipped into my sleeve with docile obedience.
“H-hah, hah! Th-thank you so much!”
The Young Boy spoke with tears brimming in his eyes.
“Mm. Think nothing of it.”
This whole situation had arisen because of the lizard I was raising.
‘…I won’t mention that.’
Offering an awkward smile, I handed the Young Boy a bamboo tube filled with water.
“Drink this.”
“…!”
The Young Boy accepted the tube with a grateful expression and gulped down the water greedily.
Seeing him up close, his condition appeared far more severe than I’d initially thought.
Not only was his entire body covered in bruises, but his hands trembled like aspen leaves—whether from fear or shock.
‘Where did he get beaten?’
“Phew!”
After emptying the entire tube, the Young Boy wiped his mouth clean.
“…Here.”
Dang Mu-seon, who had been watching us quietly while leaning one shoulder against the wall, retrieved something from his sleeve.
It was a salve contained in a seashell.
It gleamed with a luster like ground pearl.
“Apply it to your wounds, and you can sell what remains in the Market District for a decent sum.”
“Th-thank you, sir….”
The Young Boy’s expression as he bowed his head was filled with sorrow.
“But why were you crying alone here? Did you lose your way?”
I asked, wondering if perhaps I could guide him back.
But the Young Boy simply shed more tears, large as bird droppings.
“Sob….”
“How can I understand if you’re crying?”
Dang Mu-seon rebuked him harshly, and the Young Boy shrank back.
“Grandfather!”
I glared at Dang Mu-seon, and he merely shrugged his shoulders.
“…It’s alright. It’s alright. Take your time.”
As I patted the Young Boy’s back to comfort him, he hesitantly began to speak.
“It’s… *sniff*! Mother told me to go far, far away… *sob*! She said I had to flee the Village.”
The Village?
At these ominous words, I looked up at Dang Mu-seon. He merely pouted but said nothing.
The Young Boy’s sorrowful voice continued.
“So I ran, but Mother didn’t run. She said if she came too, we’d be discovered… *sob*, Mother….”
I couldn’t know the exact details, but it seemed something grave had occurred in the Village.
“What happened in the Village?”
I asked calmly, and the Young Boy shook his head.
“I don’t know. Suddenly, suddenly those people… *wails*! Mother, I miss you….”
The sight of the Young Boy crying as though his world were ending felt oddly familiar to me.
In my past life, I wept just as often as this.
I gazed silently at Dang Mu-seon.
“…It seems the boy is missing his mother, after all.”
He spoke such nonsense again.
Even though he clearly understood what I was trying to say.
“Grandfather, couldn’t you help us?”
As I asked with a desperate expression, Dang Mu-seon raised one eyebrow.
His face seemed to say, ‘When did I tell you to stay quiet and still?’
‘That was only because the child was frightened, so I asked you to be careful!’
This time, I equipped my most pitiful eyes and asked again.
“Really, couldn’t you, Grandfather…?”
Dang Mu-seon pressed his lips firmly shut and alternated his gaze between me and the Young Boy.
“Hic, sniff! M-Mother…”
Just then, the Young Boy whimpered beside us.
At that, Dang Mu-seon sighed deeply, as though I had won.
“…Fine. Those Green Forest Bandits. It’s about time we crushed them.”
“Wow! Grandfather! That’s amazing!”
The Young Boy clapped loudly and embraced Dang Mu-seon suddenly.
He seemed convinced that bandits were responsible for this.
“Amazing, nothing! Ahem, guide us then.”
Dang Mu-seon cleared his throat and spoke to the child.
“Yes…?”
The Young Boy’s eyes trembled violently.
He seemed unable to believe what he had just heard.
“Guide us, I said. You said you missed your mother so much, but now that you have the chance to see her, you’re having second thoughts?”
“No! No! Thank you, sir!”
The Young Boy nodded with an expression half-excited and half-frightened.
Sitting beside the Carriage Driver, the Young Boy pointed with a gesture toward the path leading to the village.
“Um, ahem, you turn right there, and then if you go that way…”
“Tsk, what a bother.”
Dang Mu-seon muttered while crossing his arms.
I boldly linked my arm through his.
“Hehe, but Grandfather, you’re so kind. You say things like that, yet you gave us medicine! You were worried inside, weren’t you?”
“I gave that to him so we could be on our way.”
Dang Mu-seon answered with an expressionless face.
Sometimes he really was cold, I thought.
Especially when it came to matters unrelated to us.
Then again, it wasn’t as though I had to exert myself, so perhaps I was being too meddlesome.
“…I apologize, Grandfather.”
I lowered my head with a dejected expression.
“I seem to have overstepped my bounds…”
“Tsk!”
Dang Mu-seon clicked his tongue and straightened his upper body, which had been leaning against the wall.
“That’s not it! You could never overstep with me. Do you understand?”
“Y-yes.”
Though I didn’t fully grasp his meaning, I nodded at his sudden intensity.
“In the Murim, such tales aren’t worth a single coin in the Market District. They’re as common as dirt.”
He continued in an emotionless voice.
“I’m concerned that you might pour your heart into all of it. Once you become involved, it becomes your burden to bear.”
I thought he was simply telling me not to meddle in common affairs, but that wasn’t it.
It was worry—he wanted me to spare myself the heartache.
‘Looking at it now, Grandfather has done nothing but worry about me lately.’
He must have stepped in for my sake, despite having witnessed countless such tragedies over the years.
“Thank you, Grandfather.”
It was just as Dang Mu-seon’s lips curved into a wry smile.
The carriage came to a slow halt.
“Sir, the Village Entrance is in sight.”
When Dang Dam appeared to report, he turned his head in a full circle.
With a sharp, ominous sound, he tucked me under his arm and descended from the carriage.
“Grandfather, you mustn’t get hurt.”
Suddenly worried, I grasped his sleeve and spoke.
Dang Mu-seon let out a hollow laugh.
“Hurt? Do you think I’d get a scratch from those petty rabble?”
“Hmm…”
He had a point.
I nodded and gazed out at the village.
At a glance, the situation was dire.
I could see villagers bound in one place, with armed men holding blades to their throats.
“Sob… sob!”
The weeping of the villagers echoed faintly through the air.
“Mother!”
The Young Boy leaped down urgently to the ground.
“Mo… mmph!”
Dang Mu-seon swiftly covered the Young Boy’s mouth before he could rush toward the village.
“Shh. Are you planning to announce to the whole neighborhood that we’ve come to catch them? If you do, your mother will die first.”
“…!”
The Young Boy’s face went pale.
He was right.
These men had descended upon the village without reason, so there was no telling what they might do if things went wrong.
‘Who knows how many I’ll cut down before Dang Mu-seon kills me.’
Anyway, I really want to see what these bastards look like.
Threatening defenseless people….
They’re bound to be absolutely vicious!
Just then, voices drifted from the village.
“My, so you refuse to cooperate until the end.”
“I made myself clear. Do you truly wish to see blood spilled?”
The pretentious tone was absurd.
No better than common street rabble, no matter how you dressed it up….
“P-please! We truly know nothing, Great Master!”
Great Master, then….
…Wait, what?
Great Master?

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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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