Looking for the Runaway Heavenly Maiden - Chapter 53

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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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53.

“According to Yeonhwa, the Heavenly Realm will begin moving in earnest once that happens.”

At Jiho’s words, Yerim awakened from her reverie. She retraced what Jiho had said.
Yeonhwa knows. If that’s the case, everything changes. This is an intentional provocation.
From the beginning, there were not one but two baits. Ryujiho and the Jade Emperor.
But there was one more bait. Three, including herself.
Had Yeonhwa calculated even this far?
If so.

“Could you become lovers with Gihyeongrang again?”

The Jade Emperor’s words, which I had dismissed as nonsense, suddenly flashed through my mind.
If Gihyeongrang was indeed targeting me.
Even if I couldn’t kill Gihyeongrang with my own hands.
Couldn’t I at least play the role of a spy?

* * *

Hand Ogeong, returning to school, encountered an unexpected figure. A male student standing before the School Gate.
The car needed to pass through the gate to enter, but the male student was blocking its path.
The student’s face was not unfamiliar to him. He had memorized the faces of all his classmates.
Imdonggu. A student who had been somewhat rebellious toward him.
Hand Ogeong let out a dry laugh. He hadn’t failed to anticipate that he would come at him like this.
He himself didn’t particularly like humans, but he had no intention of treating them like chess pieces the way they did.
Crash!
The car body crumpled with a deafening roar that echoed all around.
It was Imdonggu’s hand that had done it. The force was inhuman.
Imdonggu then climbed onto the car’s roof and repeatedly smashed the front windshield.
In Imdonggu’s unblemished hand lay a small knife.
Crash, shatter!
Finally, the glass shattered. Through the opening, Imdonggu’s hand thrust in immediately.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Imdonggu drove the knife in his hand straight at Hand Ogeong’s throat. Thunk—the knife lodged itself.
Imdonggu laughed with delight, but at the voice that came from behind, his expression froze.

“This is too cowardly. Is this Eul’s doing?”

Imdonggu turned around. I was certain I had stabbed his neck. Yet somehow, my homeroom teacher stood there unharmed.
Imdonggu looked again at what I had stabbed. It was a car seat. A knife was embedded in the car seat.

“Damn it!”

Imdonggu yanked the knife free and rushed toward Hand Ogeong with a childish cry of rage.
Yet he could not even graze Hand Ogeong.

“Gahhhhh!”

The wrist seized by Hand Ogeong was crushed. The pain was as if his bones would shatter. Imdonggu thrashed, trying to escape Hand Ogeong’s grip, but it was futile.
He could not even form the words to beg for release. All that escaped his lips was a scream filled with agony.

“So you don’t mind dying like this.”

Hand Ogeong muttered coldly while watching him writhe in pain, then snapped Imdonggu’s wrist.

“Ahhh! Ahhh!”

He then wrenched the knife from Imdonggu’s hand and finally released him.
Imdonggu screamed and thrashed, clutching his broken wrist, but soon his face became expressionless as he looked up at Hand Ogeong.
Imdonggu’s eyes had turned pitch black.
Seeing this, Hand Ogeong understood. Imdonggu was dead.
What remained was merely a puppet that had lost all human reason.
So unless he stopped the sorcerer behind this spell, it would continue to move.
Even if its limbs were shattered. For a single command alone.
Hand Ogeong ground his teeth. In that instant, Imdonggu’s body lunged toward him. That was when it happened.
Whoosh—chains wrapped around Imdonggu’s body. Hand Ogeong knew very well whose the blue-glowing chains were.

“Grrrrgh!”

Imdonggu could no longer produce human speech.
The chains binding him tightened as he tried to advance. Hand Ogeong gazed toward the end of the chains.
The woman standing there with an expressionless face showed not the slightest disturbance.
Whoosh—the chains enveloped Imdonggu’s entire body. And the moment the chains snapped his neck, Imdonggu collapsed to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.
Hand Ogeong turned his gaze from the woman and looked down at Imdonggu. He spoke quietly.

“I didn’t know the sorcery could stop without stopping the sorcerer.”
“No, it’s merely paused. It seems this game isn’t over yet.”
“A game, you say? Even knowing you’re no match, you’ll continue?”
“If one moves purely out of interest, it’s entirely possible.”

With Yeonhwa’s words, the air shifted. Before long, their surroundings were engulfed in thick malevolent energy.
Boom, boom!
What erupted from the crumbling earth were demon beasts.
As the Evil Spirit regained its power, it was only natural that the demon beasts’ strength grew as well.
Hand Ogeong opened his palm. A golden staff materialized above it. It was the Ruyi Jingu Bang.
He grasped the staff for the first time in ages.

“I’ll hold this, so finish quickly.”
“As you command, Princess.”

Hand Ogeong laughed with ease at Yeonhwa’s command and moved forward.

* * *

For days now, there had been a child watching him in secret. He already knew of this child well.
The child tried to hide, but it was perfectly visible to his eyes.
Then one day, when he sat with his eyes closed beneath the cherry blossom tree, he felt a gaze fixed upon him.

“Wow, how beautiful….”

Now I accept it readily, but truthfully, I found it most unpleasant then.
Beautiful. Such words didn’t suit a man.
But by then, I could no longer be a prince. I had to be a princess.
To survive.
My hand moved in the memory. I opened my eyes as I grasped the hand reaching toward me.

“Who are you.”

A sharp voice that I could never imagine now flowed from my lips. I met the child’s wide, round eyes.
A lovely young girl. I couldn’t tear my gaze from her fair and bright face.
The child greeted me awkwardly.

“Um…hello?”

At the child’s greeting, he suddenly came to his senses.

“…Who are you?”
“Oh, I’m Jiho. Ryujiho.”

The child smiled brightly. Seeing such innocence, he abruptly released his grip.

“Get lost.”
“What?”
“Don’t you understand? I said get lost.”

At that time, I had puffed myself up like a hedgehog bristling with spines.
I could not trust anyone, nor did I wish to.
The price of trust was betrayal accompanied by death. I refused to be betrayed again.

“Oh, I’m sorry…. I was in the way, wasn’t I? Then I’ll go. Please rest comfortably.”

With those words, the child withdrew from me.
After that, I believed the child would no longer approach me.
Yet the child remained unchanged. Still lingering near my side, persistently coming to me and asking to play.
No matter how many times I pushed away, the child kept coming back, and I grew increasingly irritated.

Then came a certain day. The child who appeared before my eyes every single day was nowhere to be seen.
One day passed, then two, and finally on the fourth day.
I searched for the child. The child weighed on my mind so heavily that I could do nothing else.
When I finally found the child, she lay in bed, suffering.
A fever illness that divine beings typically contracted in childhood, they said.
Watching the child breathe heavily with a flushed face, my heart sank as if it had plummeted into an abyss.
I stayed by the child’s side all day long. Until the brilliant sun became a pale moon in the blue sky dotted with stars.
And that night, there was a moment when the child regained consciousness and opened her eyes briefly.

“Oh? It’s Yeonhwa…. Did you come to see me?”

Still fevered with flushed cheeks, the child smiled softly. Seeing her like this, something inside me surged as if it might overflow.
Without knowing what was caught in my throat, I swallowed it and answered. It was a brief response.

“…No.”

At my denial, the child seemed momentarily dazed, then murmured softly.

“Ah… Then is this a dream? Still, I’m glad to see you…”
“…”
“You know, Yeonhwa… Won’t you play with me? I want to… with you…”
“…”
“I want to be friends…”

With those words, the child fell back into sleep.
He finally understood what his heart truly desired. He wanted to trust this child.
This foolish child who kept approaching him despite being pushed away again and again.
This child who sought him out so foolishly, even through pain.
And so he wanted to become friends with this child, and eventually…

“…Something more than friends.”

It was a dream, and it was his memory. He now understood he would awaken from this dream.
And so he could speak.

“Let’s be lovers, Jiho.”

Cheonhaerang opened his eyes. The familiar ceiling came into view—his room in Cheongyeokgyeong.
At last, the long dream had ended.

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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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