Looking for the Runaway Heavenly Maiden - Chapter 92

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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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92.

Gihyeongrang smiled softly as he observed the trembling pupils of Yerim’s eyes.

“Ah, this. Curious? Shall I tell you?”

I was curious.
The Heavenly Talisman, a treasure of the Patriarch. Why Gihyeongrang possessed Seon Igyeong, one of them.
But I didn’t want to hear it from Gihyeongrang’s lips.
They say you can discern another’s emotions by looking into their eyes. I didn’t want to reveal my unguarded feelings to Gihyeongrang.
I turned my head away to avoid meeting the man’s gaze. I felt his persistent stare clinging to me.
His eyes drifted across my red lips, traced the delicate line of my jaw, and lingered on my pale, slender neck.
Gihyeongrang opened his mouth slowly. He intended to offer the answer even without my asking.
That way, her eyes would inevitably turn toward him.
Perhaps she would pity him for his misfortune.
During this brief time together once more, he had felt it.
He and she did not trust each other.
But.
Even so.
He could not kill her. And she, too, could not kill him.

“I also inherited the Patriarch’s blood, Yerim.”
“…!”

Gihyeongrang’s prediction proved accurate. Yerim could not help but look at him.
Her pupils trembled violently as she gazed upon him.

“What do you mean….”
“That’s why I held Seon Igyeong. And taking Cheonhaerang’s position, which should have been mine by right, is justified.”
“Stop spouting nonsense.”
“Don’t believe me? No, that’s not it. You simply don’t want to believe it.”
“….”
“Think about it, Yerim. How could anyone fake these eyes?”

Yerim found herself at a loss for words. Gihyeongrang’s words were not wrong.
The golden eyes unique to the bloodline of the Patriarch could not be imitated by anyone.
Yerim was confused. Her mind could not properly organize itself.
What on earth was happening? She had never even considered such a secret of birth.
But why had the Patriarch never announced Gihyeongrang’s existence? Was the reason Cheonhaerang had to become a princess also related to this?
It was the moment when unanswerable questions chained endlessly through her mind.

Yerim.

A tender call brushed against her ear. Yerim felt her mind growing hazy.

Why did my existence have to be hidden?
That’s because….
I was abandoned by the Patriarch.

Gihyeongrang spoke the very words the Evil Spirit had once used to shake him.
Then, he had wavered at the Evil Spirit’s cunning tongue, but not now. He could willingly use those words to gain Yerim’s sympathy.

No matter how hard I struggled, my father never gave me a place befitting me.
The same blood runs through us, yet he gave that little one everything while giving me nothing.
So I have nothing. That’s why I….
I want to have you, at least.

Gihyeongrang interlaced his fingers with hers, one by one. Yerim gazed at him with unfocused eyes.
Nothing came to mind. She saw only the man before her.
The man who wanted to possess her.

Yerim. Could you become mine?
And I’ll become yours too.

A pitiful man abandoned by his father.
One who had nothing.
She too wanted to possess this man.
She thought she had, but in truth, she had never truly possessed him completely.
Warm breath tickled her lips. Yerim slowly closed her eyes.
The man’s low laughter scattered.
At last, the Evil Spirit’s enchantment consumed her.

* * *

The Traditional Tile House was divided into two rooms on either side of a hallway instead of an open floor plan.
One room held an antique bed, while the other was furnished with a table and chairs for conversation.
Hand Ogeong sent Cheonhaerang and Jiho to the other room first, then entered the chamber with the bed to lay Yeonhwa down.
After carefully placing Yeonhwa upon the bed, he sat beside her and gazed at her in silence.
The woman lay with her eyes gently closed, appearing less unconscious than peacefully asleep.
There was a time when I saw her like this every day.
When I opened my eyes in the morning, she was beside me, and when I closed them at night, she was there too.
Cheonuyhua was always at my side.
Perhaps she now wished to forget those memories, but I had merely buried them away for so long.
Because I did not want to forget. Simply because….

No, that’s not it. This is your fault for blundering again.
You know why Cheonuyhua left you, don’t you?
Poor Cheonuyhua. If only she had never met you, things would never have come to this.
Cheonuyhua will regret meeting you, again and again.
Even now, she has no choice but to seek your help.
And so she will break apart once more.

The cunning words that had once bewitched him echoed like a phantom in his ears.
Even now, in a lucid state, he could not deny those words.
She had been destroyed by meeting me. And so I had to let her go.
All that remained for me was an old regret.
Hand Ogeong reached out his hand. But it never touched the woman—he withdrew it instead.
Clenching his fist, Hand Ogeong rose from his seat. He drew the curtain closed and left the room.
The bed fell into shadow.
Not long after Hand Ogeong departed, the woman slowly opened her eyes.
She blinked, turned her gaze toward the curtain, then closed her eyes once more.

* * *

I watched the man’s retreating figure disappear into the distance. The Jade Emperor listened to our plan in silence.
We would eliminate the Evil Spirit before Gihyeongrang could absorb it.
Perhaps it was already too late.
In any case, the breaking of the Evil Spirit’s seal and Gihyeongrang’s transformation into a malevolent deity were now inseparable.
The Jade Emperor spoke.
A freely transforming Evil Spirit burrows into humanity’s weakest points and bewitches them, he said.
Gihyeongrang had done exactly the same.
He added that perhaps the Evil Spirit had already been absorbed into Gihyeongrang.
It was fitting to call him a malevolent deity now.
Yet the Evil Spirit’s seal had not completely shattered.
The cyan blade of the Sword of Spiritual Dao revealed the Evil Spirit to us.
Still, Gihyeongrang was being reborn as a malevolent deity.
The very thought of what Gihyeongrang must have done to achieve this sent chills down my spine.
Moreover.

Kekeke.
Seize the divine beast! Let us feast on the young divine beast!
Capture it!
Delicious prey!
My prey!
Baekho, Baekho, where do you go.
Baekho, Baekho, come here.

The cries of the Evil Spirit’s fragments and Gihyeongrang’s demons echoed in my ears.
It was not Cheonhaerang.
They were clearly targeting me.
The reason was probably….
My heart, through which flowed the spiritual essence of the divine beast Baekho.
Every hair on my body stood on end. I trembled involuntarily.

“What’s wrong, Jiho? Are you cold?”

A concerned voice pierced through my thoughts. I snapped back to awareness.

“Oh, no. I’m fine.”

However, Cheonhaerang did not believe Jiho’s reassurance. Unlike before, her ashen face was anything but reassuring.
Cheonhaerang tried to discern what Jiho might be thinking.
The Evil Spirit’s fragments that had surrounded them?
Or perhaps….

Seize the young divine beast! Let us feast upon the young divine beast!
My sustenance!
Young divine beasts taste exquisite!

At the Funeral Hall as well. In that place too.
Malevolent things that had hunted the young Baekho.
Especially there—they had clearly targeted Jiho.
What was needed to break the Evil Spirit’s seal was the Gugsim of young humans brimming with vitality.
The Evil Spirit’s seal had not yet been broken.
And Gihyeongrang was becoming a malevolent deity.
This was merely conjecture, after all.
If Gihyeongrang had deceived the Evil Spirit.
If the final requirement to break the seal was the Baekho’s heart.
But if Gihyeongrang also needed the Baekho’s heart….
Cheonhaerang felt as though his mind had been struck by a hammer.
Jiho was his greatest vulnerability.
Yet it was not merely for that reason that Gihyeongrang had appeared before Jiho.
Gihyeongrang desired the heart of the young Baekho, Ryujiho.

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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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