Since I’m a Time-Limited Princess Who Has No Tomorrow - Chapter 116

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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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Chapter 116
Somewhere she’d picked up a minor spirit with vaguely similar energy and convinced herself it was Cheoyong. Or perhaps she knew full well it wasn’t Cheoyong but was deliberately deceiving everyone.
As I stood watching, deliberating what to do about this, the Charlatan Shaman strode to the center of the Shamanic Ritual Ground and cried out loudly.
“What is a shaman? Is she not one who dances for the spirits while serving them? Yet how can you trust and entrust a ritual to someone who cannot even perform a single sacred dance? Foolish, utterly foolish!”
A mystical blue aura swirled around the Charlatan Shaman as she moved with dance-like steps. The crowd began to murmur at the sight. Baek Tam-sol, her face veiled, turned to look back. The Merchant’s Son, bound with sacred rope, cried out desperately toward the Shaman.
“Shaman Mother! Please help me!”
“Yes, my spiritual son! I have come to save you from that false shaman, so fear not!”
As the Shaman in Navy Robes approached the shrine post while waving her fan, the servants restraining the son tensed visibly. The Merchant Host cried out in alarm to Baek Tam-sol.
“Holy Priestess! Please drive away that wretched shaman! You promised to save my son!”
“How foolish! Do you still not understand who is truly possessed by a malevolent spirit?”
The Shaman in Navy Robes shouted at him with a booming voice. The Merchant Host flinched and shrank back, and the Shaman tapped her folded fan against her palm, speaking with confidence.
“Can you not feel the difference between that charlatan who barely brings down a spirit after dozens of bows, and this body who walks with Cheoyong in this very moment?”
“But… the spirit you attached to my son through the initiation ritual has injured my daughter and our household servants! A spirit that harms people—that is surely a malevolent one!”
“You provoked the spirit’s wrath through your own actions, yet instead of seeking the spirit’s forgiveness, you dare call the angered spirit malevolent? If the spirit grows even more furious at such treatment and brings greater calamity, what will you do then?”
The Shaman’s voice boomed, and the Merchant Host’s complexion grew uneasy. The Shaman clicked her tongue and continued.
“Always this talk of malevolent spirits, malevolent spirits! You foolish people are swayed by the words of those who cannot properly serve the spirits! I have come here, unable to bear any longer the sight of ignorant commoners deceived by charlatans!”
The Shaman in Navy Robes strode forward and stood before Baek Tam-sol, pointing her fan at her.
“You harass innocent shamans under the guise of exorcising malevolent spirits, and now you dare target my spiritual son? What a travesty! If you truly serve a genuine spirit, then prove it through a proper sacred dance!”
Baek Tam-sol met the Shaman’s gaze steadily. Behind her veil, her expression could not be seen. She replied calmly.
“I cannot perform the sacred dance at this time.”
“So you cannot perform it after all!”
“Think as you wish.”
Baek Tam-sol turned away and approached the ritual altar, then began to bow again. Her attitude was clear—she would do her duty regardless of what others said.
“Hah…”
The Shaman in Navy Robes sighed as if exasperated, shrugged her shoulders, and looked around at the gathered crowd.
“Do you all still believe this woman is the Holy Priestess after witnessing this?”
The murmuring among the people grew louder. Doubt was spreading. The servants who had been swept away by the wave-like energy the Shaman wielded trembled with fear and could do nothing. Even the Merchant Host’s face was changing color.
“One shaman has the spirit descend with merely a wave of her fan, while another must perform dozens of bows with the altar prepared before the spirit might deign to appear!”
“And today it seems the spirit won’t even respond to that!”
The people who had come with the Shaman in Navy Robes raised their voices first, acting as agitators. As the shills began their clamor, others chimed in with their own remarks.
“Now that I think about it, there are countless suspicious things about the Holy Priestess. She won’t even show her face, and she won’t perform the sacred dance.”
“Wasn’t it said that she performs exorcisms selectively? Perhaps she only chooses weak spirits she can defeat and drives those away.”
No, you foolish people. She must have been distinguishing between those truly possessed by genuine spirits and those afflicted by malevolent ones.
“I’ve never seen a shaman who only bows during a ritual like that.”
“And the possession takes far too long to manifest…”
“Is she really not a fake?”
The atmosphere grew increasingly hostile. Regardless, Baek Tam-sol continued bowing as if she heard nothing.
Beside me, the Crown Prince murmured uncertainly.
“The situation is developing strangely.”
“Indeed…”
“It seems like the issue would be resolved quickly if you simply performed the Muму dance, Scholar. Is there perhaps a reason you cannot do so?”
“Yes, there is.”
I replied absently, my mind drifting back to the last conversation I’d had with Baek Tam-sol.
When I’d given her the starfish ointment to send to Princess Onseol.
“My Spiritual Father once ordered me to perform the Muму dance in his place at a Shamanic Ritual Ground. When I lifted my face, people cursed, and children screamed.”
“My Spiritual Father said only then did he understand my place. Only then did I realize I was not worthy of showcasing the Muму dance.”
The reason Baek Tam-sol no longer danced the Muму before others.
‘That incident must have left a deep wound. I understand why she’s reluctant to display it.’
Yet if she’d been consistently applying the ointment, the scar should have nearly vanished by now. Even with the scar gone, was she still afraid to show her bare face before others? That was certainly possible.
‘But if that’s why she wears the veil… she could dance the Muму while wearing it.’
Or perhaps…
“Once I find the courage to perform the Muму… I will show it to you first, without fail.”
…Was she holding back like this to keep that promise to show me first? No, surely not.
‘But considering my teacher’s nature… that “surely not” might actually be true.’
Baek Tam-sol was generally bland and composed. Her speech was monotone, her expressions rarely changed. Only when discussing dance did she show any vitality, and she remained unshaken by anything unrelated to her scars, so at first I’d thought her simply disinterested and insensitive to everything.
‘But as I attended her lessons, I realized she remembered even the casual questions I’d asked in passing, answering each one meticulously. She was always observing my reactions with such delicacy…’
After spending those months together in Jaebang, I understood. Baek Tam-sol was a sensitive, meticulous person with a strong artistic temperament. Her excessive sensitivity caused her to tire easily, which only made her appear insensitive instead.
‘For instance… the more keenly one can smell, the more intensely one perceives even subtle scents, and the nose becomes easily numbed, making one seem unable to smell at all.’
Baek Tam-sol deliberately distanced herself from the world because she was too sensitive. She could speak matter-of-factly about her unfortunate past by separating it from herself, viewing it as someone else’s tragedy. And perhaps dance was the only means through which she could channel that sensitivity.
‘She’s different only when discussing dance.’
A passion that sublimated all she suppressed. A flame hidden within a lantern’s shade.
So now Baek Tam-sol was both remembering and keeping the promise she’d made to me… while using it as an excuse to keep that flame contained within the lantern, wasn’t she?
If she’d simply wanted to honor her promise to me, she would have contacted me long ago. To show me my first Muму as promised.
If she went through all that trouble to perform the gut ritual for me without reaching out… it means she still isn’t ready to show her true self to anyone else.
‘Fire is sensitive and can be extinguished by the slightest breeze, so perhaps she’s afraid to take it out from under the shade.’
Rather than risk extinguishing that flame by carelessly exposing it, enduring people’s mockery and suspicion seemed preferable.
‘In such circumstances… she would need someone to push her forward.’
Mother once said that when capable retainers lacked confidence and avoided their duties, she would force them into situations where they had no choice but to act. Once she made them start, even reluctantly, they’d quickly realize it wasn’t so difficult and would succeed.
Baek Tam-sol would surely be the same.
‘My teacher’s Muму dance could never be inferior to that charlatan pretending to serve Cheoyong.’
“…But why do you not perform the Muму?”
“I am performing it. Every single day.”
Unseen by others, Baek Tam-sol was always dancing. She’d been carrying that spark all along.
‘My teacher needs a catalyst.’
I, who had promised to be the first to see her Muму dance, had to become that catalyst.
How could I push her naturally and effectively? The deliberation was brief.
‘Typically, the Muму is performed with a fan and bells, but right now my teacher is holding only the bells.’
She’d intentionally come without a fan because she had no intention of dancing… but I could use this situation.
I sent a silent message to An-si, seated right beside me.
[An-si.]
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Use the Eight Pillar Order to retrieve a fan from the Treasure Vault and bring it to me. Be discreet about it.”
“Your Highness, there are not merely one or two fans in the Sang Ra Palace Treasure Vault. Which fan do you require?”
“Any will do… No, wait.”
Now that I thought about it, among the sacred implements of the Straw God Plan, there was also a fan—one that happened to contain divine power with properties similar to ‘fire’.
Suddenly, I felt as though something was written in fate itself.
Perhaps, just perhaps.
“Bring me the fan from among the Straw God’s sacred implements.”
“Understood, Your Highness!”
An-si concealed her hand in the folds of her skirt, her fingers moving deftly beneath the table as she passed the fan to me. A folding fan with crimson ribs and a plain white silk surface.
I rose from my seat, fan in hand, and called out to Baek Tam-sol.
“Master!”
Baek Tam-sol did not respond. The murmur of the crowd drowned out my voice.
“My lady?”
Only the Crown Prince beside me started, turning to look at me in surprise.
“Just a moment, Your Highness.”
I whispered softly to the Crown Prince, then pushed through the crowd toward the front.
[An-si, carry my voice on the wind for me.]
[Yes! But where are you going now?]
[To Baek Tam-sol, up ahead.]
As I moved, I performed the possession ritual. Through the lifeline connecting me to my body in Heaven, my original form’s divine power poured in. I channeled a portion of it—power akin to fire—into the fan I held. Having practiced this division of power continuously of late, the divine essence separated with ease.
‘The problem is that it doesn’t fully separate and returns to me almost immediately.’
I raised the fan infused with my divine power high and called out to Baek Tam-sol once more.
“Master! Your disciple has brought the fan you left behind! Now you’ll be able to dance!”
Thanks to the wind An-si summoned, my voice rang out clear and resonant across the entire space. Baek Tam-sol spun around sharply toward me.

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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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