Since I’m a Time-Limited Princess Who Has No Tomorrow - Chapter 3

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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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Episode 3
My mother’s jade-colored eyes—the same shade as mine—widened in surprise. This was the first time she’d ever reacted this way, so her astonishment was understandable. I quickly offered an excuse, recalling Father’s reaction.
“I just wanted to play with her before sending her back to the Living World.”
“…I see.”
“I’ll be playing with her, so please don’t worry and go ahead.”
The excuse about wanting to play together worked exactly as expected. After seeing the child An-si had brought with her own eyes, Mother gave me strict instructions not to overexert myself, then headed to Jami Palace for work.
The silver-haired child I’d just met was now surrounded by curious celestial maidens.
“The Princess said she wanted to play with this child? And right after waking up?”
“Goodness, what virtues must this child have accumulated in a past life….”
“Child, how did you come to meet the Princess?”
“What about you caught the Princess’s eye?”
“Our Princess would….”
“The Princess has a delicate constitution, so you must be extra careful when playing together….”
It was absolute chaos.
Their intentions weren’t malicious, but at this rate, I wouldn’t be able to have any real conversation with the child.
‘The poor thing’s scared half to death.’
I should try to calm her down. If I send the adults away and give her something delicious to eat, that should help.
I approached the celestial maidens and gave an order.
“All of you, leave. Just bring refreshments.”
“Yes, Princess.”
The maidens hurried out and soon returned with a table laden with treats.
“Please enjoy yourselves!”
The celestial maidens beamed as they set down the table and withdrew. Left alone, the child trembled like a frightened rabbit.
‘With that silver hair, she really does look like a rabbit.’
Looking more carefully now, her large, gentle eyes glistening with unshed tears and her tiny nose were adorable.
‘She looks just like this.’
I glanced back and forth between the jade rabbit cake on the table and the silver-haired child.
The jade rabbit cake was a glutinous rice cake made by the jade rabbits living on the moon—my favorite snack. I loved it for its pale, fluffy rabbit shape and the cute candy eyes embedded in it.
‘To be honest, I can’t really tell the difference in taste.’
My palate was dull; I could only distinguish between bitter and sweet. It was even worse after taking painkillers. That’s why my snacks were mostly chosen for their beautiful, elaborate appearance—things that made the child stare so intently she trembled.
The cake would have a hole in it at this rate.
I suppressed my laughter and opened my mouth.
“What’s your name?”
“M-me? My n-name?”
“Yes.”
“S-Se-ru-hwa… Se-ru-hwa.”
Her voice was as tiny as an ant crawling across the ground. I pointed to the jade rabbit cake plate that most resembled Se-ru-hwa.
“I see. Se-ru-hwa, would you like to try this?”
“…Y-yes?”
“It’s called jade rabbit cake, and it’s delicious.”
I’m not entirely sure, but regardless, anything that comes to my table couldn’t possibly taste bad.
“Try one, will you?”
When I urged her again, Se-ru-hwa hesitated before carefully accepting the sticky rice cake with both hands.
The chopsticks were right there beside it, but she seemed too distracted to notice them. Or perhaps she still wasn’t skilled at using them?
‘It really does fill her entire hand. Her hands are so tiny.’
Se-ru-hwa lifted the glutinous rice cake and examined it from different angles before taking a small bite from one end.
“…!”
The child’s eyes widened, and she quickly opened her mouth again. The fist-sized sticky rice cake gradually disappeared into Se-ru-hwa’s mouth. Her small cheeks puffed out rosy red, like the cake itself filled with strawberry paste.
She was eating with such obvious delight.
“Is it delicious?”
With her mouth full of cake, the child nodded enthusiastically. Pleased by her reaction, I pushed another plate toward her.
“Eat this too.”
“Yes, yes…!”
“And this.”
Se-ru-hwa eagerly accepted each snack I offered. Just watching her made me understand what it meant to feel satisfied vicariously.
As I rested my chin in my hand watching her, the child suddenly stopped reaching for the sweets. Then, glancing at me nervously, she pushed the plate toward me.
“P-Princess should… eat too. I shouldn’t be the only one eating….”
How thoughtful of this little one.
I smiled and waved my hand.
“I eat all the time anyway, so I don’t need any.”
“But still, we should… e-eat together.”
The child’s determined expression as she pushed the plate toward me was so endearing that I ended up eating a few pieces myself.
After we finished the refreshments, Se-ru-hwa seemed somewhat more at ease. I decided to help her digest and took her out to my garden.
The Sang Ra Palace Garden was arranged by my parents like a miniature of the world itself, since I rarely ventured outside—even immortals would lose themselves in wonder upon first sight. She would surely love it too.
I took Se-ru-hwa on a tour of the garden. Across small mountains and valleys, forests and meadows, deserts and snowy plains, countless young divine beasts played—jade rabbits, young white deer, young haetae, and more.
On one side was a small sea fed by actual seawater, with a stream flowing into it. A young azure dragon played on the water alongside a small black tortoise, while young white cranes and blue cranes drank from the stream’s edge.
“Wow….”
Oh, she loves it, she really does.
Se-ru-hwa couldn’t stop gasping in wonder at every sight.
‘How adorable.’
The wide-eyed child couldn’t tear her gaze away from the sight of a jade rabbit the size of a melon and a baby white tiger the size of a pumpkin playing together.
I smiled with satisfaction and spoke.
“You can pet them if you’d like.”
“Really, truly?”
“Yes, they won’t bite. They’re all good creatures.”
Se-ru-hwa seemed nervous, her small hand trembling slightly.
Eventually, I demonstrated first. I extended my hand and made a clicking sound, and the baby white tiger waddled over and rubbed its head against my palm.
Then the child gathered her courage and carefully petted the baby white tiger.
‘I thought her hands were small, but looking at it this way, they’re not that different from mine.’
Does that mean I look just as small as this little one? And I’m 209 years old? I really am tiny….
I finally understood why no one treated me as an adult despite being over two hundred years old, and a fresh wave of self-reproach washed over me.
As I sat with these thoughts, Se-ru-hwa finally seemed to relax and began to speak.
“M-my name means ‘tear flower,’ apparently.”
“Tear flower? That’s quite an unusual name.”
“M-mother gave it to me. Our m-mother, she actually….”
Se-ru-hwa was a child with poor speech, lacking much education and ignorant of many things. She tried her best to explain, but there were quite a few parts that were difficult to understand.
I had no choice but to consult my Karma Mirror in between her words. The Karma Mirror was used in the Afterlife to identify sinners—a mirror that showed the deeds a deceased person had done in life. I possessed a small one, no larger than a hand mirror, that my father had gifted me to look at when he was bored.
Listening to the child’s story and watching her entire life reflected in the Karma Mirror, I finally understood why she didn’t want to return to the Living World.
‘What kind of miserable fate does this poor child have.’
I understood what she meant—that she would only die again if she went back.
‘She still has so much lifespan remaining….’
I gazed intently at the child’s thread of life. Then, above the pale string, characters written like ink appeared before me.
Se-ru-hwa, 9, 101
Thanks to the power of the Yama King that I inherited from my father, I could read what was written on a human’s thread of life. The first three characters were the name, the first number was the current age, and the last number was the lifespan Heaven had determined.
In other words, if left to develop naturally without anyone’s interference, this child could live over a hundred years.
‘But she died at nine, and even if she were revived, she would die again soon.’
Yokai, wandering spirits, minor deities. Beings that existed outside the natural order. Collectively called ‘the corrupted.’
When humans become entangled with the corrupted, they generally fail to live out their natural lifespans. Unless they possessed the strength to overcome the corrupted themselves, or unless a powerful deity or immortal helped them, they would die prematurely regardless of their destined lifespan.
This child, Se-ru-hwa, was exactly such a case. Moreover, she wasn’t entangled with just one or two of them.
I couldn’t see the future, but as the daughter of the Jade Emperor, I could read the Celestial Mandate to some degree. Her future was filled with omens far more dangerous than dying by the sword. At this rate, even if she miraculously survived this time, she wouldn’t make it to ten years old, let alone one hundred and one.
The child, giggling softly as she continued to stroke the baby white tiger, broke my heart.
‘Even if I wanted to help, without a proper justification, it would go against the principles of the Celestial Deities.’
I couldn’t just carelessly resurrect dead people simply because they caught my eye. There had to be some reason.
All I could do was ask the Underworld Grandmother, who cared for dead children in the Western Paradise Flower Field, to look after this child well until she was reborn.
‘Wait.’
A brilliant idea suddenly struck me.
‘What if I took this child’s thread of life and went to the Living World myself?’
The corrupted beings and ill omens entangled in that child’s life meant nothing to me, the ‘Heavenly Mandate Princess.’ With my power, I could live out a full natural lifespan even in that child’s body. For me, it would be nothing more than a vacation.
‘I’ve been wanting to leave home and experience life anyway. This might be a good opportunity.’
And in exchange for inheriting that child’s life, I could give Se-ru-hwa proper compensation. This would create a legitimate reason to help her.
‘What if I rewarded her by registering her in the Immortal Registry?’
If a child’s name was inscribed in the Immortal Registry of the immortals, she would become a ‘Celestial Child.’ If a Celestial Child grew up without incident, she would become an immortal.
‘I could make her a Celestial Child and raise her in Sang Ra Palace until she becomes a celestial maiden. Then someday I could reunite her with her mother, couldn’t I?’
Se-ru-hwa had few lingering attachments to the Living World given how hard she had lived, but she harbored a deep attachment to her mother. The biggest reason she didn’t want to be revived was that she didn’t want to show her mother the sight of her dying twice.
I, who constantly traveled back and forth across the River of Three Paths, understood that feeling all too well.
‘That’s why I want to help her even more.’
Wouldn’t it be far better for her to become a celestial maiden and gain the chance to meet her mother again, rather than simply dying, forgetting everything, and being reborn?
‘But if I were to enter that child’s body….’
First, my real body would fall asleep in Sang Ra Palace.
Just as my spirit would fly away when I wandered the boundary between life and death and fell into the River of Three Paths, I would awaken in that child’s body in the Living World.
‘…So I won’t hurt at all?’
The burden of the power I possess falls upon my original body. So while I’m living as a human, I won’t experience any pain whatsoever.
‘What does it feel like not to hurt?’
I’ve never had a healthy body. I can’t imagine what that would feel like.
‘To live in a healthy body, in a place other than here.’
Where could I find better conditions than this?
‘For me, it’s the perfect vacation, and for Mom and Dad… it’ll be good practice for saying goodbye.’
I could even help that child while staying within the bounds of providence.
The more I thought about it, the more perfect the plan became. Of course, there was the minor problem that my overprotective parents would never allow it.
My deliberation was brief.
‘I’ll just run away.’
If I slip into the Living World using Se-ru-hwa’s lifeline, what can Mom and Dad possibly do about it?

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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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