Surviving as the Sacheon Dang Clan’s Servant - Chapter 47

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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 47
11. The Youngest’s Burden
Dang Ju-hui seemed to have enjoyed our first meeting’s puppet play immensely, for she sought me out constantly after that.
“Youngest!”
“Yes?”
“Youngest!”
“Yes, yes. I need to train, so please stop calling me.”
“Look, So-so. The youngest answers every single time? Cho-hui doesn’t even pretend to listen. Isn’t she adorable?”
She would arrive at the crack of dawn to watch me as I trained, and she would linger through the morning practice.
“Won’t you spar with me?”
“No.”
“Aw, come on. I’ll go easy on you.”
“If your fist connects, I’ll be dead, won’t I?”
“Don’t say that. Let’s play. Want to learn Jo-beop? Jo-beop? It’s really fun, I’m telling you?”
“I don’t want to. Growing out my nails would make it awkward to throw throwing needles.”
“That’s exactly why you should learn it. Close-range combat is more thrilling.”
She pestered me relentlessly to spar.
Of course I refused everything. I knew my own limitations too well.
If I crossed swords with Dang Ju-hui, who had trained in Kwon-gak-sul for over a decade, my bones would shatter without question.
When I pretended not to hear and tossed a copper coin into the pond, Dang Ju-hui pressed herself against my ribs.
“Just once. Come on? You can use poison. You can throw your needles—I’ll take them. Let’s spar. Come on?”
I heard nothing. Nothing at all.
“Or should I teach you how to make Geuk-dok? How to make Hae-yak? If you don’t like that either, want to visit the Iron Room? The three of us could have tea with Cho-hui. Going out is fine too. What about heading to the silk merchant’s and buying new fabric?”
It felt as if a tail I didn’t even have was wagging back and forth.
Watching Dang Ju-hui prattle on with such excitement, my heart ached.
You don’t have any friends, do you?
“Sister, I really do need to train. If Grandfather finds out I’ve been shirking, I’ll get scolded.”
“Then the Iron Room sounds perfect. You should go at least once. You’ve never been before.”
“No, I’m telling you, I’ll be scolded.”
“He’ll be happy if we sisters get close.”
Were you even listening to me?
Dang Ju-hui reached her own conclusion and pulled me along. I yelped as her strong grip tightened around my arm.
“Ow! That hurts! Sister, my arm’s coming off! Please, more gently. Gently!”
“Really? You’re much weaker than I thought? Alright, alright.”
Dang Ju-hui adjusted her grip, pinching only the edge of my sleeve between her thumb and forefinger with the delicacy of touching dandelion down.
“There, better now? You need to train harder. You’re frailer than my own handmaiden.”
“Then stop interfering with my training.”
“I don’t want to. I’m bored.”
With that cheerful declaration, Dang Ju-hui began striding forward, my sleeve still clasped in her hand.
With Grandfather away, I had nowhere to escape.
I let myself be dragged along with the resigned expression of someone who had accepted all the vicissitudes of the world.
Summer was approaching, and the weather had grown warm—more than warm, it was hot.
As soon as I felt the temperature rise and rolled up my sleeves, Dang Ju-hui tilted her head curiously.
“Are you hot? It’s not even the hot season yet. The youngest really is sensitive to heat?”
“Isn’t it more that you’re not sensitive to heat?”
“Have you ever seen a Sacheon person sweat? You’re the odd one.”
Dang Ju-hui laughed as though she’d heard the finest jest, clapping her hands together. The jade rings clattered loudly as they struck.
Here was someone wearing two layers of ornate robes over her martial garb, bedecked with accessories, not a drop of sweat on her skin—and I was supposed to be the strange one?
Too tired to respond, I walked on, but someone greeted me with false familiarity.
“My, my—if it isn’t the youngest sister of the Man-dok-bul-chim.”
I turned at the mocking tone and saw Dang Ju-yeop staring straight at me.
In his pristine white robes and waving his spotless white fan, he looked every bit the gentleman poet amusing himself in some celestial realm.
The corpse-like state in which he’d been lying was now forgotten—his face was immaculate.
He’d looked serious when he was carried to the Uiyak-dang. Strange. Was it really nothing serious?
“Hello to you as well.”
“Did you enjoy yourself that day?”
For just a moment I wondered what nonsense he was talking about, but then the image of Dang Se-ho using Dang Ju-yeop’s face as a canvas flashed through my mind.
I flinched and looked away.
So he knew about the scribbling on his face. At least I only drew one dot.
Dang Ju-hui crossed her arms and looked Dang Ju-yeop up and down, then slowly shook her head.
“You’re going to Gi-ru again? I told you not to go to Wol-hyang-ru. Father will be furious if he finds out.”
“He won’t find out.”
“How could he not, looking the way you do?”
Dang Ju-hui clicked her tongue in disapproval, but Dang Ju-yeop merely laughed like a fool and waved his fan languidly.
“I’ll hide it well.”
“Just make sure the fallout doesn’t land on me.”
“There’s no question of that. Though, while we’re on the subject……”
The glib creature lowered his torso to meet my eyes, and I shuffled backward instinctively. The proximity unnerved me.
“What are you doing?”
“Would you have time this afternoon? I’d like to offer my sister a cup of tea.”
“I’d rather not.”
I watched with my own eyes what you fed me. Why would I want to drink tea with you?
Dang Ju-yeop’s eyebrows sagged with disappointment.
“You don’t trust me?”
“Trust you? On our first meeting, you poisoned me without warning—why would I?”
“That was a mistake on my part, it seems. I should have waited to earn your trust before administering it.”
……What is he talking about.
With a sharp, vulpine face, everything that comes out of his mouth grates on me.
“I have no designs on you. I’ve already confirmed that poison doesn’t work on you.”
“I see.”
Despite my perfunctory response, Dang Ju-yeop’s smile never wavered. Mischief danced in his eyes as he drew closer.
“I’m simply curious about something.”
He bent at the waist and whispered near my ear.
“Is Man-dok-bul-chim-ji-che free from the control of Go-dok? That’s what I’m wondering.”
Dang Ju-yeop grinned, his mouth stretching wide.
His words were playful, yet a chill ran down my spine. It was the feeling of facing a child’s pure malice.
The same chilling dread one feels watching a child pluck a butterfly’s wings, stomp a frog to death, and smile blithely all the while.
As my body stiffened, Dang Ju-yeop began to giggle.
“Only jesting. The main branch has no such mind-controlling sorcery.”
“What if it’s not from the main branch’s Go-dok?”
“Ah. You speak of the sorcery of Namman? Our house is registered with the Righteous Faction—why would I concern myself with such arts?”
“…….”
“Think nothing of it, sister. It was merely a jest.”
He withdrew from me with an air of casual lightness, his tone dismissive.
“Hey! If you’re going out to play, sneak through the back gate. The gatekeeper will see you otherwise.”
“Play? I’m going to seek the resonance of the spirit. There is no melody within these walls that can save me.”
“There he goes with his nonsense again.”
Dang Ju-hui snorted and furrowed her brow.
I watched Dang Ju-yeop drift away as though nothing had happened, standing motionless.
I couldn’t move, seized by a creeping sensation like insects crawling across my skin.
His curious voice lingered in my ear.
‘Is Man-dok-bul-chim-ji-che free from the control of Go-dok? That’s what I’m wondering.’
What does he know? Why is he curious?
As far as I knew, there was only one place that used Go-dok-sul to control people.
Ma-gyo.
Only the Ma-ryeong-hwan-hon-go of Ma-gyo.
* * *
<Namgung’s Dominion> treated Ma-gyo as absolute evil, fitting for a novel centered on the young master of the Namgung Clan, the head of the Righteous Faction.
In truth, judging by the descriptions alone, it was indeed absolute evil. They did everything imaginable to cultivate their martial artists into masters.
Child abductions of those with strong physiques, human trafficking, torture and abduction of Righteous Faction members aimed at crippling their martial arts—they were wickedness incarnate.
Ma-gyo’s cruelty spared neither outsider nor initiate. When they sent initiates to Joong-won, they forcibly made them consume a parasite called Hyeol-eum-go.
It was a worm that burrowed into the host’s body and gnawed at the organs. Only by consuming the antidote provided by Ma-gyo at three-month intervals would the worm fall dormant and cease to harm the host.
Without the medicine, it meant suffering as one’s internal organs were consumed, then death.
The initiates who consumed Hyeol-eum-go had to report to the sect at regular intervals to receive the antidote.
In other words, it was a time bomb that allowed location tracking, information gathering, and prevention of betrayal all at once.
Yet Ma-gyo was not satisfied with Hyeol-eum-go.
They desired a more powerful Go-dok-sul. A Go-dok that could dominate and control their target at will.
After lengthy research, Ma-gyo created something new.
Ma-ryeong-hwan-hon-go.
A parasite with the sinister name meaning “Spirit Exchange,” it was a worm that burrowed into a person’s brain and rendered the host a puppet for its master’s control.
The Ma-ryeong-hwan-hon-go did not inflict pain upon its host as the Hyeol-eum-go did. Instead, it seized control of the body.
Those implanted with the Ma-ryeong-hwan-hon-go would lose their senses upon hearing the bell shaken by the sorcerer and obey the sorcerer’s every command.
Namgung Hui remembered suffering greatly because of this Ma-ryeong-hwan-hon-go—she’d had to cut down comrades possessed and turned against her, wielding her own blade.
But that was a story ten years hence.
Namgung Hui was still a child of thirteen, and the Ma-gyo had not yet risen to power.
At a time when most people didn’t even know of the Hyeol-eum-go, let alone the Ma-ryeong-hwan-hon-go, to speak of the Go-dok-sul that controlled minds seemed distinctly odd.
Something reeked of suspicion.
The Dang Clan was obsessed with poison; it was only natural that someone among them would research the Go-dok.
But was it mere chance that they’d mentioned precisely the sorcery the Ma-gyo would employ in years to come?
Goosebumps prickled across my skin, and my mouth went dry.
Could it be that……
“……What are you brooding about so intently?”
Cool hands cupped both my cheeks.
I jerked my head up in surprise and found Dang Ju-hui gazing at me with a puzzled expression.
“You startled easily. Your face has gone pale.”
“Ah.”
“Are you worried Ju-yeop will poison you? His poisons are worthless, so don’t fret. No one dies from anything he makes.”
“Sister, surely that’s not meant to be comforting?”
“Of course it is.”
Well, that’s one way to look at it—though her reassurance seemed about as worthless as Ju-yeop’s toxins.
The tension drained from me at Dang Ju-hui’s utterly guileless demeanor, devoid of even a shred of gravity.
Besides, worrying now wouldn’t change anything.
“It’s nothing. The light caught my eyes and I blinked. Let’s head to the Iron Workshop.”
I rubbed my eyes vigorously and nudged Dang Ju-hui forward.

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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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