Surviving as the Sacheon Dang Clan’s Servant - Chapter 76

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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 76
19. The Doomed Extra
When consciousness returned, I found myself lying on a shabby bed, wrapped in unfamiliar quilts.
Blinking stupidly, I gasped as a flood of memories crashed over me.
I hadn’t died. I was alive.
Relief flooded through me and tears spilled down my cheeks. I couldn’t believe I’d opened my eyes again.
As I struggled to move my unresponsive body, sensation gradually returned—my fingertips twitching feebly.
Groping along the bedframe with my hands, I gripped its edge and pulled myself upright.
The sudden movement brought a wave of dizziness crashing down.
I pressed my cold palms against my temples, fighting to steady myself. My forehead glistened with cold sweat.
At least my Dantian seemed intact—I’d apparently dodged Qi Deviation after all.
But how had I survived?
Trembling with anxiety, I surveyed my surroundings.
It was a small, worn room.
Not the ramshackle hovel where I’d last taken refuge. There was almost no sound of human activity—clearly a quiet place.
I carefully placed my heavy legs on the floor. A dull ache throbbed through my thighs.
Glancing down, I saw my wounds wrapped in clean cloth. Someone had tended to me.
Despite its age, the small room was well-kept. Every corner bore signs of careful maintenance, and a faint medicinal scent lingered in the air.
My foot brushed against something—my Green Robe lay neatly folded beneath the bed, alongside my purse and Silver Coins, untouched.
As I puzzled over where I was, the door suddenly swung open.
“You’re awake?”
The bright, hearty voice sounded vaguely familiar.
“Doesn’t seem like you’re fully conscious yet. Miss. Should I let you rest a little longer?”
Staring blankly at the stranger in the doorway, I suddenly recognized him—he was the owner of the voice I’d heard before losing consciousness.
My body tensed instinctively. I opened my mouth cautiously, eyeing him warily.
“Who are you?”
“The benefactor who saved you.”
The man smiled faintly and tilted his chin, as if asking permission to enter.
Sunlight streaming from behind him caught his loosely bound hair, making it gleam dark red.
His face would have been quite handsome if properly groomed, but a jagged scar running down the left side of his eye gave him a rough, disreputable edge.
I nodded slowly, and the man strode in, setting down a tray.
He poured water from the pitcher into a cup and offered it to me.
“Drink. I’m afraid I can only offer cold water—hardly the hospitality for tea.”
“…Thank you.”
“Water’s just water, drawn from a well.”
My self-proclaimed benefactor flashed a brilliant smile and laughed brightly.
After a brief hesitation, I took the cup.
Even if it were poisoned, at this point I couldn’t be infected by it anyway, so there seemed little reason to suspect or refuse.
I’d only meant to wet my parched lips, but the moment I swallowed, a burning thirst seized me.
As I drained the cup desperately, the man refilled it. Fortunately, the second cup was easier to drink at a measured pace.
Whether it had been freshly drawn from the well or my thirst was simply severe, the water tasted sweet.
“More?”
“No, thank you. I’m fine.”
“All right. Give me the cup.”
He set the cup back on the tray and slowly settled onto the edge of the bed.
“How’s your body? Miss, if I’d been even a moment later, you would’ve fallen into Qi Deviation.”
“How did you…?”
“Your Internal Energy had a peculiar quality. It came at me like it was trying to devour my own cultivation.”
Cold sweat seeped down my back at his casual words.
He was saying he’d gathered and safely guided my rampaging energy for me.
A master. Undoubtedly.
Helping another cultivator regulate their Qi during a breakthrough wasn’t something anyone could do.
Especially not someone from outside our sect. He possessed profound Martial Arts deep enough to penetrate and wield a foreign Mental Cultivation Method.
He was unmistakably a master beyond anything I could hope to contend with.
So what did he want from me? To keep me in this state, intact and useful for some enterprise?
I began quickly assessing whether my body was in any condition to flee.
As my eyes sharpened, the man waved his hand as if to tell me not to be wary.
“Whoa, relax. I mean no harm.”
“Excuse me?”
“You sent this boy to summon me. If I meant to hurt you, I wouldn’t have bothered saving you in the first place.”
“Ju Ryeong? What are you doing up there?”
Looking again, I saw that Ju Ryeong was perched on the man’s shoulder.
I’d let him loose to run far away, but it seemed he’d found someone and asked for help.
“Chirp-chirp.”
Ju Ryeong straightened up as if asking for praise. I let out a hollow laugh and extended my hand.
“Ju Ryeong. Come here.”
Ju Ryeong scampered down from the man’s shoulder and rushed into my arms.
“So his name is Ju Ryeong? He lives up to it. He guided me well enough. Ah, I extracted the Spiritual Pill’s essence that the young lady had consumed and fed it to this fellow, so don’t regret the loss too much. It’s better than dying, isn’t it?”
“Squeak!”
Ju Ryeong nodded as if to say it was delicious. I stroked Ju Ryeong and knitted my brow.
He extracted only the Spiritual Energy from my body and gave it to Ju Ryeong?
How was that possible without using Demon Sect Martial Arts?
Why didn’t he absorb it directly himself?
The concentration of Spiritual Energy was something anyone would covet, even if it fell short of a Ten Thousand Poisons Pill.
Weren’t martial cultivators the sort to perform all manner of mad feats just to gain even a shred of Internal Cultivation?
It seemed suspicious that, despite possessing the ability to kill me and seize my Internal Cultivation without any strange consequences, he deliberately fed it to Ju Ryeong instead.
When my expression darkened, he seemed to grasp what I was thinking and waved his hand.
“It doesn’t sit well with me.”
“Pardon?”
“If I’d swallowed that Spiritual Energy, my Qi flow would have been disrupted. Your Internal Cultivation was mixed with it, and the Poison Qi was particularly strong.”
Perhaps that was true.
I seemed to understand, and yet I didn’t. My mind wasn’t working clearly—perhaps because I’d only recently awakened.
I could tell this man wasn’t hostile toward me. But I couldn’t bring myself to trust him.
No—I couldn’t trust anyone.
‘Where did the thousand silver coins go?’
A chilling voice echoed through my mind, and a dull ache bloomed in my head.
Clutching my head, I struggled to maintain composure as I asked, “May I have your name, my benefactor?”
“Yeon Ryang.”
“……I beg your pardon?”
At the familiar name, I nearly bit my own tongue.
Yeon Ryang. He was the ill-fated extra who had helped Namgoong Hui and died in .
* * *
features exactly four Fortunate Encounters that Namgoong Hui obtains.
First, the Ten Thousand Poisons Pill of Poison King Dang Jung.
Second, the Empty Blue Stone Oil and Spiritual Pills obtained from the hidden chamber of the Ghost Hand Divine Doctor.
Third, the Ten Thousand Year Golden Fruit Inner Pill.
Fourth and finally, the Demon Sect Secret Manual of the Chivalrous Emperor Ju Cheon Gang.
Since I’ve already claimed Dang Jung’s Ten Thousand Poisons Pill, I suppose that leaves three.
In any case, these four Fortunate Encounters become turning points in crises and fuel Namgoong Hui’s growth.
True to his status as protagonist, he—having monopolized three precious spiritual elixirs that ordinary people could never obtain in a lifetime—rescues the Chivalrous Emperor Ju Cheon Gang when the Martial Alliance’s mission goes awry and the Demon Sect takes him captive.
The Chivalrous Emperor, having no disciples, transmits his Demon Sect Martial Arts to Namgoong Hui as a token of gratitude, and Namgoong Hui then blends the mysteries of those arts into his Boundless Spear and Sword Technique, achieving a breakthrough in his martial mastery…….
In this chain of events, the one who assists Namgoong Hui in rescuing the Chivalrous Emperor is a collaborator from the Demon Sect. That was Yeon Ryang.
I remember feeling a pang of regret at Yeon Ryang’s lonely exit—how he’d helped Namgoong Hui and the Chivalrous Emperor escape even knowing he would die, buying them time until the very end.
He’d been a fairly memorable extra, popular for his poignant death.
So he really was using Demon Sect Martial Arts. He’s a member of the Demon Sect, after all.
I swallowed hard and stared fixedly at Yeon Ryang’s face.
In the novel, Yeon Ryang was described as middle-aged, but the Yeon Ryang before me appeared to be in his mid-twenties at most.
There was no trace of the novel’s portrayal in this young man’s radiant face.
Standing before me was not a gaunt and sensitive man suffering under the weight of the Demon Sect’s isolation, but a healthy, vibrant one.
When I hesitated, Yeon Ryang blinked in confusion.
“Young lady. Do you know me? My reputation hasn’t reached Sichuan, surely.”
“You’re quite right. It hasn’t.”
At that, Yeon Ryang let out a soft laugh. It seemed to be his attempt at humor.
“If you’ve got the spirit for banter, you must be getting hungry soon. Wait here. I’ll bring you something to eat.”
I shook my head. Despite having gone days without food, I had no appetite.
“I’m not feeling up to eating.”
“Still, it’s better to eat something, young lady. I’d stake my entire fortune that if you skip meals in your current state, you won’t last even a day before collapsing again.”
Do you even have a fortune?
As I was about to scoff, I realized that my wariness toward Yeon Ryang had quietly loosened.

There was something reassuring about knowing what fate had befallen Yeon Ryang.
A man who had steeled himself to die for what was right, who had helped others without thought of gain—at least such a man would not bring danger upon me.
“……Then just for a little while.”
“You’ve made the right choice, miss. I’m playing with Dambi now. I’ll be back soon. Oh, and about your robe—the sleeve of your Long Robe is torn. Shall I find you a new one?”
Now that he mentioned it, I remembered tearing it to stop the bleeding on my thigh. I asked carefully.
“Could you possibly find me men’s clothing instead?”
“Men’s clothing?”
“Yes. And I’d prefer if the sleeves were wider.”
“Hmm. I don’t think that’s a good idea. You’re so small in frame that even in men’s clothes, you won’t pass as a man. You’ll just look like a runaway girl with a story. Why not simply wear something that fits you properly?”
Yeon Ryang, frowning slightly, made the suggestion while stroking his chin.
There was no flaw in his reasoning. Nodding reluctantly, I drew a few silver coins from my pocket and held them out.
“Understood. Will this be enough?”
“More than sufficient. I’ll find you new martial clothes too. Green for the Long Robe?”
Yeon Ryang asked, as if testing me. He seemed to know that I came from the Dang Family.
Indeed, it would have been strange if he hadn’t guessed, given what he’d seen among my belongings.
There couldn’t be two sects in all of Sichuan whose disciples wore wide-sleeved green robes and carried countless hidden weapons, mysterious powders, and medicine bottles stuffed inside their sleeves.
“……No. Black.”
There was no need to wear a Green Robe.
In fact, I mustn’t. I had to become someone who had nothing to do with the Dang Family.
“Fine then. If you’re going to dispose of your old clothes, let me have them. Torn though they are, the silk is of fine quality—I can get at least a silver coin for it.”
“No, it must have poison on it…….”
I shook my head to refuse, then stopped. The Green Robe gave off no trace of toxic energy anymore.
“Did you consume it?”
“Chirp.”
Ju Ryeong puffed out his chest proudly. While I had been unconscious, he must have purified the Poison Qi.
Bending slowly, I picked up the torn Green Robe.
The golden thread embroidery, which was granted only to the direct line of the Dang Family, was stained with blood and darkened to black. The sight of it was as wretched as I was.
I suppressed my emotions and muttered quietly.
“Would anyone even buy a Green Robe? In Sichuan, green clothing is forbidden.”
The people of Sichuan tacitly refused to wear green. It would invite the misunderstanding that they belonged to the Dang Family.
Those who had witnessed what fate befell the one who had impersonated the Dang Family wanted no part in creating such misunderstandings from the start.
At my worried question, Yeon Ryang shrugged as if I were speaking nonsense.
“Miss, silk purchased in this manner is cut into small pieces and used to mend other garments. The original form leaves no trace, so you needn’t worry.”
“I see.”
Nodding, I handed him the Green Robe. Every coin mattered in my present circumstances. If I could turn it into money, I should.
“I’ll bring your meal shortly. Wait here.”
Yeon Ryang smiled warmly, waved his hand, and closed the paper door behind him.

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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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