Surviving as the Terminally Ill Young Lady of the North Sea Ice Palace - Chapter 14

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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 14
The Academy forces new students to ingest Mountain Void Poison the moment they’re admitted.
I wanted to stash one as a spare—who knows when a similar situation might arise again.
Of course, if I just grabbed both antidotes outright, it could damage my standing at the Academy down the line.
A little tactical flexibility was called for.
“What?”
Namgung Min’s eyes went wide at the news that there was only one antidote.
“Wait, hold on—Seol! Come over here first!”
Myeongsung was equally alarmed.
He paced nervously, clearly terrified I’d swallow the pill as-is.
“All right, I’ll come over there. Just back away.”
At my words, the two of them retreated toward the study room.
I bolted toward the study at full speed, just as I had on the way in.
Boom!
The iron door slammed shut, and arrows rained down again—but they posed no threat to us now.
“Phew. Made it.”
Since this was the second time, I wasn’t nearly as tense.
Still, I made a show of catching my breath and wiping sweat from my brow.
……
Myeongsung and Namgung Min stared at the red pouch in my hand with complicated expressions.
“So this was supposed to be a competition, not cooperation? That’s going too far!”
Myeongsung was relieved I hadn’t simply downed the antidote.
But he shuddered at how ruthlessly the masters had planned this trial—pushing us into Chang Chuang Hall only to spring such a trap.
Even as he cursed the First Senior Master and the other instructors, his eyes kept drifting to the antidote I’d brought.
‘I’m not handing it over no matter what he says.’
Was he waiting for a chance to snatch it?
Much as he needed the antidote, if he tried that, I’d be genuinely disappointed in Hwasan.
“Seol Suyeo, you take it.”
But before Myeongsung—clearly still weighing his options—could reach a conclusion,
Namgung Min spoke plainly.
“You wouldn’t have gotten it in the first place if not for you.”
“……You’re right. Seol, please take it.”
Myeongsung nodded heavily in agreement.
If Myeongsung were twenty years older, he might have masked his feelings smoothly or spun some flattering lie.
But being still young, his disappointment was painfully transparent.
Now that Namgung Min had shown magnanimity, he probably didn’t want to tarnish his own reputation right from the start.
“Then I won’t be modest.”
Everything had gone according to plan, so I nodded and put the antidote in my mouth.
Was it instant-acting? Surely they wouldn’t lie and call it an antidote if it wasn’t.
“We’d better head out. We’ll have to find another antidote.”
“It might already be too late…….”
Since the antidote allocated to our team had vanished, there was no further reason to stay in Chang Chuang Hall.
Namgung Min and Myeongsung jumped to their feet.
They were probably hoping to leave as quickly as possible and hunt for the other students’ antidotes.
“Actually, there’s another method I can think of.”
I’d shown them goodwill by yielding, and besides, if I was going to challenge a master to a duel, I couldn’t keep it secret anyway.
So I laid out my theory.
“We could steal other students’ antidotes…….”
“That’s one option, but neither of you seemed keen on it.”
I shook my head as I spoke.
“Didn’t Peng Zhongge say earlier that he’d give us an antidote if we beat him?”
“Hmm?”
“Before the entrance ceremony, the masters were going around encouraging us to eat. Didn’t you notice there weren’t many of them? About as many as there are teams.”
Separate from obtaining the antidote, I had my own desire to challenge Peng Zhongge.
Not out of arrogance or anything.
Back at the entrance exam, Peng Zhongge had freely given a Recovery Pill to Dan Lixiang, impressed by his perseverance.
Praising us for clearing Chang Chuang Hall would be fitting enough.
But if I could win an antidote from him through a direct challenge, there might be additional benefits?
In game terms, if you get the antidote from the location on the map, that’s an A-rank clear.
If you get a bonus one from a master, that’s more like an S-rank completion.
“Ah…?”
Namgung Min’s eyes widened.
Myeongsung’s expression brightened too.
At the mention of a way to obtain the Antidote without losing face, their eyes gleamed with renewed hope.
“It was meant exactly as stated.”
“Of course! Master clearly showed us the pouch and said just that!”
“Truly?”
Namgung Min hadn’t caught Peng Zhongge’s words clearly, but with Myeongsung and me nodding in confirmation, she made up her mind at once.
“Thank you, Seol.”
“Let’s go now.”
Both of them looked ready to rush toward Peng Zhongge that very moment.
“I’m coming with you.”
I drew up a thread of my non-corrupted Inner Energy, testing it cautiously.
As the Antidote’s influence spread through me, the flow of Qi moved smoothly now, unlike just moments before.
“You’re coming?”
“If he demanded one person at a time, we’d have no choice… but since two of you were willing to concede, I should help as well.”
“…!”
Both of them opened their eyes wide at my words.
Myeongsung’s mouth fell open, his face suffused with gratitude.
Namgung Min quickly composed her startled expression, but it was clear she too was deeply thankful to me.
* * *
“What are you doing this for, Senior?”
“Silence! The weak have no right to possess anything!”
“Ahhhhh!”
As expected, the entire courtyard outside Chang Chuang Hall had descended into chaos.
The process of finding all the Antidotes for each team probably hadn’t been as arduous as ours.
But with not enough to go around, fighting was inevitable.
Had Meng Lingzhi grouped with a Wudang priest and a branch member of the Hebei Peng Clan?
If it was her, she’d have secured her share by any means necessary—but I felt a twinge of worry for So Un.
‘Well, they’re all students of the same academy now. Everyone must fend for themselves!’
Peng Zhongge stood exactly where we’d left him earlier.
He was watching with keen interest as the new students grappled fiercely with each other, unable even to draw upon their Inner Energy.
“Master Peng!”
“Ah? Student Myeongsung, Student Seol Suyeo. Did you enjoy your visit to Chang Chuang Hall?”
Peng Zhongge asked with a sly grin.
I doubted he’d bothered to memorize where he’d sent more than fifty students.
But the way he so gleefully invoked Chang Chuang Hall made it clear he’d deliberately singled us out to go there.
“Earlier, you said that if we defeat you in a fight, you’d give us the Antidote. Does that mean we must actually defeat you?”
At my question, Peng Zhongge broke into an impossibly bright smile.
“At last—the first challenger!”
Had he been waiting for this?
Until moments ago, he’d been lounging against the table watching the spectacle. Now he strode toward us.
“Tsk, spineless lot. Here we instructors are, brazenly holding up Antidotes—and yet not one of you tries to take them?”
Peng Zhongge called out to the students squabbling among themselves with drawn blades.
Then, as if to make his point, he pulled out his pouch, tossed it high, and caught it again.
“Though I’ll grant you—taking them from other students is certainly the wiser approach. Far easier than wrestling them from me.”
It would certainly be easier.
But I’d already consumed my Antidote, and I’d already set aside a spare.
I didn’t know who might grow strong enough to heal my Severed Meridian.
With so many to gather—ten, twenty at a time—there was no need to sow resentment among the students from the very first day of this initiation.
But challenging Peng Zhongge held nothing to lose, victory or defeat.
“I don’t wish to take the share of weaker friends. Please, teach us a lesson.”
Myeongsung spoke with the eloquence befitting a direct disciple of the Hwasan Sect’s patriarch.
“Hahahaha! Now that’s what a Cheonmu Academy student should be!”
Peng Zhongge burst into delighted laughter at the kind of straightforward words adults loved to hear.
“Excellent. All three of you can come at me at once if you like. Since you can’t use your Inner Energy, cutting off my garment seam will count as your victory. I won’t draw my blade.”
Really? Not just rob us, but offer such odds?
He even pulled three Antidotes from his pouch to show us.
I’d thought there’d be one per instructor, but he was giving us all three?
Though having to fight and win three separate times would’ve been excessive anyway.
“So the masters can obtain the Antidote as well, then.”
Namgung Min, who hadn’t been certain until we spoke, gripped her sword tightly.
The other students who had been disputing over the Antidote showed interest as well.
“If we sever the garment seam, you’ll give us all three Antidotes, yes?”
“That’s right!”
“Even if you draw your blade, we would still win?”
“Hahahaha! If you can manage it, then by all means try!”
I confirmed the exact conditions of the challenge and grinned widely.
That all three of us could rush him at once, that three Antidotes would be given—
It meant he believed that Namgung Min, Myeongsung, and I had all failed to pass through Chang Chuang Hall and were therefore challenging him.
Even if Mountain Void Poison had been ingested, the Inner Energy in one’s dantian didn’t vanish entirely—it simply became impossible to draw upon.
There was no way Peng Zhongge could have sensed that I had already detoxified myself.
“Come at me as many times as you wish.”
The moment Peng Zhongge declared the martial duel begun, Namgung Min lunged forward.
Unlike when she had moved cautiously, wary of a spear that might emerge from anywhere,
in this open space she unleashed a sword technique that was both grand and lightning-swift.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Her elegant blade carved through the air again and again, driving toward Peng Zhongge.
“The Canggong Wuya Sword Technique……!”
Someone cried out.
Had I been merely a spectator among the others, I would have been mesmerized by the sheer beauty of her swordplay,
but Myeongsung and I had no such luxury.
“Oh, quite skilled.”
Peng Zhongge simply leapt back, easily creating distance and evading Namgung Min’s strikes with casual ease,
“Hmm, as for footwork, Seol Suyeo’s is the finest, then?”
He parried both Myeongsung and myself with equal composure as we circled from the opposite direction, seeking an opening.
“Namgung Min, you’ve only recently mastered the Canggong Wuya Sword Technique, haven’t you? In a martial duel, you’d be better served using the Dae Yeon Sword Technique instead. And Myeongsung—you have remarkable talent, but your experience is lacking. You must attend my classes without fail.”
But all he did was talk.
Peng Zhongge droned on, criticizing how Namgung Min’s techniques lacked precision, how Myeongsung failed to grasp the subtleties of the Illusory Sword at all.
“Is it the Snow Mirror? Your father’s footwork is entirely different?”
“It is called the Seol Feng Step Method.”
I closed the distance in one explosive burst
and drove my blade upward with all my strength.
“Oops.”
Though not as dazzling as Myeongsung’s technique, it was intricate in its own way.
Peng Zhongge simply raised his arm, wreathed in Inner Energy, and deflected it effortlessly.
‘So this is what a martial instructor truly is.’
An overwhelming gap.
It felt like the same wall I encountered when facing my father.
Whoosh!
I lowered my stance and swung my blade toward his legs.
His sleeves were defended like iron—a feint aimed at the garment seam below.
“Ha! Ha! Quite skilled, quite skilled indeed!”
Peng Zhongge evaded lightly, as if thoroughly enjoying himself, and moved behind me,
twirling the pouch of Antidotes on his fingertips as he approached.
It would have been perfect if one of the other two had pressed in during this moment, but the three of us understood one another’s swordplay far too little.
“Ah…… it seems we truly stand no chance…….”
“Miss Seol is formidable too…….”
The watching students sighed with disappointment,
and Peng Zhongge, unguarded, approached me again, inviting me to attack once more.
“……!”
In an unforeseen instant, an opening appeared.
One step, just one more step.
The moment Peng Zhongge, confident that he had utterly overwhelmed us, allowed me to close the distance,
I drew upon my Inner Energy to its maximum—excluding only the Hidden Cold Qi.
White Snow Falling Soul.
Sword light scatters across empty space like falling snow.
The sudden flurry of relentless thrusts shattered Peng Zhongge’s composure for a split second.
“Wh—what!”
As expected, he had never anticipated that I would use my Inner Energy.
A strange exhilaration rippled through me—I’d actually landed a blow on the Martial Master.
Of course, Peng Zhongge had deflected every technique I’d thrown at him directly.
But where our blades had grazed, his sleeve tore cleanly in two.
“I tore his garment!”
“What? You could use Inner Energy?”
“That’s the Icy White Divine Force……!”
It wasn’t the Icy White Divine Force, but there was no need to correct them.
I seized the torn fabric in one hand.
Then I stopped where I stood and held it out to Peng Zhongge.
“We won, didn’t we?”
Surviving as the Doomed Young Mistress of the Northern Sea Ice Palace (Serial)
Author │ Sah-hyang Noru
Publisher │ Kim Ju-hyung
Published by │ J Plus Media Co., Ltd.
Marketing │ Han Jae-hyuk
Address │ 401, 11 Digital-ro 33-gil, Guro-gu, Seoul (Guro-dong, Ace Techno Tower 8th)
Email │ [email protected]
Website │ www.jayplemedia.com
ⓒ Sah-hyang Noru 2026
※This work is published by J Plus Media Co., Ltd. under contract with the copyright holder, and the contents may not be used in any form or by any means without the permission of the company and author.
Violation of this may result in criminal and civil legal liability.

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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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