Surviving as the Terminally Ill Young Lady of the North Sea Ice Palace - Chapter 69

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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 69
“You’re planning to wear that?”
Gu Won’s eyes widened at the sight of my Veiled Hat.
He seemed puzzled as to why I’d brought it along.
Unlike last time, when I’d slipped out of the Academy in secret and had to be cautious about everything, this time I’d left with proper authorization for Near-Walking, so there was no real need for disguise.
“Yeah. Truth is, there’s a martial technique I’d rather keep from the Academy knowing about. I don’t want to stir up unnecessary trouble with Nocklim either.”
“Bing Gong? Ah, right. If you use Bing Gong without killing everyone and leaving no traces, word’s bound to spread no matter what.”
But that’s a completely different situation.
I was choosing how to explain when Gu Won figured it out himself.
“Oh, you mean that sandstorm you used to bring down Huk Ryeong Geom back then? That technique?”
“Precisely—it’s called the Red Dust Technique.”
Well, if it’s Gu Won, there shouldn’t be much harm in telling him.
If someone like Gwak Do Cheon found out, he’d grill me endlessly about whether it was an evil technique or where I’d learned such a method.
But Gu Won didn’t seem like the type to blab other people’s secrets around.
“Want me to show you?”
“……!”
The moment he heard that, he nodded eagerly, his eyes bright with anticipation.
Hmm, we should be far enough from the Village by now.
Gu Won and I, who had been heading toward the mountain estate, paused in an open clearing where trees were sparse.
Whoooosh!
As I drew out my Mixed Yang Qi and scattered the initial form of the Red Dust Turbid Yang Gong into the empty air, dust came pouring down.
Ah, so that’s why witnesses thought it was a sandstorm.
“Whoa…….”
Gu Won, watching from close by, raised his arm to shield his eyes and took several steps backward.
“So you brought down Huk Ryeong Geom with this?”
“More or less.”
“So that’s where the epithet ‘Blood Death Old Woman’ came from.”
It seemed Gu Won knew that name too.
I hadn’t told him the specific details of how I’d brought Huk Ryeong Geom down, though.
The sight of the Mixed Yang Qi exploding and dust rising was convincing enough as a martial technique.
“It looks pretty heterodox, right? I haven’t perfected it yet, so I’m keeping it secret until I master it fully. Don’t mention it to anyone at the Academy.”
“Oh, so it’s not an Ice Palace technique?”
“I happened to find it in the Stone Cave, so I’m worried they might ask me to set it aside for research instead of practicing it.”
“Oh…… So the rumors about secret manuals and rare medicines coming from the Stone Cave were true after all.”
I shrugged.
It seemed that Gu Won’s senior mentor had told him something about the Stone Cave.
“You’ll keep this secret, right?”
“Of course. Anyway, your technique is really unusual. It’s the first time I’ve seen a method like this.”
Gu Won stroked his chin in admiration.
For someone who wasn’t even a hall master, it was the kind of comment an old sage who’d witnessed every martial technique in the world might make.
“Isn’t your swordsmanship more unusual than that?”
Of course, the Red Dust Turbid Yang Gong was unusual in how it employed turbid energy and grew more destructive with successive attacks.
But the forms themselves weren’t particularly special.
Gu Won’s swordsmanship, on the other hand, was plainly different from ordinary sword techniques at first glance.
Even Baek Ung Dae Ju said he didn’t know where the technique came from.
Whoosh!
As we resumed walking, I quietly observed Gu Won’s Light Body Art as well.
Not quite as distinctive as his swordsmanship, but his footwork seemed a bit odd too.
“Haha, I must’ve picked up a lot of bad habits from learning martial arts first from a Heterodox Sect warrior before coming to the Academy.”
I slowed my pace slightly.
“Heterodox Sect martial arts?”
He’d claimed he was just an ordinary server before joining the Academy.
Of course, I’d never entirely believed that, but this was quite a revelation.
“Well…… I suppose you could say it’s a mixture of things now? I’m pretty sure the very first technique I learned was Heterodox Sect martial art. The person who taught me never told me his name to the end, but looking back, there’s no doubt about it.”
“Wow, you learned from a recluse eccentric master?”
“I’m not sure about recluse, but he was definitely an eccentric master.”
“You did work as a server at an Inn before, right? Did he happen to notice you while you were working?”
Wow, this guy is crazy.
He’s more like a novel protagonist than Eun Hyun is.
“I was still a server right up until I joined the Academy. I’m not even sure if I should call him a master. Anyway, when I first met him, I was naturally a server. I was working at a big Inn back then, so there were quite a few of us servers, but he stared intently at each one of us in turn, then suddenly declared he’d take me as his disciple.”
Gu Won chuckled softly and continued.
“I was foolish enough to think he was offering to teach me cooking, so I said I’d work hard at it. But it turned out to be martial techniques. I thought I’d learn the craft, become a skilled craftsman, save up more money, and open an inn of my own. Somehow I ended up learning nothing but strange martial arts instead.”
Even his old dream for the future had a protagonist’s ring to it.
Opening my own establishment had been a lifelong ambition.
Beginning with a peculiar twist of fate, I’d picked up martial techniques, and they grew so strong that the world wouldn’t leave me alone—something like that.
I still had to hide my martial skills, didn’t I?
“So Un mentioned you threw a Flying Blade.”
“Yeah. Actually, Hidden Projectiles are more convenient. But—that’s a secret, okay?”
“Don’t worry. I’m good at keeping quiet.”
For having revealed so little about the Red Dust Turbid Yang Gong, I’d certainly heard a major secret in return.
I looked Gu Won straight in the eye with deliberately solemn expression and spoke.
Gu Won nodded readily with a bright smile.
“I never thought I’d be telling you something like this. Hae Sa No Gu—there’s something about you that makes me feel a kinship.”
“Kinship?”
“Secrets aside… your reason for joining the Academy isn’t the obvious one, is it?”
How did she know?
Not that I could deny it—I’d been perhaps excessively fixated on my personal objective.
The rushed schedule I’d set, promising to visit No Gun Mountain and return within days, was proof enough.
Now that she mentioned it, with just a moment’s reflection, it wasn’t difficult to suspect that Gu Won had other purposes too.
A typical student wouldn’t have spent their first days exploring every corner of the Academy, mapping out where Qi Mechanism Formations were installed and pinpointing the locations of hidden passages.
When I thought about it, having separate objectives, hiding martial ability, and keeping secrets—we had quite a few things in common.
“That’s true.”
I admitted it readily.
Gu Won hadn’t revealed her true purpose to me.
And since I couldn’t reveal mine either, it felt more comfortable not to ask about it further.
I’d thought of her as a sly, impenetrable creature.
But now that we’d exchanged secrets, even carefully guarded ones, a sudden warmth of intimacy bloomed between us.
* * *
“We’re almost there. We just need to get around that plank path.”
Even as we talked, Gu Won and I ran hard.
Shortly after, we arrived nearly at the location where Huk U Chae was supposedly constructing a fortress.
Since both of us were skilled in Light Body Art, it hadn’t taken nearly as long as it would have for an ordinary person to cover the nearly hour’s walk from the village.
According to the villagers, there was an Abandoned Guide Hall in this area, and now I understood why it had been abandoned.
“These bandits really picked terrain that looks like a proper fortress, didn’t they?”
From where we’d stopped, we couldn’t see the bandits’ lair directly.
A narrow cliff path, barely wide enough for two people to pass, curved around a ridge—and beyond it, presumably, lay a reasonably open expanse.
“That’s strange though… do bandits usually know terrain so well?”
“There must be a stoneworker and a carpenter among them. Look—doesn’t this look recently repaired?”
I pointed to the floor of the plank path.
Among the wooden posts and planks fastened to the cliff face, there were signs of fresh reinforcement.
Whether they were Huk U Chae’s bandits or villagers who’d been dragged away—
if such skilled craftsmen were among them, they’d surely be capable of repairing bridges leading to No Gun Mountain as well.
“Right.”
Gu Won agreed with me.
I suggested that since there might be a skilled craftsperson among the bandits, we shouldn’t break their arms.
Gu Won chuckled at my unusually thoughtful consideration but nodded in agreement.
Though come to think of it, in novels scholars sometimes ended up captured by bandits in Nocklim, don’t they?
And they could end up joining them afterward.
“Let’s cross this plank path quietly. I’m not particularly comfortable fighting on a cliff edge either.”
I felt the same, so I nodded.
I pulled the Veiled Hat I’d been wearing down fully over my head.
Gu Won drew a black mask from her bundle and tied it over her face.
“…?”
She’d wondered earlier why I’d brought the hat, but now she was adding a mask—and more?
She grinned and pulled out a Long Robe, draping it over herself before offering another to me.
“I brought these just in case we needed to slip into Tae Cheong Hall undetected. If you’re going to operate as Hae Sa No Gu, I figured I should look the part of a Heterodox Sect wandering swordsman.”
This girl was absolutely absurd!
There were too many points to object to.
The fact that she’d hatched the same plan about sneaking into Tae Cheong Hall was outlandish enough.
But calling it “operating as Hae Sa No Gu” and pairing it with “Heterodox Sect wandering swordsman” seemed equally peculiar.
“Yes, that’s a good idea.”
But now wasn’t the time to take issue with Gu Won.
I simply stared at him for about five seconds with an incredulous expression.
Then I followed him as he stepped onto the Plank Path first.
Surviving as the Buk Hae Ice Palace’s Terminally Ill Daughter (Serialized)
Author │ Sah Hyang No Ru
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 No Ru 2026
※This work is published by J Plus Media Co., Ltd. under contract with the copyright holder, and the content may not be used in any form or by any means without permission from the publisher 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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