The Blue Dragon Clan’s Very Suspicious Little Chick - Chapter 9

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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 9

When she turned around, a jet-black snake was poking its head out from the undergrowth.
Aran started to cry out in alarm—”Shriek!”—but the black snake calmly opened its mouth and dropped the Leaf it had been carrying.
Then, lowering itself with deliberate ease, it slipped back into the bushes as though nothing had happened.
Aran stared down at the Leaf the snake had left behind, pressing a hand to her racing heart.
Fortunately, the twins were stationed some distance away, and the servants seemed to have noticed nothing amiss.
A Leaf left by a snake.
It was a leaf covered in insect damage, but the problem was…….
The holes gnawed into it had formed characters—strange, deliberate characters.

太澳

Tae-o.
Oddly enough, it was not an unfamiliar name.

***

“Chirp?”
(Sister, what’s that?)
Aran was lost in her own thoughts when Yeon’s innocent question jolted her back to awareness.
Somehow the chick had wandered close.
In her panic, Aran pinned the troublesome Leaf beneath one claw and shredded it to pieces with the other.
Yeon flinched, her shoulders drawn up in alarm.
“Chirp!”
(Sister! Why did you do that all of a sudden?)
“Peep…….”
(Just a moment……)
Still uneasy, Aran stuffed the largest fragment—the one with the most characters—into her small beak and swallowed it.
It was perhaps an overreaction, considering that the twins could not yet read.
Then Yeon’s expression grew strange.
“Coo…….”
(You don’t mean……)
Ugh, what kind of leaf was that anyway?
Surely not poisonous?
Aran was casting about for an excuse as the leaf’s sharp, peppery taste made her tongue recoil.
Yeon, precociously clever for a chick, had arrived at a remarkable conclusion.
“Coo-coo.”
(Oh, I get it now. Sister, you’re a vegetarian bird. That’s why you can’t eat those tasty crickets……)
“Peep?”
(What? There’s no way crickets taste good!)
The hypothesis was intriguing, but patently wrong. A Vermilion Bird was no vegetarian.
Besides, Aran’s mind was too tangled to spare the little one any proper attention.
She shredded the remaining fragments with her claws, and her thoughts drifted back to that day.
That day when she had flown through a burning world and heard the voice of the Divine.
In fact, on that day when she had been promised a second chance by the Divine, Aran had heard a voice once more in the darkness.

In exchange, watch over Tae-o of the Hyeonmu Clan.

And yet she had completely forgotten about it until now.
Perhaps, since her consciousness had already been fading, she had secretly hoped it was just a phantom whisper.
At that moment, after all, Aran had believed she was about to ascend.
So was the Hyeonmu Divine Being now reminding her of that promise by sending a snake with a Leaf-letter?
No, wait…….
Was there truly a shapeshifter named Tae-o in the Hyeonmu Clan?
Hyeon Tae-o.
In her past life, as far as Aran could recall, no such name existed. Just like Cheong-yeon…….
The thought made her shudder—what if these people, whose names she could not remember, were fated to die young in this life?
No, she can’t be like this—not my kind Yeon.
Yeon, don’t worry.
I will protect you. I’ll let you live a hundred years.
And with those words, the voice of the Hyeonmu Divine Being echoed through her mind more vividly than before.

—In return, look after Tae-o of the Hyeonmu Clan.

“Squawk!”
(Wait—this old fool!)
Aran let out a sharp cry of exasperation.
He’d sent her back to the Eastern Land, and now he expected her to look after Tae-o at the Hyeonmu Clan? How was that supposed to work?
If anything, he should have sent her to Hyeonmu Palace instead…….
But no—had she gone to the frozen Hyeonmu Palace, she would have frozen to death on the spot.
They were known throughout the world for their ruthless practice of Survival of the Fittest; they wouldn’t have lifted a finger to help her hatch.
Tae-o…….
Aran pondered the name.
Who exactly was Tae-o? Was he even born yet?

***

In the same moment, in the north—Hyeonmu Palace.
As Clan Lord Hyeon Ui-cheon rose from his seat, his trusted strategist Han Si-baek posed a question.
“Will you be going to Amcheon, my lord?”
“Yes. I can’t contain my curiosity any longer.”
Amcheon was a vast incubation chamber deep beneath Hyeonmu Palace.
And at this very moment, countless snakes and turtles were converging there.
Slither, slither…….
The sound of creatures crawling over cold stone echoed through the passage.
“I already have several sons, and at my age, I’d resigned myself to no more. But here we are.”
A Hyeonmu Shapeshifter experiences breeding season only twice in their lifetime.
Yet this year, miraculously, a third breeding season had come to the clan lord and his consort—as sudden and precious as a gift. Their youngest was about to be born.
And given the portents surrounding his hatching, there was every reason for hope.
The two men made their way through the northern gardens, their mood buoyed by keen anticipation.
Beyond a small pavilion and stone pagoda in the quiet garden, a low staircase appeared, its entrance shrouded by overgrown vegetation.
None but the egg-bearing female in breeding season could descend these steps.
For beneath them lay the sacred grotto of hot springs—Amcheon itself.
A newborn Hyeonmu had to climb those stairs alone, by its own strength.
That was the First Law of Hyeonmu Palace.
As the two men finally reached the stairhead, they both stood frozen, their mouths hanging open.
“……How is this possible?”
Han Si-baek, a strategist who had weathered every hardship Hyeonmu Palace could throw at him, gasped in astonishment.
Countless snakes and turtles were bowing their heads toward the steaming Amcheon below, their bodies trembling as though waiting for someone.
Hyeon Ui-cheon peered down the shadowed stairs.
There, he waited anxiously to see his own young blood struggling and clawing its way up.
How long they stood there, neither could say.
Swish—click.
From below came a sound, faint but distinctly different from the gait of a Hyeonmu.
Swish—clack.
The two men stood transfixed, unable to exchange a single word.
They could only wait with a growing sense of disbelief as the presence drew nearer.
Click.
Small, damp, yet undeniably determined—the footsteps continued for some time.
At last, the source of that sound entered their view.
……A child.
Not a Hyeonmu—a child.
And with bare hands, this small creature was grimly crawling up the stone steps.
“My lord, what exactly am I looking at?”
Han Si-baek’s voice trembled with disbelief.
No one could descend below this point. Only something born in Amcheon could ascend these steps.
Then how had this child already taken on a human form in that lightless, barren depths?
Hyeon Ui-cheon did not answer.
Instead, he knelt on one knee, waiting for the new family member to complete their arduous journey.
Then he reached out trembling hands toward the child who had climbed the final step.
“Come here, little one.”
The moment the child looked up at him warily, Hyeon Ui-cheon’s heart pounded violently.
One of the child’s eyes was a brilliant shade of green.
“Green Eyes……!”
The child had pale, bloodless skin and jet-black hair, yet one eye gleamed more luminously than jade itself, a vivid emerald.
The eyes of a direct-line Hyeonmu Shapeshifter turn green when channeling their Supernatural Ability.
But this child had been born with Green Eyes from the start.
Was it thanks to these eyes that the animal had already been drawn to them?
The child looked quietly about with a mismatched pair of eyes.
“You’ve endured so much, my son.”
Hyeon Ui-cheon spoke, his voice thick with emotion.
He slipped his hands beneath the child’s arms and lifted the pale, cold little body as white as snow.
The child, beautiful as a painting, neither cried nor blinked. Only small, reddened lips parted, and the first sound emerged.
“Ah.”
It was a faint, fumbling sound.
With two men standing before him, eyes wide with astonishment, something even more remarkable occurred.
“Ah.” As if that single syllable had been all the practice needed, the child began to speak.
“I……eyes.”
The pronunciation was halting, but perfectly intelligible.
“Tae-o, yes.”
Hyeon Ui-cheon’s eyes filled with tears.
Hyeon Tae-o was the personal name of the first Hyeonmu Clan patriarch.
Ui-cheon swiftly wrapped the bare child in his arms and covered him with garments.
“Thank you for coming to this land, Tae-o. I am your father.”
He was honored to have met his son.
And so he began to announce loudly across the continent the birth of a new Hyeonmu.
Hyeon Tae-o was.
The Second Coming of the Divine.
The Blue Dragon Clan’s Peculiar Little One — Chapter 9
E-book Publication Date | 2026.08.05

Author | Raviolli
Publisher | Oddeye
Submissions / Inquiries | [email protected]

UCI | G720:N+A101-20260722065.0009
List Price | 100 won

© Raviolli 2026

This e-book is protected under copyright law.
This e-book is published by agreement with the author and may not be reproduced, distributed, or shared without the written consent of both parties.

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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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