The Dragon Family’s Beloved Baby Cat - Chapter 68

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 68

Moa’s face instantly contorted.

Rin watched Moa’s fingertips with eyes full of anticipation.

Finally, she could carry out the task the Emperor had entrusted to her.

This was the moment to verify the truth of whether she could perform the miracle of breaking curses or not.

“Ugh…”

Moa pouted her lips and let out a scream-like sound.

“Uwaaah! It’s gross!”

It was an unexpected reaction.

Moa roughly shook off Rin’s hand and stepped back.

“The bird is bleeding! Uwaaah! It’s scary! Take it away! Dad, Dad!”

Moa covered her eyes with both hands and burst into tears while stamping her feet.

Rin’s expression was colored with bewilderment.

She had expected Moa to heal the bird, or at least pet it pitifully.

Instead, she had shown disgust and childishly stamped her feet while running away.

“Huh? N-no, Moa. It’s not scary. Just touch it…”

“I don’t want to! It’s gross! It smells like blood! Uwaaah! I want to see Dad!”

Moa buried her face in Rin’s skirt and rubbed her snot and tears all over it.

Just like when she had confidently said “I am a baby, aren’t I?” earlier, this was a thoroughly immature reaction befitting a five-year-old.

“Oh my, Young Miss Jin…”

“Lady Rin, what should we do? She seems so frightened…”

The surrounding girls were also flustered and didn’t know what to do.

As Moa’s crying grew louder, the sound of servants waiting outside murmuring could be heard.

If she forced it any further, Jin Saheon might come barging in.

Rin bit her lips.

‘It’s a failure.’

It seemed the Emperor had exaggerated his concerns.

Far from having special abilities, she was just an ordinary little kid who was terrified at the sight of blood.

Rin instantly changed her expression and put on the mask of a kind older sister again.

She gestured to the maid who was fidgeting at the entrance.

The maid snatched up the birdcage and hurriedly disappeared.

“There, there, was our Moa scared? I’m sorry, big sister made a mistake.”

Rin patted Moa’s back.

‘Hmph.’

Moa deliberately rubbed more snot on Rin’s skirt and felt relieved.

‘Phew, I fooled her. Whining really is the best.’

Just mimicking the children at the orphanage who cried and threw tantrums every day was enough to make adults frantically try to soothe her.

By imitating that, it seemed Rin had finally given up on the test.

It was successful, except that the uplifting fragrance made it a bit difficult to burst into tears.

‘Sorry, little bird.’

Moa silently apologized as she thought of the blue bird that had been dying weakly.

She hadn’t cried because she really thought it was scary and disgusting.

But it was also true that unless it was a spirit creature, Moa couldn’t heal that bird.

Moa’s ability only worked on spirit creatures and the imperial family.

‘I want to go home quickly.’

Despite the fragrant flower garden and all the kind older sisters, she felt uncomfortable.

Moa wanted to quickly escape this place and play with her brothers in the safety of home.

That’s when it happened.

Slither.

From inside Rin’s wide sleeve, something crawled out with difficulty.

It was a small white snake.

Rin’s contracted spirit creature, Baeksa (White Snake).

“…Baeksa?”

Rin was flustered.

Her spirit creature suffered from congenital ‘cold blood syndrome’ and always hid in Rin’s embrace, shivering from the cold.

Rin also suffered from the cold blood syndrome characteristic of the Saryeom House clan, so it had to coil around the relatively warm back of her neck.

That’s why Rin only wore clothing that covered her neck high all year round.

‘It’s a child that never shows itself in front of strangers…’

Yet that Baeksa was staggering and stretching its head toward Moa.

-Hissss…

Baeksa instinctively felt it.

The sun-like warmth emanating from Moa.

The only heat that could melt its body that was cold enough to die.

It was an innate energy that came from possessing a large amount of divine power.

Swoosh.

Baeksa crawled down Rin’s arm and tried to coil around Moa’s wrist.

“Aaaaah! It’s, it’s a snake!”

Moa screamed in terror and flailed her arms.

This time it wasn’t an act. She was genuinely startled by the snake that suddenly appeared.

“Save me! The snake will bite me! Uwaaah!”

Moa screamed and struggled to shake off the snake.

But in that brief moment.

Moa’s palm tightly grasped Baeksa’s cold body.

Tingle-

From Moa’s panicked hand, a very minute amount of divine power flowed into the snake regardless of her will.

It was the moment when hot blood flowed through the snake’s frozen blood vessels.

-Shuuu…

Baeksa, who had always writhed in pain, exhaled comfortably for the first time and relaxed its body under Moa’s touch.

Rin gasped at the sight.

“…Baeksa?”

What had Moa done?

However, from the outside, it only looked peculiar that the spirit creature was following Moa well.

‘To verify further…’

Just as Rin was racking her brain about what to do.

Bang-!

With a thunderous crash of the heavy door separating the inner and outer residences being smashed, noisy sounds approached from afar.

“Moa!”

It was Jin Saheon.

He had rushed over after hearing about Moa’s situation from the secret guards.

A fierce blue light was emanating from his eyes.

“Dad!”

Moa threw Baeksa onto Rin’s lap as if discarding it and ran to embrace Jin Saheon.

“A snake, a snake appeared! It was scary!”

She had thought she would escape according to the original plan if strange situations continued, but Dad had come first.

Moa buried her face in Jin Saheon’s shoulder.

Only then did her tension melt away.

“What? How dare you release a snake on my daughter?!”

Jin Saheon glared at Rin as if he would kill her.

The surrounding air froze coldly, and it seemed as if a tremendous killing intent was pressing down on the entire space.

Rin couldn’t even breathe properly as she hurriedly hid Baeksa in her sleeve and bowed her head.

“It’s, it’s a misunderstanding, Master Jin. My spirit beast made a mistake…”

“A spirit beast wouldn’t threaten a child without its master’s orders!”

Jin Saheon turned around roughly while holding Moa, as if he had no intention of listening to Rin’s excuses.

“Let’s go, Moa. There’s no need to stay here any longer.”

“Mm-hmm…”

Moa buried her face in her father’s shoulder, feeling relieved.

The servants of Saryeom House, overwhelmed by Jin Saheon’s fierce momentum, didn’t dare block his path and cleared the way.

The rear garden after the chaotic commotion had swept through.

The girls fled in terror, leaving only the broken door and Rin standing alone.

“…Ha.”

Rin swept back her disheveled hair and let out a sigh.

She hadn’t expected the head of Jinryong Clan to be so anxious about his daughter.

‘Why did the head of the family even come here in the first place!’

To think he would visit another family just to escort his daughter to a tea party and wait for her.

While it seemed pathetic, somehow she also felt envious.

“Things got complicated…”

She had nothing to report to the Emperor.

After all, on the surface, she was just a cowardly little girl.

“Baeksa, are you okay? You must have been startled.”

Rin took out Baeksa, who had returned to her embrace.

The snake should have been trembling like before.

But.

“Huh…?”

Rin’s eyes widened.

Baeksa was calm.

No, more than calm – the snake was rubbing its body very comfortably against Rin’s palm.

“Baeksa?”

Rin stroked the snake’s body as if entranced.

Everything touched by Saryeom House should have turned cold.

But the snake’s body, specifically the part that Moa’s hand had touched, felt different.

“…Warm?”

She felt an unusually cozy warmth.

Like embracing a furnace, she could feel heat from deep within her blood vessels.

It was real warmth full of vitality, something she could never obtain from the addictive painkillers the Emperor gave her.

Rin grasped her own wrist.

Even with just the faint warmth transmitted from the snake, she felt as if the bone-deep cold that had tormented her all her life was disappearing.

‘It’s a miracle.’

Rin’s narrowly slanted eyes followed the direction where Moa had disappeared.

Her gaze held greed.

‘That child…’

Rin licked her lips while carefully embracing Baeksa.

‘I need her.’

***

Late at night, at the Imperial Palace.

Rin was lying flat on the floor of the audience hall where candlelight flickered.

The cold that penetrated to her bones made her body freeze.

It was past time to take her medicine.

Her body trembled like an aspen leaf, but the Emperor only maintained his silence.

“…So.”

The Emperor’s dry voice came from the darkness.

“What did you find out?”

Rin swallowed her dry saliva.

Should she tell the truth?

That the snake the child touched became warm? That the child was a walking sun?

But as she hesitated for a moment, before she could even open her mouth, the Emperor’s mockery poured out first.

“Nothing, I suppose.”

The Emperor rose from his throne and slowly walked down.

The sound of his leather shoes hitting the floor pressed down on Rin’s heart.

“I received a report that Jin Saheon flew into a rage and took her away. You couldn’t even handle a mere five-year-old girl and made such a mess of things?”

“Your, Your Majesty. That’s not…”

“No excuses needed.”

The Emperor stopped in front of Rin.

He lifted Rin’s chin with the tip of his foot.

Contrary to the eunuch’s words about her being a girl the Emperor cherished, this wasn’t how one treated a person.

It was like kicking a stray dog, beast, or trash on the street.

“There’s only one reason I keep you lot by my side. Because you’re damp, cunning, and good at biting others’ weaknesses.”

The Emperor’s cold eyes looked down at Rin.

“But if your teeth are dull, what use are you?”

“…I’m sorry.”

Rin bit the inside of her cheek.

“Pathetic. You should at least earn your keep.”

The Emperor took out a red medicine bottle from his robes.

It was a pill called Hwadan, the only medicine that could suppress the pain of the hereditary disease of Saryeom House, cold blood syndrome.

Rin’s eyes desperately followed the medicine bottle.

Even now, her frozen blood was circulating through her entire body, causing stabbing pain.

The Emperor chuckled and opened the medicine bottle cap, dropping one pill onto the floor.

The red pill rolled and fell on the floor.

“Eat it.”

“…”

“What? Is your pride hurt? It’s natural for a dog to beg its master for food.”

Then the Emperor crushed the pill with his shoe still on.

Rin bit her lips until they bled.

It was humiliating. But the pain of her heart feeling like it would freeze was greater.

Rin crawled in front of the Emperor with her trembling body and scraped up the crushed medicine from the floor to swallow it.

The warm energy went down her esophagus.

“Get out. Next time, bring results. Otherwise, there will be no medicine.”

The Emperor dismissed Rin like she was a bug and turned away.

Rin staggered out of the audience hall.

‘The Emperor doesn’t know.’

A sinister light gleamed in Rin’s eyes as she walked through the cold corridor.

If the Emperor had known about Moa’s ability, he would have discarded them and monopolized that child.

‘I won’t report it.’

To the Emperor, Moa might be a tool, but to the Saryeom clan, Moa was the hope of life.

Rin roughly wiped away the red pill powder from her lips.

A master can abandon a dog, but a dog can also bite its master.

‘That child… I will have her.’

Rin’s eyes gleamed ruthlessly.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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