The Former Empress Roughly Hides Her Abilities - Chapter 487

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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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Yeo Joo Saves the World
Part 3, Episode 91

“……Sa Ma Young?”
“Yeah, it’s me, Yeo Joo.”
“……Really?”
“I’m really Sa Ma Young. There’s no way two people could have looks like these.”
He swept his wet black hair back with a cocky grin.
“The way you’re talking nonsense confirms it’s you, Sa Ma Young.”
“Nonsense? You fell for these looks too, Yeo Joo.”
He leaned in with a smirk, his face dewy and smooth.
As though nothing had happened at the Gimpo Gate.
“What’s wrong? Did something happen outside…….”
When I said nothing and only stared at him, Sa Ma Young asked.
Well, tried to ask.
But the moment my hand cupped his cheek, he fell silent.
“It’s……all healed.”
The skin beneath my palm was cool and damp.
Not charred black with exposed bone and shriveled flesh.
When Sa Ma Young smiled softly at my murmur, I felt the muscles beneath his skin flex slightly.
“So it’s all better now. You’re Yeo Joo—want to check more thoroughly?”
“No, I’m fine…….”
He took my hand and guided it downward.
I startled and tried to pull back, but I couldn’t.
Over his jaw, down his neck, slipping between the edges of his gown.
Because the skin beneath my fingertips was impossibly soft.
And completely unmarred.
“Does it hurt?”
Sa Ma Young squinted one eye and laughed at my question.
“In a different way, yeah. It feels too good.”
“No—you were in real pain. The director had to sedate you forcibly, it was severe.”
“I remember bits of it.”
“……You’d be better off forgetting.”
What good would remembering do.
“Can’t do that. You were getting teary worrying about me—I’m not letting that slip away.”
“I wasn’t crying!”
When Sa Ma Young was awake, anyway.
Sa Ma Young laughed wickedly, as though he knew exactly what I’d swallowed back.
“They say kids are prettiest when they’re asleep. Now that you’re up, you’re just insufferable.”
“Yeah, I know. That you like me, Yeo Joo.”
“Ugh, if only you’d stay quiet! Never mind—aren’t you hungry? I could run downstairs and grab something……wait, come here.”
I grabbed Sa Ma Young’s face with both hands and pulled him close.
“When you come at me like that, my heart races.”
“What are you talking about. Wait, relax your neck a little!”
“If I relax my neck, how am I supposed to kiss you.”
“Kiss? Don’t be absurd!”
Despite my struggle, I couldn’t match the strength of an SS-rank combat hunter.
Only after Sa Ma Young cooperated could I confirm my suspicion was right.
“There’s still a burn here!”
On the back of his neck—barely visible from the front—a fist-sized patch of raw, angry skin was exposed.
This was a second-degree burn.
While I recoiled in shock, Sa Ma Young spoke in an indifferent tone.
“Yeah? It stung a little when I was washing with hot water earlier.”
“A little? There’s no way it was just—hot water?!”
Now that he mentioned it, when Sa Ma Young came out of the bathroom earlier, a wave of hot steam had billowed out.
“Are you insane?!”
Hot water on a burn patient!
I wanted to hit him across the back for it, but Sa Ma Young was still a patient.
“The director would never have given permission if she saw this.”
“Permission?”
Sa Ma Young tilted his head in confusion.
And in that moment, my heart sank.
No.
“The director doesn’t know I woke up yet, does she?”
“Then the bandages and the burn treatment patches……?”
“I took them off. Pulled out the IV too so I could shower. I couldn’t stand the discomfort.”
Sa Ma Young had woken after I’d left, hadn’t called the nurse, hadn’t consulted the medical staff—and simply removed all his treatment materials because they bothered him before taking a shower.
Facing him now, casually toweling off his wet hair as if it were someone else’s problem entirely, I finally lost it.
“Sa Ma Young!”

* * *

Kang Han stepped into the elevator of the Awakened Healer Hospital.
He’d just received word that Sa Ma Young had woken.
“…….”
His reflection flickered in the elevator doors as they began their slow ascent.
Watching that hazy image, Kang Han considered why he’d come here at all.
‘Will I find an answer?’
He intended to ask Sa Ma Young something.
About what happened inside the Gimpo Gate.
Or rather—what had been going through Sa Ma Young’s mind at the time.
The flow of that decision to fight only for Yeo Joo, without hesitation, unlike himself who had faltered.
So he wanted to ask.
How he’d managed to charge forward so unflinchingly in that moment.
Whether, truly, everyone else meant nothing to Sa Ma Young besides Yeo Joo.
Knock, knock.
The moment Kang Han opened the hospital room door after knocking, he sensed something was amiss.
“Oh? Guild master, you’re here?”
Yeo Joo turned and greeted him warmly.
She was neatly folding what were clearly Sa Ma Young’s hospital clothes.
“Yeo Joo.”
“Yes?”
“Where is Sa Ma Young?”
It was a first.
Being curious about Sa Ma Young’s whereabouts.
Yeo Joo widened her eyes and laughed, as if asking ‘Why are you suddenly asking about Sa Ma Young?’
Then she answered his question.
“Sa Ma Young left.”
“Left……?”
The medical staff had clearly said Sa Ma Young had woken in good recovery condition.
Seeing his bewilderment, Yeo Joo hurriedly explained.
“Not like that. He went back to where he belongs.”
“Back to where he belongs?”
“The Sama Guild.”
Speaking in a slightly wistful voice, she began transferring her belongings into a large shopping bag bearing the Awakened Healer Hospital logo.
Items Kang Han had brought during his visits and things that had gradually accumulated during her stay here.
Kang Han, who’d been standing in the doorway, began helping her pack.
“Thank you, Guild master.”
Having come to visit and unexpectedly ended up helping with packing, Kang Han studied Yeo Joo’s expression carefully.
“Why did you collect so much stuff?”
As she grumbled and pulled out another shopping bag, she seemed fine.
“Wow, you really are as sharp as ever, Guild master. Look at how neatly you folded it!”
If anything, she seemed almost relieved.
“Are you alright, Yeo Joo?”
“What do you mean?”
“Sa Ma Young left the Justice Guild.”
“Right, he did. I should have consulted with you first. An SS-rank hunter and all those A-rank hunters who follow Sa Ma Young leaving at once—that’s a significant loss of power.”
“No, that’s not what I meant. Sa Ma Young only joined the Justice Guild because of you in the first place. What I’m asking is whether you’re truly alright with this.”
Kang Han cursed himself for his lack of eloquence.
If only he could comfort her as delicately and warmly as Sa Ma Young could.
“I’m fine, really. I never expected Sa Ma Young and the Sama Guild hunters to stay at the Justice Guild forever anyway.”
“So you had already discussed this with Sa Ma Young?”
“To some extent. Sa Ma Young has things he needs to do. With Sa Ma Jung dead, he’ll want to claim the Sama Group as his own now.”
Kang Han simply nodded and finished organizing her clothes.
To hide the confusion in his mind.
‘He threw himself into danger without hesitation, yet now he’s gone.’
In that moment, Kang Han finally understood the nature of the emotion tormenting him.
Defeat.
He had lost to Sa Ma Young’s feelings for Yeo Joo.
Feelings couldn’t be tested like strength, couldn’t be measured like matter.
But Kang Han had lost.
His own conviction that he cherished Yeo Joo more than anyone else in the world had proven to be nothing more than this.
So much so that he had once, however briefly, placed Yeo Joo’s life and others’ lives on the same scale to weigh them.
“I think we have everything. Should we head home now?”
She smiled at him and spoke.
A smile she could offer precisely because she didn’t know how hollow and worthless his “sincerity” truly was.
If she had known, Yeo Joo would have been disappointed in him.
So Kang Han couldn’t smile back at her.

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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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