The Ignored Granddaughter of a Murim Family - Chapter 108

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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 108
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I was dreaming. It was one of those dreams where something impossible would never happen in reality, yet I felt nothing strange about it.
A terrible fellow kept placing something on my body. My limbs weren’t bound, so I could have brushed it away, but perhaps because it was a dream, I couldn’t think to do so.
The weight pressing down on me grew heavier and heavier.
‘What in the world are you putting on me, you terrible fellow!’
Yes, I should check his face!
I couldn’t fathom why the thought came so late, but I exerted all my strength to glimpse the villain’s face. Then, at some point, my eyes snapped open.
An unfamiliar ceiling came into view, bathed in the dim light of early dawn.
‘Ah, what? A dream?’
It was completely absurd.
But… my body really was heavy.
I frowned deeply and looked down at my sluggish form.
‘Huh? Jeggal Hwa-mu’s cat?’
A white cat perched on my chest. And in the cat’s mouth hung a gray mouse with a limp, worm-like tail.
The moment our eyes met—both of us frozen, unable to breathe—the cat dropped the dead mouse onto my chest.
“Kyaaaaaaah!”
I tumbled straight off the bed.
With a bang, the door flew open and a shadow fell over me. I frantically clung to Father’s legs.
Geum-swe rushed in right after.
“Miss! What’s happened!”
“A mouse… a mouse!”
“A mouse?”
“Sigh….”
Father exhaled deeply and sheathed the sword he’d half-drawn.
The cat, which had been knocked away by my thrashing, retrieved the mouse and gently placed it beside my pillow.
That terrible Jegal Family Head!
“You, you’re trying to torment me! Don’t you feel sorry for the mouse? Ugh.”
“Baek Li-yeon, torment you?”
“B-but Father, when I opened my eyes, the cat was holding a dead mouse right in front of my nose.”
“Even so, you shouldn’t speak that way.”
Ah, this is infuriating.
After all the commotion, I buried the mouse in the backyard of the inn.
Father spoke briefly.
“May you find eternal peace.”
I pressed my palms together and said,
“In your next life, be born as a beloved child of a wealthy family and spend your days in leisure and comfort.”
Father gazed at me intently.
“I mean it sincerely.”
“I… see.”
A rooster’s crow echoed from somewhere in the distance. I jolted upright, surveying the tranquil surroundings as dawn broke over the landscape.
“Father, will you teach me how to unfold the Qi Barrier?”
“Now?”
“Yes!”
I had asked Father yesterday to teach me. He had said he would show me if I woke early enough not to interfere with Pyo’s journey. Father checked the direction where the sun was rising and nodded.
“Well, yes. We have about half a double hour to spare.”
Father continued speaking slowly.
“I will teach you since you asked, but it is not something that can be done easily.”
“Yes!”
Though I had asked Father to teach me the Qi Barrier, I honestly held no expectations that I could learn it.
Then why had I asked? It was to observe the flow of Father’s inner energy. The moment when the Qi Barrier suddenly vanished.
‘Could the problem with his inner energy flow have started from that moment?’
All of this was merely speculation.
‘The Qi Barrier suddenly broke, and he didn’t use sound transmission either.’
At the time, I hadn’t noticed anything amiss.
I had been too preoccupied with treating the Jegal Family Head. And since I was close beside Father conversing, I had only seen his upper body.
I had sensed the irregularity in Father’s inner energy flow only after seeing his full figure entering the carriage. It was such a subtle difference.
That was why I had devised this method.
‘If I recreate a similar situation, wouldn’t the same thing happen again?’
At this point, it bordered on obsession.
But it concerned Father. I could never simply overlook it.
“Think of the Qi Barrier as a slightly more expanded version of sound transmission.”
I had read the theory dozens of times.
Father, who had been continuing his explanation, tilted his head slightly and asked.
“Now that I think about it, I passed over it too casually at the time, but when did you practice sound transmission?”
“Well… I practiced it when I was at the Namgung Clan.”
“Remarkable. Usually people would practice the sword rather than sound transmission.”
“…I practiced from the areas I could focus on.”
“That’s a good attitude. It’s better to start with what you can do than to give up because of what you cannot.”
Sound transmission was a technique of wrapping sound with inner energy so that only the intended recipient could hear it.
The Qi Barrier was similar. The difference was that it required far more inner energy, concentration, and control than sound transmission.
For reference, the sound transmission I could perform was slightly different from what Father or Uncle Namgung Wan did. It was a lower level method, done with my lips moving.
Father swept his hand through the empty air as he had in the carriage, and a blue energy spread outward, forming a luminous curtain.
“I wonder how it appears to your eyes.”
“Well, it’s… very beautiful.”
Father’s expression became subtle.
“That’s not quite what I meant… Can you understand how it’s done?”
“Um, I’m not sure.”
“I showed you since you asked me to teach you, but unfolding the Qi Barrier is extremely difficult. Using the Qi Barrier instead of sound transmission to prevent conversations between people from being heard is quite laborious.”
Interpreting Father’s words, that was what he meant.
It’s difficult to learn, and there’s no point in mastering it anyway.
I pretended to listen intently, nodding along while continuing to observe Father’s body carefully. I couldn’t detect any unusual energy flow.
Father withdrew his vital energy barrier so I could practice.
“It’s natural that you can’t do it, so don’t burden yourself. Just try unfolding your mental image first.”
So Father had extracted his internal energy and spread it out to form the barrier.
I, on the other hand, tried to gather it first….
As I was gathering the natural energy, a sudden doubt struck me. If I had to unfold it to create a barrier anyway, why did I need to gather it first? What if I tried gathering it while unfolding the barrier from the start?
I immediately acted on that doubt.
And I succeeded.
“…?”
Father’s eyes widened in surprise.
It seemed Father could sense the barrier I had unfolded.
“Well… actually, it wasn’t that difficult?”
Wait, did that sound too boastful?
‘But… it really wasn’t.’
Father took several steps back, moving just outside my barrier. The moment Father passed through the barrier, a sharp headache pierced through me, and I nearly lost control of the barrier.
Father said something, but I couldn’t hear it.
“….”
It seemed I had succeeded properly.
Father entered the barrier again. That instant, the barrier finally shattered. Father nodded as if he had expected this.
‘Wow, this really is a useless ability.’
It was incredibly difficult to maintain. It couldn’t even stop people passing through, and when Father crossed it twice, it broke apart.
Father, lost in thought for a moment, spoke.
“This is just a hypothesis, but… when I unfolded my barrier, the difficult part was controlling the internal energy I released from my body.”
Father looked at me with slightly animated features and continued.
“But it seems you’ve already learned to control external energy from the start.”
Ah, that could be it.
Father suddenly drew the sword at his waist. As I looked at it in confusion, a blue light shimmered across Father’s blade. It was sword energy.
Unlike Father’s usually light sword energy, this felt dense and heavy.
‘Can sword energy change like that, even though it’s not a wooden sword?’
Then Father straightened his sword and rotated it. Where Father’s blade passed, blue sword energy left a trail behind. It was like a shield.
“This is called a sword barrier.”
“Wow….”
“It’s far more useful than an energy barrier. It can protect your body.”
Unlike the energy barrier, which had almost no physical force, a sword barrier’s effectiveness varied tremendously depending on who deployed it and what level of mastery they had achieved.
“Can you try to imitate it?”
“Huh?”
“First, you’ll need a sword. Mine is too heavy for you. Ah, yes. Do you still have that short sword Wan gave you back then?”
I stared blankly at Father’s words before finally opening my mouth.
“Father, there’s a major problem with that.”
“What is it?”
“I can’t create sword energy.”
“…!”
Father’s expression shifted as understanding finally dawned on him.
A faint blush crept across his ears.
“Ahem, well… I suppose I was a bit hasty.”
Father cleared his throat and continued.
“You see, Yeon, normally one creates sword energy first, and then achieves the Qi Barrier afterward. Creating the Qi Barrier is more difficult than creating sword energy, after all.”
“Is that so?”
I would only know if I had actually trained. Without inner energy, all my knowledge remained purely theoretical.
Father launched into his explanation with evident enthusiasm.
I watched him with great fascination. It was truly strange—no, remarkable—to see Father so delighted.
In other words, he was far more passionate than I, the student.
When Father had taught me swordsmanship in the past, his expression had always been frustrated and melancholy. I had assumed it was because I was being troublesome, asking him to teach me something I could never learn.
‘What was he thinking while he taught me back then?’
That was something I could never know now.
“Did you hear my entire explanation?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then if you practice step by step from now on, with your talent, you might achieve it quite soon….”
At that moment, a Pyo Sa in dark martial robes came rushing toward us—the one I had asked to inform me if anyone approached the backyard.
“M-Master Baek Li!”
All traces of excitement vanished from Father’s face.
His expression shifted instantly back to his usual composed demeanor as he addressed the Pyo Sa.
“Heo Pyo-sa, what is the matter?”
“Master, the Baek Li Family Head has arrived!”
Father and I exchanged glances.

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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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