The Ignored Granddaughter of a Murim Family - Chapter 2

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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 2
* * *
I sat listlessly on the bed, my mind adrift in a haze.
Click—
The sound of the door opening reached my ears, but I didn’t turn to look. I remained there, suspended in that vacant stupor for a moment longer.
“Young Miss!”
The sudden shout jolted me from my reverie, and I trembled, lifting my head. The girl who had cried out was Dang-geum, my handmaiden.
“Come to your senses! I’ve brought wash water—you don’t need anything else, do you?”
Upon seeing the brass basin, I nodded slowly.
Dang-geum clicked her tongue in exasperation and hurried from the room.
As her footsteps faded, voices drifted through the window.
“Why all this commotion so early?”
“She won’t listen no matter how many times I call. She just sits on that bed all day, vacant as a stone. She came back from the dead only to become a simpleton?”
“The shock must have been severe. They say her inner energy channels are ruined.”
“Who would covet a spiritual elixir they couldn’t even use? Hmph, she brought it upon herself….”
Hearing that conversation made the reality crash over me—I truly had returned to the past, alive.
‘A regression….’
And it came after I had fallen into demonic cultivation!
Demonic cultivation was what happened when one lost control of the inner energy flowing through their body, causing it to rampage uncontrollably.
Most who fell into demonic cultivation died, and those who survived became crippled invalids.
I had barely clung to life, but my dantian—the core center where inner energy gathered—had shattered into fragments.
In other words, I had become a cripple who could never again wield martial arts.
I was only six years old, and this had happened merely half a year after entering the Baek Li Family.
I rose slowly and shuffled toward the table. In the still water of the wash basin, a child’s face reflected dimly back at me.
Hollow eyes, lips drawn tight and parched, cheeks sunken deep. The pallor of sickness was unmistakable.
The child in the reflection blinked, tilted her head, and raised and lowered the corners of her mouth.
‘My neck is still attached….’
Yet the sensation of my neck being severed and that crooked smile twisting through my spinning vision remained vivid before my eyes.
Too vivid to dismiss as mere fantasy.
The Baek Li Family—a renowned clan of the Orthodox Sect.
The patriarch Baek Li Pae-hyuk had three wives and four children. The youngest son born to his third wife was my father, Baek Li-ui-gang.
A sword prodigy born once in a hundred years. Handsome features, gentle yet unyielding in the face of injustice. Flawless character matched with exceptional martial prowess!
Even grandfather harbored tremendous expectations for such a flawless son.
Then one day, he suddenly brought home a daughter. That daughter was me, Baek Li-yeon.
It was a thunderbolt from a clear sky. A daughter for a son who had never even married!
And no one even knew the identity of her mother!
Naturally, the household was thrown into chaos.
Grandfather raged and opposed it fiercely.
But father’s stubbornness could not be broken. And so I was registered into the Baek Li Family.
Being so young then, I understood nothing of these circumstances. And it was clear that father, despite being a sword genius, possessed little talent for child-rearing.
If that weren’t the case, there’s no way Father would have left a five-year-old child he brought home as his daughter abandoned in a corner of the estate for over half a year.
Surrounded by those who showed her no warmth, the young child desperately craved recognition—so much so that she coveted a spiritual elixir far beyond her capabilities.
Thus was born the character of a foolish, greedy supporting villain.
Splash, splash.
After finishing my wash, I dried my face with a towel.
‘It’s fine. There’s still time.’
In the novel, following Father’s death, the Martial World’s order—which had been precariously balanced through tangled threads—began to crumble catastrophically.
‘At the center of it all stood Namgung Ryu-cheong, Father’s disciple.’
But now, the male protagonist Namgung Ryu-cheong was just as small as I was. He hadn’t yet formed a master-disciple relationship with Father.
My role proved instrumental in bringing Namgung Ryu-cheong and Father together as master and disciple.
I gazed out the window toward Father’s quarters.
There remained roughly ten years before the Orthodox Sect Tournament—the main event where Namgung Ryu-cheong would shine.
Which meant ten years remained before the event that would herald the Orthodox Sect Tournament’s beginning: Father’s death.
‘I have to save Father.’
There were far too many suspicious circumstances surrounding Father’s death.
Before, I hadn’t even dared to investigate. How could I uncover what even the male protagonist Namgung Ryu-cheong couldn’t?
It wasn’t that I felt no curiosity, that Father’s death didn’t seem unjust and infuriating.
I simply knew that my presence would only hinder Namgung Ryu-cheong.
And most importantly.
I wanted to live.
* * *
Father’s quarters and mine were arranged in a square formation, facing each other.
As I passed through the Inner Courtyard toward Father’s quarters, my heart pounded relentlessly. I wanted to turn back and hide in my own rooms.
I stopped and started several times along the way, yet somehow I found myself standing before Father’s door.
‘You can do this, Baek Li-yeon.’
I clenched both fists and stared at the door. Anyone seeing my expression now would have mistaken me for a general marching into battle.
‘Embarrassment is temporary. You want to save Father, don’t you?’
If Father lived, my chances of survival increased.
Setting aside emotion and thinking practically—if even Father, one of the Martial World’s strongest, could die, then the probability of my dream of surviving unscathed was dismally low.
‘Baek Li-yeon, you can do this. Embarrassment won’t actually kill you!’
Besides, the first button had already been fastened the moment I opened my eyes in this world.
I can do this. I can do this.
After hypnotizing myself, I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them wide.
The moment I carefully opened the door, the bitter scent of medicinal broth assaulted my nose.
“You’re awake.”
Father slowly rose from behind the mountain-patterned screen.
I made myself as innocent and adorable as possible,
“Fa-ther!”
and let out a shriek.
Before my face could crash to the floor, wind rushed forth.
The pain I’d braced for never came. I opened my eyes, which had been squeezed shut. My nose was barely a sheet of paper away from the floor. My heart hammered wildly.
“You must be more careful.”
Father held me by the scruff of my neck like a mother cat carrying her kitten. He’d been at some distance—I had no idea when he’d closed the gap so swiftly.
I rubbed the bridge of my nose and examined the floor.
‘Oh no, how embarrassing! What on earth? I must have stepped on something and tripped… What is that—a bamboo slip?’
Tiny characters written on bamboo strips bound together with cord caught my eye. The contents concerned medicinal herbs.
Bamboo slips weren’t the only things rolling across the floor. Books stacked haphazardly everywhere, various medicinal ingredients scattered about—the room was in complete disarray.
I lifted my head to look at Father’s face. Dark shadows hung beneath his eyes again today.
‘He must have stayed up all night again.’
For days now, I hadn’t seen the lamp in his quarters extinguished. Though not as severe as my own illness, Father had lost considerable weight during this time.
Dangling limply in Father’s grip, I reached out my arms to be held.
Father, who had hesitated, spoke with a stern expression.
“Did I not tell you not to run about in your room?”
“Hehe.”
Father regarded me with a rigid face. But I continued to extend my arms as adorably as possible, feigning complete innocence.
“Won’t you hold me?”
Hesitation flickered across Father’s stern features.
A brief internal struggle.
But I was the victor.
Of course I was. I was ill, after all!
I settled confidently into Father’s embrace, wrapping my arms around his neck. I felt his body stiffen abruptly in surprise.
“Ahem.”
Father cleared his throat awkwardly and glanced around the empty room for no particular reason.
My first objective. It was to grow closer to Father.
And physical contact was the easiest method to narrow the distance between people.
When I’d first been held by Father, how awkward it had been. His stiff posture, his rigid body—he made it abundantly clear he’d never held a child before.
Throughout all the lives I could remember, I’d never been held by anyone called Father. Now, well…
Father walked quickly yet crossed the room with utmost care, as though I might fly away at any moment.
“Did you sleep well last night?”
“Yes.”
“Is your body well?”
“Yes.”
“Do not endure pain in silence. If you develop a fever, you must tell me at once.”
“Yes.”
“I should have a medicinal decoction prepared.”
“Ugh…”
The sigh escaped reflexively.
The medicine Father gave me tasted like absolute torment every time.
The old me would weep and refuse, throwing tantrums about not being able to drink it, while Father would force it down my throat.
True to a man who’d wielded a sword his entire life, his methods were hardly gentle. He simply said “drink it” and watched until I’d finished.
Under strict supervision, whenever I forced myself to drink and then vomited, Father would brew the medicine again and make me drink it. As this cycle repeated, I even began to resent him.
‘Honestly, the dosage is really quite excessive.’
This time I obediently accepted and drank it, but my weakened body rejected the medicine entirely, and I vomited it all up.
Then Father’s response changed. He began feeding me the medicine spoonful by spoonful with his own hands!
“Why does she grow more childlike with each passing day?”
A faint smile crossed Father’s stern face, which had been rigid from worry the entire time.
The tenderness in Father’s gaze was beyond measure. In that moment, I felt such overwhelming embarrassment that I buried my face in his embrace.

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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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