The Ignored Granddaughter of a Murim Family - Chapter 327

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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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Side Story Episode 21
The women tidying the birthing chamber let out startled gasps as if they might faint.
“Oh!”
“My goodness!”
“You cannot enter yet!”
At the commotion, Baek Li-yeon barely opened her eyes. Her blurred gaze, brimming with tears, turned toward the door.
“…Father?”
“Yes.”
“When…?”
“Just arrived. Your husband is outside right now.”
‘Perfect timing.’
Baek Li-yeon, smiling faintly, thought she had spoken those words aloud, but in truth she lacked the strength to voice them.
‘Always crying.’
‘Father cries more than I do.’
‘Please don’t cry.’
These words too remained unspoken. Then, for a fleeting moment, consciousness slipped away before the warmth of his hand on the back of hers brought her back.
Baek Li-yeon opened her mouth.
“Father, I’m curious about something….”
Baek Li-ui-gang shook his head.
“Say nothing. Rest first. Ask me later.”
“No. I want to ask now….”
“Enough! Don’t speak!”
It was a cry tinged with desperation.
“Father….”
“Don’t ask!”
“Really…”
“Baek Li-yeon!”
“When I was giving birth… were you trembling because Grandfather might come?”
Baek Li-ui-gang stood dumbfounded for a moment before crying out in exasperation.
“Baek Li-yeon!”
Baek Li-yeon, eyes barely open, burst into laughter.
Baek Li-ui-gang’s composure stemmed not only from his deep patience but also from his inherent nature—his emotions rarely surged with great intensity. Thus, memories of him so thoroughly vexed could be counted on one hand.
“I really…! Because of you, I really…!”
At his reaction, Baek Li-yeon broke into laughter.
“Heh, heheheh, heh-oof. Oof.”
But as she began laughing, her abdomen tensed and the pain she had momentarily forgotten surged back.
As Baek Li-yeon groaned, Baek Li-ui-gang, as if he had never been angry at all, turned ashen and gripped her hand tightly once more.
“Are… are you alright?”
“Hm, hm. I’m… fine.”
Baek Li-yeon rose with his support. Though she had been in such agony moments before, it seemed she truly drew strength from teasing others.
After taking a sip of the sweetened tea the female servant had brought, my energy began to return.
“The baby?”
Geum-swe, as if she had been waiting, received the swaddled infant from the midwife and brought her to me. The child had already stopped crying.
“So Bu-in, here is your baby girl! What an absolutely lovely daughter!”
I regarded the infant in Geum-swe’s arms with skeptical eyes. The wrinkled, crimson-faced creature resembled nothing so much as a red potato—hardly what one would call endearing.
“She’s rather ugly, isn’t she?”
Baek Li-ui-gang started in alarm and cried out.
“How can you say such a thing!”
Startled by his voice, the baby began wailing again.
“Waaah, waaaaaah!”
Unlike Baek Li-ui-gang, who fumbled about in surprise, the midwife spoke with unflappable composure and a smile.
“There now! For all the trouble she gave you, your daughter is perfectly healthy!”
I smiled faintly. I had worried when she came earlier than expected, but those concerns proved groundless—her cry was robust and vigorous. She had clearly developed well in the womb.
Geum-swe extended the infant toward me, as if encouraging me to hold her.
As I cradled her against my chest, I felt the rapid, delicate flutter of her heartbeat against mine—the same heartbeat I had carried within me for ten months.
Did the child recognize her mother? The moment she settled into my embrace, her crying ceased entirely.
Her eyes, still swollen and glistening with tears, were beginning to focus. Her bridge of nose was already well-defined. As I examined her plump cheeks, her wrinkled tiny fingers and toes, tears welled up in my own eyes, and I found myself smiling like a fool.
I spoke.
“Father, you should hold her too.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
Baek Li-ui-gang carefully received the infant from my arms.
His white hair tumbled across the baby’s swaddling cloth, but he remained motionless, like a statue.
“She’s so… light.”
The baby’s lips worked silently. Watching her, Baek Li-ui-gang felt an unexpected surge of emotion, and tears spilled from his eyes.
At that moment, another figure burst into the chamber.
My eyes widened.
“Ryu-cheong?”
In stark contrast to my father’s relatively composed appearance, Namgung Ryu-cheong looked as though he had been dragged through the back alleys—his clothes were tattered, his hair disheveled, as if he had just emerged from a twenty-against-one street brawl.
“What happened to you? Why do you look like that?”
I had been completely unaware of what was happening outside while I was in labor.
Namgung Ryu-cheong trudged forward and stopped at the foot of my sleeping quarters. Then he reached out and placed a finger beneath my nose.
“Ryu-cheong?”
“Ah.”
With a heavy sigh, Namgung Ryu-cheong’s legs seemed to give way, and he suddenly collapsed onto the floor.
“Ryu-cheong!”
And then, without a word, tears began streaming down his face.
“What on earth—”
I stared at the two weeping men in bewilderment.
I was the one who gave birth, so why are these two making such a fuss?
“Now that I think about it, Father, Ryu-cheong—when did you arrive? Wasn’t there still time before your scheduled return?”
“….”
“….”
“Hello?”
But no one seemed to have the presence of mind to answer.
Then the door burst open a third time, and another figure rushed in. This time it was the Great Lady.
Yet the Great Lady’s appearance was quite peculiar as well. She had always maintained an elegant and immaculate demeanor, and I had never seen her disheveled until now—today she looked as though she had leaped from her bed, her hair tousled and unkempt.
“Brother-in-law! Ryu-cheong! What is this outrageous conduct! She hasn’t even properly recovered yet, and you won’t let her rest. How dare you appear in such a filthy state—leave at once!”
* * *
Exhausted beyond measure, Baek Li-yeon fell asleep as though losing consciousness.
She opened her eyes again late in the evening of the day after a full day and night had passed.
Somehow, she had been moved from the birthing chamber to her bedroom, and she marveled that she hadn’t awakened once while someone carried her there.
In that time, the child’s swelling had gradually subsided, and the red, monkey-like appearance from birth had faded, replaced by a soft, pale new being.
The child, now awake, neither cried nor spoke, but gazed at her parents with bright, alert eyes. The sight was so endearing it made her chest ache like that of a young rabbit.
Namgung Ryu-cheong and Baek Li-yeon spent the night with their child, losing all sense of time, and finally fell asleep near dawn.
When Baek Li-yeon, having spent the entire morning sleeping, opened her eyes past noon.
“Grandfather?”
It was a person she had never imagined would appear.
As Baek Li-yeon rubbed her eyes, Geum-swe, who had been watching over her, scolded her for rubbing her eyes during postpartum recovery.
“Even if Father came, why has Grandfather come here!”
“Why not? My granddaughter is here, and my great-granddaughter is here too. Why shouldn’t I come?”
“You know that’s not what I meant!”
“If the strength fell short when striking down the former Alliance Leader, I had promised to deliver the final blow myself.”
That was something she was hearing for the first time.
Baek Li Pae-hyuk twisted his lips.
“There was no need for me to step forward, however.”
“….”
Baek Li-yeon shook her head with a troubled heart.
The night before. While spending the night with the child, she had already heard the entire story about Yalyu from Namgung Ryu-cheong.
Yalyu had appeared before Wi Ji-baek. Using power that looked unmistakably like demonic energy, he no longer wielded the martial arts of the Tianshan Flame Emperor.
He had launched indiscriminate attacks even against those from the Baekdo Martial Arts Alliance who tried to question what had happened to him.
Some were wounded, but he had escaped quickly, so there were no casualties. And Yalyu had killed Wi Ji-baek with his strength alone.
The birth of a new supreme master of the realm. The youngest supreme master in history by an overwhelming margin.
Due to this shocking outcome, those present had been silenced, but it was said that the truth of Yalyu killing Wi Ji-baek could not be hidden forever.
Baek Li Pae-hyuk cried out upon seeing Baek Li-yeon’s expression.
“Don’t waste another thought on that wretch! You don’t have the strength to spare! It’s already beyond your hands!”
Baek Li-yeon smiled bitterly.
Baek Li Pae-hyuk continued speaking.
“No, rather it turned out well. If that one hadn’t dealt with Wi Ji-baek, I couldn’t have come this quickly.”
“Now that you mention it, why did you come separately?”
Originally, Baek Li Pae-hyuk was supposed to arrive together with Baek Li-ui-gang and Namgung Ryu-cheong. However, word suddenly arrived that Baek Li-yeon’s water had broken midway, and she was about to give birth immediately.
So Baek Li Pae-hyuk said he would lead the warriors of the Baek Li Family and Namgung Clan to follow after, telling Baek Li-ui-gang and Namgung Ryu-cheong to go first.
“If that fool arrived while you were in labor, I’d beat him to death! We can’t have our great-granddaughter born without a father, can we?”
“….”

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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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