The Morning Star Baby Wants a Family - Chapter 71

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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 71
Previously, Seowan had said that all the waters of the Cheonmang Kingdom were connected to her own being.
Thus, through the waters flowing near her, she could glimpse that place, could listen to it.
At the time, his words had been somewhat cryptic.
But now, Hae-na understood them completely.
After emerging from the Moonstone Cave and awakening her new power, Hae-na’s senses had shifted subtly from before.
‘They’ve become broader… more refined.’
Beyond what she heard directly, it was as though someone impossibly small whispered at her ear.
Some things came through remarkably clear, while others were so faint they barely registered.
Hae-na focused on the clearest voice among them.
“You do cherish the child dearly. Though she bears little resemblance to Tamlang Seongggun in appearance.”
Then came Yeon-ri’s voice, tinged with intrigue.
“She is my half-sister.”
Accompanied by arms drawing me closer, Seowan’s voice followed, clipped and final.
Surely both of them believed with absolute certainty that I could hear nothing.
But Hae-na heard everything.
The moisture scattered infinitesimally through the air, the wind currents dancing between them.
All of it was Hae-na’s eyes and ears.
From the conversation Seowan and Yeon-ri had just exchanged, to every curse Yeon-ri had spilled while mercilessly pummeling her twin brother after setting the cabinet ablaze.
Hae-na had heard it all without missing a syllable, and had even glimpsed it hazily.
Though it pained her toward the adults who held her so protectively, Hae-na said nothing and kept her lips sealed.
‘I need to know.’
Hwa Yeon-bi had threatened me and Seowan by invoking the Second Prince.
And Hwa-yeon-ri, who had been imprisoned by her, had said her confinement was connected to the Second Prince.
Second Prince Tae Hyeon-o was wary of Tamlang Seongggun’s power, yet coveted it.
If he truly knew a way to siphon off the power of the stars, he might attempt it on Seowan.
Hae-na nestled against Seowan’s embrace with an untroubled expression.
But her senses remained entirely focused on the two of them.
“Continue with what you were saying.”
At Seowan’s words, Yeon-ri laughed leisurely.
“Yes, I suppose I should.”
After a composed reply, a brief silence fell before Yeon-ri’s voice emerged.
“It would likely be a matter of tearing out the heart and consuming it.”
It was not something to say with composure. Seowan’s brow furrowed.
“How do you know this?”
“Well, my beloved sister wanted to kill me countless times.”
Yeon-ri laughed brightly.
“She would enter the Underground Facility with bloodshot eyes. And she would point her black dagger, stained with blood, at my heart.”
“….”
“Her face showed she wanted to kill me on the spot. Though in the end, she could not bring herself to stab me, and cast the dagger away.”
Yeon-ri’s golden-crimson eyes, lost in recollection of the past, grew heavy and distant.
“Isn’t it strange?”
Her face was beautiful yet brutal, like a flower laced with poison.
“If I had to continually drink my own blood to impersonate Pagun Seongggun, you could never have killed me.”
“….”
“If you wanted to sever my breath or inflict suffering, you would have aimed elsewhere. Why always the heart?”
Her gentle words reached both Seowan and Hae-na with perfect clarity.
Hae-na forced herself to breathe in steady rhythm, organizing what she had just heard in her mind.
An ordinary eight-year-old would have burst into tears immediately, but Hae-na did not.
The Yeon Family Underground Prison was a place where all manner of cruel experiments were conducted.
Hae-na had frequented that place since she was six years old. She hadn’t become completely desensitized, but she was accustomed to it to some degree.
Yeon Ki-mun had employed every method imaginable to create a Celestial Being of the Moon.
Among them were the sorceries of Oseo Kingdom.
In Cheonmang Kingdom, the sorceries of Oseo Kingdom were strictly forbidden.
Not only was the use of witchcraft prohibited, but merely teaching or knowing the types and methods of casting incurred severe punishment regardless of one’s station.
The reason was singular.
Unlike Cheonmang Kingdom’s stellar force, which circulated and revived life, Oseo Kingdom’s sorceries invariably required someone’s death.
Hae-na, recalling several sorceries performed in the Yeon Family, squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again.
‘Blood, flesh, and heart….’
They were the most frequently used catalysts in those sorceries.
A sinister premonition told her that Yeon-ri’s words were correct.
“But you….”
“That’s right. I am alive.”
Yeon-ri answered readily to Seowan’s bewilderment.
“Yeon-bi was foolish and weak—she always was, even as a child. She could slap an insolent servant girl’s cheek and shout, but she could never order a hand severed.”
As Yeon-ri continued, her voice grew bitter.
An emotion—whether regret or lamentation—seeped through.
“There is no one in this Cheonmang Kingdom who would believe there was no exchange whatsoever between the Second Prince and Oseo Kingdom.”
Yet even so, Yeon-ri soon spoke without hesitation.
“Still, the Second Prince received considerable support from many nobles. Even if I have been unable to move freely for a long time, I doubt that fact has changed much.”
“….”
“Is there anyone besides my younger sister who would do anything to become a Celestial Being?”
Yeon-ri laughed coldly.
A low sigh escaped from Seowan.
“I thought he’d lost his mind entirely, given how many wish to place that fool upon the throne.”
A savage voice spilled out as though chewed.
It was a rawness Hae-na had scarcely ever heard from him.
“My, you must mind your words. The child will hear.”
Yeon-ri, covering her mouth with laughter, gazed down at Hae-na’s round head. The child, sensing that gaze, stiffened.
“Since you seem uncomfortable, let me release you now. All the unpleasant talk is finished.”
At that, Seowan unconsciously released the tension in his arms that had been holding tight and dispelled the thin water barrier that had enveloped the child’s ears.
“Thank you for being so well-behaved.”
Seowan gently brushed back Hae-na’s disheveled hair, which had become tangled from being nestled against his chest.
“It’s nothing.”
Hae-na smiled brightly and shook her head, carefully climbing down from her sister’s lap.
‘Her legs must be aching.’
After pulling up another chair to sit, Hae-na’s eyes met those golden-crimson irises that had been fixed upon me.
They were cold eyes that seemed to dissect everything piece by piece.
The moment Hae-na flinched, the woman’s eyes curved beautifully.
“Child. What is your name?”
Her voice was gentle. Yet Hae-na answered with visible tension.
“Hae-na. Yul Hae-na.”
Yeon-ri’s graceful and measured demeanor resembled Cheon-eul’s, but everything else was different.
Rather than lowering her gaze to meet Hae-na’s eyes, Yeon-ri looked down upon her, assessing.
Whether she was strong or weak.
Whether she would cause harm or be of use.
The eyes of this woman, as pitiful and beautiful as a single flower, held the gaze of a tiger.
It was frightening, yet somehow, I understood it a little.
‘Because she was betrayed….’
Yeon-ri made no effort to hide her animosity toward Yeon-bi, yet she still called her younger sister without fail.
Imprisoned after being betrayed by her closest family, and now escaped by fortune’s grace.
Wouldn’t she feel utterly alone in a world with no one to trust?
Naturally, my memories before meeting Seowan came to mind.
Those days trembling in solitude and fear, and the residence that ultimately burned.
‘If my sister hadn’t been there, I would have been truly terrified.’
Thinking this way, I felt pity for Yeon-ri.
Yet instead of offering hasty words of comfort, Hae-na smiled brightly.
With the innocent and harmless face of an eight-year-old child.
A flicker of emotion crossed Yeon-ri’s cool eyes. She stretched her lips into a long smile.
“So it was you who found me?”
“…!”
At the unexpected words, Hae-na’s eyes widened like a rabbit’s.
“I suspected it might be you, but hearing your voice confirms it.”
Yeon-ri continued speaking. Hae-na nodded with a bewildered expression.
Fortunately, she did not press Hae-na about how she had learned that fact.
Instead, she simply bowed very deeply to the child.
“In the name of Pagun Seongggun Hwa Yeon-ri, I offer you my sincere gratitude.”
Yeon-ri, whose body had not yet fully recovered, swayed slightly as she lifted herself.
“A debt of gratitude is as heavy as a debt of resentment. I shall never forget the kindness you have shown me.”
Yet her gaze remained as clear as ever, and Yeon-ri spoke as though etching these words into memory.

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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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