The Snake, the Flower, and the Tiger - Chapter 34

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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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34

“Hui-seo, I—!”
Je-eon clutched at Hui-seo’s wrist as she shook him off again and again, pleading with his voice. But a shriek erupted from the entrance, cutting through his words faster than he could speak.
“Aaaahhhhh!”
“Director!”
It was Han Do-yoon’s scream. By the time Je-eon and Hui-seo both looked up, he was already pinned against the wall, writhing in agony.
And the person gripping his throat, driving him into the stone—
“Jo Hui-gyeong?”
“Jo Hui-gyeong!”
“No, Kim Je-eon!”
Hui-seo’s hand hovered uselessly in the air.
Je-eon rushed at Jo Hui-gyeong and seized her shoulders. She twisted at the contact, her head turning toward him.
It was grotesque—her body remained fixed against the wall, pinning Han Do-yoon, but her head had rotated nearly backward, almost as if her neck had twisted in the opposite direction. Any ordinary human would have snapped their spine and died.
“Ugh… hrk.”
“Kim Je-eon, let go of me right now!”
“…Hui-gyeong?”
Black blood streamed continuously from Jo Hui-gyeong’s mouth. Her white blouse was already so saturated that its original color was unrecognizable.
Je-eon forced down his alarm and gripped her wrist, applying pressure. Jo Hui-gyeong began to laugh—a sound grotesque and inhuman.
“You, you, you! It was you who dragged me here and left me to die, you! You! It was you! You! Hahahaha, you!”
“Hui-gyeong, come to your senses!”
Je-eon clamped his teeth and seized both her arms with his full strength. Only then did Han Do-yoon tumble to the ground, gasping frantically for air.
The force had been such that his cervical spine might have shattered. Je-eon called out Jo Hui-gyeong’s name again and again, but her voice grew increasingly alien. It sounded now like that of a grown man.
“You let me die in this Foreign Land and filled your bellies with meat and wine! You kept me from ever going home, and you killed me here! You did this to me!”
Now the voice erupting from Jo Hui-gyeong’s mouth was unmistakably that of a middle-aged man. In that instant, Hui-seo’s mind flashed to the construction worker who had died on site.
Did that mean… nothing of this had been Je-eon’s doing after all?
“Hui-seo, run. Go now, right now! Ughk, gah—!”
“Kim Je-eon!”
But there was no time left for doubt. Jo Hui-gyeong vomited a torrent of black blood, then lunged at Je-eon’s throat, choking him.
Je-eon caught both her arms, but it was futile. She scrambled atop him in moments, baring blackened teeth in a hideous grin.
“I’m too wronged to let this end. I’ll take possession of your body in his place! That’s the only way my resentment will be appeased!”
“Ughk…! Run, Hui-seo! Please, go!”
Jo Hui-gyeong’s frame was smaller than Hui-seo’s, barely half Je-eon’s size and delicate. Yet Je-eon’s face contorted as if he were being crushed beneath a freight truck.
From Jo Hui-gyeong’s mouth poured black blood and sounds like a beast’s death cry.
“Get out of that body, out, out, out! I have to go back to where I belonged, out!”
“Hui… seo… cgh, h-hurry….”
Even as his face flushed crimson, Je-eon urged her onward.
He could have kicked her away, rolled free—yet he seemed instead to be holding Jo Hui-gyeong to him, keeping her anchored.
‘Damn it, really….’
Hui-seo had been certain that Je-eon was behind everything—the vengeful spirits, all of it. But what if she’d been wrong? Still, she couldn’t afford to stand here drowning in self-recrimination.
She moved quickly, shrugging off her jacket and seizing the Three-Buddha Fan.
Snap! The fan unfurled with a clean, decisive sound. The three Buddhas painted on its surface had their eyes closed in meditation.
Je-eon, who had been desperately urging her to flee, shook his twisted face in negation. He wanted to scream at her to run, but Jo Hui-gyeong’s fingers had completely sealed his windpipe—all that escaped was a pained rasp.
“By the Daoist Incantation, I open the Canon. All the Heavenly Lords, all the Star Sovereigns, all the Divine Kings and spirits—fade away in this moment.”
Beyond Je-eon’s dimming consciousness, he heard Hui-seo’s low voice. Then a warm, incongruous breeze brushed his face, and his arms flooded with sudden strength.
He gasped sharply and shoved Jo Hui-gyeong away with force. She lunged back at him, her filthy, blood-blackened face thrust forward, her tongue extending impossibly long and thin—like a lizard’s.
“You have such a rotten stench about you… damp and cold, an earthy reek. What is this smell? Hm? What is it? Tell me, tell me, tell me!”
“Ughk…. Hhh, gasp. Hui-gyeong, please—come to your senses!”
“That’s not my name!!!”
His arms trembling with the effort, Je-eon was wrenching her grip free when he spoke her name. At being called Hui-gyeong, Jo Hui-gyeong’s lips split as she opened her mouth impossibly wide, releasing an ear-splitting wail.
It was no mere scream—it was a howl that lacerated the soul itself.
Je-eon couldn’t endure the sound and thrashed his head in pain.
It was in that instant of distraction that Jo Hui-gyeong rushed at him, her gaping maw aimed to swallow him whole—
“By the powers of Heaven, Earth, and the Year-God—by the Taiyi Mutual Blessing—the Divine Treasure that vanquishes demons and their deceptions!”
Then brilliant light flashed like a lightning strike from the heavens. From the Buddhas carved upon the Three-Buddha Fan that Hui-seo held came a radiance that blazed upon Jo Hui-gyeong. The light pouring from the Buddhas carried a spiritual potency incomparable to sunlight or any human-made illumination.
“By the law of Heaven and Earth, of time and fate, I command you: leave that body and return to the place where you belong!”
With Hui-seo’s cry, the fan in her hand struck Jo Hui-gyeong’s back.
Astonishingly, Jo Hui-gyeong went flying without resistance, like a paper doll caught in wind, and crashed into the corner.
As Je-eon instinctively gripped his drowsy neck and rose, Hui-seo moved to block his path.
“Om soma ni soma ni, hum!”
Hui-seo chanted the Taiyi Blessing Sutra in rapid succession as she advanced. With each step closer to Jo Hui-gyeong, the halos of the Buddhas blazed brighter.
“Hum hri hi ra, om a ra ya!”
“Aaaaaaaugh! Ugh, aaaaugh!!”
As the distance between Hui-seo and Jo Hui-gyeong narrowed, Jo Hui-gyeong writhed and shrieked as though burning in invisible flames. Then her eyes fluttered wildly and she lurched up, slamming her head against the wall.
Bang, bang, bang! After just three or four violent impacts, her forehead split open and blood sprayed.
Tsk.
Watching this spectacle, Hui-seo clicked her tongue and roughly tore the bracelet that dangled from her wrist.
The pendant attached to the bracelet was shaped like a small glass vial. Without hesitation, Hui-seo opened the vial and shook its contents over the fan. A crimson liquid poured forth.
“Hum, hri hi ra! Om a ra ya!”
Before the red liquid had fully soaked into the fan, Hui-seo rushed at Jo Hui-gyeong and brought the fan down in a brutal arc against her back.
Thwack! The impact sound was impossible—a mere unfolded fan striking a person should not have produced such a thunderous blow.
“Aaaaugh! Ah, uuuaaugh!”
“By the law of heaven and earth, of time and fate, I speak! If you do not depart from that body, your spirit shall be annihilated and lost forever! Return now to where you belong!”
Thwack, thwack! Thwack!
Hui-seo’s fan descended again and again upon Jo Hui-gyeong’s body. With each blow, the ghost dwelling within her let out a shriek that seemed to tear the very air.
Jo Hui-gyeong fluttered and whipped about with each swing of the fan, then began to tremble violently before collapsing flat against the floor.
Unable to strike someone lying prone, Hui-seo stopped and caught her breath.
“Save me! Save me! I don’t want to die, I’ve done nothing wrong! I just want to go home! Save me!”
Fresh blood streamed from the split forehead, and black blood still trickled from the corners of her mouth. The face twisted in agony bore no trace of Jo Hui-gyeong’s original features.
Lying flat on the floor, she poured out her anguish.
“I’ve done nothing wrong! I can’t die like this! This is unbearable, it’s so unjust, I cannot go like this! What have I done wrong, what——!”

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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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