The Snake, the Flower, and the Tiger - Chapter 39

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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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Episode 39

Je Seon pushed himself upright. Now that he thought about it, his eye level seemed higher than before. Had he grown taller? Well, either way, it wasn’t a bad thing.
Je Seon looked down at the body of his only remaining blood relative and smiled with cold derision.
“Just stay still for a moment, will you? Grandfather hasn’t done a single thing for me that’s ever helped.”
“Je Seon, you ungrateful fool. Do you know what lengths I’ve gone to for you?”
Leaving the indignant old man where he stood, Je Seon moved toward the mirror.
In the now-grown frame of Kim Je Eon, he could find nothing that resembled his original self.
Je Seon wrapped his face in his hands, turning it this way and that as he examined it in the glass.
“That woman. Hee Seo, I mean. Tell me about her, Grandfather.”
Kim Jong Hyop, whose face had flushed crimson as he struggled to his feet behind Je Seon, suddenly twisted his expression. The mere mention of Hee Seo’s name seemed to sicken him.
But Je Seon felt nothing at the old man’s emotion. The moment their eyes met through the mirror, Je Seon’s gaze flickered with something strange and luminous.
“She’s Wol Cheon’s daughter, isn’t she?”
Je Seon had known the instant he’d faced Hee Seo. He had meant only to watch over her as she slept, but the moment she left Kim Je Eon’s body to wander as a spirit and met his gaze directly, she had demanded to know his true nature. It was a power only possible because she was Wol Cheon’s daughter—the Shaman who had begun all of this.
That had to be it.
…….
Silence was answer enough. Je Seon burst into laughter, unable to contain his delight. His voice still held its pleasing quality, yet the sound carried something chilling.
“Haha, ah…. My grandfather really does have a sense of humor, doesn’t he? Ah, no—is it that he’s a Sociopath? Well, it’s not an insult. If Grandfather’s one, then I must be too. I take after him so much, don’t I?”
“She’s a woman we won’t see again anyway. No use worrying about her.”
“Why would you say such a thing?”
Je Seon narrowed his eyes with an expression of regret, turned his body, and gently wrapped his hand around his grandfather’s shoulder.
“She’s the woman you brought into my life. Isn’t that right?”
But even as he spoke, the grip of his hand on Jong Hyop’s shoulder tightened gradually. Jong Hyop cast glances between his grandson’s grip and Je Seon’s face, struggling to hide his alarm.
“That marriage was fake anyway! I did it only to drive out that bastard and wake you!”
“If that were true, you wouldn’t have brought me a woman who suited my tastes so perfectly. You wouldn’t have placed such a woman before me if she were just someone temporary to use and discard, Grandfather.”
“Kim Je Seon, you—!”
“Don’t touch me.”
Holding the shoulder so that the old man couldn’t escape, Je Seon thrust his face forward. His two eyes, gleaming with an oily shine, looked like those of someone afflicted with mania.
Despite having finally regained the grandson he’d so long awaited, Kim Jong Hyop felt his insides turn to ice.
“Keep that woman by my side. Don’t remove her, Grandfather. Do you understand? You always listen so well to my requests.”
Je Seon bared his teeth in a bestial smile.
The old man barely managed to nod.

***

Hee Seo’s luggage was sparse. Once she gathered her Shaman’s Tool and a few unused Talismans, her belongings felt far lighter than when she’d arrived.
Checking her Mobile Phone one last time in her pocket, she found no waiting message.
‘I wanted to see her once before leaving.’
Waiting for contact had delayed her departure. Since she’d planned to leave the house before sunset, Hee Seo set aside her regret and rose from her seat.
Just then, a light knock sounded at the door. When Hee Seo permitted entry, Jo Sung Gyu, Kim Je Eon’s butler, opened the door.
“Mr. Jo.”
“Young lady.”
“Please don’t call me that anymore. You know my name.”
“Old habits die hard. When you reach my age, changing such patterns proves more difficult than one expects.”
Jo Sung Gyu lingered uncertainly in the doorway, his expression touched with melancholy. Hee Seo smiled faintly as she slung her bag over her shoulder.
“I’ll have plenty of memories of being called ‘young lady’ thanks to you. I was waiting for contact, but it seems the hospital said visits are still not possible?”
“Yes…. The recovery seems to be progressing slowly. Our Hee Gyeong—I mean, her parents managed to see her briefly the other day. Even though it’s gradual, she appears to be recovering, so I expect she’ll wake soon.”
“That’s fortunate. Thank you for letting me know.”
Kim Je Eon wasn’t the only one who’d returned to Korea unconscious. Jo Director, whose Possession had run deep, was severely injured and taken directly to the hospital.
It was the aftereffect of driving out the spirit through physical Exorcism without first learning its name.
“Not at all. It’s we who should thank you.”
Hee Seo regarded Jo Sung Gyu’s expression of gratitude with unfamiliar eyes. What was he thanking her for?
As Hee Seo looked at him quietly, Sung Gyu continued.
“We believed at first that you were merely a con artist. We didn’t believe in ghosts at all. We thought only that our chairman, being elderly, had made a poor decision. So we never served you with genuine sincerity.”
Hee Seo too remembered how they had treated her initially. But it hadn’t left a deep mark on her heart.
At least they’d maintained courtesy toward her. Compared to those who’d treated her like a half-baked Shaman or a fraud, it was trifling.
“But if you hadn’t been here, I don’t know what would have become of our Hee Gyeong…. Even now, thinking about it makes my head spin.”
“Please don’t say such things. If only I’d noticed earlier that Jo Director had been listening in, your body wouldn’t have suffered like this.”
Jo Sung Gyu seemed to have gone through considerable anguish over his cousin’s hospitalization and Kim Je Eon’s unconsciousness. The wrinkles around his eyes glistened with moisture. He wrapped Hee Seo’s hand in his own and bowed his head.
“After I went away on business, whenever I spoke with my parents or with myself, Hee Gyeong seemed very strange. She said she was seeing things and having nightmares. We should have noticed something was wrong then……. But I told her that she could take great comfort in your presence, that’s what I said. If you hadn’t been there…….”
Jo Sung Gyu’s voice broke, and he swallowed his tears. Just as Hee Seo, momentarily flustered, was about to pat his shoulder, a cold voice drifted through the open door, freezing her in place.
“Isn’t it rather close for even a butler and young lady to be sitting alone together like that? Your husband finds it quite distasteful.”
……
“Oh, M—, Master Je.”
Kim Je Eon stood leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching them both.
Jo Sung Gyu jumped as though caught in the act, hastily wiping his eyes and stepping back. He glanced nervously between Kim Je Eon and Hee Seo, then bolted from the room as if his heels were on fire. But he couldn’t even make it through the door before Kim Je Eon grabbed him.
“Butler.”
“Y—yes, sir. Master Je. Is there something you need?”
Kim Je Eon’s hand clamped down roughly on the front of Jo Sung Gyu’s shirt, gripping it like a collar.
Hee Seo frowned at behavior so blatantly inappropriate toward someone his senior. It was nothing like the Kim Je Eon she knew.
Had he ever treated subordinates this way before?
‘……No. This is him coming back. That wasn’t Kim Je Eon.’
The unfamiliar manner unsettled her, yet this was the original Kim Je Eon now—the true self.
The successor to GM that Kim Jong Hyop had searched for so desperately. The rightful owner of this body. Kim Je Eon.
Hee Seo fought down the urge to stop him.
“Get the honorifics right. Am I still ‘Master Je’ to you?”
“I—I apologize, Executive Director. I will correct myself.”
“Good. If you want to keep your position, you need to watch every single word you say in this house. Surely you understand that by your age?”
“My apologies, Executive Director.”
The middle-aged man with graying hair bowed repeatedly to Kim Je Eon, who was young enough to be his son, offering continuous apologies.
Only then, as if satisfied, did Kim Je Eon release his grip. He shoved Jo Sung Gyu out into the hallway and shut the door.
Bang. The sound of the door closing carried an oddly ominous weight.
Kim Je Eon moved slowly toward her, lowering his gaze to examine her bag once, then met her eyes.
A twisted smile hung at the corners of his mouth—a smile that felt utterly foreign.
“Is this what I think? Catching you in the middle of running away?”
……
“Tell me I’m wrong. I must be misunderstanding, aren’t I? Dear.”
Dear. The word he added made Hee Seo bite her lip before she answered, belatedly.
“I think there’s been some misunderstanding on your part. We’re meeting for the first time today, and the term ‘dear’ isn’t appropriate, is it?”
“Misunderstanding? What misunderstanding?”
Kim Je Eon drew closer, still wearing that dangerous smile. Unlike before, the twisted expression grated on her nerves in an unsettling way.

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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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