The Snake, the Flower, and the Tiger - Chapter 40

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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 40

“We’re meeting for the first time? How disappointing.”
What on earth was he talking about? Hui Seo fought to keep the frown from her face as she replied.
“I thought the Chairman would have mentioned it. Our marriage—or rather, this marriage was fake. I orchestrated it to deceive and drive out the spirit that had stolen your body, Kim Je Eon. I’m not sure if you remember any of it.”
Most Possessed Ones have no memory of the moment of Possession, especially if the duration was as long as Kim Je Eon’s had been. It could leave them confused.
So Hui Seo added, with what kindness she could muster:
“You may recover fragments of memory here and there, but those aren’t your own memories. Take some time to rest, ease back into your daily life gradually, and it should become much easier…….”
“It’s not fragments. I remember everything.”
His firm answer caught her off guard. Hui Seo studied him, as if seeing through him entirely.
Before she realized it, he’d closed the distance between them, and his hands wrapped slowly around her shoulders. The casual possessiveness of his grip made her eyes go cold and hard.
“How this body tried to spend our first night with you. I remember vividly—your expression as you walked against the moonlit sky, your face flushed red from a single cup of wine. If I say this much, does that make this marriage real?”
“……Kim Je Eon.”
“You said you married me to save me, didn’t you?”
“Yes. And I failed.”
Hui Seo knocked his hand away sharply and cut the conversation short.
She had failed—an undeniable fact. Looking into those unfamiliar eyes that gleamed with vitality, she spoke with absolute certainty.
“I’m not the one who drove out what was attached to you, Kim Je Eon. So if you want to credit someone, credit them instead. If you’re curious, I can even give you their contact information.”
As it happened, Kim Je Eon awoke the day after So Myeong performed the Gut Offering.
It was like the old saying—as the crow flies, a pear falls—but however it came to pass, Je Eon had awakened, and the spirit that occupied his body never appeared again.
Had that nameless spirit simply vanished on its own? Or had So Myeong’s Spiritual Power made one final effort? There was no way to know.
“You really believe that?”
But Kim Je Eon smiled with ambiguous amusement and murmured. When Hui Seo removed the hand from her shoulder, he simply shifted to her wrist instead.
As unauthorized contact repeated, Hui Seo’s brow arched sharply.
She’d expected he might resemble Kim Jong Hyeop, but she hadn’t anticipated he’d be such a reckless troublemaker.
‘Should I just punch him?’
While Hui Seo deliberated, Je Eon’s fingers began to tighten around her wrist. Like sticky talons, it didn’t release even when she twisted.
“Let go, would you?”
“Tell me. Do you really believe that cheap Mudang drove out what was in this body?”
“I said let go.”
Je Eon lifted her captive wrist provocatively, and his eyes traced over the scars glimpsed where her sleeve had slipped. Then, quite suddenly, he brushed his lips against them—light and deliberate.
It wasn’t their first contact, yet it sent a chill crawling up her spine. Je Eon’s large, deep eyes crinkled as he smiled, and he whispered:
“What if you don’t like it?”
……
Hui Seo’s dry cheek twitched sharply. Their eyes met, and the moment passed in an instant.
Hui Seo rotated her trapped arm in one large outward arc, her fist clenched, and brought it down hard against his forearm.
With a sharp crack, Je Eon couldn’t overcome the sudden force and released her wrist.
“Ugh!”
“You don’t listen well when people talk to you, do you? I’d say that’s a bad habit.”
“Ha. Ah, it hurts. Your punch really does hurt, doesn’t it? Right. That’s true—I’ve never had anyone just throw a punch at me like that before.”
“Is it still so repugnant just because of that face?”
“What?”
Je Eon listened intently to her murmur, but she pretended not to notice.
It wasn’t as though she’d only hit someone once or twice, and as someone with a fair history of violence, she knew better than anyone that a body as sturdy as his would never hurt this much from a blow like that.
Watching Je Eon rub his arm and feign pain with contempt, Hui Seo replied flatly.
“I don’t know how sheltered you’ve been up until now, but you’d better start paying attention. There’s no guarantee a spirit won’t attach to you again. Whether you believe in religion or get proper rituals performed…….”
……
“Actually, it might be better to make an offering to the spirits instead of performing a ritual. And I’d suggest you stop playing naive—it won’t do you any favors.”
Hui Seo found her thoughts drifting to So Myeong.
Clearly, that woman was the type who would demand a substantial sum from Kim Jong Hyeop on the pretext of saving his grandson, and there’d be no end to such demands. Every time a ritual was performed, there was a high likelihood it would bring misfortune down upon Kim Je Eon.
Wait—why am I even worrying about him?
A flicker of confusion crossed Hui Seo’s mind.
“Is this concern coming from a former wife?”
Je Eon asked as if he’d read her thoughts. He didn’t seem inclined to take her advice seriously at all.
“Interpret it however you like. Now, would you move aside?”
Hui Seo picked up her luggage bag again. Since Je Eon was still blocking the doorway, she was prepared to swing the bag at him if necessary. But he chuckled softly and shifted slightly to let her through.
“We’ll meet again anyway. No need to go to the trouble of packing and leaving.”
Then he uttered something laden with meaning. Hui Seo, who had slung her bag across her shoulder, stared at him in disbelief.
“You still seem a bit out of it. Why don’t you finish convalescing?”
“If I say I’ll convalesce, will you nurse me back to health? My dear?”
If he called her “my dear” one more time, she was seriously considering punching him. Hui Seo gave it genuine thought.
“I’m joking. I’ve no intention of lying around any longer. Time’s too precious. So don’t waste any more of it elsewhere—come back. I’ll be waiting for you here.”
You’ll return to this place. The inexplicable certainty that flickered across Kim Je Eon’s face seemed to speak those words aloud.
Leaving his assertion behind, Hui Seo moved forward without hesitation.
Kim Je Eon and the Mansion receded steadily into the distance behind her.

***

“What on earth was that?”
Hui Seo murmured to herself as she felt along the heated floor stones of the ondol.
It was a question that escaped unbidden—no one here could answer it anyway.
“No matter how much I think about it, something doesn’t add up. I could accept that I couldn’t sense any Spiritual Power, but to have an ear that doesn’t react at all to the Pa Yeong Bu or the Golswaebo Powder—I’ve never seen or heard of such a thing. And looking back on it now, I wonder if I was being used by someone in a mentally unstable family situation. But that’s even stranger, Grandmother.”
An elderly woman with a slight frame sat hunched on a cushion placed along one side of the heated floor, her white hair bound up in a single knot. The wrinkles around her mouth moved constantly.
“My aunt So Myeong recovered completely after just one Gut Offering, Grandmother. She became a completely different person.”
“A different person?”
The old woman, who had been chewing a small, coin-sized confection for some time, repeated the words back in a slurred voice. It was less a question than a childlike parroting of what Hui Seo had said.
“Yeah. Before that, she was sly, sure, but she had her endearing side. After one Gut Offering, she became exactly like her grandfather—completely without manners, truly insufferable. I mean, it makes you wonder if she actually had better character when the ear was possessing her.”
Hui Seo’s mother, Wol Cheon, was a renowned Mudang.
In Hui Seo’s childhood memories, there remained frequent images of well-dressed people coming and going through the threshold carrying small boxes. Most of them had been either kind or indifferent to her, though occasionally loud voices echoed through the house.
Even compared to them, Kim Je Eon’s behavior was excessive.
“He’s had the worst manners of anyone I’ve ever met, Grandmother.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“He must have done something terribly wrong for such a strange thing to cling to him. Don’t you think?”
“Strange thing, yes.”
“Right, a strange thing.”
Hui Seo picked up a comb and positioned herself behind the old woman. She carefully untied the knotted hair and began combing it gently. Her voice, directed at the elder, was tenderer than it had ever been.
“That’s why I thought this time I’d really be able to find my mother. But it seems like it’ll take a little longer.”
She tried to speak matter-of-factly, but somehow her nose stung.
She’d been so certain this time would work. She’d thought she might come just a little closer, but Hui Seo had failed again.

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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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