The Snake, the Flower, and the Tiger - Chapter 46

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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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46

“Let me ask you one more thing.”
“Anything you wish.”
Je-eon’s smile lingered at the corner of his mouth, as if meant to thaw the frost in Hee-seo’s gaze.
Hee-seo turned to the man standing with his back to the breaking dawn and asked.
“When did you return to that body?”
At Hee-seo’s follow-up question, the meticulously drawn smile faded bit by bit.
Yet his face remained smiling still, though Hee-seo found something oddly melancholic in that laughter.
It was a foolish sentiment. What could there be melancholic about a spirit occupying another’s flesh?
To her pressing question, Je-eon narrowed his eyes slightly and whispered to Hee-seo as though confessing a secret.
“How did you know?”
Je-eon’s manner of speech had changed without her noticing.
……
“I thought I was quite good at the imitation. Turns out I was found out too soon.”
As her premonition proved correct, a chill settled over Hee-seo’s face. She fired at Je-eon.
“You never actually left that body from the start, did you?”
“Why don’t you answer first? Since when did you realize that I am myself?”
Faced with his refusal to yield an inch, Hee-seo’s teeth clenched. Damn this spirit. The thought of being deceived, toyed with like this, made her blood boil.
“On the mountain, you were definitely Kim Je-eon. But just now, when you grabbed me. Then you weren’t Kim Je-eon. You were the Malevolent Spirit wearing that body and pretending to be Kim Je-eon. Isn’t that right?”
“A Malevolent Spirit?”
Je-eon furrowed his thick brows in an expression of hurt. It was a loathsome sight, one she hadn’t seen in too long. Hee-seo was so exasperated she clicked her tongue. “Ha.”
“It was strange. So-myeong’s shamanic ritual wouldn’t be potent enough to drive out something clinging to you so shamelessly, yet you vanished after just one session? It doesn’t make sense from the start.”
There was also this reason why Hee-seo had left that house without complaint.
So-myeong’s Spiritual Power had long since waned, and the spirit wearing Kim Je-eon was no docile creature to be dispelled by a sham ritual or Spirit Ascension.
Which is why she had been certain that Kim Jong-hyeop would come looking for her again.
“Now answer me. You never left that body, did you?”
Je-eon drew closer to the bed, a faint smile on his lips.
Hee-seo knew she was defenseless, yet strangely, she felt neither fear nor unease toward him. What was wrong with her mind? It was strange to find herself lowering her guard against the spirit.
“Lee Hee-seo.”
At the sound of his voice speaking her name, her solar plexus trembled. There was a gap in her defenses.
“……Say it.”
“I missed you.”
……
“I wanted to hear your voice. I wanted to see your face.”
Je-eon’s long fingers gently grasped a strand of Hee-seo’s hair that had fallen loose. Then, carefully brushing it aside, he pressed his lips to its end—moving as though approaching something that might scatter and vanish at any moment, his manner painfully tender.
Hee-seo’s eyes trembled visibly, unable to hide her shock. Catching even that tremor in his gaze, Je-eon whispered in a low voice.
“While submerged beneath this body, I thought of you constantly. And I remembered you. Your laughter, the small creases that formed when you frowned, the sound that rang out with each of your steps. Every day I chewed on those memories, turned them over, and savored them anew.”
“……Why?”
Hee-seo felt like a child caught doing something wrong. Her heart hammered in her chest like that of a child hiding stolen goods behind their back, her toes tingling. Because she was the same.
“That’s for you to—”
All of Hee-seo’s hair slipped through the spaces between Je-eon’s fingers. Watching it disappear from his grasp, the man’s expression twisted—looking both sorrowful and lonely.
He worked his lips in contemplation, searching for the words rising in his heart, before finally whispering in the softest of tones.
“Because you’re my wife.”
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
Hee-seo felt her pulse racing above her injured site.
Why now? Unable to meet his tender gaze, she closed her eyes, and a sharp memory flickered across her darkened vision.
The image of Je-eon throwing himself from the window in her place, and of that man pressing his lips to her wound.
Je-eon cupped Hee-seo’s cheek with extraordinary gentleness. At that touch, something welled up—a surge of inexplicable rage.
“You……!”
Unable to hold back her anger any longer, Hee-seo seized Je-eon’s wrist.
The firmness of the man’s wrist—so solid that even when she gripped with full force, her hand could not close around it—kindled her fury.
“You always treat me like I’m about to shatter at any moment.”
Her voice trembling with rage, Hee-seo bit out the words at him. Once the anger broke free, it poured out without restraint. Why was she so furious? Why did it burn like this? Why?
“What gives you the right to touch me like I’m precious? What gives you the right to show me such concern? I married you because—”
“To drive me from this body.”
……!
“I knew about it, so it’s fine. I married you knowing what you were, so our marriage isn’t entirely a lie.”
Hee-seo found herself confronting the real reason for her anger as she heard that voice—so earnest it ached with sorrow.
This strange spirit dwelling in Je-eon’s body was acting as though he were the victim. And Hee-seo had let herself be swept up in it, actually feeling guilty toward him.
“If you hadn’t taken that body in the first place, I wouldn’t have gone through with some fake marriage like that.”
You’re the one who did wrong. You were never supposed to be there in the first place. The accusation gathered at the tip of her tongue, but Hee-seo swallowed it back without meaning to. Then she questioned herself about why she’d held it in.
‘Why? Why are you hesitating to hurt him? Or do you actually think he’ll be wounded by what you say? Are you losing it, Hee-seo?’
Her heart had wavered before this thing that coveted a living person’s body and spouted nothing but lies. When she looked back on it later, she knew she’d be appalled at herself. Grinding her teeth against her own resentment and self-reproach, Hee-seo glared at him.
Yet Je-eon’s faint smile was still turned toward her.
“I know you’re angry, but when you say things like that, I only want to stay in this body more, Hee-seo.”
“Hey, you—!”
“And right now, if I’m in this body, isn’t that how you can get what you want from Chairman Kim Jong-hyeop?”
At the sudden invocation of that name from Je-eon’s mouth, Hee-seo’s mind snapped clear as though she’d been doused with cold water.
He was right about this much. At least it was her job to drive him out with her own hands. That was how Kim Jong-hyeop would reveal what had happened to her parents.
Je-eon’s bargain stimulated her sweetly, like a dangerously addictive poison from their first night together.
“I’ll make sure you get what you’re after.”
So we… As Je-eon intoned the words like an incantation, he drew closer.
As he approached, Hee-seo found herself arching her back without thinking, and at the same moment Je-eon’s hand steadied her firmly against him. Her center of balance shifted as she became aware of that touch.
“Hey—!”
She could have braced herself with strength in her core, but she was too flustered. The instant the soft mattress met her back, Je-eon’s hand slid down from where it had been to her waist.
The room had been cool when she’d regained her senses, but warmth was creeping in now.
Hee-seo forced her eyes open and looked up at him. The urge crept up her spine—the fierce desire to throw a punch at that smug face right then.
“Hee-seo.”
“Go on, get lost.”
“Come back with me.”
“Shouldn’t you be going back to the other world? Sorry, but I’m still alive.”
“Don’t worry. Even dead, I have no intention of going there with you.”
His voice carried a note of amusement, as if he were coaxing a sullen child.
Should she really punch him? His face was worth bruising over—one hit wouldn’t be too much, would it?
While Hee-seo weighed her options, Je-eon spoke again.
“Let’s go back to the Newlywed House together.”
“I’m warning you—I told you to back off.”
“Not until I’ve completely disappeared from you.”
Despite her sharp warning, Je-eon continued lowering himself toward her.
In other words, his lips drew steadily closer.
She should have thrown a punch at that face or spat out a curse, but Hee-seo found no words coming—as if a great wad of cotton had plugged her throat. Her lips had gone dry.
“I’ll protect you, so come back with me.”
His breath was close enough to tickle her cheek. Hee-seo stared at Je-eon’s face, drawing near, without blinking once.
His long lashes, his eyes glinting faintly, the bridge of his nose rising cleanly, his lips set neatly in place.

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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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