The Snake, the Flower, and the Tiger - Chapter 5

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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 5

Lee Hee-seo exhaled a long breath without thinking. A feeling she couldn’t name mixed with the tension, and her fingertips tingled.
Then the man loosely gripped the lock of hair that had slipped down her shoulder. Her knees buckled at even the lightest touch.
“I never thought Grandfather’s chosen bride would be someone I actually liked.”
The man’s voice was low—the kind that sounded good no matter what it said. And yet she had no desire to hear him whisper near her ear. Her hand tightened around the sheet without her meaning to.
“Neither did I.”
That’s true for me too. A fake wedding like this—I never imagined it either. Not in a thousand years.
Swallowing words he wouldn’t hear, Lee Hee-seo wavered.
Her purpose in lying on the wedding night bed was certain.
One thing she had to wrest from him.
“Lee Hee-seo.”
The moment his quiet voice spoke her name, she didn’t hesitate—she reached out quickly.
Their eyes tangled in the brief instant. The man smiled without a trace of surprise. That flower-like smile everyone talked about, the one she’d had to admit was captivating.
…….
“I like it when you’re forward with me in bed.”
He slowly, deliberately brushed away her arm from around his neck, his touch delicate as if handling an instrument. Her pressed lips trembled without leaving a tell.
His head descended toward her cheek, where a faint powder scent lingered instead of heavy makeup. At the same time, the muscular, toned lines of his upper body showed plainly between the folds of his shower robe.
To someone who should have devoted herself to spiritual discipline, it was an uncommon sight. Heat flooded her face. From the man there still came the clean scent of water.
‘Are you insane? Wake up if you don’t want to be bewitched, Lee Hee-seo.’
Yet she fought against being swept up in him. She tried to focus on the tight waistband of her clothes, the oppressive feel of her own tongue, the tiny hairpins pricking her scalp. Those small discomforts were her only defense against his charm.
“But first we should match our tastes, don’t you think?”
So that’s what people meant by a handsome man being like a narrative inevitability in romance films. She understood it now that she’d lived it. A moment ago she’d been fighting not to be drawn in, yet she’d nearly nodded along.
He kissed her hair briefly, a gesture that seemed sacred because of his face.
While she was lost in him, he drew his arm around her waist with a gentleness that defied the intensity of the moment. Her waist was not the kind that fit in one hand, yet he held her as if she might vanish.
Like a man desperately in love with her.
“Do you perhaps…….”
His voice had a strange power to it. Her resolve crumbled, and before she knew it she was looking down, hanging on his every word.
He rubbed her firm abdomen with his thumb as he spoke, his voice low against her ear.
“Do you like scary stories about ghosts?”
“……!”
In that instant, the warmth drained from the bedroom air.
Lee Hee-seo’s guard had crumbled while she was focused on him; her eyes flashed cold in a heartbeat. Yet his flower-like smile never wavered.
“If you don’t care for ghost stories…… what about stories of an Exorcist who hunts ghosts?”
Damn it. He knows.
Recognition came fast. Without hesitation, she pushed herself up. But unfortunately, she was still cradled in his arms.
“Ugh!”
“I’m not here to hurt you. Don’t run.”
He pinned down her tensed body, holding her close as if ready to escape at any second. The one-sided position made it nearly impossible to slip from his grip.
Just as she was about to swing her elbow, a voice like honey-soaked silk brushed her ear.
“Lee Hee-seo. Let’s make a deal. One hundred days. I’ll give you that time.”
A voice sweet as the poisoned apple Snow White had bitten.
“Figure out who I am in that span. If you do, I’ll give you whatever you want.”
As if he’d foreseen her next move, he caught the elbow aimed at him with his palm and whispered again. There was unmistakably laughter threaded through his voice.
‘This bastard. He’s actually mocking me right now, isn’t he?’ Lee Hee-seo ground her teeth.
He hooked both arms around her body and curled his lips. But his carefully drawn smile did nothing to soften the coldness in her eyes.
“I’d rather not be the kind of husband who gets hit on our first night together.”
Had he seen through everything from the start?
But how? Lee Hee-seo exhaled in frustration.
Then the man’s poker face finally cracked, his smile turning strangely warped. As if he was restraining something.
Kim Je-eon—Lee Hee-seo’s fake husband and heir to GM Group—looked down at the woman who had married him to erase him.
His eyes, lit with an eerie blue glow, held more menace than warmth. He knew she’d strike him without hesitation if given the slightest opening. And yet he was drawn in anyway.
As the distance closed and he felt her rigid breathing, his lips came down onto hers.
A soft sound escaped. His tongue pushed through the joined lips. She thrashed, but he was faster.
Crack. It wasn’t until blood spilled that the locked mouths finally parted.
“Haah, haah…….”
Spit. Something fell from Kim Je-eon’s lips. A single yellow paper, wet with blood and saliva—the Talisman that Lee Hee-seo had been holding in her mouth ever since she’d lain on the bed.
“From the moment I first saw you, I sensed it—your hands are far too presumptuous. Even between husband and wife, unwanted touching is grounds for divorce. I’m sure you’re aware of that.”
Lee Hee-seo’s voice cut like ice. Kim Je-eon still pinned her beneath him, and the weight of his body only sharpened her resolve.
The realization that everything had been exposed, coupled with her wariness of him, hardened her resolve anew.
Kim Je-eon’s bleeding face remained beautiful. Yet his beauty could no longer shake her foundations. Still, when he spoke again in quick succession, Lee Hee-seo had to fight to conceal her shock.
“That Talisman—it seems to be one that can reveal a spirit’s true nature when it absorbs the vital essence of a possessed person. I’m right, aren’t I?”
“……!”
“So that’s why you lay so obediently in bed? Hoping to seduce me and draw out my essence?”
The words tumbled from his lips without shame, and his face betrayed no embarrassment. He looked like someone incapable of feeling pain.
“I had my suspicions that you were no ordinary woman, but this exceeds my imagination. Are you fearless, or merely cunning? Knowing full well that I’m possessed by a spirit, yet you wait for me here alone, without a shred of hesitation. Don’t you have any sense of self-preservation?”
The Talisman Lee Hee-seo had been carrying was one so rarely used that even among shamans, few could perform the Exorcism required to craft it. Yet Kim Je-eon, an ordinary man by all accounts, had recognized it instantly.
The man’s lips curved into a smile as he watched her shock register. It was a luminous smile—like a serpent holding a bloom in its mouth.
“If you truly wanted it, I wouldn’t refuse you even now…….”
His gaze drifted deliberately toward her thigh.
Only then did Lee Hee-seo become aware of what was pressing against her leg. She was hardly naive enough not to know what it meant, yet her face flushed hot with mortification in a single instant.
Kim Je-eon fought back a smile at her reaction, finding her flustered state endearing, and whispered softly.
“For today, let’s settle for this. Blood works better than essence anyway, and I wouldn’t want to overtax you.”
He picked up the Talisman he’d spat upon and brushed it across his split lip. The fabric drank in his blood where it hadn’t already been stained, the sight far too charged with intimacy.
“If our wedding night were chess, I’ve already made the opening move. I’ve seen through your nature. So let’s say I’ve given you this Talisman as a gift—a memento of our marriage.”
He placed the bloodstained Talisman gently upon her chest, his voice tender.
“So if you’re able, use it to uncover whatever you can. We have all the time in the world, don’t we? My beautiful bride.”

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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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