The Snake, the Flower, and the Tiger - Chapter 61

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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 61

“Uncle. Get your memory straight. You were the one crying after losing an arm-wrestling match to a friend, and I’m the one who suggested we go to the Gymnasium. And you didn’t show up for even a week out of the whole year I worked there.”
“That was because your mother went on a Mountain Prayer Retreat back then, and I had no choice but to follow her.”
“As I remember it, you only followed her on the Mountain Prayer Retreat twice, said you got a fever, and came back down after just one day. Why do you keep twisting your memories?”
“Ugh, you really are something. It’s incredible—you haven’t changed one bit since elementary school. Your fists still hurt too…….”
We’re even on that front, Uncle, Hee-seo muttered under her breath, letting out a sigh.
She still couldn’t reach Hae-jeong, and it was the same with Je-eon. She gazed quietly at Je-eon’s Estate in the distance.
“So those two orphans are supposed to share that huge piece of land together? Good grief, I’ve never seen such wasteful spending. You should split that land in half and donate it as a church offering to reach heaven.”
“The grandfather living there doesn’t seem to care much about heaven, so don’t get your hopes up, Uncle.”
“Is that so? Then what about that grandson who was said to be possessed? There are two grandsons? Don’t tell me both of them are in bad condition?”
Go Yeom, who had been rolling around on the roof, lowered his head toward the driver’s seat as he asked. Hee-seo fell silent at his question.
“Both of them…… aren’t in good condition. There’s another one. His older brother. Kim Je-seon.”
“That so? I searched for that house online a while back and didn’t hear anything like that.”
“He said his body isn’t well, so he barely does any outside activities. And he really did look that way. If I decided to throw one good punch, he looked like he’d be headed to the afterlife right away.”
“That…… Hee-seo. If you decided to throw a punch, wouldn’t most people be headed to the afterlife?”
Go Yeom rolled his big eyes as he added his remark, and Hee-seo glared at him coldly. She shook her fist and asked him kindly.
“If you want to go meet Jesus, Uncle, just keep being that worthless. Understood?”
“Uhhh. Our niece is really terrifying…… God Father, give me the strength to overcome this hardship. So, s-so. They’re brothers with mixed blood then??”
“I don’t know for sure. I only saw Kim Je-seon properly once. And that was while I was half-asleep.”
The day she first saw Kim Je-seon flashed through her mind, and her body trembled reflexively.
That day, what she had seen was something she could never forget, no matter how hard she tried. Just thinking of Kim Je-seon brought that presence flooding back—the one that had filled the dark night sky.
“Anyway…… there’s something in that house.”
The Red Snake—its massive body hadn’t remained hidden even as it coiled around the entire Estate.
When she first saw it, she thought she’d been seeing things, but that snake clearly chased her even in the mountains. She still sometimes had dreams of being hunted by that snake.
As Hee-seo’s complexion grew pale, Go Yeom also spoke with considerable gravity.
“The chairman’s precious daughter fell ill and died, and even her husband followed a few years later. On top of that, one brother can’t engage in social activities because of his illness, and the other one is possessed by a spirit?”
“That’s what I know.”
“You said you still couldn’t figure out what that spirit was by the time you left that house, right? Well, it seems that bastard was quite affectionate toward you all the same. It’s not like you to let something that would normally get under your skin slide and come away with just a polite greeting.”
It was far more than affection—their blood was already mingled. Hee-seo’s face suddenly burned hot, and she tried hard to feign composure.
“Because Kim Jong-hyeop knew about my parents, I couldn’t just force the spirit out recklessly. I haven’t received the Shamanic Spirit Descent Ritual. So when I forcibly chase out the spirit, the person who was possessed gets very ill. If he uses that as leverage and Chairman Kim closes his mouth about my parents, then I’d be the one at a loss.”
“That’s precisely what’s strange.”
“……What is?”
It wasn’t a lie, exactly. Hee-seo, like a thief caught red-handed, answered back with feigned nonchalance after a delay. At that, Go Yeom quickly climbed down and settled into the passenger seat.
“Hee-seo, you. Did you really believe that?”
Then he looked at her with meaningful eyes.
“Hee-seo. Look at that family. It’s a household fallen into complete ruin, plain and simple. If you went as far as trying to receive the Shamanic Spirit Descent Ritual, you must have studied quite a bit, yes? Do you know what shamans suspect first in cases like this?”
“If all the descendants die before their time or fall ill, then the Lineage Path must have a blemish on it. I did consider that much.”
“Right. A Lineage Path isn’t something to be examined so lightly. Hee-seo, did you ever hear about your maternal grandmother?”
Hee-seo sensed vaguely what Go Yeom was trying to say.
“I never heard much about her. All I know is that Grandmother raised my mother, who was abandoned at a temple, from a very young age, and then Mother met Father. Why are you suddenly asking about my grandmother?”
“I never met her directly myself, but Mother mentioned her once. She said she was a Great Shaman of extraordinary power. So it’s only natural that your Lineage Path has a Divine Line.”
“But So-myeong told me that no spirit descended upon me at all…….”
Go Yeom smacked his lips and scratched his cheek.
The So-myeong he remembered was always suppressed, but he never knew she could use Hee-seo like this. How had she become so twisted?
His heart ached with both pity for So-myeong and compassion for Hee-seo.
“Don’t believe that.”
“What?”
“Don’t believe it when she says no spirit descended on you. Hee-seo, you are the daughter of Great Shamans.”
Hee-seo didn’t answer, just gazed at Go Yeom steadily. Though she couldn’t fully understand everything he was saying, it felt as though he was trying to comfort her in his clumsy way, and a faint smile rose to her lips.
Hee-seo leaned against the driver’s seat and started the engine.
“I don’t want to believe it either, but I have no choice. Grandmother said the same thing to me. That there was no spirit for me to receive. She said it when she came to her senses for a moment.”
“Well, that makes sense.”
“……Uncle, your intentions are good, but could you say something that actually makes sense?”
Hee-seo finally grumbled at him, unable to hold back, and Go Yeom laughed with a grin. Then, as he used to do when she was very young, he mussed her hair thoroughly and spoke words she never expected.
“No spirit can ever enter the Tiger’s Den. It seems Wol-cheon has kept that truth hidden from you all along.”
“Who, what are they hiding?”
Hee-seo, tidying her disheveled hair, knitted her brow.
Not A-seon or So-myeong, and certainly not her own mother—what had she been hiding from her? And Tiger’s Den, no less?
“No one ever told you why I call you Hee-seo, did they?”
“Well, it’s because Uncle……”
The strangeness of it all caught in her throat, and she barely swallowed the words back down. But Go Yeom laughed heartily, as though he’d read her very thoughts. Then he reclined the passenger seat all the way back and nodded his head.
“Have you ever heard of the Tiger Lord?”
The term was utterly unfamiliar. When Hee-seo could not answer readily, Go Yeom continued his explanation in an unhurried voice.
The Tiger Lord originally referred to a divine spirit revered as a god in households that suffered from tiger calamities.
The tiger was both a mountain spirit and an object of awe.
For this reason, households that served the Tiger Lord could not easily arrange marriages, and it was forbidden to eat food inside the house without first offering it to the Tiger Lord.
Shamans were born as ordinary people, but when they fell ill with the shaman’s sickness and received the Divine Calling, they would come to host multiple spirits within their body. The most common were Ancestral Spirits, followed by generals and divine children.
And the spirits with the highest Spiritual Power were Buddhas, Heavenly Deities, or mountain spirits. When a spirit of high Spiritual Power took center in a shaman’s body and emerged as the Primary Guiding Spirit, the other spirits could not easily exert their influence.
“You were born carrying the Tiger Lord from the beginning.”
“Is that even possible?”
It was something she couldn’t believe even as a jest. Though Hee-seo challenged him with evident disbelief, Go Yeom’s demeanor remained unshaken.
He recalled Wol-cheon, cradling an infant, lost in sorrow.
“We never thought it could be possible either. Your mother felt the same way.”
“But I’ve undergone the Shamanic Spirit Descent Ritual countless times, and my Spiritual Eye never opened.”
“That was……”
Go Yeom scratched his cheek, hesitating.
Despite everyone’s opposition, Wol-cheon had made a perilous choice for her daughter’s sake. Only now, after so much time had passed, could he understand that Wol-cheon’s choice had been the right one.
“On the day you turned a hundred days old, Wol-cheon performed the Suppression Ritual on you. It seemed absurd to perform such a ritual on a child who couldn’t even hold her own head up properly. Your mother and I tried to stop her, but we couldn’t. Fortunately, it seems to have been effective all this time……”

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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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