The Snake, the Flower, and the Tiger - Chapter 75

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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 75

A-seon had tried to wake Ho-seo-nang to protect Hee-seo, but as Hee-seo had said, the underdeveloped Ho-seo-nang had never fully become her Body Guardian Spirit.
If that were so, then it was inevitable that the things she had overlooked for never having seen them before would now come rushing at Hee-seo, regarding her as an empty vessel.
Yet despite Go Yeom’s concern, Hee-seo answered without hesitation.
“I’ll just bleed them out and drive them away each time. Don’t worry about it. The energy of Ho-seo-nang still seems vigorous in my blood, doesn’t it? Maybe I should give blood donations while I’m at it. People sick from wandering spirits would probably recover quickly.”
“No, what on earth are you thinking, Hee-seo? Listen to your uncle!”
“Don’t worry so much about me. But if you’re going to worry this hard, shouldn’t you give me an answer too? Grandmother left you a message, didn’t she?”
At her brazenly confident tone, as though she had entrusted the answer to him, Go Yeom clicked his tongue. But Hee-seo had watched over her beside A-seon for just as long as he had.
A-seon had always been the adult who showed her the way, and that was precisely why Hee-seo could be so brazenly confident now.
Still, Go Yeom could not help but hesitate. A-seon had chosen him as her god-son because he possessed eyes of particular discernment.
On the day Hee-seo had been shot and fallen, Go Yeom had indeed seen something beyond the Wild Mountain that he should not have seen. And it was something that would surely put Hee-seo’s life in danger.
“Uncle.”
Had she read his hesitation? Hee-seo met his gaze with calm eyes.
Go Yeom was a man of deep feeling for all his sense of duty, and that was both his strength and his weakness.
Hee-seo looked into those worried eyes and smiled loosely.
“The path I’ve walked, the path I must walk—I bear it because every moment has been my choice. No one forced me to live this way. Every moment was my decision, and that’s why I have no regrets.”
Then Hee-seo’s lips moved slightly.
She could not tell Go Yeom this, but her choices now held another man. And taking his hand had been Hee-seo’s choice as well.
Sensing a presence beyond the door, Hee-seo spoke with quiet certainty.
She had reasons for reaching the end of this path.
“So tell me. Let me keep walking. Show me the way, Uncle. For my sake.”

***

Hee-seo stood at the edge of the Cliff. The changing season had crept upon her without warning, felt against her skin. As she gazed down at the mountains streaked with crimson and gold, the pain that had weighed heavy on her shoulders began to ease.
“I was in middle school when our parents disappeared.”
As she spoke, she bent at the waist and plucked an Autumn Leaf from the ground. The sun-dried leaf rustled in her palm, its edges tickling her skin.
Hee-seo gazed at the corners jutting between her fingers, then extended her hand toward the empty air.
She opened all her fingers at once. In the next breath, wind rising from below the Cliff lifted the leaf, which danced lightly on the currents of air.
“I remember now—my mother was quite a famous Mudang. During election season, men in business suits would come and go, and expensive cars would often be parked in front of our gate. Still, Mother insisted on helping only those who truly needed it. She had unwavering principles.”
Hee-seo still dreamed of Wol-cheon and Jae-yeong at times.
But as time passed, their faces grew increasingly blurred. At some point, she felt only their presence; the dreams themselves faded from memory in most cases.
“That day there was a competition. It was the first time my parents had been away so long, but they promised me they’d return by then. They had never broken a promise to me, so I kept waiting. I wanted so badly to get home and hang the Medal around Mother’s neck that I ran from the Competition Venue all the way home without stopping once.”
Wind blowing along the Cliff swept through her hair. Hee-seo brushed the strands aside carelessly and reached back into the past.
“Under normal circumstances, she would have fussed over my competition. But Mother seemed strange even before the day arrived. She was going to Prayer so often that even Father, who was usually laid-back, grew worried. There were nights they talked until dawn. That’s when Mother told me she was busy treating some woman.”
Where a doctor heals the body’s ailments, a Mudang like Wol-cheon mended the soul’s sickness. The woman that Wol-cheon had devoted herself to in those days must have suffered from a grave affliction indeed.
Otherwise, there would have been no reason for Wol-cheon to come and go for years on end.
“Strange, isn’t it? The final moment should burn itself into memory. But I can’t remember what clothes I wore or what expression I had when I went to greet them. I only recall that Mother said she’d be back soon, that this Prayer would be the last one. Did Father hold me? I’m not quite sure about that either. He must have—Father was an incredibly gentle man.”
If Wol-cheon had been a stern yet warm mother, Jae-yeong had been endlessly gentle to Hee-seo. Gazing at the sun balanced obliquely on the mountainside, Hee-seo murmured softly.
“If I’d known that was the last time, I would have begged them not to go.”
The presence drew closer, then footsteps stopped behind her. A moment later, a large, firm hand gently touched her shoulder.
Though the touch was clumsy and awkward, Hee-seo had come to recognize it as an attempt at comfort.
“This is why I’ve been living trapped in the past.”
Life after losing them had not been painful every day. Sometimes she could laugh; sometimes she discovered something amusing.
But in truth, Hee-seo had never grown from that time.
Just as Ho-seo-nang, sealed from birth, had never matured, Hee-seo’s time had remained frozen in the moment she lost them.
“Do you know why I’m telling you this?”
Hee-seo turned to look up at the man standing behind her. The sunset cast no clear expression on his face, yet Hee-seo could feel his anguish.
“…Hee-seo.”
“I tried to use searching for my parents as an excuse to eliminate you. I meant to drive you from that body and extract from the Chairman Kim the means to find my parents.”
Perhaps Kim Je-eon already knew all of this. But Hee-seo had to confess it to him nonetheless. And the confession was far heavier and more difficult than she had anticipated.
Her lips would not part easily, so Hee-seo had to draw several deep breaths.
The emotion that dampened her heart this way had a name: guilt.
“Kim Je-eon.”
It was the first time she had called him by his true name. Hee-seo savored the name on her tongue and met his gaze.
Before eyes that looked only at her, she wanted to flee. But she could not afford to be a coward any longer.
“I tried to drive you out of your rightful body and destroy you.”
“…….”
“Even if I claim ignorance, even if I say I was deceived by Kim Jong-hyeop…… the fact that I raised a blade against you doesn’t disappear. I’m still Hee-seo, who tried to harm you.”
Kim Je-eon.
His name, shaped by Hee-seo’s voice.
Je-eon slowly closed his eyes at the strangeness of hearing his own name spoken this way, then opened them again with deliberate slowness.
The woman standing with the sun at her back shone so brilliantly that he dared not meet her gaze directly. Could she possibly imagine how brightly she burned, this woman confessing her sins to him?
Je-eon kept his voice steady, answering with measured calm.
“But I deceived you as well.”
“Yes. You did. You never denied my suspicions. You knew beforehand the scheme that Kim Jong-hyeop had orchestrated, yet you never spoke your name as Kim Je-eon. You offered only riddling words and didn’t run away. As if you’d been waiting for this very moment all along.”
“…….”
From Kim Je-eon’s silence, Hee-seo grasped the final answer.
Her judgment of Je-eon had been correct.
Kim Je-eon had been waiting for someone to end his life. And Hee-seo understood all too well why that realization twisted her heart with pain.
“Kim Je-eon.”
Even though it was the name he ought to have been called, the way his gaze wavered at her summons pierced her with pity.
How unbearable his life must have been—enduring day after day, waiting only for the moment he would vanish from his own body.
Hee-seo’s heart ached for this man who was far larger and stronger than herself, ached for him again and again.
“Hee-seo.”
Je-eon answered to her call. He could no longer hide anything from her. Hee-seo had come to command him entirely. How could he deny her now, when she already knew everything?

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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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