The Survival Story Of A Fallen Lady - Chapter 50

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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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Falling Daughter Survival Records, Episode 50
So Ah found it strange how he emphasized the same point over and over, unlike himself.
Only after So Ah had nodded several times did Seo Heon set down his brush and murmur quietly.
【Every time, you hide your pain.】
Cold as a frozen ravine.
The wounds from Ye Wang Estate.
The injuries you took from that demon.
You always endure it alone, swallowing it down. It grates on me.
Though he disliked hearing his subordinates groan, So Ah’s stoicism was extreme.
Hearing his monologue, So Ah turned her gaze away awkwardly.
“If the pain becomes unbearable, I do speak of it.”
It wasn’t that she deliberately concealed it.
She simply thought it was bearable.
Or perhaps she thought that voicing it would solve nothing.
Seo Heon gave a cold laugh at her response and extended his hand.
【Give me your hand again.】
So Ah placed her hand over his large one, both illuminated by the lamplight.
Seo Heon met her eyes once, then opened his Seon-gi.
A white lotus bloomed across the back of his hand, and a pristine energy flowed into So Ah.
“Mmh…….”
Like being scalded by flame, yet freezing solid.
An indescribable agony coursed down her forearm.
So Ah clenched her lips and swallowed the cry that rose in her throat.
Cold sweat dripped down her cheeks.
【It’s enough that I bear the silence.】
Seo Heon placed his finger on her lips as she stifled the sound, and gently parted them.
【Don’t hold your breath.】
“Hhh……!”
From lips that were bitten and bleeding, a hot breath finally tore free.
Seo Heon watched her breathing carefully as he controlled his Seon-gi with precision.
Fortunately, So Ah seemed to be growing accustomed to the pain of the Seon-gi bit by bit, her ragged breathing slowly steadying.
But then.
A violent lurch.
Something thrashed violently deep within her shoulder.
“Mmh……!”
Blood seeped from So Ah’s lips, and her body convulsed.
【……!】
The Yo-gi that was being driven back by the Seon-gi suddenly writhed and burrowed inward.
The burning crimson energy tore toward her Heart Meridian.
【Why……!】
Seo Heon had never encountered anything like this.
But.
‘There’s no time.’
His judgment came in an instant.
Seo Heon pulled So Ah against him.
She stumbled, her slight frame collapsing limply into his embrace.
Her body burned, fevered with heat.
He held her tightly, pressing his palm wide across her back.
The spot closest to the Heart Meridian.
Seon-gi poured from his hand and flowed straight toward her heart.
“Hhh……!”
A cry of anguish escaped So Ah’s lips.
Tension hardened Seo Heon’s jaw as well as he forced the energy into her.
Fortunately, the thrashing Yo-gi began to subside, crushed beneath the weight of his Seon-gi.
Seo Heon felt her weight go limp against him, and at last he exhaled.
His own heart was still pounding violently.
He looked down at the face pressed against his shoulder.
Cheeks flushed red with fever.
Hair damp with cold sweat.
Eyelashes half-closed.
She was clinging to a thread of consciousness, breathing in shallow gasps.
【Not once has she uttered a word of complaint.】
A voice that would reach no one spilled out.
And yet.
“If I said it hurt……”
A voice slurred as though drunk with sleep leaked from her arms.
“It would only burden Seo Heon……”
Seo Heon’s body went rigid.
It was too perfectly apt to be mere coincidence.
Seo Heon drew So Ah from his embrace and met her eyes.
【Did you just…….】
Answer my unspoken question?
He wanted to ask as much.
Her head slipped sideways without strength.
【So Ah……!】
The shoulders he held went slack.
She had lost consciousness entirely.
To judge by the flow of Yo-gi, the crisis seemed to have passed.
But the question lodged in his throat scattered, finding no place to land.
“……”
He laid her back on the bed and pulled the blanket over her.
Breath thin and rapid with fever.
Her lips seemed intent on offering no answer.
“It would only burden Seo Heon……”
Seo Heon pressed hard at his temples.
Was she truly hearing his voice?
Looking back, it was not the first time.
In the Court, at Jandogyo, and perhaps even in the Secret Technique he taught Mujin.
She always spoke as though reading words he could not voice.
That was why he could not help but listen to her words.
As Seo Heon stared at So Ah’s face, he drew his hand across his own.
‘What am I imagining……’
There was no reason she could hear his voice in the first place.
【It seems I have come to expect too much of So Ah.】
A thin smile crossed his lips.
Had he grown so dependent on her as to entertain such hollow delusions?
‘It was the fever talking……’
The fevered mutterings of a delirious patient.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Then So Ah stirred with a soft groan.
Seo Heon broke from his thoughts and checked her wrist again.
His brow narrowed as he traced the Seon-gi flowing through her meridians.
‘This is strange.’
The Yo-gi had clearly subsided.
Yet something else crouched near her Heart Meridian.
Seo Heon recalled the Yo-gi within So Ah suddenly burrowing deep.
It was a phenomenon he had never witnessed in all his years of slaying demons.
‘Could there be something the Yo-gi desires?’
Seo Heon looked down at sleeping So Ah’s face.
He could not know what lay beneath that serene countenance.
【I must examine the records in Jangseogak.】
A solitary mutter dissolved into the darkness.
* * *
At the edge of dawn.
No Chonggwan’s eyes snapped open early.
Pale light fell across his weathered face.
‘Not a wink of sleep all night.’
A demon had launched a sudden attack on the Royal Palace.
His heart had raced all night, his dreams violent and restless.
‘And then there’s the matter of So Ah.’
Badly wounded by a demon, they said.
And Seo Heon had sent away even the physicians, insisting on nursing her himself.
No Chonggwan set out for Hyenan Residence with the herbal decoction, ostensibly to pay his respects.
But then.
“Chief—Chief Administrator!”
Young Gyou, the attendant, came running with a stricken face.
“So Ah—she, she—!”
“What’s happened to So Ah? Tell me!”
No Chonggwan’s heart lurched.
Surely her condition hadn’t worsened overnight.
“Last night, I was waiting outside Hyenan Residence for So Ah to wake, and—”
“And?”
“I heard terrible sounds of suffering from inside.”
“Sounds of suffering?”
“Yes. Gasping, sharp—she was whimpering so pitifully that I could barely bear to listen.”
Young Gyou’s eyes glistened as the memory returned to her.
But No Chonggwan’s expression had gone rigid with unease.
Last night.
Gasping, sharp?
“Didn’t you think to look in?”
“It was impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because Seo Heon was with her. The two of them. All night.”
All night.
The two of them alone.
“One cannot simply enter where Seo Heon is present, can one?”
It was the rule of the Royal Palace.
Hyenan Residence was where Seo Heon could remove his mask, and without his permission, entry was strictly forbidden.
Yet into No Chonggwan’s mind crept an unseemly thought.
‘Surely not—’
No. Impossible.
So Ah was bedridden, gravely ill.
What sort of man would take advantage of a patient, no matter how moved—
‘Our Seo Heon would never. Of course not. Never.’
No Chonggwan shook his head firmly to dispel the indecent imagination.
And upon reaching Hyenan Residence.
“Ahem.”
He stood at the door and made a loud, deliberate cough to announce his presence.
“Seo Heon, I shall enter.”
No answer came.
Well, why would there be?
No Chonggwan quietly pushed open the door.
It was not locked.
And through the gap that opened before him.
……
He froze, herbal decoction in hand.
Dawn light seeping across the bed.
Seo Heon, his robes disheveled, braced himself on his arms on either side of So Ah’s face, leaning down over her.
The indecent thought he had just cast out came roaring triumphantly back.
Then Seo Heon looked up.
His masked eyes met No Chonggwan’s.
A moment of embarrassed silence.
“Ahem—I have seen nothing, my lord!”
No Chonggwan hastily averted his gaze, reverently set down the decoction, and beat a hasty retreat.
【No Chonggwan—! Wait—!】
Seo Heon, his face flushed, turned to stop the withdrawing administrator.
But.
Soft as silk—
The door was already closed behind him.

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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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