The Time-Limited Elixir of the Ruined Clan - Chapter 100

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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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A Falling Clan’s Terminal Elixir — Chapter 100

“Is this really seasickness?”
“Mm…”
Unable to say either yes or no, Dan Mok Ryeon simply drank more water—as though it might somehow soothe her churning stomach. As if.
The moment she thought the burning sensation would ease, a bitter taste rose in her throat instead.
Not quite the nausea of ordinary seasickness, but a sensation she’d grown all too familiar with in her past life—blood welling up from deep within.
Dan Mok Ryeon swallowed hard against the rising hemorrhage and cycled her Harmony Cultivation and Purification techniques. Her vision swam; the taste of iron flooded her mouth.

* Severe Spiritual Energy Aftereffects may occur! Exercise caution. *

Having held too much Spiritual Energy in the first place was one problem; expelling that much all at once had compounded it into another.
‘What was I supposed to do?’
“Sister, does it hurt a lot? Would you like me to hurt instead?”
“Don’t say that! It’s not that bad—just seasickness.”
Dan Mok Bi, insisting her sister shouldn’t suffer, piled all the small gifts and sweets that visitors had left for Dan Mok Cheon Gi onto Dan Mok Ryeon’s bedside and tried to burrow into her embrace.
But Hwa Ryun pulled her away, saying one didn’t bother the afflicted, leaving Dan Mok Bi to merely hold her sister’s hand and whimper.
‘But Hwa Ryun’s perception really is extraordinary. Or is it something that can be read through normal intuition at all?’
She’d managed to gloss over it with the adults easily enough using Harmony Cultivation, passing everything off as simple seasickness—so why did he keep watching her with such suspicion?
‘Still, if I just lie here quietly, it’ll drop again soon enough.’
Dan Mok Ryeon counted the time. At this rate, her Spiritual Energy levels would shoot past sixty again soon, but she’d still bought herself considerable time. A short rest in bed should help her body recover.
Once they disembarked at the Canal and she thoroughly Purified the Bustling Market District, it should be fine if she distributed some of her Spiritual Energy into Dan Mok Bi’s new clothes and accessories.
‘So that’s what they meant by carrying the light that time creates. I should have listened more carefully when I heard that.’
She was only now beginning to understand the counsel she’d received at Cheon Bi Palace.
They’d been telling her to bring Gemstones—stones born from long pressure deep within the earth.
‘I was using far more Spiritual Energy in daily life than I realized.’
The amount she’d spent making Baek Yak Cheong and Clear Lotus Water, purifying every corner of the family estate—it had added up far more than expected. And the faster she grew skilled at channeling Spiritual Energy, the faster it accumulated, which only made things worse.
‘I need it to live, but if I use too much, I become proficient enough to expend it faster still…’
“Don’t worry so much, Hwa Ryun. Once we leave the boat—once we disembark and buy clothes and gemstones and all that, it’ll be fine.”
“What kind of illness is cured by indulgence? And how does a martial artist end up with seasickness this severe anyway?”
“I’m not a complete martial artist yet…”
“You’re still a baby?”
“Our Hwa Ryun is so clever, though.”
“How can you say exactly what Bi says?”
Hwa Ryun looked at Dan Mok Ryeon as though he wanted to clutch his temples in exasperation. Even so, the expression sat oddly charming on his youthful face.
When Dan Mok Ryeon laughed, Hwa Ryun’s face twisted with sullenness.
“If you’re a baby, then sleep.”
“Watch your tongue with your sister, or you’ll catch it.”
“Yes, yes, then sleep.”
Hwa Ryun grumbled, and Dan Mok Ryeon let her eyes close as she felt his still-unripe fingers working at her hand. The distant ripple of water lapped like a lullaby.

Looking closely, the small mercy was that it bore no scars or marks.
Dan Mok Bi, who grew markedly more composed in her sister’s absence, spoke with deliberate care.
“Does it hurt a lot? Our sister?”
“A little. But it’ll be better soon…”
Dan Mok Bi’s worry was likely a mirror of Hwa Ryun’s own concern—the way he couldn’t hide his care, the way it made her think something truly serious was happening.
Hwa Ryun remembered the look in Dan Mok Ryeon’s eyes when she’d glanced at him, and swallowed a sigh.
“Really, it’s fine.”
“Truly?”
Hwa Ryun nodded.

While Ryeon remained awake, Dan Mok Bi clung to her constantly and whimpered, but the moment Ryeon fell into a deathlike sleep, Bi simply perched beside the bed, resting her head against the edge, and gazed at her sister without moving.
Hwa Ryun looked down at Dan Mok Bi for a long moment, then spoke abruptly.
“You care for your sister that much?”
“Huh? Yes!”
Dan Mok Bi answered quickly and firmly, her face showing the slight bewilderment of someone asked an obvious question.
“Why do I care? Because she gives me lots of good things to eat?”
Dan Mok Bi shot Hwa Ryun a sidelong glance, her expression darkening at being treated like a child.
“Sister doesn’t need to give me anything. I can give things to her instead.”
“Even Yong Su Dang? Even Bing Dang Ho Ro? You could give all of it to her without eating any of it?”
Dan Mok Bi hesitated slightly and bit her lip hard, but then nodded.
“Of course I could.”
“You love her that much—enough to give up all of that?”
“Yes!”
“Why do you love her?”
The question circled back to where it had started. Dan Mok Bi turned her head to look quietly at her sleeping sister.
“Sister took all of Mother’s illness.”
“What?”
“That’s why Mother is healthy now, and I was born healthy too.”
“Who told you that?”
“I don’t know. People passing by…… other adults…….”
Dan Mok Bi murmured the words petulantly.
“I wish we could have split it in half.”
…….
“But the reason she didn’t is because sister really, truly loves me. Is that true?”
Hwa Ryun answered coldly.
“That has nothing to do with anything. When your sister was born, she didn’t even know whether you would exist or not.”
…….
Dan Mok Bi glanced at Hwa Ryun again. He shrugged in a teasing way and added.
“But your sister does love you. Truly.”
“Right?”
“Yes.”
What could such a deep affection between siblings be if not love?
When a small arm reaches out, Ryeon tries to embrace her with her whole small body; she lies beside her, strokes her, shares delicious things with her…….
Dan Mok Ryeon’s manner of cherishing and loving her younger brother carries something transcendent about it.
In the way she gives so boundlessly that it seems impossible for someone her age, there is no distinction between what is hers and what is his.
“Brother, this truly has nothing to do with me, does it? Sister’s illness isn’t because of…….”
“It has nothing to do with you.”
Hwa Ryun gave the confirmation with a touch of spite, and Dan Mok Bi broke into a broad smile.
“Then I like it even more.”
“Why? Like what?”
“Sister loves her younger brother even though she doesn’t know who he is!”
Then, as if that spirited cry had been a lie, she added in a voice made small by shame.
“And it’s not because of me that she’s suffering…….”
Dan Mok Bi murmured this, then burrowed her head into Dan Mok Ryeon’s blankets as she spoke.
“Sister…… told me to do what I want.”
Dan Mok Bi’s voice grew soft and muffled beneath the quilts.
“When?”
“On the day the cicadas were singing and sister was lying down because it was so hot…….”
It was the day when Ryeon, struck by the heat, had worried so much that she nestled into her small embrace.
Only now did the thought come to Bi: hadn’t sister felt even hotter because of her? She mustn’t do that again. Dan Mok Bi made a quiet resolution to herself and continued.
“Sister said I don’t have to become the Greatest Master Under Heaven or anything like that, if I don’t want to…….”
Grandfather was a living legend who had saved the Martial Arts World, and Father was the genius praised as the natural heir to his father’s place in this world—yet he had lived and died a tragic figure.
How deep were the tangible and intangible expectations poured upon the sickly Ryeon’s younger brother, born as the son of Dan Mok Hyeon Seong?
How heavy?
Was there anyone who had measured that weight?
“……But then?”
“So I asked her, if I don’t want to become the Greatest Master Under Heaven, what should I do now? And she said she’d handle all of that.”
…….
She didn’t know the weight was heavy; and when she came to understand it was heavy, she didn’t know how to set it down.
At that moment, she watched her sister receive it all with her whole body.
It didn’t matter if it was only words. Until now, no one had ever said such a thing to her.
“I love my sister. I’ll grow up fast and protect you…….”
She buried her head beneath the blanket and mumbled something, and before long the soft sound of steady breathing came from under the covers.
Hwa Ryun let out a hollow laugh, then laid Dan Mok Bi on her side and drew the quilt over her.
She turned her head and gazed quietly down at Dan Mok Ryeon lying on the bed, then grasped Dan Mok Ryeon’s wrist and slowly closed her eyes.
As she did, Hwa Ryun’s hair stirred faintly before settling.
Hwa Ryun felt out, one by one, the things she perceived through her fingertips.
The unhealed interior was torn and ravaged, and her breath carried a taint of blood. And even now, that faint, precarious breathing, scarcely audible.
‘What is this? Why does this keep happening?’
Hwa Ryun withdrew her hand from the wrist.
Dan Mok Ryeon lying asleep on the bed seemed as though she were dead. When Hwa Ryun held her hand near her nose, the shallow, prolonged breath was barely perceptible—so much so that it became pitiful.
She had heard that Dan Mok Ryeon had been ill for a long time, but still, it struck her as strange that no one had noticed she was suffering so severely.

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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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