The Time-Limited Elixir of the Ruined Clan - Chapter 115

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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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The Declining Great Clan’s Limited Lifespan 115

“It’s not like I have no worries either.”
“You? What could you possibly worry about? How to roast sweet potatoes?”
‘This fool…….’
“Whether I’ll live long or die young, what’ll happen to the succession if I do, whether Bi and Seong will be alright—things like that.”
“……?”
Nam Gung Seo Geon, his expression shifting slightly into confusion, turned to look at Dan Mok Ryeon. She ran her fingers over the woven basket of provisions, her lower lip jutting out rebelliously.
“You knew I was sick, didn’t you? Why do you look like you’re hearing this for the first time?”
“Oh, no—that’s, I thought you’d recovered completely…….”
“Even if I’m recovered, I was sick for seven straight years—you think I just snap my fingers and it goes away? I don’t know when I’ll die.”
“You’re making that up, aren’t you……?”
Dan Mok Ryeon gave a small shrug.
“I might live a long time.”
“Yes, well…….”
“Or I might not.”
Nam Gung Seo Geon repeatedly opened and closed his mouth, his face widening in shock. Dan Mok Ryeon asked with sly amusement.
“When do you die?”
“No, I… I don’t know, but… probably eighty……?”
“Wow. That’s nice.”
“Oh… oh, living a long time isn’t really all that good, or so they say.”
The tables had suddenly turned, and Nam Gung Seo Geon found himself scrambling to comfort her, speaking in rambling circles. Dan Mok Ryeon let out a soft laugh.
“I’m not trying to have a contest of troubles. You just suddenly said ‘you’ve got it good,’ and it caught me off guard.”
“……I’m sorry…….”
Seo Geon apologized without thinking—a remarkable thing for someone whose pride and inferiority complex ran so deep that he’d rarely bowed his head to another soul. Yet his mind was too muddled to turn his attention inward.
“So I’m left to worry about not knowing when I’ll die, and what’s worrying you?”
“I…….”
Now that the focus had shifted back to him, Nam Gung Seo Geon’s lips trembled slightly. Against the weight of life and death, his own anxieties felt absurdly trivial.
“It’s not something that serious, but… people have been whispering that I don’t have enough talent…….”
Dan Mok Ryeon fixed him with a serious gaze.
‘Right. She’s in the lower-middle range, and her brother’s in the upper-middle—she must feel the gap acutely.’
‘What? Isn’t this the moment when I’m supposed to reassure him that he has talent?’
Nam Gung Seo Geon himself had raised the worry, but when Dan Mok Ryeon’s expression settled into one of sympathetic understanding—”Yes, that must be hard”—his unease began to ripple.
“Talent, what’s… just how deficient are we talking? Not enough to be Clan Head?”
“No, no, what, that’s not it! Nobody said anything like that!”
“Then what are they comparing it to?”
“……!”
Nam Gung Seo Geon’s lips worked soundlessly for a moment before frustration spilled out.
“Nam Gung Seo Jin. They say they wish I’d been the younger brother instead… …….”
The whispers of the crowd—once echoing the old saying that no younger brother could match his elder—came back sharp and clear to his ears.
“Does Seo Jin want to be Clan Head?”
“I… don’t know…….”
“Do you want to?”
“It’s not a matter of wanting—I’m the eldest, so I have to… have to do it.”
And do it well, at that.
“Even if I tried to refuse, people would gossip endlessly—either I’d be taking credit for a seat my brother supposedly snatched, or they’d sneer at how inadequate I must be to step down of my own accord…….”
“No, never mind all that. Do you want to? Or don’t you?”
His serious reflection was cut off abruptly.
Nam Gung Seo Geon stared at her in disbelief, then pressed his palm hard against his own forehead.
“……I don’t know. Whether I want it or don’t…….”
Dan Mok Ryeon folded her arms and furrowed her brow in concentration.
‘True enough—he’s barely past ten. It’s a bit much to expect him to have already decided his whole future.’
“I don’t think martial prowess is a necessary condition for being a good Clan Head.”
The Dan Mok Clan itself had once had Dan Mok Cheon Gi, the Greatest Master Under Heaven, sitting in the Clan Head’s seat for years—but when he suffered that injury, didn’t everything collapse on him?
“…….”
“Uh, um. Is that really what you wanted to hear?”
‘Should I have told you that you’re talented and could grow stronger instead?’
Would it have been enough to just curse the people pointing fingers at you?
While Dan Mok Ryeon wrestled with the thought, Nam Gung Seo Geon let out a deep sigh and bowed his head, muttering.
“We don’t seem to get along very well…….”
It was the first time he’d spoken without pretense, but neither Dan Mok Ryeon nor Nam Gung Seo Geon noticed.
“You’re right.”
“Really.”
Nam Gung Seo Geon emphasized it once more. This time, Dan Mok Ryeon’s lips pouted.
“And here I was, working so hard to listen to your troubles.”
For a moment, Nam Gung Seo Geon seemed to snap to attention. His lips moved silently, then he mumbled quietly.
“……Thank you.”
“Even so, we don’t seem to get along.”
Dan Mok Ryeon spoke sternly. Nam Gung Seo Geon’s expression grew aggrieved; he let his shoulders sag and shook his head slowly.

As they finished roasting and eating the sweet potatoes and began to disperse to their quarters, guardians and servants emerged from waiting to collect the children.
The adults looked far more distressed than the children themselves upon seeing the soot on cheeks and scorched clothing, but they said nothing to each other and quietly dispersed from where they stood.
The last to remain were Dan Mok Hyeon Yo and Mo Yong Chwi Ryeo.
When Dan Mok Hyeon Yo saw Dan Mok Seong’s fingertips blackened and her cheeks flushed from the heat of the fire, she nearly cried out—but after catching sight of Dan Mok Ryeon and Dan Mok Bi as well, she actually let out a short, small shriek.
“Oh…….”
She then wiped all three children’s faces with the cuffs of her sleeves, but realizing this wouldn’t do, she straightened up.
Mo Yong Chwi Ryeo, watching her, smiled softly.
“You always have so much to deal with, don’t you?”
“Oh…… Elder.”
Dan Mok Hyeon Yo’s face flushed.
In the meantime, Mo Yong Seol Ho tried to wipe his own face clean, but unsure where the soot was, he only succeeded in smudging it further.
Mo Yong Chwi Ryeo observed her grandson behaving like a child his own age for the first time without much outward reaction, then glanced at Dan Mok Ryeon.
“Might I have a word with Ryeon?”
“What? With Ryeon?”
Dan Mok Hyeon Yo seemed surprised, but soon nodded.
Dan Mok Hyeon Yo picked up a drowsy Dan Mok Bi and returned to their quarters with Dan Mok Seong, while Mo Yong Seol Ho was led back to his own rooms by a servant.
Alone now, Mo Yong Chwi Ryeo made a gentle gesture toward Dan Mok Ryeon. Dan Mok Ryeon touched the cheek that Dan Mok Hyeon Yo had wiped clean and hurried over, matching her pace.
“……This old woman

wanted to see you for a reason. Do you know what it is?”
By now, no one remained in the vicinity. Dan Mok Ryeon nodded.
“Because of Seol Ho, isn’t it?”
“You knew.”
“Seol Ho doesn’t hide anything.”
Though they’d spent only a few days together, those few days made his nature clear: a straightforward sort who seemed incapable of veiled words or lies, speaking only from the heart.
Mo Yong Chwi Ryeo would have recognized immediately what kind of learning her grandson had gained, and Mo Yong Seol Ho would have openly revealed who had helped him without any deception.
“Then do you know how great a deed you’ve done for him?”
Dan Mok Ryeon considered offering a modest deflection, but instead nodded honestly.
Mo Yong Chwi Ryeo fell silent for a long moment.
“……Has no one ever praised your talent until now?”
“What?”
Dan Mok Ryeon blinked in surprise. It wasn’t every day one heard about talent while walking back from eating honey-roasted sweet potatoes.
“Or do you lack the competitive spirit? Is that why you helped that child so readily?”
“Oh, that’s…….”
Dan Mok Ryeon scratched her cheek. She understood the source of Mo Yong Chwi Ryeo’s confusion.
All the children gathered at Gyeong Hang Un Ryeon would one day earn their names as Rising Talents,

and each would have their rank determined in time.
“Is it that you feel no competitive spirit because you know your talent to be overwhelming? Or…… is it that you cannot build your inner power, so you do not look toward the future?”
“……!”
Dan Mok Ryeon stopped in her tracks, her eyes widening. In the heavy silence where even their breathing was audible, Mo Yong Chwi Ryeo spoke quietly.
“There’s no one around. You needn’t worry.”
“How……how did you…… know……?”
Belatedly, she thought she should have played ignorant, but the words had already left her lips.
Mo Yong Chwi Ryeo gazed at Dan Mok Ryeon with profound eyes.
“At this level of attainment, one learns to discern even the faintest trace of internal energy—to tell those who possess it from those who don’t. The collateral branches of the Dan Mok Clan have grasped fragments of the Heart Method and accumulated at least a glimmer of inner power. Yet in you, I see not even the shadow of a downy feather’s worth of cultivation. What explanation could there possibly be?”
“That is because I……”
“To say you lack wit is too generous a deception.”
Stupid? Unable to grasp the Heart Method?
But hadn’t Dan Mok Ryeon proven it herself—her own brilliance?
Elevating those around her, standing firm until the very last before the Physician’s threshold, even instructing Mo Yong Seol Ho, the most gifted child she had ever encountered.
With talent sharp enough to comprehend the Heart Method from a single sentence, the absence of even a trace of inner power could mean only one thing: she could not cultivate it at all.
“I know you have been ill for a long time. I heard that you recovered as if by miracle. Yet miracles exact their price, do they not? So that is why…… why you shared your learning with Seol Ho without reservation?”

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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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