The Time-Limited Elixir of the Ruined Clan - Chapter 12

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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 Noble Family’s Limited Time — Episode 12

‘But what if he’s upset that I brought it up? Or maybe he’ll just think I’m spouting childish nonsense.’
“Young.”
“Yes? Yes! Yes!”
Jeong Young, who had been walking, flinched and turned to look at Hwa Ryun. He seemed genuinely shocked that the other man knew his name.
“Working on your Footwork Technique?”
“Oh… I’m sorry, terribly sorry. I’m still so inadequate…”
Jeong Young stammered in alarm, doubly startled now. It was natural to be shocked — he’d been neglecting his duties as an attendant to his master. “No, no, it’s not that. It’s just… well.”
Hwa Ryun trailed off for a moment, then released Jeong Young’s hand. He had never formally trained in martial arts, but a lifetime spent in a Martial Arts World family meant he knew the household’s basic footwork by heart.
When someone demonstrated a technique with their body for the first time, usually the best you could hope for was not tripping over your own feet. But Hwa Ryun had something else — a natural grace.
His steps moved with ease and lightness.
“This isn’t just about creating distance from an opponent. It’s a movement best used when you pull your body back momentarily, but then want to press forward again. That’s why you put solid force into your rear left foot as you retreat, building the spring to propel yourself forward.”
“I see?”
“You’re using your left foot as the pivot and drawing your right leg back before extending it again, so you might get a bit off-balance in that instant. Don’t fear it — lean into the movement and it might flow even better.”
Tap, tap-tap!
The motion of stepping away from Jeong Young then stepping back in felt almost as light as a child playing tricks on an adult relative, yet there was subtle mastery woven into every footfall.
“Ah… yes! I’ll remember every word. Thank you for teaching me.”
Jeong Young clasped his hands and bowed respectfully. Hwa Ryun felt suddenly self-conscious at how readily the young man accepted his words and scratched his own cheek awkwardly.
‘Well, if the young master of the household says something, what else is there to do but acknowledge it?’
A strange discomfort and a faint regret crept in, so Hwa Ryun fell silent and said nothing more.
By the time the two of them reached the Jae Gyeong Pavilion after walking through the vast estate — which would have taken a full double hour to explore completely — the morning sun was gleaming brightly in the sky.
“Now… the library of the Jae Gyeong Pavilion, is it?”
“You’re saying exactly the same thing Young would say. Is there a problem?”
Seol Gwanhui smiled at Hwa Ryun’s words, then startled visibly and looked toward the armed attendant standing at the girl’s side.
Seol Gwanhui, the pavilion master, was a man just past forty, yet his hair was already graying while his face bore not a single wrinkle — a youth-faced man in his middle years.
“Oh my, what are you saying? Of course you may enter. You certainly may.”
Seol Gwanhui desperately tried to recall what the library had looked like the last time he’d entered it ten days ago, and guided Hwa Ryun toward the archive.
‘Was it reasonably organized? Or wasn’t it? Ah, I think I just piled those documents up haphazardly and told that Cho-il kid to organize it. Did that brat do the job properly?’
Danmok Hyunyeo was only just past eight years old — if she’d only been awake for barely a year — what would a child understand? Yet Seol Gwanhui felt inexplicably anxious and worried all the same.
Hwa Ryun, sensing that Seol Gwanhui was desperate to know what was happening and looked like he might come down with an illness, left him standing at the library entrance and stepped inside alone.
He could feel Seol Gwanhui’s presence at the door, craning his neck like a rooster, straining to catch a glimpse of what lay within.
‘To do anything with the household, I need to understand what’s happening within it first.’
She already knew the family was in decline.
It was obvious enough from the fact that her aunt Danmok Hyunyeo, the acting matriarch, was unable to remain at home and was out attending to the Murim Alliance.
Before you can stand, you need to know where you’re sitting. If you’re perched on an egg, standing up carelessly will shatter everything. If you’re sitting on sand, your feet will sink.
Hwa Ryun took a deep breath and began surveying her surroundings with bright, alert eyes.

“It doesn’t seem to be that severe…”
Two young boys loitered near Danmok Hyunyeo’s quarters, peering inside. Jeong Young, standing guard at the entrance, caught wind of their presence and turned his gaze toward them, a faint smile playing at his lips as he watched the two boys whisper to each other.
But the smile quickly faded.
Several days ago, in the early dawn, Danmok Hyunyeo had visited the Jae Gyeong Pavilion and returned.
Everyone had been puzzled at first, but soon understood: she was nearly finished with the Thousand Character Classic, so naturally she’d wanted to read various characters and see them in practice.
The problem was that from that day onward, a shadow seemed to have settled over the little girl’s face.
Her smile grew dim, her laughter faded. Her appetite had even suffered, her meals growing noticeably smaller — the entire household had been thrown into alarm.
Even her younger brothers had begun to gather, holding their breath and peering anxiously inside. Everyone was deeply worried.
“Should we break off some plum blossoms? Then maybe looking at the flowers will cheer our sister up?”
Danmok Bi murmured. The small boy, whose hands couldn’t even reach the branches, craned his neck upward as if bending back would help him see farther, and glared at the plum tree — a tree whose buds were nowhere to be found no matter how hard you looked.
The other boy standing beside him shook his head with a listless expression.
“You can’t even reach high enough to break anything off with your height, and the flowers won’t bloom for a long while yet.”
“But there are already plenty of sweet osmanthus flowers around.”

“That won’t cheer your sister up at all.”
“Then what should I bring her?”
“Hmm… Perhaps a stack of Bank Notes.”
“Bank Notes? What are those?”
Jeong Young eavesdropped on the boys’ conversation, stealing a glance at Hwa Ryun, who had mentioned Bank Notes.
For a child, the boy possessed unusually large, keen eyes and well-defined features—standing beside Danmok Bi, anyone would take them for two young masters, never for master and servant.
From what Jeong Young had heard, the boy had caught Danmok Ryeon’s eye by chance, and because he showed such keen intellect, they were raising him like a companion from childhood, intending to make him a trusted aide.
“So Bank Notes are all we need? Where can we get them? Should I ask Mother?”
“I was just thinking aloud. If those were easy to come by, your sister wouldn’t be like this.”
“Then what do we do?”
“That’s the problem… Why is she acting this way? Sigh, I think I understand, but…”
The low, sighing murmur didn’t sound like a child’s voice at all.
Jeong Young had begun watching Hwa Ryun’s movements not long after the boy entered the Danmok Family.
A servant boy, yes—but in ten or twenty years, he would certainly become a trusted confidant at the heart of the family. Jeong Young wanted to assess him, but the boy suddenly turned to look straight at him.
Without blinking, the child stared through him, measuring him from head to toe with his eyes, then turned his gaze away as though his curiosity had been satisfied.
After that, the boy never paid him any attention again.
Yet that piercing gaze left a strange, chilling afterimage in Jeong Young’s chest.
“There’s no way around this. For now, we’d better memorize the Thousand Character Classic. Have you finished memorizing it yet?”
“Eh? No… not yet… Have you?”
“I’ve done as much as you have. Let’s go memorize the Thousand Character Classic faster now.”
“But Sister…”
“Once you finish memorizing the Thousand Character Classic and learn sword techniques from the Patriarch, your sister will get up and dust herself off. That’s what will make her happiest.”
“Really?”
“If you become the greatest martial artist in the land, your sister will be so happy she’ll dance.”
“Really, truly? But can I really become the greatest martial artist in the land?”
“Well… it won’t be easy.”
Jeong Young watched the two boys disappear into the distance.
The greatest martial artist in the land… There had been a time when he too harbored such a dream. That time felt impossibly distant now.
Jeong Young suddenly recalled that day he had visited Jae Gyeong Pavilion.
At dawn that day, Danmok Ryeon had observed his Footwork Technique and offered him pointers here and there, but truthfully, Jeong Young had not taken it to heart.
A direct heir of a noble family saying a word or two to his retainers shouldn’t wound one’s pride so deeply that he could no longer continue with such work.
But afterward, he’d felt self-conscious for some reason and had stopped practicing his Footwork Technique separately for a while. Jeong Young gazed down at his own feet.

* * *

Ryeon lay flat on her bed.
‘Ugh…’
Then she turned over and buried her face in her arms.
‘What am I going to do?’
Sleep wouldn’t come.
The days spent consumed with burning Vital Energy and extending her lifeline felt like a dream in retrospect.
Her impulse to take a cursory look through Jae Gyeong Pavilion had been half-spontaneous, but she never imagined the family’s condition was this grave.
The shops that the noble family had once operated directly had dwindled to a count on both hands, and the Yousheng Money Transport, which belonged to the family, had contracted in scale as though its past reach beyond Xinjiang were a lie.
Now the Money Transport’s operations extended only between Henan Province and Shaanxi Province, and even that seemed dependent on the Murim Alliance being in Henan and a relative of Wei Zhiqing being in the Huashan Sect in Shaanxi.
Each time ready money was needed, land had been sold off, and the holdings had shrunk to half what they were twenty years ago. The fruit orchard’s trees had withered long ago, and the family’s medical division had been halved—one half absorbed into the Lake Immortal Medical Pavilion

in Hangzhou, leaving only the apothecary.
The family’s tradition of accepting disciples once every three years had been skipped last time.
The decision was made to preserve the disciples they already had rather than take on new ones. Why? Because the family could no longer sustain its current size.
And so the personnel had been cut, and the martial masters the family had nurtured slipped away like sand slipping through clenched fingers.

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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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