The Time-Limited Elixir of the Ruined Clan - Chapter 162

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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 Fallen Clan’s Limited Lifespan Spirit Elixir — Episode 162

‘How strange it is…….’
Ryeon touched the tip of her finger to the window pane decorated with crystal ornaments and let the thought settle.
Ever since witnessing her father’s phantom vision on Wu Ryeong San, the anxious pounding in her chest had subsided considerably, and she’d felt her Spiritual Energy flowing more smoothly—yet beyond that, she hadn’t noticed any particular effects. But upon arriving in Beijing, she’d grown remarkably at ease.
Before this, whenever she entered a place so saturated with natural beauty, her Spiritual Energy would rush in like water converging toward her from every corner of heaven and earth when she fell into water. Wu Ryeong San had been no exception.
But here in Beijing, her Spiritual Energy maintained a calm, steady state.
Exactly sixty. Neither too much nor too little. If she channeled it into other ornaments, it would fill them to the brim, but without doing so, it never overflowed.
Ryeon suspected the significance might lie in the fact that her grandmother, Bing Xue Yan, hailed from the Beijing Ice Palace.
The grandmother who, upon hearing that Ryeon was born, had sent a Spirit Elixir by any means necessary.
The grandmother who hadn’t hesitated to save others first, even on the path to rescue her father…….
“I wish I could see Grandmother sooner.”
Not knowing what illness she might have brought from that distant foreign land, quarantining her for observation was surely the proper procedure—yet there was no controlling the anxiety in her heart.
‘Grandfather must be feeling it even more.’
Where else could such impatience go?
“It seems the Beijing air suits you, sister.”
That’s when Hwa Ryun spoke suddenly. Ryeon, who had been fidgeting with the beads adorning the room and reviewing the Beijing language she’d been learning from Dan Mok Seong over these quarantine days, looked up from her book.
Hwa Ryun, sitting beside her, had her chin resting on her hand as she studied her.
“Is that how I look?”
“Yes. I thought you’d suffer terribly from the cold coming all the way to Beijing, but instead your complexion seems even better.”
Ryeon reached up to touch her own cheeks. She wondered if the stability of her Spiritual Energy was showing in her complexion.
“Grandmother’s from the Ice Palace, so maybe I have a bit of Ice Palace blood in me too……? The Ice Palace has good air.”
“If the Beijing air suits you so well, will you stay here and live?”
At Hwa Ryun’s question, Ryeon’s eyes widened in surprise before she broke into laughter.
“So you don’t like Beijing? Is it too cold?”
Ryeon said this, then drew a moisturizer made from horse oil from the drawer and began rubbing it across Hwa Ryun’s face.
Hwa Ryun made a face of disgust and twisted her head side to side, but her chin was caught, and she eventually surrendered, letting her face be tended to.
“No matter how good the air is, I have to return to Hang Zhou.”
Ryeon answered while dabbing the moisturizer across Hwa Ryun’s cheeks. Hwa Ryun responded in a thin voice.
“Why?”
“Why? Would you rather stay here?”
Ryeon said this and smiled mischievously.
She was even prepared to laugh if Hwa Ryun made another face of disgust. But to her surprise, Hwa Ryun nodded with an expressionless face.
“It doesn’t seem like a bad idea.”
“Really? Truly? Why? You said it was cold.”
“You said it’s not that cold here, sister. The air is good, your face looks good, and it’s far away.”
“Far? Far from what?”
“Beijing is far from the Central Plains, isn’t it? If you just stayed here…….”
Hwa Ryun trailed off, her words stopping.
Before Ryeon could prompt her to continue, a sound came from outside. A small cough. ‘Ahem.’
The door opened, and a servant who appeared to be around thirteen or fourteen entered, carrying a wash basin and set it down.
“If you need anything else, please let me know.”
The accent was unfamiliar, yet the speech was clear and crisp in their language.
Ryeon looked back and forth between the basin—so frozen solid that white frost clung to it and the water inside was hard as ice—and the young servant whose hands had turned red from gripping something so cold. She stopped Hwa Ryun from saying anything, then sent the servant out. The servant quickly slipped from the room, doing her best to appear unbothered.
“Seems like they’re being openly hostile.”
They had asked to meet their grandmother Bing Xue Yan immediately, but they’d been given lodgings first. It was a splendid room, lavishly decorated with transparent crystal, but several days had passed in this quarantine all the same.
It was called quarantine, but the palace they’d been assigned was so vast that there were plenty of places to wander—yet wherever they went, they received half-hostile stares from young servants.
Both Ryeon and Dan Mok Seong had stumbled over what seemed like deliberately placed obstacles several times. The work of Ice Palace children. If not for Hwa Ryun, Ryeon herself might have fallen once.
Hwa Ryun spoke as Ryeon helped set the frozen basin on the stove.
“When I heard the circumstances, I understood their reasoning?”
“Are you on my side or the Ice Palace’s side?”
“Of course I’m on your side. But you told me to stop. Should I go grab that one again?”
Ryeon gave Hwa Ryun a sidelong glance for no particular reason.
The Ice Palace workers were going to such lengths to treat the Dan Mok Clan people poorly because they believed the Dan Mok Clan had taken away their Iron-hearted Ice Soul, Bing Xue Yan, only to send her back wounded.
Hwa Ryun’s words weren’t entirely wrong. Just as their thoughts weren’t entirely unreasonable either.
After all, it meant they cared for and loved Bing Xue Yan, and thus they resented her rivals. Viewed that way, these petty harassments didn’t sting quite so badly.
Just then, the sound of thundering footsteps came again, and Dan Mok Hyeon Yo and Dan Mok Hyeon U burst in.
“Good heavens, Ryeon! These fools, harassing even the children! I had a feeling about this.”
Dan Mok Hyeon Yo stared at the washbasin, now locked solid in ice, her fury mounting.
Ryeon blinked in surprise before breaking into a smile.
‘So even the younger ones bully each other.’
Meanwhile, Dan Mok Hyeon U tossed charcoal into the brazier to stoke the flames, muttering as he worked.
“My room was given wet charcoal instead.”
“When I first arrived, it was worse. They claimed that anyone from the Ice Palace would find this weather warm, so they wouldn’t even provide a brazier.”
“What did you do?”
“I asked them to show me who wasn’t using one.”
“And what did they say to that?”
“What could they say? ‘Actually, we do use braziers’? We all shivered together. Hehehehe!”
Dan Mok Hyeon U looked up at his sister with a somewhat deflated expression.
“And who exactly was included in this ‘we’?”
“Everyone—the guards, the Palace Master’s relatives, all the servants. I made my rounds to visit each of them.”
Dan Mok Hyeon Yo had come to pay her respects and said, “Didn’t you say everyone finds this weather warm and doesn’t use braziers? My, it’s sweltering,” all while painting over her blue lips with rouge and fanning herself, forcing every single one of them to clench their teeth and remove their braziers.
She’d practically ground her teeth, wondering who would freeze first, but when the Palace Master herself intervened, it was resolved.
Dan Mok Hyeon Yo surveyed Ryeon’s room once more—the same space she’d inspected thoroughly before—checking whether the window frame had any cracks, whether nettles or thorns had been slipped between the bedding, whether ice had been placed beneath the sleeping platform, then straightened her back.
It was at that very moment when the Palace Master of Beijing Ice Palace sent word requesting to see the children’s faces, along with clothing for them to wear.
Dan Mok Hyeon Yo unfolded the garment, fell silent for a moment, then began moving at double her usual speed.
She washed Ryeon’s face with warmed water and dressed her and Dan Mok Seong in matching blue robes that the Beijing Ice Palace had prepared.
Dan Mok Hyeon Yo tied the closures and her expression grew somewhat bittersweet.
“Seeing you and Seong like this… I wonder how delighted your mother would be.”
“Mother, couldn’t you redo Ryeon’s hair as well?”
“Of course I will, of course.”
Dan Mok Hyeon Yo spoke and then carefully braided Ryeon’s hair into twin plaits, coiling them neatly.
“When you return, Ryeon, I’ll need to find a maid to tend to your clothes and arrange your hair.”
“Mother?”
Ryeon glanced sideways toward Hwa Ryun, expecting her to widen her eyes in refusal—naturally, she wouldn’t admit just anyone—but Hwa Ryun quietly avoided her gaze.
‘What was that about?’
“As descendants of the Dan Mok Clan, you should have at least one person to keep your appearance proper.”
Dan Mok Hyeon Yo said this while inserting a matching Crystal Ornament into Dan Mok Seong’s hair, which was gathered high in a single knot.
Once Dan Mok Seong and Ryeon were dressed, Dan Mok Hyeon U regarded them with a somewhat worried expression.
“Just a vest? Won’t you be cold, sister? And you as well… aren’t you cold?”
“This early summer at the Ice Palace—what’s cold about it? It’s not even the dead of winter.”
Dan Mok Hyeon U seemed ready to argue, but he couldn’t withstand his sister’s pitying gaze and surrendered.
“Are you really not cold, you two?”
“No.”
“Truly, it’s fine.”
Dan Mok Seong and Ryeon answered in turn. Dan Mok Hyeon U merely glanced down at his own heavy overcoat, then nodded weakly and moved to meet with the Palace Master of the Beijing Ice Palace.

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The Palace Master of Beijing Ice Palace, Bing Xue Han, was an impressive figure in many respects. As Bing Xue Yan’s cousin, his pure white hair was braided and arranged in several neat strands, and he greeted them with a bright smile, his eyes marked by prominent double eyelids.

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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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