The Time-Limited Elixir of the Ruined Clan - Chapter 163

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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 — Episode 163

“It has been far too long, Sword of the Moonless Night.”
“You have remained well, I trust.”
Dan Mok Cheon Gi offered his greeting in a voice drawn tight as a bowstring. Bing Xue Han swept his hand dismissively through the air. A moment of silence descended between them before Bing Xue Han, reading the tension in their faces, allowed his shoulders to ease.
“I trust you understand my eagerness to show you Bing Xue Yan. There is little point in formalities until that moment comes. Shall we proceed.”
Bing Xue Han led the way himself, his words flowing onward.
“I ask your patience regarding the days you have waited. Bing Xue Yan’s condition has been grave of late. I have been forced to remain at her side constantly, and so could not venture out to receive you, nor could I present her to you until now. I sent Do Wi in my stead, though I confess I worry whether the boy managed the task without serious misstep.”
At the mention of Bing Xue Yan’s poor condition, all color drained from Dan Mok Cheon Gi’s face. Dan Mok Hyeon Yo and Dan Mok Hyeon U stiffened visibly.
Bing Xue Han glanced at them sidelong and continued.
“Fortunately, Bing Xue Yan has improved greatly by now. I have not yet told her that the Sword of the Moonless Night has arrived, so she will be delighted when she sees you.”
“I… sincerely hope so.”
Dan Mok Cheon Gi murmured as though in prayer. Dan Mok Ryeon felt the raw longing in her grandfather’s voice strike deep into her chest, and she gripped Dan Mok Seong’s hand more tightly.
“In truth, I believed we would never meet again.”
Bing Xue Han spoke quietly. The light in Dan Mok Cheon Gi’s eyes dimmed.
“…I too harbored such thoughts.”
He had watched his martial arts—cultivated across a lifetime in service to others, at the cost of his own family—crumble slowly to dust before his eyes. He had stood witness to the Se Ga’s dissolution and expected to spend his remaining days in that silence. What use was it to have once been the Greatest Master Under Heaven? Now he was nothing but a defeated man, his hands empty of all he had fought to preserve.
How could he ever face Bing Xue Yan after dragging her into his ruin?
After she had lost everything tangled in the wreckage of his collapse and been forced to return to Beijing? What right had he to meet her gaze?
Life has its ascents and descents, he had told himself, but his descent was less a slope than a cliff—one from which there was no recovery.
A cliff of his own design. The depth was his doing, born of how high he had climbed; the shattered body was his doing, born of his own leap. There was no one to blame but himself.
Yet in a single moment, all of that had changed. It began the moment his granddaughter awakened.
The sentries stationed before the door recognized the Sect Master and bowed deeply before easing it open with careful reverence. They were not alone—two additional guards stood watch within as well.
As they entered, gossamer curtains billowed softly around them. Though the spacious chamber gleamed white and was studded with braziers, the air inside was far colder than that outside. It was as though the entire space lay encased in ice.
Beyond several layers of cloth, a great bed came into view. Upon it lay an elderly woman, still and silent.
Her face was so gaunt that every contour of her skull showed through. Her lips held no color. The very air around her seemed frozen in time. No one dared to speak.
Then Bing Xue Yan’s lips trembled faintly.
“Mm… why have so many come? I told you to avoid needless fussing…”
When Bing Xue Yan opened her eyes slowly and spoke in a hoarse voice, it was Dan Mok Hyeon Yo who cried out first.
“Mother! Mother!”
“…Hyeon Yo? Is that you, Hyeon Yo?”
Dan Mok Hyeon Yo had rushed forward as though to embrace her, but at the sight of her mother’s frame—thin as a withered branch—she could only weep. Tears streamed down her cheeks in an instant.
Bing Xue Yan, propping herself up, wore an expression of confusion at first, as though she had never imagined her crying daughter could appear before her here.
Then, seeing the others standing behind Dan Mok Hyeon Yo like patient sentinels, her eyes widened.
“……”
“……”
A charged silence stretched between them. Then Bing Xue Yan murmured.
“What is……”
“Bing Xue Yan! Because you have awakened, your husband and children—your grandchildren too—have all come.”
“Did you… arrange this?”
“How could I manage such a thing?”
“Then how…?”
Bing Xue Yan’s brow furrowed as if to register indignation, but she turned her head away and coughed softly instead.
“Bing Xue Yan!”
At that sound, both Bing Xue Han and Dan Mok Cheon Gi rushed forward together. As Bing Xue Yan coughed, she raised a hand to push them back, and both men yielded as easily as feathers in the wind.
After a few more moments of coughing, she lifted her gaze across the assembled company and extended a trembling hand toward her daughter, who continued to weep.
“…Hyeon Yo, come here.”
When she had first opened her eyes, she had called her by the childhood name—”Young Yo”—carelessly, but now she could not address her grown daughter in that manner.
“Why do you have so many tears?”
“But Mother—!”
“If you see me now, you must stop crying.”
Even at her words, Dan Mok Hyeon Yo could not cease her weeping. Bing Xue Yan laughed warmly and stroked her daughter’s hair.
“You are married with children, yet still you cry so easily.”
“Because of you, Mother!”
Bing Xue Yan pinched her daughter’s cheek—not harshly—and laughed again.
Then she turned to look at Dan Mok Hyeon U, who stood there awkwardly with reddened eyes.
“Hyeon U, come here.”
“Y-yes, Mother.”
“My son has grown so much. The last time I saw you, you were still such a small baby.”
“Mother, the last time you saw him, Hyeon U was already as tall as that.”
“Sister!”
Bing Xue Yan shook her head as Dan Mok Hyeon Yo, having wiped away her tears, spoke with a sharp edge to her words.
“I’ve told you siblings not to quarrel with each other so many times. Years have passed, and you’re still the same!”
“We weren’t quarreling. Hyeon U was just causing trouble.”
“What sort of trouble did he cause now?”
Dan Mok Hyeon Yo couldn’t bring herself to say, “That rascal caught and ate the carp that my niece treasured, claiming it was for his health!” and merely fumbled for words.
In the meantime, Bing Xue Yan reached out and stroked Dan Mok Hyeon U’s cheek. The last time she had touched it, there had still been baby fat, soft and tender, but now, after years in Beijing’s cold winds, the skin had grown slightly rough and the bone structure felt firm.
“Mm… Mother….”
Soon after, tears welled up in Dan Mok Hyeon U’s eyes as well.
Seeing this, Bing Xue Han’s lips curved into a strange smile—one that seemed both heartwarming and tinged with ache.
“Come now, Mother. This is Dan Mok Seong and Dan Mok Ryeon. Girls, come and greet your grandmother properly.”
“We pay our respects to Grandmother. I am Dan Mok Seong.”
Dan Mok Seong bowed to Bing Xue Yan with dignified poise. Dan Mok Hyeon Yo hurriedly wiped away her remaining tears and brought Dan Mok Ryeon forward as well.
“Dan Mok Ryeon is my brother’s daughter. My brother is….”
Dan Mok Hyeon Yo couldn’t finish. Bing Xue Yan shook her head upon seeing her daughter’s face clouded with regret at having broached the subject.
“There’s no need to speak of that now. Come closer to me, both of you.”
At Bing Xue Yan’s words, Dan Mok Seong seized Dan Mok Ryeon’s hand firmly and drew near.
Bing Xue Yan first gently stroked Dan Mok Seong’s hair.
“They say the firstborn usually resembles their father, but both Seong and Ryeon are the very image of your mother.”
“Does that displease you?”
“Seong resembles your face, but her temperament seems to take after her father, which is something of a relief.”
“Mother!”
“The person you’ve brought here is quite composed, and I like that about him.”
Dan Mok Seong maintained a dignified expression throughout the adults’ conversation, but her bearing now showed that she was reassured—her grandmother clearly did not dislike her.
“Dan Mok Ryeon, you were ill for so long… how did you manage to come all this way?”
“…It’s thanks to Grandmother’s kindness that I’m healthy now.”
As Dan Mok Ryeon spoke in a strained voice, Bing Xue Yan smiled gently.
“What did I do? I couldn’t even watch over you properly from such a distance….”
As she said this, Bing Xue Yan’s eyes—clouded with regret—stroked Dan Mok Ryeon’s hair.
“You’re completely well now?”
“Yes! That’s why I’ve been studying martial arts diligently. More of the Se Ga’s collateral descendants have returned, and going forward….”
Dan Mok Ryeon, about to recount the Se Ga’s circumstances, fell silent.
One hesitation was whether it was appropriate to detail the Se Ga’s affairs with Bing Xue Han present; another was the peculiar quality of Bing Xue Yan’s quiet smile.
“This grandmother is curious not about the Se Ga’s affairs, but about yours. If all of you are healthy, the Se Ga will surely prosper on its own.”
“Ah… yes.”
Dan Mok Ryeon found her words catching and could only murmur the end of her sentence.
“I’m relieved now that you’re healthy.”
Bing Xue Yan’s face, as she spoke, looked utterly at peace.
Then she gazed quietly into Dan Mok Ryeon’s eyes.
Eyes that resembled her own exactly. And then she murmured bitterly.
“How much you must have suffered….”
Dan Mok Ryeon understood. Bing Xue Yan had surely recognized the light in her eyes—a light far too old for a child—that had accumulated there layer upon layer.
“No, Grandmother. I never suffered, and since I recovered, every day has been full of joy.”
The dark past she had left behind was turning to ash beneath the light of the present, crumbling away. Even the pain had become something distant, something of the past.
Memories of those times would sometimes surge up unbidden when she encountered someone who had suffered or was suffering, but she could now recognize it for what it was—a memory of the past.
“Uncle gave me the Bing Dang Ho Ro, Aunt always sewed me beautiful clothes. Mother was always by my side, and Grandfather….”
Dan Mok Ryeon trailed off again.
Only after seeing Bing Xue Yan’s expression did belated understanding dawn on her: that when a child claims she never suffered, it only pierces the heart of the listener.

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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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