The Time-Limited Elixir of the Ruined Clan - Chapter 182

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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 Martial Family’s Limited Lifespan — Episode 182

“How could you… how could you do such a thing again…?”
“Grandmother, I’m sorry. I’m truly fine. It wasn’t that I overexerted myself — I really…”
“Even if you didn’t overexert yourself, you shouldn’t have done it. Wasn’t I nearly recovered already?”
“But…”
She had to rebuild the martial arts mastery she’d once possessed in brilliance, and with the blood poison that remained, she couldn’t predict what would happen — she couldn’t simply stand by and watch.
“Bing Xue Yan.”
Dan Mok Cheon Gi placed his hand on Bing Xue Yan’s shoulder and shook his head slowly.
“Ryeon.”
“…Yes, Grandfather.”
“I understand your heart.”
How could he not.
A child so clever and quick-witted — what could she not have realized about what she’d received from her grandparents?
Knowing that he possessed the power to heal her, what must have gone through her mind?
And seeing Bing Xue Yan still not fully recovered…
If she could heal her by coughing up blood once, it would never have become a matter of deliberation for her at all.
“But if we had to witness what you’re doing, your grandmother and I would have chosen to die forever unhealed instead. Do you understand this heart as well?”
“…”
Dan Mok Ryeon pressed her lips firmly shut. Her face showed she couldn’t accept it. Dan Mok Cheon Gi smiled bitterly.
“Then, do you understand the worry in our hearts as we watch you?”
Dan Mok Ryeon nodded slowly.
“I’m sorry…”
“It’s not that you’ve done wrong. I know you’ve made the effort every day for your grandmother — how could I blame you?”
“…”
“But you mustn’t hide such things from us out of fear of causing worry.”
Suddenly Bing Xue Yan’s head snapped up.
“Such things? Is this something to categorize? And it’s not happened just once? No, you’re right — surely not! You wouldn’t have done this to me alone, not with your nature!”
“No, I…”
“You really are burning up inside… and there’s not even a place to beat you where it matters on this small frame of yours.”
Bing Xue Yan sighed. Dan Mok Ryeon noticed her eyes were wet with tears.
“Not even a place to beat, and yet you do such things…”
“But… there’s no other way…”
It was a distant memory now, but in those days, coughing up blood was ordinary for her. She’d never known a day without pain.
The days remaining for her were always vague and short — they could be tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, or tonight.
If she could restore her grandmother’s health in exchange for an ordinary day of her own life, there was nothing to deliberate about.
“Then you must wait. You must wait until a method appears!”
“What if there’s no other method?”
If after enduring, waiting, and searching, she came to realize this was the only answer — who would compensate Bing Xue Yan for the time she’d spent in vain?
“Even so…”
“That’s enough, madam.”
Bing Xue Yan looked up at Dan Mok Cheon Gi with glistening eyes, but answered instead by turning her head sharply away.
“Ryeon, didn’t I say I understand your heart?”
“…Yes.”
“Then what did I tell you?”
“Not to keep it secret…”
“I won’t punish you, but before you do such a thing, you must consult with your family. If the matter has already unfolded, you must tell us at once.”
“…”
“Don’t cause trouble first when there was time to consult!”
Bing Xue Yan added quickly. Dan Mok Ryeon nodded slowly.
“I keep calling you clever, clever — and you go and cause such a major incident, dropping your grandmother’s heart? How would your mother’s heart break if she knew?”
“Please keep it secret from Mother…”
“You do realize you’ve caused worry, don’t you?”
“I do… but…”
“Don’t weigh one thing against another.”
Bing Xue Yan spoke in a clipped, measured tone, her voice resonating through the quiet room. Dan Mok Cheon Gi gazed at her profile, memories of their years together unfurling slowly in his mind.
Bing Xue Yan kept her attention fixed on her granddaughter alone—the girl who had inherited her eyes.
“You must never place yourself on the scales to save another.”
……
“It is good to think of others. Having strength, it is right that you protect the weak. That strength exists because you have had fortune and opportunity, and it is only fitting to repay this world and others who gave you those chances.”
Yes.
“But it must never wound you.”
……Yes.
“If one person diminishes themselves for the sake of others, some may be moved by such an example. But others will step back in fear of losing what they themselves possess.”
Ryeon blinked, a thought she had not considered before.
“You do not save the world and its people alone with the strength of one. Rather, a hundred people each contribute one piece, and together they save. From each, one is enough—merely one.”
Ah……
“And that one must not be a sacrifice of what is yours, nor a loss. Everyone possesses such a piece—something they can offer willingly. Not something of their own making, but something received from the world and from others from the beginning.”
Bing Xue Yan brushed at the corner of her granddaughter’s eye—so like her own.
“When you give a hundred, ask yourself: are you condemning those who can barely give one? Ask yourself whether that hundred you offer is truly yours alone. Ask yourself whether you have counted your family’s share, your friends’ share, the share of those you love as though they were your own.”
Bing Xue Yan continued.
“And so give only one.”
“Even though I have strength?”
“You are clever enough that your one may be larger than another’s one, it is true.”
……
“But it must be one.”
……
And only then did Bing Xue Yan add with a touch of playfulness.
“There are two of us, and we’ve tried more than once to each give a hundred all by ourselves—and it hasn’t gone well. If I’m being honest, there have been hundreds like us, and yet here we are. Isn’t that so?”
Ahem.
Dan Mok Cheon Gi coughed. Both of them, in their folly, had ended up like this, and their granddaughter had suffered for it—the shame of it made them both wish to say nothing.
“……I will take Grandmother’s words to heart.”
“Good. But you must listen well to Grandfather too, yes?”
Yes……
Having worked so hard to heal her grandmother and received such a thorough scolding, Ryeon sank into dejection. Now Dan Mok Cheon Gi and Bing Xue Yan found themselves at a loss.
“That…… Ryeon, yes. Well. Your grandmother was worried and startled, but I truly am grateful. I’m fully recovered now. I can do anything! Really!”
Bing Xue Yan rose abruptly from her seat, drew the sword from Dan Mok Cheon Gi’s waist, and held it aloft.
“Look at this!”
And with that, she began to move barefoot across the room in flowing Footwork Technique, the blade dancing through the air. The very Sword Form that Wen Bi had shown her unfolded now with far greater precision and grace.
“Truly…… so much……”
Dan Mok Cheon Gi gazed at the sight as though entranced. Following Bing Xue Yan’s movements this way and that, her ash-grey hair swayed, and her beaming face rippled with light.
When she finally completed the Sword Form from beginning to end, Bing Xue Yan herself stared down at her hands in disbelief.
She had moved only to console her granddaughter, yet she had done it all.
She truly was healed. All that had troubled her relentlessly for so long was gone.
“Ryeon! I…… I really…… I’m better……”
And yet to the granddaughter who had restored all of this to her, she had only shouted.
“That…… ahem…… well, your grandmother knows someone who makes a delicious Bing Dang Ho, so shall I ask them to make one from these Hawthorn Berries?”
“These are Spirit Medicine.”
Oh.
Making Spirit Medicine into confection did seem rather wasteful.
Bing Xue Yan, who had earlier rambled on about how good the herbs seemed to be for the body and that eating them must be why she’d recovered, now looked at Dan Mok Cheon Gi with hopeful eyes—her face the picture of a grandmother searching desperately for any way to console her granddaughter.
“Well, Ryeon, I……”
Jewelry and silver trinkets—she surely possessed plenty of those already. As for gifts suitable for a martial family child, she searched her mind, but nothing came to mind.
For Ryeon, whose health problems prevented her from building internal energy, no Qi Pill—no matter how rare—would be needed; indeed, if such a thing were necessary, she could craft it herself. A weapon was best when tailored precisely to the hand, and such a thing could not be obtained on a whim.
‘What sort of useless grandparents are we?’
To scold the child and yet have no way to soothe her afterward!
“I would stand on my head if it meant……”
Yes?
“Ah, but what are you saying?”
“Hmph! I would cast aside all dignity and propriety to make our granddaughter smile.”
“Did you not just tell her to consider whether sacrificing herself would make others hesitate to give even one……”
“So you cannot do it? You must cling to that precious dignity and propriety?”
Bing Xue Yan was about to place her hands on the ground when Dan Mok Cheon Gi hurriedly stopped her.
“No…… it is not about dignity…… if we do that, Ryeon becomes an unfilial daughter!”
“Ah……! Ryeon, that is not it. That is not what I meant……”
Bing Xue Yan bounced on her feet, unable to contain herself. Finally, Ryeon burst out laughing.

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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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