The Time-Limited Elixir of the Ruined Clan - Chapter 184

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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 House’s Limited Lifespan — Chapter 184

“……Wait, hold on. What in heaven’s name is happening here?”
— A low rumble…….
Though the windows and doors were sealed shut, the brazier’s flame flickered as if caught by wind.
The flickering intensified. The window frame trembled, and sparks shot up from the charcoal. A current of air whipped through the room, tousling Hwa Ryun’s hair. The rushing air made the brazier’s coal glow a brilliant crimson, and that cold essence was drawn violently into Dan Mok Ryeon.
And those frigid energies surged fiercely into Ryeon, pulling her under.
Hwa Ryun recognized the sensation — she had felt this force before.
‘Is this the power of Bing Jing?’
The reason Hwa Ryun stopped calling for a physician and took her place at Ryeon’s side was that she’d sensed Ryeon drawing strength from something — something significant.
Ryeon’s perception had always been sharp; her sight pierced through the ordinary. Coming to this foreign Beijing, witnessing so much, exhausting herself for her grandmother—it was only natural she’d grasp something in the process.
If ordinary people came rushing in and ruined everything, perhaps the soft-hearted Ryeon—like a late-blooming dandelion seed—might falter. But Hwa Ryun doubted she would, and she doubted others would either.
‘Here I am, guarding someone else’s cultivation. Life is strange.’
If others saw such a young child sitting so carelessly at the bedside, they’d mock the very notion of a protection cultivation. But then, they weren’t Hwa Ryun.
Hwa Ryun rested her elbow on her knee, propping her chin in her hand at an awkward angle, and gazed quietly at Ryeon’s youthful face, clicking her tongue.
‘She’s coughed up blood again—a whole mouthful.’
She’d noticed it the moment Ryeon left her side earlier.
Hwa Ryun couldn’t fathom that heart. How could someone spill their own blood for another’s sake?
She wasn’t ignorant of such people. As a tiger knows of rabbits’ existence, so too did she.
Yet a rabbit is only prey to the tiger. Just as it matters not how a rabbit is born or what fills its heart, so Hwa Ryun couldn’t understand theirs.
But if anyone dared call Ryeon a rabbit, Hwa Ryun would laugh and ask—what rabbit refuses to listen like this one does?
“She knows no moderation.”
Would Ryeon have done such things even if the patient were not her grandmother, but Hwa Ryun herself?
Would she travel daily to that distant hot spring, tend the plants, prepare medicines, cough up her own blood—all to heal another’s wounds?
‘She would have.’
And even without herself, Ryeon would do the same.
For a peer she’d met in Gyeong Hang Un Ryeon, for a beggar sprawled on the roadside—she’d do it all the same.
When that thought reached Hwa Ryun, her expression emptied entirely.
The swirling energy of Bing Jing, the cold essence brushing past—it only deepened that hollow look.
‘Even so, this time…….’
Perhaps Ryeon’s goodness was finally returning to her.
Hwa Ryun gazed down at Ryeon as the energy began to spiral around her, and that thought made her laugh—a hollow, bitter sound.
She couldn’t believe she’d harbored such naive thoughts.
If Ryeon gained something in this moment, it was because she was far sharper than anyone would credit, and because she’d labored without ceasing.
Not because of such foolish, self-immolating kindness.
In that instant, a reddish glow flickered once across Hwa Ryun’s eyes as she stood guard over Ryeon.
A thin slip of paper slid through the crack between the window frame’s edges, caught the draft, and came to rest in Hwa Ryun’s hand.
The rough, thin paper bore no visible writing at first, but Hwa Ryun let out a soft snort and ran her hand across it once.
At that moment, crude characters emerged before her eyes.
A Formation Magic had been sketched onto the paper in abbreviated form, producing a wondrous effect. Simple it wasn’t—far from it—but Hwa Ryun traced it with practiced ease.
The script at the top and bottom differed entirely; it seemed two people had written it. Reading quickly through the characters, Hwa Ryun’s brow drew tight.
“These fools, doing this now.”
The words, laced with hard consonants, spilled from her lips. She took a deep breath, then thrust the paper between the charcoal of the brazier. A bluish flame swept across it once, then vanished.
Hwa Ryun pressed her brow briefly, exhaled a long sigh, then turned her head toward the bed.
Ryeon, eyes closed, lay motionless.
Hwa Ryun stood at her side, opening and closing her fists in hesitation for a moment, then with a soft sigh drew the quilt up to Ryeon’s chin.
“Sigh. However did we come to this…….”
She let the words drift out—words she’d been muttering often of late—and sighed again.

* * *

Ryeon drifted amid the cold essence that burrowed into her very being. If comfort were described as something familiar and peaceful, then this cold was comfort to her.
It felt as though she’d been born within it from the beginning, as though she’d lost it and now found it again.
The Spiritual Energy that had been stable throughout the Ice Palace now surged wildly, yet it brought no pain.
‘Bing Jing?’
The massive sheet of ice that had hung above the hot spring rose into the air of its own accord.
‘But what is this Cold Essence trying to do to me?’
The question answered itself soon enough.
Bing Jing’s Cold Essence had begun constructing a wall of ice within Dan Mok Ryeon’s dantian, freezing each wisp of Spiritual Energy that rose from her body and using it as a brick.
Even as Dan Mok Ryeon observed the currents flowing within her own body, and recognized that Bing Jing’s gentle Cold Essence was an act of care toward her, she tilted her head in doubt.
‘It won’t work……’
What use was laying small bricks in the gaps of Spiritual Energy that surged like an ocean, like a tidal wave?
Yet the wall grew higher. At first, the raging Spiritual Energy slipped freely in and out of it, but eventually it became so tall that it could withstand the onslaught from without.
A small palace of ice, curving in a perfect circle, took firm root above Dan Mok Ryeon’s physical body. And outside it, Spiritual Energy moved with the violence of a raging tempest.
Dan Mok Ryeon found herself already within that wall. She looked around, cupped her hands together, and blew a warm breath—and saw it mist.
And in that instant, warmth flickered in her palms. She carefully opened her hands, startled.
The warmth felt slightly more intense now.
‘Is this…… the Hong Hua Zi?’
It was the essence of that Hong Hua Zi—the fruit that Bing Xue Yan had eaten and struggled against its sourness, and which Dan Mok Ryeon had also taken a bite of afterward.
The warmth spread through the wall. The ice wall melted slightly under that heat, then froze again, becoming even harder and more solid.
At the same moment, droplets formed between her fingers. Drop, drop—transparent beads of water fell away.
Dan Mok Ryeon understood. This was what they called Inner Strength.
Merely a few drops, but something that had never been permitted to her in all her life.
Somehow, it was visible to her eyes as clearly as if she could grasp it.
The warmth of the Hong Hua Zi that she had cultivated in the hot spring for her grandmother’s sake had melted the enormous power of Bing Jing itself, which had been suspended above that very spring.
Drawing forth the power of the melted Bing Jing to construct this wall of ice from Spiritual Energy must have been a miracle forged by exhausting all her fortune.
And the cold nature of the Hong Hua Zi that she had tasted harmonized with that Cold Essence to create the wall of Spiritual Energy, while its warm nature strengthened the wall and simultaneously refined the Spiritual Energy into its purest form, transforming it into Inner Strength. Only a little, but it was undeniably Inner Strength.
‘Gasp! But can I even absorb Bing Jing’s power like this?’
The Bing Jing probably hadn’t melted entirely, but she felt like she’d stolen fruit from someone else’s back hillside.
Yet there was no undoing what was already done. After a moment of restless indecision, Dan Mok Ryeon resigned herself and ran her hand across the ice wall.
Though it was a world of the mind, the Cold Essence felt vividly real. And so did the clear water droplets that formed there.
‘So I need to widen this wall with Bing Jing’s power and fill the inside gradually.’
It would be difficult to achieve through ordinary Inner Strength cultivation manuals, and it would take twice as long, but for Dan Mok Ryeon until now, it had been a possibility that didn’t exist at all.
She found herself grateful for even that long span of time yet to come.
‘This is all thanks to Grandmother.’
The strength to withstand Cold Essence must have been inherited from her grandmother. Passed through her father and down to her.
‘Now Grandfather and Grandmother won’t have to worry, and I don’t need to keep it secret from Mother anymore.’
She could finally ease the burden of Wi Ji Cheong, who had blamed herself endlessly for her daughter’s suffering because of her. The thought alone made her heart swell.
‘To Bing Jing…… I should apologize.’
She couldn’t undo the damage of draining much of Bing Palace’s power with a mere word, but since she hadn’t stolen it on purpose, might they overlook it? And she hadn’t consumed it all—only a little had melted.
‘In any case, we’re family……’
She might well face a scolding, but a smile escaped her lips unbidden.
‘At last, I have—I have Inner Strength!’
At first, Dan Mok Cheon Gi had refused to teach her Martial Arts at all. He had been worried about the walls she would face in the future.
What had she said to him then?
If such a day came, she would endure and persevere. The expression on Dan Mok Cheon Gi’s face as he heard those words seemed as though his heart was being torn.
Now her grandfather would no longer need to wear such an expression.

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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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