The Time-Limited Elixir of the Ruined Clan - Chapter 29

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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 Clan’s Lifeline — Chapter 29

“So you brewed this tea as well.”
“What? How did you know?”
Dan Mok Ryeon’s eyes went wide as she stared up at him. Dan Mok Cheon Gi took a single spoonful of the rice gruel and clicked his tongue.
“The clan’s primary heir, busy in the kitchen making gruel and drawing water. Quite the life you lead.”

“Pardon?”
In that instant, Kang Rip’s shoulders tensed.
‘The young lady is the primary heir, but….’
For some reason, the weight behind those words felt different than usual. After all, “primary heir” more often meant the heir to the heir, didn’t it?
Dan Mok Ryeon was the firstborn of Dan Mok Hyeon Seong, who had been clan head before—had circumstances been ordinary, she would have naturally succeeded him. But things had unfolded otherwise.
Dan Mok Hyeon Seong had died young, and Ryeon had merely held the seat until she turned seven; the clan had deliberately avoided mentioning she was the primary heir.
Yet now, as the patriarch gazed upon his first granddaughter and spoke that title aloud, it carried a weight far heavier than before.
But Kang Rip had no time to dwell on it—Dan Mok Cheon Gi rose to his feet, his robes billowing with the gesture.
“Since this enlightenment came from you, Ryeon, it’s only proper that you be the first to bear witness to it. Come.”
The girl and the steward hurried to follow the receding figure.
The inner courtyard of Wol Yeong Jae lay deathly silent.
Across the hard-packed earth, Dan Mok Cheon Gi walked without leaving so much as a footprint, then slowly drew his blade.
Ryeon felt the weight of his presence in her very skin, her eyes widening.
‘Is this what enlightenment feels like for a master?’
In these past few days of meditation alone, he hadn’t undergone any great formal training, yet his bearing and the flow of his energy were utterly transformed.
Just as one’s eye grows sharp enough to discern a deeper blue in the sky no matter how high it stretches, so too did the change in Dan Mok Cheon Gi stand vivid before her.
He moved the blade slowly from the start—the form of the Twelve Stars Falling Blade—yet far more deliberate than any iteration she knew.
But within that slowness lay not a tremor of disorder. It was as though the tail of each star stretched long without a single misalignment.
When at last he completed the final movement with grave finality, not a single footprint marked the earth before him—only twelve perfect sword cuts gleamed in silent testimony.

─ When the sword master of the Dan Mok Clan wields his blade, its meaning must be clear enough for all to understand.

That meaning rang out clear as the heavens themselves. Ryeon burst into laughter. Behind her eyes, characters written in ink bloomed and cascaded down.

Dan Mok Cheon Gi
Traits: Guardian of the Martial World / Collector of Sinews /
Full of Remorse
/ Flying Pair / Beheld the Orbits of Stars (New)
Twelve Stars Falling Blade: 12 Stars (Recovered)
Infinite Footwork: 12 Stars
Meteoric True Seal: 11 Stars
Talent and Five Aspects: Upper-Middle
Worry: Dan Mok Ryeon’s health, his own duty

Now the clan would enter a new epoch. She was certain of it—Ryeon sensed it in her bones.

* * *

In the early dawn before his granddaughter’s eyes even opened, Dan Mok Cheon Gi wielded his blade alone in the courtyard of Wol Yeong Jae.
The pain in his lower back that had tormented him for decades, the instability in his dantian—both were gone.
The wound from the poison of Blood Coral Valley that had plagued him across the years had healed as though washed clean.
Dan Mok Cheon Gi understood this as a small measure of rebirth of bones and shedding of skin.
He gazed at the unwavering tip of his own blade.
And beyond that blade tip, he recalled the trajectory traced by a young girl’s chopstick end.
He traced that path slowly in his mind. A shiver ran down his spine.
‘How is such a thing even possible….’
The sword path he had sought his entire life—how could it have revealed itself through the fingers of a child, his granddaughter?
That luminous breath within the tea she had offered. The clear current that purified the air and eased the breath.
‘Now that I think of it, didn’t they say the chicken she raised became a phoenix?’
He’d dismissed such talk as nonsense at first, but now Dan Mok Cheon Gi found he could no longer ignore it. More than that—he understood it all.
Dan Mok Cheon Gi smiled faintly and closed his eyes slowly. The girl’s gaze—bright as stars set into her eyes, bearing her grandmother’s resemblance—remained vivid in his mind.
‘Spirits of heaven and earth…….’
His chest tightened. All at once, he grasped the true destination of every effort his granddaughter had undertaken during her constant journeys to Wol Yeong Jae.
Even knowing that her strength had made her sickly, that she could not build her cultivation because of it, Dan Mok Ryeon had devoted herself to helping her family in whatever way that power allowed.
All the while he pursued enlightenment, she moved restlessly around him, striving to be of use with that very strength.
“Kang Rip. You’ve come?”
“Clan head…….”
As Dan Mok Cheon Gi sheathed his sword and turned, Kang Rip stood before him, his face flushed with emotion.
A man who had served long as steward to the great martial clan, Kang Rip could see from Dan Mok Cheon Gi’s swordwork alone that he had recovered far more than his former strength.
Dan Mok Cheon Gi laughed heartily at the display, waved a hand dismissively, and headed toward the inner chamber. Only after Kang Rip had offered his congratulations many times over did he begin to report on the accumulated matters of recent days.
“Hmm. So Wi Hak has finally achieved top-ranked graduate status?”
The first news Kang Rip brought was that Gyeon Wi Hak, the third son of Gyeon Eon Jo, had earned his provincial examination honors.
“Yes. The whole of Hang Zhou is in an uproar over it. The guild master says it’s thanks to the young lady making Clear Lotus Water, and he’s already sent her all manner of gifts. And among them—ah, there’s even a Fragrant Bamboo Flute! The secondary clan head was delighted when he heard she’d teach him to play it.”
Dan Mok Cheon Gi had been about to scoff at Kang Rip’s words, but at the mention of Dan Mok Hyeon U’s joy, his expression grew distant and he lowered his eyes.
“A Fragrant Bamboo Flute? That’s something Eon Jo treasures so dearly he wouldn’t even show it to me. And he sent it to Ryeon?”
“It was among the gifts sent hastily.”
“Ha. The thought of profiting from that Clear Lotus Water must have stars dancing in his head. That explains it.”
Dan Mok Cheon Gi spoke as if dismissing the matter. Kang Rip smiled slightly.
“He said he would send a gift befitting your good fortune as well, clan head.”
“So he expects me to produce something fitting my son’s good fortune, does he?”
“It’s not merely passing the examination—it’s top-ranked honors. Surely we too have joy in sending a gift? The inner branch leader is already busy selecting something fine.”
“Has anything else of note occurred?”
“Yes. Only…….”
Kang Rip hesitated briefly before speaking.
“It seems the movements of the Geum Ga Jang have been somewhat unusual.”
A bitter edge crept into the smile at Dan Mok Cheon Gi’s lips.
“Why would only they? If I’ve shown any progress, surely every martial school in Hang Zhou will have taken notice.”
His words rang true. If Gyeon Wi Hak had overturned all the scholarly families of Hang Zhou, then Dan Mok Cheon Gi had stirred the very foundations of every martial family in the city.

So naturally, the Geum Ga Jang—which now outshone even the Dan Mok Clan in reputation throughout Hang Zhou—would be unsettled.

“But now there is nothing to fear.”
Dan Mok Cheon Gi clenched and unclenched his fist repeatedly, recalling his granddaughter’s gaze—eyes in which star-like particles had danced and swirled.
What lay beyond that starlight?
Dawn.
The light would rise again and burn.
“More pressing—I must soon send someone to Ha Nan Province.”
“To Ha Nan Province……?”
In Ha Nan Province, the Hek Cheon Ryeon, the Ma Cheon Gyo, and the Martial Alliance—formed by these powers alongside the Baek Do Meng to stand against the great evil of Blood Coral Valley—held their ground.
And there, among that Martial Alliance, Dan Mok Cheon Gi’s daughter, Dan Mok Hyeon Yo, now served alongside her husband as the external branch leader and acting clan head.
“Tell the external branch leader she may return now. She has labored long in the Martial Alliance. It is time for her to rest. Tell her to come home to the clan.”
Kang Rip swallowed hard. The external branch leader of the Dan Mok Clan was the second daughter, Dan Mok Hyeon Yo.
To say she had labored long and it was time to rest was also to say it was time to relinquish her post as acting clan head.
Kang Rip sensed turbulence ahead.

* * *

“Ha! As if I’m the clever one? Everyone assumed he spent his days wallowing in drink and revelry, chasing nothing but pleasure. How could I possibly know when he found time to study at all?”
Gyeon Eon Jo laughed heartily as he spoke. The expression of the Yi Hwa Jeon Zhang Acting Director, who had been lavishing congratulations, stiffened briefly before he managed to compose it.
The Yi Hwa Jeon Zhang Acting Director hailed from distant Shan Xi Province to the north and did not burn with the same fervor to place his children in office as the merchants of Hui Zhou.
Yet if he had multiple sons and one or two secured positions, was that not a worthy thing?
He’d been conducting frequent business with the Man Song Merchant Guild, and so had arranged for his own son to study alongside Gyeon Wi Hak. But while Gyeon Wi Hak earned top-ranked honors, his son had nearly failed the examination outright.
It was only because he had taken time for a pleasant meeting with a local official in the end that disaster had been averted.
‘Both boys played alike, yet one achieves top-ranked honors while the other barely escapes failure? How is such a thing possible?’
Though playful, his own son had been known throughout the district from childhood for an unusual intelligence—bright enough that his family had steered him toward an official career.
“Still, it truly is remarkable. Though I’ve heard that he…….”
The Acting Director ventured carefully into the question.
According to his son, Gyeon Wi Hak had a small tonic that he’d often dab on his brow or temples whenever he grew tired.
He said it was a gift from a niece he doted on, and that it helped with his studies.

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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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