The Time-Limited Elixir of the Ruined Clan - Chapter 45

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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 Aristocratic Family’s Limited-Time Young Talent — Episode 45

“……Did you notice Tae Heo Jin In’s intentions?”
“Ah…… Yes. Even though he says Yeop Un isn’t his disciple, he treasures him dearly, and since Yeop Un has such remarkable aptitude, I thought perhaps that was the reason……”
Because she could sense others’ troubles a little, there were times when she grew confused whether this was something someone had spoken aloud or merely something she’d overheard.
“I see……”
“But I’m not sure if that’s entirely a good thing……”
“Hmm. What do you think?”
“It seems Yeop Un wishes to take Tae Heo Jin In as his master. From the beginning, he followed Tae Heo Jin In and entered the Kun Lun Sect.”
“Yes, that’s how it was.”
“Since he already holds someone in deep respect within his heart, wouldn’t taking a different master merely create inner conflict?”
“It seems Tae Heo’s nature is free-spirited, and he felt he had no time to settle in one place and teach disciples, so he arrived at this resolve.”
“Even though Yeop Un follows him faithfully even now?”
“Now that we intend to establish Yeop Un as a core figure among the sect’s capable talents, upon returning, we aim to nurture him within Kun Lun Mountain as much as possible. That’s how organizations work. They gathered to become immortals, they say, but they’re still people after all — what’s the difference? One’s heart naturally turns more toward those whose faces one sees more often.”
“Ah…… That could certainly be true. I simply thought that since Yeop Un truly possesses outstanding aptitude…… judged by skill alone, there’d be no concern about him becoming sect leader. He’s a good person too.”
Dan Mok Cheon Gi wondered if he’d spoken of overly difficult matters to a child not yet ten years old, yet he wasn’t surprised that Dan Mok Ryeon grasped it so well.
Dan Mok Cheon Gi watched Ryeon nodding quietly and continued speaking.
“Then how is it you teach such remarkable talent every single day?”
“Pardon? I teach…… teach, you say?”
Ryeon startled and protested. Dan Mok Cheon Gi smiled softly at the sight. The small child’s hair, braided into two neat loops on either side, trembled like the flutter of butterfly wings.
“Though Yeop Un appears gentle on the surface, he’d never lost once before meeting you — so his pride isn’t ordinary. Yet he hangs on your every word. Am I mistaken?”
“No, no. He said he’d never had a friend before. Since I’m his first friend, we’re just getting along well.”
“So it’s simply because he made a friend that he’s shown such remarkable progress where none existed before?”
“When the heart finds ease, achievement grows!”
“Then what of the insight you gave to Geum Jong Ha? Did that child also become your friend?”
The boy had nearly wept, his nose and cheeks flushed red, and walked away — but could anyone truly call such a thing a friendship?
Ryeon, knowing this truth, fell silent with an embarrassed expression.
Dan Mok Cheon Gi sat upright and gazed quietly at his granddaughter, who looked down with only her eyes, then spoke.
“Can you see it?”
“……”
No explicit reference was given, yet both knew precisely what was being discussed.
Dan Mok Cheon Gi added quietly.
“Haven’t you also taught me?”
Even a talent of ancient renown is one thing; aiding a child of the same age and showing them the way is different from allowing the greatest martial artist of the past to take even a single step forward.
“Can you see that path…… that Sword Path, that direction, with your own eyes?”
Ryeon pressed her lips firmly together and nodded quietly, slowly.
Nod, nod.
“So…… you can see it all……. You understand it all, then.”
Nod.
Ryeon nodded once more. Dan Mok Cheon Gi closed his eyes, then opened them quietly and extended his hand toward the table. Ryeon, who had hesitated a moment, placed her hand upon his.
Within his palm — scarred not only from fire but mottled with countless blade wounds — Ryeon’s hand seemed merely small, pale, and tender.
Dan Mok Cheon Gi let out a hollow laugh.
“How can a martial artist surrender her wrist so easily?”
“Ah.”
Ryeon smiled with embarrassment. Dan Mok Cheon Gi caressed the back of her hand.
“May I probe it?”
Ryeon nodded.
In that same moment, Dan Mok Cheon Gi moved his hand skillfully, grasping Ryeon’s wrist as his eyes closed.
In the dark night, as the candle flame illuminating the two before each other flickered ever so slightly, the distant lanterns hanging from the eaves extinguished one after another — whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.
The grass insects fell silent all at once.
In a silence so profound it seemed you could hear a star fall, Dan Mok Cheon Gi’s power flowed quietly through Ryeon’s meridians.
The meridians he’d traced dozens of times while the child lay unconscious and fevered. What he could not discern then, he felt now.
A crushing force, as though standing before Mount Tai crowned with eternal snow.
A fierce, violent power that swept through one standing in the heart of a storm-tossed sea — it howled and churned within this small frame.
The moment Dan Mok Cheon Gi opened his eyes, the grass insects began singing again, and the candlelight flickered once.
Before her eyes were her granddaughter’s eyes. Eyes that sparkled like stars cast across the heavens.
“This power…… this Spiritual Energy

has healed me, hasn’t it?”
Dan Mok Ryeon nodded silently.
“Because of this power, you couldn’t build your Internal Cultivation.”
“Yes…….”
“How can such a force exist in a human body…….”
Dan Mok Cheon Gi let slip a sound that could have been a sigh or an exclamation, then suddenly grasped something. His expression hardened at once.
“I heard the efficacy of your Blue Lotus Water was remarkable — was that also thanks to this Spiritual Energy you possess?”
“Yes.”
“Then stop the pharmaceutical work now.”
“What? G-grandfather?”
“What grandfather would profit from selling his son and grandson’s blood to line his own belly?”
Dan Mok Cheon Gi spoke in a low voice.
From a grandfather’s perspective, she could understand why he might think that way. Dan Mok Ryeon quickly waved both hands.
“No, no. For one thing, it’s not blood. Well, that’s not even the important part. The truth is, this power can’t be allowed to accumulate too much. I…….”
“It can’t accumulate too much? What do you mean by that?”
Dan Mok Cheon Gi’s eyebrows twitched. Dan Mok Ryeon continued carefully, her expression grown tense.
“Because the Spiritual Energy is so strong, it keeps accumulating, and if it builds up too much…… my body becomes ill.”
“……Ill?”
“Yes…… so I have to use it regularly, in the right amounts.”
“How, exactly? How does it make you ill?”
Dan Mok Cheon Gi asked urgently. Dan Mok Ryeon considered deflecting for a moment, but decided to speak honestly instead.
If she were evasive and gave him vague reassurances, she’d only feed his worry.
“When it’s severe, I might cough blood, or run fevers, or have something like body aches…… but as long as I use it properly, I’m healthy. Healthy enough to even wield a sword like Geum Jong Ha!”
As she said this, Dan Mok Ryeon made a motion of swinging a sword.
With each word she spoke, Dan Mok Cheon Gi’s face cycled through shades of pale and white, until finally all color drained from it entirely.
“……So you’re truly healthy only if you use this power?”
“Yes. So the Blue Lotus Water business is, in a sense, killing two birds with one stone? Two gains from one action.”
“Sigh. Even quoting proverbs now? You’ve truly grown.”
Dan Mok Cheon Gi clicked his tongue and pressed a hand to his forehead. What could he say when not using it would damage her health?
Then something crossed through his mind.
“Your mother…… the lady of the inner chambers…… she suffered much the same way.”
“What?”
“She lived with a persistent cough. Her fevers rising and falling were a part of her daily life. There were times she coughed blood. Even the physicians they brought — renowned ones — couldn’t cure her.”
Dan Mok Ryeon couldn’t imagine such a state when she looked at her mother now. She’d never learned the martial arts, but neither was she the sickly sort.
“When she became pregnant with you, the uproar was extraordinary. A woman in poor health bearing a child…….”
Hearing him this far, Dan Mok Ryeon found herself a bit puzzled.
Dan Mok Hyeon Seong was the eldest of the family, and her mother was his wife, yet from her grandfather’s words it seemed they hadn’t even expected the couple to have children at all. How had such a marriage been arranged in the first place?
“But from the moment she carried you, she became remarkably healthy, so everyone called you a blessing child…….”
Dan Mok Cheon Gi let his words trail off.
When Dan Mok Ryeon was in Wi Ji Cheong’s womb, everyone had indeed called her a blessing child, but when that daughter was born, the entire family estate came under attack.
Even if that wasn’t the precise cause, after that incident they’d discovered Dan Mok Ryeon’s condition was abnormal, and Dan Mok Hyeon Woo had entered closed meditation, so some had whispered that misfortune clung to her birth.
“Please don’t tell Mother, grandfather.”
But what mattered to Dan Mok Ryeon now wasn’t whether she’d been called a blessing child in the past or not.
She’d witnessed a miracle — a sickly woman bearing a child and growing healthy as a result. If her mother heard that this same daughter was suffering the same afflictions, could any sensible woman remain at peace?
Especially one who’d spent more than seven years watching her child lose her mind…….
“……Very well. I’ll say nothing.”

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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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