The White Tiger Clan’s Baby Cotton Ball - Chapter 126

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 126

 

“…!”

 

Sanyu’s expression became like he had been struck in the head with a hammer.

 

“But you, why are you so interested in Somsom?”

 

Gaya, who had been looking at Sanyu with a displeased gaze, suddenly contorted his face.

 

“Don’t tell me. You have some dirty ulterior motive toward my Somsom….”

 

It was when he asked with the intention of killing him on the spot if that were the case.

 

Whoosh―!

 

Sanyu suddenly turned around and began running off somewhere alone, leaving Gaya behind.

 

“Hmm?”

 

Gaya squinted his eyes and watched his retreating figure, then soon smiled broadly as he looked at the bestowed item in his hand.

 

The thought of bringing this to Soya made him feel very good.

 

* * *

 

Lili’s expression had been poor the entire way back from the banquet hall to her quarters.

 

“Lili, are you alright? Your expression doesn’t look good.”

 

Seeing that gloomy expression that rivaled their father’s, Hwayu comforted his younger sister.

 

“It was your first time seeing Father quarrel with someone, wasn’t it? You must have been very scared, our Lili.”

 

“No. This is all because of that child. Lili was so shocked too. A child I thought was dead came back alive….”

 

Lili answered while trembling as if she still couldn’t believe it.

 

“Yes. You must have been very shocked too, so go inside and rest quickly. Elder Brother will organize the outside situation a bit more before coming in.”

 

Hwayu let his family members go inside, then sighed.

 

He too was extremely confused.

 

To think that Soya was alive.

 

To think that the youngest daughter taken in by the White Tiger Family was Soya, that child.

 

He had naturally assumed she was dead.

 

The child’s belongings and bloodstains that remained where she had suddenly disappeared.

 

Even if she had somehow survived, he thought she wouldn’t live long.

 

Because that child’s spirit core had been damaged.

 

‘…But how is a child whose spirit core was damaged still alive.’

 

To think she didn’t die and was still alive, that was truly fortunate.

 

Hadn’t he been living with faint guilt and loneliness over that child’s death all this time?

 

But even though that child was alive, his guilt wasn’t lessened but rather increased in volume, which was truly strange.

 

It was then.

 

In the distance, he saw a red figure running breathlessly toward him. It was Sanyu.

 

Hwayu pushed aside the uncomfortable feelings from arguing with him last night and greeted him first.

 

“Ah, Elder Brother. You’ve come….”

 

“Soya…!”

 

However, Sanyu cut off those words and shouted as if greetings weren’t important right now.

 

“Soya was at the White Tiger Family! How did this happen!”

 

Ah, Elder Brother saw that child too.

 

Hwayu sighed briefly and answered.

 

“I don’t know what happened either. So I intend to investigate….”

 

“That’s not what I’m asking!”

 

“Elder Brother…?”

 

“Didn’t you clearly say the child went outside the estate on the festival day and disappeared!”

 

“Ah….”

 

To Hwayu who let out a small groan, Sanyu pressed urgently.

 

“Then why! Why is that child who disappeared avoiding us!”

 

This was exactly why Sanyu had come to find Hwayu first instead of running straight to Soya.

 

Because the child was avoiding him.

 

That child who had quickly hidden behind Baek Gaya as soon as she spotted him last night was clearly avoiding him.

 

It wouldn’t just be him that the child was avoiding. Seeing how she had pretended not to know even though her family was in this imperial palace.

 

Why on earth…?

 

Such questions arose for a brief moment, but the answer came to mind immediately.

 

The very words that Hwayu had spoken before him yesterday.

 

[She was already having a hard time because her position was taken by that child.]

 

[I hope our sister won’t be hurt by that child anymore.]

 

[While Lili was wandering the streets, that child enjoyed everything that Lili should have enjoyed instead.]

 

Hwayu had been speaking as if Soya had committed some great wrong.

 

At that time, his voice had been calm as if reciting obvious facts.

 

Don’t tell me that while I was away at the battlefield and the estate was unattended, they treated that child that way the entire time?

 

Saying she stole Lili’s place. That Lili suffered because of her.

 

So they blamed and pinned all the tragedy that occurred within the family on that child….

 

“Elder Brother, please calm down for a moment….”

 

“Speak. What did you do to that child?”

 

However, Sanyu could not calm down.

 

“What exactly did you say to that child and what did you do while I was gone that made her pretend not to know us, her family!”

 

“….”

 

Hwayu closed his mouth before the pouring fierce anger.

 

Since his elder brother had figured out this much, hiding it further would be impossible.

 

Anyway, just asking a few of the estate’s household members would quickly provide answers.

 

So he parted his reluctant lips and spoke.

 

“…I merely gave appropriate punishment to the baby bird who deceived the family.”

 

“What?”

 

In an instant, a terrible light of contempt rose over Sanyu’s face.

 

“Elder Brother doesn’t know! The despair and sense of betrayal that Father and I felt on the day that child had her first beast transformation!”

 

At that hate-filled expression directed at him, Hwayu suddenly felt choked up.

 

“Mother died giving birth to that child! But the child exchanged for Mother’s life wasn’t a Suzaku!”

 

So he raised his voice and shouted.

 

Those fine-sounding excuses he had been whispering to himself for so long.

 

“Because of that child who would have been better off never being born, our deceased mother bore the stigma of committing adultery, and Father went mad!”

 

“So.”

 

Sanyu, who had been looking at his younger brother with cold eyes, spoke icily.

 

“So what did you do to that child. Just tell me the main point.”

 

“….”

 

At that chilling question that seemed like it could freeze even the southern lands, Hwayu barely suppressed the indignation he had been pouring out and clenched his teeth.

 

With his chest heaving as he calmed his emotions, he answered in a gloomy voice.

 

“…We took away her spirit core and sent her to the Cold Palace.”

 

“What?”

 

“I couldn’t stand to watch her transform again and walk around in that horrible form. For a child who deceived everyone, that was generous enough…. Ugh….”

 

Hwayu’s words could not continue further.

 

Because Sanyu had thrown a punch at his younger brother’s face.

 

It was barbaric violence he had never used even once in that terrible battlefield, even with colleagues who picked fights with him daily.

 

“You’re finally talking crazy.”

 

Sanyu looked down at his younger brother who was lying on the ground holding his swollen cheek and spoke in a cold voice.

 

“How did that small child deceive people?”

 

Flinch.

 

At those words, Hwayu visibly flinched.

 

That was also something Jeok Hwayu had been avoiding for a very long time.

 

Now already 7 years ago, when Soya had her first beast transformation, she had been nine years old.

 

With the help of his retainers, he had sustained the family clan in place of his father who had gone mad, but he too was of an immature age.

 

As time passed and he grew a bit older, doubts began to arise.

 

Was that child really the perpetrator?

 

However, Jeok Hwayu avoided it because he didn’t have the courage to face those doubts.

 

The moment he confronted them, it seemed like some world he had believed in all this time would crumble. So he deliberately closed his eyes, shut his ears, and turned away completely.

 

“So, what happened to that child’s Spirit Core now?”

 

“…I returned it before sending her outside the estate. But because the Spirit Core’s condition was poor, I thought that even if she was alive, she wouldn’t live long.”

 

“The Spirit Core’s condition was poor?”

 

In an instant, Sanyu’s expression turned menacing.

 

“Don’t tell me. You…!”

 

“No!”

 

Hwayu protested with a deeply wronged voice.

 

“Really, no! It’s true that I took the child’s Spirit Core, but I swear to the Heavenly Deities that I never touched or damaged that child’s Spirit Core!”

 

“Then how did a perfectly fine Spirit Core become damaged!”

 

“I don’t know either. I only speculated that it might have been damaged because it was left neglected after being separated from its master…”

 

Sanyu furrowed his brow.

 

‘Can a beast-person’s Spirit Core be damaged in such a way?’

 

He had seen countless people with damaged Spirit Cores during the long war.

 

Most of them had become that way due to attacks from Malicious Forces or evil magic from the Northern Lands.

 

Evil magic.

 

Unlike ordinary sorcery, it was power imbued with wicked intent to harm others.

 

If Soya’s Spirit Core was damaged not simply from neglect, but for other reasons?

 

Someone used evil magic with the purpose of harming that child, or perhaps Malicious Forces from the Northern Lands intervened…

 

‘This is going too far in my thinking.’

 

Jeok Sanyu cut off his wandering thoughts.

 

“Taking her Spirit Core, sending her to the Cold Palace. What else came after that?”

 

“…”

 

This time, Hwayu truly couldn’t open his mouth.

 

Because he knew that what the family clan had done to that child after Lili appeared was as cruel as taking her Spirit Core, or perhaps even more so.

 

And the moment he recognized this himself in the face of his elder brother’s question.

 

‘What on earth did we do to that child?’

 

A chill settled coldly in his heart.

 

Sanyu looked at his younger brother, whose mouth seemed to be sealed shut, with a cold face and turned around.

 

Anyway, if he caught the household members and questioned them, he would get answers quickly.

 

“…It was all for Lili’s sake.”

 

A cowardly voice that sounded like an excuse stopped his steps.

 

“It was for Lili, for our pitiful younger sister Lili’s sake.”

 

However, Sanyu moved his steps again as if there was nothing more to hear.

 

“Lili is the sister that Mother left behind in exchange for her life! She’s that precious and dear of a sister!”

 

Hwayu shouted loudly toward his elder brother’s retreating figure.

 

“For Lili’s sake, I can do anything! Five years ago, and even now!”

 

Soon Sanyu’s figure disappeared from sight and there was no one left to listen, but still Hwayu continued to shout.

 

With an expression that seemed ready to collapse at any moment, as if brainwashing himself…

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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