The White Tiger Clan’s Baby Cotton Ball - Chapter 144
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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 144
Jeok Ayun froze in place.
For a brief moment, he thought he was seeing things.
He hadn’t been sleeping well lately.
It had been that way ever since coming to the Imperial Palace.
So he must be tired, his body must be under strain…
He thought this as he slowly closed and opened his eyes.
Blink, blink…
However, even after blinking a few times, Lili’s hair and eyes were still a dull gray color.
“…”
His lips parted soundlessly.
“What’s wrong, Father?”
Lili frowned and asked in a small voice at Jeok Ayun’s inexplicable behavior.
But there was no response from Father.
“…?”
She was already feeling down, and now Father was being so frustratingly unresponsive that she was starting to get a little annoyed.
Lili discovered that people were staring at her with strange eyes and unconsciously hesitated.
Some were pointing at her and whispering to the person next to them, while others were looking at her with surprised faces like Jeok Ayun.
‘What is it? Why is everyone…’
Thud.
At that moment, Jeok Ayun’s hand released hers and dropped down.
As the cool air brushed past her empty hand.
Lili felt that something was very, very wrong.
An instinctive fear crept up from her toes along her skin.
‘Why, why are they acting like that? Why is everyone looking at Lili with those eyes…’
The gazes of the people looking at her felt very unfamiliar and strange, yet somehow familiar at the same time.
From very long ago, so long ago she could barely remember…
Those vague old days when she lived by stealing from others on the streets before crossing the threshold of the Suzaku Family’s main gate…
Those hostile and contemptuous gazes directed at her…
Gasp.
When her thoughts reached that point, Lili’s heart sank and a chilling feeling overwhelmed her, making her body tremble.
‘No. That’s not it. That can’t be. I’m no longer the cuckoo from those days. There’s no reason for people to look at me with those eyes.’
Even as she repeated this to herself, she couldn’t help her fingertips and toes from trembling.
“F-Father.”
Lili forced an awkward smile and tried to grab Jeok Ayun’s hand.
Flinch.
The moment she touched him, his fingertips reflexively recoiled.
At the same time, his face, which had been frozen in a daze, gradually turned pale as if realizing something.
“No way… No, that can’t be…”
He muttered in a whisper-like faint voice, then suddenly raised his head.
At the end of his shaking gaze, the two facing Imperial Dragon stone statues that he had just passed while holding the child’s hand came into focus.
“That can’t… be…”
His Adam’s apple bobbed with the sound of roughly swallowing.
Lili had stiffened at Father’s strange appearance and didn’t know what to do.
“The Shrine of the Imperial Dragon is the most sacred place in the Imperial Palace where the Emperor who rules the earth offers sacrifices to the Imperial Dragon.”
Irim’s voice, who had been quietly observing the situation, echoed softly into the tightly stretched air.
“When standing before the Imperial Dragon, the judge of the earth, the first Emperor erected two stone statues in front of this altar with the meaning that everyone should be truthful.”
Irim looked down at Jeok Ayun and Lili with an indifferent gaze.
“Therefore, when ascending here, beast-people have their special abilities released.”
‘Special abilities…? Why would that…’
Lili couldn’t immediately understand those words and made a confused expression.
When passing between the facing Imperial Dragon statues and ascending to the altar, beast-people have their special abilities released and show their true forms.
This was something all high-ranking family beast-people in Taehwa Kingdom knew.
However, Lili had only come to the Suzaku Family late at age nine, and even after that, she had neglected her history and etiquette studies due to being physically weak.
Therefore, she didn’t know.
That the cuckoo’s special ability, which had allowed her to live as a young lady of the Suzaku Family for so long, could be instantly released in front of so many people like this.
Most importantly, Lili, who had lived as a young lady of the Suzaku Family for the past five years, had forgotten her true appearance at some point and had even lost awareness that her appearance was maintained by a ‘special ability.’
Casually glancing down, Lili noticed the hair that had fallen to her chest.
The dull gray hair that seemed to have lost its light felt very alien.
Horror appeared on her face as she gradually realized the situation.
“W-why is this…!”
Startled, Lili raised her head again and froze at Jeok Ayun’s expression as he looked at her.
The vivid and naked emotion that appeared on his face was none other than fear.
Father was looking at her as if he was seeing something very scary and frightening.
“F-Father, th-this is…”
“…”
“I mean, this is, how this happened is…”
“…”
Lili opened her mouth to make some excuse, then closed it again.
Slowly turning her head, she saw the Suzaku Family members who couldn’t hide their shock among the people filled with curiosity.
She saw Jeok Sanyu looking at her with a stiffly hardened face and Jeok Hwayu who had turned pale with an expressionless face.
No one spoke, but they had all realized it.
That she was actually… not the real daughter of the Suzaku Family.
Hiss—
Lili muttered haltingly with an ashen face.
“N-no…”
Though no one was pressing her, Lili defensively shrank back like a cornered mouse.
“I, I don’t know anything about this! I, I…!”
Her voice rang out sharply.
The more she did so, the more people’s gazes focused on her.
Unable to bear that atmosphere, Lili burst into tears and grabbed Jeok Ayun’s sleeve.
“F-Father…”
“…”
However, Jeok Ayun couldn’t bring himself to look at Lili.
Avoiding Lili’s gaze and raising his head, he spotted Soya standing next to Saeon and hesitated.
Soya was looking this way with an unreadable expression.
Then, the moment he realized that Soya’s gaze was directed at his sleeve that Lili was clutching.
Swish—!
Jeok Ayun flinched as if he had committed a great wrong and pulled Lili’s hand away.
“Father…?”
Lili called to him in an unbelieving voice.
She was so shocked that he had pushed her hand away that even her tears stopped.
Jeok Ayun’s red eyes, containing Lili who had completely lost the characteristics of a Suzaku, shook violently.
Who on earth is this child?
This child that he had cherished as his daughter for the past five years, who exactly… is she?
“What will the Head of the Jeok Family do with the cuckoo that flew into the Suzaku’s nest?”
Irim asked in a somewhat bored voice at their prolonged standoff.
Cuckoo…
It was when Jeok Ayun was stupidly repeating that word that flowed from the Imperial Dragon’s mouth.
“That’s ridiculous!”
The one who had so audaciously shouted in front of the Imperial Dragon was none other than Jeok Hwayu.
“That can’t be possible. How could a cuckoo… How could a mere cuckoo deceive Suzaku?”
However, contrary to his repeated insistence that it couldn’t be true, Hwayu’s face looked as if his entire world had collapsed.
Soya looked at them with calm eyes.
[This is an old tale from before you and I were even born. There was a gray feathered tribe that was driven out from the Southern Lands.]
During her recent conversation with Irim, Soya had recalled the cuckoo beastmen who were said to possess a very unique special ability called ‘brood parasitism.’
Originally, brood parasitism referred to parent birds laying their eggs in other parent birds’ nests to have them incubated and raised instead.
The brood parasitism shown by natural birds manifested as a somewhat more unique form of special ability in the world of beastmen.
Young cuckoo beastmen before their First Growth manifest their ability from birth, gaining physical characteristics similar to their fake parents.
It’s impossible to deceive beastmen stronger than oneself.
But Lili had used the power of evil magic.
And Soya suspected that perhaps the malicious beast Taotie had given her that power.
But what if this wasn’t Lili’s first time colluding with malicious beasts?
What if she had been colluding with malicious beasts for a very long time?
What if she had already harbored some sinister power from when she first crossed the threshold of the Vermillion Bird Mansion at nine years old?
‘The impossible feat of a cuckoo deceiving Suzaku might actually be possible.’
So if Lili really was a cuckoo, if she was deceiving people with that ability.
‘I need to forcibly cancel her ability.’
Fortunately, there was one place in the Imperial Palace that made this possible.
That’s why she had asked Irim to gather people here.
“Stop it, Hwayu.”
Sanyu, the first among the three men of the Suzaku Family to regain his composure, spoke to Hwayu in a cold voice.
“You already know it too, don’t you? That child is a cuckoo.”
At those words, Hwayu collapsed to his knees, hitting the floor with a thud.
His elder brother was right.
The moment Lili’s ability was canceled and her true form was revealed, he, as a direct descendant of Suzaku, could instinctively sense that child’s true identity.
He had simply been denying reality because he couldn’t easily accept it.
Clenching his teeth as he stared down at the floor, he soon whipped his head up toward Lili and shouted.
“Why. Why did you deceive us…!”
Bloodshot eyes filled with betrayal turned toward Lili.
“I truly cherished you as a sister, so why did you deceive us and tell lies!”
At his outcry, Lili’s expression contorted.
She couldn’t believe that the man she had trusted to be forever on her side was turning away from her.
“…When did I! When did I ever lie!”
Lili bit her lower lip painfully and screamed desperately.
“I just came carrying red feathers! You were the ones who welcomed me as your lost daughter!”
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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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deniphilia
Ugh, I need to wait another day again for the next episode to unlock.