Chapter – 16
Ryeon opened her eyes blankly. From beside her, a loud, wailing lament of “Aigo, aigo!” burst out, only to abruptly quiet down as if the wailer had startled themselves.
“My baby! My baby, are you awake?”
“Mother…”
Feeling a sudden sway, Ryeon realized she was being held in an embrace. Her mother, Wi Cheong-yo, had a face thoroughly drenched in tears.
The physician rushed over and announced that the awakened Ryeon’s condition was excellent, but Wi Cheong-yo still could not let go of her daughter’s hand. It was only after Danmok Cheon-gi and Danmok Hyeon-woo had paid their visits, and the sleeping Danmok Bi—who had been clinging to the foot of the bed—was handed over to Nanny Jang, that Ryeon finally learned what had happened.
It was all well and good that she had exerted herself since dawn to create the Clear Lotus Water. However, that very morning during breakfast, she had quietly slipped into unconsciousness. Since then, she had spent three whole days tossing and turning with a raging fever that periodically ran ice-cold.
‘Ha…’
Ryeon knew exactly why she had fainted.
[Help: Maintain your Spiritual Qi at 10 or higher.]
‘This is driving me crazy. Since when did it throw a tantrum telling me to drop it below 50, and now it wants me to keep it above 10?’
She had been thrilled at the thought of expending all her Spiritual Qi to make the Clear Lotus Water, but she never imagined it would backfire like this!
Even so, it wasn’t as excruciatingly painful as when she had first regained consciousness last year. As Ryeon inwardly wondered about this while stroking her chest, the physician smiled kindly at Wi Cheong-yo.
“It is largely thanks to this clever child managed to secure Black Rock Herb in this exact season. As expected, when one performs good deeds with a generous heart, it returns to them.”
Taking in a helpless orphan boy and raising him like a sibling and friend to her own children could certainly be considered a virtuous deed.
“Black Rock… Herb?”
Wi Cheong-yo nodded with tear-filled eyes, continuously caressing Ryeon’s cheek.
“When one suddenly spills a large amount of blood or suffers a depletion of vitality, one must replenish their primal energy. However, in a weakened state, it must neither be too deficient nor too overflowing.”
The physician continued, scanning Ryeon’s condition with his eyes.
“Black Rock Herb possesses the property of nourishing vitality, but if it overflows, it does not gorge the body and instead allows the excess to flow away safely. It is absolutely perfect for cases like this, but because it barely grows between late winter and early spring, it was difficult to obtain.”
“Hwa-ryun brought it for you. I cannot begin to tell you how grateful I am…”
‘Hwa-ryun did?’
Ryeon’s eyes widened as she realized Hwa-ryun was nowhere to be seen nearby. Sensing who she was looking for, the physician smiled gently.
“He must have scaled the mountains all day long in the chilly autumn weather, for he is currently bedridden with body aches. Now that the young lady is awake, I shall head over to tend to that child as well.”
Ryeon abruptly bolted upright to follow the physician, but stumbled from a wave of dizziness. Startled, the nanny and Wi Cheong-yo rushed to support her.
Hwa-ryun lay on his bed, suffering from an unpleasant fever and stiff muscle aches, yet he did not miss the faint murmurs drifting in from outside.
— They gave the young lady a medicinal decoction made from that herb. They say she could only drink half of it, so I don’t know if she’ll be alright.
Soon, the whispers shifted.
— She opened her eyes today! She is safe!
‘Maybe this is enough now,’ Hwa-ryun thought to himself.
— The physician is going to see the boy now, and the young lady is coming along…
‘What?’
Hwa-ryun tried to rub his fever-addled eyes, but another hand reached out and touched him first. It was a small, cool hand devoid of any heat. The owner of the hand mumbled:
“You dummy…”
Who are you calling a dummy? Hwa-ryun thought, but his throat was so parched that no words could escape his mouth.
Before long, a lukewarm liquid seeped into his lips. Jolted awake by the bitter taste, Hwa-ryun tried to spit it out, but the owner of the hand coaxed and soothed him.
“It’s medicine. You have to drink it all to be a good boy, right?”
Who do you think would fall for that ‘good boy’ nonsense?
Hwa-ryun grumbled inwardly, but he had no choice but to swallow the medicine being fed to him. Gulping it down, he narrowed his eyes slightly, and through the blurry light, the figure of a small girl appeared.
Above her pitch-black pupils, he could see eyes twinkling like stars in the night sky. He could also gradually make out the girl’s face, which had shrunk to half its usual size compared to what he remembered.
“Ryun-ah! Are you awake?”
When he gave a slow nod, the girl readjusted his blanket, meticulously wiped his sweat-drenched forehead, and even applied ointment to his hands, which were covered in minor scratches.
“Who on earth roams the mountains like that looking for a herb that grows in late winter?”
Hwa-ryun stared blankly at the complaining girl’s face before burying himself deeper under the covers.
“I know, right? I foolishly handed it over to the fabric shop just to get some ice. If I knew it would turn out like this, I would have saved some. Do you have any idea how much I suffered trying to find Black Rock Herb when there isn’t any left?”
As he grumbled in a raspy voice about the events from a few months ago, the girl’s star-lit eyes wavered with moisture. For a moment, Hwa-ryun regretted bringing it up.
He closed his eyes briefly, and when he regained consciousness again, he realized night had fallen. It seemed that what he thought was a brief blink had turned into deep sleep.
Still lying in bed, Hwa-ryun touched his forehead and let out a bitter smile. A towel, slightly warmed by his own body heat, caught in his hand. Ryeon had left it there. Thinking about how that hand had been there and was now gone made his heart feel strangely empty for some reason.
Finding it hard to believe he was even having such thoughts, Hwa-ryun clicked his tongue and pushed himself up. Right then—
Click.
“Oh? Ryun-ah! You’re awake?”
Hwa-ryun, who was halfway up, widened his eyes in surprise. A small girl with a towel draped over her arm and a small basin held in both hands strode right up to his bed.
“…Sister?”
“You’re thirsty, right? Let’s drink this.”
The girl wiped Hwa-ryun’s forehead with a wet towel, tilted the water pitcher, and offered him a cup of lukewarm water.
“They say even if you feel hot from a fever, you shouldn’t gulp down cold water.”
“…Sister, why are you still here?”
“What do you mean ‘why’? It’s because you’re sick.”
Chattering away, the girl held the water cup to his lips, called out to the servants outside to bring some rice porridge, inspected his scratched knees, and tucked him back into the blanket.
“Why are you…”
“I told you just a moment ago. I’m doing this because you’re sick and I need to take care of you.”
“Me…?”
“Then who else would I take care of?”
Her lips pouted like a duck’s—a habit of hers whenever she was concentrating. What could she possibly be concentrating on right now?
‘Wiping my forehead…?’
A wet towel held in a hand as small and thin as a winter tree branch brushed past his eyes.
“If you do this, I have no choice but to…”
“No choice but to what?”
Hwa-ryun let his voice trail off and burrowed back into the blanket.
“Ryun-ah? Even if you’re sleepy, eat some porridge before you sleep. That’s how you get better.”
“Mmmmmm.”
“Ryun-ah, be a good boy, okay?”
“Mmm.”
“What a good boy.”
Hwa-ryun squirmed a bit, but unable to withstand Ryeon’s coaxing tone any longer, he finally sat up.
“I… I’ll eat it myself, so stop that.”
“No can do. Your arms are still shaking and you have too many scratches on your hands.”
“Sister, you haven’t fully recovered either.”
“I am completely cured. I slept a ton, too. Hurry up, say ‘Ah’.”
“I’m honestly so embarrassed…”
“What’s there to be embarrassed about when you’re sick?”
“Really…”
“Come on, let’s eat quickly!”
‘How can this be possible…?’
Ryeon lamented as she stood in front of the chicken coop belonging to the Wolyeongjae kitchen.
One side of the coop was completely dominated by a magnificently grown silkie chicken, while the other chickens were huddled in the corner as if gripped by sheer terror. Now, without a doubt, this silkie looked like something entirely different rather than a mere chicken. In size, it was as large as a turkey.
“Why? Were you worried about me?”
Perhaps worried because she had lost weight while bedridden, the silkie’s pitch-black eyes were brimming with moisture.
“But seriously, why are you turning out like this?”
Ryeon slipped her hand through the gaps of the coop, stroking the silkie as she muttered. The tips of the chicken’s feathers gleamed with a mysterious crimson light.
“Doesn’t it look like a phoenix after all? Or maybe a Vermilion Bird? Aren’t they similar?”
Ryeon turned her head toward the sudden voice coming from beside her.
There stood Hwa-ryun, who now looked like a proper young master, peering into the coop with a furrowed brow. Though they had fallen ill and recovered at the same time, Hwa-ryun had surprisingly grown much healthier and more vigorous than before.
“Well…”
She couldn’t bring herself to say ‘There’s no way that’s true.’ The silkie’s black eyes, tinted with a red sheen, blinked gently as it looked up at her. Just looking at those eyes, one could never imagine the rumors of it viciously bullying the other chickens and stealing all their feed.
“Hmm. Does it really look that way to you too?”
“Then, does it genuinely look like an ordinary chicken in your eyes, Sister?”
“No…”
‘Could it be… could it be turning into a spiritual beast because it consumed Spiritual Qi?’
Even so, could such an absurd thing as a chicken becoming a Vermilion Bird actually happen? Although this silkie seemed to exude the mysterious aura unique to spiritual beasts no matter how she looked at it…
‘First of all, aren’t a Vermilion Bird’s feathers supposed to be made of flames? This guy is black. Even if it does have a bit of a reddish tint.’
As Ryeon desperately tried to rationalize it, Hwa-ryun abruptly spoke up.
“If you raise a silkie into a phoenix, the District Magistrate will lock you up.”
“What?”
Ryeon laughed so hard she almost choked on her own saliva. Hwa-ryun, the future Young Cult Leader of the Demonic Heavenly Cult, was someone who would eventually treat government officials of a mere Magistrate’s rank as nothing more than a hangnail.
Hearing him speak of a tiger and a District Magistrate with the exact same level of gravity during his childhood was undeniably adorable. However, Hwa-ryun was dead serious.
“They’ll take you away, lock you in a cage, and force you to breed nothing but phoenixes.”
