Chapter 58: Enchantress (5)
Translator: bjgoofy
“The moon is unusually bright tonight.”
“I know, right? It’s been a long time since I’ve seen such a bright moon. But it’s a bit chilly. Once my shift is over, I should head to the kitchen and ask for a bowl of warm soup.”
“Then let’s have a drink with some Huangjiu as well. I’ve got a bottle stashed away. What do you think?”
“As expected of you. Are you talking about that? Haha.”
The warriors on guard duty were chatting as they patrolled near the wall, their movements catching the eye of Namgoong Seol, who was hiding in the shadows of the pavilion.
Observing the two warriors, Namgoong Seol took an acorn from her pocket and quickly flung it toward the distant wall.
-Tak!
The small acorn struck the stone wall and fell onto the paved ground.
The sound of the tiny acorn rolling against the stone wall in the silent night broke the stillness and echoed through the Namgoong Family Manor.
-Tak tak tak…
“What was that noise!?”
“It sounded like something over there!?”
“Let’s check it out!”
Though it wasn’t a loud noise, it was enough for the warriors on duty nearby to hear.
As expected, the two warriors immediately ran toward the source of the sound.
Soon, they picked up the acorn that Namgoong Seol had thrown.
“An acorn? Did a squirrel pass by?”
“Got startled for nothing. Well, it is autumn, and squirrels are busy gathering acorns.”
“Damn squirrels, don’t they ever sleep? That gave me a scare.”
While the warriors, holding the acorn, grumbled about the innocent squirrels, Namgoong Seol moved like one herself, leaping beyond the shadowed wall.
Since she could no longer rely on her younger sister’s help, she had decided to climb the Namgoong Family's wall alone.
Kicking off the pavilion wall, she utilized the technique Golden Carp Crossing Waves technique, twisting her body midair like an arrow in flight, clearing the Namgoong Family’s wall, and landing as lightly as a squirrel.
Having reached her goal without being noticed by the warriors, Namgoong Seol swiftly made her way to the hill where she used to practice martial arts with her younger sister.
Upon arriving at the hill, she picked up a suitable tree branch.
Her sword had been confiscated by her father, and she couldn’t borrow her younger sister’s sword either, so she had no choice but to use a tree branch.
After all, didn’t legendary masters train their swordsmanship with just a tree branch?
Though, of course, she wasn’t one of those legendary masters.
Thus, under the extraordinarily bright moonlight of the tranquil night, in a hill covered with fallen petals from endlessly blooming and withering flowers, Namgoong Seol began her sword training, using her very life as fuel.
Before wielding the sword, Namgoong Seol first activated Heavenly Thunder Emperor Divine Technique.
As she channeled her internal energy, a tingling energy surged through her entire body.
Due to her meridian system, the energy waves quickly spread from her dantian to the tips of her fingers and toes.
The powerful energy coursing through her body brought an invigorating surge of vitality.
Feeling the rising strength, Namgoong Seol gave a bitter smile.
Although Heavenly Thunder Emperor Divine Technique was based on the principles of Taiji, it contained a stronger yang energy than yin. Just by circulating it at full power, it would consume the little yin energy from the Snow Ginseng remaining in her body.
However, she quickly shook off her melancholy. Holding the tree branch as if it were a sword, she began executing the first move of Emperor’s Sword Form, Emperor’s Reign.
The first move of Namgoong’s Emperor’s Sword Form was Emperor’s Reign.
Each strike carried increasing weight upon the opponent’s sword. When all the movements combined into a single form, they exerted an immense pressure, this was the terror of the first move.
-Whoosh! Shiiing!
With every swing of the tree branch in Namgoong Seol’s hand, sword pressure radiated outward.
The flowers, as if bowing in reverence to an emperor, gradually lowered their heads in response to the sword pressure.
And just when their stems seemed on the verge of snapping, she moved on to the second technique.
This was the part Namgoong Seol consistently struggled with.
The third move, Emperor’s Crushing Strike, was a simple, overwhelming downward blow that released all the accumulated energy, making it relatively easy. However, this second move required her to condense the weight accumulated from the first move into a single point.
Failing to properly release energy in the third move meant that the issue lay within this second technique.
-Pit! Pit!
Namgoong Seol’s tree branch shifted from the slashing motion of the first technique to a thrust, gathering the surrounding energy and concentrating it into a single point.
-Tak!
However, before she could complete a few thrusts, the branch snapped with a loud crack.
The accumulated energy scattered rapidly in all directions, causing the fallen petals on the ground to momentarily surge into the air before fluttering back down.
It was a failure.
One of the many failures she had experienced so far.
“This is…!”
But the reason Namgoong Seol was surprised was because she had felt something different from before.
Even though she had failed, she stared at her hand, where the shattered branch had been, with wide eyes.
When wielding a sword, she never understood why she kept failing. But now, using a tree branch, she had vaguely realized what was going wrong.
The reason the branch had snapped was not due to the branch itself but because she had distributed her strength incorrectly.
A mistake in guiding the gathered energy into the sword.
Overcome with excitement, Namgoong Seol quickly ran down the hill and picked another branch.
She had vowed to master the Emperor's Sword Form before she burned out completely, and tonight, she felt like she had finally grasped a clue.
With the new branch in hand, she began chasing after this revelation, mindlessly immersing herself in sword dance.
How long had she been swinging?
-Rustle!
By the time the moon, which had been shining above her, was obscured by the peak of Mount Huang, darkening the surroundings, she sensed a presence.
The faint disturbance came from the thicket at the boundary between the hill and the forest.
Startled, Namgoong Seol halted her sword movements and cautiously called out toward the source of the presence.
“Is that you, Eun?”
She wondered if her younger sister, Namgoong Eun, who knew about this place, had come to check on her.
Eun had a mischievous side, so it wouldn’t have been surprising if she had sneaked out in the middle of the night to make sure her sister was safe.
But the thicket remained silent.
“Who’s there? It’s not proper to secretly watch someone practicing martial arts.”
Thinking it might be a lost herb gatherer or a hunter out for night hunting, she looked toward the source of the presence. However, there were no traces of anyone.
Recalling what the warriors had mentioned when she left the Namgoong estate, she considered that it might have just been a squirrel.
Shrugging off her suspicion, Namgoong Seol gripped the tree branch again.
She couldn’t afford to waste time over something as trivial as a squirrel.
***
After grasping a small clue on the first night, Namgoong Seol’s daily routine became simple.
She spent her nights secretly practicing her sword and her days embroidering alongside her younger sister.
If she wanted to train properly at night, she needed to present a composed and ladylike demeanor during the day.
And nothing was better for organizing her nighttime insights than quietly pretending to focus on embroidery.
For a long time, she worked on embroidering a peony, the Flower King, a flower often associated with her title, onto black fabric using white thread.
Though her hands moved swiftly, forming the peony with precision, her mind was preoccupied with the questions that had surfaced the previous night.
‘Why did I suddenly feel like I was wearing clothes that didn’t fit me?’
She had been so close to succeeding in the technique.
Yet, in that final moment of near-completion, that strange thought had come to her first.
Lost in her thoughts as she completed two peony blossoms, a sudden commotion from outside disrupted her concentration.
The first to react wasn’t Namgoong Seol but her younger sister, Eun.
“Why is it so noisy? Gyea, go check what’s going on.”
“Yes, Young Miss.”
Gyea, the servant assigned to look after Namgoong Seol and her sister, bowed and left to investigate the disturbance.
It wasn’t long before another servant from the Family Head’s Pavilion came rushing in, delivering an urgent message.
“The Family Head has ordered Young Miss to come to the pavilion immediately.”
“Father is calling for me?”
“Yes, Young Miss.”
Hoping that her father might return the sword he had confiscated since she had been behaving recently, Namgoong Seol made her way to the Family Head’s Pavilion.
Beyond the pavilion, the Training Grounds were noisy, but she paid no particular attention to it and stepped inside.
“Father, did you call for me?”
“Ah, yes. Seol-ah, sit down.”
Following her father’s command, she took a seat, and his cautious voice soon followed.
“Have you heard why it is so noisy outside?”
“You mean the Training Grounds? No, I have not.”
At her response, her father nodded and then, in an even more careful tone, asked again.
“I have something to ask you. I want you to answer truthfully, not because I suspect you, but because I need to be sure. The people involved are villagers, and I cannot punish them recklessly.”
Namgoong Seol blinked at his cryptic words before replying.
“Yes? Of course, if Father asks, I will answer honestly.”
Her father nodded at her response, his expression turning both embarrassed and apologetic as he spoke.
“It’s nothing too serious… or rather, I don’t know how to put this… Ah! Yes. The villagers claim to have seen you on Mount Huangshan these past few days. Is… is that true?”
“What!?”
At his question, Namgoong Seol immediately recalled the presences she had occasionally sensed during her training.
Realizing that the villagers must have caught her practicing in secret and that word had reached her father, she squeezed her eyes shut and admitted it.
“I… I’m sorry, Father.”
Then came a thunderous roar.
“What!? Y-you mean it’s true!?”
Her father’s furious voice echoed through the Family Head’s Pavilion, and with his rage unleashed, it sounded as if thunder were crashing down inside the room.
-Rumble!
Even when she had been caught secretly training in the past, her father had only reprimanded her gently, cautioning her not to be too hasty and quietly confiscating her sword.
But now, his reaction was far more intense.
Startled, Namgoong Seol flinched.
Her father’s furious voice continued, directed at her as she blinked in shock.
“You… You! How could you-! Ugh!”
Clutching his neck, her father staggered.
Panicked, Namgoong Seol moved toward him to offer support, but he immediately rejected her, his voice laced with rage.
“F-Father! Are you all ri-”
“Stay back! Is there no one outside!?”
“Yes, Family Head!”
“Confine Namgoong Seol, the eldest daughter of Namgoong, in the Seclusion Chamber! Deny her all food except for water and Fasting Pills, and forbid any contact with others!”
“F-Father!”
Namgoong Seol was immediately locked inside the Seclusion Chamber, a place reserved only for the direct descendants of the Namgoong family.
A few days later, her younger sister, who had managed to bribe the guards, brought her shocking news.
“Sis… It’s not true, right? They’re saying that you seduced the herb gatherers and hunters on Mount Huangshan… and… and stole their Yang energy….”
“What!?”
Namgoong Seol was utterly outraged.
Her father must have believed she had engaged in some kind of disgraceful conduct, but she had never even held a man’s hand before!
*
“That’s absolutely ridiculous!”
“Eek! I-I’m just repeating what I heard!”
The moment the servant explained, nunim’s face turned red with anger, and she shouted.
“That’s completely absurd!”
She said it not once, but twice.
On the way here, I had heard a bit about the situation from nunim. While she wasn’t exactly best friends with Namgoong Seol, they seemed to have a certain level of familiarity. It was clear that she found it hard to believe that someone she knew had been going around having one-night stands.
‘They do say that the quietest cat climbs onto the stove first.’
“Young Miss, there’s an old saying that you may know the depth of ten feet of water, but you don't know the heart of a one-foot person…”
I tried to offer some words of comfort, but nunim, who had never raised her voice before, suddenly shouted at me.
“T-That’s not it!”
I flinched, and she immediately apologized.
“S-Sorry, Soryong. But it’s just so absurd. Please, come with me for a moment. I can explain everything.”
She seemed flustered as she grabbed my hand and pulled me into her room.
After sitting me down on the bed, she began explaining in a quiet voice.
“Namgoong Seol cannot physically be with men.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
In response to my question, nunim pointed at my chest.
“That thing we’re taking, it’s because of Namgoong Seol’s strange illness. If she doesn’t have yin energy, her lifespan gets shortened. Yang energy is actually poisonous to her.”
“That’s why Namgoong Seol is extremely cautious around men. How could she possibly be stealing Yang energy? This is a completely false accusation.
Namgoong Seol once confessed to me, crying, that she was envious of me. There’s no way that was a lie.”
‘Huh… so she’s got some kind of fantasy heroine disease?’
A heroine with a condition that would make fantasy unicorns go crazy, yet instead of being treated like some sacred maiden, she was being labeled as a succubus.
While nunim’s explanation made sense, it also made me wonder, wouldn’t we just get turned away at the gate of the Namgoong family?
After all, when a child does something wrong, some parents instinctively blame their friends. And since nunim was Namgoong Seol’s friend… well, things could get complicated.
*****
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