If Silk Flowers Bloom by the Water’s Edge Chapter 12

As if it knew the day the master of the land would return, an unseasonal rain fell on the estate. The winter rain was dreary and grim, ruining the courtyard that the kitchen maids had painstakingly swept.

It was only natural that Chaehwa, who had been lying down and warming her back against the heated floor, didn’t want to get up. Facing a farewell with her beloved cell phone, Chaehwa rolled around on her bedroom floor as if she had a stomachache. Her grandmother’s outing had been long for a change, and she had finally been able to relax and live a little. Recalling her happy moments with her cell phone, she pressed her lips to the black screen. Mwah. Just as Chaehwa pulled her lips away with a sound, a white bowl of dongchimi was placed before her.

Everyone was keeping quiet about it, because if it was discovered that they had stolen the cell phone her grandmother had confiscated, it would mean death on the spot. A kitchen maid had prepared the tangy dongchimi with the intention of telling her to drink some cold water and get a grip.

“Hurry and put that back where it belongs, Young Miss, and have some dongchimi.”

“I don’t want to…. Why is Grandmother coming back so soon? Couldn’t she have stayed out for a few more days?”

“Young Miss. It would be a much bigger problem if the Landowner were late. Get up and drink this down.”

Yeon-rye forcefully pulled Chaehwa up and pressed the dongchimi bowl to her lips. Chaehwa, who had put a crunchy piece of dongchimi radish in her mouth, waved her hand, telling her to stop. The fatigue that had built up from looking at her phone all night was about to be relieved by a sip of dongchimi.

The door to the detached building deep within the inner palace, Chaehwa’s quarters, was thrown open as if struck by lightning.

“Pfft!”

“Young Miss!”

At the appearance of Yeon-seo the haenang, who brought the smell of rain with her, the piece of dongchimi radish went back into the bowl. Choking and sputtering, Chaehwa glared at Yeon-seo.

“Don’t you know how to knock!”

“Young Miss, Young Miss, we’re in big trouble.”

She thought Yeon-seo had come to deliver news of her grandmother, prepared to receive a scolding. Yeon-rye, who was wiping up the spilled dongchimi broth, looked at Yeon-seo with wide eyes. Yeon-seo stomped her feet and pointed to the east.

“That is… we played a little prank, and it….”

“On whom?”

“That outsider, that, Yirok! Yirok.”

“A prank?”

When Chaehwa pressed her on what kind of prank, Yeon-seo’s face turned bright red. Unable to watch any longer, Yeon-rye clicked her tongue and fiercely interrogated Yeon-seo.

“Yeon-seo haenang. What happened that you can’t even speak? The Landowner will be here soon, huh?”

“We… said we’d get revenge for the Young Miss and added just two more spoonfuls of sleep-inducing incense….”

Stopping there, Yeon-seo covered her mouth and began to cry. Even with the half-finished explanation, Chaehwa could guess the situation. There was a tradition of burning sleep-inducing incense to see into the abyss of a new haenang. A moderate amount of the incense was an essential item for a warrior, as it helped one focus on their inner self. But, if you failed to control the amount, you’d be on a train bound for either a vegetative state or addiction.

Due to the unique nature of the estate being a boundary between the living world and the afterlife, it was easy for spirits and monsters to approach, so one had to be especially careful with the sleep-inducing incense. It was the Landowner’s duty to determine whether or not a person had an aversion to the incense before beginning their haenang training.

They must have lost their minds to pull something like this without her permission, the acting Landowner. They probably tried to be clever, thinking they could score points by harassing Yirok.

“That’s enough. He’s in the inner quarters, right?”

With time being of the essence, Chaehwa grabbed a handful of her long skirt, stood up, and left her quarters. The sight of the collapsed and weeping Yeon-seo made Chaehwa’s feet turn into running feet.

Rain poured down on Chaehwa’s head as she rushed out in her stockinged feet. It was a cold and painful rain when it hit her cheeks.

Shoving the door to the inner quarters open with her shoulder, Chaehwa swallowed dryly at the number of household members who had gathered like a cloud. The vague sense of crisis she felt from Yeon-seo’s words became real upon seeing the faces of the household. They were all in front of the main hall of the inner quarters, boasting sallow complexions as if they were preparing a dead body for a funeral.

Two haenang who appeared to be the instigators were biting their nails, but knelt as soon as they saw Chaehwa.

“Young Miss. What should we do with him?”

“We only put in two more spoonfuls….”

“Shut your mouths.”

Wiping the rain from her forehead, Chaehwa asked the household members how far away her grandmother was. The family, who had been anxiously awaiting Chaehwa’s arrival, just fidgeted and said she would arrive in 10 minutes. Her fate sealed, Chaehwa stepped onto the main hall and took off her dirty stockings.

“What in the world is this….”

“Young Miss. I went in and checked… he won’t open his eyes.”

Old Lady Yomyung said, wiping her trembling hands with a towel brought by the kitchen staff.

“Why did you even burn the sleep-inducing incense when Grandmother wasn’t even here?”

“Well, they said they wanted to test him a little….”

“So what were you thinking, starting the test on your own before Grandmother arrived!”

“At first, since we didn’t know the proper amount, the haenang said they’d just burn a little, ahh, I’m so sorry.”

When her grandmother was away, all the major and minor affairs of the household were solely Chaehwa’s responsibility. Wiping her feet on the towel the kitchen staff had laid out, she opened the reception room door. The heads of the onlookers, who had come to watch, scattered hastily at the musty smell of the sleep-inducing incense. It was dangerous for anyone other than a trained warrior to inhale its scent.

Chaehwa turned on the boiler and closed the door to the sweltering reception room, blocking their view. Her grandmother’s reception room was like a place time had passed by. She stubbornly adhered to the positions of the chests, drawers, and cushions that had been placed there when she first inherited the position of Landowner. The only things different were the potent scent of the sleep-inducing incense and the outsider lying on the floor.

Holding her breath as if she were about to fall into a river, Chaehwa sat down lightly and placed a hand on Yirok’s chest. His face looked like he was sleeping, but letting her guard down would be poison. Chaehwa shook his heavy body to first check for consciousness.

“Yirok. Wake up.”

But Yirok, who would be sorely missed if he weren’t the second most heartless person around, remained silent. The lips that used to be so dedicated to curses and slander now only let out faint breaths. This meant that with one wrong move, he could cross over to one side—the world of the living or the world of the dead. If a living person not listed in the book of the dead were to cross over, the heavens’ fury wouldn’t be the end of it.

“Yirok.”

There were a few points she had to be suspicious of. Even if the simple-minded haenang had increased the amount of incense, for him to be hovering on the brink of death was strange. If they had put in two spoonfuls, he should have just been talking nonsense, intoxicated by the scent. Not that it was a good thing, but it was understandable that the haenang who caused the accident were shocked and crying.

Moreover, the smoke filling the reception room was not the amount from two spoonfuls. Unless someone had hatched a wicked plan to suffocate Yirok. After a long moment of contemplation, Chaehwa, as a last resort, grasped Yirok’s chin in her hand. Applying pressure, she forced his mouth open, then pressed her forehead against his.

His eyelashes are really long, a stray thought like that brushed past Chaehwa’s mind as she inhaled the smoke. Yirok’s beauty, which she hadn’t noticed before, too busy teasing him, struck her all at once. With a slow gaze, Chaehwa stole a glance at the beautiful man before sucking in a breath.

The snake-like smoke of the sleep-inducing incense, drawn by Chaehwa’s breath, left Yirok. A great deal of it escaped through his slightly parted, pink lips. Chaehwa did not shy away from any of the smoke and drank it in. As they focused on the push and pull, their lips were about half a step away from touching.

Having had her fill of the incense smoke, Chaehwa’s vision blurred for a moment. It was a natural phenomenon, as she had also inhaled the breath of the collapsed Yirok. The dream that had trapped Yirok began to play in Chaehwa’s mind like an old video movie.

“Hyung!”

“You always scold just me.”

Two elementary schoolers were walking down a tree-lined street, playing by throwing their indoor shoe bags. Yirok, with large bandages on his elbows and knees like a little troublemaker, was racing his brother, undaunted by the wind. Chaehwa, glimpsing this dazzling memory of a bygone day, spurred on her work of drawing out the smoke.

“You only scold me because I’m the older brother. You were the one who broke the flowerpot, Rok.”

“Sorry, Hyung. I was scared… I couldn’t say it.”

“I even had my yogurt taken away because of you.”

Sad memories, shameful memories, memories one wants to forget, beloved memories—a patient addicted to sleep-inducing incense lives trapped in the past. The memory Yirok was trapped in was a perfectly ordinary afternoon. It was colored with the same vibrant hues as its owner, Yirok, remembered it.

The boy who seemed to be his brother took young Yirok’s finger as if in forgiveness. He led his younger brother, dressed in yellow overalls, into a neighborhood supermarket.

They were brothers with a strong bond. The older brother emptying his allowance wallet to buy two ice creams, the younger brother eating his white vanilla ice cream, getting it all over his mouth.

But as the scenes, which jumped back and forth in age, were cut off, the other side of the memory was revealed. Yirok, who was sitting on a park bench playing with a red yo-yo, suddenly shot up, his eyes wide.

“Mom! Dad! Hyung!”

The yo-yo fell from Yirok’s hand as he ran towards a two-story house that was on fire. It was the end of the clumsily severed memory. Sensing success, Chaehwa hurriedly concluded the purification process.

She intended to get up and leave before she was accused of being a thief who had peeked at his memories. But the moment Chaehwa’s breath ran out, Yirok’s eyelids fluttered open. Not yet far away, Chaehwa was lying stiffly on top of him.

Yirok was waking up, and she was on top of him in a ruffian-like position. She knew, without even having to look at herself, that this was a perfect situation for a misunderstanding.

“Ah, that is….”

As the focus of his hazy gaze sharpened, Chaehwa stealthily backed away. Her palm, which was lightly pressing down on his broad chest as she moved, was slick with sweat. Flustered, Chaehwa placed her slippery hand on the silk hem of her skirt spread out on the floor. The heavens did not help her, and she pitched forward, wiping the floor like a rag.

“Oh!”

There was an old saying: you save someone from drowning, and they demand you hand over your belongings. If she explained the whole situation, Yirok would surely be grateful. But due to what happened next, Chaehwa’s scheme came to nothing.

Losing her balance, her upper body fell forward, gently covering Yirok like a blanket. She avoided the danger of hitting her head by lying prostrate on his chest. But instead, her pure lips, which had never known a man, met with an accident.

As she blinked, the person opposite her blinked back as if she were facing a mirror. She bit down on something that felt as soft as if it were coated in moisturizing gel. In the instant the lips that had been pressed into one separated into two again, a suggestive sound was made. In Yirok’s eyes, now cleared of sleep, entered the sight of Chaehwa, who had slipped and fallen. His complexion changing from white to red, Yirok tasted his injured lip with his tongue.

Now in a position where she couldn’t even get credit for saving him from the water, one second later, Chaehwa was sent tumbling to the floor.