If Silk Flowers Bloom by the Water’s Edge Chapter 13

The dream of the day his parents died and his brother was broken still made Yirok cry like a ten-year-old boy. He was getting older, but the magnitude of his sorrow remained unchanged. He wondered if he might finally forget it on the day he celebrated his eightieth birthday.

Just as he was about to wake from that long dream, he remembered the incident right before he collapsed. Just as Old Lady Yomyung had instructed, he had entered the reception room and was placing the cushions down. Suddenly, he was engulfed in the smoke of the sleep-inducing incense and lost consciousness.

“Oh!”

Sitting up and gulping in the fresh air, the first thing Yirok smelled was the scent of camellias. It was as if someone had plucked a snow-covered flower and was waving it right under his nose. But what he saw when he opened his eyes was not a flower, but a person. And it was a person who had slammed her lips onto his, using her front teeth as if they were a hammer.

He could tell from her clumsy posture and scream that it wasn’t intentional. The moment Chaehwa’s front teeth had grazed his lip and she pulled away, he saw his own reflection in her brown eyes. Her two cheeks were flushed, and only then did a shameful awareness dawn on her as her hand shot out. She unceremoniously shoved Chaehwa’s fumbling shoulder.

“Ah!”

It seemed his hand, failing to control its strength, had sent Chaehwa flying. Chaehwa, whose face had turned the same color as her lips, picked herself up and sat, rubbing her lower back. As it happened, a cut had appeared on his lip in a similar spot to Chaehwa’s. He pressed his thumb against the wound as if to make it worse, and his heartbeat quickly calmed.

“I save your life, and now you’re just throwing people around.”

Chaehwa, her face full of anger, approached with quick steps on her knees. To summarize the situation, it seemed they had burned too much of the sleep-inducing incense by mistake. Yirok, a delayed headache setting in, didn’t answer and just bowed his head. However, Chaehwa, thinking Yirok’s reaction was him faking it, flicked him hard on the forehead in revenge.

“Ha.”

“What are you sighing about? Weren’t you just pretending not to wake up to get me in trouble?”

“Your mouth…”

“What? Does one flick on the forehead hurt that much? For me, my lips, my butt, there’s not a single place that doesn’t hurt.”

“Just shut your mouth.”

“What? How dare you say that to me….”

It seemed the space cleared of smoke was being filled with a headache. Even Chaehwa’s trivial scolding felt like it would shatter his head. As he blocked Chaehwa, who was grinding her teeth and demanding an apology, with one hand, a cold draft came in. Chaehwa, who had been lunging at him with her nails out, instantly deflated.

Wasn’t she the contrarian young miss who gets up eight times even if she falls seven? That same Chaehwa meekly moved away. Feeling something was strange, Yirok’s gaze shifted to the cold doorway.

A person he had never seen before was standing in the doorway of the reception room. His first impression was of a white-haired tiger. The silver dragon on the pin holding her hair in a bun made her look even more imposing. The old woman, standing with a backdrop of swirling snow and rain, changed the atmosphere of the room with her mere presence.

A gaze like frost swept across the room and stopped on Chaehwa. As if she knew the old woman’s gaze would land on her, Chaehwa had already sat with her knees demurely together.

“I’ve heard the whole story. Maid, close the door.”

The door closing the instant she spoke seemed to show the old woman’s status. Cutting through the lingering, acrid smell of the sleep-inducing incense, the old woman strode into the room. Yirok shrewdly realized that the old woman was the famous Landowner of Nanjubeol. He forced his unwilling body to sit up and knelt properly.

The Landowner came in and, without a word, headed for the seat of honor. Sitting on a folding chair that looked as if it were made of thinly sliced gold, she slowly took off her fur coat. The person sitting and removing her coat was leisurely, but the two gazes following her grew busy. One’s face became expressionless, enduring a headache, while the other’s nose was red. The words finally came when the reception room began to feel sweltering.

The old woman’s lips, which had been tapping the table with sharp fingernails, slowly opened.

“He is an outsider you asked to bring in. You know how much I dislike outsiders in times like these.”

“Yes, Grandmother.”

Chaehwa, with an anxious face, couldn’t keep still, twisting a lock of her hair around her finger and then releasing it. The little master, who always commanded the house with such an imposing air, was now restless and uneasy.

“You’re the outsider… Yirok, you said. While I was helping you, Yirok, I heard the story from outside. Isn’t it strange that there’s suddenly a problem with the sleep-inducing incense that’s been fine all this time? I hear you’ve been ostracizing him.”

“No, that’s….”

“And you were the one leading it.”

“It wasn’t ostracizing… we just weren’t being friendly, Grandmother.”

“When I call in those outside and ask them. If what they say is different from what you just told me, will you take responsibility?”

As Chaehwa, tears welling in the corners of her eyes, clamped her mouth shut, Yirok’s head returned to normal. Even though her only granddaughter was shedding tears, the Landowner did not let the matter slide.

“It seems I’ve raised you too leniently. How could a jeongmusa, whose heart must be pure, corrupt the haenang you command?”

“He started it….”

“Your fault is clear, and you’re talking back?”

“Please listen to me, too, Grandmother. And….”

Chaehwa’s pouting lips snapped shut because of the cell phone that appeared on the table. Chaehwa, who couldn’t even remember where she had dropped it, covered her mouth.

“When I’m not here, even Old Lady Yomyung can’t refuse your demands. So how must it have been for an outsider who just came here to learn?”

“I wasn’t that mean to him… Hey, say something….”

As if demanding payment for saving his life, Chaehwa’s hand came from behind and tugged at the hem of his clothes. Yirok, who was being scolded alongside them, stuck between the granddaughter and grandmother, raised his gaze at the continued plea for help.

He met the Landowner’s gaze, which seemed to pierce right through him as if testing his true nature. Given his status, Yirok waited for a question rather than speaking rashly. The old woman, raising the end of her eyebrow slightly, asked in a somewhat gentle tone.

“You would not have received such treatment in the Baekyoung family. I apologize.”

“…Yes.”

“You’re the quiet type, I see. You look like a fox, but with your mouth shut, you seem like a tiger, too.”

“……”

“You may criticize me for being biased, but my granddaughter is not a child who throws a fit for no reason. In any case, if you have something to say, say it.”

“……”

“Hm?”

“I have nothing to say.”

“Nothing. Does that mean I can imagine whatever I please?”

“Yes.”

That last answer might have sounded dismissive. He hoped to be seen as a hopeless case and be thrown out. Wiping the artificial expression from his face, he straightened his back. The Landowner, seeming amused by the unyielding Yirok, spoke as if she were telling a fortune.

“Your compatibility with Chaehwa is the absolute worst. I had an inkling from the moment I heard you were born on a day of water.”

I wish she would just shoo me away. I wish she would send me back, asking how such an unlucky fate ever crossed the threshold of Nanjubeol. But the Landowner, narrowing her brow, disappointingly withdrew her gaze. Her concluding words replaced the expulsion he so desired.

“One is destined to be the Landowner, and the other is destined to be a haenang. You two are people who must be closer than anyone. How is ostracism or bullying even permissible?”

“…I’ll be careful, Grandmother.”

“I can’t trust your words anymore. You’re a girl who constantly finds her cell phone and gets it back in her hands. No more long words. Starting today, I will bind you two with a spirit link, so be it….”

“Whaat?”

Yirok, knowing nothing about a spirit link, showed no change in expression, but Chaehwa was different. She kicked the table aside and practically crawled to the Landowner, clinging to her. The girl who had just been sniffling and clutching his clothes was now lying on the floor and flailing as if she’d taken the wrong medicine.

“Grandmother! I said I was wrong…. No, no, it wasn’t bullying, it was just like a welcoming ceremony. You have no idea how informally he treats me!”

“I told you not to call me Grandmother in front of others.”

“Ah! Really… Ahh, ahh, Grandmother. I can’t do that. That’s something you do to seven-year-olds!”

“Don’t act so undignified. Take this opportunity to cultivate the magnanimity to embrace those beneath you. Ahem, don’t cry.”

Chaehwa flailed her legs like a five-year-old whose toy had been taken away. Yirok enjoyed the effect of looking relatively mature just by staying still.

Thanks to Chaehwa throwing a tantrum, Yirok’s interrogation was more or less buried. All eyes were focused on Chaehwa, who was hitting the ground and crying as if she had lost the world.

“I hate you, Grandmother, I really hate you….”

Crying when she wanted to cry, laughing when she wanted to laugh, the tears of the young miss who lived in a simple and beautiful world wet the floor.

Chaehwa’s face, scrunched up in tears, was so fascinating it made one forget their thoughts. Yirok didn’t realize that this was the first time he hadn’t cried after dreaming of his parents.