Wandering Through Vol. 1 Chapter 31 - Second Life 02

The snow had covered the mountains in white.  

 

The guardian tree in the mountains and the shrine were all buried under the snow, losing their original colors.  

 

Jagomi opened the tightly shut door of the shrine. The Crown Prince, who had been leaning against it, collapsed forward onto the ground outside.  

 

The thick stench of blood filled the air.  

 

The physicians who had followed quickly rushed over and laid the Crown Prince down on the wooden floor. His mouth and chest were drenched in dark, dried blood.  

 

It was unclear why he had crawled to the door, despite the immense pain he must have been in.  

 

Perhaps he had finally accepted that he was going to die. Or maybe he didn’t want Mongmae to see him in his final moments.  

 

“Step aside, Jagomi.”  

 

Huishan’s voice came from behind him.  

 

Jagomi silently stepped away from the door. Immediately, a voice as cold as the blizzard covering the mountains rang out.  

 

“Drag her out.”  

 

At Huishan’s command, the servants she had brought stormed into the shrine and dragged Mongmae out.

 

Dressed only in a thin undergarment and skirt, Mongmae was thrown into the courtyard. She seemed to have just regained consciousness, her eyes darting in confusion.  

 

Jagomi avoided her gaze and entered the shrine.  

 

The physicians carrying the Crown Prince followed behind him.  

 

They laid the Crown Prince down on the disheveled bedding inside the shrine. 

 

While the physicians busied themselves changing his clothes and checking his pulse, Jagomi quietly placed his hand on the bare wall.  

 

The bond between them was tightly intertwined. The Crown Prince must have cut Mongmae’s lifespan and taken it for himself.  

 

Now, all that was left was to ensure that the extended lifespan the Crown Prince had taken from Mongmae wouldn’t return to her. 

 

It was always harder to maintain than to take…  

 

“Your Highness! Can you hear me?”  

 

At the physician’s shout, Jagomi turned his head. The Crown Prince, who had been lying down, suddenly sat up, his eyes frantically scanning the room. 

 

It was as if he was searching for someone.  

 

A faint blue light shimmered in his eyes.  

 

Jagomi could only smile bitterly at the thought that the Crown Prince, who already held all the good things the mortal world had to offer, now also held the love of a god.  

 

A dragon god—a being so different from the god Jagomi served, a god who remained on earth for reasons no one could understand in this age where gods were scorned.  

 

…The dragon would willingly lend its power to save the Crown Prince.  

 

All Jagomi had to do was clear the path for the Crown Prince to receive the dragon’s power.  

 

“Your Highness!”  

 

The Crown Prince collapsed again. Jagomi began to draw the dragon on the empty wall—its body, its tail, its whiskers, its horns…

 

They drew a dragon and built an altar. The Crown Prince repeatedly lost and regained consciousness.  

 

Throughout, screams echoed from outside the shrine.  

 

The sound of flesh tearing from whippings, too.  

 

Jagomi paused his hand for a moment, then continued moving.  

 

How much time had passed? Mongmae’s screams grew weaker and weaker until they abruptly ceased. 

 

Jagomi thought Huishan wouldn’t have killed Mongmae. 

 

The extended lifespan of the Crown Prince wasn’t entirely his yet.  

 

“Put it in the coffin.”  

 

Huishan’s cold command reached inside the shrine. Jagomi dotted the eyes of the dragon in the mural one last time.  

 

Incense was lit.  

 

The Crown Prince opened his eyes.  

 

“Ah…”  

 

Letting out a faint sigh, the Crown Prince neither looked around nor called for anyone. He simply blinked slowly, then turned his gaze toward Jagomi.  

 

No. Not Jagomi.  

 

It wasn’t Jagomi, but the mural behind him.

  

The Crown Prince stared at the dragon in the mural.  

 

That was all, yet no one in the shrine dared to speak or move. The silence was heavy.  

 

At that moment.  

 

“Your Highness!”  

The shrine door, weighed down by an inexplicable pressure, burst open. Huishan rushed in as if flying and knelt before the Crown Prince, grasping his hands.  

 

The scent of cold winter wind, and faintly mixed within it, the stench of blood.  

 

“Have you finally come to your senses?”  

 

The Crown Prince, who had remembered everything, silently observed Huishan’s face—the face of the woman who had trampled over his beloved to reach him. 

 

A face strewn with anxiety, unease, resentment, and hope.  

 

Without realizing it, he touched her cheek.  

 

“Your Highness…?”  

 

“I don’t think you were wrong.”  

 

Perhaps thinking he was taking her side, Huishan’s expression brightened slightly.  

 

“If I hadn’t left you and met another woman, you wouldn’t have done this. In the end, all of this is my fault.”  

 

“No, Your Highness. I was only worried that Your Highness might have been swayed by a lowly woman and forgotten your duty, but to see you so upright…”  

 

“Don’t attach plausible justifications, Huishan. Weren’t you simply jealous of her?”  

 

Huishan froze. It was the first time she had heard her name on the Crown Prince’s lips. 

 

Originally, he had referred to her as his wife.  

 

“I simply don’t think jealousy is a sin. How can human desires and emotions be considered sins? Moreover, since I provided the cause, the sin lies with me.”  

 

A sense of distance emerged. 

 

Huishan unconsciously stared at the Crown Prince, who now felt strangely unfamiliar. 

 

He seemed less like a person and more like a ghost or an immortal—detached from the world. She couldn’t explain this peculiar sense of distance.

 

“Where have you placed Mongmae?”  

 

“In the coffin…”  

 

When Huishan answered reflexively, the Crown Prince’s eyes turned cold for a moment. 

 

Under his accusatory gaze, Huishan shrank back. After a brief silence, the Crown Prince muttered as if making a vow.  

 

“…It’s not your fault.”  

 

The Crown Prince stood up.  

 

Huishan couldn’t stop him from leaving. Only after he left could she free herself from the inexplicable pressure weighing her down. 

 

When she hurriedly followed him out, the Crown Prince had already entered the coffin.  

 

Inside the open coffin door, the Crown Prince was looking down at Mongmae, who lay collapsed.  

 

Her appearance, battered from the whipping, was pitiful beyond words. 

 

Mongmae, clutching the hem of the Crown Prince’s robe, had curled up in pain from the blows she had received. 

 

But the Crown Prince lightly brushed off her trembling hand.  

 

“I’m sorry, but your status is too lowly even to be taken as a concubine.”  

 

Huishan thought all of this was strange. 

 

The Crown Prince casting aside that lowly shaman was something Huishan had dreamed of, but it also meant it was something she could only imagine in her dreams. 

 

The Crown Prince she knew wasn’t the kind of man who would abandon a woman he had once cherished.  

 

Especially not a woman who had been whipped and left collapsed in the middle of winter, wearing only thin clothing.  

 

“…Are you abandoning me?”  

 

“I never truly possessed you, but if that’s how you feel, then so be it.”  

 

Yet the Crown Prince had cast Mongmae aside. 

 

Everything felt too sudden.  

 

Huishan had expected the Crown Prince to resent her. But even if he resented her, she couldn’t have left that lowly shaman untouched.  

 

If the Crown Prince resented her if he protected that lowly shaman, she had planned to go to the King and the Grand Prince. 

 

After all, that woman was the daughter of a traitor, and Huishan was the Crown Prince’s rightful wife.  

 

But nothing had happened yet, and the Crown Prince had abruptly cast aside the woman he had held in his arms just this morning.  

 

As Huishan stood there dazedly watching the scene, the Crown Prince exited the coffin and passed by her.  

 

Seeing him about to leave the shrine entirely, Huishan was about to chase after him when she suddenly turned her head. 

 

Inside the dimly shadowed coffin, a pair of gleaming black eyes stared intently at the Crown Prince’s back.  

 

A chill ran down her spine.  

It felt as if she had locked eyes with a ghost. Huishan hurriedly fled.  

 

“Take good care of her until she recovers, then send her away with ample provisions.”  

 

The Crown Prince instructed Jagomi. His gaze briefly flickered to Huishan as well. 

 

Understanding the Crown Prince’s unspoken warning not to torment Mongmae further, Huishan bowed her head. 

 

After all, as long as the Crown Prince’s attention was no longer on her, what happened to that insignificant shaman didn’t matter.

 

And so, the Crown Prince severed the deep entanglement of fate that had bound him to Mongmae through the dragon god.  

 

To avoid parasitizing Mongmae’s life.  

 

The Crown Prince believed he had made the right choice. But on that very day, Mongmae threw herself off a cliff in the snowy mountains.  

 

She didn’t die.  

 

The Crown Prince, who had wandered the snow-covered mountains until his feet were raw, eventually found her hanging from a tree.  

 

Mongmae laughed when she saw the Crown Prince. Her laughter was twisted and terrifying.  

 

“Your wife said she would use me as a talisman to extend your life. She said I have no other value or use to you.”  

 

“…”  

 

“Seeing you rush here like this, it seems you really will die if I die.”  

 

Facing Mongmae’s bright smile, the Crown Prince realized his choice had been wrong.  

 

“Let’s die together. You and me.”  

 

Two days later, Mongmae threw herself off the cliff again. 

 

Even after the Crown Prince explained that her death wouldn’t cause him, she refused to listen. 

 

Mongmae relentlessly tried to end her life. At first, it was the cliff, but later, she tried every method imaginable.  

 

In the end, the Crown Prince had no choice but to plead with her to live. He tried to explain why he had cast her aside, he spoke of love, and later, he even brought up their past lives. 

 

But Mongmae no longer believed anything the Crown Prince said.  

 

“You only spoke of love when you held me in your arms. What fool would believe those words now?”  

 

Mongmae grabbed the Crown Prince’s blank face and whispered,  

 

“We should never have met in the first place.”  

 

If they had never met, she wouldn’t have wanted him so desperately, nor would she have felt like she was going mad from not being able to have him.  

 

‘I can’t trust you. Even when you’re right in front of me, it feels like I don’t have you.’

  

It will be like this for the rest of my life.  

 

Maybe in death, you’ll feel like mine.