Wandering Through Vol. 1 Chapter 33 - Second Life 02

It was a dream of wandering through snow-covered mountains.  

 

Breath rose to the tip of her throat, and her vision was entirely white. Her feet, clad in straw sandals, were frozen numb, yet she kept wandering the mountains without pause.  

 

“Haa…”  

 

Her warm breath fogged the air before her. Her feet sank deep into the snow, thud, thud. 

 

Likewise, her knees kept buckling. 

 

With her unsteady body, she reached out her hand. She grasped skin that was cold and frozen.  

 

The moment her eyes met the black ones peering through the long hair fluttering in the snowstorm, the snow pouring down from all sides vanished in an instant, as dreams often do.  

 

It was the dim interior of the shrine, unlit by a single candle.  

 

Mongmae, bound inside the shrine, asked, “Do you still intend to call this love?”  

 

This was a dream, but there was nothing Yiseo could do. She simply stood in the center of the dream, repeating a conversation from a past life.  

 

“What can I do to make you believe that what I’m doing is love?”  

 

“That…”  

 

Mongmae muttered, “I don’t know either. I don’t know how I can trust you.”  

 

“…”  

 

“You abandoned me cruelly as soon as you had me. The sweet words you whispered to me were just a ploy to toy with my lowly body, and I was nothing more than a talisman to extend your life. The more wretched thing is that I heard it not from you, but from your wife!”  

 

A chilling murderous intent flickered in Mongmae’s pitch-black, gleaming eyes.  

 

“That woman held her head high and ordered her servants to whip me as if it were the most natural thing. I couldn’t bear her stiffening spine more than the pain of the whipping. That woman, who dared to punish me for coveting what was hers!”  

 

“…”  

 

“That woman will kill me someday. If I were her, I would have done the same.”  

 

“That won’t happen.”  

 

“If it does, will you avenge me?”  

 

“…”  

 

“If that woman kills me, will you kill her for me?”  

 

“…”  

 

“How can I trust you when you’re like this?”  

 

“…I cannot kill someone for you. That would only pile more karma onto you.”  

 

But he could die with her.  

 

“However, if you die, I will follow you. If someone kills you, my death will become their karma.”  

 

And so, she made a promise.

 

“You can treat me however you want. Whether you violate me, whip me, or kill me, I will still love you.”  

 

It was, in a way, to protect the other person.  

 

“So don’t harm anyone to prove my feelings. If your life is ruined by staining your hands with blood and accumulating karma, I… I don’t think I could bear that.”  

 

With those words, the dream ended.  

 

But Yiseo didn’t bother to open her eyes. The arms tightly wrapped around her and the warmth of the body pressed against hers made it clear what was happening.  

 

Unlike Yiseo, whose body was always cold even when soaked in hot water or wrapped in cotton blankets, Leegwang’s body was always warm.  

 

He had a healthy, vigorous body. His skin wasn’t soft, and his frame was solid. He had a vitality that Yiseo lacked.  

 

It was baffling why he clung to her corpse-like body like this.  

 

The words “We should never have met” lingered in her mind. If she hadn’t remembered her past life, they would never have crossed paths.  

 

It was a mismatched fate.  

 

Looking back now, it was clear.  

 

They saw the same things but spoke different words. 

 

What they did for each other’s sake always came back as daggers. 

 

Even in love, their desires were different, and they couldn’t understand each other.  

 

They should never have been entangled from the start—  

 

“—Ugh!”  

 

Suddenly, a large hand grabbed her chin. 

 

Leegwang pressed her cheeks, forcing her lips apart, and kissed her. His tongue ravaged her mouth, disrupting her breath. 

 

Yiseo struggled as his tongue plunged deep, threatening to reach her throat. But in the end, she had to surrender her mouth to his relentless lips.  

 

“Mmm, hng…! Ugh…!”  

 

After what felt like an eternity, his lips finally pulled away. 

 

Yiseo, exhausted, gasped for air. He brushed the hair stuck to her cheek and whispered,  

 

“If you keep your eyes closed after waking up, I can’t help but think you don’t want to see me.”  

 

No. Yiseo didn’t dislike seeing him. 

 

But since she had rejected him yesterday, saying she didn’t love him, she could guess what kind of misunderstanding he might have.  

 

He probably thought she hated or resented him.  

 

…She didn’t know. Was it right to let him keep misunderstanding like this?  

 

“Why aren’t you saying anything? Do you not want to talk to me?”  

 

Leegwang caressed her cheeks, chin, and the area below her ears. Yiseo hesitated, then finally spoke.  

 

“That child… bled a lot…”

 

When Yiseo mentioned the last image she had of Suyeong, the hand caressing her stopped. His dark, sunken eyes stared at her without blinking. 

 

Yiseo, cautiously gauging his reaction, hesitantly continued.  

 

“His head was torn, and he was drenched in the rain…”  

 

‘Had he called a physician? Or had he left him like that?’  

 

Suyeong seemed to have been born into a noble family in this life, so if Leegwang didn’t want to cause a major incident, he might have called for help.  

 

But knowing that Leegwang wasn’t the type to think or act coldly and rationally, Yiseo couldn’t shake her unease until she heard his confirmation.  

 

For the past ten years, Yiseo had thought of him as indifferent and cold, but that was merely a facade. She now acutely realized just how emotional and hot-tempered he truly was. 

 

This wasn’t a matter of intelligence or wisdom.  

 

It was simply a matter of his innate temperament.  

 

From the start, being born as the precious heir of a noble family and obsessing over a past-life connection instead of enjoying his current life was far from rational judgment.  

 

Yiseo couldn’t predict what he might do, and that terrified her.  

 

“The rain made the roads dangerous…”  

 

Her hesitant words circled around without getting to the point. 

 

Perhaps Yiseo had instinctively sensed that asking about Suyeong’s well-being might provoke him in a bad way.  

 

“Are you curious if your brother is alive?”  

 

“…”  

 

It felt like she shouldn’t answer. Yiseo bit her lip. She could see the veins bulging in his neck as if he was holding back something to the limit.  

 

“Do you want that bastard to live?”  

 

“…”  

 

What should I say? That he’s no longer my brother?

 

Would drawing a clear line like that make things better? Why was he so angry?  

 

He clenched his teeth.  

 

The moment Yiseo noticed the tension in his jaw, he let her go and stood up. He had been holding her against his bare chest, wearing only an underrobe, but now he quickly put on his outer garment and turned away.  

 

“If you don’t care whether that bastard lives or dies, then there’s no need to keep him alive, is there?”  

 

Stunned by the sudden turn of events, Yiseo stared blankly at his back. 

 

When she heard his words, she hurriedly tried to stand but collapsed. Her right leg trembled uncontrollably. 

 

Giving up on standing, she crawled toward him on her arms and left leg.  

 

“W-wait…!”  

 

She desperately clung to his leg as he stood by the door, as if waiting for her.

 

“It’s not that I don’t care, my lord. Please spare him.”  

 

Leegwang turned around. Yiseo clung tightly to his leg and looked up at him. 

 

Even when she tilted her head back as far as she could, his face was shadowed, making it impossible to read his expression. 

 

But seeing that he had turned back, Yiseo, sensing a glimmer of hope, hurriedly continued.  

 

“H-he’s the son of a powerful family. If something happens to him, it won’t be good for you, my lord…”  

 

“Are you worried about me, or are you threatening me?”  

 

“I’m worried about you.”  

 

Yiseo answered without hesitation. For a moment, his hand paused, then slowly brushed through her hair.  

 

“You’re worried about him, not me.”  

 

Yiseo tried to shake her head in denial. 

 

But before she could, he pressed the back of her head firmly. Her forehead was pressed against the hem of his pants. His hand held her skull tightly, leaving her unable to move.  

 

“If you don’t want me to leave, try holding me back.”  

 

With his other hand, he pulled out his member from his pants. 

 

The hard flesh touched her cheek. She flinched and tried to pull back, but the grip on the back of her head kept her from moving far.  

 

“Swallow it.”  

 

Swallow? This? How? When she looked up at him in shock, he asked,  

 

“Do you not want to?”  

 

At his question, Yiseo barely managed to mutter a denial. His member twitched right in front of her nose.  

 

This was the first time she had seen it so close.  

 

It would have been better not to see it at all. She couldn’t believe how something so large could fit inside her. 

 

The thick veins bulging on the dark red flesh were, to be honest, grotesque.  

 

It was a part of a human body, but she couldn’t understand why it was that color or why it looked like that.  

 

Yiseo tightly closed her eyes, hesitated for a moment, and then finally opened her mouth.