Wandering Through Vol. 3 Chapter 83 - Settlement

Leegwang observed Yiseo’s face beneath him while holding his breath.

She was clearly agitated, but he couldn’t yet determine whether that agitation was positive for him or not.

“If you wish for it, dying doesn’t seem so bad.”

Her tightly shut eyes trembled slightly. Just as she seemed about to open them, teardrops formed. 

 

With the hand that had been cupping his cheek, she now covered her own eyes. 

 

Even so, the fact that Yiseo was crying was undeniable.

Leegwang felt ecstatic at that fact.

A pierced stomach meant nothing to him. The ecstasy was greater than the pain.

 

He was enthralled that Yiseo was shaken because of him. 

 

The eyes that cried while thinking of his death, or her trembling hand forcibly held against his bleeding stomach—these were proofs that he was not merely an object of resentment to her.

Leegwang now understood Yiseo to some extent. 

 

The woman who usually rested in his arms with a face tinged by resignation, yet occasionally cast a vaguely resentful look.

The eyes that would look at him with resentment, then widen in surprise at themselves, and crease with self-reproach. He found her kind heart utterly pitiful—resentful of what had been done to her in this life, yet unable to even resent the deeds committed by her past self.

What did some past life matter? 

 

Even if she hated him with pure malice for what happened in this present life, no one could blame her. 

 

But to silently accept it all as karma from her past life was truly…

She couldn’t be anything but a pushover.

That’s why she gets tripped up by the likes of me.

 

Leegwang removed her hand and suppressed the urge to lick his wet eyes. 

 

Hadn’t he already forced and restrained her enough until now? 

 

The current him had to be pitiful enough to momentarily forget all those past actions. He intentionally let go of Yiseo’s hand that he had been holding. 

 

The hand hastily withdrawn from his stomach was trembling violently. 

 

As if it were afraid of his wounds.

 

Yiseo raised even her blood-stained hands to cover her face with both palms.

 

“Why… why are you doing this to me…”

 

A faint sob escaped, followed by a hiccup-like sound of suppressed weeping. She seemed to be in agony. 

 

Solely because of him.

 

“How could I possibly wa-want you… to d-die…”

 

He suppressed his rising emotions. 

 

Yiseo did not wish for his death. No, on the contrary, she was anguished by the thought of his death.

 

“Then, will you live with me?”

 

“…”

 

Leegwang shook the stubbornness of her silent response.

 

“You only have two choices. Live together, or die together. You can erase my memories and run away as many times as you want, but you’ll only be postponing the choice. Do you really think the options themselves will change?”

 

He whispered while stroking the back of Yiseo’s hands that covered her face.

 

“If it’s too difficult for you to kill me with your own hands right now, then beg the Dragon God. Ask him to erase my memories again. Then, I will live on like a living corpse until eventually dying by my own hand one day.”

 

It’s because of you that I would die.

 

Even though his words meant that he would die that way if she erased his memories and left him, Leegwang’s spoken words, as if to soothe her, said the exact opposite.

 

“Then it wouldn’t be you who killed me, would it.”

 

That was the way to make Yiseo waver more.

 

Yiseo’s sobs ceased.

 

“If I am here, you will have nightmares for the rest of your life. You will keep thinking about that terrible death from your past life….”

 

Her voice trembled. Leegwang thought the answer he longed for was close at hand.

 

“You will be constantly anxious because of me, to the point of feeling like you’re going mad. Because you won’t be able to believe it. You will doubt every moment, torment yourself, and suffer…”

 

“But at least you will be alive.”

 

“…”

 

“You may suffer enough to want to die, but you will not die. As long as you are here.”

 

A silence as long as an eternity passed. 

 

Yiseo remained still as a corpse until the blood seeping from Leegwang’s stomach soaked his trousers.

 

The hands covering her face lowered. Their eyes met in the darkness. 

 

Yiseo whispered like a moan.

 

“I wish you would not die. If that requires me…”

 

He had finally caught her.

 

He had finally obtained the answer he desired.

 

At that moment, Leegwang’s consciousness, barely sustained despite the excessive loss of blood, snapped. 

 

Perhaps, despite all his planning and confidence, he had been anxious all along.

 

No matter how he acted, as if he were superior and in control of everything, he knew the outcome ultimately depended on her.

 

When all the layers were stripped away, the weak one was Leegwang, and the strong one was Yiseo. 

 

He had orchestrated all this because he no longer wanted to be left behind by a departing Yiseo, and he had finally turned her wandering eyes, searching for a place to go, back to himself.

 

The relief of finally not being abandoned consumed him.

 

Leegwang collapsed, pressing his body down on hers so she couldn’t move.

 

“My Lord?”

 

Yiseo’s call, soaked in anxiety, followed. 

 

So did the small hands trying to somehow push his heavy body away.

 

Before losing consciousness, Leegwang had one last thought. When he wakes up, he must find a way to deal with that damned ‘My Lord’ form of address first.

 

💫

 

In a small, long-abandoned mountain hermitage, a guest arrived for the first time in ages.

 

A man with his eyes blindfolded by white cloth spent the entire day cleaning the monastery before laying down the woman he had carried on his back in a room. 

 

Having moved about incessantly all day, the man finally sat down on the creaking wooden floor only after night had fallen.

 

Leaning his back against a pillar, he sat quietly as if asleep. 

 

But that tranquility was short-lived. The door burst open, and the person he had lain down inside rushed out.

 

“Eunbi.”

 

Beads of cold sweat dotted her pale face. 

 

Eunbi desperately threw herself into Gukmu’s arms, clutching him as if her life depended on it.

 

“I thought meeting you was a dream. That the Grand Prince had let me go, too.”

 

“It’s not a dream. Aren’t we here, holding each other right now?”

 

Eunbi’s hands fumbled over Gukmu’s face. 

 

Understanding her feelings, Gukmu obediently let her touch his face and body. She continued feeling his features for a long moment, then finally let out a ragged breath and buried her face in his shoulder.

 

Gukmu gently patted her back and whispered.

 

“The Grand Prince won’t come after us anymore. It’s alright, Eunbi.”

 

Hearing the certainty in his reassurance, Eunbi paused. 

 

The Grand Prince’s final words—Tell your fourth brother he did well—resurfaced in her mind.

 

“…Did you make some kind of promise with the Grand Prince?”

 

“We made a deal.”

 

“What was the price?”

 

Worry tinged Eunbi’s voice. She was afraid Gukmu had made some great sacrifice. 

 

Sensing her concern, Gukmu shook his head first.

 

“There’s nothing for you to worry about. It’s nothing that will cause problems for us. The Grand Prince just…”

 

Gukmu hesitated. He couldn’t possibly feel any guilt. It was just that his desire to save Eunbi had been greater than that guilt.

 

“…He merely wanted me to deceive a certain woman for him.”

 

“That’s all?”

 

“It is not something to call trivial. If that woman faces misfortune because of my lie, that will become my karma.”

“It would be the karma of the Grand Prince who ordered you to lie. That.”

Eunbi carefully added, recalling the words the Grand Prince had spoken.

“And if the woman you deceived is the Grand Prince’s former wife, then he has likely already committed every terrible act possible against her. The lie he had you tell would be a small thing in comparison.”

 

Hugging Gukmu, Eunbi whispered that if he wanted to blame someone, he should blame the Grand Prince. 

 

Gukmu shook his head with a bitter smile.

“It’s not that I’m worried about my karma—I’m worried about that woman. It was the first time I saw the Grand Prince so crazed.”

“Even so, he will try hard to act sane in front of her. It seems she already ran away once— do you think she can’t do it a second time? Out of fear, if nothing else, he will restrain himself. He will act like a reasonable man.”

 

Gungmu let out a sigh and buried his head in Eunbi’s shoulder. 

 

The lie he had been forced to utter replayed in his mind.

“If you make a deal with me, the Grand Prince will never know the life written on that wooden tablet.”

He didn’t regret lying to save Eunbi. 

 

But the expression of the woman who had looked at that wooden tablet haunted his thoughts like a nightmare.

Unlike the Grand Prince, who read the tablet and laughed calmly, her eyes had been utterly desperate.

 

“I hope so. Truly…”

 

💫

 

In a room where physicians and servants were bustling in and out due to the Grand Prince’s stab wound, a screen was set up in one corner. 

 

Yiseo sat beyond it, quietly watching the Grand Prince receive treatment.

But perhaps because she had stayed up all night, her slowly blinking eyes eventually closed completely at some point.

Leegwang, who had been focusing on the sound of Yiseo’s breathing, which was gradually slowing even more than the rhythm of his own wounded stomach, gave a low command to those around him at that moment.

“Everyone, get out.”

 

The complexions of those who had tried to stop the Grand Prince from leaving alone the previous night and had suffered greatly for it instantly turned pale. 

 

They hunched their shoulders and hurriedly left the room.

 

Leegwang approached, stepping over the dense pattern of the floorboards.

 

Under the sunlight streaming through the window, Yiseo was asleep, her body curled up. She was sleeping so soundly that she didn’t wake even when he pulled her into his embrace. He drew her head to rest against his chest. 

 

Raising his hand to shield her eyes from the sunlight touching her face, she seemed to like it, pressing her forehead against his chest. 

 

He laughed softly and called her name.

 

“Yiseo.”

 

The sleeping form gave no answer. Leegwang did not expect one. 

 

Instead, he whispered in an even lower, more hushed voice.

 

“My poor fool. You are so lovely and so easily deceived, you must live only in my embrace.”