Surviving as the Villainess’s Servant in a Martial Arts Novel – Chapter 135

Author: Cireng

Chapter 135

Pain, hot and searing, raced across my back as sparks flew behind me. But I had no time to worry about it.

A familiar sensation enveloped my body. This feeling of floating in midair was…

‘Damn it!’

At some point, we had ended up suspended in the air.

When I said I would throw myself while holding him, I had accidentally jumped off the cliff. After gliding through the air for a brief moment, my body gradually tilted.

Soon, we began plummeting downward like mad.

A fierce wind, strangely familiar yet unfamiliar, struck my face. I desperately tried to open my eyes, yet I felt a peculiar sense of déjà vu.

‘How is this exactly the same?’

Hadn’t I fallen off a cliff like this before, too?

It was ridiculous. The circumstances were very different from back then, and this time I wasn’t the one being chased… I was the one doing the chasing. I hadn’t even been cornered at the cliff. And yet, here I was falling from a cliff once again.

At this point, I almost let out a hollow laugh. But I didn’t have the luxury of laughing comfortably.

Back then, I had no strength at all, so I had simply fallen while resigning myself to the fact that I was going to die this time. But things were different now. I wasn’t going to die, and unlike when I was young, I had strength now.

And there was someone in my arms whom I had to protect.

‘I absolutely won’t die!’

I hurriedly stretched out my hand. My hand caught on a small branch jutting out from the cliff, but it wasn’t nearly enough to slow our momentum.

Then I spotted what looked like a thick tree trunk. I hurriedly swung my hand and grabbed the trunk. The tree bent violently as though it were trying to withstand our weight, but in the end, it snapped with a crack. Even so, our falling speed was reduced by at least a little compared to before.

I repeated the same thing several times.

Then I asked,

“Master Li! Did you happen to bring your pibaek? Can’t you use the pibaek to grab the branches?!”

A clear voice came from within my arms.

“I brought it, but even if I grab the branches in this situation, they’ll only break!”

“Got it! I’ll figure something out somehow!”

“What?”

As we spoke, we were gradually getting closer to the ground.

Fortunately, it seemed the cliff wasn’t all that high. But this wasn’t the time to relax. We were falling toward hard ground, not water.

‘If we fall like this, our bodies will be smashed to pieces, and we’ll go to the afterlife together.’

Going to the afterlife with a beauty wouldn’t be so bad, but I hadn’t avoided that bomb just to die like this.

I quickly surveyed my surroundings. Fortunately or unfortunately, there was a river beside the flat ground. However, it was at a fair distance, and it didn’t look like we could reach it even if we changed direction.

If it was too far to reach…

‘Then I just have to shoot us over there!’

I drew up all the internal energy I could. Then I poured out every last bit of internal power I possessed and struck the cliff with a palm strike.

“Haaap!”

Boom!

The cliff caved inward, and the force of my palm strike changed the direction in which we were flying. More precisely, toward the riverside.

Our bodies gradually approached the water. When we were almost there, I performed three somersaults in midair. Then, with my body facing the water, I dove into the river.

Splash!

“Ghk…!”

The violent water struck my entire body. At least we had avoided the danger of falling onto the ground and having our bodies shattered, but that didn’t mean the impact from hitting the water was small.

My breath was knocked out of me for an instant. Our bodies continued sinking endlessly beneath the surface. I desperately clung to my blurred vision. I had to get to the surface quickly. I had to get out of the water…

Just as I tried to squeeze out whatever strength I had left…

“…!”

Liyeon suddenly pushed me away. I stared at him in surprise.

Liyeon seemed to slip slightly out of my arms, then soon wrapped his thick forearm around my waist. Then he pulled me sharply toward himself.

Before I knew it, I was being held in Liyeon’s arms instead. Liyeon looked toward the surface and swept his right arm forcefully through the water, pushing upward. Our bodies quickly approached the surface.

I relaxed my body and thought,

‘Kid, you actually come in handy sometimes.’

Just when I felt a little more at ease…

Splash.

Liyeon and I emerged from the water.

Liyeon looked around briefly before beginning to swim toward one side. Before long, we were able to climb onto solid ground.

“Cough, hack…!”

I lay facedown on the ground and spat out water. When I looked beside me, Liyeon was also sitting down and breathing heavily.

I stared at him for a moment, then gave him a thumbs-up.

“Good job.”

“What?”

“I mean, you did well.”

But Liyeon merely furrowed his brow. He abruptly turned his head away, raised his hand, and began peeling the flour dough stuck to his face.

‘Ah, damn. Taking that off is bad for my heart.’

I smiled foolishly, then finally looked around us.

The place where we had climbed out was some kind of cave. Since we had fallen into the river, I had expected to see a mountainous landscape, but instead, weren’t we inside a dark, damp cave?

There was a hole at the very top of the cave.

I looked upward and thought,

‘Did we get swept all the way to the bottom of the valley? The hole is pretty far away, so it’ll be difficult to climb up there. Fortunately, there’s a path farther inside, though…’

At that moment…

“You…!”

I heard Liyeon’s startled voice.

I looked back at him in confusion. His face was now clean, his disguise completely removed, revealing his bare face.

As I absentmindedly grinned while admiring his beautiful face, Liyeon quickly approached me.

By then, his face had hardened, revealing his concern…

‘…Concern?’

“Hm? Why are you making that face?”

“Your back…”

“My back?”

I blinked blankly. Then I turned my head to look toward my back.

Although I couldn’t see my own back, I soon realized what he was talking about.

Only then did the sensation I had forgotten return to me.

“Ah, ugh…”

I quickly gritted my teeth. A burning pain raced across my back.

I must have been so tense that I hadn’t felt the pain, and now that the tension had eased, all the pain had burst forth at once. Cold sweat trickled down my forehead. My body trembled as though someone were ripping the flesh off my back in one piece.

A groan nearly escaped me, but I was accustomed to suppressing it, so I swallowed it back and took a deep breath.

‘Did I get hurt while shielding Liyeon earlier?’

I thought I had avoided it while falling from the cliff, but apparently I hadn’t managed to evade it completely. Still, perhaps I should consider myself lucky that only my back was injured…

I struggled to raise my head, then smiled faintly when I saw his face.

“I’m the one who got hurt, so why are you making that face?”

“…”

“It’s fine. It only stings a little, so it’s bearable. Something like this will heal if I just put some saliva on it.”

“Putting saliva on it will make it worse.”

“Haha.”

I laughed foolishly and straightened my half-bent body again.

Still, since my attention was focused elsewhere, it was bearable enough. After staring at my wound for a while, Liyeon let out a trembling breath.

“…Because of me.”

“No.”

I answered firmly.

“If you look at it that way, I also failed to notice it in time. And this isn’t anyone’s fault. It’s that bastard’s fault for desperately trying to kill us.”

“…”

“Phew… Still, this is a little troublesome. I really can’t put saliva on it, so I need to at least treat it temporarily. Do you happen to have any medicine? Or maybe some cloth…”

“Medicine. I have some.”

Liyeon suddenly came to his senses at my words and hurriedly searched through his clothes.

It was distinctly different from his usual self, which always maintained an aloof composure no matter what happened.

Was he really that surprised?

I quietly observed this new side of him with a strange feeling.

After fumbling around several times, Liyeon soon pulled something out from inside his clothes.

It was a small, plain-looking box. When he opened the lid, there was a thick white liquid inside.

I stared at it, wondering what it was, and Liyeon calmly explained,

“It’s a special golden wound medicine made by our sect. It’s made with Extreme Northern Cold Jade and Mysterious Ice Island Artemisia, so it’s highly effective for treating wounds. If you apply this, the bleeding will stop quickly, and the pain will subside.”

“Ahhh…”

Ah, anyway, it was really good stuff, right?

I only understood half of what he said, but I nodded.

Liyeon, holding the golden wound medicine in his hand, said,

“Show me your back. I’ll apply it for you.”

“Okay.”

I immediately turned my back toward him.

I could feel Liyeon’s presence behind me.

When his cold fingertips touched me, my body instinctively tensed.

Liyeon examined the area around my wound. However, even after quite some time had passed, he showed no sign of applying the medicine.

I swallowed nervously and waited for him to hurry up and apply it.

I had pretended that it didn’t hurt, but it actually did. I wanted him to put the medicine on already…