Chapter 138
I let out a shriek and practically screamed at the top of my lungs.
Having suddenly been subjected to an assault on his eardrums, Liyeon slightly furrowed his brows. Then, with his usual lofty demeanor, he simply said,
“Too loud.”
“Ghk. Ah, sorry. I was loud–No, that’s not it!”
Crash!
I hurriedly rolled away from him.
Even after I moved away, Liyeon acted as though nothing had happened, merely straightening his clothes. Watching him, I felt a strange sense of déjà vu.
Hadn’t something like this happened before?
That day in the forest, when I slept with my head resting on his thigh.
It had been the same then. I was flustered and didn’t know what to do, while Liyeon remained completely unfazed. I’d been so embarrassed watching him that I’d vowed never to drink in front of him again.
But…
This time, instead of his thigh, I had been clinging to…
“No! How, how did this even–Urgh.”
I jumped in surprise, only to stop short when a sudden wave of pain rushed through me.
Of course, it was far less painful than right before I passed out. Still, when I instinctively let out a groan at the sudden pain, Liyeon hurriedly spoke.
“Your body hasn’t fully recovered yet, so it will hurt. You need to rest a little longer.”
“Huh? R-Really?”
“Yes. It would be better to lie down and rest, but the wounds on your back have only just begun healing, so lying down will be difficult. Even if it’s uncomfortable, you should either lie on your stomach or…”
“……?”
“…Like before.”
“No, no-no-no-no!”
I frantically waved my hands.
“I’m fine, I’m fine! I’ll lie on my stomach. I like lying on my stomach! Lying on my stomach is great, lying on my stomach is the best! Wow, this is super comfortable!”
Then I promptly flopped forward onto my stomach. Liyeon gave me an unimpressed look at my overreaction, but only said one thing.
“Suit yourself.”
An awkward silence descended for a moment.
Clutching my pounding heart, I lay face-down and secretly resented him.
‘Damn it, why did he make it so easy for me to cling to him?’
You, you’re not normally like that. You’re a human fortress who blocks everyone who comes and goes. But is it really okay for you to just let anyone hug you like this?!
…H-Hold on, did I throw a tantrum? Like I did when I was drunk last time. Did I stubbornly demand that he let me use his thigh as a pillow? And did I end up getting him into trouble because he gave me his thigh?
Just as I began sweating at how increasingly plausible that theory sounded…
“Why?”
“Huh, what?!”
I trembled in alarm, feeling guilty for no reason.
But the words that followed left me dumbfounded.
“Why did you hide that you were a woman?”
…Huh?
I stared blankly at him. Then, before long, I understood.
‘He knows.’
Yeah, it made sense.
There were several things he could have inferred.
First of all, the fact that I had opened my eyes perfectly fine. That probably meant I had taken medicine, and at the time, I hadn’t been in any condition to take it myself. Which meant Liyeon must have helped me.
The medicine bottle had been inside my clothes. He might have realized it while searching through them. On top of that, my back had been treated…
‘Come to think of it, my clothes are intact.’
My clothes had definitely been a mess, but I was wearing perfectly intact clothes now. More precisely, it looked like I had another layer of clothing over them. I realized it belatedly.
‘He put his outer garment on me.’
Looking back, Liyeon was now wearing only a white inner garment. Had he discovered I was a woman while moving my clothes aside to treat my back, then put his own clothes on me?
Well, whatever the reason, it meant that he had found out I was a woman…
“Hmm…”
So I suppose I had to explain now.
I scratched my head before finally opening my mouth.
“First of all, I’m sorry for deceiving you, but I didn’t exactly hide it. Things just ended up that way.”
“Things?”
“As you probably guessed, I don’t really like revealing my true appearance. So I usually disguise myself in various forms. I spend most of my time looking like a beggar.”
“……”
“And because of that, everyone thought I was a man, right? I couldn’t be bothered to correct them, either. Honestly, going around as a woman is troublesome too. Some idiots start saying they’ll give up the first move just because I’m a woman, and do you know how infuriating–”
“Women?”
“Huh?”
At the sudden question, I widened my eyes.
“Your reputation for being fond of women? Was that also intentional? Did you spread those rumors to pretend to be a man?”
“No? That part is true.”
“……”
Liyeon’s gaze suddenly turned cold.
Not understanding why he was acting like that, I hurriedly began making excuses.
“Th-That also has its circumstances, but anyway, I’m not only fond of women. More precisely, I’m fond of ‘beautiful beauties’.”
“……”
“Inner beauty? Noble character? I don’t need any of that. It’s all about the face! The face! My heart has to be moved by a pretty face. They say you’ll get tired of someone after three years, but I could live off admiring someone’s face even after thirty thousand years!”
“……”
“Understand? As long as they’re an incomparable beauty, anyone is fine by me!”
As I said that, I gave him a thumbs-up.
Liyeon’s face became filled with disdain. Eventually, he scoffed and turned his head away.
Still, was it my imagination, or did he not look as annoyed as before? I secretly wiped away my cold sweat.
‘Jeez, he’s so fussy.’
Still, I’d let it slide because he was pretty.
Although I had evolved from a woman-lover into a beauty-lover, I felt considerably more at ease and continued rambling.
“But you don’t seem very surprised? I thought you’d either freak out because you’d been deceived or become awkward around me. Ah, wait, you’re not saying you don’t talk to women, are you?”
“No.”
“Or did you figure it out from the beginning? My disguise was perfect. Did you somehow expect that I wasn’t a man?”
“Not at all.”
Liyeon shook his head and calmly said,
“I was surprised, but nothing changes. Whether you’re a woman or not, Flower-Glutton is still Flower-Glutton.”
I looked at him, inwardly astonished.
I never thought I’d hear something like that from Liyeon.
He seemed cold, but in reality, he was rather rigid and conventional. I thought that even if he didn’t throw a fit over me deceiving him, he might subtly avoid me or distance himself because of my gender.
But in reality, he didn’t seem bothered at all.
Instead, he spoke about it as though it were nothing. No matter what appearance I had, I was still me. Nothing changed.
Why did hearing those words make me so happy?
I smiled sheepishly.
“That’s right.”
“……”
“I’m me. Nothing has changed.”
Liyeon nodded. I kept grinning before suddenly speaking as though I’d just remembered something.
“Great! You’ve asked me everything you wanted to know, right? Then it’s my turn now, isn’t it?”
“…What?”
“Look, a proper question-and-answer is only fair if we take turns. But I’ve been the only one answering so far. How is that fair, huh? Do you have any idea how many things I’m curious about?”
“……”
Liyeon let out a small sigh. He had an expression that seemed to say, ‘Here we go again.’
“What do you want to ask?”
“Why did you join the Inspection Unit?”
At my question, he paused.
“I don’t know if I’m allowed to ask something like this, but I’ve been curious. Honestly, the others practically got dragged into it, right? The Murim Alliance Leader asked each sect to send talented people.”
“……”
“But Young Master Liyeon joined voluntarily, right? To be honest, even though I know you’re strong, I don’t know much about your sect. If you’re that strong, you definitely would’ve made a name for yourself.”
“……”
“Besides, I don’t think the Murim Alliance Leader would have asked some secluded sect for help. I was just curious why you decided to do this. A sense of righteousness? Or for the sake of peace in the martial world…”
“Revenge.”
A cold voice suddenly interrupted me.
I blinked.
“It’s not some grand reason like that. It’s because of revenge.”
“……”
“My family…”
Liyeon paused to steady his breathing. Somehow, he seemed as though he were hesitating, or perhaps trying to suppress the anger welling up inside him.
After a moment, Liyeon calmly opened his mouth.
“My family was wiped out overnight. At the hands of the Demonic Cult. Everyone was killed.”
“……”
“That doesn’t mean my family was originally enemies with the Demonic Cult. We had nothing to do with them. We were all ordinary people, living ordinary lives and happily getting through each day…”
“……”
“But they took that happiness away from us.”
Liyeon’s voice gradually grew heated.
“I don’t know why. Why they suddenly attacked us, why they had to kill us. All I know is that when I came to my senses, I had lost everyone.”
“……”
“For a while, I suffered from nightmares. At first, I was furious to the point of madness. Then I gave up. And eventually, I became curious. Why? Why did we have to suffer such a tragedy?”
“……”
“I came out into the Central Plains with that question in my heart… and as I traveled throughout the martial world, I saw many others who had suffered at the hands of the Demonic Cult, and I came to understand.”
“……”
“There was no reason. We had simply been unlucky.”
Liyeon gave a bitter smile.
“…It was so hollow to realize that.”
Then he raised his head and looked at me.
I met his gaze, then flinched. Because in those eyes that had always seemed cold, a clear emotion had appeared.
A hatred more vivid than anything else.
“As the days passed, I couldn’t stand it anymore. The fact that we had to lose everything simply because we happened to get caught up in it, simply because we were unlucky. The more I thought about it, the more it gnawed at me…”
“……”
“So I joined the Inspection Unit. If they took everything away from me, then this time, I would be the one taking things away.”
Liyeon said,
“I’ll kill every member of the Demonic Cult with my own hands.”
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