Chapter 22
Xiao Yanli.
… Her real name was Xiao Liyeon.
Liyeon was the only son of Xiao Yeong-yeong, the youngest daughter of the Xiao Household.
Xiao Yeong-yeong died giving birth to Liyeon. Her body had already been weak to begin with, and she had been unable to withstand the strain of childbirth.
Liyeon, who had lost his mother immediately after being born, was taken in by his maternal uncle, Xiao Cheong-ja. Since Xiao Cheong-ja had no children of his own, he brought Liyeon into his household and cared for him devotedly as though he were his own child.
Liyeon was always grateful to Xiao Cheong-ja. Along with that gratitude, however, his sense of guilt also grew.
Because Liyeon had been sick since childhood.
Liyeon had been born with a weak constitution. He had nearly stopped breathing because he was born prematurely, and once he began putting on weight, he frequently developed fevers or vomited, and there were countless occasions when rashes broke out and he screamed in agony.
When he finally developed such a high fever that he nearly died, Xiao Cheong-ja brought in a famous physician. But the physician could only shake his head.
“I do not know the cause. No matter what method I try, nothing works at all. I have never seen an illness like this in my life…”
The next physician was the same. And the one after that was no different.
Xiao Cheong-ja refused to give up and continued searching for a way to treat Liyeon’s illness.
He swept up every precious medicinal ingredient said to exist in the Central Plains, and whenever he heard rumors of a physician with exceptional skills, he would personally go and bring them back, even if he had to. Despite all those countless efforts, Liyeon’s condition did not improve.
The closest they came to obtaining a clue about the illness was when Liyeon was four years old.
“The young master’s body is on the verge of collapsing.”
It was thanks to Great Master Yeong-ro, the abbot of Wusang Temple, whom Xiao Cheong-ja’s sworn brother, Namgung Jeong, had introduced to him.
Xiao Cheong-ja, who had been unable to find even a way to slow the illness, let alone cure it, felt as though he had finally met a savior. Greatly overjoyed, he asked,
“Please enlighten me, Great Master.”
“It is simple. Ordinarily, all things under Heaven are in harmony between yin and yang. There is yang because there is yin, and there is yin because there is yang, so each energy is both oppositional and mutually dependent.”
“Yes.”
“People are the same. Although one of the two energies, yin or yang, may be more abundant, they maintain a balance that does not harm the body. In other words, there is no person made solely of yin, nor is there a person made solely of yang.”
“Then, the child…?”
Great Master Yeong-ro sighed.
“He is composed almost entirely of yin.”
Xiao Cheong-ja’s face turned pale.
“Those with such a constitution are usually born female, but the young master was born male. His body was probably unbalanced from birth, which is why he was frequently ill.”
“That is true. He was often sick from a young age…”
“Of course, there are others in the world with constitutions similar to this. In such cases, it is called yang-deficiency syndrome, and it is usually treated by administering nourishing medicines containing yang energy to restore balance to the body. However, even that will be difficult for the young master.”
“Why is that?”
“The yin energy already inside his body has surpassed the point where medicine can resolve it, and above all… yin energy disperses yang energy.”
When Xiao Cheong-ja looked startled, Great Master Yeong-ro continued explaining as though he had expected that reaction.
“When this old monk placed a small amount of internal energy into the young master’s body to diagnose him, the yang energy remained within his body for a brief period. But when I examined him again immediately afterward, that yang energy had noticeably decreased.”
“…….”
“It was as though his body regarded the yang energy as a foreign substance and eliminated it. That is why so many physicians must have struggled with his illness. No matter how much nourishing medicine they gave him, the yang energy could never be replenished.”
Xiao Cheong-ja was unable to speak for a long while. Then, finally coming to his senses, he desperately asked Great Master Yeong-ro,
“Then, then you mean there is absolutely no way? Surely there must be something, some way to replenish his yang energy…”
“There is no complete cure. However… I may be able to help him prolong his life, at least a little. That is likely why Benefactor Namgung sought me out as well.”
“Pardon?”
“Because I have mastered an extremely yang-aligned martial art.”
Thus, the method Great Master Yeong-ro proposed was as follows.
First, Liyeon was to be dressed as a girl and raised like one.
Men were generally accustomed to yang energy, while women were accustomed to yin energy. But because Liyeon possessed a male body with an excessive amount of yin energy, his imbalance was made even worse. By dressing him as a girl, they could at least temporarily bring his balance closer to normal.
The second was that Great Master Yeong-ro would visit the Xiao Household once a year and infuse him with his internal energy.
With the amount of yin energy Liyeon possessed, he would ordinarily need to have a large amount of extremely yang-aligned energy injected into him all at once just to be able to carry on with daily life. But Liyeon’s body was far too weak for that.
Even an ordinary person would have difficulty if suddenly given a large amount of internal energy. If Liyeon were to receive such a massive amount of extremely yang-aligned energy all at once, something truly terrible could happen.
Therefore, Great Master Yeong-ro would infuse him with only as much internal energy as Liyeon could withstand, even if it was only once a year.
Xiao Cheong-ja was grateful even for that.
“Thank you. Thank you so much, Great Master! I do not know how I could ever repay this kindness…!”
“No. It pains me that my own abilities are so insignificant that this is all I can do to help. There is also one thing that concerns me…”
“What is it? Please, tell me anything.”
Despite Xiao Cheong-ja’s urging, Great Master Yeong-ro hesitated for a long while, unable to continue. Then, in the end, he quietly added,
“There is… an evil aura in the young master’s eyes.”
“You mean his eyes?”
“Yes. I sensed it from the moment the young master entered, but when I look into his eyes for too long, I feel something strange. Somehow, my mind becomes unsettled…”
“Pardon?”
Great Master Yeong-ro merely shook his head.
“No. Still, it would be best if you were careful.”
Xiao Cheong-ja was bothered by the word ‘evil,’ but he merely gave a good-natured smile. There was no need to say anything unpleasant to his benefactor.
Xiao Cheong-ja returned to the Xiao Household and immediately dressed Liyeon as a girl. At the same time, he gave him the name ‘Xiao Yanli.’
From that moment onward, Liyeon became Xiao Yanli.
Living as Xiao Yanli was not particularly inconvenient. He had been so young at the time, and because his illness meant he rarely left his quarters in the first place, no one around him had any particular reason to suspect anything.
Thus, Liyeon was able to live without incident while receiving treatment from Great Master Yeong-ro once a year. Or, at least, he thought he would be able to.
That was until…
“The young lady has been kidnapped!”
Great Master Yeong-ro’s concern became reality.
***
In truth, there had been signs from the very beginning.
“The young lady’s beauty is the greatest beneath Heaven!”
It was because of Liyeon’s beauty.
Liyeon had been born beautiful.
Perhaps because he had inherited the appearance of his mother, who had been the most beautiful woman in Shandong, Liyeon became more and more beautiful as he grew. Eventually, he even surpassed his mother.
Everyone who saw Liyeon could not help but marvel. They would say they had never seen such beauty in their lives, that there was no one as beautiful as Liyeon. They showered him with praise until their mouths ran dry.
At first, Liyeon was embarrassed, but after hearing it so often, he became accustomed to it. In truth, he knew it himself. There was no way he could not know when he looked at his own reflection in the mirror.
And he liked his beautiful appearance. He liked how people treated him as a precious young lady without him even having to pretend to be a girl, and how everyone seemed desperate to do something for him.
Sometimes, he even felt as though he were the master of the world. But young Liyeon’s conceited thoughts did not last long.
“Young lady, please look at me. Please look only at me…!”
The people around him began changing strangely.
It started with the maids who were closest to him.
At first, they looked at Liyeon with admiration and respect. But at some point, muddled desires began mixing into their gazes, and they gradually started crossing the line.
At the mildest, they would beg Liyeon to love them or become obsessed with demanding that he look only at them. Sometimes they even tried to touch Liyeon’s body. There were even a few who stripped off their clothes and rushed at him.
As such incidents repeated, Liyeon began to become frightened. In particular, the longer someone looked into Liyeon’s eyes, the more they seemed to lose their reason.
Liyeon thought,
‘Is it really because I’m beautiful? Could there be something wrong with me? This is too strange. How could everyone who stays close to me end up like this? This… this isn’t normal….’
Even when he later asked Great Master Yeong-ro, the master could only say that he did not know either. Then he said it might be because of Liyeon’s constitution, that his yin energy was so strong that it might be affecting those around him.
Upon hearing that, Liyeon became dejected. At some point, he could no longer make eye contact with other people.
‘I just have to be careful. I just have to….’
He did not know why things had turned out this way, but he thought he could prevent it if he was careful. If he avoided making eye contact with people, everything would be fine. Then there would be no problem.
It was all a futile hope.
“It’s all because of you, young lady. Because you won’t look at me, because you keep turning your eyes toward other people, I…!”
The person who kidnapped Liyeon was a maid who served at his side.
Liyeon liked that maid. He liked how she was competent at her work and knew how to accommodate his finicky preferences, and how perceptive she was and never did anything to offend him.
Above all, he liked her gentle nature.
When Liyeon had been keeping his distance from everyone for so long, she was the first to approach him. She treated him warmly, and before he knew it, Liyeon’s guarded heart had begun to soften.
‘Maybe this maid was different. Maybe she wouldn’t change….’
“Young lady, let’s stay together, just the two of us, for the rest of our lives.”
Just when he had let down his guard, Liyeon found himself shoved inside a huge wooden barrel.
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