Chapter 25
I was flustered.
I had expected her to ignore me as usual, or at most say, “Come in,” but I had never imagined for a moment that the young lady would come out to greet me first.
But my surprise didn’t end there.
“Is your foot all right? Does it still hurt?”
“Huh?”
“…That’s much faster than I expected. Are you really okay? Aren’t you supposed to avoid moving around for now?”
“Huh?”
“Did Physician Jeong really say you were fine? Did he say you could move around now? You didn’t just decide on your own that you were fine and get out of bed, did you?”
“Huh?”
I was so flustered that I could only respond like an idiot. Perhaps my reaction seemed suspicious, because the young lady suddenly tried to step outside.
“This won’t do. I need to go ask Physician Jeong myself–”
“Ah, no, no, Young Lady!”
‘Are you really allowed to go outside whenever you want like that?!’
I broke into a cold sweat as I looked at the young lady, who was wearing nothing but a thin face veil.
When was it that she used to hole herself up in her room, covering herself from head to toe with a veil and a meokri because she was afraid someone might even see the outline of her body?
And now she was trying to rush outside on her own?
I hurriedly stopped her and said,
“I’m really fine, I’m telling you! Please don’t come out for now. If you’re really suspicious, I’ll go get a medical certificate from the physician. You can look at that.”
“…….”
“And look at this. See how well I can move my ankle now? He told me not to run yet, but there’s no problem with normal daily activities. If you look closely, the swelling has gone down a lot, so it’s basically back to how it was bef–”
“Then that’s enough.”
Clack.
Only then did the young lady close the door and go back inside. I finally let out a sigh of relief.
I couldn’t even figure out what had just happened to me.
As I stood there blankly in the same spot…
Creak.
The door opened again.
Then the young lady poked her face through the crack in the door and said…
“…Aren’t you coming in?”
I stared blankly with my mouth hanging open.
‘The young lady is acting weird!’
That wasn’t the end of the young lady’s strange behavior.
Of course, she wasn’t as unusually attentive as she had been on the first day. After that, she went back to acting more like her usual self. She was still quiet, and she still looked utterly disgusted whenever I got too rowdy.
But the young lady had definitely changed.
“Young Lady, I brought your medicine!”
“Mm, come in.”
“Yes! …Huh?”
She would actually let me in without complaint.
“Good morning, Young Lady! Did you sleep well last night? Did you have a good dream?”
“…Not really. What about you?”
“Just as I thought! I– Huh? Who? Me?”
“What about you?”
She suddenly showed an interest in me.
“…So, for now, Physician Jeong said he’d go see my mother first. If he can’t figure out the cause either, the Manor Lord said he’d introduce us to a famous physician he knows.”
“That’s a relief. I don’t need it, so take some of the medicinal herbs too.”
“Huh? …N-no, how can you not need medicine, Young Lady! You’re still so frail. You need to eat well and sleep well if you want to grow big and strong. You’re even shorter than me…. You do know that you’re older than me– I mean, you’re my noona, right? Noona, you’re my woman~.”
“Shut up.”
She would even listen to my pointless rambling.
“Young Lady, what are you doing? Are you reading a book? What are you reading?”
“The Tao Te Ching.”
“Ah~. ……What’s that?”
“…….”
“No, no. Showing it to me won’t help. I can’t read, you know. And this book looks difficult just by looking at it. Unless someone reads it to me, I won’t understand a word of it.”
“…….”
“Young Lady?”
“…Should I read it to you?”
She was trying to be nice to me.
‘Who are you?’
Honestly, it felt strange.
I could understand her no longer snapping at me, but this was the first time I had ever seen the young lady act this kindly toward me.
Still, it wasn’t a bad feeling. It was heartwarming to think that she had finally opened her heart to me, and I figured that this unfamiliar feeling would naturally become familiar with time.
However, there was exactly one thing…
The one thing I just couldn’t get used to was…
“Young Lady, I…”
“Why?”
The young lady turned toward me when I called her.
I swallowed nervously.
An unbearable sight was unfolding right before my eyes.
A face as white as if it had been sculpted from snow, long eyelashes that fluttered like butterfly wings every time she blinked. The melancholy shadows beneath them, and beneath those lashes, her large eyes the color of the night sky…
‘Ghk!’
At some point, the young lady had started showing her bare face!
No, wasn’t she previously so worried about someone even seeing the silhouette of her body that she would cover herself with that curtain-like meokri?
What on earth had changed her mind so much that she had now even thrown away her face veil?
Was this it?
A change in clothing based on affection level?
Was our young lady really this easy of a woman?
“Why? You don’t look well…”
Suddenly, the young lady leaned her face toward me.
My heart dropped with a thud.
The faint crease between her brows, gently furrowed over her beautiful forehead, caught my eye.
Wow, how could even her wrinkles be pretty…?
‘N-no! Get a grip!’
I squeezed my eyes shut and hurriedly shouted,
“The face veil!”
“What?”
“You’re not wearing your face veil anymore?”
“…What?”
“No, I mean, you always wore it before. Actually, you even made sure to wear the meokri every single time. So it feels strange, and I’m curious because you suddenly aren’t wearing anything…”
“Would you prefer me to wear it?”
“Huh?”
The young lady’s voice suddenly became sharp.
“Why? You used to constantly tell me to take it off, but now that I’ve taken it off, you don’t like it? Now that you’ve seen everything there is to see, would you prefer it if I covered my face again?”
“A-ah, why are you putting it like that? You’re making me sound like some shameless scoundrel! That’s not it. I just haven’t seen your face very many times, so it’s a liiiittle unfamiliar…”
“Unfamiliar? Everything seems to be unfamiliar to you. Then hurry up and get used to it. Surely you don’t think I’m going to cover my face again just because someone like you finds it uncomfortable? If it’s really so uncomfortable, you can leave. If you don’t want to see my face that badly!”
“Aww, why do you keep getting angry~! When did I ever say I didn’t want to see it? You-you, bad mouth. Bad mouth! I won’t say something like that again. I want to see the young lady every single day. Please calm down. Hm? Hm?”
“You always have such pretty words! Really…”
The young lady continued huffing and puffing for quite some time.
After saying one thing wrong, I had to spend a long while trying to calm down the genuinely angry young lady. Even so, I felt strangely relieved.
Right, this was our young lady.
Our young lady had to point at me and call me a lowlife and a bastard while showering me with all kinds of insults!
She had finally gone back to normal!
Did I perhaps grin stupidly without realizing it?
“So…”
“Huh?”
I perked up my ears at the sudden voice. But the young lady couldn’t continue for a while. Only after some time did she mutter in a tiny voice,
“…Do you think my face is ugly?”
I completely froze.
See?
I told you she was really acting weird!
***
“…So that’s why the older girls said there’ve been people carrying swords around the streets a lot lately…”
‘Is this really okay? Is this actually okay?’
I half-listened to Aso chattering away in front of me while I picked at my food.
Of course, it was a good thing.
Compared to the days when I was constantly being berated by the young lady and running away for my life, this was practically paradise.
But it was also true that something about it left me feeling uncomfortable.
Especially whenever I saw how the young lady had changed only toward me, whenever I saw her sitting quietly beside me, as docile as ever yet somehow noticeably gentler than usual, my stomach felt tight as though I had indigestion.
What was this feeling that was pleasant yet unfamiliar, seemingly uneasy yet secretly exciting…?
‘Am I flirting with her?’
Was this what they called a green light?
“Hey! Are you listening to me?”
At the sudden loud voice, I hurriedly raised my head.
Aso, who was sitting right in front of me, was glaring at me with a frown.
“Ah… Ah! Of course, of course, I was listening. So, people carrying swords around the streets…?”
“Murim people!”
Aso shouted, then let out a deep sigh.
“I mean murim people. Apparently they’ve been showing up on the streets a lot lately. Usually, Bakrahyeon is so quiet that not even murim people, let alone outsiders, come here.”
“Mmm.”
“But lately, all these rough-looking people keep showing up, so apparently the whole area’s become restless. There are strange rumors going around too. They say the Demonic Cult has appeared again and is killing and abducting people indiscriminately…”
“The Demonic Cult?”
I unconsciously muttered at the word I heard, then realized something.
‘The Demonic Cult.’
It was definitely a term I knew.
Because it was the main villain of <The Lord of Heavenly Pillars>.
Before <The Lord of Heavenly Pillars> switched routes and became a harem story, its original main plot had been about stopping the Demonic Cult. The goal was to prevent the Demonic Cult, which committed utterly inhumane atrocities, from taking control of the Central Plains.
Thanks to that, the protagonist killed countless Demonic Cult members. Whenever he found out someone was connected to the Demonic Cult, he would track them down and kill them without distinguishing between men, women, old or young…
‘…Ugh.’
Suddenly, my temple began to throb.
“It’s scary just hearing about it. They say they kidnap people and use them as sacrifices, or capture living people and eat them. The rumors about the Demonic Cult are so horrible…”
“…….”
“Still, they say they only appear in large cities or places with lots of people, so that’s a relief… But you never know. It’s scary that so many murim people are coming here too. So you be careful when you’re out and about, too.”
“…If you put it that way, shouldn’t Aso be more careful? You’re a young girl, after all.”
Aso suddenly bristled.
“Hah, only me? And you’re actually…!”
At that moment…
“Oh my goodness, we’re in big trouble! Big trouble!”
A commotion broke out outside.
Aso and I jumped to our feet in surprise.
We had just been talking about frightening things like the Demonic Cult, so the sudden commotion made my heart beat anxiously.
We hurriedly cleared our places and went outside.
Then we grabbed a passing maid and asked what was going on.
“What happened? Is something wrong?”
“Don’t even ask. With the Manor Lord not even here, a guest suddenly showed up…”
“A guest? Why?”
Just as the maid was about to answer…
“The young master of the Thunder Blade Sect, Wang Jugun, has come to propose marriage to the Miss of the Xiao Family!”
What?!
Hello everybody, thank you for stopping by!
Just wanted to let you guys know that since this is a pretty gender-heavy novel, it's probably going to be prone to some misgendering lmao.
I mean, I'll try my best to keep it consistent. If a character doesn't know that the young lady is actually a man, I'll refer to her as “she.” But if they know him as Liyeon, then I'll use “he,” yada yada, the whole shabang. You get what I mean, right?
SO pls excuse the many errors that are probably going to come up going forward. (；´∀｀)
That's about it. Thank u for ur support, buh bye!
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