The Jade Rabbit Rice Cake and the Silver-Haired Little One

The jade-green eyes—my mother's eyes, the exact same as mine—went wide as saucers.

It was the first time she'd ever seen anything like this, so I supposed she had every right to be startled. Recalling my father's reaction, I hurried to explain myself.

"I just want to play with her until it's time to send her back to the living world. That's all."

"……I see."

"I'll be playing with her the whole time, so don't worry and go on to work."

My excuse about wanting a playmate worked exactly as well as I'd predicted.

After seeing the child Ansi had brought with her own eyes, my mother made me promise over and over not to overexert myself, then left for Jami Palace.

The silver-haired little one I was meeting again was already surrounded by curious fairies.

"She says Her Highness the Princess wants to play with this child? Right after waking up, no less?"

"Goodness, whatever blessings must she have accumulated in her past life……"

"Tell me, child—how ever did you come to meet Her Highness?"

"What is it about you that caught Her Highness's eye?"

"Our Princess, and this little thing……"

"Her Highness's health is fragile, so you must be careful, *careful*, when you play together……"

What a commotion.

None of them meant any harm, but at this rate, it seemed like I'd never get a single word in edgewise with the girl.

The poor thing's scared stiff—she's gone pale as a ghost.

First things first, I needed to calm her down. Get the adults out of the way, feed her something tasty—that ought to help, shouldn't it?

I walked over to the fairies and gave my orders.

"Everyone out. Just bring in the tea tray and leave."

"Yes, Your Highness."

The fairies scattered at once, and before long they returned with a table laden to bursting with treats.

"Enjoy your playtime, Your Highness!"

Beaming from ear to ear, they set the table down and withdrew.

The child left all alone stood trembling like a rabbit.

With that snow-white hair, she looks even more like one.

Looking her over properly now, I noticed her big, gentle, watery eyes and her tiny little nose were actually rather adorable.

She looks just like that one.

I glanced back and forth between the silver-haired girl and the Jade Rabbit Rice Cakes arranged on the tea table.

Jade Rabbit Rice Cakes were glutinous rice treats made by hand by the Jade Rabbits who lived on the Moon—my absolute favorite snack.

Because they were so cute: pale and pillowy, shaped like little bunnies, with candy eyes pressed in here and there.

Not that I could really tell the difference in taste, honestly.

My tongue was too dull to distinguish much beyond bitter and sweet. It got even worse after I took my painkillers.

Which was why my snacks were usually chosen for being pretty and elaborate rather than delicious.

The little one was trembling away, yet she couldn't seem to tear her eyes off them.

She's going to poke holes in the rice cakes staring like that.

Suppressing a laugh, I spoke up.

"What's your name?"

"M-me? My, my name?"

"Mm-hm."

"Ru-Ruhwa…… Se Ruhwa."

Her voice was so small it was like an ant crawling past.

I pointed to the plate of Jade Rabbit Rice Cakes that most resembled her.

"I see. Ruhwa, want to try one of these?"

"……Yes—yes?"

"They're called Jade Rabbit Rice Cakes. They're delicious."

Not that I would know, but there was no way anything served up to me could taste bad.

"Go on, try it, hmm?"

When I urged her again, Ruhwa fidgeted for a moment before carefully cradling a rice cake in both hands.

They were sitting right next to the chopsticks—either her head was too scrambled to notice them, or she couldn't use them very well yet.

Wow, that cake practically fills her whole hand. Her hands are teeny-tiny.

Ruhwa turned the rice cake this way and that, then nibbled tentatively at one edge.

"……!"

The girl, mid-chew, blinked—and then hurriedly opened her mouth again.

The fist-sized rice cake vanished bite by bite into Ruhwa's mouth, her little cheeks puffing up red like a rice cake stuffed with strawberry sweet bean paste.

She's devouring that thing.

"Tasty?"

Mouth stuffed full, the child nodded furiously, half out of her wits.

Feeling warm and fond, I pushed another plate toward her.

"Eat this one too."

"Yes, yes……!"

"And this."

Ruhwa gobbled up every snack I slid her way. Watching her, I was starting to understand what people meant by feeling full just from looking.

I was resting my chin on my hand, watching her eat, when she suddenly froze with her hand halfway to a cookie. Then, stealing glances at my face, she nudged a plate toward me.

"Y-you should…… eat too, Your Highness. I can't just, just eat everything by myself……"

What a sweet little thing.

I waved my hand with a smile.

"I eat these every day, so don't worry about me."

"Still, we should…… sh-share. Eat together."

The way she wore the expression of someone making a grand, weighty resolution as she slid the plate over was so endearing that I ended up picking up a few pieces myself.

Once the tea table had been wiped clean, Ruhwa seemed a little more settled.

Thinking a stroll would help her digestion, I led the girl out to my garden.

The gardens of Sangra Palace had been laid out by my parents as a miniature replica of the whole world, made just for me since I could rarely set foot outside it—even the immortals tended to lose themselves in wonder the first time they saw it.

She'll love it too, won't she?

I took Ruhwa around the garden in a full circle.

Tiny mountains and valleys, forests and meadows, deserts and snowfields—and above them all, baby divine beasts frolicked by the dozens: Jade Rabbits, white deer fawns, young Haetae, and more.

Off to one side lay a small sea filled with genuine ocean water, along with the river that flowed into it.

A baby Azure Dragon strolled across the water's surface ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠alongside a little Black Tortoise, while a young white crane and blue crane drank from the riverbank.

"Wow……"

Oh, she likes ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it. She really likes it.

Ruhwa didn't stop gasping in wonder at a single spot.

So cute.

The little one, mouth hanging open, simply could not look away from the heartwarming sight of a melon-sized Jade Rabbit playing nicely with a pumpkin-sized baby White Tiger.

I smiled, feeling inordinately proud, and said,

"You can pet them if you want."

"R-really?"

"Mm. They won't bite. They're all good children."

Whether out of fear or not, Ruhwa's small hand only flinched in midair.

In the end, I demonstrated first.

When I held out my hand and made a little kiss-kiss sound, the baby White Tiger toddled over and nuzzled its head into my palm.

Only then did the girl work up her courage and gently, carefully stroke the little tiger's fur.

I thought her hands were small, but…… seeing them side by side, there's hardly any difference from mine.

Wait—does that mean I look as small as this little mite? I'm two hundred and nine years old, you know? I really am tiny……

Now I understood why nobody treated me like a grown-up despite my two hundred–plus years, and a fresh wave of self-deprecation washed over me.

Meanwhile, whether the tension had finally drained out of her or not, Ruhwa began to talk.

"My-my name, they say it means, um, flower of tears."

"Flower of Tears? That's an unusual name."

"M-my mama gave it to me. My mama, she, actually……"

Ruhwa was a clumsy speaker, and having learned so little in her short life, there was much she simply didn't know.

She did her earnest best to explain, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠but a fair amount of it was hard to follow.

Left with no other choice, I referred now and then to my Karmic Mirror.

The Karmic Mirror was an artifact used in the underworld to sort out the guilty—a mirror that showed everything the dead had done while alive.

And I happened to own a tiny Karmic Mirror, about the size of a hand mirror, a gift from my father to stave off boredom.

Listening to the child's story and watching her life unfold across the mirror's surface, I finally understood why she was so reluctant to return to the living world.

What kind of cruel fate does a child so young have to suffer for it to be this wretched?

I could see why she'd say that going back would only mean dying again.

And she has so much lifespan left, too……

I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠gazed quietly at the child's Lifespan Cord. As I did, characters rose up over the pale, ghostly thread, as if written in ink.

Thanks to the power of King Yama, inherited from my father, I could read what was written upon a human's Lifespan Cord.

The three characters at the front were the name; the first number, the person's current age; the last number, the lifespan Heaven had allotted them.

In other words, if she were simply left alone—no one interfering—this child could live to be well over a hundred.

But she died at only nine, and even if she comes back to life, she'll die again before long.

Monsters, stray ghosts,杂spirits—

No. Beings that strayed from the natural order of things.

Commonly known as the Corrupted.

When a mortal became entangled with the Corrupted, they almost never met a natural death.

Unless they possessed the strength to overcome the Corrupted on their own, or a powerful divine spirit or immortal came to their aid, they died young regardless of their allotted lifespan.

This child—this Se Ruhwa—was exactly such a case.

Worse, the things she'd become entangled with were hardly just one or two.

I couldn't see the future, but as the Jade Emperor's daughter, I could read a fair measure of Heaven's hidden designs.

Her future was thick with omens far more dangerous than dying by the sword.

At this rate, even if she miraculously came back to life this time, she wouldn't live to ten—let alone one hundred and one.

My heart ached for the girl, who kept stroking the baby White Tiger with a soft, dimpling smile.

Even if I want to help, without proper grounds, it becomes an act that defies the order of Heaven and Earth and all the gods within them.

I couldn't just go around resurrecting every dead soul that caught my eye. There had to be a reason.

The most I could do was put in a word with Jeoseung Halmang, who tended the dead children in the Seocheon Flower Garden, asking her to look after this child until the day of her rebirth.

Wait a moment.

Then a brilliant idea struck me out of nowhere.

What would happen if I took hold of that child's Lifespan Cord and went to the living world myself?

The Corrupted tangled in that girl's life, the ominous omens shadowing her path—to a Princess of Heaven's Mandate like me, they were nothing at all.

Even in that child's body, I could live out her full allotted years with ease. To me, it would amount to nothing more than a rest cure.

I've been wanting to leave home and see the world anyway—this might be the perfect opportunity.

And in exchange for taking over that girl's life, I could offer Se Ruhwa fair compensation.

There would be my justification for helping her.

What if I made her compensation a place on the Registry of Immortals?

When a child's name was entered on the Registry of Immortals, the register of all immortals, they became a Seondong—a Celestial Attendant. And a Seondong who grew up without misfortune would, in time, become an immortal in her own right.

I'll make her a Seondong and raise her in Sangra Palace until she becomes a fairy herself. And someday, I could even arrange for her to see her mother again.

For all the hardship she'd endured, Se Ruhwa had few attachments left to the living world—except for one, and it was a great one: her mother.

The biggest reason she didn't want to come back to life was that she couldn't bear to show her mother the sight of her dying a second time.

I darted in and out of Samdocheon constantly, so I knew exactly how that felt.

That's all the more reason I want to help her.

Rather than dying like this, forgetting everything, and passing on to a new life—surely it was far better for her to become a fairy and be granted the chance to see her mother one more time?

Then again, if I were to enter that girl's body……

First, my true body would fall asleep here in Sangra Palace.

Just as when I'd wandered to death's door and fallen into Samdocheon, only my soul would fly off, and I would wake in that child's body in the living world.

……Which means, it wouldn't hurt, would it?

The burden of the power I carried would be borne by my original body instead.

So while living as a human, I wouldn't feel pain at all.

What would it feel like—hurt nothing at all?

I'd never once had a healthy body. I didn't even know what that would feel like.

To live in a healthy body, somewhere other than here.

Where in the world would I find better terms than that?

It's the perfect vacation for me, and for Mother and Father…… good practice at letting go.

I could help that girl while keeping carefully within the bounds of Heaven's order, too.

The more I turned it over, the more flawless the plan seemed.

Granted, there was one small problem: my hopelessly overprotective parents were never going to give their permission.

I didn't deliberate long.

I'll just run away from home, that's all.

If I simply rode Ruhwa's Lifespan Cord straight down to the living world—what could Mother and Father possibly do about it?